Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fund for UFO Research

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. —Travis ^talk 00:34, 16 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fund for UFO Research

Fails WP:ORG. Groups who are not dominated by UFO-true believers do not seem to have covered this group in enough detail to make them notable enough for inclusion. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:11, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Lacks required multiple example of nontrivial coverage in reliable sources establishing notability. DreamGuy (talk) 18:43, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep--Notability established by reliable sources, Google Books and Google News. Some of the sources should be included in the article. --J.Mundo (talk) 19:41, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Politics aren't covered by people not interested in politics. Doesn't mean the people that do aren't reliable because they're interested in the subject. The same goes for UFO fans. Unless the person doing the reporting are specifically linked to the organization as a member or employee, they're independent. (Also, covering crankpot theories or stuff not commonly believed in mainstream doesn't make someone unreliable) - Mgm|^(talk) 20:15, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unlike politics, which is a subject where a lot of independent sources exist, in fringe subjects, the fringe-nature of the topic lends itself to an interconnectedness not seen in mainstream subjects. The basic problem is one of unreliable sources that are way too credulous in their coverage of a subject. In particular, MUFON (which itself is definitely notable -- having been covered by truly independent groups) writes about this particular group with such glowing terms that it is impossible to see where facts end and fiction begins. No, in order to truly be reliably independent, we need to find groups that aren't in bed together in the way UFO-organizations obsess over other UFO-organizations. Walled gardens of woo are not to be harvested by Wikipedia. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:45, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WP:FRINGE: 'A theory can be considered notable if it has been referenced extensively, and in a serious manner, in at least one major publication, or by a notable group or individual that is independent of the theory." --J.Mundo (talk) 20:53, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's right. Replace "theory" for "organization" and you can see the issue here. There just isn't extensive, serious, independent coverage.ScienceApologist (talk) 20:57, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not extensive? Have seen the sources in G. News and G.Books? and what sources from this search are dependent of the subject? This topic meets WP:N and WP:R by a wide margin. --J.Mundo (talk) 21:13, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I might throw the question back at you. Which one of those sources you link to do you consider to be "extensive, serious, and independent"? None that I can see. The serious and independent sources do not provide extensive coverage and the extensive coverage is not independent and arguably not very serious. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:06, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not to be confused with Foofur, the delightful Hanna-Barbera cartoon from the 1980s. Mandsford (talk) 21:21, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Sources are sufficient to show notability. If there is so much foolishness around, NPOV says we do not try to hide it. DGG (talk) 22:28, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per ScienceApologist. If you only have fringe references then you have a fringe article. We need WP:RS and most of the sources mentioned above (I note there are none in the article) appear to come from books with dubious veracity. I have not seen, at least from above or no gogole, quality sources that mention this group. Tgreach (talk) 00:27, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per ScienceApologist. Clearly fails WP:ORG. Xihr 00:29, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - no third party sources to even show that they exist over and above showing that they are notable. Shot info (talk) 00:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Jmundo, Google news and book searches clearly show that the organization meets the GNG. RMHED (talk) 01:00, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep but add the Google references so we have third party references inside the article. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 05:17, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per ScienceApologist. A search of media outside of the UFO fringe [1] does not indicate much coverage of this fund, and all of the sources are from its own website. The lack of coverage from independent sources is a clue to the lack of notability or verifiability for this. Mandsford (talk) 15:44, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A proper search like "Fund for UFO Research" 1 shows coverage by reliable media. --J.Mundo (talk) 18:22, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete No third-party, non-trivial, reliable sources found. Fails WP:ORG. -Atmoz (talk) 18:17, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The 74 Google News results linked above have been totally misrepresented by delete !voters above. I can't see any fringe publications amonst them. They are from the likes of NPR, The Dallas Morning News, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Dawn, Crain's Chicago Business, Skeptic (which is as far as you can get from a UFO true believer source) etc. I don't have time to go through all 332 Google Books hits but near the beginning of the list we can find The Lure of the Edge by published by the University of California Press (ISBN 9780520239050), Encyclopedia of Millennialism and Millennial Movements published by Routledge (ISBN 9780415922463) and The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience published by ABC-CLIO (ISBN 9781576076538). As I seem to have to constantly repeat at AfDs in the last few days, having an article on an organisation or a belief is in no way an endorsement of it. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:15, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete If this article was about a new soap company (with the only references being to the company's web site), we would regard is as not notable and delete it. Since it's about UFOs, there are news references (just as there are reports of items like "streaker interrupts sports event"), but I don't see any reference to a reliable source saying the subject of this article is in some way notable. --Johnuniq (talk) 23:42, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as per J Mundo, Phil Bridger. Numerous reliable sources exist. Edward321 (talk) 00:15, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep You can find numerous news articles for this. Johnjohnston (talk) 23:42, 13 January 2009 (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.