Template:Did you know nominations/Glore Psychiatric Museum

Glore Psychiatric Museum

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The Tranquility Chair

• ... that Glore Psychiatric Museum has a "Giant Patient Treadmill", "Tranquility Chair", "Bath of Surprise" and "O'Halloran's Swing"?

Created by Dennis Brown (talk). Nominated by Skr15081997 (talk) at 04:07, 28 June 2014 (UTC).

• New (25 Jun), 2223B, hook is good (part of ref AGF as offline), verified no copyvio in 2 ref, QPQ not needed.--Redtigerxyz ^Talk 15:08, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

• Comment: I concur with the "good to go" review in all points, but I am wondering if we should add the picture of the Tranquility Chair? It is in the article and properly licensed. For that purpose I propose alt1. --MelanieN (talk) 20:15, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Alt1: ... that the Glore Psychiatric Museum has a "Giant Patient Treadmill", "Tranquility Chair" (pictured), "Bath of Surprise" and "O'Halloran's Swing"?

Sorry, but I'm going to interject a no-go tick here (though I never understand what any of these inner-spectrum ticks mean, exactly) until there's wider discussion. This article is supposed to be about the museum, but it really ends up being a "oh-how-ignorant-people-in-the-old-days-were" chamber of horrors of psychiatric treatment from the past. With the exception of the Cornell and National Library of Medicine sources, none of these sources is reliable for the statements made about treatment practices over the centuries -- they're gee-whiz guidebooks and the museum's own website. Typically ignorant content in this article is the quotation from roadsideamerica apparently trying to make Benjamin Rush look like some kind of fool by calling him "a big believer in leeches and bleeding". The article's a WP:COATRACK -- perhaps unintentionally so, but a coatrack nonetheless. EEng (talk) 11:58, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

I'll respond, if I may. (I had intended to nominate this for DYK, but Skr beat me to it.) First of all, I agree about Rush and I will fix that. Second, I agree that this is not and should not be an article about the history of psychiatry, and I will remove it from that category. This is an article about a museum. As such it should describe the museum's mission, history, and collections. For those things, I think the guidebooks and the museum's website are acceptable as references. The only independently verified "history of psychiatry" items are the two you mentioned. I will make some changes in the article, and then I will come back here to propose a revised hook.

I think I may have come across a bit harsh -- sorry. I have to repeat, though that most guidebooks/ travel websites are low-quality sources, and should be used in only the most restricted way -- e.g. for museum exhibits, to say "The collection includes restraint devices, a mockup of a typical patient room, and obsolete surgical equipment" -- very straightforward stuff like that. Anything repeated about treatment practices and so on is just too easily sensationalized by these kinds of sources. The museum itself certainly has a serious purpose but I can't really discern its curatorial credentials so its website should be used with a touch of caution, I think, especially for anything sensational. This may mean the article may need to be cut a good deal. I'm not trying to shut this article down but I know a good deal about this subject and one of the worst mistakes made -- at all points in scientific and medical history -- is to think, "Oh, we're so much smarter than people used to be -- we'd never be so cruel or foolish." That's precisely the opposite of the lesson we should draw from a place like this Museum. EEng (talk) 18:33, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Those horrific exhibits are what makes the museum notable. Without them, it is merely another well-meaning museum, ignored by the public and struggling to stay open, run-of-the-mill, not qualifying for a Wikipedia article. With the sensational displays it is famous and is written up in detail in many national guidebooks - the best indicator of notability for something like this. I totally understand where you are coming from, in wanting to reject the message of these "cruel and foolish" exhibits. I'm sure there are museums, with articles here, whose message I reject with every fibre of my being. But here at Wikipedia we do not censor messages we disagree with. We are duty bound to base our articles on notability - and those weird exhibits are what is notable about this museum. I have made quite a few changes in the article, including a fix to the "Benjamin Rush" information, and a mention of the other exhibits besides the models. See what you think of it now. --MelanieN (talk) 19:09, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

P.S. I am proposing a new hook, limited to the devices that have independent confirmation that they were actually used. --MelanieN (talk) 19:12, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

• alt2 ...that the Glore Psychiatric Museum displays full-sized reproductions of antique devices once used in the treatment of mental illness, such as the Tranquility Chair (pictured) and the Bath of Surprise?

Coupla things:

• First of all, notability isn't the criterion for article content -- it's only the test for article topics. See WP:N
• This has nothing to do with wanting to censor anything. It has to do with reliable sourcing. Roadsideamerica, legendsofamerica, and Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to the Show-Me State’s Most Spirited Spots are not reliable sources. For example:

• Haunted Missouri: "The patients and staff in that building were continually talking about seeing a lady in a flowing gown in the museum at night
• Roadsideamerica:

• "The museum has a reproduction of Rush's bleeding knife that was distributed to promote a drug manufacturer; they were recalled after a patient grabbed one off his psychiatrist's desk and stabbed him to death." Yeah, except Rush died in 1813, the term psychiatrist was almost completely unknown until about 1900, and the concept of a recall was invented about 1970. It's made-up sensationalist nonsense.
• Or the "'Giant Patient Treadmill', a device similar to a gerbil wheel..." Oh, please. While this does give an appropriate physical image of the device, its inclusion is obvious;y meant to imply the reduction of patients "to animals" or something -- ignorant of the fact that a treatmill did not, at that time represent "useless effort" as it does today, but was a common way of providing power to an industrial process i.e. a mill, so this is a completely distorted impression to give.

It's one thing for a sensible statement to carry a . It's quite another to adopt, wholesale. sensationalist nonsense from sites which help parents keep their kids from being bored on road trips. I really need to ask that material cited to these three sources be removed.

• I think your ALT2 is fine. Here's another possibility:

ALT3: ... that on the grounds of the Glore Psychiatric Museum are some 2000 graves, numbered but not named?

(but we'd need a different source from that currently in the article for this). EEng (talk) 21:02, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

I think we can get by without the "Haunted" and "Roadside" sources; although the nonsense you cited is not in the article, I take your point that the sources are not to be trusted. I'll remove or replace those two sources. (Of course, eliminating those two sources will also eliminate your proposed Alt3.) I would prefer to keep the "Legends" source; it doesn't seem to contain unlikely or sensationalist claims like the other two, and it has a lot of helpful history of the prison and museum that I don't find elsewhere. --MelanieN (talk) 21:22, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I'm not some ultimate arbiter but I appreciate your understanding my special concern on this topic. I've tagged Haunted as which is a way of saying that maybe someone in the next 500 years will substitute a better source. EEng (talk) 21:37, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

"Haunted" is gone. So is "Roadside." So is the entire paragraph about numbered graves, and families dropping off patients with the clothes they should be buried in. I added a new source to verify the O'Halloran Swing and the Bath of Surprise. --MelanieN (talk) 21:51, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

P.S. You may have created a monster when you got me looking up sources. 0;-D I found a quote from Glore about the rationale for the museum - how looking at "the atrocities of the past" helps people realize how far we've come. --MelanieN (talk) 22:06, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

P.S. Are we there yet? --MelanieN (talk) 22:08, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned it's fine now. Please bear in mind that as far as I can tell Glore was a very dedicated Mental Health Dept. employee, but one without any particular training in medicine, history of medicine, etc., so be careful quoting him as if he's an expert. Again, thanks for tolerating my interference. EEng (talk) 00:35, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

If your issues have been resolved, would you mind posting a "good to go" checkmark, just so it is clear to the hook promoter? And specify, for their benefit, which hook to use? --MelanieN (talk) 01:46, 30 June 2014 (UTC)