Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Narcissistic abuse


 * 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. improved sufficiently to meetthe original objections.  DGG ( talk ) 22:11, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Narcissistic abuse

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Bizarre WP:SYNTH subject that no substantial work has been deovted to examine thus failing WP:GNG The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 21:41, 1 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep It has a decent number of references in Google Scholar and Books. Also the fact that different people have attached varying meanings to the phrase is entirely typical of an evolving concept of that nature (as for example Narcissistic rage and narcissistic injury or True self and false self) and has nothing to do with synthesis. --Penbat (talk) 08:02, 2 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions.  —Tom Morris (talk) 21:51, 1 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:00, 8 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Behavioural science-related deletion discussions.  — • Gene93k (talk) 02:47, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * comment - "has come to mean any abuse by a narcissist." ... isn't all that explained in Narcissistic supply ??? Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 03:55, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * comment - no different concept. Narcissistic supply is affirmation, approval, or admiration that the narcissist expects from others. Narcissistic abuse is effectively the opposite, abuse metered out by narcissists to people who dont provide narcissistic supply. I think both articles narcissistic abuse and narcissistic supply could do with clarifying.--Penbat (talk) 07:31, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Merge and redir - 2 sides of the same coin should be explained in 1 place. The Narcissist wants something. If they get it its supply, if they dont its abuse. Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 23:11, 8 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment No you misunderstand. I was being simplistic. Not getting supply doesnt necessarily lead to abuse, it just may lead to abuse. They are separate processes. They are not conceptually exact opposites (or two sides of the same coin) and the two concepts were developed at different times by different people. Narcissistic abuse is actually conceptually quite closely related to narcissistic rage, being the type of anger that leads to narcissistic abuse, but dont think of merging the two as anger isnt the same as abuse.--Penbat (talk) 08:36, 9 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete I believe that all the references contain the ngram Narcissistic abuse, but I don't believe that there is substantial coverage. The apparent confusion above leads me to think that I'm not in thinking that the definition also needs to be substantially rewritten. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:27, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment what does "The apparent confusion above leads me to think that I'm not in thinking that the definition also needs to be substantially rewritten." mean ?--Penbat (talk) 08:45, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Correction replace with "The apparent confusion above leads me to think that the definition also needs to be substantially rewritten." Stuartyeates (talk) 09:10, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment: I have just informed User:Jacobisq, the editor who did most of the work on narcissistic abuse of this AFD. He should have been informed before. --Penbat (talk) 08:48, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment User_talk:Jacobisq may also be relevant to editors considering the (pre)history of this page. Stuartyeates (talk) 09:10, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment that discussion doesnt have any direct relevance on the merits of this AFD. I was convinced from the start that "narcissistic abuse" is an important subject but apart from the widely available Vaknin work, I didnt personally have access to other relevant sources while User_talk:Jacobisq himself later found more sources and was able to find enough to develop it into a new article. The fate of this article should be left to editors who understand narcissism and narcissistic abuse not to editors who dont understand the subject and make glib assertions.--Penbat (talk) 09:24, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment Absolutely not! This article should not be left to editors who understand narcissism and narcissistic abuse. This is not a specialist publication, it is a general reference encyclopedia. Every page (and particularly every lead) needs to be readable and understandable by someone with high-school level reading and comprehension. If there are topics that can't be explained at that level, they're not suitable for inclusion. I'm willing to admit that Narcissistic abuse might be notable if I understood it; it's the role of the page to give me enough understanding to make that call that it's notable; currently it doesn't. Stuartyeates (talk) 09:39, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I see the article has been viewed 6148 times in the last 30 days, so the subject obvious has some general interest - but I'm not sure as a newbie whether this fact is relevant. Rereading the article - which I mainly worked on in January - I take Stuartyeates's point about intelligibility - as currently set out, the arguments might well seem a bit arcane. I certainly think myself the subject is notable; but would personally favour retention with a tag for cleanup/wikification Jacobisq (talk) 11:04, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I suspect that the numbers are probably inflated by this AfD proposal. As to arcaneness / intelligibility, the main point in my opinion is the lead---those crucial first sentences which give readers an introduction and establish the field, context and notability of the subject. In my experience the lead is where most specialist articles fall short; partly because the subject experts (who are needed to write the page as a whole) have too much context to be able to write an introduction for a general audience. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:42, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I have attempted to "wikify" the lead a bit more; but no doubt there's still room for improvement - and this is the encyclopedia anyone can edit, after all! All improvements gratefully received. Interestingly the numbers do seem to have roughly doubled with Afd, as you surmised: April figures are 3,366, May 3,4004 and June 3,440, so steady interest, but at a lower level, before the big August jump. I suppose numbers will (at best!) drop down again when the debate closes.... Jacobisq (talk) 09:37, 16 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment User:Jacobisq has kindly now made major improvements to the article which should help with intelligibility of the article. The article now has 19 different cited sources which should dispel the lack of sources criticism. User:Stuartyeates misunderstands my point about experts doing the writing - the article should be written for the benefit of the general non-expert public but on the other hand people who think that the moon is made of green cheese shouldn't be writing about the moon.--Penbat (talk) 08:21, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, BusterD (talk) 00:43, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

 On the substantive point of WP:GNG, I feel more convinced, not less, after the further digging around involved, that this is an important subject with wide ramifications, on which Wikipedia should have a unique page. Er, "No change" Jacobisq (talk) 09:55, 16 August 2011 (UTC) 
 * Comment Having felt I'd rather hastily "cobbled together" my earlier input to the article, I'm glad to have been prompted to have another go.
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, &mdash; Joseph Fox 20:26, 22 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment Yawn. I think this AFD is way over due to be put to bed. Towards the end of 2 weeks of no consensus, User:Jacobisq made some major improvements to the article. It seems most unlikely that consensus would now suddenly move to delete. --Penbat (talk) 08:24, 24 August 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.