Talk:Mourning sickness

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[edit] Anna Svidersky section

I'd like to include all the relevant and encyclopedic details involving the exhibition of mourning sickness that occurred on the web following her death. Feel free to be BOLD and add it (with sources of course ;p). However, it's important not to have this one section overwhelm the article. Rather then clutter up the Anna Svidersky AfD, let's hammer out the details and balance here. AgneCheese/Wine 08:54, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Historic examples

Sources would have to be found to avoid OR, but this has surely occurred throughout history with the death of famous people. I recall reading a comparison between the mourning for Princess Diana with a similar occurrence over the death of a famous church man, a cardinal I think, probably Victorian, but my memory is a bit hazy over it. What has happened recently is that someone has given it a name. Tyrenius 00:58, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Avoiding OR

It is original research for editors to launch the typical process of adding names to this article,as they did for Missing white woman syndrome. In that article there was once a long list of esamples [1] which have all for some reason disappeared, even though some were called MWWS by journalists. People vicariously exercising their emotions on the plight of strangers get very angry when their emotional investment is criticized, and seek to blank or delete the offending articles. It is something of a showing of contempt for any person who appropriately grieves the death of someone they respected, even if they did not personally know them, to call the mourning a "sickness." The standard is that it should be labelled such by (preferably multiple) independent and reliable sources. In the U.S. there were massive public displays of grief when President Kennedy was assasinated in 1963 or when Lincoln was assassinated in 1865. Was it mourning sickness? Only if the press or other reliable sources have labelled it thus. So please be careful to cite the sources where a particular episode of mass grieving is called mourning sickness, such as the death of Elvis (I saw people paste a newspaper headline "Elvis Is Dead" in their car window so other Mourners would know their mission, and drive across the US to be at Graceland immediately after Presley died. Today pon the 30th anniversary of Elvis' death, tens of thousands have once again driven across the country to Graceland bringing teddy bears and bouquets or roses to pile around the fence. But that's just my o.r.) The death of any national leader or former national leader or Pope? Is it showing proper respect to stand in line for hours to view the body or sign a condolence book at an embassy across the world, or is the mourning a "sickness?" The determination is not up to the o.r. of Wikipedia editors. Piles of bouquets and teddy bears seems to be something of an index for mourning sickness. In some cultures it might be people rioting in the streets and beating themselves on the head until they bleed. It still needs reliable sources to do the labelling, so as to keep the lists manageable. Edison 16:19, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I just put a neutrality tag on the article. I mainly agree with the views expressed by the writers of the article. But still, their presentation is very one sided and needs to be toned down, at least. (IMO). Steve Dufour 05:04, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
The best thing might be to merge with Mourning. There doesn't seem to be an article on public mourning. Steve Dufour 11:01, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
A neutrality tag would only be appropriate if reliable sources exist to support the opposite viewpoint which are noit included. If they exist, please add them in the next week, or I will remove the neutrality tag. As for a merge, which would have the effect of removing a valid article about a topic which has multiple substantial coverage in reliable and independent sources, thus proving its satisfaction of WP:N, there is no sense in merging an article about pathological mourning (mourning SICKNESS) with an article about something different: mourning as a normal part of the grieving process, acknowledging that ones personal life circumstances have changed forever. Your Mom or your spouse or your child or your friend dies, and you need to mourn. Someone you never met dies and you drive across the country with a teddy bear and a bouquet= mourning sickness, as defined by sociologists and columnists. It is like merging Lightning bug with lightning or Goldberg with Iceberg. Edison 15:21, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm. Thanks for your response. You could be right. However, it still seems to me that the expression "mourning sickness" is more like a label put on something that commentators don't like, not an objective topic for an encyclopedia article. I think it might be better to have a section in the article on mourning which says that some commentators have criticized excessive public mourning and have labeled it "mourning sickness".
I am willing to predict that the next time a major celebrity dies the mourning sickness label will come out. But when a serious, respected leader (political, religious, etc.) does it will not, even though the public mourning might be just as excessive and irrational. i.e. The label is applied based on the opinion of the commentator, not on any objective standard.Steve Dufour 16:27, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

