Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Work aversion disorder


 * 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   no consensus. ( X! ·  talk )  · @972  · 22:19, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Work aversion disorder

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This article seems to consist of original research. "Work aversion disorder" isn't a recognized medical condition, and there only seems to be one Google result that isn't directly related to this Wikipedia article. Furthermore, although there are many citations, they seem to simply be talking about unwillingness to work, and don't use the word "disorder" - an apparent violation of WP:SYN. CronoDAS (talk) 08:58, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete Not a generally recognized medical diagnosis -- while it "exists" (see Beetle Bailey), this article shows little promise of being more than an anecdotal list of things associated with people not wanting to work.  Ought we have "Vegetable aversion disorder" about people who will not eat all their vegetables?  It also exists. Collect (talk) 12:14, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:MADEUP. No results on Google Books, Google News, Google Scholar. Google Web returns 36 results, none of which appear to be reliable sources with a reputation for fact-checking. The article's references mostly point to trivial occurrences of "work aversion" and "aversion of work" in literary works. — Rankiri (talk) 14:12, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep and rename - this article was originally called "Work aversion." Someone later added "disorder" to the end of the title. A search without the word "disorder" does indeed get hits. While there may not be a recognized medical disorder with this title, there is a concept that has indeed been recognized in various published books and scholarly works. Even the Social Security Administration recognizes there is work aversion (not as a disorder but as a behavior) and considers it in determining if someone who has applied for disability is really disabled. As the nom said, this is not a disorder but the unwillingness to work, and that's what the article should be about, as it first was. Hellno2 (talk) 18:10, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * From what I see, "work aversion" is just a simple combination of two words that doesn't even fall under WP:DICDEF. It's in no way different from "distaste for labor", "job hatred", "unwillingness to work" and other similar expressions. Perhaps the page be redirected to a more appropriately titled article (e.g. Job satisfaction, Procrastination) but the article itself is nothing but a collection of unverifiable claims and POV/OR statements like "Work aversion disorder is a psychological behavior" and "The term work aversion does not refer to immature teens or young adults who "slack off"". — Rankiri (talk) 18:56, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * If we can come up with a good title, that may indeed be a better idea than just deleting it outright. There's still WP:SYN to consider, though. - CronoDAS (talk) 06:00, 3 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete. WP:NEO, WP:NOTADICT........could be summed up as "work aversion disorder is a nice way of saying lazy" in wiktionary. Niteshift36 (talk) 07:10, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment: per Avoid neologisms, the proper action would be to rename, not to delete. This page is so long, it goes far beyond a DICDEF. It has more than a dozen statements supported by footnotes, and as that section of WP:NEO says, it is better just to rename the article to a more descriptive title, and of course to purge all the OR. Hellno2 (talk) 19:18, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Still looks like a polite way of saying "lazy" to me. Redirect to lazy in wiktionary if you want. Niteshift36 (talk) 06:10, 4 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep Article does have a lot of sources that describe the topic. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Just remove the OR. Pink cloudy sky (talk) 12:19, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Weren't you the one who moved the page in the first place? What was your reasoning? — Rankiri (talk) 20:16, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I moved it because the site workaversion.org, dedicated to dealing with this disorder, calls it "work aversion disorder," even though the site's name is simply "workaversion."  Pink cloudy sky (talk) 22:12, 5 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep Most of the information that I originally included in this article came from a brochure that I picked up from an organization that guides women in the work force. It was printed courtesy of a national organization, I can't remember what. I am sure whatever they chose to print in it came from some reliable sources. Some things I do remember were that this condition was simply called "Work aversion" (not disorder), and that it was also stated that "work aversion is not a recognized medical disorder" (and strictly a behavior). It also stated approximately how many people are believed to have the condition. Since then, I have read occasional snippets of information about work aversion in places like newspapers, books, and magazines; I have not kept close track of where, but I am planning in the next few days to search for all this. Tatterfly (talk) 21:24, 3 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment. I'm still strongly opposed to keeping of the content since most of it appears to be falsely referenced WP:OR. For example, the article claims that denial of citizenship is one of the possible complications of "the work aversion disorder". The reference? This article from the Jan. 1921 issue of The New York Times that actually makes it clear that the immigrant was deported on the basis of criminal conviction for vagrancy. The claim that an estimated 20% of criminals feel compelled to a life of crime due to work aversion comes from a 1889(!)  book that immediately declares that the number only refers to a review of 170 "occasional criminals" and that no less than 51.7 percent of "habitual criminals" show their aversion to work. The estimate that about four to five million people in the United States may be suffering from some form of work aversion seems to come from www.workaversion.org, the place that unhesitatingly regards work aversion as "a crippling disorder" even though, as mentioned above, I wasn't able to find any scholarly opinions that were being supportive of that WP:Fringe view.
