Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Post Orgasmic Illness 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   keep per cleanup of article. Keep up the good work! King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 05:23, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Postorgasmic illness syndrome
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Medical curiosity which can't be expanded with reliable references. 269 unimpressive ghits and 1 hit on pubmed that reports two cases. DilatoryThrush (talk) 12:57, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

*Weak Keep or Merge per S Marshall below: It does appear to exist based on the original paper, and a handful of mentions in other places. I think the sources take it very close to notability, close enough that I am willing to err on the side of notablity. Jo7hs2 (talk) 14:42, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment: My weak support for keeping the article aside, the article needs to be less expansive. It should merely describe what the illness is, and the research behind it, and not go into detail unless and until it is confirmed in other studies. Right now too much of the information in the article is questionable. Jo7hs2 (talk) 14:43, 10 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment: I have revised my recommendation above to Merge, per S Marshall. The subject is verifiable, so it belongs somewhere on Wikipedia, but I do not think the sources establish clear notability sufficient for a standalone article. Jo7hs2 (talk) 21:53, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

*Delete as non-notable. Other than the original article in a journal and a couple of references to this journal article in a book and a journal, there have been no other books or scholarly publications about this disorder all the Google hits seem to refer back to the original article. Our purpose is to judge the notability and verifiability and it does not meet the general notability guidelines. It is up to the scientific community or the world at large to make it notable, not Wikipedia, and neither has done so. Drawn Some (talk) 17:05, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge per S Marshall, changing to merge per my original reasoning combined with S Marshall's additional comments. Drawn Some (talk) 18:23, 10 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment At least blindness isn't one of the symptoms. Don't go it alone, always use the buddy system. Mandsford (talk) 17:39, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge with redirect to Sexual dysfunction. Reasoning: it's verifiable from reliable sources that this condition exists, so information about it should be on Wikipedia; but it's not notable enough to merit its own article.  The redirect is appropriate because this is a remotely plausible search term.— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  18:16, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - If the syndrome is real and verifiable, it's almost an inherently notable topic. It appears to have scholarly research on it and clinical significance. Those two features are a strong showing of notability. I disagree with a redirect. I doubt sexual dysfunction is actually an appropriately related topic. Just because it involves orgasm doesn't mean it's a sexual dysfunction; it looks as though it could be equally characterized as an anxiety disorder. In any case, it's much more precise to keep a notable article. Shadowjams (talk) 19:26, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment: we're not judging whether or not the syndrome is real. That's for the scientific community to decide.  We're supposed to judge whether or not it is notable and verifiable per Wikipedia guidelines.  I still insist that it is not notable judging by the evidence I discussed above. The scientific community has not addressed the original journal article in a way that makes it notable by our standards and neither has anyone else.  To be clear, it could turn out not to be real but still notable, like phrenology. Drawn Some (talk) 21:35, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I understand your argument. I believe a medically recognized syndrome is inherently notable. The question becomes if this is widely recognized. I've done some more research, and I've found more articles mentioning the syndrome, however I'm unable to verify how it's used in some of them because I don't have access to the journals. For someone with electronic access, or near a university library, here are those cites:
 * Ejaculatory disorders: epidemiology and current approaches to definition, classification and subtyping; DOI 10.1007/s00345-004-0486-9
 * World Journal of Urology, Issue	Volume 23, Number 2 / July, 2005
 * The Relation Between Mood and Sexuality in Heterosexual Men, 10.1023/A:1023409516739
 * Archives of Sexual Behavior, Issue Volume 32, Number 3 / June, 2003
 * Handbook of sexual dysfunction, By Richard Balon, R. Taylor Segraves, ISBN 0824758269, 9780824758264; p 241-242
 * The Balon book is a handbook of disorders and it acknowledges that the 2002 article is the first mention of it in the literature, but his treatment of it at all indicates the disorder has been recognized.
 * As I said, if I'm able to quickly find this on google, I'd imagine someone with university access might find more. Shadowjams (talk) 22:02, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I do agree with your basic premises, I guess the difference is it doesn't look like it IS recognized, in fact, I'm pretty sure it isn't. My opinion may be influenced by my recent experience with this Articles_for_deletion/Wind_turbine_syndrome situation.  Drawn Some (talk) 22:18, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't agree that all medical conditions are inherently notable. There are a really enormous number of medical conditions, and this is a general encyclopaedia.  I think custom and practice is, where a condition is apparently rare, to group several conditions under the same heading.  (Randomly-selected example: Lysosomal storage disease has an article, but Mucolipidosis IIIA is a redlink.)— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  22:26, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, it should probably be a redirect to Pseudo-Hurler polydystrophy instead of being a redlink.
