Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Independent Australia


 * 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. Sarahj2107 (talk) 07:27, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Independent Australia

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This is a political blog calling itself a newspaper. After six months this stub article has attracted no RS to establish notability, apart from self-reference. Content consists of political diatribes. a fine example of internet ratbaggery, but hardly a newspaper. Pete (talk) 10:31, 15 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The stub describes it as a website, not a newspaper. It is not listed as a newspaper. Most reputable newspapers have gravitated to websites and there is no longer anything fundamentally credentialling about having paper output. Your judgment of content is unjustified POV with which I personally disagree. Bjenks (talk) 06:34, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

The site gives the impression of having a team of contributors, all beavering away to produce independent content, but on examination, much of the material is lifted from other sources. For example, supposed contributor John Menadue has a series of articles here, but in reality they are copied word for word from his personal blog here. --Pete (talk) 10:48, 15 May 2016 (UTC)
 * It's hardly unusual for prominent writers to carry their work on a personal website as well as syndicate it to any number of public media. It is unnecessarily gratuitous to describe such content as ″copied word for word from his personal blog″. For example, does the Pacific Media Centre lose any credibility because this opinion piece can be said to be copied word for word″ from Pilger's site. I think not. Bjenks (talk) 06:34, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Looking at the PMC page linked above, I see this: "This article was first published on www.johnpilger.com and has been republished with the permission of John Pilger." --Pete (talk) 08:33, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Just to make it crystal clear.
 * This is not a newspaper.
 * It is some guy's blog.
 * He lifts pieces from other sites, and then adds his own comments, and graphics likewise lifted from others.
 * The Menadue piece linked to above has no indication of permission from the author. Most of the text is simply copied and pasted, including typos such as "Ronald Regan", but here and there it is modified to suit IA's preference.
 * The IndependentAustralia guy tags it with a Creative Commons license. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License, to be exact.
 * This appears immediately above a donation/subscription widget accepting Visa and Mastercard.
 * Menadues's site, also linked to above, makes no mention of a CC license or of any permission to republish his material.
 * Graphics such as cartoons and photographs are often presented without attribution or permission. I doubt that Fox gave their permission for a still from Futurama to be used here.
 * The site is the creation and sole possession of one person, living in the socialist workers' enclave of Surfers Paradise, who takes content as he pleases for his own commercial purposes. It is not a newspaper, it is not notable, our stub article contains no external sources and has been marked as such for six months. I don't know why we are giving this fellow any publicity at all. --Pete (talk) 07:38, 17 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. Lemongirl942 (talk) 11:54, 15 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Australia-related deletion discussions. Lemongirl942 (talk) 11:54, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

I want to declare that I have zero COI. I am not a subscriber, have never donated, do not know anyone at IA, have never commented on any of its articles. If the article hadn't existed, it would never have occured to me to create it. If the AfD hadn't appeared I may never have realised it existed.
 * Delete - Pretty straightforward - cites no sources (except the blog itself). While all of Pete's points above are indeed red flags for non-notability, a blog could still be notable despite all that, if it passed GNG. This doesn't. --Yeti Hunter (talk) 22:15, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete  I searched for sources, using the founder's name Donovan" as a keyword and came up only  with mentions on other non-notable blogs and web-based sites that share the political perspective )perspective became apparent as I searched).  to merit a page, a blog would have to be discussed in some depth by multiple reliable sources.  Delete as mere ADVERT / promotion.E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:38, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Note that the lengthy list of references is a sort of smokescreen, presumably put there by a saavy article creator to make this look like a well-sourced article. But the discussions of this site are referenced to the this site.   The other references are to individuals affiliated with this website, none of whom is bluelinked.E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:52, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete as none of this actually suggests the needed solid independent notability for its own article. SwisterTwister   talk  05:06, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment. The article could really use being trimmed down to remove things that have no bearing on its notability. That its contributors also write elsewhere, that a marginally notable person said nice things about their book, that the book's author thanked his crowdfunders, YouTube videos, etc. - these do not support notability. I don't agree with most of the nominator's conclusions and I feel like there might well be enough WP:RS to warrant notability at this point, but the article makes the point particularly badly. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 11:40, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep I came across this AfD discussion by chance. I was confused by the claims as I have occasionally read IA and had never considered it as how it is described above. The National Library classifies it as a 'Periodical, Journal, magazine, other edition' and has been archiving it since 2012. IA does not 'call itself a newspaper'.

