Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Frequency of autism

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 Redirect to Autism (incidence). —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-03-14 11:00Z

[edit] Frequency of autism

Frequency of autism (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

This article was nominated for deletion on 5 April 2006. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

I am nominating this article for deletion mainly due to the fact that the title is misleading, but also due to the fact that the information is readily available in better-labelled articles, namely Autism (incidence), Causes of autism, Controversies in autism, and Vaccine controversy.

The title "Frequency of autism" would imply that the article is about just that, but sadly it reads like a soapbox for the "Autism Epidemic" and vaccination controversy movement (See WP:NOT, Wikipedia is not a soapbox). I have attempted to make good faith edits, and to discuss problems, but certain authors refuse to enter into discussion, and simply revert my every edit - to the point of even removing my npov tags.

So after much thought, and many months of trying, I am nominating the article for deletion on the grounds of:

• duplication
• mis-representation
• being a soapbox

aLii 03:01, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

• Keep Appears to be relatively well written, and sourced, article. I think perhaps further discussion may be helpful, rather deleting such a body of information. Cloveoil 05:24, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

  Discussion has been tried. For a whole year. There isn't a problem with sources, but with POV editing and everything described above. The information can also be found spread across the articles listed above, where it is in a much more relevent place. aLii 09:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• Merge - very soapboxy, or, at best, misguided. It almost seems as if the article text is written for a phantom article called Autism Epidemic, which would be highly dubious - it's an epidemic in that more cases are being reported, but there's a growing trend in psychiatry to diagnose something - anything, and one man's autistic child is another man's eccentric savant. --Action Jackson IV 05:41, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: See Colin' comment below - as you suspected, apparently this article was in fact created to sidestep the deletion of an article entitled "Autism epidemic". MastCell 17:36, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

(later interjection) Actually it was a renaming, which Ombudsman refuses even now to accept, rather than a creation. Midgley 23:53, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Glad you sought to verify your facts. Make sure you get it straight, this AfD is about the the two year old article that was originally Autism epidemic. This original article has an intact edit history. The pov fork Autism (incidence) article has a much shorter history, and it is not the only article to have been hijacked to a far less visible page. Yes, there was a different pov fork version created in an abuse of process by user:Midgley, that was part of the backdrop to the earlier AfD fiasco about this, the original autism epidemic article. Midgley was reprimanded for creating a sock puppet for The Invisible Anon, Essjay was being disruptive in removing a complaint about Midgley, and abusive in blocking the wrong editor. Please see comment below about the Essjay controversy. Essjay actively aided with the creator of the pov fork, after a much deserved complaint was leveled against the creator of the pov fork The article in question here and now was original autism epidemic article, not the pov fork created by user:Midgley, his Autism (incidence) article with the much shorter edit history was indeed created in tandem with the old AfD linked above, during which the article in questin here was also subjected to, simultaneously a) a name change, despite not having a consensus on an alternative title b) the AfD attempt one year ago, which was fraught with gamesmanship, c) a daughter pov fork article created by an editor affiliated with the National Health Service (NHS), which is in the middle of many debates over the mushrooming autism epidemic crisis (the pov fork is now poised, a year later, to subsume the parent article), and d) meddling by user:Essjay that benefitted User:Midgley, an NHS editor who was also engaged in sockpuppetry in the very same time frame. Thanks for making sure that was brought up, because no one could even find this article because the name is wrong, which is the real question at hand). In a gross abuse of process, the article and edit history is preserved in accordance with what Jonathan's Law will soon make law. The article and edit history was shoved to the current page title without reasonable discussion, and the talk page has remained attached to the autism epidemic page. The original article has come under withering attack, due to mistaken notions like the one you have set forth, MastCell. Sadly, it's not surprising that this AfD has gained momentum from a single editor with a gust of shuffled paper (with rich overtones reminiscent of Flowers for Algernon), in the way the Wiki is turning prostrate to the lockstep paper shufflers. The Wiki has already developed a bias atuned much too strictly, almost as if transfixed, to the likes of the JVCI/NHS and the ACIP/CDC) -- in tandem with simultaneous gross misrepresentations . The Framing effect article resulted directly as a result of misrepresentations associated with Midgley, JFDWolff, and the NHS, apparently inserted with the deliberate intent to inflame, e.g., the pov fork author's hijacking of the npov vaccination critics page, which morphed into the pov ridden anti-vaccinationists, a title intended to inflame, rather than contribute to informed consent for the parents, guardians, and children affliected by autism --- another issue, pejorative article titles, that is clearly meant to undermine, by editors apparently bent on sending the page edit history down the old memory hole. Hopefully, the disgrace of this AfD fiasco is not indicative of Wikipedia's possible deliberate non-complance with New York's Jonathan's Law. Ombudsman 02:46, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

