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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by User:SandyGeorgia 21:48, 6 December 2008 [1].

Major depressive disorder

[edit]
Nominator(s): Casliber (talk · contribs)

This can be considered a group nomination, although where to draw the line can be hazy. For some months, three editors (me, Cosmic Latte and Paul Gene) have been in a concerted effort to get this here, along with EverSince and others along the way. delldot gave a very thorough review, and orangemarlin, Tony and many others have chipped in with advice, including negotiating a way through alternative therapies and so forth. Do I think it is perfect? No, but I do honestly feel it is one of Wikipedia's best articles and stands up well with others I have been involved with. We didn't send it to GAN mainly as delldot did such a thorough workthrough and the size was such I sorta felt it was a big ask for one editor to read and judge. One final thing, the article stands at 51 kb readable prose, 1 kb more than the upper limit for FAC. However, I have been unable to figure out what the last little bit to lose, or whether folks felt ignoring the rules WRT article size was okay. I figured this may be the best venue for consensus on this, in the coal-face as it were. Anyway, lemme know how we can make it betterer. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:57, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Restart: old nom with Restart notes. Images have changed and need a new review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:49, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Could someone drop a note on my talk page when the image choices are stabilized and I'll rereview then? Thanks! Awadewit (talk) 21:15, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just out of curiosity than anything else: can you tell me where this 50kb prose limit comes from? That would make both this article, and say, The Wire (both at 60kb prose now) ineligible for FAC. Sceptre (talk) 22:30, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
WP:SIZE. Awadewit (talk) 22:34, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And, no, it doesn't make them ineligible: WP:SIZE is a guideline, 10,000 words is a suggested max, and MDD is at 8,500 words (compared to RCC for example at 12,000). See User:Dr pda/Featured article statistics. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:37, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Incidentally, I myself would never oppose an article for simply being too long (although I would had it too many references), but I would suggest splitting the article into subarticles. In this article's case, a split I would suggest would be something like history and social impact; causes and symptoms; and diagnosis and treatment; and I would not oppose it for having nearly 300 references; medical articles I often exempt. That said, I won't support the article either. It'd be too daunting for me to read, and I don't like reviewing articles where I don't know much about the topic (in this case, apart from everyone's "knowing somebody who knows somebody", I know little about the subject). HTH HAND. Sceptre (talk) 01:10, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I freely admit size has been a problem, and has resulted in the birth of some subarticles already, thus we have a treatment (the treatment section was significantly trimmed) and biology article, and I have taken out some material that would be better placed in a future causes article. Furthermore there is a major depressive episode article, and various links to antidepressant and electro-convulsive therapy. History of mental disorders is also linked and this section was trimmed down alot. Question is, what to take out without compromising the comprehensiveness here? Prioritising this has been tricky and wieghing up clinical vs historical vs encyclopedic (whatever that means). I did try to rank snippets and see what was more important before relegating some to subpages. I will see if we can relegate a bit more, as we have various subpages already. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:01, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm tending to agreeing with Cosmic Latte; flicking through, I did notice a lot of offshoot articles already. I think this is a perfect balance between short and long, just looking briefly at it. Sceptre (talk) 02:34, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
< Note regarding restart notifications moved to Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Major depressive disorder#Moved 1.> SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:07, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(sourced on commons page now) Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:06, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Image concerns addressed. Awadewit (talk) 18:08, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose There are several issues but, to be brief, let me give one: that the language of the article contains too much jargon and so contravenes our policy WP:NOT PAPER. For example, consider the first sentence of the section on causes: "The etiology of mental disorders is best appreciated through a multidimensional integrative approach that disfavors reductionism and encourages models that consider a wide array of biological, psychological, and social forces." This seems quite horrid and compares poorly with another online encylopedic treatment which has "There are many different factors that can trigger depression.". Colonel Warden (talk) 09:51, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Agree, I reread it and realised it was very general and no meaning was lost by its removal, and so removed. We did make a concerted effort to remove jargon but some has crept back in with a rejigging. We are trying to address it and you are welcome to list more on the MDD talk page)Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:48, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I supported the FAC before the restart, and have now reread it thoroughly. I think the article has improved in many aspects since my last read, so technically it would be silly of me not to support now. Anyway, I have a number of comments written at Talk:Major depressive disorder#Skagedal's comments, and just for the fun of it I'm going to wait with my support !vote until a few things have been addressed. These are the things I find most important:
