Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lizzie Phelan


 * 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. Basically, this deletion discussion boils down to that the sources provided do not sufficiently establish notability (the deletion side) versus that the sources provided do sufficiently establish notability (the retention side). Neither side came out on top. –MuZemike 23:08, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Lizzie Phelan

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Non notable. All references are BY the subject, not about the subject. Gaijin42 (talk) 01:51, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep This journalist appears to have signifigant notability, by reporting for multiple stations and websites, and repoting on many countless events, her work is also scattered across the internet, she has many news reports on youtube, a quick bing search reveals many more results than the 19 references provided. – Phoenix B 1of3  (talk) 02:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Perhaps I misunderstand the notability requirement, but her creating reports does not make her notable. There would need to be reports ABOUT HER. Gaijin42 (talk) 03:02, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * You are not misunderstanding the notability requirement, Gaijin. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡ  bomb  06:13, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions.  —Tom Morris (talk) 05:34, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete Gaijin is not misunderstanding the notability requirement. It is clear that Lizzie Phelan has written many things, but it is not clear that many things have been written about her; and the latter is what would establish notability. WP:AUTHOR covers journalists, and makes plain what we would need for this article to pass muster. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡ  bomb  06:12, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep The question is whether and how to document and present the 'alternative theories' regarding the 2011 Libyan civil war. The mainstream media avoid to report on this part of the story, so we rely on information provided to us by somewhat controversial media:, (Iranian TV channel PressTV), Dissident Voice,  Voltaire Network,  Russia Today. However biased the information may be, it could be considered as a significant coverage published by notable media. I think that we can compile a decent and neutral article about this journalist. The decision of how to process the information is on our readers. Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 07:40, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * No, that is not the question. You don't create an article about a journalist as a way to back-door a content fork. Agricolae (talk) 00:21, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I realize that, this is my first and not last comment in this discussion. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 07:08, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep in fine Wikipedia is an aggregator of verifiable facts, which this article does. Most of Russia Today sources provided here are not by Lizzie Phelan but rather quote her. The ongoing vandalism tends to demonstrate that there is a very high emotional intensity on the subecjt. Being a journalist myself, I can confirm you that any journalist has a point of view. Yet, I have no doubt that collective intelligence will prevail in balancing sources in this article if such thing is needed.
 * In a nutshell : That Mrs Phelan was in Lybia during the war is confirmed. That she was held at the Rixos Hotel is confirmed. That she testified before the ''Global Civilians for Peace in Libya" is confirmed . That she testified in october 2011 before the Stop the War Coalition is confirmed . In my experience Mrs. Phelan seems imbued with the same interest than non-aligned Vietnam war correspondents. That her editorial policy be not  Stars & Stripes is therefore little surprising. That she be notable in this policy is not either. Nor is it that she was hired by Russia Today GrandPhilliesFan (talk) 08:45, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * confusion I am the original nominator for deletion. It seems that there may be some breaking news regarding lizzy, being kidnapped or rescued or some such. The sources may not reliable (imo). My (original) objection to the article had no reasoning involving politics, the topics of her reports etc, just merely if she was personally notable. If her notability is changing as a result of breaking events, then we may need to reconsider, but I would like others to review the sources and weigh in. Gaijin42 (talk) 15:56, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I second these comments. There's no purpose served in arguing over Phelan's politics. I also agree that it's possible that she's notable if it can be demonstrated that enough other news sources consider her a valuable independent source of information...which may be what her notability hangs on. Difficult to assess the reliability of current sourcing. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡ  bomb  20:22, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * She is even notable if enough other news sources consider her a raving lunatic - as long as they talk about her. Agricolae (talk) 00:21, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete and add her positions on Libya's fall in the Wikipedia entry "History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi", "2011 Libyan civil war", "2011 military intervention in Libya", " 2011 Libyan rebel coastal offensive, "Battle of Tripoli (2011)". This would do her right both in the role she has had in being a critical independent observer of the happenings in Lybia, and cover the issues of notability, as a few days of press coverage are indeed not enough for impact assessment (though do not exclude it in the future). --HarpsiMario (talk) 10:01, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed, she is known mainly due to her radical political views related to the 2011 Libya events. Her (potential) notability rests largely on her participation in the conflict. However, her opinions are heard in some parts of the world, it is a fact and it is verifiable, no matter how biased she or the sources could be. People may like it or not, but we should provide facts and relevant references. We shouldn't let the information disappear. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 14:45, 22 October 2011 (UTC)


