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. Those arguing for deletion showed that this article is an egregious case of WP:OR in the particularly delicate topic area of clinical psychology. Some 'keep' !voters pointed to the topics prevalence in popular discourse, but this needn't imply automatic inclusion in Wikipedia (see WP:NOTEVERYTHING). Modussiccandi (talk) 16:55, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I think, rename to something like Spoiling (parenting). Definitely A very notable concept there, must be fixable. Hyperbolick (talk) 06:03, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - WP:NOTEVERYTHING This doesn't stop at defining the subject, but sections of "Potential causes", "Differential diagnosis", "Prevention", " Treatment" . Wikipedia should not be giving medical definitions and possible ways to handle it. — Maile (talk) 19:03, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, LizRead!Talk! 03:08, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Relisting due to a lack of keep rationale. It'd be helpful if someone could how this concept is supposedly notable and why we shouldn't WP:TNT. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Hey man im josh (talk) 14:23, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Would comment as well, not necessarily strictly psychological, additionally a term in literature and history. Hyperbolick (talk) 18:33, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I seriously doubt the competence of all the !keep voters. Not just subject matter competence, but wiki/afd policy competence. What's next? Let's create Angry child and Happy child...because obviously these "concepts are very notable". Obviously. But also very unsuitable for an ecyclopedia. This article is a high-school level essay with WP:OR, which will later evolve into a messy synthesis. Spoiling in early childhood tends to create characteristic reactions that persist, fixed, into later life. These can cause significant social problems. Spoiled children may have difficulty coping with situations such as teachers scolding them or refusing to grant extensions on homework assignments, playmates refusing to allow them to play with their toys and playmates refusing playdates with them, a loss in friends, failure in employment, and failure with personal relationships. Wow, an excellent scientific prognosis of something which isn't a recognized disorder. What is this joke? Reads like 13 steps to deal with spoiled child- wikihow, but much worse. As Maile points out, Wikipedia should not be giving medical definitions and possible ways to handle it. This isn't just banal crap. This is dangerous for readers. I advise keep voters to not participate in afd's. This is not a WP:TNT article. This is outside the scope of wikipedia, and should not be recreated. — hako9 (talk) 02:17, 26 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Notably the creator of this article got permabanned for creating/editing exactly this sort of content and not taking advice over many years that they needed to stop. TarnishedPathtalk 02:44, 26 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Imagine a parent of "spoiled" child reading the article and the child suffering the consequences. — hako9 (talk) 03:07, 26 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, this is exactly the sort of pseudo-health advice which shouldn't be on Wikipedia. TarnishedPathtalk 07:22, 26 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I retort, WP:SOFIXIT. Not unfixable -- could use Alfie Kohn's The Myth of the Spoiled Child to debunk notions obviously popular enough to require a book just to debunk them. Term has 5K+ Google Scholar articles. Just improvable, not outside the scope. Hyperbolick (talk) 07:31, 26 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Create an article on the book you mentioned. Or write a effin blog. Term has 5K+ Google Scholar articles. How many hits does happy child, naughty child, sad child or say, adventurous child have. Find some books on those too. — hako9 (talk) 08:12, 26 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Nah, think I’ll keep it right here. Hyperbolick (talk) 09:02, 26 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm undecided between delete or reduce to a stub with TNT. I removed one completely unreferenced section which said literally nothing. Then I got to the "Treatment" section and that is what convinced me that the majority of the article is no good. The idea that a physician can prescribe "treatment" for a "spoiled" child is clear pseudo-medical misinformation and potentially harmful to our readers and their children. I think that the only way to save this, if we even want to, would be to move the referencing into the lede (which is not too bad) and then ditch the body entirely to make a stub. --DanielRigal (talk) 15:16, 26 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If what you're claiming is true then it needs a WP:TNT at the very least and a rewrite as a stub. Anything more than a stub is bound to be a mess of WP:OR and dangerous pseudo-medical advise as we see with the current article. TarnishedPathtalk 05:49, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Really only "As syndrome" section must go. Or even be rewritten such that it makes clear that these are just scratched old theories. Hyperbolick (talk) 09:01, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Its notable and AFD is not for cleanup. Desertarun (talk) 20:15, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Final relist for more perspectives to try and form a clearer consensus. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Daniel (talk) 22:07, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Hako9. Article violates WP:SYNTH and is outside the scope of Wikipedia. The entire "of syndrome" section of the article is from one source. Swordman97talk to me 02:28, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Befuddling how anybody can call a clearly notable and well-covered concept "outside the scope" when objections are to a single section of the article, not even an unsourced one. Argument needing to be made as for deletion not for keeping and cleaning up. So far, nobody has argued that this just isn’t a thing which exists in literature. Hyperbolick (talk) 09:21, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
