Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Science

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Science

Virtual Soldier Research Program

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Promotional, entirely self published sources, poor quality article, should be moved to draftspace or deleted. JustMakeTheAccount (talk) 03:05, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Military, Organizations, Science, Computing, and Iowa. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 05:05, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - The sources are definitely not self published (WP:ABOUTSELF). Any source that begins with ISBN, ISSN or DOI is not self published. I don't see anything promotional here. — Maile (talk) 12:14, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Strictly speaking, that's not correct. Anyone can get an ISBN for a self-published book. Also preprint platforms allow you to get a DOI on any submission. MarioGom (talk) 13:49, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. Moreover, the sources are nearly all by Abdel-Malek and coauthors themselves. Even if they're not "self-published" in the sense kf being run off on the office Xerox machine, they're primary sources and thus unusable. 158.121.180.24 (talk) 20:23, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - I do not see any self-published sources, I do see some issues with promo/NPOV and general MOS issues. The paragraphs The Santos simulation platform was developed from the ground up. Using the 215 DOF and based on the use of optimization based methods that enable cost functions to drive the motion, the numerical algorithm drives the motion to predict joint variables across time (also called joint profiles) and subject to a number of constraints. For example, predicting gait of any body type is now possible. Similarly, any task can be modeled and simulated using this approach. Xiang, Yujiang, Jasbir S. Arora, and Karim Abdel-Malek. "Hybrid predictive dynamics: a new approach to simulate human motion." Multibody System Dynamics 28.3 (2012): 199-224. and Over time, the Santos family has grown to incorporate a variety of different body scans to provide a range of models that include our female version, Sophia, and a broad array of different body shapes, types, and sizes. Our research is currently being extended to allow multiple digital human models to interact with each other to complete tasks cooperatively. … Santos was built using state-of-the-art technologies adapted from robotics, Hollywood, and the game industry. VSR research continues to grow in its dynamic capabilities, physiology, and intelligent behaviors through integration of Artificial Intelligence, design optimization, physics-based modeling, and advanced, multi-scale physiological models. stick out to me as being inappropriate. However, the actual subject (VSRP and related inventions) do appear to pass GNG. Sarsenet•he/they•(talk) 09:16, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Delete This is a self-promo piece by a research group. Pages detailing a program or approach by a specific group belong on Facebook or LinkedIn, this is classic WP:What Wikipedia is not. It does not matter how many sources etc there are, this type of advertising is not what Wikipedia is for, we are an encyclopedia. Ldm1954 (talk) 14:14, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete This is very obviously a research group advertising themselves. Not all schools deserve articles; few departments within schools need articles of their own, and almost no individual research groups merit them. This is no exception. It's just advertising. 158.121.180.24 (talk) 19:32, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ✗plicit 06:49, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per Ldm1954. This is self-promotion by a research program/company that does not seem to have attracted significant attention. Their papers have received relatively modest citations, and I can't find any indication that this research has been independently discussed, evaluated or replicated in depth within the research literature. In addition, given that it resulted in the spin-off of a private company to commercialise the research, and given that a significant proportion of this article is about the company/product, wouldn't it be the case that this article should actually be assessed under the higher notability standard of WP:NCORP? Because in that case I think this is an even clearer notability fail. MCE89 (talk) 08:34, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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 keep‎. Goldsztajn (talk) 07:20, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hazel Assender

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The subject has no proven notability outside of bios JustMakeTheAccount (talk) 03:45, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. hroest 04:03, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
weak keep tenured professor at Oxford, with an h-index of 30 and 6 publications with 100+ citations, she is close to the bar for WP:NPROF#1 and with some good will passes that bar. --hroest 04:10, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
weak delete per hroest's evidence that she's close to the bar, and the article makes zero claims of notability but instead sounds like trying to pump up the standard sorts of things every prof everywhere does. DMacks (talk) 04:14, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Science and England. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 04:18, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep. I feel like she does meet WP:GNG. I won't say that this article is firmly in notable territory, but I wouldn't say this fails GNG either. Madeline1805 (talk) 04:26, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Passes WP:Prof. Is the nominator aware of this SNG? Xxanthippe (talk) 06:50, 8 May 2025 (UTC).[reply]
Weak keep per WP:PROF#C1. I think someone at this level in the US would very likely be an ASME Fellow and also pass #C3 but I don't see anything like that for her. On the other hand, full professor in England and in particular at Oxford is somewhat stricter than at US universities, maybe not enough for #C5 but a step towards it. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:56, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. My first thought was that weak keep was the right choice, but her publication record is reasonable, and, perhaps more important, her publications are well cited, with many cited more than 50 times, several more than 100, and at least two more than 300. Athel cb (talk) 08:14, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, not only well-cited, but a full professorship in Oxford definitely meets #C5 (older UK universities have few explicitly-named professorships, and we never call ourselves distinguished, it just feels wrong...). Elemimele (talk) 11:48, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I can tell she's actually an Associate Professor holding the title of Full Professor under the Recognition of Distinction exercise. But I see she was also joint Head of Department [1] so this is at least a Weak Keep and possibly better. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 08:38, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. As others say above, an h-factor of 30 is not high. This is definitely the case in Material Science where I look for > 45. As mentioned above Full Professor at Oxford is no longer notable by itself, it used to be; they were good with fund raising, but that is off topic. At Oxford it is the same as a US Full Professor and definitely does not meet #C5. If she had a senior named chair such as the Wolfson Chair that would pass #C5. I also disagree with the statement about ASME Fellow. (talk) 22:10, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Meets the notability requirements for academia. Go4thProsper (talk) 02:11, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

? What does this vote mean? Xxanthippe (talk) 02:35, 11 May 2025 (UTC).[reply]

Keep as noted above via WP:NPROF #1. I counted seven publications with 100+ citations (she is first author on three of these), 21 cited at least 50 times, and an h-index of 33 using Google Scholar. Enough of her more recent publications have her name in the last position and/or as corresponding author which would be expected for a full professor. Nnev66 (talk) 19:37, 14 May 2025 (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.

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. It is completely uncontested, by all participants in this discussion, that the subject obviously passes WP:NPROF. It is also uncontested that she does not meet WP:GNG - as in, no participant has even attempted to prove otherwise. At issue, then, is not whether she is notable, or by which guideline, but whether we should honour her request in spite of that obvious notability. On this matter we have WP:BLP policy: Unless the subject clearly passes the general notability guideline (GNG) or is currently or was an elected or appointed official, editors should seriously consider honoring such requests. According to that same policy, if there is no consensus to keep or delete after an article's subject requests deletion, an administrator may close as delete. There is presently no consensus. No one has argued that she meets GNG. I am closing as delete. asilvering (talk) 06:17, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Marsha Moses

AfDs for this article:

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The subject of this article has requested deletion as was suggested at the previous AfD. Those editors with VRT access can reference ticket:2025041610018915. ⇌ Jake Wartenberg 14:58, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Academics and educators, Science, Biology, and Medicine. ⇌ Jake Wartenberg 14:58, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
comment I see two articles with 1000+ citations and dozens of articles with 100+ citations which means she passes WP:NPROF#1. Secondly she holds a named chair at Harvard University which is another indication of notability per NPROF#5 and she has multiple elected fellowships (NPROF#3). Furthermore she received a prestigious award which would be relevant under NPROF#2. According to our standards, I would argue she is highly notable (although not a public persona) but not at all a case that is somewhere in the gray area. --hroest 15:13, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Weak delete - Both the subject and the creator of the article have requested deletion. According to WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE: Unless the subject clearly passes the general notability guideline (GNG) or is currently or was an elected or appointed official, editors should seriously consider honoring such requests.. Note it doesn't say GNG or NPROF. The subject may be a clear pass of NPROF, but GNG is less clear. I don't know why deletion was requested (multiple times now), but I also don't see a problem with honoring it in this case. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:47, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I am in agreement here with Rhododendrites. We don't know why this person has requested deletion, and they are not obligated to tell us about any conflicting personal or professional issues are behind the request. Could be very private personal issues behind this request. Could be nothing, or could be reaction to the article is taking up a lot of their time. They don't owe us an explanation. — Maile (talk) 17:40, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
comment we are here to provide information about publicly-relevant people, for the benefit of our readers, not for the subjects of our article. Just as we don't allow vanity-publishing of those who'd like more publicity than they get, we have to be careful of modesty-deletion of those who shun publicity but about whom the public still have legitimate interest. We also need to be cautious of the occasional "my way or no way" deletion request from someone who wants an article written on their own terms, and those shunning publicity because there's some scandal looming (I'm not implying that either of these is the case here). My interpretation of request-delete is that the subject's wishes tip the balance if the balance is delicate. In this case she looks like a pretty solid pass, not a delicate balance. Do we actually know why she wishes to have the article deleted? I'm not sure AfD works for cases like this: you can't ask the jury to decide something, but tell them they're not allowed to see the evidence or know why they're being asked. Elemimele (talk) 16:27, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you @Elemimele, you just saved me having to say pretty much exactly the same. :)