I'm going to propose a merge to Mourning. This is really a commentary on a certain kind of mourning. I don't see how it can be an article on its own when the topic is really just the subjective opinions of commentators. Steve Dufour 01:54, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect. It's a communal phenomenon that is distinct from the emotion of mourning. One is an act, the other is an emotion. A merge would be inappropriate. AgneCheese/Wine 02:32, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't think it is the proper role of encyclopedists to sit in judgement over other people's emotions. Steve Dufour 05:18, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
And who is? This article starts and ends with the info provided by available reliable sources who have coined and utilized the term "Mourning sickness" to describe this communal phenomenon. Do note that these sources do not categorizes this as "Mass Mourning" which would be the emotion of mourning felt on a mass scale (and would be appropriate in the Mourning article) but rather they deal with the subject as its own individual act and subject matter. As encyclopedists, it is our duty to not manufacturer connections and blur topics together when they are treated different by our reliable sources. Simply put, it's a bit of OR to assume that Mourning and Mourning Sickness should be blended together. AgneCheese/Wine 06:42, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
This would be too large a section in that article and it is better as a discrete entry. violet/riga (t) 08:53, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Then, at the very least, this article should be given a new name. The expression "mourning sickness", although very clever, is always going to be a value judgement. BTW it's social commentators that should be making value judgements on other people's opinions, not encyclopedists. Steve Dufour 12:07, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
I like it as it is because in some ways it has little to do with mourning. Mourning is usually associated with severe grief on losing a close family member or partner, a close friend or a highly regarded member of the community in which there is much emotional investment (Kennedy, Reagan, Duke of Wellington, Winston Churchill). There is a tipping point at which the community may sometimes engage in collective mourning behavior that seems so inappropriate that some members of the community comment on it. This article is about that perception of inappropriateness, rather than about mourning itself. --Tony Sidaway 13:25, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
It really has problems as an encyclopedia article if it is just about people's perceptions. Again, I agree with the opinions expressed about excessive and self-centered mourning behavior. But that is what they are: opinions. I don't think you could have an encyclopedia article about "SUVs that are excessively large" or "Rock music that is excessively loud". - Steve Dufour 01:54, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anna Svidersky > Mourning sickness

The redirect is lame, and the heavy-handed hist merge that one admin performed (with good intentions, I'm sure) is weird, misleading and, from what I can tell, defies AfD and talk page consensus. "Mourning sickness," whatever that goofy neologism means, is hardly the only or primary encylopedic aspect of this notable person. The old Svidersky article can be edited further to resolve policy or style concerns you might have. I'm also pasting this comment on the Mourning sickness talk page, since this page is currently kind of hard to access.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 10:06, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

  • It's not lame. Rather, this article was created as an alternative version of Anna's article, to address the concerns raised in the deletion debates. Analysis of argumentation in both deletion debate and talk page shows consensus that this is a better way of covering the subject, and that Anna is not in fact a "notable person". This is backed up in policy. >Radiant< 10:31, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
    • I was asked by user:Agne27 to come here since I'd participated in the AFD. I have to agree with the fat man. I think that Anna Svidersky's death was referenced in all those sources while "Mourning Sickness" is a neologism. So in my opinion it's fine to have both of these articles, but if we only have one it should be Death of Anna Svidersky and not this, as I think the WP:MEMORIAL issues can be resolved through editing, where as the [[WP:NEO] issues are intractable. But on the other hand, I genuinely dislike these memes. And this one is particularly lame and creepy. So I'm not going to waste energy defending this for the sake of process. You have my IDONTLIKEIT de facto approval. --JayHenry 16:00, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry for editing, can revert

