Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Medical Eponyms Discouraged Because of Nazi Associations


 * 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. Ron Ritzman (talk) 19:52, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

List of Medical Eponyms Discouraged Because of Nazi Associations

 * – ( View AfD View log ) •

There's a problem on this article that I cannot quite pin down. Three main areas of concern:


 * 1) "Fringe view/POV fork" concern - Unclear whether we have authoritative sources that say modern medical practice or some significant group of people have discouraged these terms, or that they have become deprecated/discouraged due to Nazi era associations. For example, are there significant views and discussion of this? Or is this actually an article covering a fringe view by a minority, and therefore in effect a POV fork of medical terminology or of the individual articles?
 * 2) Vagueness of criterion - "Discouraged" is a very vague word - discouraged by whom and how much? Title may be too vague for a list to exist ("list of people disliked by President Obama"?)
 * 3) Accuracy and encyclopedic significance of title - It's not actually clear whether these terms are actually deprecated due to Nazi association, or merely discouraged by a few writers. The cites seem to be about about "associated with" not "generally discouraged because" and it's not clear if they reflect a mainstream or accepted view.

Apologies for vagueness, there seems like "something here that cannot sustain an article", or that needs much stronger citations and a better focus and title if it is to do so. Maybe other contributors can pin down the issue better and reach a consensus on fixing it if possible. Possible treatments:
 * The content may need merging back into the individual conditions with a cited note on medical acceptance of the terminology;
 * The article may need replacing by a category on the related conditions such as Category:Medical terms deprecated due to Nazi era associations;
 * At the least the page may need a rename if it is a valid topic for an article.

FT2 (Talk 18:09, 25 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete. WP:NOT a medical dictionary, let alone a prescriptive one that tells people not to use certain terms for whatever reasons. A "list of diseases named for Nazis" is likewise not a suitable topic for a standalone list, but might be of use in an article about Nazi-era medicine.  Sandstein   18:54, 25 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete as fringe. Roscelese (talk) 19:15, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete - Too small to stand as a list, too vacuous to stand as an article. Sourcing issues to boot. Carrite (talk) 22:07, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete as non-encyclopedic.--Mjpresson (talk) 23:07, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep and rename after improvements.--Mjpresson (talk) 16:45, 1 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 14:26, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 14:27, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep I've tagged it for rescue, because while I agree that the current article is pretty minimal and lame, the topic appears to have sourcing, and a list of such associations is not indiscriminate--the active burying of Nazi associations is a notable topic. I believe that, if rewritten, this could provide a fascinating tie-in between sociology, medicine, and history. Jclemens (talk) 15:59, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:NOTDIR as an unencyclopedic cross-categorization. Snotty Wong   spout 16:46, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep since there are sources. I do not see it which sense it is non-encyclopedic. It cannot simultaneously be invalid as being a directory and as being overspecific; they;re logical opposites.   DGG ( talk ) 22:45, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't follow. If you actually go to WP:NOTDIR, item number 6 is labelled "non-encyclopedic cross categorization".  Snotty Wong   confabulate 23:53, 28 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep Discouraged means that all the major medical boards asked people to start using other names, and now all major medical publications call them something else. Quite encyclopedic.  Something people can actual learn from.  The old names used for things should have their own articles redirecting to the new names everyone uses, with a note in the new name article that it was once called something else.  I'll go do that now.   D r e a m Focus  02:02, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment this Google Scholar search shows plenty of scholarly discourse on the topic. I will be adding it to the article as time permits. Jclemens (talk) 05:47, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I have now substantially rewritten the article, sourced every entry, we have five reliable sources currently in the article from peer-reviewed journals documenting that the issue is a current concern, and Google Scholar has pages more hits. Issues raised above of dictionariness, fringe, size, and sourcing have been thoroughly eviscerated. Can I get some !voters to please review and revise their initial comments, please? Jclemens (talk) 06:24, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions.  —Jclemens (talk) 06:26, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep perhaps rename. There is definitely a phenoma here with the names syndromes being changed. That much is sourced and checkable. Whether the first person it was named after was a Nazi and whether the syndrome was renamed because of the Nazi associations is a little more contentious, but there does seem to be sources. One solution might be to broaden the article to cover all medical name changes for whatever reason.--Salix (talk): 07:48, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. It is relevant information to people who want/need to know about Nazi-related matters. (But the page's name should be changed to all lowercase.) Anthony Appleyard (talk) 08:13, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep I think perhaps a better list would be List of medical eponyms with Nazi associations with a separate section for those that are discouraged or declining. Clearly there are sources discussing medical issues with Nazi associations, as Jclemens has shown. Would that the other members of the ARS would approach the articles they attempt to rescue like this. AniMate  08:21, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the compliment. Yes, I agree that the current name is less than optimal. I think your renaming suggestion has merit, and I like it better than the current name--hopefully, getting rid of the "discouraged" in the title and handling it in the text would answer one of the nom's objections.  A rename discussion is already underway on the talk page, and assuming it's kept, I see no reason why the existing name would be kept. Jclemens (talk) 14:39, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep -- probably renamed (as AniMate). This seems to me a notable topic, to which articles on the current names may want to link in explaining a previous name for the same condition.  Yes, there are POV issues, but the whole thing seems to be based on a WP:RS artciel in an academic journal (not that I know anything of the subject).  Peterkingiron (talk) 20:14, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - If a good rename canfound that would solve a lot of the keep/delete issues, if not then the article would have a problem. I've refactored the intro and content to avoid most other issues so the only keep/delete issue left seems to be whether a NPOV title can be found for it. AniMate's suggestion or some variant may work. Will think about this. FT2 (Talk 01:54, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. I think what we can establish, based on my review of the literature so far, is that 1) Some medical doctors are advocating that specific terms be discontinued, 2) the basis for this urging is alleged Nazi references, 3) for each term under consideration, there is some RS description of the Nazi connections. To that end, I support AniMate's suggestion for renaming. I was going to do the tablification of the entries if the article is kept, so thanks for taking the initiative and doing that.  Looking at the IMAJ reference, which appears the most complete, we've probably got enough for a much bigger table. I absolutely agree that an NPOV approach to the topic is appropriate--the Israeli authors appear to have a pretty expansive definition of Nazi involvement, and I bet if we dig well, we can find some objections.  Ultimately, I think this topic has the potential for FL status if we can work out the remaining issues. Jclemens (talk) 02:33, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep per sources found by Jclemens. There are plenty to pass WP:GNG. VernoWhitney (talk) 17:08, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep, significantly covered by reliable sources. Peter Karlsen (talk) 01:25, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Update I've expanded the table by a few more entries, and added two more journal references, including one which I found specifically to address NPOV concerns by advocating that these eponyms be kept. I maintain my concerns that the article is mis-titled, and question whether it should continue as a list, rather than a prose article. Neither of these, of course, are insurmountable issues and I have been working collaboratively with the nominator to address these--an effort which will continue past the AfD, assuming the article is kept. Jclemens (talk) 03:30, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep - because none of the nom's three concerns seem to stand up (at least on the article as it currently is). This article lists conditions that were eponymously named at one time, and now are not (in at least some defensible scope of use). It makes no claim that the doctors were Nazis, or that their work on these conditions was due to or beenfitted from unethical practices during the Nazi era. It's enough that doctors with a Nazi connection, real or claimed, have lost this eponymous status. I see that broad scope as important to the neutrality of this article, even if the re-naming itself (in some cases) may have been less neutral. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:56, 1 November 2010 (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.