Talk:Schizophrenics Anonymous

Forum-like discussion

I have created this article for encyclopedic reasons. I DO NOT recommend anyone to such 12 step programs. If you take a look at several anti-12 step web sites, (some of which are found in the links section in the Alcoholics Anonymous article) you will se why I don't recommend such "therapy". --Admiral Roo 16:12, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

especially a 12-step foor schizophrenia- lol how can that work? I think mental illness can't really be approached in such a self-punishing way. Merkinsmum 01:29, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree. It reverts to the old stereotype that mental illness is primarily due to a character fault, a moral failing that one needs to overcome. However, when my brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia I could not get either him or my parent in attending any support groups for schizophrenics and/or their families. My father's attitude was that we would deal with it as our family had always done, which, of course, continuing the same dysfunctional family behaviors that has characterized our family for generations.

What content is "encyclopedic" for this article?

I came back to this article to add information about the organization founder, from HealthyPlace.com, September 27, 2003, particularly that she formed the group after "coming out of the closet" as a schizophrenic on TV (on Sally Jessy Raphael and on a TV show hosted by Dr. Sonya Friedman, apparently on CNN). I'm dismayed to discover that User:Jerry has rolled back my edits to this article. Since he used the rollback feature, apparently he thinks my edits are vandalism.

I don't know why my edits are regarded as vandalism. Since an earlier edit summary stated that much of the article was "nonencyclopedic," I surmise that some users consider the information about "12 steps" to be a trivial detail, not realizing that "twelve step program" is a widely recognized generic term with very specific meaning. Another possibility is that some users are concerned that naming the program's founder causes WP:BLP issues. On the contrary, it appears to me that the founder's openness about her illness is an important piece of information regarding Schizophrenics Anonymous -- much in the same way that Bill Wilson's story is a salient part of the story of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I would like to be able to improve this article without being slapped down for vandalism. --Orlady (talk) 03:43, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Stick to reliable sources. -- Craigtalbert (talk) 06:43, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I was laboring under the impression that there were reliable sources for the information I added. Nevertheless, I have expanded the article, removed the "12-step" identification from the lead sentence, and expanded the sourcing. I believe that solid sources exist for the content. --Orlady (talk) 15:31, 10 February 2008 (UTC) // Revised Orlady (talk) 18:00, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

healthyplace.com for instance, is not a reliable source. -- Craigtalbert (talk) 18:49, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Your objection to that one reference surely did not justify your reverting all of my edits. (I have restored them.)

I wholeheartedly agree that WP should never cite chats, forums, etc., at HealthyPlace.com as a source, particularly not for health information. However, the only item in the article that is sourced to Healthyplace is the statement "Shortly before forming SA, Verbanic had publicly disclosed her diagnosis and had discussed her illness on national television programs in an effort to challenge the stigma associated with schizophrenia by educating the public," and the source for that statement is dated editorial content on the Healthyplace site (not a user contribution). Although that is the only source cited for that sentence, much of the information in that particular statement is corroborated by other sources cited in the article, such as SA itself and the Time magazine article, as well as by sources not used in the article, such as this University of Michigan Health System article and this Indianapolis Star article. --Orlady (talk) 20:43, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

It was the best example of an unreliable source from the ones you cited. There's plenty of peer-reviewed sources for Schizophrenics Anonymous, there's no reason to use things like healthyplace.com in this article. -- Craigtalbert (talk) 00:23, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't want to be drawn into a "revert" game with another good-faith contributor, but I don't see us making progress in this discussion. What exactly is your objection to the article content that I contributed (and that you have now reverted twice in the last 8 hours)?

If you have access to all of the journal articles in that Google Scholar search, I guess you may be in a position to write an article section discussing the findings of studies of SA's effectiveness. However, those articles that I was able to access did not contain anything more than trivial mentions of SA, and most of the visible excerpts from other other papers also appear to mention SA only in passing. (The 1998 article "The Initiation of Mutual-Help Groups Within Residential Treatment Settings" from Community Mental Health Journal is one exception; it does seem to be focused on SA. Also, SA is one focus of the 2005 article "Bridging professional and mutual-help: An application of the transtheoretical model to the mutual-help organization.")

