Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Council for Nutritional and Environmental Medicine (2nd nomination)


 * 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. Secret account 04:58, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Council for Nutritional and Environmental Medicine
AfDs for this article: 
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Fails WP:ORG per practically no documented coverage in independent, reliable sources. I first redirected the article to the founder Geir Bjørklund, whose notability also may be questionable, but this was undone. Iselilja (talk) 20:17, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica1000 20:59, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Norway-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica1000 20:59, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica1000 20:59, 23 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete and WP:SALT. Result by AFD was already "Delete" before, at Articles for deletion/Council for Nutritional and Environmental Medicine. I searched multiple database archives including NewsBank, LexisNexis, and Westlaw, and couldn't find any good source coverage. I agree with everything said by the nominator about lack of notability and WP:SPA nature of other pages created by, as well. There appears to be a conflict of interest going on here, suggest it should be reported to WP:COIN. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 00:06, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I think we have pretty much the same thinking regarding a possible COI, but I am reluctant to pursue it very heavily due to pricacy concerns. The editor VP has mostly edited two articles, Bjørklund and CONEM, and if CONEM is deleted the issue will of course be moot for that one. Then just try to find a solution for the Bjørklund article. Iselilja (talk) 18:18, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment: Please consider wp:BITE, not to bite the newbies, and be polite here.  I see no COI problem, no need to SALT.  Editor Vitalpost participated politely in 2012 AFD, pleasantly asking in this near-to-the-end diff what would be required for an article.  AFD was closed in 2012 on "Too Soon" argument.  Two years later, after the nonprofit has become registered, Vitalpost revisits and creates article, under substantially different circumstances now.  Sure, Vitalpost has knowledge/interest about CONEM and/or about Geir Bjørklund, which is fine and good.  Wikipedia wants experts to come and write about what they know about.  Sure it is fine to give Vitalpost polite suggestion at their Talkpage that they should familiarize self with wp:COI guidelines (already sort of done, very mildly).  But having an association with a topic is fine.  Even in fact having an explicit COI does not require a person to "out" themself and does not preclude contributing.... it rather pretty much advises contributing and just being sure to participate cooperatively if/when there is disagreement on content.  Vitalpost did good to re-open the article, with more information, no longer obviously "too soon".  The decision here may be to redirect or delete, in which case Vitalpost could be advised not to restart the article, but rather develop more on the topic and submit to wp:AFC in the future, and/or to be involved in Wikipedia in other ways for a while.  But "salting", as if Vitalpost had done anything wrong -- and they did not -- is unnecessary and would seem mean, would seem to be biting a positive contributor. -- do  ncr  am  22:37, 27 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete Does not meet WP:GNG or WP:NONPROFIT. The problems in the 2012 deletion remain. I do not see a WP:COI issue, just a problem with lack of communication about what is happening and why. If good sources of information about this organization were presented then the article could stand.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  19:46, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep. It's a registered non-profit in Norway, documented by this registration link, accomplished since the previous AFD.  It seems to me to be like many academic centers that are typically associated with a given university and which sponsor/promote a series of working papers and publications in a focused topic area.  This is unusual perhaps for being an independent nonprofit.  The list of publications it has sponsored / that it promotes seems focused, academic. -- do  ncr  am  16:35, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Addendum: By academic center, i mean centers or institutes that meet definition "An academic center is a non-degree granting educational unit of the university engaged in research; instruction; or clinical, outreach, or related service. An academic center is defined by its mission and scope, not its title, and may be described as a center, institute, laboratory, or similar term." (an Ohio State University definition available [oaa.osu.edu/assets/files/caa/CenterGuidelines.pdf here]).  I submit that Wikipedia coverage and standards for academic centers is not clear.  There seems to be no category grouping them, that I can find, while there should be an article Academic centers and Category:Academic centers.  Searching on "academic center" within Wikipedia brings one to various university article sections on academic centers, but also to entities that use the term in a different way, such as this one which is more like a tutoring center for undergraduate athletes.
 * About CONEM, it is not part of one university so is not a typical academic center either, but should just be required to meet general Wikipedia standard for academic centers (a standard which doesn't exist yet, AFAIK). I don't easily find news references about CONEM that would establish it meets the wp:GNG;  maybe we are not searching on the right terms.  However, it seems legitimate and I submit it seems better to keep than delete, pending more development in Wikipedia on centers like this. -- do  ncr  am  16:58, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Further, a better alternative than deleting would be to Merge with Redirect to an appropriate list-article, such as List of environment research institutes. There needs to be world-wide List of research institutes (currently a red-link) or List of research institutes and academic centers (currently a red-link) which could be a redirect target that would naturally break out into country-specific lists and topic area-specific lists covering academic centers.  There does exist Category:Research institutes by country and 3 area-specific lists for Greece, Pakistan and Seattle.  And List of forest research institutes and List of environment research institutes but not the more general world-wide list and category.  By the way I see Norwegian Food Research Institute as a CONEM-comparable organization with an article (in Category:Research institutes in Norway and in Category:Food science institutes). -- do  ncr  am  17:11, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments, Doncram. I think due to lack of adequate sources we are pretty much left to speculations about the nature and impact of this centre. The home sites list a number of published peer-reviewed papers. Checking those papers, I can only see the founder Geir Bjørklund signing as affiliated with CONEM. The other authors list other affiliations. One of the papers have 11 cites, the others have so far none as I can see, so documented academic impact doesn't appear to be high so far. Bjørklund is according to our article "sceptical to conventional medicine"; so we are probably talking alternative medicine. The CONEM article lists three organizations the centre co-operates with: One is Melisa Medica Foundation which Quackwatch lists as a "questionable" organization (Wikipedia has an artice on the MELISA test); another is British Society for Ecological Medicine; one of that organization's predecessor British Society for Allergy and Environmental Medicine is also listed as "questionable" by Quackwatch. Because alternative medicine research if often controversial, I think we should be particularly careful about having an article about an institution in that area without good reliable sources. Iselilja (talk) 18:18, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Well my !vote is "Weak Keep". I think it is unfortunate that Wikipedia does not have clearer practices and/or standards about coverage of academic centers, which is unfortunate for well-meaning contributor(s) here.  I do grant that there must be many more important, more influential, more widely covered academic centers out there, which lack Wikipedia articles so far, and would be a higher priority to create.  Given lack of clarity on what should be covered, I think it is fair and best to allow this to be kept as is, although others can disagree.  If it is not to be kept as is, it is less hurtful, less wp:BITE, to merge the material and redirect to a list-article or elsewhere that can hold the valid references provided.  I also don't object to it being merged and redirected to Geir Bjørklund, per Iselilja's identifying that it appears only Geir is referencing CONEM in published papers, so it seems CONEM & Geir overlap considerably. -- do  ncr  am  22:37, 27 October 2014 (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.