I removed a {{fact}} tag for a cited fact before noticing the page was protected. If anyone asks, I can undo my edit. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 17:50, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ugh

Conclusion of the current version of this article: "manufactured grief, complete with flowers and teddy bears, is the new opiate of the masses." While there's a footnote to this sentence pointing to The Independent, if it's what that newspaper wrote about Mourning sickness, then we need quotation marks. Otherwise, it's difficult not to read this clause as anything other than a condescending POV upon the phenomena -- & not appropriate lanugage for Wikipedia. -- llywrch 19:54, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unprotect

I've asked that this page be unprotected . Consensus seems to be that the Anna Svidersky redirect is a bad idea (see rFC here). If we unprotect this article, we can restore the merged Svidersky content.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 12:14, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Propose deletion: neither phenomenon nor sources cited are notable

I question the notability of this article. It is claimed to be a report on a sources providing valid information about a personal psychological process and about a sociological phenomenon. The sources cited, however, are the personal opinions of commentators who do not appear to have any qualifications to have their opinions more respected in these fields than any other layman's opinion.

Reference 1: The S.B. O'Neill article in the Telegraph reports on a pamphlet published by Civitas and written by Patrick West. O'Neill's article is not authoritative about anything other than O'Neill's personal opinion about West's pamphlet. O'Neill's biography at his current agent (http://www.amheath.com/authors/author.html?_a=author.show&id=347) indicates that he is respectable as a journalist, but it does not show why O'Neill should be considered a primary source of sociological research whose opinion would validate West's work. I'll return to West's pamphlet after looking at the other references now in the article.

Reference 2: The Tim Jonze article in the Guardian is Jonze's personal opinion essay about the public reaction to Anna's death and other situations that, in Jonze's opinion, were similar in terms of public response. "But being able to pore over the details of Anna's life is not without an element of creepiness." This is not a professional opinion of a psychologist or sociologist, but a personal opinion of an essayist.

Reference 3: The BBC article is a reference to West's pamphlet, written by a reporter who did not receive a byline. Any authority of this article on the subject of "mourning sickness" would come only from West's pamphlet.

Reference 4: Here is the first reference directly to original research by someone whose training and career gives his opinion more weight than an essayist. That article's concluding page includes Furedi's comment, "Although the genuine quality of the public's reaction is not in doubt, these are emotions framed by a cultural script that dictates how to behave. The project of representing tragic events as symbols of moral unity is systematically pursued by politicians, opinion- makers and religious leaders." According to this article, then, if there is to be blame for the sociological phenomenon of "mourning sickness," the blame should not go to all the mass of individuals afflicted with the "sickness" of having had their emotions manipulated, but to the manipulators. This would be an entirely different spin than is currently in the Wikipedia article, which seems to me to be primarily about blaming people whose emotions are caught up in news reports that over-emphasize the notability or personal relevance of people who died tragically.

Reference 5: Another personal essay by someone whose biography I could not find, commenting on the author's personal opinion about West's pamphlet.

Only Reference 4 is actually notable for inclusion in an encyclopedia article about West's and Furedi's sociological opinions. The other references would only be appropriate as citations for an article about "journalists' and essayists' reactions to the meme of 'mourning sickness."

Back to the Patrick West article: Civitas, the publisher, does not list West as being on staff. (http://www.civitas.org.uk/books/about.php) I could not find any biographical information about West, other than the fact that he wrote this pamphlet published by Civitas. Unless there is evidence that either West or Civitas is notable in the field of social psychology, I see the only notability of West's pamphlet being its emotional resonance with many journalists, essayists, and Wikipedia editors. Such emotional resonance is no indication of notability or validity of the original research West put into the pamphlet.

On Amazon.com, West's pamplet received only one review and does not include any biographical information about the author. The absence of author's or publisher's comments and the shortage of reviews does not prove that a book sold on Amazon is not notable, but it does call into question whether there is legitimate interest in West's sociological opinions beyond the emotional responses of essayists.

