Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International Conference on the Gulen Movement


 * 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. --Core desat 04:39, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

International Conference on the Gulen Movement

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

No independent sources, no evidence of encyclopaedic notability. The world is full of conferences, they run at the rates of hundreds a week in most cities. Guy (Help!) 13:40, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete I get 8 google hits, none of them appearing to be reliable sources. No News or Books mentions as far as I can tell. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  14:07, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Islam-related deletions.   -- John Vandenberg 14:33, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - I freely admit this conference may be non-notable, and it did start off as effectively an advert, but I cleaned it up on the basis that it is probably more notable than some of the ones in Category:Conferences. Could those participating here help clean that category up? Google searches for the name of the conference "Muslim World in Transition: Contributions of the Gülen Movement", get 84 ghits, which is more than 7 but still not a lot. Another consideration is that the conference has not taken place yet. One suggestion for notability guidelines for conferences has been to restrict coverage to notable ones that take place regularly (eg. annually), and for one-off events to be covered only if they are particularly notable. Other considerations could be size and impact. Some interesting examples of obviously notable conferences are Solvay Conference, Volta Conference, Shelter Island Conference, Wannsee Conference (not an academic conference, but a conference of a rather different sort...). Conferences closer to the present day, that are more the "series of academic conferences" thing I was looking for when cleaning up that category, include Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. Nobel Conference is another interesting one. This one doesn't come close to those ones, but it may be a big event within the area of Islamic studies. I simply can't judge. In general, I suspect that one-off conferences shouldn't have articles until it is clear whether or not they have had an impact. Carcharoth 14:56, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * One more thing, the notability as an academic conference seems fairly simple to establish, as Eileen Barker and Tim Winter are notable scholars. The question seems to be which academic conferences are notable? It is rare for academic conferences to get coverage outside of their specialised areas. Does this mean Wikipedia shouldn't cover them? Carcharoth 15:10, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:V. Once the conference has taken place and if it produces some proceedings or coverage that might be useful to improve Fethullah_Gulen. --Tikiwont 15:24, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete It is necessary to distinguish between individual academic conferences like this one, and conference series. In my view, almost no individual conference is notable--the bar is and should be very high. (I can thing of a few exceptions--none of which presently have articles).  I do not think this one will be--it is not sponsors alone or even primarily that make a conference notable, but rather what happens there. Conceivably something sensational might. The Shelter Island Conference is a clear exception. If this conference is equally important, then it would merit an article--after the event. I think that highly unlikely. Take a look at the participants in that conference--compare with the articles on the two leaders of this one. There's a difference between important enough for a WP article, and truly famous. I've been looking through the category and its subcategories for individual academic conferences--so far I have found only three, and listed them all for PROD, as none of them showed the slightest evidence of notability--not even up to the level of this article. If challenged, they'll come to AfD also.
 * Essentially all the individual conferences lsted in the category are political conferences of one sort or another, and of course the likelihood of notability is very different--because they are intended to have a major political impact. The Wanseee conference is an example of this--very few conferences of any sort except the major peace conferences have had that kind of effect on the world.
 * Series of conferences are another matter entirely--all of the academic ones you mention above are in fact conference series, with a great many sessions over a long period  of years, and their collected proceedings over that period are major information resources.  We need articles on more of the major ones. I think the category needs some sorting out.  16:36, 5 September 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by DGG (talk • contribs)


 * Delete - I'm convinced now. Thanks, DGG, for explaining it so well. Carcharoth 17:02, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete, although I think there should be a special page for Fethullah Gülen Movement, not just the conference... although, there don't seem to be that many English sourcs. gren グレン 02:51, 8 September 2007 (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.