Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Institute of Arctic Biology


 * 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   no consensus. slakr \ talk / 22:08, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Institute of Arctic Biology

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

This AfD is based on a discussion copied from the talk page that started after a PROD of the article by me. Once there was a serious objection by an editor who neither removed the PROD himself nor convinced me of the notability, AfD seemed like the best good-faith option.

PROD rationale:
 * Non notable research group. No evidence of awards or in depth coverage in independent reliable sources.

Talk page discussion:
 * This article contains valid encyclopedic content describing scientific research programs of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. UAF isn't notable merely because it has "University" in its name.  UAF has fallen behind UAA in enrollment in recent decades.  What has kept UAF "on the radar" within Alaska has been its emphasis on scientific research, particularly in the fields of astrophysics, biological sciences and oceanography.  IAB and the Geophysical Institute have been at the forefront of that research for most of the university's existence.  Additionally, included amongst biological research but not mentioned in the article is the Large Animal Research Station, whose viewing area along Yankovich Road is a major Fairbanks-area tourist attraction.  This falls within one of the pillars of UAF's mission statement, namely public service.
 * In summary, I reiterate that this is valid encyclopedic content relating to a notable entity. The real issue here is whether it belongs in its own article or somewhere else in the encyclopedia.  There has been an ongoing problem of haphazard content forking in coverage of the University of Alaska.  It should be obvious why, as there are far fewer warm bodies working on this sort of thing compared with, say, Disney or The Simpsons or South Park.  I don't have time to fix everyone's messes for them.  I barely have time for this, but the mad deletionist bent I've witnessed across Wikipedia lately resembles spiteful trashing of the contributions of certain editors (mostly long gone and therefore not in a position to defend their contributions) more than anything else. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions  22:39, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Notability on wikipedia is defined in terms of our notability guideline which talks about evidence of significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject and secondary sources. This stub has neither. Stuartyeates (talk) 01:14, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I really don't care to repeat myself. However, since it's obvious that you're not listening, let me repeat myself.  You're proposing to diminish the encyclopedic value of coverage of the University of Alaska Fairbanks because you have a bug up your ass about the construction of this particular article.  UAF isn't notable merely because it has "University" in its name.  UAF is notable because it does things which makes it notable.  Biological sciences research ranks right near the top of the things which UAF does which makes it notable.  Is there a problem with understanding this?  The notability guideline isn't going to read Wikipedia content and deduce that it lacks credibility.  Real people out in the real world, however, are going to do just that, so it's necessary to keep them in mind, too.  When coverage of the University of Alaska has devolved into a series of POV forks about its hockey teams and student governments, because people who obviously don't know any better and don't care to know any better have trashed the rest of the coverage in the quest of satisfying their deletionist hard-ons, don't come crying to me to fix it. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions  11:35, 30 January 2014 (UTC)}}
 * Please remember that, as a policy and one of the Five Pillars, civility is not optional. - The Bushranger One ping only 11:56, 20 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete as nominator, as lacking evidence of in depth coverage in reliable independent secondary sources. Stuartyeates (talk) 19:26, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Merge to University of Alaska Fairbanks – I see an issue here of whether coverage of a particular subject should properly reflect the subject, or only reflect what editors feel like working on. As outlined in greater detail above, the reality is that research conducted under IAB and other research in hard sciences ranks very high within the context of UAF's notability.  That editors would rather work on expanding coverage of UAF's hockey team is no excuse to push coverage of UAF even further in that direction, which is exactly what will happen if you go about deleting content such as this. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions  21:03, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect is a great idea. Maybe what we need is a University of Alaska Fairbanks research centres article which we can merge and redirect this, Arctic Region Supercomputing Center, Cooperative Institute for Arctic Research and International Arctic Research Center to, without deleting any content or breaking any links? There maybe Alaska Native Language Archive could be merge and redirected to Alaska Native Language Center as well? Stuartyeates (talk) 22:36, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Alaska-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:05, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:05, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:05, 31 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Northamerica1000(talk) 12:27, 10 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep One of the most famous research institutes on the subject on a world-=wide basis. I think such high importance is a requirement for research institutes like this, and I think this is one of the rare cases where the requirement is met. &#39;DGG (at NYPL)&#39; (talk) 20:27, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Do you have a reliable independent source that calls it [O]ne of the most famous research institutes on the subject? I can't find one. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:13, 10 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Merge Per lack of substantial covereage in reliabel independent sources. Candleabracadabra (talk) 04:32, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Note 432,000 hits on Google News. 64,000 in Google Books. Nearly 5K in Google Scholar. A lot of it is in the credentials of associates, so it is possible this institution is known best by its members, but I believe there is some substantial coverage as well. Eg even the Toolik Field station got coverage from across the country: Scientists at Toolik Field Station investigate a warming Arctic-NJ News Anarchangel (talk) 22:02, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, The Bushranger One ping only 11:56, 20 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep. Earlier today, I just closed another AfD on some minor Pokemon character as a merge.  If this is a case of WP:IAR, so be it, but I refuse to believe we're writing an encyclopedia which considers some dumb Pokemon character to be more notable than a scientific research station.  -- RoySmith (talk) 22:44, 3 March 2014 (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.