The entire encyclopedic value of this article could be had in one line in the main article about mourning: "A theme discussed by some essayists is the concept of 'Mourning Sickness,' an alleged inappropriate personal mourning response by large numbers of the population upon news reports that report deaths of strangers in an emotionally manipulative manner." The five citations of this article should be used to support that one sentence.

As for this article, it should be deleted. VisitorTalk 15:29, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

That may all be true, but it's not how wikipedia works. If sources that are considered reliable to verify something are found, then we follow their precedent. Your approach is actually not acceptable per WP:NOR. Tyrenius 16:06, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Please help me understand: how are a batch of personal essays "considered reliable to verify" an alleged phenomenon of social psychology and mental illness? As far as I can tell, the only citation to anyone with any relevant credentials is the reference to Furedi. Why should any of the other comments by essayists - their original research, their non-neutral point of view - be considered a valid foundation for an encyclopedia article?
The article claims that there is an illness named "mourning sickness." This illness is not listed in the American Psychological Association's Diagnostic and Statistic Manuals. This illness is also not listed in the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases. This illness is not documented by a single physiologist, pyschologist, or pyschiatrist, but only by one sociologist, and several essayists. The current Wikpedia article claims there "is a collective emotional condition," which is a sickness and has a history that "can be traced." Yet there is only one citation to anyone with professional qualifications in the field, no reference to medical or psychological authorities about mental illness, no epidimiologist, no published research, and no objective "history" documented by a credible scientific source, as opposed to an assortment of essayists. For example, pubmed cites ten articles with the phrase "mourning sickness," none of which are about the alleged social psychology phenomenon of this article.
The article is original research! It alleges a genuine "collective emotional condition" with a history that "can be traced," as an alleged authoritative explanation for human behavior patterns. The theory was introduced by one sociologist and has been the basis of a series of essays by people with no particular qualifications in the fields of mental health or sociology. For me to point out these facts is not original research! An encyclopedia article which claims to present objective truth of a social psychology illness should be based on verifiable works of experts. This article has no such basis. The only original research is the early editors' synthesis of an assortment of personal opinions around one article by one sociologist. This kind of original synthesis in the article is inappropriate in the article. My pointing out that there are no qualifications for the cited authors to be considered authoritative in this field is not original research.
Are you telling me that the way Wikipedia works is that if enough essayists publish their personal point of view opinion that a meme is true, then Wikipedia must report that meme as though it were a proven scientific fact?
I would be fine with this change to the lead: "According to a theory by sociologist Frank Furedi and several essayists, mourning sickness is..." and then, after the initial sentence, this new sentence: "This alleged illness is not listed in any consensus view of authorities in the fields of medicine or psychology. In addition, Furedi is the only sociologist to have contributed any research about this alleged illness, and his work is limited to one newspaper article." This disclaimer would indicate that the article is about one individual researcher's opinion, not any kind of verifiable consensus of verifiable, authoritative sources in the field.
Question: Is "the way Wikipedia works" that any expert who initiates a new idea, which is much discussed in the media but not studied scientifically, going to be given an article about their new idea? What are other examples of Wikipedia articles that allege scientific, medical truth but are only based on a single citation, and that from a non-peer-reviewed publication?
The article fails Wikipedia's Verifiability standard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability). It makes contentious claims about third parties: the allegation that many people are experiencing mental illness when they feel excess sadness about the widely reported deaths of distant people. A claim of mental illness is contentious. A claim of mental illness about a third party is a contentious claim about a third party. There is no evidence of any fact-checking or editorial oversight on the part of those making the claims. Verifiability guidelines: "Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for fact-checking or with no editorial oversight. Questionable sources should only be used in articles about themselves. Articles about such sources should not repeat any contentious claims the source has made about third parties, unless those claims have also been published by reliable sources." Repeated claims by unreliable sources do not rise to the level of reliable claims, no matter how widely the claims are published or how many questionable sources take part.
"Material from self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources in articles about themselves, so long as: it is relevant to their notability; it is not contentious; it is not unduly self-serving; it does not involve claims about third parties; it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject; there is no reasonable doubt as to who wrote it; the article is not based primarily on such sources." The questionable sources used are not about the journalistic or essayist skills of the sources; it is contentious; it is self-serving, placing the essayists in a position of moral and medical superiority to those suffering the alleged "sickness;" it involves claims about matters the claimant had no personal experience with (the inner emotional lives of members of the general public); and while the identifies of the authors are clear, their validity as experts to diagnose unmet members of the general public with an unverified "illness" is not. Why is this article not a crystal clear violation of the Verifiability standard for every source except Furedi? Even in Furedi's case, what verifiable diagnostic principles did he use to make a determination of "sickness" on the part of many members of the public whom he never met?
The article also fails Wikipedia's Notability criteria. "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." What is a reliable source? "Reliable sources are authors or publications regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. Reliable publications are those with an established structure for fact-checking and editorial oversight." Not one of the publications referenced have any kind of structure for fact-checking about an essayist's opinion that a new category of mental illness has been identified. "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Sources should be appropriate to the claims made: exceptional claims require exceptional sources." The claim that millions of people suffer a mental illness which is unrecognized by medicine is an extraordinary claim! "In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers. As a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny involved in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the evidence and arguments of a particular work, the more reliable it is." There has been none of this type of scrutiny of Furedi's claim.
For me to point out the absence of any reliability or notability is not original research.
Articles that utterly fail to meet the Wikipedia Verifiability and Notability criteria should not be included in Wikipedia. My pointing out that these criteria are not met is not original research; the creation of an article based solely on non-notable, unreliable sources is original research. VisitorTalk 14:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MacMillan English Dictionary

