Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of people who have learned Transcendental Meditation

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 delete. The rough consensus is that this list is an indiscriminate list. A lot of the discussion surrounds other stuff (doesn't) exist, and there's some disagreement as to whether this list is more analogous to a 'list of product or activity performers' versus 'list of people who follow X religion', but the fairly substantial weight of consensus agrees it is closer to the former, and that that type of list is not suitable for Wikipedia. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 21:57, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

List of people who have learned Transcendental Meditation

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Per WP:IINFO, this is a an indiscriminate list of people who claim to have learned or practiced TM. In a spot check of sources, all I've seen are one-sentence throwaway mentions in profile pieces, and nothing that indicates that there's any greater significance.

This is no different from a List of people who have seen Titanic. It's a notable film, and I'd bet we can find quotes from notable people about how they hated/loved it, but it's still not an appropriate topic for a list. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 15:04, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 15:04, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletion discussions. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 15:04, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 15:04, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per Deacon's excellent logic. Next we will have List of people who hate Marmite and a List of people who have not learned Transcendental Meditation. -Roxy the inedible dog . wooF 15:13, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, sure, we do NOT make List people who are not Christians or List people who hate Christians. But we do make Lists of Christians. Same about other religions. My very best wishes (talk) 16:05, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To me, the basis for the article we are discussing is as valid as any of the red-linked lists I and others have suggested. -Roxy the inedible dog . wooF 16:08, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry, but your argument here is inventing "OTHER STUFF THAT DOES NOT EXISTS". My very best wishes (talk) 16:22, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. The article is clearly promotional -- basically promoting a POV by showing how many celebs believe in TM. Would Wikipedia carry an article "List of people who believe in faith healing" or "List of people who believe that vaccines cause autism" or "List of people who believe that Dr. Fauci is part of a Deep State conspiracy"? NightHeron (talk) 15:20, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, but rename to List of practitioners of Transcendental Meditation. Yes, this list is useless for someone who is not interested in the subject of Transcendental Meditation. However, we do have pages about all people included in this list, and all items are sourced. Most references do provide useful information for someone who would be interested in this subject. Hence this is a legitimate list. For the same reasons we have legitimate List of Scientologists, Lists of Christians. This is a large movement with a number of notable adherents. None of these lists is an obvious promotion, but rather a supplementary information relevant to main subject. Perhaps this list could be renamed to something like a "list of practitioners of...", but that should be a separate discussion. My very best wishes (talk) 15:34, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with others that simply a list of people who have learned a certain technique, like a "list of people who meditate", would not be legitimate. Hence rename. My very best wishes (talk) 17:28, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Reference to OTHERSTUFF is not a strong argument. List of Scientologists at least provides some balance by listing former members, in some cases with sharp criticisms of Scientology. Lists of Christians is also different, although not without its own problems (all of the 6 references given are currently invalid, because a commercial site now owns the domain name). NightHeron (talk) 16:14, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

