Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Highgate Rabbit Farm


 * 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. The consensus is that this campaign is notable. However, I don't see why this article couldn't be called Campaign against Highgate Rabbit Farm or something similar but that can be discussed on the article's talk page. Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:49, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Highgate Rabbit Farm

 * – ( View AfD View log )

A WP:COATRACK for documenting a campaign of criminal activity. There is almost no information about the subject of the article itself, a small business (rabbit breeding) that made the mistake of selling rabbits for experimentation, but plenty about the attacks on it and other attacks by the same groups. The crimes themselves have been reported only in the very local press. Such articles offer little but to publicize the crime and have no encyclopaedic value on the nominal subject. At most, this deserves a line in the ALF and/or SHAC article. See also Articles for deletion/Regal Rabbits and Articles for deletion/Consort Kennels for other examples of similar articles, now deleted. Rockpock e  t  18:52, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete per nomination.--70.80.234.196 (talk) 19:16, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep - I reviewed the article. The part on history I think should be cleaned up to remove the articles referencing non-HRF problems, but other than that, I am seeing no problems with the article or the sources. It is a centralized location of multiple years of criminal activity, that has been reported on by multiple reliable sources. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS clearly stated the other examples supplied by the OP are irrelevant to this discussion. There are two points that concern me as well: (1) "crimes themselves have been reported only in the very local press". The BBC article proves otherwise, but the other sources comply with WP:RS, so I am not having a problem with them. (2) "that made the mistake of selling rabbits for experimentation" - I am questioning a possible WP:COI on this statement. This definitely indicates that the OP is against this farm. Is there an alternate reason why this is being proposed for deletion?  My understanding of policty is that this article meets notability requirements. Turlo Lomon (talk) 20:12, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Correction - striking comment. I should assume good faith. Turlo Lomon (talk) 15:19, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. Thanks for the psychoanalysis, but don't give up your day job, Turlo. To address your "concerns" 1) The BBC news report was not cited when I wrote the listing. 2) If anything I'm sympathetic to the farm - I'm certainly not against it and I have no idea why anyone would think I am. I do have a problem with with using an article about one thing to write about something else. In this case, the article is clearly about the campaign to Close Highgate Rabbit Farm. If co-ordinated criminal activity is notable (and I don't think a number of independent, trivial news reports make it so, per WP:NOTNEWS), then it should be under an article about the co-ordinated activity, not about the subject of that activity.  Rockpock  e  t  21:20, 16 January 2011 (UTC)


 * You could have done a Google search yourself and found the BBC articles. Per WP:BURDEN we're supposed to help look for sources ourselves, even when we object to material. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 21:29, 16 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment. I clicked the search for sources links above and didn't spot it. This BBC "article" is a red herring. It does not provide significant coverage of the farm and does not provide significant coverage of a AR campaign against the farm. Its a local news report about an arson attack on a van. .  Rockpock  e  t  23:41, 16 January 2011 (UTC)


 * And another BBC News article about a raid on the farm.  SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 00:19, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I've struck the sentence about the "very local press". Now if only we had an article about the campaign against the farm that these reports would be well suited for. Rockpock  e  t  00:34, 17 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment. I'm concerned about the speed with which Rockpocket nominated this. It was created by ThompsonFest at 17:04 January 16. Rockpocket prodded it an hour later. I removed the prod because Rockpocket had successfully prodded an earlier version of it in 2008, so I asked him to let it develop for a bit, then take it to AfD if it wasn't working out. I started looking for sources, and he added the AfD tag 30 minutes later.  What's the rush?  SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 20:53, 16 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment. There is no rush, SV. The reason I didn't wait is because no amount of additional writing about the attacks against the farm address the problem that this is coat-rack. We know almost nothing about the farm itself, because it does not have significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject and therefore fails WP:N. Rockpock  e  t  21:20, 16 January 2011 (UTC)


 * This is an article about the campaign against the farm, but the name of the campaign isn't notable (though the campaign itself is borderline notable), which I assume is why ThompsonFest chose the name of the farm for the title. It would have made more sense to wait a couple of weeks to see if more secondary sources could be found. This is one of a number of campaigns by a section of the anti-vivisection movement in the UK, and they've been highly notable, causing facilities to close, new legislation to be introduced, and many people to be jailed. What you are doing is going through these articles, one by one, and having them deleted. Perhaps you could consider how to retain them instead and make them encyclopedic, either as stand-alone pieces or within one article that discusses them all. But nominating for AfD an hour after creation doesn't allow time for that research. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 21:29, 16 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment. So it is a coat-rack then: Articles about one thing shouldn't mostly focus on another thing. If "this is an article about the campaign against the farm" Then why isn't it called Campaign against Highgate Rabbit Farm? If the campaign is borderline notable, make the claim for that, not the farm. Last time I checked our policies, we wrote articles about the subject, not campaigns against the subject. And give the (untrue) allegations of a deletion campaign a rest. Focus on the content, not the contributor please. Rockpock  e  t  23:41, 16 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep Sources seem to establish notability. I can not think of a reason in WP policy why the farm should not have an article. Having said that it is clear, to any reasonable reader, that WP's coverage of animal welfare issues is WP:Owned by activists.  I am not sure there is the will in any part of the WP community to enforce policies, as was done in the case of Scientologists interfering with articles related to their cause.  I don't plan to waste my time getting involved, but WP would have a better reputation if this kind of activism was not allowed or was somehow controlled. Borock (talk) 22:04, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep as I'm not seeing any WP redflags regarding the need to delete the article. That said, the article does need more work (as it the case for 99% of all articles on wikipedia). —  f c s u p e r ( How's That?, That's How! ) (Exclusionistic Immediatist ) —  06:51, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * More work is always good. But the real problem is that lots of people think that preventing cruelty to animals is more important than having a neutral and informative encyclopedia for humans. And who am I or anyone else to say they are wrong? Borock (talk) 13:26, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I know what you mean. I've seen protectionism and promoting of POV in many places, but there are different WP that cover these issues. —  f c s u p e r ( How's That?, That's How! ) (Exclusionistic Immediatist ) —  17:00, 17 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 13:15, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 13:16, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep -- The activities of the Animal Liberation terrorists have been much publicised. This is a well-researched article on one of their targets.  Most of the references are to the local press, but that is probably the only WP:RS available on most of the incidents.  Peterkingiron (talk) 17:04, 18 January 2011 (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.