Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fictional age regression


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete.  MBisanz  talk 00:16, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Fictional age regression

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Unreferenced OR. Reads like a personal essay. Deprodded with the instruction to 'first look for refs'. Anyone who cares to do so is welcome; the only ones I've run across relate to Age regression in therapy, not the use of the 'theme' in fiction. -- Vary Talk 02:23, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. If there are no references, and I don't see any in the article or anywhere else, then this is original research. Drmies (talk) 02:28, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep It just takes a little experimentation with search strings ""age regression" fiction -therapy -hypnosis"age regression" fiction  -therapy -hypnosis" in google books yields --see in particular the  3rd one down. "Age regression is a popular theme in transformation fiction involving the physical reduction in age by a character" from ,alongwith some examples on that and the following pages. The article needs of course to be written to take this into account,m but we do not delete for unreferenced, just unreferenceable.  DGG (talk) 04:10, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Whoa, that is fancy footwork, tapping around Google. Congratulations, you got me. But...this really means the title is incorrect--should be "age regression in fiction," an entirely different animal. Drmies (talk) 04:54, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * DGG hasn't quite "got you". Notice that "the third one down" is the infamous Webster's Quotations, Facts and Phrases.  This is a Wikipedia mirror in book form (that doesn't conform to the GFDL, by the way), as the little "[WP]" next to the article that DGG quotes indicates.  The fact that it's word-for-word identical with this 2005 version of age regression is a big clue, also.  &#9786; Uncle G (talk) 12:58, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * And the others (in the first five pages, anyway) all appear to be false positives: references to hypnotherapy that weren't filtered out by the search, age regression as an effect of certain psychoactive substances, 'age regression models' used in medical studies, and uses of the phrase in actual fiction, but no scholarly discussion of age regression as a literary theme. -- Vary Talk 15:51, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Move per Drmies and keep. The title is obviously faulty but based on the reference found it does have WP:POTENTIAL. - Mgm|(talk) 09:54, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * This is the second time that I've seen that this particular Wikipedia mirror has fooled people at AFD. It's not a reliable source.  It's us from a couple of years ago, blindly copied and pasted with no editorial oversight, no fact checking, and no proper author, link, and history information given per the requirements of the GFDL.  Uncle G (talk) 12:58, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment are there any sources that are actually about this topic, or just mention it? Has anyone actually studied this?  Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  15:26, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, now that this "Webster's" is out (and thanks, Uncle G, for your explanation--I should have done more than just look at the one page and the cover), I don't know where else the term might be found. It's certainly not in any of the literary handbooks on my shelf (the Abrams, Princeton, Penguin, and Columbia dictionaries of literary terms and terminology). And if the term existed, it ought to be in there, given that the article proposes older, established authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and T.H. White--I mean, it can't be that the term isn't in my handbooks cause it only appears in real "new" fiction. For the time being, I'm sticking to my earlier delete vote. Drmies (talk) 20:12, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I haven't found any. There appears to be no real topic here.  The only reason that this article exists in the first place is that age regression was split.  This content came from the random collection of fictional mentions that was originally in that article.  This article is the byproduct of some cargo cult encyclopaedia article writing at age regression.  There's nothing that I can find that links the disparate ideas of Merlin living backwards with body swap movies, both of which we have covered (albeit not in very great detail in the former case) in their respective articles, and brings them together under the umbrella of a single topic, by this or any other title. Uncle G (talk) 01:10, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep but rename "Age regression in fiction". Some discussion on age regression is provided in The New Yorker and this book about the works of Stephen King ; multiple examples of usage are given here and here. Many more sources (some actually relevant) are available by searching Google Books/Scholar for "Fountain of Youth" fiction theme (354/865 respectively). In my opinion, "Fountain of youth" is *not* a better title since we already have that article focusing on the actual fountain, and since it implies permanent youthfulness, not a transformation theme. Care should be taken to avoid this source which provides helpful advice like: "Important Note: Most AR-Infantilist readers have strong predilections towards either cloth or disposable diapers. Unless you are trying to reach a specific audience, have the protagonist wear both at different times to please everyone." –  7 4   01:15, 13 March 2009 (UTC) (edit: strike poor source, leave bad source –   7 4   03:50, 13 March 2009 (UTC))