My argument is not "OTHERSTUFFEXISTS", but our policies as they apply to WP:lists rather than regular pages. See also comment by Literaturegeek below. I am saying that "OTHERSTUF" is also policy-consistent. My very best wishes (talk) 16:18, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't practitioner of TM a nebulous concept? How would you define it? Suppose at a certain moment a celeb gives an interview in which they say they're practicing TM, but soon after they pass on to sweat lodges, shiatsu massage, or some other form of pseudoscientific cultural appropriation that's in fashion? Do they get on the list of TM practitioners? Do they get on the list, and then get taken off later (assuming there's RS saying they're no longer practicing TM)? Do they get on a list of former practitioners? NightHeron (talk) 19:18, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, if a celebrity openly self-identify as a follower of Transcendental Meditation movement (as documented in RS), I think he belongs to the list. Same would apply to scientologists, etc. Switching an allegiance from one religion to another could qualify someone as a "convert", but probably not in this case (I can easily imagine that someone self-identify as a Christian AND as a member of this movement. Yes, this maybe tricky because is it actually a religion? According to our page Transcendental Meditation movement, it does qualify as a new religious movement, at least according to some sources. That's why I voted "keep". If it would be just a community of people who exercise yoga, that would be an obvious "delete". Yes, I am sure some of them just do their meditation and do not believe in Maharishi, but so are many Christians who only go to the Church, but do not follow the Sermon on the Mount by any stretch of imagination. My very best wishes (talk) 22:38, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Yes, TM contains a lot pseudoscientific ideas and pseudoscience “research” to promote it, but that is not grounds for deleting it. Nor is it comparable to people who have watched a film because watching a film is not a way of life or religious or spiritual belief system. We have a list article for Scientologists: List_of_Scientologists. This list proposed for deletion is notable, per WP:N, so clearly the article should be kept. Given the controversy surrounding TM, undoubtedly this is going to attract a lot of LIKEIT AND DONTLIKEIT votes, but it comes down to WP:LIST, WP:N, WP:RS and WP:V which this article proposed for deletion seems to satisfy.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 16:09, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If kept, it should be renamed to List of people who have practiced Transcendental Meditation. That would at least suggest it’s about something the entries do rather than just know. No opinion beyond that except I do think this is far less trivial than the nom characterizes it. postdlf (talk) 16:16, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds reasonable. My very best wishes (talk) 16:19, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. You learn this thing by buying a course from the TM organization. So, similar to Deacon's analogy, that is a list of people who bought a specific product from a specific company. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:28, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This list was initially created as a list of "practitioners" and renamed (see discussion here). Is it actually a "list of buyers"? Looking at the multiple references in the list (like that [1]), this is a list of practitioners/adherents, not just buyers (yes, they possibly took initially a course of meditation, but this is hardly relevant). One should simply rename it back and remove any items that have been included without proper justification - just as for any other list. My very best wishes (talk) 16:40, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:INDISCRIMINATE. This is an unencyclopedic cross-categorization analogous, as the nom notes, to lists such as List of people who have learned about geology, List of people who have learned French, etc., etc. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 17:20, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. The criterion is trivial and non-defining, like List of people who practiced yoga or List of people who took music lessons: verifiable, but so what? Clarityfiend (talk) 05:47, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete for the same reason we don't have List of people who hate Marmite. Now List of people who hate Vegemite, that has potential! (...ducks as people throw rotten fruit...) --Guy Macon (talk) 16:10, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Well, we do have Transcendental Meditation as a "New Hindu derived religion" in the List of religions and spiritual traditions, which seems to be correct. We also have Lists of people by belief with other similar lists, which seems to be good. So, I do not see any logical reason why we can not have a lists of adherents/practitioners of this religious movement per Wikipedia:Stand-alone_lists#Lists_of_people - just because "person's membership in the list's group is established by reliable sources". Most of the objections seems to be because of this page title, i.e. "people who have learned". Just rename. It would be pity to delete a page with 500+ refs that was edited in a good faith by so many contributors (there are thousands of edits) and that can arguably be kept per policy. My very best wishes (talk) 17:17, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You didn't really answer my questions about how practitioner of TM is defined, and whether the list would include someone who took it up briefly and then dropped it a while later. The last paragraph of Transcendental meditation points out that practitioners do not have a common belief system. It seems it's more analogous to shiatsu and pilates. Perhaps it's similar to a hobby. We have a lengthy List of hobbies (about 500 hobbies listed), but fortunately not lists of notable people for each of them. NightHeron (talk) 20:10, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just as for any other lists, "a practitioner", a "member of a church", etc. is simply someone who was described in RS as such or openly self-identify as such. I am surprised you are asking. My very best wishes (talk) 22:10, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt it's really so clearcut in the case of TM. For example, Nicole Kidman is on the list based on something she reportedly said in 2014. But an editor objected, giving three reasons why he didn't think she really was practicing TM (see [2]). And do we know if she (or others on the list) is still practicing TM six years later, if ever she was? NightHeron (talk) 00:23, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oh yes, this is happening all the time with all lists. If this can not be reliably sourced (or there are contradictions), then the item does not belong to the list, and especially living people. My very best wishes (talk) 02:09, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I see two problems here with this list that most lists don't have. First of all, New Age types of self-improvement practices of the sort that became fashionable in the West in the 1970s and intermittently since then are often engaged in for a brief period of time after which the "practitioner" passes on to other things. In contrast, someone is not likely to self-identify as a Christian and then change their mind the next year. Thus, many of the "practitioners" in the list may in fact be former practitioners. There are often no RS to tell us whether or not the individual was a life-time TM practitioner or a 6-months practitioner. As the OP says, the sources are mainly one-sentence throwaway mentions in profile pieces, so there's only very weak adherence to WP:V.