I'd also add that given how self-evidently notable this person is, even if we delete this version, what's to stop someone next month recreating it? Or are we meant to salt the title (and if so, on what grounds?), or to go through AfD Groundhog Day on this subject ad infinitum? Then again, given that this is already the 2nd deletion-request-AfD, even if we don't delete this time, we may be stuck with AfD Groundhog Day... -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 17:04, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Moses seems happy to maintain a public profile on sites like the American Academy of Arts and Sciences [2] so there can be little question of privacy here, only of control. I think that's not an adequate reason for deletion for someone so prominent. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:23, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
- To put it another way: if the President of Harvard University asked us to delete their article, should we agree? The president of the US? We have none of the factors that WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE says we should take into consideration: problematic editing, real-world harm identified by the subject, nor a subject that is only minimally notable. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:55, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  The subject is not the President of Harvard University, and the article had numerous inaccuracies at the time of the VRT request. Biographies of actual public figures receive a lot more attention from editors than those that cover relatively unknown people, such as this one. Having a Wikipedia biography is certainly a burden to many subjects that do not have marketing teams, assistants, or public relations professionals at their disposal. This is the reason that the page you reference only invites us to consider the general notability guideline, per Rhododendrites, which is a better measure of a subject's exposure to public life than NPROF. Finally, minimal notability is one of the additional factors that we are invited to consider, and this is obviously the case when apply GNG. Nothing of serious value is being lost here. Let's have some compassion. ⇌ Jake Wartenberg 18:07, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  We have here a fellow of major societies (especially the American Academy of Arts and Sciences) for whom we should aim for biographies of all members. Deleting this article would leave a permanent hole in our coverage. And it's difficult to have compassion for a bare request to delete when there is no information given on the cause for requesting deletion. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:45, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  I asked the subject to share more about why she made this request. She said, "I am a working scientist [...] I do not have a personal team of professionals, public relations or marketing team folks or any others who can take care of such personal matters as keeping [an article] factually accurate, which it has yet to be [...] the work is all on me—having to constantly review my entry and then contact the Response Team for correction." ⇌ Jake Wartenberg 20:17, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: Still as notable as they were last time at AfD, and there's several notable positions and fellowships listed. I suspect this is about not being able to control the information in the article, as being the reason for wanting it deleted. This person is a rather public figure with several profiles on public websites, the right to privacy seems to have been waived in this case. Oaktree b (talk) 00:44, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: and deleting this would only contribute to gender bias, which is a real issue on Wikipedia. We should be advocating for articles about notable females in STEM fields. Oaktree b (talk) 00:46, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: inherently a professor is a public figure to a degree, usually part of their job is to lecture in front of students and colleagues at conferences as well as be available for journalist/government inquiries. This is doubly true at major R1 research universities. It is unreasonable to have an expectation of total privacy where their name is not mentioned anywhere in the press or on the internet. The potential for inaccuracies in the article is not a reason to delete, we can correct or remove inaccurate statements. --hroest 12:58, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Although a clear pass of WP:Prof, delete at subject's request. Xxanthippe (talk) 06:56, 8 May 2025 (UTC).[reply]
Keep it is true that the subject asked for deletion, per Jake Wartenberg and the ticket number, but since the subject is very notable (have won multiple prestegious awards), then I would override delete for keep. Ramos1990 (talk) 00:23, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep at least per her fellowships in many prominent scientific organizations,the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Cinder painter (talk) 06:11, 14 May 2025 (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.

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. Editors reminded that WP:BLP policy applies to any living person mentioned in a BLP, whether or not that person is the subject of the article, and to material about living persons in other articles and on other pages, including talk pages. There is no exemption from BLP policy, anywhere. asilvering (talk) 06:24, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Belenso T. Yimchunger ISRO Certificate Controversy

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WP:BLPCRIME. The prod was removed because "WP:BLPCRIME only applies when the editor has a serious conflict of interest with the subject of the article. " which is completely incorrect. This is a WP:BLP1E known for only issue, a minor accusation of fabricating a certificate. Fram (talk) 11:44, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Spaceflight and India. Shellwood (talk) 11:47, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: per nom. This does not seem WP:LASTING enough to be worthy of an article. silviaASH (inquire within) 12:06, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Nagaland-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 13:56, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 13:57, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - fails WP:NEVENT, and although framed as an article about an event and not about the person, WP:BLP1E, and WP:BIO1E also feel very relevant. This is a low profile individual involved in a minor "scandal". Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 08:42, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:MILL. Tabloid newspapers in India report on an issue. The said tabloids boost the issue's popularity, and TV stations jump on the bandwagon. One brave outlet discovers and reports on the mistake. Indian media then turns on the subject, who did something stupid but not criminal. Rinse, repeat, and move onto the next overhyped story, much beloved by the Indian media. Maybe cause a war with a neighboring country. Then they sue us. Bearian (talk) 23:36, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This is not a WP:BLP issue, as the article discusses a public event, not an ongoing biography. WP:BLP1E and WP:BIO1E don't apply when reliable coverage exists beyond a single trivial mention. If multiple independent, reliable sources covered the incident in depth, it may meet WP:Notability (events). Not every article must have long-term significance WP:LASTING if there's verifiable, sustained coverage now. Here all sources are independent. Deletion per WP:MILL is speculative - that's about avoiding rumor, not documented reporting. If it’s sourced, neutral, and factual, it should stay. Per WP:NOTABILITY, "A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article... when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." Deleting sourced, verifiable content because it feels “minor” is not policy-based. Flyingphoenixchips (talk) 02:00, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's MILL when there's many more similar scandals of the week coming out of India. Having an article about each and every one of them would (1) reduce English Wikipedia into a mere news outlet, (2) increase the risk of further lawsuits and/or injunctions against the Wikimedia Foundation, which has already happened and we are forbidden from even mentioning it, and (3) increase the risk that the United States government could remove our charitable status, under pressure from the wealthiest men in America and India. Bearian (talk) 07:44, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
While this may be true and I agree with the WP:NOTNEWS principles of the first half of your comment, the WMF's legal troubles are generally speaking not the responsibility or concern of us editors, and the second half of this comment is a WP:TDLI argument which isn't helpful here. If this article urgently needed to be deleted, it already would be. silviaASH (inquire within) 08:15, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, I totally get what you are trying to convey in this case. However I would like to respectfully disagree. This over here, is definitely not a case of WP:MILL, which only cautions against topics sustained only by tabloid or rumor-driven coverage. In this case, the sources are independent, reliable, and not derivative of one another, indicating genuine significant coverage as per WP:NOTABILITY. From what I see from the various sources out there, this controversy did spark national-level discourse on scientific integrity and credential verification (hence the large amount of sources), aligning it more with WP:NOTNEWS exceptions, where an event leads to more of a broader implications or societal discussion. Per WP:EVENT, a single event like this may and should definitely merit an article if it receives non-trivial, in-depth coverage from multiple sources—which is true here. Dismissing it solely for being part of a pattern of scandals is something I will not call policy-based. Of course, I do agree, that the substance and amount of content in the present article must definitely be cut down. Flyingphoenixchips (talk) 21:09, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Lots of things spark a discourse and not all of those things are independently notable enough for articles. A lot of the weird shit that Trump says over here sparks regular, interminable discourse and controversy, and not all of it warrants articles, because a lot of it, in the context of our political climate, is not all that remarkable and doesn't lead to any lasting impact.

I think if you want to prove that this scandal was significant enough for an article, you're going to need to show that it actually had a significant impact on something lasting that proves it's of special interest, like a law got changed or a more scrutiny was applied to researchers or something. I don't think "there was a debate" is really gonna cut it here. silviaASH (inquire within) 23:38, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I get what you mean but with all respect, WP:EVENT does permit stand-alone articles on a single event where they merit extensive, unconventional reporting in distinguished, standalone media—such as this event. Comparing with "Trump's daily controversies" is not it because they are common remarks from already prominent individual, whereas the present event concerned credential fraud against a highly influential public entity which I feel is important enough for the country concern which is india (ISRO). Whether or not it influenced law should not matter as much. Notability is about being reported on, and the guideline does mention it as well. And this was relatively new (2024). The enduring significance here as I see it, is not scandalous novelty but more of a recorded national system oversight in a national institution of india.. which I feel should make it notable. There is also WP:SIGCOV Flyingphoenixchips (talk) 18:59, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Does not meet notability for WP:EVENTCRITERIA. It was a scandal, but what impact did this actually have? Ramos1990 (talk) 00:43, 14 May 2025 (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.

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. asilvering (talk) 06:00, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Four-hundred-year solar minimum of the 21st century

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WP:OR, cherrypicked sources. Title seems to be an invention by the article creator (or a translation from somewhere?) Article claims e.g. that the minimum will go from 2020 to 2053, and "it is expected to reduce the average global temperature by up to 1.0–1.5°C.", but the current second source[3] gives "They named the most likely scenario as a decrease in solar activity in the period up to 2100, but this will lead to only a small decrease in global temperature of about 0.08 ° C"? Url for third source is same as for second source, and first source is an editorial, not a peer-reviewed paper. I draftified the article to give a chance to correct these issues and let others have a look, but it was put back into the mainspace. Fram (talk) 12:23, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Fram (talk) 12:23, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. The plausibility and impacts of a grand solar minimum occurring in the 21st century have been discussed in the academic literature (e.g., [4], 2010; [5], 2013; [6], 2013; [7], 2015; [8], 2015), but I do not think that the coverage is WP:SIGNIFICANT enough to warrant its own dedicated article. Furthermore, more recent data from solar cycle 25 suggests that this scenario is unlikely. I think mentioning a hypothesized future minimum and its impacts in Solar minimum#Grand solar minima and maxima would be sufficient. I do not think a merge would be appropriate because the current content and refs are not suitable as mentioned by Fram. A relevant quote from [9] (2025):

"While earlier studies hypothesized that solar activity could decline to levels similar to those of the Maunder Minimum (Abreu et al., 2008; Lockwood et al., 2011; Anet et al., 2013), more recent solar observations suggest a different trajectory. In particular, sunspot number (SSN) records for Solar Cycle 25 already exceed those of Cycle 24, indicating that solar activity is currently increasing (SIDC – Solar Influences Data Analysis Center, 2024). As such, a Dalton-like or Gleissberg-type minimum is considered more plausible in the near future."