I look forward to seeing your additions to the article. In the meantime, however, I would like to restore the deleted content to this article. I do not perceive how or why peer-reviewed studies in academic journals of psychiatry and psychology would be necessary (or even helpful) as sources for writing a basic factual article about this organization's history, purpose, and program.

--Orlady (talk) 01:22, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

What is your objection to my edits at Schizophrenics Anonymous?

This is a copy of a conversation on User:Jerry's talk page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Orlady (talk • contribs) 21:33, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I made an effort to improve the article Schizophrenics Anonymous, which is the subject of an AfD discussion, but you rolled back my edits, indicating that you consider them to be vandalism. Would you give me the courtesy of explaining your actions? See Talk:Schizophrenics Anonymous. --Orlady (talk) 03:49, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

hmmmm. I never said vandalism. You reverted my edits to the article after I made an effort to improve it while it was at AfD. There is no mention in the references provided that it is a 12-step program. This appears to be somebody's own research. And the founder of the organization along with her diagnosis is not encyclopedic. We do not have a valid reason to include this detail of a living person's life in our article that I could see. The 6 steps of the program sounded very advertish, and did nothing to claim notability. JERRY ^talk _contribs 03:56, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, indeed. I saw your first edits there as (in part) reverting my earlier attempt to improve the article by adding independently sourced content (with a reference) about the organization. I supported your decision to remove the list of the 6 steps as a possible copy-vio, but (as discussed at Talk:Schizophrenics Anonymous and in my edit summaries) I felt that the details about the history (including the founder's name) were important parts of the organization's story.

Regarding my perception that your rollback of my edit indicated that my edit was vandalism, I based that interpretation on WP:Rollback, which indicates that the rollback feature is only to be used for vandalism and similarly clear-cut situations.

Regarding calling SA a 12-step program, that's not original research. "12-step program" is essentially a generic noun that is clearly applicable to SA. It's similar to identifying a school for 3- and 4-year-olds as a "nursery school" or "preschool", even if the school calls itself "Paragon Children's Academy" and does not use the words "nursery school" or "preschool" to describe itself. Among people who are even mildly familiar with these programs as professionals or as participants (I am not in either category, but I've heard about them from people in both categories), it would be "common knowledge" that the wording of the SA 6 steps (this is some of the text that you deleted) closely mirrors the wording of the AA 12 steps. In any event, Recovery World (one of the cited references) includes SA on a list of 12-step programs (that's a pretty junky page that I would not feel good about citing in Wikipedia) and SA's own website describes the SA meeting format in terms of the AA meeting format and the AA 12 steps. Also see [1] and [2] , and the lists of 12-step programs at [3] and [[4]] . Since SA's program does not actually employ 12 steps, I could see reasons for taking "12 step program" out of the noun cluster in the lead, but the text of the article definitely should acknowledge that the program is based on a 12-step model. The article Self-help groups for mental health, which is one of the two "See also" links to that I added (and that you removed), helps to explain the typology of self-help groups.

As for identifying the name of the founder, it is very common for articles about organizations to name the founder as a key part of the organization's history. There clearly are no WP:BLP issues with naming her. I found her name on http://www.nami.org/ , which is a responsible organization that would not use a living person's name without permission. Furthermore, as I noted on the article talk page, she founded SA after "coming out of the closet" as a schizophrenic on national TV.[5] AFAICT, she is not notable for anything in addition to going public with her illness and founding SA, so WP would not have a separate article about her, but there's plenty of reason to name her in connection with the organization she founded.

--Orlady (talk) 05:01, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

The essay you cited about rollback is a new one that was written to describe a new feature available to non-admins. Although I do see that it includes in its scope the use of rollback by admins, there has been no suggestion made to admins that they should read or follow that essays "how-to" recommendations. Rollback is just a simple way to revert several consecutive edits by the same user. And the essay says "usually vandalism", not "exclusivey vandalism". Even before I was an administrator, I had rollback in my monobook user scripting, so my use of rollback has far preceeded this new essay.

