Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional characters on the autism spectrum


 * 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. v/r - TP 15:45, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

List of fictional characters on the autism spectrum
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log )

Arbitrary union. The range of different behaviours present on the autism spectrum means individual entries here are only very distantly related to one another: furthermore, the difficulty in diagnosing many of those means that the list is always going to attract self-research or distinctly borderline cases. As an aside, you would struggle to find a poorer collection of AfDs than the previous three on this subject (a sample of one of the better arguments: "keep, good list".) Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 10:45, 12 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep The list is currently imperfect but that's not a reason to delete. It's missing the hero of the best-selling, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time but I can fix that now without having the article deleted first.  That work and other notable works such as Rain Man are listed together in numerous books about autism.  This is not arbitrary - they are cited as important examples which help form public attitudes to the condition.  See Asperger's syndrome and high achievement for one of many examples. Warden (talk) 12:24, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * If the subject of autism in fiction had sufficient sourcing I'd be all for it; the same for fictional representation of autism or the like. However, this is neither: it's an I-spy list of fictional characters with a wide variety of different conditions, conditions so different that it's occasionally controversial to refer to them as the same thing. Without a parent article to better define the topic matter this is no different from any other list of fictional characters with condition X. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 13:04, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Why is that a problem? postdlf (talk)
 * Because Wikipedia is not a collection of lists of everything. Some of the characters on this list are defined by their autism. Some are defined by their characters, and autism used to explain it. The effect it has is profoundly different across the current examples, unsurprising considering quite how wide the autism spectrum is. Without an adequate proof (such as a well-sourced parent article) which establishes why the link between fiction and autism is noteworthy it's no less arbitrary than a list of red buses. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 14:26, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not following you, perhaps because I don't even know what it would mean to have a list of red buses. Autism spectrum is a defined and notable topic, and it's verifiable whether a given notable work of fiction portrays it, or a notable character is depicted as being on the autism spectrum.  Such depictions are not so mundane and common in fiction as to make a list arbitrary or trivial; a good example of a truly useless list would be an indiscriminate list of all fictional married people instead of focusing on depictions of marriage considered culturally and historically significant.  It's standard practice to index articles about notable fiction by shared significant themes or subjects.  Colonel Warden has even shown that autism in fiction has been the subject of commentary, which should not be surprising.  So the list is not arbitrary.  So keep.  postdlf (talk) 15:10, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The articles about autism and related disorders form a set listed in a navigational template: Pervasive developmental disorders. These other articles include Sociological and cultural aspects of autism, List of people with autism spectrum disorders, Historical figures sometimes considered autistic.  These provide a clear framework for this article about autistic people in fictional settings.  The sources follow this pattern too, as the cited example demonstrates.  Q.E.D. Warden (talk) 14:56, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete, per WP:LC items 1-3 and 10. Stifle (talk) 14:45, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions.
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Behavioral science-related deletion discussions. Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 14:58, 12 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep This is not a indiscriminate list. The criteria for inclusion seem clear. This does not seem like a list for lists sake or one that would only be of interest to a limited audience. Given the lack of understanding the general public has about autism spectrum disorders, the appearance of fictional characters with this disorder is an important cultural milestone towards greater awareness. Entries to this list can be verified and sourced - it is not dependent on original research. For example, editors can reference the book Movies and Mental Illness: Using Films to Understand Psychopathology. Osubuckeyeguy (talk) 15:20, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep In a quite a few films the plot is essentially based on one or another type of personal impaired mental or physical ability. If there is any research in this phenomenon, all the more. 16:00, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep but prune brutally Anything that lacks a citation by the author needs to go. Speculations from critics are just that, and never mind using IMDB as an authority on this. If we want to include the opinions of critics we need a different article title. Mangoe (talk) 17:14, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I think Mangoe's got it exactly the wrong way around. It doesn't matter what the author thinks of the work.  What matters is what the independent reviewers think.  Having said that, although I disagree with Mangoe on that, I agree on the main point, and my !vote is keep per Postdlf.— S Marshall  T/C 19:10, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't see a problem with the list including both. If an author expressly intends a depiction to be of someone who is autistic, but critics think he failed in some way, maybe out of ignorance of the condition, that is no less informative and relevant than if critics have determined that a character fits an autistic portrayal even though the author never expressly said so.  But that's a matter for normal editing and discussion to resolve in any event, not AFD.  postdlf (talk) 19:32, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Could you elaborate, please? I think there are good reasons why normal custom and practice is to rely on what the independent sources say, rather than the author's self-generated description, and I don't yet understand what makes it a good idea to depart from normal practice in this case.— S Marshall  T/C 19:52, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * An author's intent is certainly relevant to determining the content of his work, and whether or not he successfully executed that intent is a separate question from what that work is and is about. If your concern is whether we limit this to "accurate" portrayals of autism, for example, that's off the mark, and I think that incorrect approach is part of what leads people to think that these lists are unverifiable because they get hung up on whether a fictional character "really" has autism ("I mean, we never saw Rain Man subject to the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, so we can't say that diagnosis is accurate!").  If Joe Schmoe, hack writer extraordinare, writes the bestseller Toby, the Autistic Young Lad but is then criticized for apparently knowing nothing about autism, we would still include Toby in this list but with annotations stating that the portrayal was considered grossly inaccurate.  postdlf (talk) 20:20, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh—no, I was unconcerned about whether the portrayal of autism is successful or accurate. I was concerned about whether it is significant.  It seems to me that we would want to include fictional characters who are a reasonably substantial aspect of that fictional work, rather than merely bit-parts, on this list.  Hence my preference for third party reviewers referring to the autism.— S Marshall  T/C 21:56, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, ok. I agree with that in principle at least.  postdlf (talk) 22:53, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Critics and reviewers are rarely reliable and objective sources about the unspoken nature of characters unless they are relating either what the author told them, or what is said outright in the work. Wikipedia is already plagued with dubious LGBT fantasizing about the sexuality of, well, everyone, as evidenced by an extremely drawn-out talk page discussion over whether Frank and Joe Hardy had the hots for each other—according to a critic, of course. This category is similarly an attractive nuisance for autism awareness activism. I could be perhaps be persuaded that cases of characters where there is general consensus that a character is presenting autistic-spectrum behavior could be listed if identified as such, but I'm going to guess that finding a good source for this is going to be rare. Categories need to be objectively defined, and categorizing behavior (especially considering the history of the diagnostic categories in question) is rarely so objective. Mangoe (talk) 21:03, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. This list is of obvious interest and merit as an encyclopedia entry. We're not talking about a "list of characters who wear a blue shirt", we're talking about characters with a personality characteristic that contributes in a meaningful way, sometimes centrally so, to the artistic and educational impact of the fictional work. But don't take my word for it: NY Times article on autism in the movies, Autism Research Institute's own list of movies featuring ASD, book on autistic characters in Jane Austen's novels reviewed in The Telegraph and elsewhere, academic article concerning "spectacularized representations of autism", lesson plan for children on "Neuroscience at the Movies" from University of Washington faculty web server, article on the portrayal of autistic characters on TV from The Washington Times, list of autistic book and TV characters from Indian TV network NDTV, list of Autism movies from Autism-World, "Autism on film: can cinema get it right?" from The Guardian, etc., etc.


