Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vystopia


 * 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 delete. The consensus seems to be that without WP:MEDRS-quality sources, this is not a suitable subject for an article. Yunshui 雲 水 08:33, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Vystopia

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Fails WP:NEO and WP:NFRINGE. I looked for additional sources and found (besides Ms. Mann's own writings) only human-interest stories about this theorised psychological condition afflicting vegans. Cheers, gnu 57 19:51, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Food and drink-related deletion discussions. gnu 57  19:51, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Health and fitness-related deletion discussions. gnu 57  19:51, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Behavioural science-related deletion discussions. gnu 57  19:51, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. gnu 57  19:51, 29 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment This does seem to be a neologism of dubious wiki-notability, and a confusingly coined one at that (shouldn't a -topia be a place?). While the term vystopia is not in widescale use is not an admission that helps the article's case. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 21:00, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
 * , dystopia isn't a place, it's a descriptor for a place? I think that's where the word was coined from? Utopia is an actual fictional place as well as a descriptor, that's probably what you're thinking? But probably Vysphoria would have been more apt lol --valereee (talk) 20:12, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
 * A utopia is a kind of place, a dystopia is a kind of place, but a "vystopia" is a psychological condition. We don't say that a person who believes they are living in a dystopia suffers from a psychological condition called "dystopia". Coining a word on the base of dysphoria would indeed have made much more sense. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 14:31, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Interesting point. The word had already been coined and was in use. MaynardClark (talk) 18:42, 3 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete Just making my position official. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 15:34, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep Does seem to be a thing, I've added multiple articles in multiple languages --valereee (talk) 20:10, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep It's a well-documented and often mentioned reality among the populations and subpopulations the article references. Self-help efforts involves various 'ideal' strategies; one could also CITE articles on 'realism' (in suboptimal realities) where the 'problem of suffering' is addressed in all the world's religions. MaynardClark (talk) 21:37, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
 * The suspected MECHANISMS of action in 'Vystopia' should be developed and explained in a logical and persuasive manner; 'vystopia; ought not to be seen as merely a syndrome. When autism was first identified by Leo Kanner way back when, it was unclear just what it was; today we think of autism as a spectrum of disorders. MaynardClark (talk) 03:13, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 03:05, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep Notable. Plenty of sources and it is a thing, Thanks Valereee! Lightburst (talk) 03:21, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Surely what can be recognized as the symptoms of 'vystopia' have been widely discussed anecdotally. AGain, Vystopia's suspected MECHANISMS of action should be explained in a logical. persuasive manner rather than considering it merely as a loose 'bundle of symptoms' that may at best be considered a syndrome related to anxiety, loss, and futility. Perhaps synonyms, parallels, and similarities could be explored; I suspect that this stub article is not definitive. John Donvan about a decade ago did a TV special about the history of of the diagnosis of autism and asked Leo Kanner's protege, Leon Eisenberg, how what possibly could have been going in in Kanner's brain unlike that of the brains of others that could have enabled him to recognize that he was observing something rather than an apparition that really didn't exist. MaynardClark (talk) 03:50, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: So are there good secondary sources?
 * Comment Since the topic involves health claims, it requires WP:MEDRS sourcing. So far I haven't found any: Ms. Mann's self-published, print-on-demand book on the subject likely hasn't undergone any pre-publication review. Ms. Mann also published an article on the topic in an open-access media- and culture-studies journal; the journal's editorial board is (as you'd expect) entirely composed of culture and communications scholars, not psychology experts. In the journal article, Mann states that she formulated her theory as a result of her experiences counselling vegans, and then sought to validate it through an internet survey. (The survey recruitment page on her website strikes me as rather leading, as does the wording of the questions.) This is WP:MEDPRI at best. The other journal article cited is another primary source. Those researchers found that vegetarianism was associated with a greater risk of mental health disorders, but the onset of the disorders generally preceded the adoption of a vegetarian diet. It was not clear whether a disorder increased one's likelihood of adopting vegetarianism or a third variable caused both. It would be original research to conclude that these results support Mann's vystopia theory. When novel or unexpected research results are published, they are often seized upon and uncritically reported by news sources (for instance, look at all the goofy human-interest stories based on one "brexit-induced psychosis" case study.) WP:MEDPRI states "Findings are often touted in the popular press as soon as original, primary research is reported, before the scientific community has analyzed and commented on the results. Therefore, such sources should generally be entirely omitted". Of the other sources currently in the article,
 * Telegraph, Plant Based News 1 BTSydney Morning Herald and Information 2 are news/human-interest articles about Mann's theory and her book: SIGCOV from a news perspective but not MEDRS.