As a side note, the first reference in the article is from Valentina Zharkova who seems to be the main source in popular media claiming that there is an upcoming grand solar minimum. Some of their work also appears to be very climate-change-denial adjacent. There is a Live Science article rebutting Zharkova's grand solar minimum: [10]. CoronalMassAffection (talk) 17:01, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Additional comment: Zharkova had a paper on this grand solar minimum retracted [11] (PubPeer link: [12]), and her past work has been highlighted not so positively in Science Alert [13] and [14], Slate [15], and Ars Technica [16]. From what I gather, this modern grand minimum is a climate change denial talking point. CoronalMassAffection (talk) 17:11, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Astronomy-related deletion discussions. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 19:44, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete and merge whatever is salvageable into Solar cycle 25 which already has a "Predictions" section where this will belong in case there are any peer-reviewed studies that still make such predictions. --hroest 15:23, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete and merge per the above. --cyclopia ^speak! 10:03, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete just delete Norlk (talk) 14:27, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: 'Delete' and 'merge' are mutually exclusive. Either something can be salvaged, or it can't
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 16:56, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - WP:OR and WP:CRYSTAL. There is nothing worthwhile to merge. Bearian (talk) 01:12, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to Solar_cycle_25#Predictions. Though there is some sourcing, I don't think enough notability for stand alone article. Fits better as a section. Ramos1990 (talk) 04:45, 19 May 2025 (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.

The Sol Foundation

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More than a year ago, Melcous correctly added our template for excessive reliance on non-WP:INDEPENDENT sources to this article on a UFO club run by enthusiast Garry Nolan.

In any case ,the underlying issue has gone unresolved. I conducted a truncated WP:BEFORE consisting exclusively of a Google News search (because, given the subject, it's obviously not going to appear in any journal or book).

This search found pages upon pages of references to this outfit which might incline the casual observer to presume it passes WP:N. However, on close inspection, most of these are to The Debrief, which is unambiguously non-RS. Its editor-in-chief is Micah Hanks (who also reports on Sasquatch, [17] wrote the foreword to a "non-fiction" book on monsters that purportedly live in South Carolina [18], wrote a book about something called "ghost rockets" [19], and used to host a podcast about ghosts and ESP) The other contributors of this site come from a similar pedigree.

Additional sources are WP:ROUTINE (e.g. an event listing at the San Francisco Standard [20]) or are purely incidental mentions, such as organization officers being quoted by title in stories.

Fails WP:GNG. Chetsford (talk) 09:38, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Organizations and California. Shellwood (talk) 09:55, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Philosophy, Paranormal, Politics, and Science. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 10:47, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: The Guideline for establishing notability in this instance is Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies). 5Q5|^✉ 11:37, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly oppose deletion. Regardless of individual beliefs about UAPs, the topic is widely covered by mainstream media, government sources, and academic commentary. Wikipedia’s role is to document verifiable information, not to judge its validity. Deleting well-sourced content undermines neutrality and public access to information.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Hempanicker (talk • contribs) 13:58, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep this article. To describe Dr. Nolan as an 'enthusiast' is a deliberately biasing term meant to diminish. Such derogatory language should not be used in a delete argument per rules. Dr. Nolan is a noted research scientist. Of one wants to describe a noted scientist with nearly 400 peer reviewed papers as an enthusiast, then one might also say Chetsford, the person proposing this deletion, is an enthusiast for anti-science propaganda. The Sol Foundation has now published several pure research papers on the subject of NHI (which by the way is mentioned in the UAP Disclosure act as put forward by Senators Schumer and Rounds) multiple times as a global definition of not just the idea of "aliens" but also any other non-human intelligence that might have originated on Earth prior to humanity. The pogrom driven by Chetsford, LuckyLouie and others is a malicious attempt against freedom of information and should be resisted. TruthBeGood (talk) 15:25, 1 May 2025 (UTC) — TruthBeGood (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.[reply]

Very Strong Keep I have edited my keep and refactored the prior discussion below. The article has substantially changed since this was nominated. This was the Reference section when The Sol Foundation was sent nominated to delete:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Sol_Foundation&oldid=1288083567#References

I have now added sources including the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Hartford Courant, Catholic News Service, Aleteia, Rice University, Newsweek, Daily Express, PopMatters, Society of Catholic Scientists, la Repubblica, Focus (German magazine), Niconico, La Razón (Madrid), Sunday World, Futurism, the International Social Science Journal, and more, and still have more yet to go through when I have time. This is the References section now after 39 edits by me:

* Archive: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Sol_Foundation&oldid=1288346733#References

* Live: The Sol Foundation#References

Here is all current sources sorted against WP:SIGCOV: Talk:The_Sol_Foundation#Current sources ranked against WP:SIGCOV

That is coverage from seven (7) nations: the United States, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, and Japan. I think this is now a trivial keep and the AfD should be withdrawn. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 01:34, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Newsweek is considered generally unreliable per WP:NEWSWEEK. The Daily Express is considered generally unreliable per WP:DAILYEXPRESS. "Popmatters.com" - a small pop culture, citizen journalism website [21] that publishes listicles like "the best albums of 1999" - is doubtfully RS for coverage of xenobiology, quantum physics, and astronautical engineering per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. The La Razon article mentions the Sol Foundation once (in a title quote attribution to its founder) and is not WP:SIGCOV.
I've gone through the rest of the sources in this latest batch and they all are insufficient in similar ways, however, due to the sheer volume of sources I am truncating the written portion of my analysis for purposes of readability. (I previously evaluated a different shotgun spread of sources by the above editor in a comment I made [22] said editor has taken it upon himself to collapse.) Thanks - Chetsford (talk) 03:11, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Readers: Please pay attention to this.

Your La Razon remark is completely made up of whole cloth and your imagination. Why would you do that? Did you think no one read the content? The La Razon article says, "Inspirados en proyectos científicos y divulgativos, como el que ha puesto en marcha Garry Nollan con la Fundación SOL, o en Francia UAP Check, los miembros de UAP Digital y UAP Spain prevén la próxima creación de un Panel de expertos multidisciplinar que impulse el debate y el estudio científico sobre los Fenómenos Anómalos No Identificados en territorio europeo." That translates to, "Inspired by scientific and educational projects, such as the one launched by Garry Nolan and the SOL Foundation, or by UAP Check in France, the members of UAP Digital and UAP Spain plan to create a multidisciplinary panel of experts to promote debate and scientific study on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena in Europe." Which is the citation for, "La Razón credited the Sol Foundation with having inspired similar research ventures in Spain."

How is that a "a title quote attribution to its founder"? La Razón explicitly credits the SOL Foundation itself, not just Garry Nolan or its title, as an inspiration for UAP Digital and UAP Spain’s planned expert panel. The sentence structure in Spanish--"como el que ha puesto en marcha Garry Nolan con la Fundación SOL"--clearly attributes the project’s inspiration to both Nolan and the SOL Foundation as entities, not merely using the Foundation’s name as a descriptor. There is no valid counterargument because the conjunction "con" ("with") grammatically links Nolan’s action to the SOL Foundation as an active collaborator or source of the project, making it impossible to interpret the Foundation as a passive or incidental mention.

The nominator has substantially misdiscribed everything. Did you notice how many of the sources are notable enough to have deeply complex Wikipedia articles themselves? The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics is a bad source for the topic of a foundation studying UFOs? Some of the sources are thorough and entire pieces on the SOL Foundation. Some are brief but relevant mentions, and all of them were picked because they were relevant and contributed to Wikipedia:Notability. Look at my user page. I don't mess around with sourcing; this was something I did rapid fire because we simply needed to demonstrate notability, not build a complex 80k+ article... yet.

Remain Very Strong Keep. Parse all of nominator's remarks carefully for accuracy at this time. I don't know what is going on. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 03:45, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to engage in a debate as to whether the six word phrase "Garry Nolan and the SOL Foundation" constitutes WP:SIGCOV. But I acknowledge and appreciate your obvious passion for this subject. Chetsford (talk) 03:55, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Everyone knows that not every article source needs to be WP:SIGCOV. The point today is I have demonstrated breadth and scope of Wikipedia:Notability, with articles from global scales, from long to short pieces, to some that are significant and some that are minor. That's still notable. You can't minimize major international publications. You have not demonstrated in any way that The Sol Foundation lacks notability. There are still more sources, and more content (multiple citations for some) to pull out of the sourcing I've already added. There is no such thing as an AfD qualification or requirement that the article has to be in any sort of advanced state of development. Please be honest with our peers and fair. Very Strong Keep. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 04:06, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"I have demonstrated breadth and scope of" We'll have to agree to disagree. As noted by my previous comments, your sources include WP:NEWSWEEK, WP:DAILYEXPRESS, a citizen journalism pop culture website, a Substack newsletter with 8 subscribers, something called "exopolitik.com", [23] etc., etc. Chetsford (talk) 04:16, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What version of the site are you even looking at? Hartford Courant, Focus, Sunday World, the Catholic ones, AIAA, and so on? I challenge you, here and now, to show me exactly where Substack is used as a source, or else withdraw the AfD and recuse yourself from this article going forward, in perpeuity, with no option to undo that, and it will be enforced by other Admins? Do you agree?