 * Most all recognized disorders are notable and verifiable by Wikipedia standards. Rare disorders that are notable and verifiable may be included if someone chooses to write about them even though this is a general encyclopedia.
 * However, this one isn't notable because enough independent non-trivial reliable references simply don't exist. In fact, all references hinge on one journal article. I'll fix the redlink. Drawn Some (talk) 22:58, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think we're disagreeing. Rare disorders that are notable and verifiable may be included, but not all medical conditions are inherently notable just because they happen to be medical conditions. In practice, most medical conditions are covered in multiple reliable sources so they meet the GNG and the whole question doesn't arise, but I wouldn't want it said that "all medical conditions are notable", because that opens a door to all kinds of quackery from snake oil salesmen that I would certainly wish to remain closed.— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  23:19, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment: I'm glad that S Marshall has mentioned it, but think it is essential that we recognize that the reason most medical conditions/disorders/diseases are notable is that they typically meet WP:GNG by being recognized, because that requires publication(s), and then ancillary coverage usually occurs in various other sources. This discussion has strayed to almost implying a presumption of notability for medical conditions. To my knowledge, no such presumption exists, nor do I believe it should. Allowing for such a presumption would, as S Marshall has noted, create a slippery slope in which all sorts of snakeoil "disorders" and "treatments" would slip into Wikipedia. Jo7hs2 (talk) 23:26, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * (ec)I agree and have clearly stated more than once that notability and verifiability according to Wikipedia standards are what we are concerned with. Most all recognized medical disorders will meet those standards.  Some NON-recognized medical disorders will also meet those standards and there are included as well.  We don't screen things out because they are snakeoil, we include them anyway if they are notable.  See Shark cartilage for evidence of this. Drawn Some (talk) 23:39, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * When I said "medically recognized" I implied much of what was said above. I never wrote "all medical conditions are inherently notable." And you're right, most cases will have ample sources so it never comes up. But similar to the notability guidelines for schools, towns, and taxonomy articles (articles on species of fungus, flowers, and others that I've seen bot added in bulk), there are inherently encyclopedic articles. WP:RS are extremely important in all of these cases, but as always, WP:RS demonstrate notability, and notability is the key. This point is made explicitly clear by the notability guideline "A topic is presumed to be notable..." (emphasis added). As a practical matter we differ very little on the guideline; snake oil and bogus medical phenomena (of which there is plenty) is not "medically recognized", and in the event it is, the answer to its legitimacy won't be found on wikipedia. Shadowjams (talk) 06:51, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete "..the most productive research has been carried out independently by posters on the Naked Science Forum." Blog-based articles are not encyclopedic. One journal article is insufficient to satisfy WP:N. Edison (talk) 23:36, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * We don't delete reliably-sourced material just because it fails to satisfy the notability criteria. There are very, very few circumstances in which it's appropriate to cut verifiable content completely—it could happen in a copyvio, or a BLP concern, but certainly not for failing WP:N. Where a guideline is in conflict with a policy, the policy shall prevail.  WP:N is a guideline, and WP:PRESERVE is policy.  Fortunately, we can normally reconcile WP:N with WP:PRESERVE by turning the non-notable article into a redirect into an article that is notable, merging the reliably-sourced material and cutting the rest, which is what we need to do here.— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  23:55, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Oops, I mis-spoke. I said "we don't", where I should have said "we should not". It obviously does happen that reliably-sourced material is deleted for failing notability; but that happens because the !voting editors are ignorant of policy, and should be challenged wherever possible.— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  00:07, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify for those that haven't read the relevant policies and guidelines: the WP:Editing policy (PRESERVE is a small section in this policy) says only, "Try to preserve information [that] would belong in a "finished" article", not "It is mandatory to preserve everything".  A good deal of this article's current contents does not meet Wikipedia's requirements.  For example, anything sourced to the internet chat room (an astonishingly unreliable source that accounts for more than half the content of the article) should be removed.