when objections are to a single section of the article
No. The section "Only children" is a deficient summary of the article Only children, which itself has a lot of issues. The section "Later life" makes extraordinary claims based on some book. The section "Infants" is taken from drspock.com, which apart from not being reliable, because it's a blog post giving general advice, also isn't verifiable. Read the source. It says, "I don't think you need to worry much about spoiling in the first month or even the first 6 months." Versus what's written in the article. "Babies cannot be spoiled in the first six months of life". I think this jump to conclusions, is what this article is all about. This article and all the contributors are incompetent to write on the subject. Secondary news sources that cite primary psychological research and behavioral studies often exaggerate their conclusions and fail to put up declaimers about how inconclusive the studies were, how small the sample size etc. I would qualify this article, and many others on wikipedia as 1000 times worse than the secondary mainstream news sources. This is a mish-mash of various theories, presented as facts. This afd reminds me of another afd I participated in. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Knowledge in Islam (2nd nomination). I understand that afd has no bearing here btw but, my point is, in that afd an editor made similar vapid arguments that you and Bearian make here; "afd is not a cleanup" and "omg look at the millions of books and google hits on the subject". Waste of time tbh. Wikipedia is not a publisher of school essays. — hako9 (talk) 11:20, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Demonstrate that cleanup is not possible. Use sources to show this. Hyperbolick (talk) 14:30, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"until the latter got properly written" in reference to this article that we are currently discussing. TarnishedPathtalk 02:52, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sources for this are of a character that there are not for those. Yes, it’s lazy to throw together a bunch of examples, call it an article. But equally lazy to ignore sources properly analyzing the thing as a thing. Hyperbolick (talk) 06:40, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The thing is not encyclopaedic. It's an essay which is original research. TarnishedPathtalk 06:51, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WP:OTHERTHINGS is not a good argument in a deletion discussion. This discussion has been going for a day shy of a month and it's as much of a mess of WP:OR now as when I nominated it. TarnishedPathtalk 03:42, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When argument for deletion revolves around this not being suitable for an encyclopedia to other stuff that is, other stuff is fair game. Incorrect that this is "as much of a mess." Language added now indicates that theories are just claims or assertions. Objection boils down to not liking what sources themselves conclude. Hyperbolick (talk) 07:37, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, because the other stuff isn't being discussed here. TarnishedPathtalk 08:05, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - seems to me like a good candidate for WP:TNT on the basis of WP:SYNTH and WP:SOAP. Yes it is a term in use and perhaps if the page was just sub of the first paragraph we wouldn't be having this AfD. But pages are not college essays. So let's delete until someone can write a better page on the topic. JMWt (talk) 08:48, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete this dangerous OR, WP:SYNTH violation. The sources are terrible. This is not simply an essay on a popular concept. This pseudopsych is presented as a behavioral syndrome replete with objective criteria and differential diagnosis when it is no such thing. I am a psychologist (a fact that is easily verified), and I know the dangerous potential of misrepresenting something as a clinical syndrome when it isn't one. Fixing the article would not simply be a matter of deleting the inappropriate sections because all that would be left would barely form a stub. As an admin, I really would like to close this as a delete because the delete !votes make the stronger case and, as people who don't like specific AfD outcomes love to harp on, it is not a vote. However, this has already been relisted too many times, so I feel I should weigh in with my own !vote, and I urge the closing admin to study the arguments and content carefully. At a glance, this may look like no consensus, but consensus is also about the strength of the case. DoczillaOhhhhhh, no! 08:59, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One of the relisting admin's noted when they relisted that they were doing so because of "lack of keep rationale". Speaks for itself. I trust the closing admin will look at the quality of the arguments. TarnishedPathtalk 09:43, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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.