Talk:Debtors Anonymous

Promotional tone

The language in the headings of this article along the lines of "alternative viewpoints" gives an misleading impression of this articles purpose. It conveys that this is not an encyclopedic article based on secondary sources that have independently researched Debtors Anonymous, rather that this is more like an advertisement representing primarily the viewpoints of Debtors Anonymous and the secondary sources are "alternatives." This relabeling of material is similar to going in the Effectiveness section of the Alcoholics Anonymous article, which is based mostly on peer-reviewed scholarly sources, and renaming it to something like "Alternative Views of Alcoholics Anonymous." Adding a template to this effect. - Scarpy (talk) 21:39, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

If you want to rename the "Alternative viewpoints" section to "Effectiveness", have at it. I'm by no means attached to the heading. But "Changes in world view" doesn't adequately convey that this section is specifically about 3 points of view -- Hayes, Dickerson, and 'mental health professionals' around how shame and stigmatization interact with member participation/experiences. These are clearly not encyclopedic facts about the organization as in the preceding sections, each viewpoint has a specific bias due to its background unrelated to this article and these "alternative viewpoints" should be noted as such. I only titled such a section "Alternative viewpoints" because that has been a solution on similar articles. As far as this article being too promotional -- you created the article, as I understand. I've added nothing to it, only taken away overly indulgent and repetitive references to a single, marginal study. If it wasn't promotional last week, I don't know why your own article is suddenly promotional this week without any new info added.TBliss (talk) 17:51, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

I don't believe this article is overly promotional, and I was about to remove the hatnote until I discovered that it was placed so recently. So I welcome more discussion, although it would be better for those who object to any overall "tone" of the article to make corrections directly in the text. Thank you, and good luck with editing! I learned a great deal by reading the article as it stands today. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 14:38, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

@TBliss:/@Artfullheart: I took this off my watchlist for a longtime because I was tired of the churn and gamesmanship to make, as it would seem to me, this article a mirror of DA self-published content. When you label every POV that is not directly supported by DA an "alternative" you're enshrining DA's viewpoint as "the" viewpoint and marginalizing everything else. Again, if you read other articles, Alcoholics Anonymous for example, you'll see it's not just repeating and re-stating what's in AA literature. When a source is used in that article that's not from AA there's no attempt to quarantine it in a section called "alternative viewpoints." - Scarpy (talk) 07:37, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

@Scarpy: See below.Artfullheart (talk) 19:26, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

• If there are issues in tone, please identify them here for discussion. If someone wants to change the title(s) of a/the heading(s), please either do so or propose alternatives here. There is no need for a tag when no major over-arching issues exist, so I am going to remove it as having no consensus. Softlavender (talk) 01:03, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

@Softlavender: They've been explained in detail. See the discussion in the third opinion section above. The large number of self-published sources used in this article used to be somewhat balanced by including a perspectives from scholarly sources discussing the same topic. The tone in which the scholarly content in this article is discussed has been derided, it's mentioned in a condescending manner "Alternatively, results from an external survey of 46 DA members from 1993-1995..." Alternatively? Since when are the findings of research scientists studying an organization considered an "alternative" point of view in an encyclopedia? If you are at all familiar with Wikipedia's principles, you know that articles should be based primarily on third party reliable sources, self-published sources should be used sparingly. It's promotional for that reason, the editor that fought to keep all scholarly research on DA out of this article wanted it to only represent the views of DA, essentially making it a second mouthpiece for the organization. You might be familiar with the quote often attributed to George Orwell, "Journalism is what somebody does not want you to print. All the rest is advertising." When this article at least balances the scholarly sources with the self-published sources in both tone and due weight, I will be more than happy to remove it. Until then, no, there is no "consensus" to remove the very reasonable warning. - Scarpy (talk) 07:12, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

@Scarpy: This page is about the organization of Debtors Anonymous. The information contained is mostly factual information about that organization, not opinions about that organization. A study that posits that people who participate in the organization might feel shame because of certain practices, is factual only about the study. It is an opinion about the practices of the organization. It is relevant for inclusion, but it does not reveal factual information about that organization. We all agree on the need for third party reliable sources, such as articles about the organization that confirm the factual information. If I can make the time, maybe I will go searching for 3rd party citations soon. Right now that factual information comes from the organization's own documents. This is a long article compared to other Twelve Step organizations that operate at a similar level, and so one solution might be to pare down the information about the organization. There is no reason to go into such depth when interested parties can simply go to the organization's website for further research. This page does not belong to any one person, and no one is the sole administrator of this page or has ownership over it. Two Wiki editors BeenAroundAWhile and Softlavender have weighed in that this page is not promotional, as have I above for good reasons. We have consensus. I am removing the tag. You can edit the article down if you feel it's not weighted now that some of the 3rd party info from the one survey has been pared down, although the bulk of the study remains. Please discuss your specific examples as to why this page is promotional other than its reliance on self-published sources, which you yourself included when you first edited this page in 2009. These protestations are getting increasingly bizarre. Artfullheart (talk) 18:48, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

