Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Acid Rain Retirement Fund


 * 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 merge to Acid Rain Program.  Sandstein  16:28, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Acid Rain Retirement Fund

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Non-notable environmental activist organization, apparently local to Maine. Article is mostly sourced to their own web site, which is long dead. I tried improving the contents and salvaging what could be; in the process I realized that the whole article is basically a massive WP:COPYVIO of the organization's dead web pages. For example: I did not find any independent coverage to pass WP:NORG, and the copyright violations by themselves would require a full rewrite, but from what sources? Hence delete. — JFG talk 10:03, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
 * The Acid Rain Retirement Fund raises money and bids alongside polluters in the annual auctions for as many allowances as their funds can buy. was copied straight from thier home page,
 * The whole "Accomplishments" section is lifted word for word from their April 2013 press release..
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Maine-related deletion discussions. AllyD (talk) 10:47, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. AllyD (talk) 10:47, 8 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete -- There's not a single WP:Reliable source utilized in the article which establishes the subject's notability; of the fourteen sources cited in that article (most of them primary), thirteen of them do not even mention the subject. The only one which does mention the organization is their press release from their own website, and the content it supports are blatant copvios.  I did some independent searching but could not find viable sources to establish notability for this organization.  It's also hard to escape the conclusion that the article strays considerably far away from describing the organization itself.  Regardless, with both WP:GNG and WP:NORG being failed here, this is a fairly straight-forward call. Snow let's rap 12:41, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Not delete. Gee I'm surprised you folks are having such difficulty finding reliable sources for this article. I found several that cited ARRF with a brief Google search, including:


 * WIRED. 2004. Using Capitalism to Clean the Sky
 * https://www.wired.com/2004/04/using-capitalism-to-clean-the-sky/


 * Debra Israel. Environmental Participation in the U.S. Sulfur Allowance Auctions.
 * Indiana State University. http://isu.indstate.edu/disrael/so2_ere_fig.pdf


 * Early retirement for SO2. The Guardian.
 * https://www.theguardian.com/prius/partthree/story/0,,1322030,00.html


 * Blas Luis Pérez Henríquez. 2016. Environmental Commodities Markets and Emissions Trading: Towards a Low-Carbon Future Routledge, p. 116


 * Scott J. Callan, Janet M. Thomas. Environmental Economics and Management : Theory, Policy and Applications. Cengage Learning, Oct 28, 2009 cited p. 280.


 * Harry Moren. 2009. The Difficulty of Fencing in Interstate Emissions: EPA's Clean Air Interstate Rule Fails to Make Good Neighbors. Ecology Law Quarterly Volume 36.


 * PRABINA RAJIB. 2014. COMMODITY DERIVATIVES AND RISK MANAGEMENT. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd.


 * U.S. Environmental Protection Administration. 2018. Clean Air Markets: SO2 Allowance Auctions, 1993-2018.
 * https://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/so2-allowance-auctions Official record of ARRF purchases of emissions allowances may be found each year 1995-2010.


 * Until the recent change in Presidential Administration, ARRF was actually listed on the EPA homepage as one of 3 organizations buying allowances to prevent their use.