 * Note--the New Yorker article doesn't add anything but a single explicit mention of "age regression" without actually discussing the term as a concept. Also, that ARwriting guide, that just blew me away... Drmies (talk) 01:45, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I do think you short the New Yorker. The article weaves together multiple time-regression stories/books into a common theme examination of "Why do I exist now instead of in the past or the future? Why does time only move forward? What would it be like to live life backward, from old age to infancy?" I'll admit the review of Stephen King's works is significantly less impressive. –  7 4   02:00, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * As Uncle G said below, "But [the article in the New Yorker is] not a discussion of a trope in fiction. And the King book? One single mention of "age regression" and no discussion of the trope. Drmies (talk) 02:38, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I have trouble accepting that an article about several instances of the theme does not adequately cover the theme itself, but alright, here's a book discussing the theme of a "literal return to youth", another covering youth in fiction, and another stating "the theme of return to youth is old and widespread". None of these are centrally devoted to age regression, but it is widespread (I hardly need a secondary source to tell me that a primary source which features age regression… features age regression) though well-camoflaged in available resources. I suspect that the correct search will reveal a number of sources; I have, however, been unable to find that search. –  7 4   03:44, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * &hellip; which is unsurprising once one accepts the premise that there isn't something to find. Once again, you point to things for which we have articles, and which the sources don't actually connect.  Friedan is discussing the impact of baby boomers' tastes on popular culture, content which obviously belongs in the "impact on history and culture" section of that very article.  The Greenwood encyclopaedia's article is "Youth".  And the subjects that it discusses at the very page you link to are youth, eternal youth, (of course) the Fountain of Youth, and so forth. Browne and Motz are discussing the "Water of Life".  And guess what?  It's that Fountain of Youth again (to which water of life redirects, note). Uncle G (talk) 04:58, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * You've just managed to include a wide swath of articles to describe a simple theme. Do you really expect someone interested in "age regression in fiction" to read bits and pieces of 10 different articles to assemble the information they're looking for? How is this person supposed to find which articles might tangentially cover the topic of interest? We aren't limited by the number of citations to a particular source, nor are we constrained by limitations of print media. –  7 4   05:11, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * We are constrained, however, by our mission to create an encyclopaedia, not a grab-bag of stuff made up off the tops of the heads of Wikipedia editors. If the world has not already assembled that information and documented it as human knowledge, we have no business doing so in the encyclopaedia.  We don't invent our own subjects that don't already exist.  Lots of people are interested in lots of subjects that haven't been documented yet.  They research them and document them, in the proper outlets for doing so.  Wikipedia is not here to publish primary research to satisfy that desire.  No original research.  Please refresh your memory of our basic policies and goals.  Uncle G (talk) 12:55, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Some of us are apparently more constrained than others. Age regression *is* a common theme in fiction, and I've pointed you to multiple different sources saying so, and multiple primary sources showing so. WP:OR (or, more appropriately, WP:SYNTH) does not apply; no synthesis is necessary to pull multiple corroborating statements from different sources and combine them into an article that summarizes those statements&mdash;that's called editing, which some editors do when not arguing about deletion. I suspect nothing I say is going to change your mind, and I'm thoroughly through trying. –  7 4   19:37, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The sources provided so far:
 * A wikipedia mirror.