However, on further reading I do agree that "Alternative" is not the correct wording here, so I've changed it to "Critical Analysis" which accurately describes the surveys and all the other points of view related to 12-step practices. I also removed the reference to "Intergroup and Intragroup" to avoid unnecessary confusion since the term Intergroup has a different and specific meaning in D.A. and other 12-Step programs. Artfullheart (talk) 19:04, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

@Artfullheart: It is about the organization Debtors Anonymous, but shouldn't be by Debtors Anonymous about Debtors Anonymous. With a large number of self-publishes sources (the organizations own documents, as you call them) and scholarly sources are used in such a tongue-in-cheek condescending way, this article has effectively become a mouthpiece for Debtors Anonymous rather than those that have studied Debtors Anonymous seriously and independently.

You're using the word "consensus" here, but I don't think you know what it means. We don't have consensus, and never had. This is more gamesmanship. The other editors haven't weighed in recently. Unless, as was suggested previously, we remove the bulk of the self-published information and change the tone of the article so that the scholarly information is discussed appropriately, this is still promotional. - Scarpy (talk) 18:22, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

@Scarpy: I understand consensus. BeenAroundAWhile and Softlavender -- will you please weigh in officially as to removing the Promotional tag. Scarpy doesn't consider your past comments to add to any consensus. A tag that this article needs more secondhand sources would be appropriate -- although compared to other pages, it has enough secondary sources. There is a difference between Promotional/Advertising and using self-published sources. This page, created and written mostly by Scarpy, uses self-published sources to provide objective data and information about the organization, not to promote it. Loosen your iron grip, Scarpy. I know you created this page and you do seem to have an agenda here in the information you want included, despite your protestations. It boggles my mind that the person who wrote the material is tagging his own material for being too promotional. Artfullheart (talk) 18:49, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

I want to article to have encyclopedic value. Not to be an article written about Debtors Anonymous using only, or primarily, sources about Debtors Anonymous that are flattering to Debtors Anonymous. I'll quote again "Journalism is what somebody does not want you to print. All the rest is advertising." It would be helpful if you didn't revert all of my attempts at a compromise in the process. - Scarpy (talk) 19:15, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Since it was asked, this version I believe represents a fair compromise between the changes Artfulheart requested while not removing peer-reviewed information that may not be flattering to Debtors Anonymous. - Scarpy (talk) 01:44, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

This is a mess. It's hard to believe you're such a seasoned editor, because you've created such a mess here. Sections don't address what they purport to be about. Other info is tacked on under haphazard headers. You've doubled down on the Hayes surveys, which are riddled with problems. What is wrong with you? The compromise was leaving the Hayes article in at all. You're ignoring the advice of three editors. Expect revisions, you control freak. Artfullheart (talk) 04:49, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Please avoid person attacks (see WP:NPA), if it continues I will report it. - Scarpy (talk) 22:01, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

... and that being said I didn't have an major disagreements with your changes. In fact I think making a separate literature section was a good idea. Thank you for catching some of the typos. My biggest concern was that "Diagnosis" as a section is misleading and there's no official diagnosis associated with DA members, whereas in groups like AA or NA there almost certainly is. I tried to offer a compromise there. I'll also note that I don't know that DA had any involvement with the work Hayes did, but I don't know for sure that they didn't. If DA ever made an official statement on this, it could and should be cited here but I'm not aware of it. With Hayes, while the primary data collection occurred in the beginning, the work he did with it would represent multiple studies in terms of published works. So the term "The Hayes study" is misleading and I tried to replace it as appropriate. Previous talk page comments aside, I think the daylight between us is narrowing and the collaboration in this round is beneficial. - Scarpy (talk) 22:42, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Listen, I still think the Hayes study is a marginal work that is not actually notable, despite it meeting certain requirements, and I would love to see it completely excised from this article. I think you've hijacked this article with your agenda to include it for whatever reasons -- I don't believe your reasons are neutral and objective at all. I don't believe you are genuinely interested in providing helpful encyclopedic information about this subject. I also think the section needs a different title than "Analysis of Interviews with Members" because the section is only really about Hayes' work, and should really be designated as such. Our only common ground is that at least the info on the page is in appropriate sections, it isn't such a jumbled mess. Artfullheart (talk) 22:49, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel that way and that you distrust my motives. I wrote this article like I write all the articles I work on and I've written plenty. I started by going to Google Scholar, Google Books, and Google News and searching for every article or book that contained Debtors Anonymous. I have access to a university library, so I can get peer-reviewed articles for free. There are plenty that just mention it in passing (say in a list of twelve-step groups) all of the other ones I read. I took notes on them and then started consolidating them in to an sandbox article on my talk page. When I thought it was ready I moved it to the main page. You may want to review the edit history on my user page and see if it matches your theory. I had no prior knowledge or Hayes or anything he had done prior to that. I wanted to write a fair article, and I did that. - Scarpy (talk) 23:45, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

