Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/File 18


 * 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. Several editors mounted a spirited defense. However, their arguments all come down to "there's nothing wrong with this, why delete it?", which is equivalent to WP:ILIKEIT. On the other hand, the editors arguing for deletion have polic-based arguments, the most important one being the absence of reliable sources independent of the subject. No prejudice to creation of a redirect to another article if a suitable target becomes available, which currently doesn't seem to be the case. Randykitty (talk) 17:36, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

File 18

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This newsletter seems to have had only twenty issues - lasting less than a year - and a self-claimed circulation of just 2,000. However, there doesn't seem to be any claim of notability, or indeed any reason why it could be notable. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (Message me) 23:34, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:26, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:27, 20 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment The small circulation and small number of issues are irrelevant: it was a publication aimed at law enforcement not the general public. The publication is mentioned in various books on the ritual satanic abuse scare of the 1980s and 1990s, such as Mary D Young's The Day Care Ritual Abuse Moral Panic, James T. Richardson and Joel Best's The Satanism scare, and Jean La Fontaine's Speak of the Devil (as well as skeptic and wiccan publications), as having played a significant part in disseminating claims of abuse. However coverage of the newsletter is not very detailed and probably doesn't meet WP:GNG, so the topic may be better covered in an article on Larry Jones, on Jones's Cult Crime Impact Network, or in a more general article on the satanic panic. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:56, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Do not delete The number of publications of any newsletter is irrelevant but even more to the point the police officers who created the newsletters -- utilizing tax payer money to do so -- still have living members which continue their efforts to undermine religious freedom in the United States. These newsletters are not only historic documents, they are also evidence of criminal activity on the behalf of law enforcement officers, and as such a Wikipedia article dedicated to the newsletters is wholly useful and informative to researchers uitilizing Wikipedia.
 * Remember: More information is better than less. One must review Wikipedia articles from the viewpoint of researchers searching for information, not from the viewpoint of editors looking to "clean up" articles.
 * There are zero legitimate reasons to delete this history and numerous reasons why this -- and related articles covering obscure extremist newsletters -- are wholly encyclopedic. Also there have been anonymous individuals who have attempted to delete this article before when some of the people involved in the newsletters later sought public office, and evidences the Theocratic ideologies of said individuals, to the point where the article was on the verge of being placed for protection. Damotclese (talk) 17:09, 20 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Leave it alone No, there is nothing wrong with File 18 and it meets Wikipedia quality standards. There is no legitimate reason to delete it. BiologistBabe (talk) 16:38, 21 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Okay, this is just absurd. FILE 18 was an excellent example of the "Satanic Panic" that swept through the low-IQ population of America in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and there is no legitimate reason to remove the Wikipedia entry for the newsletter; there are excellent reasons to keep it. The chief reason to keep the entry in Wikipedia is obvious: people studying and researching the "Satanic Panic" era need to have as many examples of the symptoms as possible to get a overview of the issue, and FILE 18 is one of the best examples of that hysteria. --Desertphile (talk) 13:42, 22 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment, although impressed by the enthuisiastic support for this article by a number of editors their comments are not that helpful for editors not familar with this subject. That said, based on the present 6 references the article does not appear notable. 4 of them are to File 18 issues and 1 is to the journal's creator.  The remaining 1 may be okay (4 - The Satanism Scare, James T. Richardson and Joel Best, Transaction Publishers, 1991, page 194).  However, a rudimentary google search brings up some sources that do appear to bring the article to WP:GNG.  For example:,  (refers to another book In Pursuit of Satan),  although it may be appropriate to have an article on Larry Jones instead, with a redirect from File 18. Coolabahapple (talk) 14:44, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Leave it alone The article is fine as it is. Anyone who Googles "File 18" is directed to this page as the #1 search result. We don't want to limit suitable and legitimate research references or make researchers take extra steps when doing book reports or otherwise following Kindle links (which are in the Kindle version of the Law Enforcement Guide on Occult Crime issued by the State of California under Courken George Deukmejian.) We don't want to break links to legitimate research materials, and we don't want to redirect File 18 to pages which discuss books which mention the newsletter.
 * Also these discussions should have taken place in the File 18 Talk: page, the editor requesting deletion should not have done so without first discussing it in the relevant article's Talk: page. Wikipedia sets guidlines however they are not "carved in stone," however discussing major edits and changes usually starts in an article's Talk: page. Damotclese (talk) 16:23, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Don't worry, I have added file 18 to my watchlist, I'll restore it if anybody tried to delete it. Yeah, this should have been brought up on the talk page, that's what it's there for. BiologistBabe (talk) 16:54, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