 * The rest of the article is no better. The introductory paragraph continues with three largely unverifiable or trifling listcrufts. Symptoms of work aversion disorder can include... "living with unrealistic expectations" and "occasionally applying for a job for show"? Complications of work aversion include..."gambling problems", "neglect of dependents...who one is expected to support" and "legal problems, when subject turns to law-breaking to obtain cost of living"? This all looks utterly ridiculous and unencyclopedic. WP:MADEUP or not, I still feel that the article's content looks almost entirely unsalvageable and should be removed on the grounds of WP:OR. None of the keep comments so far seem to address this issue. — Rankiri (talk) 16:36, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Your Google examples here are kind of misleading. In terms of the Google searches that you showed, it is very misleading that you showed some searches that turned up nothing. See WP:GHITS on this - just because something has no Ghits does not mean it does not exist. What went wrong along the way is that someone renamed it from "Work aversion" to "Work aversion disorder." These searches use the latter, not the former.
 * Sources are equally valid, no matter how far back they go. Whether they are from the last few days, the 19th century, or ancient times, they still equally can be counted. Meanwhile, WP:MADEUP means that Wikipedia is not for what is "made up in one day." Applying this term here does not make sense either, given that these sources date that far back.
 * The OR issue can be addressed here too. Someone may have thrown in a little OR. That problem exists with so many other articles. There is no guideline supporting deleting an article just because someone has gone and done that. Meanwhile, much of this article contains fully verifiable information, enough to establish notability. —Preceding unsigned comment was added by Hellno2 (talk) Signed by Rankiri (talk) to avoid confusion.
 * I would ask you to reread my previous comment, as it just happens that none of your straw-man counterarguments seem to address any of its points. The Google results only showed that www.workaversion.org could not be considered to be a reliable source. The reliability of the century-old sources wasn't and didn't need to be questioned as they don't actually verify or correspond with the text that cites them. "WP:MADEUP or not" refers to my previous comment about "Work aversion disorder" and is pretty much self-explanatory, and when I said that the article looked almost entirely unsalvageable I obviously wasn't talking about "a little OR" sentence or two. — Rankiri (talk) 01:31, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The use of the shortcut "WP:MADEUP" the way it has been used here seems to be a deliberate attempt to game the system by giving the impression this is a hoax when it obviously does exist. Being that this does exists and has been verified, that alone is grounds for keeping. From here on, the problem is an article quality issue, and this needs a lot of cleanup. Hellno2 (talk) 22:17, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * WP:DP clearly mentions WP:OR and WP:NOTOPINION as valid reasons for deletion. A lot of cleanup won't do, as most of the article's content seem fall right under these two policies. As for the rest, my first recommendation for "Work aversion disorder" was "Delete per WP:MADEUP" and this is what my later "WP:MADEUP or not" referred to. I'm afraid I don't know how I can get clearer than this. — Rankiri (talk) 22:30, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * WP:DEL does not state any reason for which this article should be deleted. The closest thing is when any article cannot be attributed to any reliable sources, but some of the sources in here are reliable, and do accurately verify some of the information here. This article is not an opinion piece or anywhere near it. Therefore, it does not meet grounds for deletion. Hellno2 (talk) 20:52, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Please reread "Any other content not suitable for an encyclopedia". The article still treats the topic as a disorder and every single one of its sections (Symptoms, Causes, Complications, Treatment, Philosophical/religious views, Trivia) is either an opinion piece or other WP:NOT. — Rankiri (talk) 21:00, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I did read this section. Any possible way in which this page would fall into some WP:NOT category would simply require a style change. Most of what WP:NOT covers are not what pages are not to be included, but what the writing style should be. And this page does not appear to me like an opinion piece, only one that gives factal information. Hellno2 (talk) 17:00, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * What information? That "symptoms of work aversion disorder include...earning barely or less than enough income to pay one's bills"? That "aversion therapy has been found to be successful in many cases"? Or would it be that "some persons are simply phobic of the workplace"? Or that other symptoms of this imaginary "disorder" include "attempts to get on a Social Welfare Program"? Perhaps that "Common excuses made for not being employed include...[being] contingent upon an inheritance winnings from a lottery (...), sweepstakes, or other forms of gambling" or "Treating work aversion involves treating the underlying psychological cause of the disorder"?
 * This entire article is in clear violation of WP:OR and WP:NOTOPINION. If it comes down to another no consensus, I urge the closing administrator to take a closer look at the page as most of Hellno2's objections are rather misleading, to say the least. — Rankiri (talk) 17:25, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Calling this "OPINION", or the other use of shortcuts and then describing them to mean something other than what they really are is what is actually misleading. I urge the closing admin to look at that. This appears to be a case of someone who is venting their anger and who is determined to get something deleted at all costs. Hellno2 (talk) 04:17, 9 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete "Most of the information that I originally included in this article came from a brochure that I picked up from an organization that guides women in the work force. It was printed courtesy of a national organization, I can't remember what. " -- if there ever was a statement of what does not count as an RS, even for purposes of Verifiability, let alone notability, this is it. Almost none of the apparently impressive list of references are about the actual subject. DGG (talk) 00:46, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep We should not be averse to doing further work upon this in accordance with our editing policy. I find plenty of sources under alternate forms such as aversion to work.  At worst, we need only redirect to another article such as Sloth (deadly sin). Colonel Warden (talk) 18:34, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment and it is also good to WP:PRESERVE information when the article at worst is imperfect, and in accordance with WP:HANDLE, problematic material need only be removed temporarily, not totally deleted. Hellno2 (talk) 20:25, 9 July 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.