... AfD, like Wikipedia in general, is not a soapbox. If I was sure I understood what you're getting at with Jonathan's Law, I'd suggest you don't make legal threats, either. MastCell 04:19, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Please do not respond by trying to confuse distinct issues. If you intend to distract attention away from the facts in the matter, that is what your earlier comment will do, just as Midgley's explanation about different clock settings had nothing to do with the discussion about the impropriety of his creation of a pov fork at the time of the first AfD. Please stick to the facts, rather than speculating about the huge number of new laws going into effect besides Jonathan's Law, such as the Combating Autism Act. Ombudsman 04:32, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

There's only one issue to be discussed here, and it has nothing to do with Essjay, Jonathan's Law, or the NHS. It's this: does this article meet Wikipedia's guidelines and policies for inclusion? Right now, as a POV fork/duplication from autism (incidence), created to game the system after the deletion of autism epidemic, it looks like it should be deleted. MastCell 04:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

If you wish to discuss pov forking, then you should acknowledge which article was created during the middle of the last AfD fiasco, by a known puppeteer and associate of the National Health Service. That is dubious enough, in and of itself. During the same time frame, Midgley impersonated The Invisible Anon, who clearly was the subject of a wide ranging assault by a number of editors, including user:Essjay, over articles related to the vaccine controversy and controversies in autism. These systematic divide and conquer activities most certainly are directly related both to the autism epidemic article, and to the author of the pov fork, Midgley. You should show and understanding of who perpetrated the pov fork, and about the circumstances surrounding the assistance that Essjay gave to the pov fork creator. Ombudsman 05:06, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• keep' the first part, and rename to prevalence of autism, which is the correct term, and the term used in the article. The second part--about causes--is already discussed in other articles and anything additional here should be merged in. Same for the excellent list of references. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DGG (talk • contribs) 05:58, 9 March 2007 (UTC).
• Merge Some useful info but very soapboxy and a lot of original research. Merge the useful info and delete the rest. Chevinki 07:59, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
• Merge, per above. The deletion of this article would be greater loss than the repeated nature of some of its information. Mkdw^talk 08:36, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. Wikipedia is not a soapbox. --Folantin 10:18, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete/Merge - an essay masquerading as an encyclopedia article, we are not a soapbox. Largely original research and synthesis, and inadequately referenced anyway. Moreschi ^{Request a recording?} 11:37, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete/Merge into Autism (incidence) and Causes of autism if not already done and argue about the content and sources in those two articles. This piece of journalism was originally Autism epidemic, which was nominated for deletion (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Autism epidemic). During that discussion (and without waiting for it to complete), Autism (incidence) was created with some of the content. That was hasty and aggravated things but lets get over it. Can we ignore who created what, when and why? "Frequency" is not the technical term used in epidemiology, so this article's name is inferior IMO. BTW, Autism epidemic is now a redirect being discussed here. Colin°^Talk 12:05, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
• Merge with Autism Al-Bargit 13:23, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete/Merge with autism (incidence) - not because of POV, which is theoretically fixable via dispute resolution, but because it's a content fork; autism incidence means virtually the same thing and already has an article. Relevant content from this article should be merged, and this article should be deleted to prevent duplication/forking. MastCell 17:34, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete/Merge as per Colin. 'Frequency' of autism is the same as incidence of autism while being less scientific language, and the Autism (incidence) article seems to be more factual. This current one seems to be uncomfortable with any evidence against the controversial link with vaccines, and keeps using the discredited Dr. Wakefield as a source. -- Mithent 00:52, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
• speedy keep & restore to original autism epidemic page: Although there is a belief among some who remain in denial about the autism epidemic, the reality is that schools and governments and especially families are already dealing with the enormous impact that has materialized already. The Wiki will only invite more derision if this article is deleted, along with the history of abuse and trolling chronicled on the history pages. Until the discussion about the title of this article is resolved in the wake of the out-of-process 'autism (incidence)' pov fork debacle, the propriety of this AfD is absolutely nil. In the wake of the Essjay controversy, it is clear that the edit history of the original autism epidemic article must be retained and available. This is especially true since Essjay provoked and harassed another editor (an anon who called himself The Invisible Anon), who tried to intervene in order to counter the censorship and WikiTurfing (by editors apparently from the National Health Service) that escalated over the vaccine and autism articles a year ago. (bogus revert of good faith Admin noticeboard post[1]; disruptive block[2]; etc., [3]; sweeping the matter under the rug: [4], followed by edits evidencing complete disregard for accepting responsibility) The pharmaceutical industry has been bracing for the fallout at least since the cloaked and secretive 2000 Simpsonwood CDC conference. Merging to pov fork page, created by an alleged NHS employee apparently to skirt accepted due process at the time of the first AfD, would only serve to reward such abuse of process. Hundreds of citations confirming the sudden and sharp explosion in cases of autism and pervasive developmental orders can easily be found, while researchers not blinded by pharmaceutical industry talking points, like Mark Geier, David Ayoub and Andrew Wakefield, have slowly but surely chipped away at the sort of fraudulent research[5] that has been cranked out on behalf of the drug industry to buttress the disinformation campaigns and obfuscation exemplified by this AfD. One thing that should be added to the article is an examination of the rapid increase in the amount of media coverage (links to come) and governmental hearings[6] (e.g., Jonathan's Law; more links to come) about the autism epidemic. Ombudsman 02:00, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. Ombudsman, you have been given almost a year to clear up this horrible POV mess of an article, but have failed. The only "advance" has been in the renaming, but in some respects that has simply made the article even worse, as the prose is still about the "autism epidemic", rather than being truely about the new title of the article. As far as I'm concerned I hope that the end result is locking both this and Autism epidemic as redirect pages, so that this farce of the past few years can hopefully be halted. There is a place for your controversal ideas on Wikipedia, but the way you push them is far from ideal. aLii 09:31, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
• Comment: Maybe rename to autism conspiracy theories? Seriously, did Essjay trade on his supposed theology degree in the debate? If not, I don't see what the Essjay controversy has to do with it. I'm not a regular editor of autism articles, but it appears from a glance that consensus is currently against you. MastCell 20:21, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, MastCell, this is not a vote, an AfD by its very nature is supposed to be a call for a voice of reason, not a call for absent minded forgetfulness about the serial abuse of processes whereby the pov fork article created by an editor whose antics deserved the complaint that user:Essjay removed. Then Essjay blocked the anon that user:Midgley created and abused a sockpupet of. If you look through the conversation strewn about Essjay's parsed talk pages, you will find that Essjay immediately archived his page when confronted about his abusive block on the anon sockpuppeted by Midgley. Ombudsman 03:51, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

