Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Committee for Surrealist Investigation of Claims of the Normal


 * 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    I note the result of the Deletion Review in respect of the previous AfD listing, but this decision is not binding on this discussion, which would in that case be without purpose. In the discussion contained here, I have considered the arguments on both sides, and the consensus is clear for delete. --Anthony.bradbury"talk" 17:12, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Committee for Surrealist Investigation of Claims of the Normal

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Seems to fail WP:CORP. ScienceApologist (talk) 03:36, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete. My impression is that the "committee" never actually existed but was a kind of a pointy joke/hoax propagated by Robert Anton Wilson. Some hoaxes are notable but this one does not appear to be. No independent in-depth coverage of the "committee" by reliable sources (the only substantive coverage seems to have come from Wilson himself) and in fact very little independent coverage even of minor nature. GoogleBooks gives just 4 hits (the first of which is an article by Wilson). Nsk92 (talk) 03:56, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * delete Article is inworld fiction with a dash of... well quasi-hoxage. Timothy F.X. Finnegan is a fictional character (see old Articles for deletion/Timothy F.X. Finnegan FWIW), this organization is fictional and fails WP:FICT as I see it. Pete.Hurd (talk) 04:40, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete - doesn't exist and, frankly, really well and truely not notable. If it worth keeping, it should be transferred over to Robert Anton Wilson.  Shot info (talk) 06:36, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete Non notable fictional group. Dbrodbeck (talk) 12:33, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep I have cited a couple of books which describe it in some detail and a citation to a major newpaper which mentions it. Deletion is obviously inappropriate per WP:BEFORE.  The nomination also seems political in nature and so WP:POINT and WP:CENSOR seem relevant. Colonel Warden (talk) 08:49, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I looked at the updated version and I still think that it is a delete. The only coverage the "committee" received was either in the writings of Wilson or in a couple of cases in sources quoting him where the subject was actually Wilson rather than the committee. Not enough here to demonstrate notability. Moreover, there is also, in a sense, a WP:V problem. If the "committee" is a real thing and actually exist/existed, then more substantial verification of its existence is necessary. If the committee was a public joke/hoax propagated by Wilson then one needs to have sources more directly and definitively identifying it as a hoax. To quote the deletion policy WP:DEL, one of the reasons for deletion is: "Articles which are themselves hoaxes (but not articles describing notable hoaxes)". In this case, unless the committee is actually definitively identified as a hoax by reliable sources (and by a sufficient number of them to make it a notable hoax), it qualifies as a hoax article since the committee does not seem to have existed. Nsk92 (talk) 12:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * WP:HOAX explains, Also note that completely implausible text may be legitimate descriptions of fictional works that use an inappropriate in-universe style. Use "whatlinkshere" to check if this is the case, and if so rewrite the article in the out-of-universe perspective, or tag the article with in-universe or fiction. The article is obviously not a hoax but a good-faith description of something that is well-attested by multiple sources.  And from WP:DEL, you quite fail to address alternatives to deletion. Colonel Warden (talk) 04:36, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The problem is that in this case the status of the committee is not made clear by the sources available. If the committee was an in-universe element of fiction and the sources described it as such, there would not be a problem, at least not in WP:V terms. However, Wilson did not present the committee to the world as an element of fiction, rather he presented it as a real thing. The sources that quote him do not make it clear that the committee did not actually exist in the real world. As far as I can tell, there do not appear to be sufficient reliable sources to definitively identify the committee as either a fictional creation or a real world organization. This presents a WP:V problem both ways. Nsk92 (talk) 04:50, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Consider speculative scientific theories such as Dark energy. In that article we say, The exact nature of this dark energy is a matter of speculation.  We do not delete our articles upon such topics because our knowledge is less than perfect.  