Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Depression and natural therapies

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. Most of the concerns of the delete side should be discussed in talk Secret ^account 15:22, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Depression and natural therapies

Depression and natural therapies (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

WP:POVFORK from the Clinical Depression article. Discussions in both article agreed that this was an inappropriate fork, however a discussion on merging relevant info into the Clinical Depression, resulted in no consensus because the CD article is already fairly long and already covers the topic in Clinical depression#Other methods of treatment. Only link to this article is from Antidepressant as a see also. Collectonian (talk) 01:10, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. -- -- pb30<talk> 01:14, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
• Merge into the above mentioned section of Clinical Depression. Doesn't need its own article. --BelovedFreak 01:43, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
• Retain and keep separate. If the two articles are merged it would create an article of more than 80k in length with over 110 references -- too much for readers. We simply don't need to say everything in one article. And we can't afford to lose important sourced content through deletion. Johnfos (talk) 03:03, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
• Retain and keep separate. First of all this is absolutely not a POV fork. The original creator of the article stated right up front that he just wanted to put a few documented natural therapies for depression in their own article. Exercising POV would be in deleting this article, because, as one can see from the references, there are good scientific studies backing up these treatments as legitimate and not any POV. The article should be separate because these are alternative but legitimate treatments for depression, not what depression is itself like in the main article, and as one can see, some people with an agenda would like to delete them. 30,000 to 40,000 people in the U.S. and about 1 million people worldwide kill themselves each year as a result of depression. This article could definitely save lives, so let's keep it. --WriterHound (talk) 03:29, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• If the information was neutral and accurate, it would be helpful, however this article is not. It pushed an anti-medication view, and it is unlikely this article could "save lives." The article has several extremely fringe theories and a lot of is poorly sourced. The coffee section, for example, is sourced from a single "prospective" study, not a full study or clinical trial. The study also looked a very specific group of women aged 34 to 59 and it does not specifically look at people diagnosed with clinical depression. The way the article is written and reinterprets this source falls squarely under original research. Collectonian (talk) 05:51, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• Delete Unless any of these 'therapies' can be shown to be effective by proper peer reviewed medical trials. At present the article merely asserts that various substances treat this complaint and this is highly misleading as there's nothing to prove they work. Nick mallory (talk) 03:47, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• comment They don't have to work to be notable. We have articles on snake oil, mesmerism and unicorns, because they are notable. Any "extensive coverage" by "reliable (secondary) sources" ought to establish notability for a topic. After all, imagine there was an influential, scientifically rigorous empirical debunking of a "natural therapy", that's no less relevant to an encyclopedia than a double-blind study demonstrating effectiveness. Pete.Hurd (talk) 04:14, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, so there'd be no objection to me writing 'there is no evidence that this substance has any effectiveness for this complaint' after each instance then? The secondary sources should be proper medical journals and sources, otherwise they have no value - just as blogs or other self published sources have no value for references on other topics. Encyclopedias shouldn't be in the business of pushing misleading medical information. Lots of drugs are derived from 'natural' substances, something either works or it doesn't, it's either medicine or it isn't. The 'cures' discussed here will have test results and discussions in medical journals if they're legitimate, if they don't then they're not. This natural therapy stuff is just bogus snake oil salesmanship. There are a few sources given here for Reiki for instance, and while I'm happy to concede that can have a placebo effect (especially for something like depression) there's no way that this is medicine. Nick mallory (talk) 04:42, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it's totally appropriate, probably necessary even, for the Scientific Point of View to be presented (double plus if supported by WP:RS), I'm just saying that if the SPOV is "this is bunk", that's not grounds for deletion. Pete.Hurd (talk) 05:35, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• Nick's objection is not only irrelevant but it is baseless as the article already contains references to papers in medical journals. Colonel Warden (talk) 11:57, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Not all of the sections are referenced from peer reviewed journals. Just because a journal is about the topic of science, or what one purports to be science, does not make the reference a peer reviewed (and hence truly a scientific) journal. Given the nature of the article, I would think that is important in terms of meeting WP:V. Otherwise, it becomes a claim that could be answered in any published source including TV Guide or People. LonelyBeacon (talk) 20:22, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• You are reaching in an unscientific way. The article references plenty of appropriate and respectable sources, not the TV Guide or People. Colonel Warden (talk) 00:02, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I never claimed they were .... only that TV Guide and People were also not peer reviewed, as it appears some (not all, some) of the references here are - again to emphasize, my concern is not with every source). In a scientific article, the sources should come primarily from peer reviewed sources, as those are the standard works used to support scientific findings. If this is not a scientific article, then appropriate notices should be placed in appropriate places as to not confuse people who might be led to thinking this was scientifically supported. I think that is all Nick was saying. LonelyBeacon (talk) 01:10, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