Here, the current version right now: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Sol_Foundation&oldid=1288346733

Show me exactly where the text string "substack" shows up anywhere in that article. Do you agree to my terms? -- Very Polite Person (talk) 04:19, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I never said it showed up "in that article." You said your comments on this Talk page "demonstrated breadth and scope". Those comments include "Additional possible sourcing found in under <5 minutes of minimal effort ... substack.com/home/post/p-142904928" [24].
"Do you agree?" No thanks! Chetsford (talk) 04:39, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, this is what you are compelled to judge against:

I have been exceptionally clear that I am arguing against the live, production sources. You arguing against what I previously linked here and did not use in the article is irrelevant. All that matters is what is in the live article now, and what is in the article now trivially meets Wikipedia:Notability and particularly, it meets Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies). Not, again, what I linked and withdrew on the AfD. What is now live. This article passes AfD now trivially. If you are unwilling to address all the sources, you are not arguing per policy, and 'good faith' becomes questionable, as you are then arguing against non-acceptable criteria which is not policy. We are all slaves here to outcomes. That includes the nominator. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 16:12, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Updated my remarks with newly found evidence.

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Strong Keep -- Additional possible sourcing found in under <5 minutes of minimal effort:

EDIT 1: Upgrading to strong keep. I'm already integrating these. The PopMatters article (link) is literally an entire piece devoted to the Foundation and their Symposium just by itself.

EDIT 2: I'm still finding more sources. Google Sol Foundation without quotes, add various flags like +Nolan, +UAP, +research, +UFO, +military, and so on--there's plenty. I again stand by this being an easy keep. I'm already adding sources to the live article, and there's plenty more I can add in the next few days. Have at it, all. It is unclear how OP missed all these. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 16:36, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

EDIT 3, again reaffirm my Strong Keep; I've added yet more sources, and here is the current references section: The Sol Foundation#References. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 17:13, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

https://www.popmatters.com/sol-foundation-symposium-ufos-uap

https://oxfordre.com/literature/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.001.0001/acrefore-9780190201098-e-1348

https://mitechnews.com/guest-columns/sol-foundation-releases-17-videos-from-ufo-conference/

https://substack.com/home/post/p-142904928

https://www.courant.com/2023/11/22/how-a-stanford-professor-aims-to-organize-the-hunt-for-alien-life/

https://www.firstprinciples.org/article/serious-physicists-are-talking-about-ufos-what-changed

https://exopolitik.org/hochrangige-insider-beraten-ueber-die-zukunft-der-ufo-offenlegung/

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/issj.12484

https://nowcreations.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/10-Reasons-to-Consider-the-Possibility-of-_Beyond-human-Intelligence-No-11-Sept-2024.pdf

I see more mentions yet on Google News and Google Scholar that are required to be considered. Premature nomination. Just because an article is a stub that no one has had the time or energy or will to build from available data doesn't mean it's not notable or should be deleted based on not being "done".

I started Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review just yesterday -- based on what that article looks like, would you delete it? Certainly not. The one article I linked on the talk page alone has enough outbound links to quash any AfD there. I have found a raft of material there with a minimum energy of effort--it took me less than 5 minutes to find what I linked here for Sol Foundations. See next Joint Geological and Geophysical Research Station that at first glance was hard to source, but I dug into enough data that now it's fine. This is an endemic problem on Wikipedia it appears? Just because the one user cannot or will not find data doens't mean a topic isn't notable. [[25]] is how I found Invention Secrecy Act, and now when I get the will and time to go back to it, I'm not even a third of the way into the sourcing I have saved. A more "done" article will have 70-80+ sources, not just 24. The same thing happened with how I found this article and how it's references look today. This article here was a particular pain to source and had one (1) source when I found it; click to see the current version. Just because an article takes work and is a stub still doesn't mean it's not notable.

It's also obvious "not just The Debrief" as sourcing, which is not a disallowed source in any event under any rational or widely accepted rules nor precedent or RfD or discussions anywhere. Keep for The Sol Foundation. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 13:21, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Oxford reference doesn't mention this at all, "exopolitik.com" is clearly not RS, a Substack newsletter with 8 subscribers is not RS, a PDF on the website of a guy in Ohio named Vince who works on "raising the consciousness of the planet as part of the Universal Life Force" [sic] is not RS, etc., etc., etc.
"I started Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review just yesterday -- based on what that article looks like, would you delete it?" Based on the sources you attached to your Keep !vote here, I'm very tempted to look at it. Chetsford (talk) 13:37, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:ASPERSIONS are out of place at AfD. Thank you. Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi 18:37, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Remain Keep. Hartford Courant, Poptech, Mitechnews, First Principles, the social science journal, what's already in the article and I stopped on sources after a few pages. A topic doesn't require sourcing to be WP:GNG that means it can grow beyond a stub. A stub-level topic can be perfectly notable, and no rule says or ever will say otherwise. Keep. Also, you need to change your needlessly aggressive tone and stance, along with the routine WP:Civility boundary-pushing threats you have been applying to your recent spree of UAP-related AfDs after the Harald Malmgren AfD debacle you initiated that led to Jimmy Wales getting involved due to your actions. From an Administrator, it is grossly inappropriate. You will moderate your behavior to expected adult levels of maturity. Ego has neither role nor allowance here. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 13:48, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep: Chetsford's consistent use of biased terms reveals a strange anti-knowledge bias. Further, Chetsford's characterization of Nolan running a "UFO club run by enthusiast Garry Nolan" dismisses the fact that SOL is an accredited 501-c3 which has garnered several million dollars in funding, ran 2 symposia, been the focus of dozens of news articles (as noted by others), etc. is further indication that Chetsford is running a non-scientific and biased agenda not based on Wiki rules but on his personal belief system. Professor Nolan is a world-renowned immunologist, founder of several successful companies, has dozens of US patents to his name, etc. so the purposeful use of derogatory language is reason alone for ignoring his arguments. Frankly, at this point given his past actions against Malmgren it is a surprise he does not lose his editor status and be banned. TruthBeGood (talk) 16:53, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, both per the nominator's openening argument and their subsequent rebuttal of the supposed 'sourcing' presented. We require independent, third party sources and unfortunately none of any quality have been offered. I note that so far, both 'keep' !votes not only fail to present policy-based arguments for maintaining the article, but are littered with aspersions and near-personal attacks (e,g the nom's so-called "bias", "threats" and alleged immaturity)—while themselves demanding civility! To quote, these have "neither role nor allowance here". Neither, of course, does WP:Argumentum ad Jimbonem, aka WP:JIMBOSAID. (Also, from a purely formating point of view, could we only bold our !votes once, please.) I have hatted the aspersons, etc., above; if they are repeated I will seek administrative involvement. The ubnderstanable passons that AfD can sometimes generate is no excuse for assuming bad faith. Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi 18:37, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, have you had the opportunity to review the rewritten article?
- The Sol Foundation#References
- Talk:The_Sol_Foundation#Current sources ranked against WP:SIGCOV
It's almost completely redone since the AfD and youre !vote. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 23:51, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Re-stating my delete !vote for the record. If it's required, as it seems to be á la mode, call it a Very Strong Delete. The article has been expanded in byteage, but the sources are of no better quality, unfourtunately, so WP:HEY doesn't apply (as an example of WP:HEY in an AfD, see for example at Becky Sharp, for Nations of 1984 or in Concordat of Worms, et al.). As has been established by the nom's thorough analysis of the new sources, few of them are both independent or indepth. None support the claims made to WP:SIGCOV or WP:NORG, while support !votes themselves seem to rely on non-policy based arguments (e.g. BUTITEXISTS, an argument to avoid, using WP:OR to analyse sources' claims, and suggesting that all opinions given equal weight). And that's ignoring the continued questioning of other editors' motives. The keep !votes are, perhaps unsurprisingly, greater in number; they are, equally unsurprisingly however, weaker in policy. Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi 17:01, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Repeated aspersions from now-indefinitely blocked editor

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Per rules please point out exactly the aspersion cast. Don't claim you want sources while not providing any specifics. Chetsford and others have already been chastised for their behavior. Pointing this out is not an aspersion, just a fact. Now-- to policy...

Arguing policy: Under WP:GNG an article is retained when independent, reliable secondary sources provide significant coverage—coverage that is neither trivial nor purely routine. The Sol Foundation article meets that threshold: a feature story in the Hartford Courant profiles the group’s formation and scientific aims, offering far more depth than a press notice; Newsweek devotes several paragraphs to the Foundation’s inaugural symposium and quotes its mission statement in the context of national UAP-policy debates; the Daily Express, Sunday World, and Germany’s Focus supply further analysis of its policy recommendations. Because these outlets have no editorial connection to the Foundation, each instance satisfies WP:RS and demonstrates the independence required by WP:V. Taken together, the sources show sustained, serious reportage—not fleeting mentions—so the article clears GNG without difficulty.

WP:ORG presumes notability when multiple reliable publications discuss an organization in detail, and the Foundation easily qualifies. A culture-journalism treatment in PopMatters chronicles its November 2024 symposium and describes the think-tank’s research agenda; a peer-reviewed paper in Wiley’s International Social Science Journal cites the Foundation’s role in advancing UAP scholarship, establishing academic relevance; trade coverage in Aerospace America and mainstream religious press such as Catholic News Service document its participation in government-civic forums. That range—from metropolitan newspaper to peer-reviewed journal—confirms breadth of interest across sectors and disciplines, negating any claim that the topic relies on press releases or fringe blogs. Because Wikipedia evaluates notability by what independent authors have written, not by the subject’s fame, the clustering of these independent, substantive sources fulfills both the letter and the spirit of WP:ORG; deletion would therefore contradict core inclusion policy.

