Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2019 January 12

12 January 2019

Category:Autism quackery

Category:Autism quackery (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

An admin stated their objected closure in CfD (diff). Their statement is I object to this close on the grounds of WP:INVOLVED and may take this matter to arbitration if informal discussions to reverse it are unsuccessful. Jehochman ^Talk 08:44, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

I cannot decide what to do next. So I post here to request other people comment. See also closer talk page Hhkohh (talk) 09:41, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Permalink to the discussion

• Comment by closer. I speedily deleted the category per WP:G4, WP:G10 and WP:BLP, which I judged to be sufficiently significant to outweigh WP:INVOLVED. Extended statement to follow, but see also User talk:BrownHairedGirl#Quackery. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:47, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Consensus on this type of category was clearly established in an exceptionally extensive CFD debate at WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 May 1#Category:Pseudoscientists, which was closed by a panel of 3 admins. That closure was upheld at WP:Deletion review/Log/2014 June 2.

That was probably the most broadly-based CFD which I have seen in 13 years of closely watching CFD. It reached a very clear conclusion.

That is why I speedily deleted this category, and also Category:Quacks and Category:American quacks ... all per per WP:BLP/WP:G4/WP:G10.

Here's the relevant section, which prompted my actions. I have added bolding to the most relevant section.

The category will therefore be renamed Category:Advocates of pseudoscience (as of May 23, categories may be renamed through a page move, and this will be implemented once that option becomes available). Furthermore, this category will only serve as a holding category for subcategories (and should be tagged with {{container category}}). This category therefore should be empty as to articles, and should contain only subcategories such as Category:Alchemists and Category:Phrenologists, on the condition that reliable sources generally classify the subcategorized field itself as a pseudoscience. The rename makes the category more accurate (all astrologers advocate in some sense for a pseudoscience, but not all are pseduoscientists as many employ pure mysticism), while the depopulation largely eliminates the BLP problem (people do not self-identify as pseduoscientists, but do self-identify as crytozoologists). Because of this subcategorization, the "pseudoscientist" category will not appear on the articles of subjects, and therefore will not be detrimental to article subjects who might dispute that categorization.

It is regrettable that 4 years later, the BLP and neutrality principles which were asserted then on the basis of such substantive discussion are apparently controversial among some editors.

In particular, the term "quack" is significantly more derogatory than than "pseudoscientist". The OED definition of "quack" explicitly ties it to dishonesty, which is not necessarily the case with pseudoscience (which may be based on ignorance or folly).

There are many forms of words which can be used to describe those who advocate medical treatments which fall outside the current consensus, or which have been disproven. The use of attack labels such as the word "quack" is particularly problematic in categories, because categories appear at the bottom of articles without any qualification or attribution, as required per WP:WEIGHT.

WP:BLP and WP:NPOV are core policies on en.Wikipedia. We should not have to endless relitigate their application to this field, when the community has already had such an extensive discussion about it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:18, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

• Overturn See also Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion#Bulk deletions on 'stale' CfDs? and a series of speedy deletions Category:Quacks etc. citing the 2014 CfD.

I think this warrants going to ANI, or further, as clear action by an INVOLVED admin. I see no reason to choose to ignore INVOLVED because we have no shortage of other admins to do so, there was no rush and no evident delay in getting it closed. Admins do not get to ignore policies on their whim like this, we have INVOLVED for a reason. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:56, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

• Overturn (I prefer re-open) and let some other admin close it. We have plenty of admins. No need for an admin who was heavily involved in the discussion to close the discussion. Also, no need for speedy process here. Baby went out with the bath water. The category contained multiple non-BLP articles. Also, the discussion consensus was to rename, not to delete. Jehochman ^Talk 10:02, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

• Several of those non-BLP articles related to small organisations. WP:BLPGROUP notes the policy does not generally apply to groups, BUT that A harmful statement about a small group or organization comes closer to being a BLP problem than a similar statement about a larger group; and when the group is very small, it may be impossible to draw a distinction between the group and the individuals that make up the group.