@Artfulheart: I already have weighed in; please see my first comment above and my edit summary on the article. Softlavender (talk) 06:59, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

The Hayes Study

@Scarpy: For now, I've only edited the section on the Hayes study for structure. I still think it is too much extraneous information about a marginal, out-of-date study. The Hayes section is so long that it hijacks the subject, and you should just create a separate article for the study, but you probably wouldn't be able to prove enough notability to support creating a unique article. It will need to be edited down. Since there are four sub-sections: Labeling, Differences between DA Meetings and DA members, Bankruptcy and debt-shifting, and Outside literature, it makes no sense to discuss labeling in the Bankruptcy section. These sections previously focused on the way DA treats the topics, but the focus of each of these four sections should be primarily on the results of the Hayes study in those areas in order for it to be relevant to inclusion in the Hayes section. It's basic writing structure. Artfullheart (talk) 16:01, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Just saw this after making my latest revisions and other comments above. Here we still pretty strongly disagree and I'm willing to go to the mat on this point. We've also had this exact same conversation almost exactly a year ago and my position on it is still the same.

Given the relatively small size of DA, the relatively small sample Hayes used makes sense. Even if it's n=46, it's still data and there are currently no other comparable works analyzing DA. DA's program hasn't drastically changed since the mid 90s. Similar discussions were had about the validity of studies conducted in the 60s-80s in the AA article and we decided to include them for the same reason.

Regarding splitting, in the AA article, the history and effectiveness sections were getting too long and were split in to their own articles with summaries left in the AA article. The AA article is a big article (75,167 kilobytes). The DA article is currently 44,605 kilobytes and WP:SPLIT (that I mentioned last year) doesn't even suggest splitting until >50k.

The Hayes articles represent the majority of scholarly work that's been done on DA, and that's just the way it is. Removing it from this article is like removing Hamlet from Hamlet. If we were going to split things in to a different article or remove them, the sections on Parallel Organizations would make the most sense. When I was writing this, I thought about the best way to include those as I thought, in particular, the NCNW story was worth mentioning, even if it was only discussed in one article.

I'd also be for improvements in the parsimoniousness of language in the labeling section, as it is the longest (but really the most important in terms of the results). I will take some time as see if can't make it more parsimonious.

With regard to how much the ordering makes sense - this section used to be called "worldview transformation" and made perfect sense in that context.

A final point - I've been somewhat bemused by the language that you've to describe everything to do with Hayes and his work ("Critical analysis" or "Alternatively" etc). If--and I sincerely hope you do--read the four Hayes sources I think you'll see he's very friendly to DA and very much recognizes the seriousness of indebtedness and the impact it has on people. He's not an enemy or something that needs to be quarantined. I have a feeling he did the work he did because he was genuinely interested in DA and helping that demographic. I'd imagine he wanted to contribute in a way he knew he could and he was doing something of a gap analysis to try and give useful feedback to DA and people interested in DA on ways it could be improved. This is something organizations need to make improvements, there's no shame in it. Nothing is perfect. It's why you get surveys from places you do business with. They want to ask you about your experience and then use the data to see if there's something they could do better. It's only smart. Hayes was nice enough to do some of the leg work for DA, it's like a gift to the organization, and it would seem his good deed has not gone unpunished and he's still being attacked for it 20 years later. It's not fair. I would encourage you read those four articles and reconsider your stance on this point. - Scarpy (talk) 23:32, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Removing the Hayes study from this article would be like removing Hamlet from Hamlet? Really? That's grandiose. This is an encyclopedic article, not a survey intended to help improve an organization, or to enlighten your fellow editors. It's offensive. Get your priorities together. Artfullheart (talk) 23:41, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

It's not grandiose, if you look at the proportion of peer-reviewed sources on DA it makes complete sense. I'm making a lot of good faith attempts at a compromise here. Can I get you to do two things for me? (1) Go through the Google Scholar search results for Debtors Anonymous and count the number of articles that discuss it in any detail, then count the number of articles that are specifically on the topic of Debtors Anonymous. I believe (unless anything new has been published in the last few years) you'll still see that his work represents the majority of the peer-reviewed scholarly work on DA (if it doesn't then we need to look at including the new sources). Then (2) read the four articles you're trying to have removed from this article. I believe this will lead to a much more productive conversation. - Scarpy (talk) 23:53, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

