Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Post Election Selection Trauma (second nomination)

Post Election Selection Trauma is a number of things.


 * (A) An alleged psychological condition, recognised by one or two small-town psychology practicioners.
 * Recognition by other psychologists: negligible.
 * Publicity for the psychology practice(s) in their local community: some.
 * Notability for Wikipedia purposes: none.


 * (B) A protologism (a phrase coined "in the hope that it will become accepted into the language")
 * Notability for Wikipedia purposes: zero.


 * (C) The subject of an alleged breach of journalistic standards by the Boca Raton News.
 * See the CJR article.
 * BTW, reporting of this sort is quite common in small-town newspapers.
 * Notability for Wikipedia purposes: tiny.


 * (D) An internet meme which "conservatives" (especially bloggers) use to ridicule "liberals"
 * (for at least some values of those ill-defined political labels)
 * which has remained in steady but not-that-frequent use for the last year or two.
 * Notability for Wikipedia purposes: some.

Whether (D) has enough notability is up for debate. (I say "yes, just". YMMV)

There are also a number of things that PEST is not:
 * 1) It's more than a neologism: the people who coined the term believed they were naming a real phenomenon.
 * 2) It's not really a hoax: the psychologists believed in it enough to risk their accreditations.
 * 3) It's technically not an urban legend: it's based on real incidents.

I just wanted to get that off my chest. Cheers, CWC (talk) 10:23, 17 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Nitpick - The claim that "the psychologists believed in it enough to risk their accreditations" assumes the "psychologists" in question have some "accreditations" to risk. I've seen no evidence of that, other than that they call themselves "Dr."--csloat 19:40, 17 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment: Regarding the statements "...a real phenomenon." and "...psychologists believed in it...", that doesn't properly address the heart of the matter. For something to be properly identified as a real psychological condition, our own (sourced) Wikipedia article on Psychology speaks of the research methods required to conduct proper research. There is no evidence that this was done (or not done) here. So this can hardly be called more than a neologism. Since the disorder has not been accepted (or even published) by the psychological or psychiatric communities in any serious journal or academic publication, the article would then also border on WP:OR since it is becoming a compilation of proofs and/or disproofs of the disorder -- in other words, a synthesis of other publication. I'd rather leave that debate to those experts and include it if they conclude is is -- or was -- a reasonably distinct disorder from, say, depression. If we're keeping the article simply as a political label used for a few years, then transwiki it to Wiktionary, since that can be covered in one sentence. SkerHawx 13:20, 17 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh, yes. PEST isn't real. It was, um, inspired by real events (people in Boca Raton being upset by Kerry's loss), but that doesn't make it real. I've added "believed they" in grey above to fix my poor wording. Sorry about that.
 * If we keep the article, we need to make it clear that we are not saying PEST is real, only that some "conservatives" use the label to mock "liberals". AFAIK, none of those conservatives believe PEST is real.
 * IMO, PEST was (at least in part) a clever publicity stunt by the psychologists, but saying so would be OR.
 * In response to csloat above: yes, I just assumed that no-one would be allowed to practice as a psychologist in Florida without a licence, but I could be wrong. Good point.
 * Cheers, CWC (talk) 00:31, 18 October 2006 (UTC)