Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of notable people who have commented on the LSD experience

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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 of the debate was no consensus to delete. Johnleemk | Talk 16:45, 7 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

List of notable people who have commented on the LSD experience[edit]

  • Reminds me of List of notable people who have been stung by jellyfish - in other words, nonsensical and of little enyclopedic value, difficult to verify --Blu Aardvark | (talk) | (contribs) 22:41, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, for the reasons that the nominator posted. This article has little verifiability and is pretty weird. Mo0[talk] 22:58, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - reminds me of List of stutterers. How far is too far with these lists? 147.70.242.21 23:24, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'd like to point out that list of stutterers has not been deleted. In addition, such lists can be quite useful- it isn't the least bit inconceivable that some 13 year old kid has to do a school project on stuttering, and list of stutterers provides him or her with an invaluable resource. ditto for this article. --Heah [[User_talk:Heah|(talk)]] 23:39, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep. This was originally part of the too large LSD article, and was given its own entry to cut that article down. Given the social upheaval and cultural change that LSD is strongly associated with as well as its place in pop culture, having a list of notable people who have commented on the LSD experience is virtually nothing like a list of people who have gotten stung by jellyfish. For many of these people, LSD changed their lives; many of these people are notable persons who have had great influence on modern culture. I agree verifiability is a problem; rather than deleting the article, names should be removed to the talk page unless cited as is done in other similar situations, such as the Famous users section of the Mescaline article. (There is a project dealing with this sort of stuff, btw, and i'm about to go propose the system used on the mescaline page for all relevant situations.)--Heah [[User_talk:Heah|(talk)]] 23:30, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • OK, so why are people without verifiable sources in there at all? Surely they should have been deleted long ago. If the list is as you state, surely the fundamentals of WP require that the collaborative project takes a firm grip on something with such obvious potential to go out of control? And why this list, rather than "people whose LSD experience has been widely discussed" or "people whose lives were heavily influenced by LSD" (which might have some merit, but still leaves the question of how heavily, and why).
This list was fairly recently split off from the LSD article. That's what the list was, a list of people who had commented on the lsd experience, and when it got too long it was given its own article. It wasn't done by me or anyone else i know. user:Kwertii moved it on June 13th. There's obviously lots of problems with lots of articles on wikipedia, and if you have problems, you should fix them. If you feel that many of the users should have been removed from the list, go ahead and do it. We all have things to do. --Heah (talk) 19:54, 2 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Having a list of notable people who comment on the experience, but then having to put the names on the talk page due to lack of verifiability, makes absolutly no sense. I'm not certain what a celebrity could add to the description of an LSD trip that a person off the street could not state just as fluently. In other words, besides the fact that these people are celebrities, why should they be singled out for their descriptions? Jtmichcock 23:44, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cleanup. Many of these people are living and to name them without citation is essentially accusing them of having broken the law. However, I see nothing wrong with the basic premise of the list. If these are verifiably people who have spoken about their own experience then the list could be a useful research tool. Durova 23:55, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Such a list (unlike a list of people who have taken, say, aspirin) is useful when on a controversial topic subject to much spin and disinformation, but indicate the source for each entry, otherwise it is just useless gossip or libel. Haiduc 01:07, 1 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Lists split from pages are usually much more valid than ones created whole cloth. This list appears verifiable, useful, and maintainable. Turnstep 03:23, 1 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note. There is a category Hallucinogen researchers, users, and proponents, population 31. It isn't an exact overlap with this list, but close, since it includes "users". I don't know if that has any bearing on the subject or not. Herostratus 03:47, 1 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I agree with the sentiment that a list of famous people who have commented on LSD experiences is of more interest than a list of famous people who have commented on being stung by a jellyfish. Generally speaking, people don't often mention being stung because it's merely a minor inconvenience, whereas LSD trips usually have more far-reaching, profound effects on one's life. If some of the assertions are false, let the subjects remove themselves from the page; otherwise, the topic was of enough interest to me to click on the link, and I'm sure many others would be interested to know Steve Jobs's opinion on the drug. Dontknockmysmock