The category as it stood was a blatant attack category, per WP:G10, which says Examples of "attack pages" may include libel, legal threats, material intended purely to harass or intimidate a person or biographical material about a living person that is entirely negative in tone and unsourced. These pages should be speedily deleted when there is no neutral version in the page history to revert to.

The category's creator explicitly labelled the category as unevidenced (often harmful) quack treatments. In the CFD discusison, the creator described the category as an opinionated value judgment[1], and also explicitly state their desire to use to attach the label "quackery" to an identifed individual.[2] So the attacking intent seems very clear: to label those involved as causing harm, and as dishonest.

I urge editors to think carefully about both the specific consequences of endorsing attacking categories in this field, and the consequences of the wider precedent which would be set by tolerating blatant attack categories such as this. Note that other attack categories relating to science such as Category:Climate change deniers have been deleted (that one at WP:CFD 2015 Oct 16).

I know that some editors have very strong views on these matters, and sincerely believe that they have a responsibility to warn readers against some treatments. However the same applies to many areas of public controversy. As an NPOV encyclopedia, it is not Wikipedia's role to promote disparaging terminology for topics where editors have strong feelings. We do not, for example, categorise people as Category:Terrorists, and there is no reason to categorise in this field by opinionated value judgment. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:10, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

• You're trying to explain your breach of INVOLVED by claiming that it was really important for the category to go. That is not the issue here. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:30, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
• From Carlos the Jackal: Carlos the Jackal, is a Venezuelan terrorist

So yes, we do identify BLP subjects as terrorists, rightly so, and we also identify Jenny McCarthy as an anti-vaccine activist. We can (and the CfD does) discuss what the phrasing for this should be – but that's still a long way from a single-handed CSD against consensus. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:35, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

• Autism Research Institute is also in Category:Alternative medicine organizations and Rope worms is also in Category:Pseudoscience so it is not super obvious to what extent BLP should play a role in categorisation. I think this discussion really is about where we should draw the line with respect to BLP issues and the outcome of that discussion is uncertain. But it is not up to WP:DRV to develop a view in this discussion so I would rather favour reopening the CfD discussion. Marcocapelle (talk) 14:15, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

• Comment, Category:Autism quackery contained non-biographical articles like Autism Research Institute and Rope worms. So there is not a WP:BLP issue in the same way there was in 2014. Marcocapelle (talk) 10:40, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
  • See my reply above to Jehochman about WP:BLPGROUP, and note that both Autism Research Institute and Rope worms identify individuals. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:13, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

• Category creator's response As the category's creator I was a bit disappointed to see that Autism:Quackery had been deleted (incidentally I was unaware of the previous 2014 discussion about Pseudoscientists) and wanted to thank @Jehochman: for re-opening the discussion / objecting. My own objection differs somewhat (I'm neutral about who closes it). Mine's that I really, strongly, think that - given the increase in popularity of unevidenced (and potentially harmful) autism treatments - a specific category that covers both autism and 'potentially harmful interventions or ideas' is helpful for knitting those otherwise disparate pages together. Is it possible to have a category that can only be used for 'things' or beliefs, and not for people? I think the main objection in its pejorative use was that it was used to categorise people, such as Jenny McCarthy (in fact I added that category to her page, so my fault) though by doing so I had no intention of 'attacking' her, it was simply that she is a promoter of unevidenced ideas relating to autism (already explicitly noted in her article). I'm aware of the irony here but I really don't think it's particularly fair to categorise me as having an 'attacking intent', but I realise outcome and intention can appear the same even when unintended. Anyway... I don't think 'quackery' or 'pseudoscience' is especially pejorative if applied to CEASE therapy or Rope worms (the references to the self-published authors can be removed, and couldn't the category can be removed and 'disallowed' for the Autism Research Institute?), as others have also commented. It does feel a bit baby / bathwater. Is there an option that restricts how a category can be used, eg 'this category may not be applied to living persons'? P.S. I didn't get a notification that the discussion had moved here, I just happened to spot it while looking glumly at the blue-background text on the CfD page. I may be slow to respond as I'm out for most of the rest of the day. Thanks :) JoBrodie (talk) 12:18, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

• JoBrodie the category to which you added McCarthy was specifically described by you as a category for unevidenced (often harmful) quack treatments. It seems to me to be quite bizarre to claim that attaching the label "unevidenced", "harmful" and "quack" to a person is anything other an attack.