Secondly, listing celebrities who at one point said they believe in some theory is really promotional; although many people would find it interesting information, such a list belongs in a website whose purpose is to promote TM and not on Wikipedia, per WP:PROMOTION. The promotional nature of the list is especially concerning because the TM movement spreads fringe claims about health. According to WP:FRINGE, a Wikipedia article should not make a fringe theory appear more notable or more widely accepted than it is. NightHeron (talk) 11:43, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I do agree this list is at the borderline of keeping and would not worry too much if it is deleted. But promotion? WP:NOT is about obvious and blatant promotion. Sure, one could say that a list of scientologists might be a promotion to some degree, and a lot of other lists and pages as well (every page in this list does promote a notable person by providing information about them), but the actual guideline is this: Wikipedia:Notability#Stand-alone_lists. My very best wishes (talk) 19:24, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I agree that it's not blatant promotion in the sense of advertisement for a company. What concerns me is an NPOV issue. According to WP:PROMOTION, Wikipedia is not for Advocacy, propaganda, or recruitment of any kind: commercial, political, scientific, religious, national, sports-related, or otherwise. An article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to describe the topic from a neutral point of view. Whether TM is a mainstream movement that brings benefit to millions of people or a cult that makes false claims and promotes pseudoscience is controversial. A list of notable people who like TM, with no mention of notable people who see the movement as a cult, reads like an endorsement of TM in wikivoice. As I mentioned before, the Scientology list at least does mention former members who've sharply criticized Scientology and called it a cult. NightHeron (talk) 20:10, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So, Delete because it's equivalent to List of people who have practiced the Atkins diet. Atkins is not a fad diet, has been around for many years, has had millions of practicers, prominent detractors, etc. yet listing notable people who've used it, even though it creates the byproduct effect of a testimonial, is just WP:IINFO. - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:47, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
But this is not a diet. This is a religious movement. And BTW, speaking about diets, we have List of vegetarians. My very best wishes (talk) 22:27, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Good catch; see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of vegetarians (4th nomination) –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 00:40, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Should you then also nominate List of vegans? My very best wishes (talk) 01:05, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Done –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 01:17, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No this isn't a diet, but it's not the general concept of meditation, it's a form of meditation popularized by one person, just like the Atkins diet is a form of dieting popularized by one person. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:24, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Indiscriminate list. An illustrative mention of influential practitioners on the main article might be OK, but a long list doesn't add value. Neutrality^talk 01:49, 25 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete This is the most indiscriminate list I have seen this year, and we have seen some duzzies this year, including the attempt to create a list of all notable people who had tested positive to having been infected by the Covid-19 virus. With nearly 1 million articles on living people, that would have become an uncontrolled nightmare if it had been allowed to remain.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:30, 25 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep List of people who have seen Titanic is a bizarre straw man. The list in question easily passes WP:LISTN because it's easy to find coverage of the numerous famous people who do this such as this or that. There are obviously sensible alternatives to deletion and, when taken with the similar attack on vegetarians, it seems rather tendentious. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:50, 25 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Is it really such a straw man though? Here's a list of celebrities who are obsessed with Titanic (omgz). It was a bit of a silly example, sure, but it didn't take me long to find that. Maybe I could find even more for other movies. In any case, TM is notable; the people in the list are (mostly) notable, but the list as a whole fails IINFO. Your first source is mainly about one person's use of TM (and how they were introduced to it). That might be good for their bio, but it doesn't justify a list like this. Your second source talks about TM in Hollywood, also focusing on the same person, mentioning others here and there. That might help support an article about TM in Hollywood as a notable topic on its own (or perhaps just a section in the TM article), but it doesn't support this list (it's only really talking about actors after all, and before anyone jumps on that, no, that would also be a bad idea for a list). Compiling a massive, indiscriminate list like this is precisely what IINFO is about. What ATDs should be we considering here? Also, please don't refer to good-faith deletion nominations as tendentious or an "attack". –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 01:41, 26 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's barely been ten days since this user was censured for making bogus accusations against AfD participants. Yet now he's at it again. Obviously nominating a vegetarianism-related list is no more an attack on vegetarians than voting delete on a list of Egyption shopping malls is an attack against Africa. Reyk _YO! 19:32, 26 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

delete- I am persuaded by LuckyLouie's argument that this is effectively a testimonial and falls afoul of WP:IINFO. Reyk _YO! 19:17, 26 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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.