Under WP:NPOV the encyclopedia must represent all significant, verifiable perspectives without editorial prejudice. The existing Sol Foundation article does exactly that: it reports the group’s origins, research aims, and public activities strictly as described in independent secondary sources, while attributing any evaluative language—positive or skeptical—to those sources. There is no advocacy or promotional tone; where reliable outlets raise doubts the article can and should include them in proportion, preserving balance. By contrast, deletion proposals that dismiss the foundation as a mere “UFO club” or label its founder an “enthusiast” introduce pejorative framing not supported by the cited coverage and thus clash with NPOV’s prohibition on subjective language.

Removing a well-sourced article because some editors question the topic’s legitimacy would itself create a neutrality problem: it would excise documented information from mainstream newspapers, journals, and trade magazines, leaving Wikipedia’s treatment of UAP research incomplete and skewed by omission. NPOV requires that content be judged on the reliability and independence of its sources, not on individual editors’ attitudes toward unconventional subjects. Keeping the article therefore upholds neutrality by presenting verifiable facts for readers to evaluate, whereas deletion would substitute editorial bias for documented evidence—contradicting both NPOV and the broader principle that Wikipedia “does not censor topics that are reliably sourced, even if controversial or fringe.”

Opponents claim the article “fails GNG” because its citations are routine or incidental, yet the record shows multiple feature-length, independent pieces—Hartford Courant profile, PopMatters symposium report, Newsweek analysis, Wiley journal article—that exceed the “significant coverage” threshold in WP:GNG and satisfy WP:ORG’s requirement for reliable, third-party sourcing. Those who invoked WP:BEFORE overlooked or dismissed these sources; the assertion that such material “obviously won’t appear in any journal or book” is disproven by the peer-reviewed ISSJ paper. In short, the corpus is more than adequate, and routine mentions are supplementary, not foundational. Labeling Hartford Courant, Newsweek, or Wiley as “none of any quality” misstates WP:RS; these outlets are plainly reliable under policy, and their presence confirms notability.

Other objections collapse on closer inspection. The article does not “lean on” The Debrief; even if that site were excluded entirely, mainstream and academic coverage remains plentiful. Claims of promotionalism ignore that the text is fully attributed, neutral in tone, and free of puffery, whereas the deletion rationale itself applies pejorative language (“UFO club,” “enthusiast”) that violates WP:NPOV. Finally, WP:ILIKE/IDONTLIKE dictates that editorial sentiment is irrelevant; Wikipedia retains topics documented in reliable, independent sources regardless of their perceived seriousness or controversy. Because those sources exist in abundance and the article can be readily refined to reflect them, deletion would contradict core inclusion policy rather than enforce it.

Applying the consistency principle embedded in WP:N, Wikipedia should judge the Sol Foundation by the same sourcing threshold that has long sustained analogous entries. Earlier UAP bodies such as NICAP and CUFOS were retained once magazines like Time and major newspapers profiled them; the Sol Foundation already matches or exceeds that level of coverage, with features in Newsweek, Hartford Courant, PopMatters, and a peer-reviewed Wiley journal. Comparable new ventures—Harvard’s 2021 Galileo Project, assorted think tanks, and niche NGOs—have been kept on the strength of a handful of reliable articles in mainstream or specialist press; the Foundation’s two well-reported symposia, plus national and international reportage, clearly meet that same bar. To impose a higher standard merely because the topic involves UAPs would contradict WP:ORG’s call for uniform treatment across subject areas.

Wikipedia also favors improvement over excision. During the AfD one editor added additional mainstream and academic citations, after which the article unambiguously satisfied WP:GNG; policy dictates that once independent coverage is shown, remaining disputes—e.g., over one Debrief citation—are resolved by normal editing, not deletion. Finally, WP:V reminds us that inclusion rests on what reliable sources publish, irrespective of whether the work is speculative or controversial. The encyclopedia already hosts entries on paranormal institutes, alternative-medicine centers, and To The Stars Academy precisely because significant independent coverage exists. The Sol Foundation now enjoys a comparable evidentiary record; deleting it would depart from established precedent and apply an inconsistent, topic-specific gate that policy expressly rejects.

Strong keep. The Sol Foundation unambiguously meets WP:GNG and WP:ORG: mainstream and academic outlets—Hartford Courant, Newsweek, PopMatters, Wiley’s International Social Science Journal, among others—provide non-trivial, independent, and reliable coverage. All statements in the article are verifiable (WP:V) from these high-quality sources (WP:RS), and the text is written in an even-handed, fact-based style that satisfies WP:NPOV.

Objections centered on alleged source weakness or routine mention collapse once the full reference set is examined; a handful of marginal citations cannot override the weight of substantial reporting. Policy favors improvement over deletion, and the article has already been fortified with additional reliable citations during the AfD. Removing it would excise well-sourced information and create a gap in Wikipedia’s treatment of contemporary UAP research, contrary to the project’s mandate to document notable topics neutrally and comprehensively. TruthBeGood (talk) 20:17, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Keep. The few sentences I have read of the walls of text above haven't given me much motivation to read more, but evaluating this one on the merits: First, we have 2 unambiguous RS mentions: a brief mention in the Oxford reference ("In 2023, Garry Nolan established the Sol Foundation, a research center dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of UAP."), and an article from Focus discussing the org in depth. Second, we have lots of incidental mentions in RS, which are not themselves sufficient to establish notability but do support it. Third, although sources like The Debrief shouldn't be considered reliable for making claims about UAP, they are being used here to establish the existence and nature of a UAP-related organization, which could be acceptable. This, combined with the fact that several people are continuing to actively seek out and add new sources to the article, paints a picture of a low quality article with WP:SURMOUNTABLE problems, so I'm landing on keep and improve with this one. -- LWG ^talk 22:21, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note to Closer Re Offsite Discussion of this AfD. Extensive and impassioned offsite discussion of this AfD is occurring on Reddit's r/aliens and r/ufos (e.g. [26], etc.) and on X (e.g. [27], [28], etc.). Chetsford (talk) 03:23, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Weak delete, as with other topics in this area there seems to have been a certain amount of WP:REFBOMBING going on in this article (with things like PR press releases being cited for some reason). I'm not seeing the multiple reliable WP:SIGCOV sources needed for WP:NORG, and I disagree that the one sentence in the oxford source counts for this, and I also disagree that a bunch of passing mentions/mentions in unreliable sources somehow makes up for this fact (and this isn't supported by my reading of WP:GNG) Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 07:38, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
May I ask what unreliable sources you see here? Express and the PR thing from Japan (which was only there to give easier English language context to the other Japanese media source) are both gone.
- The Sol Foundation#References
- Talk:The_Sol_Foundation#Current sources ranked against WP:SIGCOV
Several of the articles are about SOL specifically. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 23:49, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, per WP:HEY and WP:ATD. When it was nominated I would have voted the other way, per WP:TOOSOON, but with the newly added material I feel it now just crosses the line of notability and will likely improve in the future. 5Q5|^✉ 11:20, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Among the newly added sources like WP:NEWSWEEK, WP:DAILYEXPRESS, etc., which do you think are the best examples that prove SIGCOV here? Chetsford (talk) 12:52, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:The_Sol_Foundation#Current sources ranked against WP:SIGCOV

I've assembled this here for users to review. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 13:22, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per arguments made by LWG and 5Q5. The article's improved substantially since nomination and good RSes have been identified. An an aside, remember, we have to exercise a measure of parity across coverage of all non-scientific beliefs. National Catholic Reporter and The Debrief aren't RSes for the existence of God or UFOs, but they're fine to verify specific groups of notable people have joined together to promote a shared belief. Noting that someone believes in Sasquatch isn't actually a argument for deletion: Ghosts, Ghost rockets, and the Holy Ghost are all 100% encyclopedic topics. Feoffer (talk) 12:03, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"remember, we have to exercise a measure of parity across coverage of all non-scientific beliefs" I'm not familiar with that policy. Chetsford (talk) 12:52, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well it was just an aside. GNG is met per LWG and 5Q5. More abstract discussion is for some other page.Feoffer (talk) 15:55, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The sorted list in Talk:The Sol Foundation#Current sources ranked against WP:SIGCOV captures enough of the primary criteria in WP:Notability (organizations and companies)#Primary criteria to justify keeping the article. WP:HEY and WP:ATD also appear to have helped the quality of the article improve in the past week. Tschieggm (talk) 17:14, 2 May 2025 (UTC)— Tschieggm (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
Keep. The article passes WP:INDEPENDENT, WP:N, and WP:SIGCOV. This has been evidenced by the above posts of Very Polite Person, Feoffer, and LWG. Ben.Gowar (talk) 17:51, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Source Evaluation. The article has changed considerably since the nomination with the carpet bombing of a dozen new sources into it. As nominator, I'm obligated to evaluate them to determine if the nomination should now be withdrawn. Based on my evaluation (below), I affirm the this article fails WP:ORGCRITE. We would need at least three sources that are across-the-board green (reliable, independent, and significant in coverage) as per WP:SIRS. As per SIRS, several sources that meet 2 of 3 criteria don't add together to create a single quality source. After one year of efforts, we still can only scrape together one.

