Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Drastic Team


 * 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 keep.  Sandstein  06:29, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Drastic Team

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Insufficient sources that go in depth on the subject. Doesn't currently appear to pass WP:GNG. . These sources might count toward GNG, but I'd like to see more before I declare this a GNG pass. – Novem Linguae (talk) 23:42, 1 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. – Novem Linguae  (talk) 23:42, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. – Novem Linguae  (talk) 23:42, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi, i'm the article creator, i had to remove a big portion of the page because it was considered copyright infringement but it wasn't considered that the page that i copied was of my own website (laboratoryleak.com). If you remove the violation i can put back the sources that go in depth on the subject. Thank you. --Francesco espo (talk) 23:46, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments. At the time of the copyright violation, I checked all the sources in the article and didn't see any sources not currently listed. Feel free to provide links to sources here though and we'll take a look. – Novem Linguae (talk) 23:53, 1 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep. We have five sources for this stub as it currently exists. Three of them (the Washington Post, the Telegraph and CNET) are solidly reliable sources per WP:RSP. These three sources have a good deal of information about the subject and constitute WP:SIGCOV; additionally, the group is the sole focus of the entire CNET article (which was written by a CNET staff editor). These look like they easily establish notability on their own; I'm sure that I could also dig into RSN archives and figure out what the consensus is on Unherd and Skynews (I'm not familiar with these publications so I don't have an opinion on them). The article may be short, but there's more than enough information in the sources to flesh something longer out if anyone were so inclined. jp×g 06:01, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 per WP:MEDPOP, the popular press are often not reliable for scientific claims. As for the CNET piece, it is lovlingly PROFRINGE. As for RSP, the last discussion on the reliability of CNET was 6 years ago, and it states that CNET is considered generally reliable for technology-related articles., not reliable in general, and lab-leak claims fall well outside CNET's wheelhouse in consumer electronics, and the coverage has not been mirrored by other more reputable news sources. As for the other articles, they are incidental mentions and do not consitute SIGCOV. Hemiauchenia (talk) 12:24, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Alina Chan (who wrote the Telegraph article describing them as a group of diligent online sleuths) is a molecular biology postdoctoral researcher with a specialty in cell engineering, who seems to have a substantial number of publications specifically about COVID-19. Obviously, an article published by a long-running reliable news outlet doesn't clear WP:MEDRS simply because it was written by an expert in the field and subjected to the same editorial oversight we trust for all other articles, but I'm not aware of any MEDRS claims being made in this article; it's related to the biomedical subject of COVID-19 in the same way that the death of Socrates was related to the biomedical subject of acute hemlock toxicity. jp×g 17:50, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't know how being a postdoctoral researcher is supposed to impress me, it's not really at the level we would expect for the "subject matter expert". Alina Chan is very active in pro "lab leak" twitter and is strongly associated with "Drastic" and other prominent "lab leak twitter" figures like Yuri Deigin, so her writing can't be described as an independent source on the matter. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:04, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Apologies, I am a little confused by this message. On which matter? jp×g 19:18, 2 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Redirect per previously expressed concerns about a (now disclosed) COI and per Hemiauchenia's analysis. The only other (passing) mention of this group I could find is here, where the sum total of coverage about this group is the following sentence: "For instance, a neuroscientist belonging to a group that claims to independently investigate COVID-19 tweeted that the letter is a diluted version of ideas his group posted online last year." Obvious GNG fail. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:50, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * WP:MEDRS is not a notability guideline, so I do not understand how it is relevant for determining notability. As far as I can tell, its relevance to the content at all is tenuous at best, since the article doesn't make any scientific claims whatsoever, nor does it take a position on the "lab leak" being true or false. jp×g 17:35, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Where in the whole of my comment did I mention MEDRS? Please point it out to me so I can correct it, since I've just done a sanity check but the only bit I see is GNG, which has no relation to MEDRS as far as I know. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:02, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * WP:MEDPOP is a subsection of WP:MEDRS. jp×g 19:21, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * And where do I mention that? I was referencing Hemiauchenia' analysis of this not meeting SIGCOV, entirely independent of MEDRS, as should be clear from the rest of my comment where I do not mention that. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:25, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * There's an extremely long article -- a feature, in fact -- focusing entirely on this group, from CNET, a website cited in approximately ten thousand articles. There are 16 discussions in the history of RSN where CNET is mentioned; in zero of them was it found to be unreliable for anything. Is there a reason that an article there does not count? jp×g 19:59, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * GNG has always required multiple sources. CNET here is only one, and it's dubious for something that is so far out of its usual coverage (they don't usually cover controversies and minority theories in biomedical affairs, nor do they appear to cover politics when it's not related to technological matters). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:08, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Do you have an opinion on the 20 Minutes piece? It, too, is focused entirely on the group. The site is referenced in over 9000! articles on fr.wiki and 875 here; the author, Manon Aublanc, is an auteur du personnel (per her byline, she rejoindre la rédaction de 20 Minutes and was embauchée au service des infos in 2017). jp×g 21:39, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment: I've expanded the article substantially with information from its sources, and located an additional one with SIGCOV (although it's in French, and I'm not very familiar with the publication). Every sentence is cited to its source, and all statements are provided with inline attribution (with a few exceptions, like "they are primarily organized on Twitter", which are obviously uncontroversial and all sources say the same thing). It should be noted that this was pretty easy to do without saying anything that fell under WP:BIOMED, or anything that could be construed as falling under WP:BIOMED; there are no statements or implications about the origin of COVID-19, the likelihood of Drastic's hypotheses being true, the validity of their evidence, whether or not they are bozos, et cetera. Perhaps in the future it will be possible to find sources which opine more authoritatively on these issues, and incorporate them into the article, but GNG doesn't require it. jp×g 19:11, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Redirect Hemiauchenia sums up the issues with the article, and in any case I'm sceptical that it meets WP:NORG (which is the standard required for organisations like these, not GNG). For example: The non-substantial mention in WAPO is an opinion piece, not usable for organisation notability. Per RSP, CNET is generally reliable for technology-related articles -- medicine is way outside their specialty. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:26, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Redirect per Hemiauchenia (both the WaPo and the Telegraph items are opinion pieces, and we've no reason to consider CNET reliable for the subject) and the WP:NORG concern raised by ProcrastinatingReader. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 03:47, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Update Even after expansion, WP:NORG doesn't seem to be satisfied, the WP:MEDPOP concerns remain, and there's no real indication why this group needs an article rather than being described as part of the story of which they are a part. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 02:22, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 per WP:MEDPOP. Sonofstar (talk) 13:04, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep because a simple "Redirect" will destroy the content. The investigative and partly anoymous scientists had (as far as I can estimate) a big impact concerning the demand of independent scientific investigation of the origin, which is advocated today by many states. In many countries also in Germany, etc. they were the central source of large articles for instance in the serious Neue Züricher Zeitung - globally over 275,000 google hits.--Empiricus-sextus (talk) 21:11, 6 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment Since the start of the AfD (and, indeed, after most of this discussion occurred) there have been new articles primarily focusing on the exploits of this group in The Hindu ("generally reliable"), Vanity Fair  ("generally reliable"), The Print (no RSP entry, I don't know), and Newsweek  ("case-by-case basis"). jp×g 04:27, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
 * keep: redirecting it will mean a soft delete of this article because a significant portion of it or the entire content will be lost. Kaspadoo (talk) 12:45, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep: Another head scratcher here, this is relevant, notable and well sourced- the additions made by make a huge difference. This is one of those instances where more information is better than less, and this group has played a notable role in our current discourse....Wikipedia should absolutely be a resource for learning more about this group and their actions. Thank you all!  Cat  Damon  19:40, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep With the added Vanity Fair article and other recent additions, clearly passes GNG. Zoozaz1 talk  23:08, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Please do not redirect anywhere unless content about the group is available there (a reverse WP:MERGEWHAT). I almost brought this to WP:RFD over that before, and if you just leave it that way, I'm sure it will end up there again. Redirection is not a polite delete—you would be leaving behind a search term that will mislead, confuse, and/or disappoint readers. If your concern is with recreation of the article, we have a process for that, and it's not "effectively create an easter egg via redirection".
 * If there's consensus that the group should be mentioned, by all means, redirect there. Just please don't kick the can down the road. (Ping me if needed; not watching this page.) --BDD (talk) 01:59, 8 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep. The group passes WP:GNG. The group has received in-depth coverage from the sources listed above, as well as El País. There's a risk of WP:NOTNEWS, but I am not moved by it owing to the length of time corresponding to their coverage. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 02:19, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep Well sources and notable team of scientists. Jackattack1597 (talk) 10:54, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. Putting aside any critique of the group, and simply focusing on notability, it is obvious to me this easily meets WP:GNG on the basis of multiple, reliable sources such as Vanity Fair and The Hindu. Ifnord (talk) 03:57, 9 June 2021 (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.