• Well, I guess I was naive for thinking that the same basic rules of engagement apply to administrators and non-admins. I have been bending over backwards and not using rollback in instances that I believe to be vandalism, but where I think there is even a small possibility that my actions could be misunderstood, such as this diff. --Orlady (talk) 15:27, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

The "obvious" applicability of 12-step programs to this organization is own-research.

The talkpage discussions you describe did not exist at the time I edited this article. The talkpage merely contained some statement by the supposed author of the article and how he has a vendetta against 12-step programs.

• I agree that the talkpage discussion did not exist then. I posted there immediately before posting here, as it is my understanding that article talk pages (not a user talk page) are the appropriate place to discuss differences of opinion on article content. Previously, I had used edit summaries[6] to describe my actions and as much of my reasoning as I could fit into a summary. --Orlady (talk) 15:27, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

It would be okay to include the founders name, but to include her psychological diagnosis and year of same is a BLP issue, unless sources by RS and essentially notable.

JERRY ^talk _contribs 14:16, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

• I was (and continue to be) under the impression that I had cited an RS source for this information. This is a person who has devoted more than 20 years of her life to speaking publicly about schizophrenia. Seeing the contentiousness of this matter, I have found additional RS sources that I believe thoroughly support its notability. See my sandbox version of this article at User:Orlady/Stuff I'm working on/SA. Let's continue this discussion on the article talk page. --Orlady (talk) 15:27, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

The version currently in your sandbox seems okay to me. I am unable to open reference #1, however, becuase it crashes my computer every time I try. But I assume it has the context you footnoted. If you move your version to the mainspace (without overwriting the AFD template, of course), I will not disturb it. JERRY ^talk _contribs 15:47, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks for the re-review, and thanks for the alert on the reference. That's an [expletive deleted] Powerpoint presentation; it had better be labeled as such. One slide has a photo of Verbanic and text saying Joanne Verbanic / Founder of Schizophrenics Anonymous / 1970 diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia / 1985 with Mental Health Association in Michigan Founded Schizophrenics Anonymous / Motivated to erase stigma / “The stigma is harder to deal with than the illness itself.” / Spokesperson at Mental Health conferences, universities, schools, clubs, TV, radio in an effort to educate the public. Another slide says: Similarities and Differences with 12-Step Programs / Initially based on 12 Steps of AA / Self-help only—not advocacy or group therapy / Not billable to insurance / Not “behavior based”—can do everything “right” and still have schizophrenia / 6 Steps can be done in any order --Orlady (talk) 15:58, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

(dedent) That's great. If you use one of the php-cite templates (eg. Template:cite-web) that employs the "quotation" line, you can put that text in it and save people from the crash issue if they, like me, do not have PPT rendering software installed. JERRY ^talk _contribs 16:02, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

That's a great idea! I incorporated the content in the live article and added quotations.

FWIW, although I have the software, I often use the Google cache to view the text content of online PPT and Word files. --Orlady (talk) 17:51, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I am pleased that we seem to be closing this discussion as friends, as opposed to what some may have predicted would have been an entrenched battle with a defined loser. It's been a pleasure working with you, and proving once again that the bold-revert-discuss cycle works. JERRY ^talk _contribs 18:57, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Would that every discussion here could conclude amicably. (However, it's not over yet at Talk:Schizophrenics Anonymous.) --Orlady (talk) 20:52, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

That's brilliant Orlady! I mean it's obvious what at least the name is based on to an extent, it has the word 'Anonymous' in the name and everything:) But thanks for finding such excellent sources for the obvious lol, the sad thing is wiki sometimes needs it, which can be infuriating :) Merkinsmum 14:39, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Self-published references

• Many of the sources used in this article cannot be considered as reliable, and need to be amended. Multiple sources originate from Linda Whitten, who is lacking in encyclopedic relevance, and is the CEO of the subject organisation. However, removing these sources would leave the bulk of the article completely unsourced. As such, something significant must be done to amend the state of the article in accordance with WP:CITE. Stormy clouds (talk) 15:45, 2 May 2018 (UTC)