 * As mentioned on the actual talk page, the editor that flagged the article for deletion is not allowed to delete it. After a week or so the flag will be removed and that should end this cycle of attempting to remove it. Damotclese (talk) 15:40, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Please be aware that if the article is deleted, then restoring it can be seen as disruptive behavior. AfD restorations should go through the deleting administrator (whomever that will be) and if they refuse, then it should go through deletion review. Restoring it without going through those steps will make it extremely likely that the page will be deleted via WP:G4 and repeated recreations can lead to you getting temporarily or permanently blocked as a disruptive editor. You also need to take into account that WP:ITSUSEFUL is not a valid reason to keep an article, nor is WP:ITSPOPULAR, WP:GHITS, or anything else at Subjective importance and Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions. The long and short is that it's extremely hard to assert notability for anything even remotely fringe on Wikipedia unless it's something that has gained mainstream attention and received a ton of attention from mainstream media sources (NYT, etc). Being popular or well-known does not always translate into coverage in places that Wikipedia considers reliable and unfortunately most of the websites that cover fringe subjects are considered unreliable per Wikipedia's guidelines. I know that when it comes to books there are at least a dozen WP:SPS that are highly, highly respected and have huge followings, yet are considered unreliable per Wikipedia's rules. This is because while there are some legit looking SPS out there, there are also a lot of SPS out there that aren't reliable for several reasons. (One site posted unverified rumors that ended up being false, another ended up being a shill for authors/publishers, and another openly plagiarized several different obscure websites, and that's just the start.) That's the problem with anything that is considered fringe and the thing is, Wikipedia is not here to make up for the lack of coverage in reliable sources. I know this sounds harsh and there have been times that I wish it could be otherwise, but keep rationales must be argued based on policy and rules have only grown more strict over the years. Multiple projects have been pretty solidly affected by this but none so hard as the fringe and literary/publishing sectors. Colapeninsula and Coolabahapple both made a good argument for its inclusion somewhere, so arguments should follow that rationale as well. I'm not arguing for the article's deletion, just that right now what you two are doing is not really going to help the article out any. You're making arguments based on passion rather than policy, which won't entirely help much, and threatening to re-create it if the article is not kept is not really going to help things either. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  06:11, 25 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete for lack of sources that support notability. All references except one are the newsletter itself. The one other resource lists the newsletter as having been a source for a survey, but isn't about the newsletter per se. LaMona (talk) 22:41, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete Not finding any real argument for notability other than WP:ITSIMPORTANT. There's a complete paucity of relevant sources and the keep arguments aren't really asserting notability, but personal belief of importance.  For an obscure newsletter that was published for a short period by a small audience 25 years ago needs quite a bit more than this to aspire to notability.24.210.149.223 (talk) 03:32, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, didn't realize I got logged out. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 03:32, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not seeing any legitimate reason for the deletion request other than personal opinions, though, while at the same time there is a great deal of history behind the creation of the newsletters and the background of the individuals who created the newsletters. The newsletters are wholly informational and part of researcher background in to so-called Satanic Panic episodes.
 * I can't imagine why anyone would want to delete such information without good cause, reducing researcher findings. It was, in part, the creation of these religious newsletters utilizing tax dollars which prompted the State of California creating the Occult Crime guide for law enforcement officers ( http://www.holysmoke.org/report/index.htm and other locations on the 'web ) which is intimately tied to File 18 history. That's not opinion, that's just the history of the File 18 newsletter which is entirely relevant to the cycles of "Satanic Panics" in the United States. I'm not sure why any serious editor would even consider the article for deletion.  BiologistBabe (talk) 17:01, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Typically we nominate articles for deletion here when the subject doesn't seem to meet the criteria in our notability guidelines. And that's exactly what the nominator here has done. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 17:18, 27 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment As I mentioned in the Talk: page of the extant article, the newsleter is notable, it is linked to numerously out in the real world and there is no good reason to delete the page.
 * The fact that the article is informative, useful, and is linked to in the real world dictates that the page continue lacking any serious reason to remove it. This isn't an encyclopedia which has limited room, this is an open-ended encyclopedia which seeks to provide researchers and the curious information about all subjects.
 * Rule of thumb: More information is better than less. We seek to be encyclopedic while being useful, that's what :encyclopedias are. We don't limit information just because someone doesn't like it for whatever reason. Damotclese (talk) 16:20, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

BiologistBabe BB, I don't understand what the issue here is. So far it looks like someone wants to delete the page "just because." You asked me to comment on this delete request but I don't see any reason offered why it is being requested to be deleted. Was there a reason other than "it's not notable" given by the person who wanted it gone? TrainsOnTime (talk) 16:29, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Karen, she's still in the field, you have to call her at Mammy Yoko Hotel Freetown and leave a message. Come by my office when you have a chance. Damotclese (talk) 19:09, 28 April 2015 (UTC)


 * keep Checking the comments for and agains removal, and checking Google to find 3,240 pages covering File 18, and finding this entry as #1 in the search list and finding other web pages linking to it, and seeing no serious reason offered to remove it, the page should be kept.
 * But I don't agree that the page needs to be updated to include more information, I find the newsletters themselves contain enough information for anyone researching File 18 using this article as a jump-off point to be just fine. TrainsOnTime (talk) 17:07, 29 April 2015 (UTC) — TrainsOnTime (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. Note: An editor has expressed a concern that TrainsOnTime (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion.
 * 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.