    • Agree with Colonel Warden about jargony language at some places; there are some specific examples in my notes.
    • Religion as a protective factor stands out; explained better in my talk page notes.
    • "Psychological treatments" is not that well balanced; purely behavioral treatments are missed, and a specific treatment that hasn't received that much research (MBCT) is given undue room, occupying one out of five paragraphs. – strike as balance is now much better; still have minor issues but will take on talk page
    • There's a lot of talk about the role of rumination in modern psychological conceptualizations and treatments, this should be discussed. Forgot this one in my notes. Sorry for not being more specific, I'm in a bit of a rush at the moment. – strike as not specific/actionable, will return to this later on talk page. /skagedal... 10:06, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll make sure to strike these as addressed or adequately discussed on talk page. /skagedal... 11:09, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support. Meets FAC criteria and is among the site's best work. Good job Casliber et al. Articles on substantial topics will always have areas of contention. On an open and anonymous project, no one will ever unilaterally agree on the exact presentation of any topic of importance, and someone will always have one more thing to "improve". None of this affects the greater notion that this article is among wikipedia's best work. If FAC takes the endless-laundry-list approach to even broad-topic articles, we will never be able to feature the site's real best work. Feature it and keep working on it, if you like. –Outriggr § 02:57, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – I agree with what Outriggr says. My "endless-laundry-list" at talk page was meant as a possibly helpful list of things I thought about when reading through, not as a "fix this or I won't support". I apologize to the nominators if I was sending mixed signals on this, so let's be clear: This is a great, well balanced, comprehensive, WP:WIAFA-meeting article. /skagedal... 10:35, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Concerns resolved, Vassyana (talk) 15:37, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I still think this is a solid article. I played devil's advocate to pick through the sources. I found:
  • Nearly all of the "out of date" materials cited are used to document historical views, as complementary sources, to relate information unlikely to suffer from dating (or known to retain relevance), or to report the views of prominent figures in the field.
  • "Learned helplessness[43] and depression may be related to what American psychologist Julian Rotter, a social learning theorist, called an external locus of control, a tendency to attribute outcomes to events outside of personal control.[44]" (Is this an editorial observation or what the source reports? It is unclear whether this is a good citation or original research as presented. The use of a citation at the beginning of the sentence further gives the impression of original research.
I'm the one who inserted the cite at the beginning there -- it's what the source says. I'm not sure I really understand what worries you about this, though. looie496 (talk) 19:04, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The phrasing and chunky citation are general OR red flags. To clear this up, does the first citation explicity state that learned helplessness may be associated with Rotter's theory? Does the second citation explicitly state that depression may be associated with the model? Vassyana (talk) 02:14, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK, ref 2 (at end) has ext. locus control linked to depression. The crux is does ref 1 link learned helplessness with ext. locus of control. I should have read this more closely as the two terms are not synonymous and I will remove it (see talk). Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:00, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, linking learned helplessness with ext. locus of control (and depression) is precisely what ref 1 does. That's why I put the cite there instead of after Rotter, where I thought it would be misleading. Anyway, I see that Cas has removed this sentence entirely, which is the simplest way of solving the problem. looie496 (talk) 17:38, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Milder depression has been associated with what has been called depressive realism, or the "sadder-but-wiser" effect, a view of the world that is relatively undistorted by positive biases.[48]" (The depressive realism model has been heavily criticized. This seems only tangentially related to the article subject, so why not just add a see also link to depressive realism instead of raising the issue in-text?)
  • "Vulnerability factors—such as early maternal loss, lack of a confiding relationship, responsibility for the care of several young children at home, and unemployment—can interact with life stressors to increase the risk of depression in women.[49] However, the validity of risk factors has been widely debated.[50]" (This gives an inaccurate impression to the reader. The validity of risk factors is not widely debated, as such. The principal point of dispute is whether or not those factors increase vulnerability to stressors or stand alone as a risk factors.)
  • "The National Comorbidity Survey (US) reports that 51% of those with major depression also suffer from lifetime anxiety.[208]" While this is certainly a highly notable study, it is over a decade old and the year should be explicitly included in-text.
It's quite the large list of refs, so it's possible that I may have missed something. However, I reviewed the article a few times in an attempt to be completely thorough and did not not any other issues of concern. Vassyana (talk) 18:10, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(included years of NCS as per last point) Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:06, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(removed depressive realism - see MDD talk apge) Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:48, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(removed second sentence on querying vulnerabilities as stand alone factors; it is not a Review article and although interesting, not substantive enough to add a huge deal) Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:48, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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