Talk:Fear of fish

Fear of eating fish

The sources under this section do not address a fear of eating fish, they address the health risks and benefits of eating seafood. Please provide some material that actually describes a fear (pathological or otherwise) of eating fish relating to this perfectly rational concern, otherwise I will removed the entire section. Rockpocket 23:31, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

• Don't panic, colleague. Relax and enjoy fish. I remember the case. I an not sitting on my hands.`'Míkka>t 02:34, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• This reference prompted me to make the section, but I am not adding this ref, because it is basically useless for wikipedia. If it will turn out that this terminology in this context comes only from sensationalist titles, don't worry, I will remove the section myself. But I am inclined to believe that "perfectly rational concern", as you put it, is quite synonymous with "perfectly rational fear". `'Míkka>t 02:43, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• May be this one will convince you that fear of (eating) fish is a notable concern. `'Míkka>t 02:51, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't doubt people are "afraid" of mercury poisoning from fish, but my point was more one about distinguishing between a phobia - an irrational fear - and perfectly rational health concerns. By lumping them both together under a general title "fear of fish" without distinguishing between them properly we are doing both subjects a disservice. For example, consider that most people are "afraid" of getting Salmonella from eating undercooked eggs or poultry. This, correctly, is not explained under ornithophobia, because it is not a fear of birds per se, it is a fear of getting poisoned! Likewise the documented cases of so-called pescophobia, it is a fear of mercury poisoning, not a fear of fish.

While we are on the subject, could you explain to me why exactly this one phobia should be under fear of fish, while pretty much every other one I can think of is listed under foo-phobia? There we no reasoning offered for your revert. Rockpocket 03:30, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I am afraid you are mistaken. The rule of thumb is simple: there are phobias and there are fears. The watershed is relative notability. A while ago internet was flooded with lists of various exotic and ridiculous phobias, and I spent much time fighting articles about "fear of belly buttons" and the like. Clinical ichthiophobia is quite rare. It is not quite the same as aversion to fich, which is also colloquially callied "phobia", which is not. I highly doubt you may find many clinical cases. Even the described Watson's case is not a real phobia of fish as fish. It was fear of a specifiv object, a goldfish in a fishbowl. I am pretty sure that this poor guinea pig of infant was not afraid of, say, pink salmon. (I am not finished; have to run) .... `'Míkka>t 03:59, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Is there consensus for this rule of thumb, was it discussed? Where is the relative notability borderline and how does one calculate where this falls on that? Your reasoning makes sense to me, and I appreciate parsing out the good 'uns from the trivialities can be time consuming. I have no axe to grind here, and if you are experienced at making these calls, I am happy to accept that. However, much of this could have been avoided with a little communication to begin with. Just because you are aware of this history of this doesn't mean other admins are, and locking at the deletion log gave me no clue to what your reasoning was. Moreover, I really did not appreciate your curt "warning" in response to my good faith edits, when your provided no reasoning for your edits in the first instance. One might think an admin would be aware that removing valid content is not a good thing, and this question why I removed it rather than warn me to not do so. Rockpocket 04:56, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

It is my rule of thumb, based on general consensus in wikipedia, based on peredents in various other areas: trivia do not belong to wikipedia. There must be a certain level of notability for every wikipedia item. You really cannot have policy cast in stone for each and every caterogy of articles. There is simply nothing to write about fish phobia beyond what is common for all specific phobias, so there is not enough text for a decent separate stub. Therefore to prevent creation of repetitive texts created by cut and paste from sites described in -phob-#Phobia lists I am in a slow process of creation of "fear" articles for those fears which have some notability and discussed for various reasons and various flavors, and where a "phobia" has a mention as the special case of "irrational fear", pointing to specific phobia for (common) details, see category:Phobias, letter "F".

Another argument that "phobia" and "fear" is basically the same topic is that there is no sharp boundary in the spectrum of "fear", strong fear", "mild phobia" "phobia", whether it is rational or irrational, etc. And again, a piece of this spectrum may be split into separate article as soon as a reasonable degree of notability is ensured.

I understand that you were offended by my rather unfriendly warning and I apologize. I know this is my general problem and I will try to make more sensible explanations in the first place.

Finally you may ask me where is my text about "fear of eating fish". Answering, it is easy to write a long rant like the above out of one's head, but to write a decent article requires reasonable research work, for which I have no time and brain power at the moment. `'Míkka>t 16:41, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I understand. Thanks for the explanation. I appreciate the work you are doing on this subject and I'll leave it in your hands. Rockpocket 17:50, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Other facts about the phobia

I added something to the page explaining more about the phobia and how it relates to other things involving fish living or dead. --Mr. S.C. Shadow (talk) 03:37, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

And I deleted it. Sorry, webpages of this kind (blogs, wikies, message boards, personal pages of unknown authorship) are not admissible in wikipedia. `'Míkka>t 04:02, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

It might be worth noting that galeophobia can be used to mean fear of cats as well as fear of sharks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.52.192.42 (talk) 16:30, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

To implement the 'cure' quoted in extenso you need a dining table 10-12 feet long, even before inserting extensions! Few families even have a dining room these days! I am also unclear of the role of the little dish mentioned at the end. Is the fish moved from the bowl to the dish? (The actual fish is not even mentioned as being part of the cure at all!) (I doubt only rich kids get rare phobias, but it's only rich parents who can afford an expensive psychologist.) - Added by BC: 7 December 2017 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.159.173.112 (talk) 15:11, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Remove picture of fish

That picture at the bottom of the article should be removed. Who do you think will look up this article? Thats right - people who fear fish. —Preceding unsigned comment added by N40798 (talk • contribs) 19:14, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

That's on a navigation template. I collapsed it. --Epipelagic (talk) 20:35, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Why in the world would it ever be a good idea to show a creepy picture of a giant fish with their mouth open on a page where people come to learn more about their fish phobia? 2601:14C:8000:7AB0:C072:F17A:5097:8969 (talk) 20:20, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

What about whales?

Do people who fear fish also fear whales? If so, it's not fear of fish. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.70.44.182 (talk) 17:30, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Whales wouldn’t appear on this page since they aren’t fish; this seems like an irrelevant topic to bring up on the talk page. 2601:14C:8000:7AB0:C072:F17A:5097:8969 (talk) 20:21, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

"Who's High Pitch?"

High Pitch Erik (Erik Bleaman), "Wack Packer" from the Howard Stern show, is a noted sufferer of the phobia, and may be a worthy addition to the "Cases..." section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.241.217.198 (talk) 20:37, 30 December 2018 (UTC)