Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Feminists Fighting Pornography

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. Not enough evidence to conclusively show that the sources do not constitute "significant, independent coverage." King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:43, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Feminists Fighting Pornography (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

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This is an interesting group, however, having looked at the references I do not believe they satisfy the notability policy. The majority of the references provided are primary (The Backlash Times was this group's own publication). There is also a personal website provided as a citation and random personal websites do not satisfy the Reliable Sources policy. As far as I can tell, almost all of the other provided references are used to substantiate basic facts not necessarily related to this group, like the name of an earlier version of the Pornography Victims Compensation Act. I do not believe any of the reliable, third-party references provided here cover this group specifically and if they do it is only as a trivial passing mention rather than "substantial coverage". It is difficult to substantiate those refs in any case as I don't have a proquest account. Additionally, there has been some concern that the primary authors of this article MAY possibly have a Conflict of Interest. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 05:41, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - The article needs more cleanup for sure. It is only a few months old and has already been improved somewhat. I think that if it had a good edit, and a few citations added and a few not meeting wp:rs that it could stand on its own. Deleting without giving editors a chance to fix it, when the organization seems legitimate and likely notable, does not seem proper. Atom (talk) 05:56, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• It's really not about cleanup or writing a better article but in regards to what I mentioned above. The article has been live for 3 months, plenty of time to include reliable third-party news articles, journal articles, books, etc. that cover this group specifically or at least discuss them in detail. WP:N and WP:V. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 06:15, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't care either way. But, in the timeframe of Wikipedia, three months is nothing. We had talk page discussions about finding consensus that last longer than that. If the article is in the same state a year from now, then deleting would be okay. Atom (talk) 14:57, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• I support delete at this point, I am having to weigh the difference between the opinions of editors who have apparently read the only real source cited, and people who were there and say this information is wrong. As such I would say we do not have enough independent sources to satisfy core policies on verification and neutrality. Guy (Help!) 08:43, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't think the group is particularly notable, best known for an arrest for showing pornography in central station is not a especially strong claim to fame, content has imo been fluffed up and the groups importance enlarged. Content either needs stubbing right back or better still merging back to where it came from, Women_Against_Pornography. Off2riorob (talk) 11:42, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the content needs to be pared back. Or citations from sources from the mainstream media could be added. Atom (talk) 14:57, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 18:46, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been added to the WikiProject Pornography list of deletions. Tabercil (talk) 19:21, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Answering the charges in order of their appearance:

An organization's self-publication is a valid source about the organization itself. See WP:SELFPUB. If there's a particular self-statement you wish to dispute, please point it out.

The organization's publication is cited 16 times. That's not a majority of citations. The Village Voice article alone is cited 17 times. Boston Globe, off our backs, USA Today, Wall St. Journal, American Bar Ass'n Journal, N.Y. Times, and Women's Studies Quarterly are cited at least once each, which comes to 17 plus at least 7 or a total of 24 or more times, and that doesn't include a law journal disputed against an unpublished and disputed email.

The personal website is not "random" but is a self-statement and therefore meets the very criterion you cited against it: the Reliable Sources content guideline, which is not a policy as you called it but agrees with the policy.

Notability does not require that every published source also be substantial. Some in the article are. The others add reliable information useful to the article and that is permissible for notability. "Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material." You charge, "I do not believe any of the reliable, third-party references provided here cover this group specifically and if they do it is only as a trivial passing mention rather than 'substantial coverage'." Did you read any of them? How did you conclude that they are not reliable, are not third-party, did not cover FFP, or are trivial without reading them? Please be specific in your charge so I can answer it.

You don't need your own ProQuest account. Ask public libraries, academic libraries, specialized libraries, or corporate libraries. I have a free public library card that lets me have free access to many ProQuest and EbscoHost databases. The Village Voice is on microfilm and please ask libraries about that, too.

The conflict-of-interest charge is based entirely on the following: "It is no big deal, I just thought that it was written by someone who was involved in the group. The same for the fan site template they were adding just to get editors to look at those kind of issues and hopefully improve any content related to that kind of thing." No one should make erroneous or unsupported charges just to get attention for something else.

And there's a general statement above that "this information is wrong" as support for deletion: As far as I know, "this information" applies to only one point: the address of the tabling that led to legal action and which law office defended the tabling. That is new and is being handled as an OTRS matter. If the non-OTRS policies control, then the original information is well-supported by a law journal article. Except for OTRS and the response to it, neither the facts nor their relevance are in dispute, and I can't access the OTRS source.

