Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Institute for Continuous Improvement in Public Services


 * 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. Black Kite (talk) 21:42, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Institute for Continuous Improvement in Public Services

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Non-notable organisation, a speedy was declined for some unknown reason, and the page creator removed a PROD. Fails WP:GNG, WP:ORG and WP:PROMO. Joseph2302 (talk) 14:30, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:06, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:06, 18 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete The reason the speedy was declined was specified in the edit summary, which says that the article isn't exclusively promotional. Two of the three references are the organization's own website, though, so I would still support deletion. KSF  T C 18:01, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * For clarification, the "unknown reason" was that I couldn't see how on earth someone would describe this as "not exclusively promotional". Joseph2302 (talk) 18:10, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 01:33, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is about an organisation, and yes, you could have used the old version to play buzzword bingo, but there is a difference between that and being exclusively promotional. The first sentence of the old version, for example, looks like a very reasonable start to the article, and I see it is unchanged in the current version. Sure, much of the rest of it should be removed or copy edited with prejudice, but that's an argument for editing, not deletion. For some other opinions about what "exclusively promotional" means, see here and here. — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 12:06, 26 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete - while the fourth reference might seem independant of the subject, it says that the government created ICIPS, so it is not really independant. Duckduckgo does not know of any independant source, so notability is fairly dubious. Tigraan (talk) 12:11, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete - as I said in my PROD rationale, I don't think this passes WP:GNG. The references in the article don't cut it, and I couldn't find any suitable sources online either. — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 12:13, 26 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Redirect, was Keep or Move to Draft . Reason 1) A solid reason is that this AFD is BITEY and unnecessary to impose on a new editor.
 * Note that this is a brand new article by a new wikipedian who up to the point of this AFD was only "welcomed" by punitive notices. It is not formalized, but there is some support among AFD editors for a change in deletion processes where their frequent application is too wp:BITEy.  An explicit reason not to delete an article--or at least not hastily--is if its deletion would remove a significant portion of the editors' contributions in Wikipedia so far.  Or if it would otherwise be unnecessarily mean and BITEY.  Concerns about an article can be registered by tagging them rather than forcing deletion immediately.  The new wikipedian should not be bombarded with inside jargon.  Note here the one-sentence deletion nom statement uses four(!) Wikipedia-jargon acronyms.  That is not intelligible for the average human being.  A new editor needs some time to absorb about interactions, deletion processes, policies and guidelines that they are being besieged with.  This is partly a matter of being decent to well-meaning innocent people, instead of lashing out and hurting them.  It is partly a matter of better marketing of Wikipedia.  There's no need to offend someone and chase them away entirely with an all-negative harsh experience.


 * Also consider this editor's experience so far is 3 deletion processes...learning that whatever you do you will be attacked immediately on another level. It is just too fast.  And further: the editor already went through experience of being blocked!  I assume that creator was same person who created account name ICIPS (ICIPS account with permanent block info), and was blocked, and I can't tell how badly or nicely they were treated in that experience.


 * In this case the creator's entire contribution history so far is 7 edits at this article. That doesn't mean they are or will be an advocacy/problem wp:SPA, it simply means they are starting here.  Everyone's first edits are in one area.  And, there's no indication this editor is generating lots of similar articles.  Note here there is no special need to abuse the person as a way of imposing costs on them, as conceivably is a reason to counter excessive costs a prolific editor might be putting onto Wikipedia's new page patrol and other Wikipedia processes.


 * Also in this case, the article is not promotional about any commercial venture (the subject is a charity organization)...there is no way anyone is going to profit here. Sure it has a positive tone about the organization, as do almost all articles about organizations in Wikipedia.  There has been no suppression of negative information.  So concern about promotionalism and possible COI are not so important.


 * So, what would be better here? Keep it for now, with note that if it is not improved within a month, say, it would be eligible for deletion again.  Tag the article about the concerns you have, if you must.  Tagging is not the best way to communicate, either.  Better is to provide some reasonable guidance at its Talk page or the Talk page of the creator.


 * My impression is that it is a bit soon, but still okay, to have a Wikipedia article for this new organization (founded in 2012 and just having received charity status in 2015). It is explicitly supported/mentioned by the government in reference 4 above.  It has run one or two or three annual conferences, including big successful 2014 one in Manchester, and it is building up steam e.g. by getting the Buckingham university connection mentioned in Reason 2 below.  And if deletion is the ultimate outcome of this AFD, it could/should be presented as a "too soon"/"come back later" decision as is nicely enough done for Wikipedia's internal process on selecting new administrators.  The article could be moved to Draft-space or otherwise provided to the creator to revise and try again later.  AFD's usual outcome of total dismissal / total deletion is unnecessarily harsh-seeming.  Note only experienced editors will know that you can get copies of deleted articles, so they know deletion might not be so permanent, that they could try again.  But a new editor doesn't know that, and what form of copy should they request, with edit history or not?  That's too much to expect them to know about.  Here, IMO it is extremely likely that the organization will get significant coverage, but it hasn't yet because it was not yet a charity and was/is still finding its way.  If Wikipedia in the future would likely want an article on this, no need to burn bridges.


 * Reason 2) I will make some effort to find coverage of the organization, too. Under sufferance...some time should be allowed for the creator to provide coverage they may know about, but did not understand was so important.  If the creator was encouraged to get the coverage mentions, it would take burden OFF of wikipedia editors to have to do the work of searching for them.