This is an article on Debtors Anonymous. You could take out the Hayes article and no one would notice -- except for you. NO ONE else would notice. If you took out any mention of Debtors Anonymous from this article THAT would be like removing Hamlet from Hamlet. BTW I have no problem with Hayes or the fact that he did a study. No one is attacking him. I question the true relevance of his minor study to Debtors Anonymous. It's like hijacking an article on a famous person to cite examples on whether or not an unauthorized bio about them was factual. It's maybe worth a minor mention, but paragraphs? Artfullheart (talk) 04:20, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

I think the "labeling" section is way too long. My eyes glaze over just trying to read it. I think it should be greatly trimmed. In fact, I think the entire Hayes study section should not have subheadings, and should only be composed of one paragraph on each sub-topic -- that is, one paragraph on labeling, and leave the others as they are except remove all of the subheaders completely. Softlavender (talk) 00:28, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

What do you think of these changes? The overall point was that Hayes found labeling was kind of a double-edged sword, encouraging change but at the risk of increasing stigmatization. I also think it's worth pointing out that other researchers disagreed and at least one other thought stigmatization would be an improvement for debtors. So, I think it makes sense to at least keep it at two paragraphs. - Scarpy (talk) 02:32, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

That's definitely an improvement. However I still think that the subheadings should be removed; the general practice on Wikipedia is not to have subheadings for individual paragraphs. Also, since the second paragraph on Labeling is merely a rebuttal to the first, those two paragraphs can be combined. I agree with Artfullheart as to why the Hayes study should not be emphasized: a cohort of 46 is statistically insignificant; it wouldn't pass WP:MEDRS etc. Plus the study is over 20 years old. Softlavender (talk) 03:26, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

You could take out the subsections on Bankruptcy / Debt Shifting and Unapproved Literature entirely. They say nothing new about the study that wasn't said in the 1st paragraph under the "Analysis" section. DA doesn't have an official position on Bankruptcy, doesn't mention Debt Shifting, and doesn't approve of Literature that's not conference-approved. So why mention any of that if they don't? The only sentence relevant to the study is that groups practice the program differently, which you already cover in the previous paragraph. Artfullheart (talk) 04:22, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

@Softlavender: I have to disagree. If this were a biomedical article, I would say it's true that wouldn't pass WP:MEDRS, mostly due to age. Support groups aren't a medical topic, they don't change like medicine does. I'd imagine 1/3 of the sources used in Effectiveness of Alcoholics Anonymous are from the 60s-90s and were allowed to stay for that reasons -- AA isn't much different now. Incidentally, I don't see anything about sample size in WP:MEDRS anyway. There also hasn't been in new research on the same topic, so it's the best we have. The guidance in MOS:BODY is "Short paragraphs and single sentences generally do not warrant their own subheading." These are several sentences. - Scarpy (talk) 05:51, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

@Artfullheart: DA's position on certain issues is irrelevant to whether or not it should be included in Wikipedia. Have you given any thought to my proposal? Would you consider reading the sources you would like to to have remove from the article? Have you had a close look at the Google Scholar results on Debtors Anonymous? - Scarpy (talk) 05:51, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Whoever said I haven't read the source material? Stick to your own side of the street howbouts. It's not appropriate for you to promote any material to me or anyone else. Like seriously, this article should be tagged for being too promotional of some minor, forgettable studies. And yes, DA's position does matter if the fact is they don't take any position and the material doesn't appear in their literature, it's kind of delusional to include it in the article about them. Your agenda to promote these studies blinds you to their relevance. Again, make a separate page for Hayes and his studies and include a few sentences in this article. But you can't do that, can you -- because a stand-alone article on these studies would never be approved. This is literally the only way you can hope to get anyone to read them. Pathetic. Artfullheart (talk) 06:09, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Please stop with the personal attacks. I've made several attempts to compromise on your suggestions recently as a few hours ago, and have been making sincere good faith efforts to resolve these differences. The first time I asked you if you had read them, and you didn't respond. So, I'll ask again, have you read them?

You are using these words like "minor" and "forgettable." There's it nothing inherently "minor" about research with a small sample size, especially when each sample is a large amount of data. When you're doing in-depth personal interviews with people, like was done here, and transcribing and categorizing you're working with a lot of information and doing a lot of serious statistics. I would think this fact would not be lost on anyone who has actually read those four articles. So, I'll ask again, did you? - Scarpy (talk) 06:24, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Stick to talking about editing the article. What I've read is none of your goddam business.

You don't compromise. You move the goal posts to your side, after complaints from several individuals, and then claim you're compromising by making slight changes when major cuts are required. If someone abuses their position as a Wikipedia editor, I have every intention of calling them out. We're not compromising. We're trying to pry your fingers from the keyboard to clean up your mess. Artfullheart (talk) 06:38, 25 June 2017 (UTC)