Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fictional portrayals of psychopaths (2nd nomination)


 * 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   keep. Although this article needs clarity, referencing, and proper scope, consensus is to keep and improve ( talk→  BWilkins   ←track ) 10:59, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Fictional portrayals of psychopaths
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  •  Stats )

Yet another example of a "_____ in popular culture" or "fictional portrayals of _____" article that cites no sources and instead relies entirely upon each individual editor's own judgement as to both the definition of the central concept and which fictional portrayals meet said definition. An earlier version was split into two articles, which were then deleted after a deletion discussion back in 2007, but was almost immediately recreated. That recreation was tagged as unreferenced and in need of improvement, but no improvement has been made in the 4 years that have passed. If one were to simply go through and delete every unreferenced and speculative example, there would be no article left. As with many other similar articles that have come to AfD, this article could, potentially, be improved, but I do not believe it will be. By its nature, this article, and others like it, is a magnet for opinions, speculation, and in-universe assertions (e.g., on The Sopranos, Dr. Melfi diagnosed Tony Soprano as a sociopath, therefore he should be included on the list) that has no encyclopedic value. Four years is enough time for this to have been dealt with, instead, it has metastasised.  RepublicanJacobite  TheFortyFive 16:11, 26 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep It would be quite easy to improve the article by reference to sources. Consider the example given in the nomination of Tony Soprano.  This is discussed in detail in sources such as Psychiatric News, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association and Scientific American.  The nominator seems to have made no effort to improve the article and so is unconvincing in suggesting that this is not possible. Warden (talk) 18:24, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
 * You should read more closely, Colonel. I quite clearly said the article "could... be improved," but that "I do not believe it will be."  I have arrived at this conclusion through experience.  I have seen articles brought to AfD, and the responses of various editors, like yourself, who say that improvements can be made, but they rarely are.  This article has been to AfD before, and no effort has been made, in more than 4 years, to improve it.  This is nearly identical to the situation with the Gnosticism in popular culture article, which you also defended. ---  RepublicanJacobite  TheFortyFive  18:39, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
 * It is quite easy to find poor articles in need of improvement on Wikipedia as less than 1% of our articles have reached GA status. What you fail to do in this case is give a particular reason why this topic should be singled out for the trash can when entire books have been written about the topic.  Your user page indicates that you yourself are working upon W. S. Burroughs in popular culture and it does not seem that there is any structural or fundamental reason why one topic is more or less promising or feasible than the other.  It is quite clear policy that Wikipedia is a work-in-progress; that imperfect articles are tolerated and that we have no deadline.  You assert that there is no encyclopedic value in this work without giving any evidence.  This seems incorrect when, for example, we find the Encyclopedia of Social Problems explaining that "Hollywood fueled popular perceptions of psychopathy with film representations of deranged serial killers such as Dr. Hannibal Lecter, played by Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs and ...".  My !vote stands. Warden (talk) 19:51, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Once again, you indicate that you have not read my statement carefully. I did not say "that there is no encyclopedic value in this work."  What I said was that "opinions, speculation, and in-universe assertions" have no encyclopedic value, and I stand by that statement.  The example I gave of Dr. Melfi concluding that Tony Soprano was a sociopath is not encyclopedic, because the assertion of a fictional character has no real-world value.  Likewise, your quote "Hollywood fueled popular perceptions of psychopathy..." is of no particular value, because one cannot come to an understanding of sociopathy or psychopathy by watching a film or a tv show.  Nor, for that matter, can one come to such an understanding by reading an article like this one on Wikipedia.  The assertions in this article have no encyclopedic value because they are simply the opinions of editors, who have watched a bunch of movies and arrived at the erroneous conclusion that they understand psychopathy.  The article is made up, in its entirety, of original research and opinion.  If you remove everything that is unsourced, there would be nothing left.  Now, if someone wanted to start over, with real sources, that would be another matter altogether.  "_____ in popular culture" or "fictional portrayals of _____" articles are not inherently worthless, and there are even some that are quite good.  The one we are discussing, like the previous Gnosticism in popular culture, is not good, and I feel it is not salvageable, hence this nomination. ---  RepublicanJacobite  TheFortyFive  22:48, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Your contempt for fiction is not shared by the real world in which professional psychologists and others find the matter of interest and worth writing about. The topic is therefore notable and it is your contrary opinion which is purely personal and so should be discounted. Warden (talk) 23:05, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I have nothing more to say to you, other than to remind you to comment on the matter at hand, and not on other editors. ---  RepublicanJacobite  TheFortyFive 02:32, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 00:38, 27 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep As already mentioned, there are academic papers about the portrayal of psychopaths. This has potential for improvement. Although it needs references and a more rigorous treatment, it's not obviously garbage and therefore there's no pressing need to delete it. --Colapeninsula (talk) 11:11, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
 * keep needs improvement, where possible improvement exists, is not reason for deletion.  contains notable content that just needs improvement. --Buridan (talk) 14:08, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep, but needs major improvement. As it stands now, the article is a mess. It has an OR and an unreferenced tag at the top. However, just because the article needs cleanup doesn't mean it should be deleted. Instead of deletion, why not improve the article? With the academic journals, several of them, mentioned above, the article can not only be improved, with a little dedication, it can even potentially become a GA. But of course, the article first needs a massive overhaul. Still, with the reliable sources above, I don't see why this article should be deleted. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 03:47, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep As the nom says, another one of our many articles about the portrays of different sorts of characters in fiction. These articles are one of our highlights. None of the reasons for deletion makes any sense,and we've been here many times previously. Of course it takes judgment what to include. It takes judgement to know what to include on essentially every Wikipedia article. All selection of content, all selection of references, all selection of illustrations takes human judgment. If we limit ourselves to the few articles that could be compiled by bots, we'd just be an index to the internet.  DGG ( talk ) 04:41, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment - I agree with everyone that this should be kept, but some effort needs to be made to source it. Bearian (talk) 20:36, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete or repurpose A 41kb page, chock full of original research and trivia, and not a single source? How could this be let to fester so long? The "portrayals in film" section has potential and could be expanded into its own article, with sourcing. The rest of the article is a triviafarm. The trivafarm doesn't belong on any article and should be removed. Perhaps the film section could be reworked as Psychopathy in film.  Them  From  Space  03:25, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Incubate until it has references. There is serious doubt that as to whether some of these are fictional or fictionalisations (i.e. [Fargo (film)]]). This puts in serious BLP danger of calling living people psychopaths. Stuartyeates (talk) 05:32, 2 June 2012 (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.