Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Huang Yanling


 * 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. It's snowing. Randykitty (talk) 22:23, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Huang Yanling

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Non-notable scientist who worked at the Wuhan Institute of Virology is being used by conspiracy theorists to claim that the virus leaked in the laboratory. We should not be entertaining the use of Wikipedia for speculation and misinformation. RexxS (talk) 15:29, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. RexxS (talk) 15:29, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Biology-related deletion discussions. RexxS (talk) 15:29, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Organisms-related deletion discussions. RexxS (talk) 15:29, 20 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Strong delete for lots of reasons, mostly as a possible BLP that is complete speculation. A WP:BLPREMOVE would leave nothing. - Astrophobe  (talk) 15:47, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. -Roxy the happy dog . wooF 16:01, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Strong delete: The subject of this article is a private individual who has made no attempt to seek publicity, and who is only known because of an evidence-free conspiracy theory that circulated on Chinese social media about a year ago. The article is just a summary of wild speculation about a private individual. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:09, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete Fails WP:PROF, for starters; more importantly, as argued above, this kind of speculation and tabloid-at-best reporting (the NZ Herald is just laundering the Mail on Sunday, which is deprecated for good reason) in a BLP is completely unsuitable. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:11, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep as creator: The subject is a person of interest in the origins of Covid-19, as covered by a number of reliable sources. Besides for the NZ Herald, an earlier version of the article also referenced articles from Deutsche Welle (in German and Chinese), The Jerusalem Post, United Press International, and Forbes, as well as an official counter statement by Xinhua News Agency, the official state-run press agency of the PRC. If there are concerns as to how the rumors on Weibo are presented, then more counter statements (such as this) can be added to bring the article on this notable person into NPOV. ScrupulousScribe (talk) 16:37, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The Forbes item was a "Contributor" piece, not a reliable source (and the author writes about "business and investing in emerging markets", so there's absolutely no subject-matter expert factor to consider, even setting aside the high standards we have to maintain for biographies of living people and medical matters). ScienceNet.cn is a blogging collective of unclear editorial standards which should not be used in a BLP either. NPOV isn't about saying one good thing for every bad thing; it's about fairly reflecting the available RS in accord with our standards, and here, our standards indicate that there's nothing to say. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:47, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I hear you about the Forbes piece. But what about the other sources? Is this subject not notable based on their coverage? ScrupulousScribe (talk) 17:02, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The Jerusalem Post report is a pure speculation piece. Look at the sources it uses for its content: "According to various reports", "According to one theory", "Another theory relating to Huang's disappearance", "international pressure has been mounting on China", "a post was uploaded to the Chinese instant messaging platform WeChat". The only attributed source was in "the virology research center where she worked has denied that Huang was the first COVID-19 patient", which contradicts the nebulous sources. There is nothing there but smoke and mirrors.
 * The NZ Herald is known for reprinting British news pieces and that source is nothing more than a regurgitation of the Daily Mail's take on the conspiracy theory. The Daily Mail is not considered a reliable source on Wikipedia for good reason.
 * UPI's article is about the WHO investigators in China and mentions Huang Yanling in just one place, which calls the theory a rumour.
 * The Deutsche Welle source discusses what it calls "conspiracy theories" and "rumours" about the source of the outbreak, mentioning Huang in passing.
 * The biography on Research Gate is hardly an independent source by any stretch of the imagination.
 * This article is sourced from a mish-mash of low quality journalistic speculation and passing mentions of Huang within discussions of conspiracy theories. That is a long way short of the quality of sources we need for a WP:BLP of an unremarkable scientist, and does not even represent the "significant coverage" in "independent reliable sources" that we insist on for WP:BASIC. --RexxS (talk) 17:34, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I see. I wasn't aware that Wikipedia policy allowed for determining the quality of journalism from a reliable source. I suppose this is the case, given your level of experience, but I would appreciate if you can point me to the relevant section in WP:RS so that I can learn about it. I would be happy to change my nomination to delete for now, and if something new comes up (unlikely, but possible), we can revisit this discussion. ScrupulousScribe (talk) 18:00, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment WP:RSP lists the reliability of various sources, including the likes of the Daily Mail. You might want to also cross out your original !vote, if you're changed your view. -Kj cheetham (talk) 18:34, 20 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I didn't think to check until just now, but the above !vote is from the article creator; that doesn't affect the intrinsic merit of the argument one way or the other, but I think it's generally considered good form to note significant prior involvement with an article for the record. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:49, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I see. I affixed a note in my nomination above.ScrupulousScribe (talk) 17:02, 20 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment. One possible solution could be creating page COVID-19 patient zero. That would be a perfectly valid and important subject with sources like, ,,, etc. I believe this is a biological, rather than medical question, and partly a political controversy, hence MEDRS sources are not necessarily required. Obviously, this a part of a bigger subject, i.e. Origins of COVID-19. My very best wishes (talk) 17:40, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * At best that would be WP:1E, more likely it would end up as an WP:ATTACK. - Astrophobe  (talk) 17:54, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Page COVID-19 patient zero would not be about this one person (there is no sufficient evidence this is Huang Yanling), but about the search for patient zero for COVID-19. This is a much wider subject - please check sources above and
 * . My very best wishes (talk) 18:06, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * If it's a suggested move or merge for this page, it would encourage wild speculation about individuals. Otherwise you're proposing a page unrelated to this AfD. - Astrophobe  (talk) 18:37, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Huang Yanling would have to be mentioned on the page I suggested because he/she was named in first three RS currently on this page. To be named a patient zero is not a crime, and mentioning this is not a violation of BLP or anything. My very best wishes (talk) 18:48, 20 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete, as this biography is wholly based on a conspiracy with zero credibility among scientists and almost no credibility anywhere else. It's effectively a POV fork that misuses another human being to accomplish its aims. Also note RexxS that the same user who created this page also just created another POV fork, Investigations into the origin of COVID-19. While that topic is of great interest to scientists who have already written a number of strong papers on the issue (including in Nature), those papers — considered the gold standard so far — are not cited anywhere in this article. I think there should be an investigation into the editors who are apparently spreading this nonsense all across Wikipedia. -Darouet (talk) 18:04, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Suggest Snow close — the editor who created this page changed their vote to delete, meaning that nobody is now arguing to keep the page. In the mean time the page creator has also been topic banned from COVID-related topics. -Darouet (talk) 20:58, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Kj cheetham (talk) 18:25, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Kj cheetham (talk) 18:25, 20 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Snow Delete Nothing else to add, others have already said what I was going to. -Kj cheetham (talk) 18:28, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It's looking like WP:SNOW. -Kj cheetham (talk) 22:05, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete totally fails academic notability. Being paitent zero of a disease is not ground for notability, especially when such is not reliably sourced. I do not have any hope we will in this life learn the full truth of the origins of COVID-19, but that is not ground for Wikipedia just repeating non-reliable sourcing.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:43, 20 January 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.