This isn't dispute resolution, so let's not use it to rehash your complaints against Essjay and Midgley. MastCell 04:23, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

What this happens to be is a discussion that involves abuse of process, and you seem to be avoiding discussion of the abuse of process that led up to the damage caused to the article by allowing a page name change despite a failed AfD. The original AfD failed, but that decision was in effect ignored, while serious discussion about the page name was undermined because of the bogus name change that violated the propriety of the AfD process. Please don't make any more inappropriate misreprestations about the nature of the discussion here. It is about the abuse of process, exemplified by the fact that the page was shoved into purgatory out of process, despite a complete lack of consensus about if, much less where, the page should be moved. Now you appear to be doing the same misleading thing, distracting attention from the facts of the matter. Ombudsman 05:16, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Obudsman, why don't you forget about conspiracy theories and start thinking about coming up with a good reason that your article should be saved? I have nothing to do with either of the editors you seem to have issues with, and it was I that nominated your article for deletion. For the record I also have nothing to do with the NHS or medicine in any way, so your theories just don't hold up.

Whichever article out of Frequency of autism and Autism (incidence) was created first is quite irrelevent if they've both been stable for a year or so. The "Frequency" article has huge POV, and doesn't address it's subject properly. The "Incidence" article doesn't mention vaccinations, but has no POV problems unless your personal POV is truely twisted. One of your "vaccination is bad" friends put the npov tag on the "Incidence" article last month, but has failed to come up with a single reason as to why he thought so. I haven't seen one from you either, yet you constantly say it has problems. If you honestly believe that your issues with the article will hold up, why don't you attempt to nominate that article for a deletion debate?