Source	WP:INDEPENDENT	WP:RS	WP:SIGCOV	Notes
The Central Minnesota Catholic	Yes	Maybe	No	One sentence mention of The Sol Foundation
Marin Independent Journal	Yes	Yes	No	Article is about organization's founder Garry Nolan; contains one sentence mention of Sol Foundation
Rice University "Archives of the Impossible" conference website	No	Maybe	Maybe	Two sentence mention of the Sol Foundation in the speaker bio for Garry Nolan at a conference at which he was speaking
Newsweek	Yes	No	No	Consensus-determined unreliable source per WP:NEWSWEEK
International Social Science Journal	Yes	Yes	No	One sentence mention of The Sol Foundation in this 33-page article
popmatters.com	Yes	No	Yes	WP:USERGENERATED entertainment website
. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics	Yes	Yes	No	Another one sentence mention
Society of Catholic Scientists	Yes	Yes	No	Another one sentence mention
la Repubblica	Yes	Yes	No	Another one sentence mention
Focus Magazine	Yes	Yes	Yes	Report on the club's conference
Niconico	Unknown	No	Unknown	WP:USERGENERATED video sharing site a la YouTube
La Razón	Yes	Yes	No	Another one sentence mention
arXiv	Unknown	No	Unknown	Community-determined unreliable per WP:ARXIV (preprint hosting service)
The Debrief	Yes	No	Yes	The Debrief is the new website landing page for the podcast of ghosts/cryptozoology/ESP/flying saucer blogger Micah Hanks. While presented with an attractive new skin and under the headline "science and tech", it's the same pseudoscientific entertainment fanzine. Recent podcast episodes have uncritically discussed remote viewing [29], Atlantis / Lemuria [30], Thunderbirds [31], "The Deep State" [32], and Ancient Aliens-style cruft [33].
Sunday World	Yes	No	No	The Sunday World is a tabloid news outlet a la WP:DAILYEXPRESS and regularly peddles a variety of 'weird news' type articles. There's just a one sentence mention, in any case.

Chetsford (talk) 06:51, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In your source evaluation, you left out Aleteia (2 mentions), Hartford Courant (3 mentions), The_Byte (3 mentions). WP:NEWSWEEK says: "consensus is to evaluate Newsweek content on a case-by-case basis." WP:ARXIV says: "generally unreliable with the exception of papers authored by established subject-matter experts." The arXiv paper was written by subject matter expert Matthew Szydagis, a university physics professor who is also a member of UAP orgs. This is a lot of media coverage for a foundation less than two years old. Even if the article were to be deleted, it will surely be republished. Just tag it at top with {{more citations needed}}. 5Q5|^✉ 12:04, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for catching that. It appears each of the three I missed are more fleeting, incidental mentions that only prove the organization exists (which is not in doubt), but don't meet the requirements of WP:ORGCRIT.
Insofar as Newsweek; when we evaluate an outlet, like Newsweek, on a case by case basis that (usually) means we accept some limited use for the mundane and routine. Obviously, reporting on a club of people whose leader may believe aliens are jumping through dimensional portals to conduct medical experiments on humans [34] is not the kind of basic, nuts and bolts use portended by WP:NEWSWEEK.
Insofar as arXiv goes, generously assuming the author is an expert, it may be usable for WP:V under WP:SPS, but unpublished manuscripts are -- by the fact they're unpublished -- not significant in coverage so are not SIGCOV. That said, a physics professor is no more an SME on flying saucers than a professor of music theory, since flying saucer belief is not a subject that falls within the bailiwick of physics. An SME on flying saucers might be a professor of folklore or sociology, or a clinical psychiatrist. Chetsford (talk) 13:22, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On this narrow point, I gotta side with Chetsford. If we let everyone with a Phd and ARXIV qualify as a SME expert, we'd be lost. It's not "scientifically important", that's a red herring. Feoffer (talk) 13:45, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As mentioned above, The Debrief is reliable in the very limited context of profiling a like-minded organization. No one questions that the group exists. Feoffer (talk) 12:30, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No one questions that the group exists. Indeed, no one does. But see WP:BUTITEXISTS. Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi 12:40, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, I'll reword. Not to put too fine a point on it: no one questions The Debrief's reporting that the group exists. Feoffer (talk) 12:53, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Existence ≠ Notability Chetsford (talk) 13:22, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No one here has suggested otherwise. At issue is whether Debrief functions as an RS in the very limited context of profiling an association of notable people with admittedly fringe beliefs. Feoffer (talk) 13:34, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The community has previously critically discussed TheDebrief [35]. Opinions ranged from "Treat it as a group blog / self published source" (User:MrOllie); "the DeBrief is weighted toward generating sensational clickbait rather than reliably sourced journalism" (User:LuckyLouie); "Largely self-published website with a lean towards UFO/alien crankery and sometimes questionable pop science takes" (User:Bon_courage). MatthewM stated it was "highly credible, least biased, and mostly factual". Chetsford (talk) 14:07, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I get it, it's a complex source, but look just at the matter at hand. Is there any reason their 'reporting' is mistaken or erroneous about who is in the organization and what they've said in the direct quotes? Feoffer (talk) 14:19, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Unknown. We can't undertake the WP:OR needed to analyze the veracity of specific claims. The only thing we can say for certain is it doesn't meet our standards of reliability. Chetsford (talk) 14:33, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

NOTE: User's assessment of Popmatters is factually completely wrong; it's like saying the "New Yorker" is USERGENERATED because they take open submissions. They clearly have editorial control as seen here. From our own sourced article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PopMatters#Staff:

PopMatters publishes content from worldwide contributors. Its staff includes writers from backgrounds ranging from academics and professional journalists to career professionals and first time writers. Many of its writers are published authorities in various fields of study.[2][7] Notable former contributors include David Weigel, political reporter for Slate,[8] Steven Hyden, staff writer for Grantland and author of Whatever Happened to Alternative Nation?,[9] and Rob Horning, executive editor of The New Inquiry.[10] Karen Zarker is the senior editor.

As I said above, assume good faith is incredibly thin here and ANY TEXT by this user on anything UFO-adjacent mandates compulsory maximum scrutiny, as I have now repeatedly factually demonstrated the user is attempting to distort facts to achieve their goal of deleting these articles in direct opposition to sourcing guidelines. DO NOT take either of us at our word. Take the articles and facts at their word, and remember we are compelled to live and die by Wikipedia rules alone here. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 16:32, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'll be adding them later:

Please evaluate these too and attempt to be accurate. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 16:33, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is not tenable. It's the third time you've apparently Google searched "Sol Foundation" and blasted every responsive link into this thread as purported proof of SIGCOV then demanded we prove each one isn't. The San Francisco Standard is addressed in the OP. Word on Fire Catholic Ministries is obviously not RS. Your approach is not conducive to a coherent discussion.
"assume good faith is incredibly thin here and ANY TEXT by this user on anything UFO-adjacent mandates compulsory maximum scrutiny, as I have now repeatedly factually demonstrated the user is attempting to distort facts to achieve their goal of deleting these articles" This is the third time you've pivoted from discussion into attacking the motivations of individual editors. I would again strongly encourage you to take your concerns to WP:ANI. I'm not personally offended by your ongoing aspersions, they're just derailing to the AfD. Thanks - Chetsford (talk) 16:49, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Word on Fire is patently WP:RS to discuss a topic of 'Would Extraterrestrial Intelligence Disprove Christianity?'. Again, as I demonstrated to all above with the La Razon example that you utterly mischaracterized--and that finding is incontrovertible--you're doing something here that is problematic. The article passes notability for the small scale of the article that we have. I would strongly encourage you to reconsider your actions, as you seem to be tilting at increasingly tall windmills. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 17:02, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note to AfD closer: nominator has NOT rebutted my revealing they misrepresented Popmatters in their table, because that alone with the rest pushes this into basic trivial Notability compliance. That's why it's such a problem to them getting a successful deletion here; at that point the article subject will always be notable going forward. Diff here; there is no possible policy-based counter-argument to diminuize the Popmatters piece or present the site as not fine for WP:RS. This alone resolves the AFD. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 17:17, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You have, thus far in this discussion, scattered more than two dozen different sources into the wind including unambiguously non-RS ones like WP:NEWSWEEK, WP:DAILYEXPRESS, and a Substack newsletter with 8 subscribers. It's easier for you to take a pass through Google Search and shotgun any URL you find into the discussion than it is for me to offer rebuttal after surrebuttal for why each of these random links don't pass any realistic threshold of sourcing. So, if I stop responding to any particular item, assume it's for no other reason than I simply can't keep up. Chetsford (talk) 02:31, 4 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for compiling this table. I'm not sure I agree that a source is unreliable for information about the existence and nature of a pseudoscientific UAP organization simply because the source also publishes similar pseudoscience. If anything it would be reason to scrutinize whether the source is truly WP:INDEPENDENT. But I haven't seen any reason to think that The Debrief is unreliable on the question of whether The Sol Foundation exists and is notable in the realm of UAP-related orgs. Also, as 5Q5 pointed out, you seem to have omitted the Hartford Courant and Aleteia citations, both of which seem to pass all three criteria. By my count the Focus, Hartford Courant, and Aleteia citations are sufficient to satisfy WP:SIRS, and the citations to The Debrief, arXiv, and the organization's own website pass the lower bar of being appropriate for inclusion, if not necessarily for establishing notability. The reason my keep vote is weak is that all the significant coverage about this org seems to relate to a single symposium they hosted in 2023, while the repetition of that event in 2024 doesn't seem to have gotten much if any coverage. There's a decent chance that in two years I'll be back here voting "delete, this org seems to be defunct". But I'm not there yet. -- LWG ^talk 13:41, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"There's a decent chance that in two years I'll be back here voting "delete, this org seems to be defunct"" WP:NOTABILITYISNOTTEMPORARY. Either it's notable or it isn't. It's not going to become non-notable in two years. Chetsford (talk) 16:52, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's fair, but my weak keep vote isn't because I think it's notability might change, it's because I think it's notability is borderline and further information might convince me that it never was notable. -- LWG ^talk 18:26, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment even though I voted keep, the article was a mess. I took a buzz saw to it to clear out the distracting material that will have to go anyway if this closes with keep. -- LWG ^talk 18:26, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Just notification on a relevant matter: Chetsford put in an RfC on the reliability of The Debrief. In the Discussion, they say: "A current and contentious AfD is also presently turning on whether or not this is RS." I would imagine the referenced AfD is this one, (Personal attack removed). Ben.Gowar (talk) 17:59, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ben.Gowar: How many times do you have to be warned not to cast aspersions? I am sick and tired of your underhand, snide and generally all-round bad faith questioning of Chetsford's motives. Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi 18:33, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I get the sense that my talk page is a better place for those descriptors. In the case of this AfD, I'm mostly trying to keep interested parties informed of consequential RfCs. Especially if the AfD "turns" on it. Ben.Gowar (talk) 19:16, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, you are persistently failing to assume good faith, peristently castining aspersions and then persistently sealioning when called on it. Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi 19:20, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You're correct, it is absolutely this AfD. And I purposely avoided mentioning it in the RSN RfC so as to avoid the possibility of canvassing editors from RSN to this AfD. Insofar as the theory in your edited comment [36] that I'm plotting to get The Debrief deprecated to "turn" this AfD ... that's not possible. The RfC on The Debrief will run at least 30 days. This AfD will close in the next week or two. Chetsford (talk) 19:14, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Either this AfD is "presently turning on whether or not this is RS," or it is not. You have stated that it is. Ben.Gowar (talk) 19:22, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Because it obviously is; read the above comments -- its name has been invoked 21 times. But that's an entirely separate matter from the RSN listing. Once again, the RSN discussion will run 30 days. This AfD will close somewhere in the next 5-14 days. Nothing that happens at RSN will have any impact here. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but you seem convinced there are these far-reaching plots converging on certain subject matter. I'm at a loss as to what I can do to convince you that's not the case. Chetsford (talk) 19:32, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In both cases (AfD and the RfC), the reliability of The Debrief is in question. Interested editors should know. As far as the RSN discussion having no "impact here," that seems improbable given that AfD readers interested in the reliability of The Debrief may indeed look at the RfC (regardless of whether the discussion has run 30 days or not). I suppose there's the possibility of no immediate impact, if no one looks or no one references it (but the transparent nature of Wikipedia seems to render that improbable).