Interesting entry [2] gives "recreational grief" as an alternative term, which might be mentioned, as could "grief tourism". Tyrenius 16:08, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Propose renaming

Irrespective of the above debate on deletion, it has been suggested that "mourning sickness" is a neologism and probably not the best name for an article. Does anyone have suggestions for a better name? >Radiant< 13:33, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Collective grief? Tyrenius 13:54, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
  • For what its worth - After the plane crash and then the death of John Kennedy Jr. and his wife in July, 1999 New York City experienced this phenomenon as well, a spontaneous outpouring of grief, outside their downtown Tribeca loft for weeks. Modernist 15:13, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
  • There was also the death of a cleric (a cardinal, if I recall correctly) in UK, maybe late Victorian or 1930s, when the same thing happened. There was a mass wave of grief of a similar nature to the Princess Diana one. Tyrenius 16:59, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Has anyone done a wikipedia search for "grief" together with words like "collective", "hysteria" (I know it's not PC), "mass", "group", "social"? It will take a while, but we might find some existing articles that refer to the same phenomenon or a similar one. DCDuring 17:56, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

A renaming is essential if the article and the phenomenon is to be taken seriously. The current name makes me think of "morning sickness", which was certainly the pun that the coiner of the phrase intended. DCDuring 17:56, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. We should probably rename this article to something like 'collective grieving' or 'collective mourning'; it is undoubtedly a real phenomenon, but the current name we have for it is a neologism of dubious notability. Terraxos (talk) 21:09, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
As for historical precedents, the first such instance that comes to my mind is the death of Valentino [3] in 1926, which suggests the likelihood that communal expressions of grief are nothing new, but (original research alert) possibly intensified in the 20th century with the introduction of movie stars and public sex symbols. JNW (talk) 03:05, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality

Is there still a reason for the neutrality tag? It was applied in August 07. I appreciate that perhaps the article should be renamed, but I think that's a different issue. Sam Staton (talk) 13:20, 14 March 2008 (UTC)