Colonel Warden (talk) 05:01, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The situation there is different since the status of the subject is clearly identified by various sources as an element of a scientific theory. In this case the status of the committee is not clearly identified as either a fictional creation or a real organization. With abstract concepts such as dark matter identifying them as a theory is sufficient. With real world physical objects, such as people, buildings, companies, committees, etc, one actually needs to be able to identify whether they are real or imagined/fictional/speculative etc. That is what WP:HOAX requires. Nsk92 (talk) 05:23, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * No, the point of WP:HOAX is to stop people from making things up on Wikipedia directly. It is perfectly fine for us to report matters whose truth is uncertain - matters such as the Resurrection of Christ, say. Colonel Warden (talk) 05:50, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think that the purpose of WP:HOAX is so narrow as to deal only with hoaxes perpetrated by WP editors. I think that WP:HOAX is in a way an extension of WP:V and is designed to prevent hoax information from making it into WP articles, even if the perpetrator of the hoax is someone else and a WP editor has mistakenly bought into the hoax. That is why WP:V requires verification by reliable sources. For example, in the case of urban legends, they only become inclusion-worthy after they are actually identified as urban legends by reliable sources and receive sufficient coverage in that capacity. Before that they are just unverified rumours excludable on WP:V grounds. In this case both the deletion policy and WP:HOAX say that one can have an article about a notable hoax, which, as I understand it, means that the hoax needs to be identified as a hoax by reliable sources and receive sufficient coverage in that capacity. For the case at hand, the only way I see for the article to deserve a keep if it is shown that it is either a notable fictional element or that it is a notable hoax. The former seems unlikely since Wilson never described the committee as a fictional element but always described it as a real organization. For the latter, I do not see any coverage by independent (from Wilson) reliable sources that actually identify the committee as Wilson's invention. Such coverage as there is available seems to simply quote Wilson. Nsk92 (talk) 06:21, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * You seem to be straining common-sense. Isn't it obvious that CSICON was a humorous parody of CSICOP?  Parodies are often presented in a straight-faced manner - it is part of their art.  We don't need to exert ourselves to understand that the Cheese Shop sketch was not about a real cheese shop, say.  Colonel Warden (talk) 07:28, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Not really. I can easily imagine people wanting to make a point organizing such a committee in real life. For examples, Razzies were created essentially with such a purpose (incidentally by another Wilson). Nsk92 (talk) 13:08, 4 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep Respect for broadminded-ness and even humor are real values near the heart and foundation of wikipedia. A lack of either, even by otherwise respectable editors and admins, is no reason to invoke an AFD or to vote for an delete. Now if only the editors and admins who disagree with those who do possess such values could just be please, please be WP:GIANTDICK's. Oh just kidding! :-) --Firefly322 (talk) 10:17, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * So, you're saying that since the subject of the article is clearly a joke that is ought not have to pass WP:N? If this is an article about a fictional organization, then the article ought to state that clearly (maybe even state exactly which work of fiction it is from) but the author of the original article (who has made only one edit since October 2006) presented it as an actual organization.  No WP:RS sources have been provided to clarify this point, nor to establish the extensive coverage in secondary sources independent of the topic, and so you invite people to behave dickishly so they can be banned? Pete.Hurd (talk) 18:49, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Note: The previous closing of this AfD was considered at Deletion Review and it was determined to be out-of-process. The discussion is being relisted as a result. The closing summary has been converted to a struck through comment below.  Jerry  talk ¤ count/logs 22:50, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The result was delete. PhilKnight (talk) 15:01, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Jerry   talk ¤ count/logs 22:50, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Merge to Robert Anton Wilson, since this appears to be the catchphrase of one man. I laughed when George Carlin joked about the Taskforce for Better Pancakes, but that wouldn't rate an article either. Mandsford (talk) 01:59, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge (to Robert Anton Wilson) or delete. Topic appears to have no notability beyond its author and little (if any) mention that isn't in connection with him. HrafnTalkStalk 04:39, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete Although the concept discussed is great and deserves a place on WP, the "committee" is not notable. Steve Dufour (talk) 05:43, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete - mention in The Telegraph is trivial, the book mentions are in a jocular style, and lack perspective. PhilKnight (talk) 13:56, 20 August 2008 (UTC)


 * 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.