 * One hit is mention of the organization at page 191 in a book, at book partially available at google books. ICiPs's "jargon-buster" webpage is recommended; it is a positive note.  Book is Why Should I Give a ***** about Quality?: Understanding and Profiting From  by Ian Purdy and Sheila Purdy, published by Lulu Publishing Services (is that a regular publisher or does using a "publishing service" mean that it is a self-published book?).  It is a book for the mass market in business/management area.


 * A second hit is this new Masters program at University of Buckingham, that explicitly is to comply with ICiPs's standard. "This degree will accept its first cohort of students in September 2015....It will be fully accredited to the Institute of Continuous Improvement in Public Services (ICIPS) and successful graduates will automatically qualify as a Fellow of ICIPS (subject to annual membership fee)."


 * Another is a Top 25 award, for being most influential in continuous improvement, for the CEO of the organization, which is same as credit to the organization. Here it is covered outside of Icips itself:  East Yorkshire executive wins prestigious European award in Commerce & Industry magazine.


 * Has searching been done on acronym "ICIPS"?


 * What were the two previous names of the organization, and have they been searched on? Note the current article mentions 2 name changes but does not yet give all names...it repeats one name by accident apparently.


 * I'll stop here for now. -- do ncr  am  13:44, 26 June 2015 (UTC)  (did amend later, 14:41, 26 June 2015 (UTC) )


 * Comment. Another possibility is that the creator could be encouraged to help write a Continuous improvement in public services article.  Or move this article to that more general topic title, and revise.  The Wikipedia article Continuous improvement does not mention public sector, and indeed TQM / CI / TPS / six sigma etc were all developed at/for manufacturing.  But CI in public service is a valid, different topic, definitely Wikipedia-notable.  One new article on the topic is this 2014 article that is a literature review.  Rushing to delete tends to preclude coming up with more constructive alternatives.  Working on the general topic first would support a specific article on this and other organizations later, in context instead of as an isolated orphan article.


 * Could the "Delete" voters please consider amending your !vote statements to indicate what more positive outcome(s) would be acceptable to them? -- do ncr  am  13:58, 26 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment - I think 's wall of text can fairly be summarized as:
 * AfD is pointy and unwelcoming to the creator who is a new editor;
 * "deleters" forgot to do WP:BEFORE, or did so with little diligence, as there are sources out there.
 * Continuous improvement, or continuous improvement in public services, is a notable topic.
 * (1) is likely true but it is not, in itself, a reason to close this AfD now that it is open. (3) may well be true too, but concept notability is not inherited (the notability of medicine does not make all physicians notable), so it does not help for that particular AfD.
 * (2) does not impress me: the book is a textbook example of "passing mention", the Buckingham master in "Continuous Improvement in Public Services" is probably not independant from ICIPS, the 2014 article does not mention ICIPS. The Lean Management Journal award could be something (it is awarded specifically for the work at ICIPS) but it begs the question of how notable the award is. The truth is that I have no idea, but the LMJ's website has a fairly unimpressive Alexa rank. Tigraan (talk) 13:32, 29 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Tigraan, for summarizing. To clarify, do let's say that (1)("AFD is Bitey") is true.  And note that outright deletion would wipe out the entire contribution history of the new editor.  I would support restricting the launch of AfDs in new-editor cases like this, i.e. to make some extension of the wp:BEFORE essay's requirements, but yes the AfD goals and rules have not yet been changed.  However, I suggest we can and should do something now, in this AfD process.  Specifically we can put in some effort to achieve some outcome different than outright deletion of the article, and all of the editor's contribution.  One way is to try extra hard to find sources to justify a traditional "Keep" decision, but I have put in effort and the results are thin.  (And the summary (2) is not fair;  I did not say wp:before was not performed.)  Another way is to find or create a suitable target to which the article could be redirected, saving the edit history and facilitating re-creation of the article later when more sources are available.  This can be explained to the new editor and is far less Bitey.  Now I think redirecting would be the best, because (3) ("CI in public services is a notable topic") is true, and a new article on that can reasonably mention ICiPs, and this ICiPs article can be redirected to it or to a suitable section within it.  So we can just start it and thank the new editor for bringing attention to the gap in Wikipedia coverage.
 * So I started Draft:Quality management and continuous improvement in public services. Surely it can be in okay shape for mainspace very soon.  I have invited the new editor to contribute to the draft, and hope they were not chased away permanently by the entirely negative actions directed at them so far. , can you possibly please apply some of your writing skill to developing the draft?  Others' help would be appreciated too.  cheers, -- do  ncr  am  16:53, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry for distorting your thought about (2), that was a rough summary.
 * I apparently should have been clearer, but I think the fact that a new editor wrote this is irrelevant to the decision (delete, redirect, or else) that we ought to take. Of course it is unwelcoming to have one's article deleted, especially when effort went into it, because of some guideline that most users of WP are not aware of. But that needs to be adressed with kind words on a talkpage, not a twist of policies. (And conversely, if that article had been written by a veteran editor, I would not recommend a keep on the basis that he must know better than me. We judge articles, not people.)
 * I have of course no objection to a redirect if a suitable larger article meets notability criteria. I will try to edit your draft a bit but to be honest I have difficulties to write in English. Tigraan (talk) 17:00, 2 July 2015 (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.