You may regard it a justified attack, but Wikipedia is not a place to Right Great Wrongs. That sort of crusading has many homes on the internet, but this is an NPOV encyclopedia. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:34, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

This argument is a red herring. If there is good sourcing we will write and categorize subjects negatively. If I call somebody a murderer or thief, that would be extremely slanderous, unless it’s true. We have Category:Murderers and Category:Thieves. We can make a category for those promoting unscientific automatism treatments. The title needs to be NPOV and anybody included has to have a solid reference. We fix NPOV violations by editing, not by mass deletion. Jehochman ^Talk 13:03, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

In addition, please stop flooding the discussion with walls of text. Jehochman ^Talk 13:08, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Jehochman, you are the one pushing a red herring.

If this was Category:Unscientific autism treatments, there would be no BLP/G10 issues, and no question of me speedy deleting it. The BLP/G10 arises out of the use of attack terminology.--BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:01, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

• Overturn, this category is not a recreation of a category deleted per an XFD discussion and so is ineligible for G4. We should never interpret XFD results as broadly as was urged here to justify speedy deletion, where it is merely the same "type" of category, as the closer describes it above. The closer's interpretation would also justify speedy deleting Category:Pseudoscience because we had deleted Category:Pseudoscientists, or Category:Terrorism because we had deleted Category:Terrorists, examples that should hopefully make it clear that a category for individuals raises different issues than a topical category such that a judgment on one is not the same as a judgment on the other. This is also why the G10 and BLP claims fail, and I see nothing in policy that empowers admins to make those kinds of determinations outside of a demonstrated consensus on that particular category. postdlf (talk) 14:25, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
• Void close and trout. BrownHairedGirl is clearly WP:INVOLVED due to participation at the CfD. Back out the close and leave it for some uninvolved admin to re-close. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:57, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

PS, I'm not advocating an overturn to any particular outcome. CfD has its own nuanced policies and customs; we should leave it somebody who is familiar with those to handle the actual re-close. Our job here is just to observe that the current close was out of process. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:03, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

This is quackery.

• Endorse for what I think are obvious reasons: WP:G10. I can't believe a group of adults actually seriously discussed keeping a category called "______ Quackery". That is an obvious "attack category"–it's not even a close call. Unless you're talking about ducks or geese, calling anyone or anything a "quack" or "quackery" is a blatant insult and thus a personal attack. This is an encyclopedia, it should be encyclopedic in tone, meaning professional and neutral. "Quackery" is not professional or neutral. That the creator of this category then went to add a BLP to it strains my ability to assume good faith. It seems like we wanted to officially call Jenny a quack, and while she might be one, that is not for an encyclopedia to do. I have issues with "pseudoscience" as a similarly-loaded term. I don't see the reason to sort all of human knowledge into two categories: science and fiction. First of all, let's step back and realize that a lot of things that were once considered "quackery" are now considered "science," and vice versa. Secondly, we are not here to right great wrongs. Thirdly, while I personally can live with a container category "pseudoscience" (but not a "pseudoscientist" category, for the same reason "terrorism" is ok but not "terrorist"), there comes a point where something is such an obviously bad idea or a such an obvious attack that speedily deleting it is the right move (as opposed to a discussion about how to move it/change it/otherwise clean it up). The "murderer" analogy is a bad one because being a murderer involves being convicted of murder, whereas there is no formal legal process for labelling one a "quack" (or a "pseudoscientist"). This was a bold admin action and I'm no fan of supervotes, but in this case, I think a very experienced editor made the right call and I support it. Levivich (talk) 18:44, 12 January 2019 (UTC)