 * And as to the argument that the category is too broad, "Autism spectrum" has its very own WP entry with over a thousand hits a day. You don't even have to give the full phrase anymore--"yeah, well, one of my kids is on the spectrum" is understood. --Hobbes Goodyear (talk) 23:34, 12 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep - Wikipedia affords a large latitude for lists, and difficulty in maintaining a list is not a reason for deletion. The subject matter is clearly defined - there's no debate about what the autism spectrum is or what "fictional character" means, although you can always argue individual inclusions in the usual way on the list's talk page.  There is no problem in finding enough characters that are notable for being fictitious AND autistic to fill out a list, and there is plenty of RS discussion of depictions of autism in fiction, so it's undeniably a non-trivial intersection of traits.  - DustFormsWords (talk) 02:48, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep per Hobbes Goodyear Dbrodbeck (talk) 15:13, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep Good find Hobbes Goodyear! Many times the media covers people with this condition in films and whatnot.   D r e a m Focus  19:33, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete: As notability guidelines apply to the inclusion of stand-alone lists, and the subject of this one, a list of fictional characters identified with conditions in the autism spectrum, has not been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources in the way in which the article presents them, so I do not believe that the topic of the list meets the general notability guideline. More importantly, I believe that this list goes against Wikipedia is not a directory and Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information since the inclusion criteria is not unambiguous because it includes notable characters with articles with non-notable characters that have a single appearance in a show and do not have articles, character which may or may not have autism, and the majority of the notable listed characters are not notable for their autistic conditions, so I do not think that it is an appropriate list-topic per the criteria of appropriate topics for lists since it falls into what what Wikipedia is not. I believe that the cited sources do not show a list which has the same criteria as the one in the article and they are more apt for an article about depictions of autism in popular culture, not for a list of non-notable fictional characters that may or may not be notable by their condition. Jfgslo (talk) 05:24, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep I will admit this list-class artical sounds controvercial, however it is hevily sourced, very accurate, well organized into different categories, no reason to delete this artical. – Phoenix B 1of3 (talk) 21:01, 15 October 2011 (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.