 * Information 1 is paywalled and I don't have access: apparently a Culture feature about a vegan filmmaker?
 * krytykapolityczna.pl is a definition in a vegan glossary
 * Vegan Psychologist is Mann's own website
 * Plant Based News 2 is a passing mention
 * Hartford Courant is about a vegan book club which read Mann's book.
 * MC Journal: A Journal of Media and Culture is the editor's note introducing the vegan-themed issue in which Mann reported on her survey.
 * I agree with MaynardClark that The suspected MECHANISMS of action in 'Vystopia' should be developed and explained in a logical and persuasive manner; but we cannot do so until the research has been performed and published in reliable sources. Cheers, gnu 57 21:26, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
 * If the term is a loose 'description' of something that is no worse than the irregularities of the term 'autism for the first several decades of research on it, then keep the article and note that it parallels other quasi-medical descriptions. In physics, we distinguish operational and conceptual definitions: operational definitions describe how something operates or acts; conceptual ideas or definitions are just that - conceptions about what something appears to be.  Is there 'information' in the way the term 'vystopia' is used (either by the clinician who coined it or by others who use it?  Again, a psychologist is a mental health clinician but is NOT a psychiatrist, who is also a physician specializing in how the brain works.  The context of the term's coining may be illuminating for us to consider. Now, let's look at the malaise called fibromyalgia where clinicians are unresolved about what it is, but agree that the term points to something that really is. See medically unexplained syndromes. 'Vystopia' is a gut response of morally sensitive persons that results from the their gradual or sudden recognition of the pervasive problem of suffering that results from pervasive patterns of human behavior that inflict harm upon others (humans for food and clothing), and the entrenched roles that others have in perpetuating this indefensible suffering and the problem of evil that comes from directly inflicting harm upon others habitually and without recognition.  Even when they try to declare a moral truce with others (with humans and nonhumans) and to withdraw from actively perpetuating the harms upon others that come from eating and wearing animals, they still feel powerless to solve the broader, far more expansive problem by their own behavioral adjustments and moral authority (and may go to protest and sadness and more).  When these sensitive persons do not have a strategy for resolving their powerlessness before evil in the world, they experience 'vystopia'.  {That needs to be cleaned up considerably.} MaynardClark (talk) 02:27, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per gnu57. Sourcing is poor and fails WP:MEDRS. -Crossroads- (talk) 05:29, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
 * The article needs to be developed better. That is not reason to delete an article that UNIQUELY describes 'something that is real' but is (like autism, a syndrome that required decades to be more precisely defined. MaynardClark (talk) 05:32, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
 * If this page were about a hypothesis concerning autism, and all the sources were brief mentions of the same book which introduced that hypothesis, and all the references we could find failed WP:MEDRS, we'd delete that page too. Wikipedia follows the judgment of the medical community; it does not lead. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:21, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
 * There is little if any doubt that this article needs to be developed better; I think that I have suggested (a) that vystopia is something that likely needs to be better understood in terms of current diagnostic criteria found in DSM and ICD, and (b) that, historically, very important diagnoses (such as autism) have undergone clarification processes. The social psychology around understanding 'symptoms' of ''vystopia' may need better understanding for the sake of the client, not merely for the sake of Wikipedia readers. MaynardClark (talk) 17:25, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
 * My search (Google Search) for 'vystopia' yielded 6,030 results (in 0.76 seconds). Surely more mention has been documented digitally than those mentions in this talk page. Analogically, I think of the anguish prolifers feel in the face of blue wave surges in America, and other kinds of feelings of horror other morally sensitive persons feel about the wanton harm wrought upon the vulnerable. This exploitation and victimization of the relatively weak and powerless is a common topic (in the abstract) in ethics (and moral reasoning). I agree that the relevant scientific communities ought to be urged to weigh in on this topic. MaynardClark (talk) 17:29, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Counting Google hits is not an argument. "Vystopia" may or may not be a well-definable condition that merits further research; I'm not here to make that judgment. The point is that this article is currently below our standards of sourcing for medical topics, and there is not a way to improve it. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:57, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per gnu57. MEDRS not satisfied. -Roxy, the dog. Esq . wooF 12:29, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Additionally, the only sources available of significance are primary sources. Fails WP:SIGCOV.4meter4 (talk) 20:52, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:45, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Fifthavenuebrands (talk) 13:30, 15 November 2019 (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.