• Delete and if necessary relocate good information. Much of the article should be in individual pages, such as Acupuncture, Amino Acids, Coffee, Inositol, and Reiki. This is a clear POV fork and I feel it was written for a particular POV as well, evidenced by subtle POV statements such as "drug companies have responded with a vast arsenal of antidepressant medications" and "they nevertheless may have a contribution to make". VigilancePrime (talk) 04:28, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
• Delete - I'm with Nick mallory. If this article does survive this review, there needs to be unambiguous warnings in the article when non-peer reviewed sources are not being used as sources. It needs to be clear that these views are not endorsed by the mainstream scientific community. LonelyBeacon (talk) 05:43, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
• comment I see the biggest problem here is the use of the word "natural": S-Adenosyl methionine is "natural", how about Mesembrine, Inositol... a more accurate title for this article as it stands would be DIY therapies for depression. Much of this article replicates Clinical_Depression#Other_methods_of_treatment, if the argument for maintaining this article separate is hat merging it back into Clinical_Depression makes it too long, then why leave the Other_methods_of_treatment section in there. This article could use a lot of work, but it's not irredeemably bad, or hopelessly biased. I'm leaning towards endorsing a merge of properly sourced material back into Clinical_Depression, or merging this and Clinical_Depression#Other_methods_of_treatment into some article with a better criterion for inclusion than "natural". Pete.Hurd (talk) 06:14, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
• Delete as per Nick m. Xdenizen (talk) 08:20, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. Textbook POV fork, borderline WP:SPAM (especially in the "herbal" sections). Tevildo (talk) 11:21, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
• Keep The topic is clearly distinct and notable and there are many sources, e.g. Google Books which returns hundreds of hits including books with titles such as Healing Depression Naturally, User's Guide to Natural Remedies for Depression , Understanding Depression - Natural Solutions That Really Work and The Instinct to Heal: Curing Stress, Anxiety, and Depression Without Drugs. Colonel Warden (talk) 11:39, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• Keep I think there is enough here for an article. Will need careful sourcing and watching. The title may need adjustment, per Pete.Hurd, though i do not immediately see what is the best one. DGG (talk) 01:15, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• Keep Most of the above criticisms could be met by editing the text. Eg, the section on coffee was not originally part of the article; if it doesn't come up to scratch, improve or delete that section. You don't delete a whole article because one section isn't up to scratch.

Some of the above comments betray plenty of prejudice, eg the statement that these therapies are "snake oil". This is very much a POV which is very biased. Someone said that these treatments are not medicine, but something doesn't have to be medicine to be worth writing about. Remember, the point of an article is not to prove a subject, but simply to tell people about it.

Sardaka (talk) 07:53, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Comment - However, in an article that is using a scientific definition as its basis, one would expect what follows to be scientific in nature. That is not wholly true with every part of this article. The term "snake oil" is not a put down, in as much as it is applied to something that purports to be one thing, and is in fact not. This article starts with a scientific definition, and then goes into a mixture of scientific and non-scientific claims, without differentiating. All I and others are proposing is: if it survives deletion, the non-scientific parts either get scientific references, or get warnings that they are not supported by the scientific community. I don't think there's anything POV about that. LonelyBeacon (talk) 14:24, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• Whatever the result, don't merge anything into the main article. If the bunk is needed on WP keep it separate. Also rename it to something as "Folk therapies of depression", "natural" is merely marketing buzzword here. Pavel Vozenilek (talk) 18:45, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
• Comment: the word "natural" is not a marketing buzzword. Natural therapies is a perfectly well accepted expression in common use as a way of distinguishing these therapies from more conventional medicine that is increasingly technological in nature. To talk about natural therapies in connection with depression is merely to say that we are examining the non-technological therapies and how they may relate to depression.

However, if enough people object to the word "natural", we could instead call them complementary therapies, which I have found is widely accepted.

Sardaka (talk) 11:18, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

• Delete or Merge into Clinical Depression. This article lacks proper sourcing for many of the allegations it contains. Further, the provided references do not, largely, give a good showing of the scientific basis for the remedies. Even more to the point, perhaps, Clinical depression already covers the various treatment methods for depression, whether "natural" or otherwise. A separate article for some subset of treatments is confusing, at best. If some of the specific remedies mentioned in this article are not in Clinical Depression, and if they can be justified with good sources, that is where they should go. Anything else should be deleted.Tim Ross 23:34, 13 January 2008 (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.