 * Doesn't this mean ARRF is sufficiently notable to be included in Wikipedia? Seems like. Sorry I haven't had much time lately to edit this article, but my editing time has been eaten up dealing with other stuff.Mervyn Emrys (talk) 08:18, 10 November 2018 (UTC) I do not mean to suggest this is a comprehensive list of sources--it is not. But the ease with which these were found, and the frequency with which ARRF has been noted in the publications of others, does suggest it has been noticed by many. Inclusion in scholarly books is particularly indicative, especially if it is cited as an example of emissions trading to prevent acid rain. Is it notable that ARRF has withdrawn emissions allowances for more than 9 million tons of air pollution from use by anyone? Does one know of any other organization or person who has done that? Also, although based in Maine, ARRF has assisted individuals and groups nationally in learning about acid rain, especially school kids--it is after all, an educational organization.Mervyn Emrys (talk) 06:56, 11 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Perhaps; you are definitely building the case now. This may be enough to convince me to switch my !vote, but I'd like to highlight some of the weaknesses in the sources, all the same:  The Wired article is a bit of a blurb, and only mentions the ARRF three times, and thus is not what you would call in-depth coverage, and the piece from The Guardian is even more underwhelming in this respect.  The EPA is a WP:PRIMARY source, and thus not useful for demonstrating proper WP:NOTABILITY.  The Debra Israel article obviously discusses the ARRF in something approaching the detail we'd like to see, but it is unpublished and thus less than ideal. However, I do believe that, for all of their flaws, these sources are beginning to add up to something. I presume that the additional sources are behind paywalls, or else you would have linked them here; when I get a chance, I will look into them to see how robust and direct the coverage is there.  Since these remaining sources give the appearance of all being WP:RS if even one or two that discuss  the ARRF in a non-cursory fashion, I'll change my !vote. Sn</b><b style="color: #99d5fe;">o</b><b style="color: #b2dffe;">w</b> <b style="color: #d4143a">let's rap</b> 20:34, 10 November 2018 (UTC)


 * I respectfully disagree about the paper by Debra Israel. If you can find it on the internet, it has been made public and is therefore published. Moreover, it was published under the auspices of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana State University, which is the principal training ground for management-level personnel in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and many similar state agencies, and is described in Wikipedia as "the largest public policy and environmental studies school of its kind in the United States." Furthermore, I believe ARRF is cited in several of the references in that paper. I will try and check, tho they are not n my library.Mervyn Emrys (talk) 22:25, 11 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Well, that's not what "published" means in either general parlance or in the specific academic sense--which you must know, being as you have a PhD. More to the point of relevant usage here, it is not "published" as that term is defined under our WP:Reliable sources policy, which requires that the source has been passed through an identifiable editorial body with an established reputation for fact checking/peer review, that is providing a platform for that piece as an express publication.  Self-published sources are generally not permitted for the purposes of WP:verification or WP:notability analyses, and that threshold is not really altered by it's being hosted on a university server, which is common practice when academics wish to share an as-yet unpublished work in progress.  So most editors would discount it as being viable towards the analysis at all.  But in this instance, I am crediting it with some persuasive influence; I would never !vote to let the article stand on that one source, but as part of a larger collection of sources, I'm inclined to give it some weight. Just not as much as something that comes from a journal. <b style="color: #19a0fd;">S</b><b style="color: #66c0fd">n</b><b style="color: #99d5fe;">o</b><b style="color: #b2dffe;">w</b> <b style="color: #d4143a">let's rap</b> 23:58, 11 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Well, I don't think what "published" means in academe is as uniform as you suppose. In top research universities it may mean a book or peer-reviewed journal article, but in many four-year universities and colleges, esp. those lacking graduate programs, anything that has been made public--and is therefore believed to be subject to outside comment--may be considered "published" when it comes time for performance reviews, even national conference papers (which are often peer-reviewed before accepted for the program), book reviews, encyclopedia articles, and internet journals, which often are not peer reviewed. Each school, actually each department, sets its own criteria for performance evaluation, including tenure and promotion decisions.Mervyn Emrys (talk) 04:47, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

<div class="xfd_relist" style="border-top: 1px solid #AAA; border-bottom: 1px solid #AAA; padding: 0px 25px;"> Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Merge to Acid Rain Program. Among other things, the detailed material in Wired merits a mention in Acid Rain Program. As the article creator notes above, the Trump administration famously gutted the EPA website, and in the process removed the mention of Acid Rain Retirement Fund from it. (Might be able to find that sort of stuff via Wayback.) Softlavender (talk) 01:38, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Jovanmilic97 (talk) 15:04, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
 * <small class="delsort-notice">Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Environment-related deletion discussions. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 15:11, 15 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Merge to Acid Rain Program per Softlavender. (Selectively, to avoid any copyvio issues.) XOR&#39;easter (talk) 15:14, 15 November 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> 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.