Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ERCIM

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. There is a consensus below that ERCIM is non-notable per the applicable guidelines. Eluchil404 (talk) 20:03, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

ERCIM

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Article PRODded with reason "Non-notable consortium. No independent sources, does not meet WP:GNG." Article dePRODded with reason "A consortium of so many leading research institutes is already thereby notable", but notability is not inherited. Researchers working at different institutes collaborate all the time, that's nothing out of the ordinary. Unless such consortia receive non-trivial coverage in independent reliable sources, they are not notable. This is one of those: delete. Crusio (talk) 15:53, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Notability is not automatically inherited. But note that, for example, WP:NBOOK, WP:NFILM and WP:NMUSIC all allow, under certain conditions, for inherited notability. WP:NOTINHERITED states: "not every organization to which a notable person belongs ... is itself notable", and by analogy we are led to infer that "not every consortium to which a notable organization belongs is itself notable". But in the case of ERCIM, it is not a matter of just a notable organization belonging to it; the majority of organizations in this consortium are notable. --Lambiam 21:41, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:24, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:24, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Europe-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:24, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep A consortium of notable organizations would seem inherently worthy of an article to me. Deletion would create red links from a number articles, including World Wide Web Consortium. Useful for navigational purposes between national research organizations. —Ruud 11:57, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Neither of these two !votes seem to have any basis in policy and fly in the face of WP:NOTINHERITED, despite the inventive reasoning given by Lambiam. --Crusio (talk) 04:44, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- WP:NOTINHERITED is an essay, not policy. That notability is not always inherited does not imply it is never inherited (see the last inequality at Universal quantification#Negation). —Ruud 21:15, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to argue that NOTINHERITED is just an essay, that's fine with me, but then you'll have to show this meets GNG (it's not a book, film, or music). And GNG does not provide for "notable institutions belong to it". --Crusio (talk) 21:25, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:GNG does not exclude "notable institutions belong to it" either. —Ruud 21:44, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are many things that GNG does not specifically exclude. However, there are several criteria that it insists upon. --Crusio (talk) 04:14, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's a guideline, not a complete and exhaustive list of criteria and article must satisfy to be able to be included. Note the use of the words "generally" and "usually" in the guideline. —Ruud 07:51, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, The Bushranger _{One ping only} 19:57, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete That a group of organizations are notable, does not mean that ever project undertaken by the group is notable. Even notable organizations do non-notable things, and engage in non-notable joint projects. This is not exactly NOTINHERITED, but just common sense. DGG ( talk ) 17:16, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. ERCIM is not a project. It is an umbrella organization, just like, for example, the European Music Council. --Lambiam 11:03, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

True, and it also fails WP:ORG by a large measure (and that guideline addresses the "inherited" argument explicitly). DGG's comment, as far as I see, does not basically change if you replace "project" with "organization": "Even notable organizations create non-notable umbrella organizations". --Crusio (talk) 11:34, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- But both of you completely ignore the weight aspect of my recommendation above. If some notable organization is the sole notable member of an umbrella organization, sure, that does not make the umbrella automatically notable. But if it is formed by, essentially, mostly notable organizations, then we have a different situation – at least, that is my argument. Another example is the European Mathematical Society, which I consider to be notable, but mainly by the combined weight of its notable members. --Lambiam 12:36, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And you completely ignore the absence of reliable sources showing notability. In addition, I have to say that the creation of a Category:ERCIM and a {{Template|ERCIM}} is rather pointy. Even if this AfD would end in a keep or no consensus, that category is superfluous and the template (which you have added to every ERCIM member organization) is WP:UNDUE. --Crusio (talk) 12:45, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The notability guideline is a guideline. It is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. I am aware of the guideline, but I'm arguing here that this is one of the occasions where an exception may apply. You are essentially dismissing that because it would constitute an exception. Which, as far as I'm concerned, just means that you ignore my argument.

By the way, a Google scholar search tells me there are about 12,700 hits. It is not easy to ascertain whether these contain non-trivial coverage by independent sources. What, for instance, about this?

I don't get your point about Category:ERCIM being superfluous at all. Do you think it is overcategorization? --Lambiam 17:20, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That category (and template) are absolutely superfluous. Most of the organisations that are a member of ERCIM will belong to dozens and dozens of this kind of consortia. Are you going to create cats for all of those? and then add temaplates for all of these organisations at the end of the articles? As for ignoring your argument, if you mean that by "not agreeing with you" I am "ignoring your argument", then I guess that is correct. Instead of putting your energy in silly things like that cat and template, try to come up with sources (like the one you mention above). A few more like that, and everybody here who has !voted "delete" will change to "keep". --Crusio (talk) 17:26, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- "Dozens and dozens of this kind of consortia". I think you are totally mistaken. For most ERCIM members you will be hard put to come up with more than one, for some two, for just a few maybe three such umbrella organizations. This is not your standard European research consortium in which for each member a few research scientists participate in a project that lasts for four years or so. ERCIM is a permanent organization in which the member institutes participate as a whole, and are represented at the top level. The presidents of ERCIM are typically also directors of some national member institute. As far as finding sources is concerned, I don't see why it should be specifically my duty to put effort in that. I think, in fact, that those who are inclined to recommend deletion should put even more work into making sure they do not unduly recommend the deletion of notable content. --Lambiam 20:32, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - It's not your duty at all. But it is impossible for me to prove that there are no sources, only to assert that I haven't been able to find any. You, however, are arguing that this should be kept and to give that argument any weight at all, you need to show that there are sources, otherwise your argument is just empty. --Crusio (talk) 21:58, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    - My argument that this is a case that calls for the occasional exception is indeed empty if you ignore the argument that this is a case that calls for the occasional exception and instead insist that we should not make an exception because then we would be making an exception. --Lambiam 22:42, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

~~Everyone is using a rather strange definition of "inheritance" here (which usually is defined as "attributes acquired via (biological) heredity from the parents").~~ While notability of a parent organization does not automatically imply notability of the child organizations, the situation here is the exact opposite: we have a number of very notable sibling organizations and I would argue that - at least for navigational purposes - we should have an article of the common parent organization. —Ruud 17:41, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Inheritance" has certainly a meaning beyond biology (as in "the inheritance I got from my rich uncle"). And calling ERCIM the parent organization for really notable organizations such as INRIA is, frankly, absurd. --Crusio (talk) 17:47, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On reflection, I agree that the direction of inheritance is not guaranteed to make sense once taken out of its biological context. The rest of my argumentation still stands. —Ruud 18:04, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: per the not-inherited argument. If it was notable, it'd have more reliable source coverage. Purpleback pack 89≈≈≈≈ 16:26, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I admire DGG's reasoning here. Besides, hosting the W3C has become a routine activity. Maybe ERCIM will come up with something great in the future but for now, this is a plain delete. PolicarpioM (talk) 10:15, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't understand what "routine activity" means in this context. Is it like "Composing musicals has become a routine activity for Andrew Loyd Webber"? That routine activity made his name. W3C has three headquarters: in Europe, at ERCIM; one in Asia, at Keio University; and in the U.S., at MIT. I don't think that running any one of these HQs is a routine activity at all. --Lambiam 16:26, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per DGG. A bunch of organizations in a group. They might do something notable in the future, though so far, none. HurricaneFan25 | talk 23:37, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Despite the evident notability of many of its members, I'm not seeing any sign that the umbrella group is itself notable under either WP:CORP or WP:GNG. Alzarian16 (talk) 00:33, 3 November 2011 (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.