Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hair-brushing syndrome


 * 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   redirect to Hair-grooming syncope.  MBisanz  talk 00:08, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Hair-brushing syndrome

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As discussed here, the topic of the article is not clearly notable, and the sources are both self-referential and fail WP:MEDRS. Lacking proper sources, this topic is highly dubious and possibly misleading. Scray (talk) 13:37, 21 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep as article author. Obviously the sourcing to take this article to GA or above is insufficient, but media coverage is more than enough to meet WP:GNG. I've tried to write the article to avoid being misleading ; others are of course welcome to improve on my efforts. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:49, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Weak keep. The introductory sentence "Hair-brushing syndrome is a rare condition in which static electricity causes a potentially fatal interruption in brain function or neurological communication with the body organs" is false. It should say "Hair-brushing syndrome is a pseudoscientific medical syndrome invented by tabloid newspapers to sensationalize an incidental event." (Admittedly, this is my original research, without a reliable source.) As far as I can tell, the girl suffered one event that occurred while her mother was brushing her hair. My guess: someone happened to mention "static electricity", and the mother latched onto this. Now the poor girl is going through life with this pointless geas. This "syndrome" is never going to receive serious medical investigation because there is nothing to investigate.

However Nikkimaria is right to point out that the "syndrome" has received significant coverage in newspapers. These sources are not suitable for medical articles. Therefore this article must be presented as a non-medical article. There is value in keeping an article in Wikipedia, because readers could potentially come to Wikipedia to find out about the "syndrome". The article needs to be re-written to avoid any implication that the "syndrome" is medically validated. Axl ¤  [Talk]  14:31, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete . The relevant parts of WP:GNG (including the notes) here are "reliable" and "multiple".
 * 1) Tabloids aren't reliable sources for establishing the existence of rare conditions. They also can't be used to establish the existence or notability of a pseudoscientific phenomenon when they make no claim that the phenomenon is pseudoscientific. The Huff Post article mentions that someone on Gizmodo suggested this could be a case of hair-grooming syncope, but that's not enough. WP:SENSATION might apply here, especially since this seems to be a fairly routine piece of sensationalist reporting over what is ultimately a single event, a young girl's illness.
 * 2) All of the references given in the article (and every mention of the subject I've been able to find elsewhere) seem to be based on a single article in the Daily Record tabloid: given that rewrites are not independent of one another, there's essentially one source, which doesn't satisfy the "sources" criterion of the WP:GNG. (The Daily Mail has possibly reinterviewed the girl's parents, but it's not clear: in that case there's two unreliable sources instead of one). It's also worth pointing out that the anonymous doctors aren't cited directly: the whole thing is based on an interview with the girl's parents.
 * 3) Unless someone can find reliable sources that identify this as either a persistent pseudoscientific phenomenon (rather than dubious speculation about a single case) or an actual medical condition the article should be deleted. Alexrexpvt (talk) 15:58, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Afterthought. If the consensus ultimately leans towards preserving the content, it might better to add a section on "hair grooming syncope", which has appeared in various scholarly journals, to the Vasovagal response article, and then include a very brief reference to "hair brushing syndrome" as an alternative name. Alexrexpvt (talk) 17:01, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Hair-grooming syncope. I didn't see that page till Rutebega pointed it out. The subject's already adequately covered there. Alexrexpvt (talk) 19:56, 21 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Merge to hair grooming syncope, although there's a paragraph about it there already. Blue lips and loss of consciousness indicate lack of blood supply, characteristic of syncope, and the girl was probably stressed out starting a new year. The sources are all unreliable sensational tabloids that covered the story three years after it broke. The fact that 17 months later, no major sources have covered it suggests that it probably isn't notable enough for an article. — Rutebega ( talk ) 19:36, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately that explanation would constitute original research. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:01, 21 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Merge to hair grooming syncope. I am not in any way qualified to determine whether or not the unfortunate girl actually suffered from the syncope, but in the absence of medical sources providing evidence for the existence of the syndrome a carefully worded merge seems like the best solution. At first I wondered if it might be another manifestation of the dreaded Glasgow effect.  Ben   Mac  Dui  20:30, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * To those voting merge: merging to hair-grooming syncope doesn't really make sense unless/until that is found to be the explanation - at the moment, it's one of three possibilities presented in sources. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:01, 21 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree that merging would be inappropriate, as WP:OR. Rather, this article under discussion is about a medical condition for which there is not one suitable reliable source, hence it should be deleted.  I think the article's author simply wasn't aware of the requirements for medically-related content.  Mainstream media coverage is basically irrelevant to the question of verifiability when it comes to medical conditions.  -- Scray (talk) 23:42, 21 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete per Alexrexpvt's original arguments - unreliable sourcing, no evidence that it is a real medical syndrome, no evidence of anything really beyond the tendency of sections of the media to filch each other's stories - and as has been pointed out, including this in Hair-grooming syncope would appear to be WP:OR. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:34, 22 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Hair-grooming syncope. Because it has been reported in the laypress, "hair brushing syndrome", although bogus, comes up on google, so we can do our readers a service by providing the redirect to the more medically accurate article.   The content is already there-- no merge needed-- I believe the objections mentioned above to a redirect can be dealt with.  My second alternative would be delete.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 18:59, 22 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete or Redirect. I don't object to redirecting it to hair-grooming syncope.  I'm not saying Merge because it shouldn't be given undue weight (maybe not even mentioned) in the syncope article unless a reliable medical source notes this as a special case. Superm401 - Talk 19:45, 28 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. &#9733;&#9734;  DUCK IS PEANUTBUTTER &#9734;&#9733; 18:25, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Scotland-related deletion discussions. &#9733;&#9734;  DUCK IS PEANUTBUTTER &#9734;&#9733; 18:25, 22 January 2013 (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.