  • Undecided the title sucks, the concept is flawed (the list is pretty pointless without the context of why they commented and what comment they made), false additions may be actionable so WP:V is crucial, but in the end there are some people (like Philip K Dick who are known for having experimented with, and talked about, LSD. Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 17:42, 1 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I just followed up a sample; they vary from Bill Bailey, whose "comments" are mainly jokes (and pretty much universally thought not to be among his better ones), to Dick Feynman, who professed to be embarrassed about it. Apparently. (I don't remember that from his books) So without context this is appears to me to be a seriously pointless list. How would people feel about a list of people who tried smoking when they were at college, but didn't really take to it? The ones that made a big deal of it, like Timothy Leary (immortalised in song by the Moody Blues) are well enough known. I am struggling to see the point of this article. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 17:51, 1 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete it is. Here's why:
  1. For what value of "comment"? Would "I never had an LSD experience" count? Where on the scale from "none of your business" to Timothy Leary is the cutoff point? What did Syd Barrett comment about LSD? As far as I'm aware he is a recluse, and while he was not a recluse I don't recall him being coherent for long enough to make any comment, so what was the supposed comment in this case of this extensively-documented figure?
  2. For what value of "notable"? Are only people with blue links included? No. Nor is there any guarantee that normal WP standards of notability are being applied. If only WP:BIO candidates are included, why not a category so that authors on the person's article know they've been included and can verify the information?
  3. For what value of "experience"? As medication? As experiment? As life-changing influence? As "me-too" experimentation back in the 60s?
But most of all, whatever the level of verifiability and original research involved, that does this article actually tell us about either LSD or the people involved? In what way does it add to our understanding of Bill Gates to have him lumped in with Philip K. Dick? Does this finally explain Microsoft Bob? Not as such: all it tells us is that Gates is a baby boomer. It is every bit as relevant as list of people who admit to having worn flares (in fact, to a first approximation, it's the same list).
If this article told me about the LSD experience and how it defined the writing of PKD then it might be interesting, but that's not what it is. This list is indiscriminate and always will be. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 18:42, 2 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It tells us much more about cultural connections between people and their culture. the 60s was a time of great upheaval, and a list such as this can help to show who changed, how things changed, and etc. LSD and what people think about it has ramifications far beyond cleaning my drier of lint.
Not really. No more than experimenting with smoking or E does, anyway. The list doesn't who changed, how things changed or anything like that: I'm pretty sure we already cover the 1960s in a much more encyclopaedic way. This is just picking one random attribute. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 21:01, 2 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
and again, i agree the list needs a rewrite. but that doesn't mean it should be deleted.--Heah (talk) 19:54, 2 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Whihc is what people said last time. Guess what? No rewrite, so back it came. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD?
Last time? nothing in the history of this page suggests it has ever been afd'd. --Heah (talk) 22:32, 2 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Note: all uncited persons have been removed to talk page. remaining population of list is 36. --Heah (talk) 00:33, 3 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete because the article itself is very unencyclopediac. Also the information is subjective, because nobody knows which notable people have done LSD and who haven't. Croat Canuck 06:01, 2 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Many notable people have used LSD. Samboy 07:34, 2 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Alcohol is one of the most dangerous drugs in common use, and LSD was used medically (i.e. legally) in some cases. The word "infamous" is POV. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 21:58, 3 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • The keywords here are "in common use." Part of the notability is that this is something that few people have used. As far as 'infamous' being POV, what of it? This my opinion on an AfD page, not an article. For the record, "the title sucks" from your post above is probably POV as well. :) Turnstep 03:03, 4 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as unencyclopedic or else start working on list of notable people who have discovered dryer lint in their laundry. Nandesuka 13:16, 2 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • This makes no sense as a list; it's unclear (since "comment" means very different things to the different people on this list), unverifiable, and possibly libellous. Either rewrite as Notable comments on the LSD experience, including fully sourced accounts of the comments people have made and no names not attached to particular comments, or, if no one is willing to do that work, delete. Chick Bowen 18:00, 2 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom. Izehar 15:31, 4 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong delete per Nandesuka. Stifle 22:54, 4 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The "LSD experience?" The reference reminds me of stuff that I overheard more than 30 years ago from people I thought took too many drugs back then. 172 08:42, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as per nom.--nixie 08:44, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep the revised version, which at least says where the comments were made. Anville 13:59, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This is what the wiki is all about. But why isn't Leary on this list? -- JJay 04:02, 7 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. The list must have sources but it should really be kept up as Wiki provides the one place that people can compile such a list. Otherwise, such knowledge will be scattered to the four winds of the Internet. Keep.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.94.195.134 (talk • contribs) 09:25, 7 December 2005 (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.
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