In any case, if the AfD discussion does not result in deletion, then the RfC will probably have an impact on the article later (especially if The Debrief citation remains). So, editors interested in this article should know. Ben.Gowar (talk) 20:12, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per Cakelot1's reasoning. Best, GPL93 (talk) 18:01, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, – robertsky (talk) 05:33, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. I hadn't intended to study this article, but all the vituperative, handwaving ad hominem shouting by Keep enthusiasts convinced me that I should. Having done so, I am satisfied that there are no serious reasons for keeping it, and that Chetsford is correct. Athel cb (talk) 08:54, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Pretty much agree with what LWG, 5Q5, and Feoffer have said. The article's definitely gotten better since it was nominated (WP:HEY), and sources like Focus Magazine, Hartford Courant, and Aleteia look like they give us enough WP:SIGCOV from WP:RS for WP:NORG. Notability might be on the edge, but it seems good enough for now, and anything else that needs fixing looks WP:SURMOUNTABLE with some regular editing. Deleting it now feels a bit much with the sourcing we've got and the chance to improve it more. Omegamilky (talk) 18:04, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Delete Of the sources that I find reliable and more coverage than one sentence (Hartford Courant, Aleteia, Focus), the first covers the founding; the second and third cover the organization's conferences in 2023 and 2024, and give a short mention of the organization. This feels WP:TOOSOON for an article, where the subject has not reached the threshold of notability. — 🌊PacificDepths (talk) 08:43, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm very sympathetic to this argument, we don't need to be covering every RECENT update about the UFO world. But where else could we put the "Roster" of notable people who collaborated together? That's the primary information I'd want readers to be able to reference: who is in which UFO "Supergroup". I know I certainly can't keep it straight without a reference. Feoffer (talk) 09:16, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is it Wikipedia's job to track membership in different UFO organizations? How does this work with "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" (WP:NOTDATABASE)? For reference, I don't think Wikipedia tracks membership on boards of different corporations and nonprofits, even if that information could be interesting. — 🌊PacificDepths (talk) 01:45, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the members weren't notable and their association not covered in RSes, it'd be an easy delete. But it's a group of eight notable individuals who have biographical articles and RSes do report on the collaboration between them. Feoffer (talk) 04:19, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Unless I'm misunderstanding something, this seems to be a textbook WP:NOTINHERITED argument. Chetsford (talk) 06:26, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My argument, per above, is that SIGCOV exists, not that it's inherited. But for those not swayed about a dedicated article, the alternative would seem to be redundantly covering the association in the eight separate bios, which seems... suboptimal.Feoffer (talk) 06:34, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Suppose there were eight siblings who were independently notable under WP:BIO. Suppose they share a similar Early Life section with the same parentage. Are their parents therefore also notable? I think not. Whether or not this article exists, editors can make a judgment on whether to include association with the Sol Foundation on the other bios.

Assuming that WP:SIGCOV does not exist (which is how we started this thread, with "where else could we put the "Roster" of notable people who collaborated together"), noting an association across multiple bios is not a problem. — 🌊PacificDepths (talk) 00:50, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Delete. I don't believe an article about an organization like this, who pushes fringe UFO theories, should exist without critical sources. Industrial Insect (talk) 14:07, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to Unidentified_flying_object#United_States_2. Sourcing does not look particualrly strong. Newsweek probably most independent one. But overall, don't think that this is enough to esatablish notability - which seems borderline. I looked at this a few times and the best I could come up with, besides deleting, was a merge until more coverage by stronger sources for a stand alone article. Ramos1990 (talk) 05:15, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Very Strong Keep this is a matter of considerable public interest. The article is supported by valid references and can continue to be improved. The Sol Foundation exists. There is increasing suspicion that a group of editors on Wikipedia are conspiring to traduce or remove articles on the UFO topic. People are openly stating they suspect intelligence agencies are manipulating Wikipedia and have agents involved in this process to remove information on the subject from the public sphere. Recent edits of the article on Harald Malmgren have been discussed and suspected of CIA involvement. The legitimacy of Wikipedia as a neutral source of information is coming under serious question because, as Orwell once said, "omission is the most effective form of a lie". We must be better, we must allow a range of information which is of interest to the public, if it can be supported by third party sources. There are enormous articles on this site about wiping your bum (literally) and songs that failed to make the final in Eurovision ten years ago. There are thousands of frivolous pages pon this site which are not questioned and yet the UFO topic - which is a matter of Congressional investigation - is continuously brought down and questioned. It is a serious matter.Aetheling1125 (talk) 21:45, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Allegedly being a "matter of considerable public interest" or the fact that WP also hosts articles on Eurovision Song Contest songs are not valid Keep reasons, nor is your claim [37] that "there is a clique within Wikipedia seeking to control information". The claim that the CIA is suspect of editing Wikipedia is also not a valid Keep reason. Chetsford (talk) 22:39, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Aetheling1125, I've also argued above that the article should be kept. But there's absolutely no need to look at this as a "high-stakes" conversation, much less to invoke Orwell. The organization may be covered on its own page or it may be covered elsewhere (like the pages of its members or a page about UFO groups). No one is suggesting it be omitted entirely! Feoffer (talk) 09:12, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, MouseCursor ^{or a keyboard?} 13:24, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Weak redirect to Garry Nolan. I agree with most of the source evaluation table (including Chetsford's follow-up comments). I find it rebuts a lot of the keep arguments made before it, and after it I'm not really seeing much of a (policy-based) argument to keep. I think the one point where I differ is that I don't think PopMatters would fall under WP:USERGENERATED. That and Focus seem like the stronger sources. LWG's and Feoffer's argument that The Debrief's reporting could be used to establish notability is...not realistic. The additional sources provided later by Very Polite Person plainly don't meet WP:SIRS, and bringing up a source already covered in the nomination is a pretty obvious example of bludgeoning this discussion. I don't envy the admin who ends up having to ~~control information and awareness using Wikipedia policies~~ wade through all this to figure out consensus. hinnk (talk) 03:27, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to Garry Nolan. I agree with Chetsford's source evaluation table and most of the sources appear to focus on Nolan. The stand-alone page of Nolan already includes references to the Sol Foundation. --Enos733 (talk) 22:04, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I flagged the article with {{more citations needed}}. If the foundation is less than two years old and all it needs is one to three better refs, perhaps give it until the end of the year, then renominate if no change? Seems like the article is destined to be republished per WP:RADP if deleted. 5Q5|^✉ 11:15, 22 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Another option could be to draftify the article now and republish when/if more sources become available. -- LWG ^talk 12:22, 22 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to Garry Nolan. There are plenty of passing mentions to show that it exists, but aside from copypastes of press releases and sensationalism e.g. The DeBrief, it's a WP:NOTJUSTYET situation. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:10, 22 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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 no consensus‎. which does not preclude a merger which can be handled editorially. Consensus to delete is not going to emerge here, and we do not need a further relist Star Mississippi 02:21, 22 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Austral Launch Vehicle

