Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kareem Irfan


 * 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   keep. j⚛e deckertalk 00:10, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Kareem Irfan

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I can find no evidence anywhere that the subject of the article satisfies Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Scarcely any content can be traced to reliable sources anywhere. The only source cited barely mentions him, and there has been no improvement even after the article has been tagged for sources for nearly 4 years. Searches for information about him (once one has filtered out content about other people of the same name) produce only sources which are not independent, not reliable, only barely mention him, or two or more of those three. Online sources include the likes of Facebook, Linkedin, the Wikipedia article, a page at the web site of an organisation he belongs to (www.isna.net), and a page at www.militantislammonitor.org, which does not appear to be a reliable source. The one perhaps reliable and independent source I have managed to find is the book "Sports in America" by Barry Leonard, a 58 page book which briefly quotes Irfan once, and which is not listed by any of several major booksellers I have tried, not even Amazon.

A PROD was contested with an edit summary that said "If claimed awards are true, I would like a broader determination of their worth as a proof of notability", so I have spent some time checking the list of awards. I have been able to find scarcely any source anywhere mentioning Kareem Irfan receiving any of these awards, apart from sources which give word-for-word the same list of awards as this Wikipedia article, all of them dated more recently than the Wikipedia article, and apparently copied from it. Even more striking is the fact that for most of those awards I have been unable to find any evidence even that the awards exist, apart from claims that the awards have been given to Kareem Irfan, in most cases using wording identical to that in the Wikipedia article. For example, one might expect that a "Distinguished Interfaith Collaboration Award" issued by so prominent a person as mayor Richard Daley of Chicago would receive substantial coverage, but a Google search for "Distinguished Interfaith Collaboration Award" "Richard Daley" produces only 38 hits, and every one of those pages mentions the award only in claims about Kareem Irfan, most of them in quotes from the Wikipedia article. Similar results hold for other awards listed. The Community Service Award of the Muslim Bar Association does exist, but I have found no evidence that the award is in any way significant, and no independent or significant mention of its having been awarded to Kareem Irfan. (If anyone else wishes to search for information about these awards, it is important to carefully avoid false positives: for example, a Google search for -"Kareem Irfan" -"Kareem M. Irfan" "Community Service Award" "Muslim Bar Association" produced a page mentioning a Community Service Award from the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, and coincidentally mentioning the Muslim Bar Association in a completely different context.) At best, we have unsourced and unverifiable claims of Kareem Irfan's having received a number of awards, most of which are so obscure and insignificant that it is impossible to find anything about them at all except that a Wikipedia article says he received them, and that other websites have copied that from Wikipedia. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 10:35, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:26, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Islam-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:26, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:26, 3 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment As the WP:CHICAGO director, I was the deWP:PRODder. There are a lot of seemingly interesting awards. I want these to be fully considered before the article is deleted.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:55, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, and that is why I have tried to fully consider them. If anyone can find better evidence that they are significant awards, and that they have indeed been awarded to Kareem Irfan, then I will be likely to change my view on the article, but I have really tried hard to find such evidence, and can't. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 18:15, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

*Weak delete For now, I can't find any evidence of the subject pushing past WP:GNG - all coverage seems to be from organizations of which he is a member, and a whole lot of it seems to have been copy pasted from this article or the other way around. Either way, kudos for the nom for an incredible effort in getting to the bottom of this though I understand, based on the comments above, why the article was initially dePRODDed. MezzoMezzo (talk) 04:08, 9 June 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 09:47, 11 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep - I found 124 articles on HighBeam, mostly from Chicago-area newspapers, but also NPR, Washington Post, Deseret News, National Catholic Reporter and various other news organizations. Meets WP:BASIC.- MrX 14:19, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * KEEP.  Gary   Dee  19:42, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * User: MrX, those would be quite significant but I haven't been able to find anything of the sort. Could you share some of that with the rest of us for the sake of clarity in the discussion? MezzoMezzo (talk) 03:26, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
 * - MrX 03:44, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Whoa, that's a lot...change my mind to keep. The article needs improvement but there does seem to be a threshhold passed of significant coverage. MezzoMezzo (talk) 03:34, 16 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep per Gary Dee. The article does a nice job of substantiation but needs to provide more context. --Bejnar (talk) 21:27, 17 June 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.