I repeat that you've had almost a year to clean your article up. I suggest that you start working on it now to remove it's soapbox style and "vaccination is bad" POV. I've done it a few times, so you can go through the edit history and revert yourself back to my edit - shouldn't be too hard. aLii 09:22, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• Redirect to autism (incidence) , as the salvageable material looks like it was lifted from that article anyway (or maybe the other way around) (duplication per nom), and the rest is just soapboxy nonsense (soapbox and misreprentation per nom). Baccyak4H (Yak!) 03:02, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
• Redirect to autism (incidence), no merge. Just a platform for vaccine junk science. Rhobite 06:26, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
• Redirect per others. No merge. JFW | T@lk 23:04, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
• Redirect. Heavily duplicates better written less-POV material elsewhere. --Limegreen 10:05, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
• redirect to main entry Largely unproven theories (particularly controversial) need to be minimized in wiki-landDroliver 20:41, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
• Redirect to autism (incidence). Looks like a soapbox and even if not, it's redundant in view of the article dedicated to incidence. Tt 225 16:45, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
• Redirect / merge to autism (incidence) and focus the article, especially by removing detail about vaccinations and other terms which properly belong in an article on causes of autism. The search term autism epidemic also redirects to autism (incidence), which is ostensibly what this article is supposed to be about. Irene Ringworm 22:29, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
• comment: There is a distinct difference between the issues of what causes autism in specific instances, which is what the article you mention is about, and the causes for the explosion of cases to the tens of million globally. This is not a subtle distinction, though the issue is clouded by half truth statements like yours. Ombudsman 03:39, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep: I sort of agree with CloveOil. Q0 22:53, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

  See my reply to CloveOil then (just written). aLii 09:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• Block Ombudsman for violating the terms of his probation - disrupting a page on a medical topic by tendentious editing. Don't merge Ombudsman's autism epidemic soapbox with autism (incidence) please, all the facts in the former page (and probably still some non-facts, alas) were demerged or shelled out into autism incidence, then it was restricted (largely, but not completely, yet) to information about incidence, which is distinct from prevalence, both of which are interesting, and neither of which is even clearly known, never mind agreed upon. Frequency is not quite a topic - it isn't clear what it means - whether prevalence, incidence or something else (the latter, I think, in realistic terms for that page). I find it curious that anyone describes the autism frequency page as "well written", it isn't, it isn't encyclopaedic and much of it fails even to be grammatical. Ombudsman introduces, above, a lot of irrelevancies, as he does all over the shop, but the anonymous user who refused to register the username he presented himself as was a real nuisance here and elsewhere, who departed in the middle of an RFC upon him which he blustered greatly about but in that instance proper WP procedure worked well. Ombudsman probably means by "a much deserved complaint (against me)" an AFD on a page I wrote, which ended in a consensus to keep the article, after considerable unpleasantness but very little information and less relevance from ... the usual suspects. Ditch this, its time has passed and nothing will be lost. Midgley 23:51, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

  Response to Ombudsman. Retract the lie - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AOmbudsman&diff=114947180&oldid=114939235 Midgley 01:22, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Again, the nexus of the problems arises here, wherein legitimate content is all too often allowed to be replaced with misrepresentative material. Replacing the vaccine critics page with an article with an anachronistic term that was more apt before the advent of useful vaccines, such as the later versions of the polio vaccine, clearly shows a propensity within the Wiki's medical articles for, pov misrepresentations that are inherently pejorative. Regardless of the process, a legitimate article title was replaced with a pejoratively titled, pov misrepresentation that only serves to replicate as spam the pov of the medical establishment. That is fact. Your mistaken accusation is inflammatory and untrue, so you are the one, Midgley, in need of making a retraction. Don't feel alone, as even Fred Bauder has engaged in such lamentable framing effect misrepresentations.[7] Nice try at distracting attention from the pattern of pov hegemony consolidation in the Wiki's medical articles, but the focus here is on the propriety of merging a venerable article and its edit history into the memory hole, which came to a head after autism epidemic was recently redirected, away from the original article that directly addresses the topic to the pov fork you created. Much as you created an an article to replace the vaccine critics article with a clearly pejorative titled article Ombudsman 05:19, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete, then redirect to autism (incidence). WP is not the place for the promotion of fringe science propaganda. Rockpocket 02:25, 14 March 2007 (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.