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Alright -- this article does have some reliable sources, including TheConversation. The issues here are this: this is an orphaned article, and this vehicle is a concept without WP:SIGCOV. See: it doesn't exist in its final form/ yet. As it doesn't really exist yet, WP:TOOSOON, also seems a bit like it violates WP:NOTPROMO. AnonymousScholar49 (talk) 00:28, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Products, Science, Technology, Spaceflight, and Australia. AnonymousScholar49 (talk) 00:28, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as I said in the afd for Marie-Rose Tessier I can't take your argument seriously when you admit you think the sources are reliable in your original rationale also just because it is not complete doesnt mean it isn't ready for an article especially since as you have already admitted there are sources that cover it and how can it be promotional if the sources are reliable? Scooby453w (talk) WP:SOCKSTRIKE. ✗plicit 04:01, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RS is not the end all be all. Just because something has been covered in a reliable source once does not mean that it is Wikipedia worthy; we also have WP:SIGCOV, meaning that articles need to have significant coverage. That pairs with coverage in reliable sources; this article has one reference to TheConversation; no sigcov in reliable sources. Next, there is WP:SUSTAINED. The coverage needs to be continuing and sustained; the last coverage of this subject was about a decade ago, and there hasn't been anything of note since. Fails that. All in all, clear deletion, unless a Wikipedian can find more recent coverage in reliable sources.AnonymousScholar49 (talk) 22:02, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Notability is not temporary jusf because it hasn't been in a source in a decade doesnt mean it should be deleted the 3 sources span multiple months its not like its something that shows up once on the morning news Scooby453w (talk) 22:23, 30 April 2025 (UTC) WP:SOCKSTRIKE. ✗plicit 04:01, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is one reliable source from TEN years ago, in TheConversation. Not enough reliable, independent sources. Finally, it doesn't appear that this project has made any noises for almost ten years, and the final product likely doesn't exist. If you find any more sources, please let me know. AnonymousScholar49 (talk) 00:53, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I propose that we could do a Merge with Australian Space Agency. The total content makes for about one paragraph or so, but it is still of note. Hal Nordmann (talk) 10:53, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Merge or Draftify: The sources on ALV I’ve come across, including Springer papers by researchers from the University of Queensland and Heliaq Advanced Engineering [38], [39], are reliable but not independent, so they don’t satisfy WP:GNG. That said, they confirm ALV’s role in Australia’s aerospace research history. Given this, a merge into ~~Australian Space Agency~~ a broader topic would preserve this material in a more appropriate context, per WP:PRESERVE, or it could be draftified for further development and sourcing. HerBauhaus (talk) 12:50, 6 May 2025 (UTC) Revised !vote HerBauhaus (talk) 04:47, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Any more support for merge as ATD?
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — Benison (Beni · talk) 02:47, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fails WP:GNG and falls foul of WP:CRYSTAL: Wikipedia is not a collection of product announcements. As AnonymousScholar49 notes, this is a project that appears to have been on the backburner for about a decade, having received no independent SIGCOV in that entire period.

I would be happy with a merge, but is Australian Space Agency really the best place? None of the sources I'm seeing even make mention of the ASA, and I don't see a neat place to fit information on this project into the article as it currently exists. Maybe reusable launch vehicle would be a better merge destination? Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 09:04, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Cinder painter (talk) 06:23, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I've added 4 refs from Google Scholar. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 04:38, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

~~Keep~~ Strong Keep - lots of refs using Google.com.au.^link --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 05:29, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ping: @Ethmostigmus, @Hal Nordmann, @HerBauhaus. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 05:35, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just FYI, two of the refs you added are duplicates of a reference already in the article (Schutte and Thoreau's "The Austral Launch Vehicle: 2014 Progress in Reducing Space Transportation Cost through Reusability, Modularity and Simplicity"), I assume this was a mistake. The third reference I see you've added, Preller and Smart's "SPARTAN: Scramjet Powered Accelerator for Reusable Technology AdvaNcement", is a conference paper that only briefly mentions the ALV. Both Schutte and Thoreau's paper and Preller and Smart's paper were presented at the same conference, the 12th Reinventing Space Conference that was held in 2014 (they are listed online as being published in 2016/2017, but this is just when the proceedings were made available online - the actual papers were presented in 2014). The fourth reference, "Scramjets for Reusable Launch of Small Satellites" also by Preller and Smart, also seems to only be a passing mention. That gives us two papers from 2014 and one from 2015. Looking at those references and the Google results, I can't find any evidence of further developments since 2015, and even at the time the coverage was quite minimal. This is worth noting because it indicates a lack of WP:SUSTAINED coverage. I maintain that this fails GNG, and is best covered with due weight in an existing article like reusable launch vehicle. Cheers, Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 06:11, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Hi @A. B., I've coincidentally stumbled across the same sources you added as part of my !vote review. The rub here is that all the authors, including Peter Thoreau, Michael Smart, and Dawid Preller from the University of Queensland, and Adriaan Schutte from Heliaq Advanced Engineering, are directly affiliated with the institutions that developed the ALV concept. Since the ALV was created by Heliaq Advanced Engineering and the University of Queensland, I’ve classified these as primary sources. That said, if I’ve been too strict with my interpretation of secondary sources, I’m more than happy to revisit the sourcing question again. HerBauhaus (talk) 15:16, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Good point. I’ve been convinced this just had to be notable; something about rockets and space just begs press coverage but where was it on Google News?? Then I thought to check http://www.google.com.au -sure enough, there were news articles. It was late last night and I’m busy today; I may or may not get to it. Thanks for looking at this, HerBauhaus. —A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 16:58, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
At the risk of being accused of "ref-bombing", I have added 7 news articles including Australian Financial Review, the ABC Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the Royal Aeronautical Society and Aviation Week & Space Technology (the global aerospace and aviation industry magazine) A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 01:20, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

After checking through all of the references you've added, I still do not see evidence of significant or sustained independent coverage. Every source was published between 2014 and 2017, seemingly because the project stalled after that point, and even within that period of active development the coverage is scant. Preller and Smart's works barely mention the ALV, while the ABC and AFR articles mention it only in passing. Aerospace magazine gives a bit more detail, but its coverage is still extremely brief (and focused on SPARTAN, not the ALV). The iTnews article also provides no significant coverage of the ALV, mostly consists of quotes from individuals involved in the project about the potential of reusable launch vehicles. Ditto for the articles in the Register and New Atlas. None of these sources, besides the initial three (non-independent) sources already present in the article, provide coverage that could be considered significant. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 13:08, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The sources disagree on terminology. In some articles, the SPARTAN second stage is part of the overall 3-stage project known as the "Austral Launch Vehicle" project. In others, the Austral Launch Vehicle first stage is part of the overall 3-stage project known as the "SPARTAN" project.

What I know is that the overall 3-stage project is notable. Perhaps the answer is to rename this article to something else. I'm open to suggestions.

I'm also open to draftifying the article and I will work on it. A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 16:27, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The plot thickens.

It looks like a company formed in 2019, Hypersonix Launch Systems, took over work on the SPARTAN second stage and tested it in 2021. This project, Heliaq Advanced Engineering (ALV's original developer now defunct?) and Hypersonix all have close ties to the University of Queensland's Centre for Hypersonics.

Also in 2021, the U.S., U.K. and Australia signed the AUKUS agreement in 2021; it included "Hypersonic and Counter-Hypersonic Capabilities" which built on the existing joint U.S.-Australian SCIFiRE hypersonic cruise missile project. The University of Queensland is involved in this as well.

At the time, hypersonics was touted as Australia's flagship contribution to an agreeement that was mostly about nuclear submarine technology.

I'm just guessing but Hypersonix and U of Q probably shifted to much more lucrative defense work and away from competing with SpaceX and everyone else. All 3 countries are far behind Russia and China in hypersonic capabilities.

Collectively all this content is notable and needs a good home on Wikipedia. I'm not sure where -- suggestions? A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 17:00, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Happy to help with any of the heavy lifting if you decide to draftify. Feel free to ping me for sourcing or the write-up. HerBauhaus (talk) 07:10, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @A. B., the first 7 (existing) sources in the article are from researchers Smart, Schutte, Thoreau, and Preller, all directly tied to UQ/HAE and the ALV project, making them primary sources. Of the next 7 (new) sources you added, only two are solid WP:THREE candidates: The Register offers clear, independent coverage of ALV, and Financial Review provides balanced coverage, though it includes a few quotes from Smart. Three are borderline: ABC is heavily reliant on Smart's quotes, Aviation Week gives technical context but doesn’t focus on ALV, and New Atlas covers ALV under the broader SPARTAN project with heavy developer input. The remaining two, AEROSPACE and iTnews, are weak as they rely almost entirely on developer statements. To be fair, by Australian standards, Smart is not just a typical researcher. He’s a recognized expert in hypersonics who spent a decade at NASA before joining UQ ([40]), which is quite an uncommon profile. This prominence likely explains why he appears in nearly every source on ALV, sometimes tipping the balance on journalistic independence. HerBauhaus (talk) 18:31, 19 May 2025 (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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