 * An essay on two novels both dealing with age regression
 * TVTropes.org An admittedly enjoyable and interesting wiki, and often useful in its way, but not even close to what we could call a WP:RS. —This is part of a comment by Vary which was interrupted by the following:
 * No, but it serves as a clear listing of primary sources. –  7 4   23:01, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, it does. As I explained in my last comment, below, it doesn't matter how many primary sources (examples of reverse aging in fiction) we can find if there is no sourced discussion of them as a theme.  They would be usful sources to build an already sourced article, but they don't fix the current article's problems.  It doesn't want for 'in pop culture' references.  See Uncle G's 'cargo cult' essay linked above.  -- Vary  Talk 01:44, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Metamorphasis.org, more user-submitted content with no fact-checking, less amusing imo, not that it matters, but its equally unreliable, which definitely does. —This is part of a comment by Vary which was interrupted by the following:
 * Another clear listing of primary sources. –  7 4   23:01, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The age regression writer's guide (shudder)
 * The Fountain of Age (by Betty Friedan, author of 'The Feminine Mystique) An unquestionalbly useful work, but unfortunately it's about actual aging and appears to only briefly mention 'returns to youth' in popular culture; and it is, as I think has been pointed out, more applicable to the 'fountain of Youth' trope than age regression as dealt with in the article. —This is part of a comment by Vary which was interrupted by the following:
 * Except she quotes "fantasies of a literal return to youth became a movie and television formula" and "Hollywood has been playing to this intensifying dread of age with fantasies of a literal return to youth". If you insist on renaming the article "fountain of youth trope" fine, but are they really two different things? "Fountain of youth" can simply be a metaphor for age regression. But, because age regression does not require a "fountain of youth" (see primary sources above) the article "Fountain of youth" would seem a poor choice of location. –  7 4   23:01, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * That's the problem. We have sources that discuss the 'fountain of youth' theme, so we can talk about it as a theme on Wikipedia.  If we were to move this article as you propose, the OR on reverse aging that doesn't fit that theme would need to go.  But I think we're better off merging anything salvagable to the current article on the FoY.  (Though the sources found here are more useful than anything that's in the article itself, imo). -- Vary  Talk 01:44, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The Greenwood encyclopedia, which again deals exclusively with the Fountain of Youth: Peter Pan and Dorian Grey, not Benjamin Button or Merlin (the wizard is mentioned; his peculiar aging process is apparently not). —This is part of a comment by Vary which was interrupted by the following:
 * Quoting: Following in the footsteps of Ponce de Leon … writers have devised ways to allow adults to become young again." Not the most substantial source, sure, but clearly a reference to age regression. –  7 4   23:01, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, like I said. The 'ponce de leon' bit is of course a reference (and a fleeting one at that) to the fountain of youth and then gives some examples from more recent popular culture.  We don't need examples, we have them in spades.  -- Vary  Talk 01:44, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Eye on the future By Ray Broadus Browne says: "This theme of the return to youth is old and widespread. The most popular conception has always been the fabulous Water of Life-usually found after a long quest and always powerful against both death and disease." That is all the book has to say on the matter; two lines, one of which is exclusively about the fountain of youth. —This is part of a comment by Vary  which was interrupted by the following:
 * No, this is all Google books bothers to say on the matter; page 215 is not available. –  7 4   23:01, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * So we're to assume that the book veers sharply from the Fountain of Youth to talk about children learning lessons about parenting through reverse aging? For one page, in time to pick up on 216 with 'Beowulf'?  Judging from the footnotes for that chapter (pg 221) it does no such thing.  -- Vary  Talk 01:44, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Did I miss any? In order to write a decent article on a given subject, we need reliable, non-trivial third party sources on said subject.   We have many sources, but none of them are non-trivial (that is, primarily about age regression in fiction) reliable (from a reputable publication as opposed to an open wiki) and third party (sources that talk about age regression in fiction as opposed to examples of age regression in fiction) all at the same time.  -- Vary  Talk 21:54, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The sources do not need to be "primarily about age regression", they only need non-trivial coverage, generally more than a couple sentences. Do these sources qualify? I think that's a question for AfD to answer. –   7 4   23:01, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * More than a couple sentences is not enough to qualify as non-trivial coverage. But the sources above (the reliable ones, anyway) contain no coverage at all that meets all the required qualifications.  They're great sources for the fountain of youth, but as you pointed out, that's not  what's being discussed in this article.