Most organizations' notability is not to be judged by what they are arrested for. The arrest's relevance is that their tabling was typical and for that, and for the position they espoused at their tabling and in their newsletter, they had been well known in the city, as the third-party sources support.

Work is not fluff. Goals are not fluff. The article isn't about fabulousness or dedication. It's about their work. If you see fluff, please edit that or point to it.

Merging it, given the added information, would overload the article merged into. Women Against Pornography was a separate group and the two groups disagreed on legislative goals and outreach tactics and different people were in them. The public often confused them. The FFP article is already categorized, as is the article on Women Against Pornography.

I favor retention.

Nick Levinson (talk) 19:44, 25 April 2010 (UTC) Corrected for an erroneous attribution, one indent, and "load" to "overload" per original intent: Nick Levinson (talk) 19:58, 25 April 2010 (UTC) Corrected category link to appear inline, not elsewhere: Nick Levinson (talk) 00:23, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete- or merge back to Women_Against_Pornography as per my comments and support for the nominators comments. As Nick says, The organization's publication is cited 16 times .Off2riorob (talk) 19:49, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Each of the 16 is in support of a point. None is gratuitous. The alternative of organizing the main text to minimize the number of notes would make for harder reading. Exactly two thirds of all the references are from other sources. Nick Levinson (talk) 20:15, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - Better to use independent sources but that's an awful lot of google news hits. Seems to pass WP:ORG Morbidthoughts (talk) 01:34, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, JForget 00:38, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete the group would have to meet "significant coverage" to establish notability. There was some coverage of the group, however it doesn't seem to rise above trivial. The bulk of the ghits are in reference to the one quote by FFPs former president. Current article is heavily POV due to the excessive use of the groups newsletter, and it seems highly improbable that a NPOV article of any substance can be written using reliable sources.Horrorshowj (talk) 16:55, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The sources cited are not trivial. It doesn't matter if there are also trivial publications that weren't cited.

That lots of search-engine hits are useless has nothing to do with whether there are some that fit WP's needs. I selected sources for exactly that reason.

Citing the group's newsletter was appropriate. If there's any citation to it that's not, please point it out.

The group itself had a point of view; most do; Playboy has a point of view ("[t]he magazine throughout its history has expressed a libertarian outlook on political and social issues") and so does the Flat Earth Society; stating it in the article doesn't make the article POV. The FFP article already refers to controversies about its work.

What matters is if the organization is notable, and it is that. If you'd like to write a better article, please do.

Thank you.

Nick Levinson (talk) 21:01, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Every organization may have a point of view, however it is not the place of a wikipedia article to propagandize for them. That is very much the case on this article. Independent of their self-published sources there isn't any evidence of their having been given significant coverage. That is the requirement for GNG, not merely evidence that they existed. Horrorshowj (talk) 06:23, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is the place of Wikipedia to tell readers what the group is about. The belief that what they say is propaganda is irrelevant. The reader certainly may have a point of view and disagree with the group that is the subject of an article in WP. Many do. A group is no less notable because it has a point of view. As examples, see the WP articles on the U.S. Democratic party and its ideology, the U.S. Republican party and its ideology and positions, and al-Qaeda (including the Ideology section and the lead's 4th paragraph). All three groups are notable even though they have ideologies, have ideologies that are intensely and widely disagreed with, and have ideologies described in WP articles about the respective groups themselves.

If the requirement for stating a group's position were that it could only be stated by a third party, the high risk is that it would be misstated. For example, a minority religion could be described by a third party as the worst body of evil ever to walk the Earth. This would not serve WP well except as a criticism that complements a fair statement of the religious group's own theology, and for that the group's own publications may be the most reliable source, which are therefore permitted for citing in WP, including for notability.

You write, "there isn't any evidence of their [FFP's] having been given significant coverage". Eight reliable third-party published sources of coverage were cited. The only one disputed for its veracity is a ninth, it is a law journal, and the countersource for that is, so far, anonymous and unpublished. Eight or nine stand. Thus, all five criteria of WP:GNG are met.

Thank you.

Nick Levinson (talk) 19:04, 8 May 2010 (UTC) Corrected internal links: Nick Levinson (talk) 20:53, 8 May 2010 (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.