 * It's also worth remembering what WP:Policy says about these situations: "While neither label confers an inherent importance over the other two, if process, guideline or policy pages appear to conflict, then policies should be generally, but not always, followed before guidelines, and guidelines before processes." WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:20, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * S Marshall's claim that we may not delete articles about subject failing to satisfy WP:N if they have any scrap of referenced information in them is incorrect, since we delete articles for failing WP:N every day. We should "try to preserve" those articles which have some hope of satisfying the reasonable requirement of multiple reliable and independent sources with significant coverage. One source is not enough to keep an article about something, or Wikipedia would become a mirror of every article in every one of the tens of thousands of scientific journals, and every book about something from a reliable source. Wikipedia is not a court of law where "my law trumps your law" is always a winning tactic. One source is not enough, or we would become a mirror of every directory. Not every referenced scrap of information belongs in an encyclopedia at all, but we can often find a more general article to which to redirect or merge it. Edison (talk) 18:25, 12 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep The  POV problems of the article can be dealt with by editing. Presenting it as well-defined science is a little absurd. DGG (talk) 01:38, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions.  —WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:14, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions.  —WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:14, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge with redirect, to sexual dysfunction. I can find one citation of the original paper in this review, where the paper is cited only once, to state "Finally, in rare subjects, orgasm may alter central neurotransmission, provoking a postejaculatory pain syndrome [66] or the postorgasmic illness syndrome characterized by severe fatigue, intense warmth, and a flu-like state, with generalized myalgia [67]. Etiology, pathogenesis and prevalence are unknown". That pretty much sums up the state of current knowledge and really isn't enough for a stand-alone article. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:22, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep or merge as discussed. It's real and rare. Bearian (talk) 19:23, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. One person's coinage, no evidence of widespread use from the references provided. JFW | T@lk  20:54, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep -- Nominator asserts: "Medical curiosity which can't be expanded with reliable references." Well, I found additional references, and cited one.  Another contributor voiced the opinion that this syndrome was verifiable, but not notable.  However they didn't say why they considered the syndrome not-notable.  Having read the discussion more thoroughly I don't find the arguments that the syndrome is not notable convincing.  I don't see any advantage whatsoever with bloating up the sexual dysfunction article through merging.  The article is currently a perfectly valid, referenced stub.  And there is nothing wrong with referenced stub articles.  Geo Swan (talk) 02:14, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment The reliable sources are a single journal article describing two cases and one-sentence summaries of that article in reviews. The article can't be expanded beyond a summary of a single reliable source; were it notable, it would have been written about more widely.DilatoryThrush (talk) 04:00, 12 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep The sources appear to be reliable and notable. There is no rule that says that 269 Ghits is worthless, but some higher number is worthy. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:29, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep This condition is the subject of present research. It can be extremely debilitating, and is real; I suffer from the problem myself, and my blood-work shows potentially dangerous abnormalities, which likely relate to this condition.  Through the information linked in this article, I now have some hope that this problem is curable.  Indeed, the prevalence is unknown, but the number of reported cases is increasing at such a great rate, that it would be extremely unfortunate to deprive people of information relating to this condition -- in effect, preventing others from receiving help for a serious medical problem.  And why? Because 270 google hits isn't enough? (Aside: Note that "Post orgasmic illness syndrome" produces 1560 google hits). I find some of the positions against the article condescending and mean-spirited.  The encyclopedic concerns can be addressed.  Finally, I have just updated the 'symptom' section to more accurately summarize all of the available information.  In this case, the UK Naked Science Forum is extremely relevant in any discussion of this condition, since a majority of the reported cases are documented there.  We should not have to wait until publication in a particular journal to make mention of this.  Indeed, one of the advantages of Wikipedia over more conventional encyclopedias, is access to the most up to date relevant information, in the form of an objective summary.  In this manner, various non-journal web sources are frequently summarized on Wikipedia.  (Though I do not object to making the particular summary in this article more succinct).  A 'flu like' state is simply not an accurate description, on the whole.   The goal of this article is to present an accurate, succinct, and helpful summary of all available information about a serious medical condition, which is the subject of present research; hopefully we can work together so that this goal can be accomplished without needless controversy. Counterpoints (talk) 21:27, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * As a point of fact, the purpose of Wikipedia is WP:NOT to collect "all available information" about anything. It is to collect information that is presented by properly published, independent, reliable, third-party sources with a reputation for fact-checking.  An internet discussion forum by untrained people that claim(!) to have this condition fails on every single one of those counts.  The chat room and associated pages simply cannot be used any more than a conversation at a cocktail party.  We can only include in articles what's in proper reliable sources (see WP:MEDRS for the specific medicine-related guidelines.