Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Van Gogh 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 Self-harm. Eddie891 Talk Work 14:08, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Van Gogh syndrome

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

The first issue here is a failed verification for notability of the article name.

Self harm is a GA, one of the few GAs on psychology. Neighboring on a virtually identical topic is this article. There are only two citations supporting the phrase "van gogh syndrome" - one is in a 1966 case study, and the other one has a broken DOI and the document is two pages long simply reporting the case study and citing which I don't have access to and does not mention van gogh syndrome in the abstract.

The article had copyvio to the DSM-5 which I just paraphrased, an older copyvio to this abstract, a possibly infringing link which I have tagged, and its citations don't establish notability for the term in the title. It also seems to still be based on OR, some of which I have tagged.

I tried looking for citations on Google Scholar about it, and the first result I find leaves me exceptionally surprised:

In other words, the OR in this article has created ripple effects in psychology research. I can actually find a few research publications which have frankly taken WP:CIRCULAR way too far by electing to include Van Gogh syndrome in the title possibly just because of this Wikipedia article. I can't say I've seen that before.

Reading the rest of that quoted source (I encourage anyone contributing to consensus at this AfD to do so), it appears the author interpreted the original research as at least partially valid. So now if we want to keep the content of this article, we face a problem that its notability is established purely by the circular referencing that this article ended up creating. Perhaps the worst part of this is that in its current state I'm not even sure the article gets across the idea that "‘Van Gogh’ syndrome is reserved for psychotic patients who indulge in extreme self-harm".

So I'm proposing one of two options. (1) is to delete the article (I don't think any content at all can be salvaged to the self-harm GA, beyond perhaps a sentence mentioning the case study in due weight). (2) is to move the page to a name which does meet notability for a NSSI disorder, and focus on the NSSI disorder research. My hesitance for (2) and feeling necessity for using AfD is because I think although at least some of the sources in the article are reliable, I think any comprehensive article on NSSI disorder would probably need to start from scratch as far as writing, and it's not clear to me that an article on NSSI disorder would even pass a notability test considering how thorough the self harm GA already is.

(3) Aside from those two approaches, perhaps it is notable enough purely on the basis of being an meta-example of WP:CIRCULAR as a meta-topic that the article should indeed remain, but be substantially restructured/rewritten to cover that aspect - notwithstanding the creation of a specific article for NSSI disorder. I'm really not sure about that though, the quoted source is the only published source I can find to comment on the matter which makes me think deletion may be preferable. Of course, I'm open to any other suggestions about how to remedy this. Maybe it's better to do an RfC about this since the self harm article is rated high priority - any advice would be appreciated.

Darcyisverycute (talk) 11:56, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Psychiatry and Psychology. Darcyisverycute (talk) 11:56, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep it passes WP:GNG .GorgonaJS (talk) 13:25, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete The citogenesis cycle must be broken. I concur that any comprehensive article on NSSI disorder would probably need to start from scratch. For obvious reasons, we have high standards for sourcing on medical topics, and this is a long way from meeting them. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 15:35, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment I'm all ears to find out what happens to this discussion.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 19:19, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
 * All ear. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:19, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The official song of the London branch of the Van Gogh fan club: "Hail, Hail, the Gang's All 'Ere". Clarityfiend (talk) 05:38, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, TigerShark (talk) 03:25, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete Redirect to Self-harm. Doesn’t have enough good sources to meet WP:MEDRS levels of sourcing. This is a fascinating case and deserves to be catalogued in WP:CITOGENESIS. I thank the nominator for doing this research. Ovinus (talk) 19:49, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Retitle I haven't looked closely at the sources (yes, big mistake) but it seems like this article could be moved to a less OR title. I think the information in the article is valid, but the named syndrome is incorrect. Liz Read! Talk! 05:20, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Relisting comment: Opinion is split between keep (but retitle?) and delete (or merge?). Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   09:14, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Retitle "Non-suicidal self injury", and remove the misleading information about Van Gogh. Most of the article is about NSSI anyway, and there are enough good sources here to build off. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 02:46, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
 * What is the difference between Self-harm and NSSI, though? Not a rhetorical question; I don't really know, but "self-harm" to me seems to imply lack of suicidal intent. Otherwise it's just "attempted suicide". adopts a broad definition (for self-harm) of any self-injurious behavior, suicidal intent or not, but says the WHO restricts it to behavior without suicidal intent. Ovinus (talk) 23:45, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Merge/redirect or retitle/move to the main article. Andrevan @ 21:30, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Merge/redirect or retitle/move to the main article in absence of a more suitable title. Information valid, name not. Sourcing could be improved. >> Lil-unique1  (  talk  ) — 23:39, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Redirect to Self-harm (and delete the current content) on the grounds that there is nothing here that could form a basis of a new article on NSSI that isn't already covered in the Self-harm article, and no one has adequately explained why we need a separate article on NSSI anyway (isn't it the same thing as self-harm?). If we really want to mention the story of how Wikipedia created a new name for the condition, this could be covered by a single sentence added to the self-harm article, "NSSI has been referred to as Van Gogh syndrome as a result of a former article in the English Wikipedia which used the name" + ref. We can't even call it a notable example of a circular citation because we haven't got a secondary source discussing it as an example of Wikipedia-induced circular referencing. I'm open to the suggestion that if it's not a notable example of circular citation, we don't even need the redirect, but redirects are cheap and harmless. Elemimele (talk) 09:48, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, interpreting the article optimistically it's referring to "NSSI disorder" and not just NSSI. Eg. see this highly cited paper proposing the concept: Although the concept is technically distinct, it's not clear if it is distinct on notability grounds since the diagnosis itself is not widely accepted or used, and referring to NSSI disorder in my short literature review it seems to often just be a functional term for "chronic self harm" which isn't distinct from content in the existing self harm article as far as I can tell. Darcyisverycute (talk) 11:40, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete And break the cycle, as noted above by XOR&#39;easter. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 14:05, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Self-harm. There is nothing that distinguishes this article from the more general one at the common name. NSSI and Self Harm are two names for the same thing in the mainstream literature. -- Guerillero  Parlez Moi 21:12, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Redirect (no merger required) per Guerillero. Best, KevinL ( aka L235 · t · c) 21:26, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Redirect the scholarly interest in this syndrome is insufficient to qualify for an article and a merger should also be avoided. Draken Bowser (talk) 00:48, 29 July 2022 (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.