"political diatribes... ratbaggery"... "gives the impression of having a team of contributors...", "lifted from other sources", "supposed contributor", "copied word for word", all seemed like accusations of something nefarious and an attack of the subject rather than judgement of the WP article. It seemed hard to believe that IA has been online for 5yrs with 100s of contributors not complaining their works have been 'lifted'. Many of these IA contributors/supporters are notable enough to have BLP articles. That they did not contribute their work in some form seems unlikely. Whatever attribution they did/did not seek is surely not WP's business.

Menadue's profile page on IA here lists 10 articles - each ends with attribution: "This article was originally published on John Menadue's blog 'Pearls and Irritations' ", with direct links and some also with "and is republished with permission." IA's contributor guidelines discuss a code of ethics and "Please also attribute the sources of your multimedia and licence details" etc. It has a privacy policy, comments policy etc - hardly things you'd find on "some guy's blog". And... "the socialist workers' enclave of Surfers Paradise"? Anyone with a scintilla of interest in Australian politics would likely be aware that SP is in one of the very safest conservative localities in the country - council, state and federal divisions. Perhaps that was tongue-in-cheek, but the location is irrelevant?

IA's commons licence - says: "Almost all our original material is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License... "Our original" - ie the articles written by IA's own editors? There are well over 1,000 articles at the IA staff author's lists.

I have been working on the article. A look at the edit history will show I did not create it - 'a saavy creator', 'a smokescreen', 'to make it look like', 'none of whom is bluelinked'? I did not put the red wlinks in the article. And I did not think each of the editors I added to the article would need their own article? As a new editor who merely tried to improve the article, I am trying not to feel offended by these accusations of things I did not do. I figured I could not come here to vote keep without fixing the apparent problems - the first being to negate the impression that IA was just 'some guy's blog', ie to give some credibility to the professional writers on its staff and then to document some of the outside mentions of IA.

I don't know why no-one else has been able to find the refs that I have. (I don't yet know how to use the tools.) It may be that, at the time the article was nominated, the managing editor's name was misspelt and maybe that msm sources don't like to give coverage/credence to new media. Today I added refs to the interview that went viral. I only added 6 but found at least 14 - all with IA's and Donovan's name included in their text. I realise I have probably added too much to the article. That was in an attempt to save it from deletion. If it survives, I intend to get help via talk page/desk to work out what should stay and what should go and then to fill in the bare refs. I have acted in good faith. I have one only user account and have never edited without being logged in. I am definitely the sort of editor to 'smokescreen'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JennyOz (talk • contribs) 14:26, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Yeeees, but I see that all your comments above are drawn from the blog's own site, and your sources for the supposed contributing editors refer to their doings elsewhere. What IA says about IA is self-reference. What reliable sources say about IA is what WP needs. Something that isn't self-puffery or boosting from fellow travellers in the blogosphere. --Pete (talk) 18:19, 22 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete Web searches reveal insufficient sources for meriting inclusion on Wikipedia as an article. I can only conclude this is mostly about using Wikipedia for promotion. Also, it is aggravating (to me) to try to sift through more than 50 references to see if any of them support notability for this blog. There are a good number of references (sources) where the subject is not about this blog, so I have no idea why they are there. And I am not likely to try to sift through 50+ references that may or may not be unrelated. -- Steve Quinn (talk) 01:04, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment - if the Editor Jenny Oz wishes to post links to references that will determine this blog or journal's notability, she may do so here and I will be glad to look at them. Other editors may also be interested, but I can't speak for them. --- Steve Quinn (talk) 01:04, 23 May 2016 (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.