 * Also, it's better to avoid breaking up other editors' signed comments wherever possible, as it fragments discussion (as you see above). -- Vary  Talk 01:44, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
 * My alternatives were to try responding point-by-point and forcing readers to jump back and forth, or copy (nearly) your entire post and respond inline. What I see above is a bunch of fluff making it near to impossible to edit further. I thought my formatting was clear, but I have now replaced all the unsigned templates with my signature and added a note at the top (which I neglected the first time). Anyway, "age regression in fiction" may not be the best title; I personally believe "Fountain of Youth" is a poor title as well. You are welcome to propose whatever title you prefer. –  7 4   13:17, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
 * As I said above, if we were to move this article to reflect the sourced 'fountain of youth' theme (which is not even dealt with in the article), the OR on reverse aging that doesn't fit that theme would need to go - but the OR needs to go whether we move the article or not. Again, I think we'd be better off moving anything usable to the current article than starting a new one on the Fountain of Youth as a 'theme' (and it would be a new article; there is literally nothing on that subject in the current one, the whole thing is pure essay). At any rate, moving the page will not fix this article's problems: the problem is the unsourced content, not the title.  -- Vary  Talk 14:55, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
 * By my count we have one reference using "literal return to youth", another using "return to youth" and "Water-of-Life", another alluding to the "Fountain of Youth" and using "ways to allow adults to become young again", another using "reversion to youth", a couple unathoratitive sources using "Fountain of Youth", "regressing to an earlier age", and "age transformation", and one bad source using "age regression". I think "return to youth" sums it up nicely. Would you accept renaming the article "Return to youth (fictional theme)" (or something similar), deleting the OR, and stubbing the article with the (non-shudder) sources above? –  7 4   01:23, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Not to put too fine a point on it, but no, I wouldn't. We can't justify putting whatever sourced content someone might hypothetically decide to write on the FoY using the (skimpy) sources suggested here under the title 'Return to Youth' instead because of one fleeting mention in a book about real aging and a review of a novel that involves reverse aging (a reviewer pointing out a similarity between a novel and a short story simply does not qualify as a source for a literary theme.)  If we want to treat age regression as a 'theme' we need to find sources that discuss it as such.  I don't think we have enough here to write an article on a 'Fountain of Youth' theme, let alone anything that would include any of the content in the article that's actually under discussion here.  Therefore, based on the sources that have been offered to far, my !vote is not to 'merge', 'rewrite' or 'redirect', but to delete the page.   -- Vary  Talk 13:22, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The two wikis that you point to, in addition to having no identifiable authors whose reputations for fact checking and accuracy can be ascertained, almost certainly got their information from Wikipedia in the first place. One of them echoes this very article's purported (but unsupported by any source) age progression/regression dichotomy.  (The other, as you yourself observe, isn't even on point, since it deals with the Fountain of Youth.)  They both post-date Wikipedia's age regression page, which has been propounding this purported dichotomy with no supporting sources since 2004, by several years. The book on Stephen King says nothing at all about this being a trope in fiction, and indeed says little to nothing about it as a specific plot motif in that specific story; and we already have an article on Stephen King's Golden Years, which is the subject that it is actually dealing with in depth.  The New Yorker is close to being a proper source, but that doesn't try to present the umbrella topic that this article does.  It doesn't link Merlin to body-swap movies to Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Rewind.  It does discuss The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and another related story (which our article should at least mention, but currently doesn't).  But it's not a discussion of a trope in fiction.  It's in fact a book review of a single story: The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer.  Indeed, that latter article already mentions this very book review.  I'm certainly not convinced by any of that that there's any coherent topic here.  Everything that you've pointed to, like the subjects of Merlin and body swap movies that I mentioned above, is already covered (albeit insufficiently in a couple of cases) in appropriate articles and nothing that you show indicates that the world has grouped all of these disparate things together, let alone discussed and properly documented in trustworthy fashion any sort of underlying concept that unifies them.  Certainly what you've explicitly pointed to doesn't do so.  I couldn't find anything, either.  &#9786; Uncle G (talk) 02:24, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep and possibly rewrite, variations of fountains of youth are common themes in fiction 76.66.201.179 (talk) 06:00, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * &hellip; which would be an argument for keeping Fountain of Youth. Please address the article under discussion here. Uncle G (talk) 12:55, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * This article is about getting younger, the fountain of youth is a fountain that provides a potable used to get younger. I *AM* discussing this article. 76.66.201.179 (talk) 06:41, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete as having no reliable sources -- Wikipedia mirrors and garbled Google searches finding other topics do not count. DreamGuy (talk) 12:58, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete due to no apparent sources that actually discuss this in depth as a fiction motif. Article is essentially a longwinded restatement of "Here's something that I noticed happens in some movies" and then names those movies.  There's really just no article here. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  13:09, 16 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.