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:16, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment - I don't see anyone here being mean spirited. Also, the blog you've referenced needs to qualify as a WP:RS. I'm also not sure your edits actually further the goal of making this article more likely to stick around. Although there are questions as to its notability, everyone agrees that the journal article is a WP:RS. Replacing information that came from that journal article with your own personal experiences, and similar ones from a blog, is not likely to convince people here that this article, if it remains, will stay accurate and free of WP:OR. Shadowjams (talk) 21:49, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment I had modified my original 'keep' just after you had posted your comment. I think this modification is important, so I encourage you to read it.  Certainly many of the comments here, whether they are for keeping the article, merging the article, or deleting the article, are fair-minded.  However, I consider dismissal of an article about an allegedly serious medical condition, with a journal source, on the basis of "270 google hits" to be mean spirited.  That is a largely irrelevant statistic, and it is also deceiving, since "post orgasmic illness syndrome", as opposed to "postorgasmic illness syndrome", gives over 5 times the number of hits.  Admittedly, I am biased.  I have suffered from this problem for 10 years, and the neurologists and endocrinologists I have seen certainly feel it is notable.  I think it's fair to say I am more of an expert on this specific problem than Dr. Waldinger.  If you were in my position, you might find a cursory assessment of the condition as "unnotable", together with several abrupt dismissals, to be mean-spirited and offensive. I am emotionally invested in treating this problem; I think it is curable or treatable. Also, I did not replace journal information with 'information from a blog'.  My edit is a summary of all available data.  I believe it will be more helpful to people who have the condition, and to others who are trying to understand the condition, than to leave an inaccurate characterization.  Others may disagree. Counterpoints (talk) 22:04, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment PS. I do appreciate the consideration you and others have given this topic. Counterpoints (talk) 23:08, 12 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep (Change): Counterpoints alternative spacing to "Post Orgasmic Illness Syndrome" turned up a number of newspaper articles on the subject. I don't know if they are linked above, but please see this 2002 newspaper article from IOL, and this 2002 newspaper article from the Glasgow Daily Record . Also see this 2002 article from Family Practice News . Those mentions are sufficient to push it past WP:GNG, and therefore I am changing my recommendation to keep. Jo7hs2 (talk) 22:39, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * You are, I hope, aware that those three "stories" are derived (very) directly from the same press release, which was put out by Waldinger and Schweitzer to attract attention for their (single) journal article? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:55, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment: I suspected as such for the IOL and Glasgow Daily Record pieces, but I felt they were insulated just enough to be independant under WP:GNG, but you are welcome to disagree. I originally thought the Family Practice News source was totally clean, but now that I noticed who published it, I'm less certain, but think it is probably okay. I'm still erring on the side of inclusion. Jo7hs2 (talk) 18:25, 13 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Neutral I have cleaned up the article, removed all the unverifiable and personal-experience cruft, and properly sourced every statement.  What we're left with is a single journal article (case study involving two people), a press release that says they've actually seen five such cases, a glorified dictionary that summarizes the journal article, and an unrelated column written by a physician that is very probably, but not definitely, the same condition.  I have tried to include every possibly relevant fact from the sources, even including these non-medical sources, without transgressing WP:NOR, WP:CRYSTAL, or WP:V, so what you see is about as much as possible:  just fifteen (15) short sentences.  It's maybe not a bad article, but there's no chance of this being a good article unless/until dramatically more is written about it in proper reliable sources.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:55, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Praise: Not bad work considering the materials you had at hand. I'd be more than confortable leaving the article like this, for future review. Jo7hs2 (talk) 18:28, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment This so called 'personal experience cruft' is critically relevant to anyone who is researching POIS.  It contains over 99% of the cases.  Your indifference to whether a characterization is accurate or not, so long as it follows certain bureaucratic standards, is amazing.  It seems to show a total loss of perspective. (I am referring to your comments in the discussion section of the article).  Information from essentially any source is frequently summarized on Wikipedia if it is relevant. In an article on 'Perez Hilton', you're going to find summarized information from his blog.  You seem far more concerned with following a rigid protocol than in developing an article that will be of use to readers (you basically said it yourself).  Any serious researcher, including Waldinger, is extremely interested in the UK Naked Science discussion, because essentially anyone with POIS, has summarized his symptoms there. For the time being, however, I will withhold major edits. Also, 'WhatamIdoing', don't lecture me on scientific credibility. I'm sure my scientific credentials far exceed yours.  With your attitude, there would be no physics ArXiv, or any mention of it in Wikipedia. Counterpoints (talk) 15:46, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not pretending to speak for anyone else, but whatever insult you took from WhatamIdoing is almost certainly not intended or personal. Maybe we randomly quote policy too much on AfD (which as Marshall notes earlier in this discussion, is all just guidelines and not true policy), but you'll find that on Wikipedia there are a few basic premises, and one of those is about WP:OR or "original research."
 * In a project this big, there has to be a quick, non-fakable, and reliable way to assess a topic or a fact. For that reason we use third party "reliable" (often a synonym for published, but not always) sources. We do this because, although we realize there is valid information out there that doesn't fit this requirement, there is also bad information out there that doesn't fit this requirement. The project has to make a choice, and WP:OR is the end result of that choice. It's really a fundamental part of the encyclopedia. Unfortunately we can't be everything to everyone. Shadowjams (talk) 17:05, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Shadowjams has it right: Wikipedia has its own standards, and excluding original research is one of them.  It's also enshrined in WP:NOT.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:03, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep, good cleanup. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 11:43, 15 May 2009 (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.