 * addendum Lizzie Phelan is more notable than I reported, as it turns out she reported under her real name, which war correspondents do not always do. This name is Lizzie Cocker, here are references:  and here is a Google news tread on Lizzie Phelan   and another on Lizzie Cocker . What are the scientific, rational and objective criteria we will be founding or notability decision upon, so that it is legitimate beyond our unrepresentative group of 5-10 and does not merely constitute an arbitrary  obstat from an unelected Censor Librorum? Also, in the future, who should I ask and on which ground before starting the rather time-consuming creation of a sourced article? GrandPhilliesFan (talk) 16:35, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * PS As a reporter from the UK Morning Star alone Lizzie Cocker returns 485 results, here is the reference  she has also been reporting for the Daily Mail and here is the source too . Last but not least, Lizzie Cocker is quoted as a reference (from the Morning Star) on the wikipedia entry of anti-war rapper Lowkey (see reference nine as of today). I am adding this information to the article. Also, non notable subjects are not vandalised. GrandPhilliesFan (talk) 16:48, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * You can find our general guideline on notability here, and the specific section on journalists here. These are our objective criteria for determining notability. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡ  bomb  00:34, 24 October 2011 (UTC)


 * The key difference of here is this : The topic that lizzy writes about is notable. She is very prolific in her writing, and so many references (mostly by-lines) of hers can be found. But things that she writes do not count for the purpose of notability. Things must be written, by others, about her. Some of the references you mentioned above may satisfy that criteria. In that case you would need to find, and use those specific references in the article. The more independent (unrelated to her, her publishers, organizations she is involved in), the more notability those references will imbue. Gaijin42 (talk) 03:35, 24 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Salvaged. I have provided more than four third-party references covering Phelan's works, plus a few discussing it. It is also important to note that absolutely no reference I have provided so far is self-published. An accredited journalist does not self-publish but rather goes through the approbation of his/her credentials (here: RT, PressTV, Voltairenet, Morning Star) which are not only the legal publishers of the article but also fully liable for its content. Journalistic publication is submission-based. So unless it is on a personal blog, a working journalist never self-publishes, and I have not quoted any source from Phelan's blog or facebook account. Finally, the page has registered an average of 400 views p.d. in the last three days which is the same order of magnitude of say Steven Chu ; it has also been reported in the Ukrainian and Russian wikipedia. And again, non notable subjects are never vandalised; this one had registered four acts of vandalism by two different sources in the last 72 hours...GrandPhilliesFan (talk) 10:42, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Pageviews/day and instances of vandalism have nothing to do with notability. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡ  bomb  15:44, 24 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Still Delete You are either very obtuse, intentionally trying to game us, or actually unaware of wiki policies and standards. For the sake of argument, I will assume the latter. To be included in wikipedia people must be notable. Please read the Notability (people) page, and pay particular attention to the basic criteria : Independant of the subject, and intelectually independant of each other. Also read the footnote (#6) on "trivial", specifically excluding passing references such as "so and so said" or "according to so and so". Since you have a problem with this criteria,  I will go through all of the references you have put on the article, and try to explain why they are not contributing to notability.  this does not mean she is not notable.  you just have to find references that actually indicate that!.  I also note that you failed to provide URLs for many of the references. This could either be laziness, or intentionally trying to make reading them (and therefore validating their value) more difficult. Google to the rescue! The main problem is that very few (none?) of these articles are ABOUT lizzie. Most are BY her, some quote her, some introduce her and then let her report. Nobody is saying "hey, we need to write an article that is actually about lizzie, and what a cool person she is". As a reporter, lizzie will have many articles.Also, other related publications will quote her as an "on the ground" journalist. That doesn't make the article about lizzie. Also importantly - none of the articles are critical of lizzie in any way, which indicates they are not independent.


 * #1 - #3, Quotes lizzie. Qualifies as an "in passing" reference, as she is not the subject of the article
 * #4 - Is just a link to a report by Lizzie. The fact that she was selected to testify does indicate some notability, depending on who she was testifying to, and how she was selected to do so.
 * #5 - Link to same report above. Does provide some commentary about lizzie. Source fails the "intellectually independent" criteria,and possibly the reliability criteria. However this one is a grey area. Even if counted, this link by itself would not establish notability
 * #6, The same report again!
 * #7, In passing
 * #8, in passing ( although at least in this case there is one sentence that is actually about lizzie, rather than just by lizzie.
 * #9, By lizzie. The fact that pravda is publishing her, diminishes the notability "mojo" that all other pravda articles would otherwise grant her, since they are not independent of each other.
 * #10, Same testimony link. Identifies lizzie as a member of the journalist team of voiltaire, thus removing the independant criteria again
 * #11 - #17, By lizzie
 * #18, Counts towards notability, but lizzie is only mentioned as one of a group that were involved, so is notability for the group or organization more than for lizzie directly. But getting close
 * #19, In passing
 * #20 - 22, Mostly in passing, links to several of lizzies reports. Might be breaking the "intellectually independent" part.
 * #23 - Mainly a link to another lizzie report, does provide some coverage of lizzie being in danger.
 * #24 - Link to lizzie report.
 * #25 - Mostly in passing. Mentions lizzie in danger. +1. Mentions lizzie as a friend. -1
 * #26 - Mostly in passing. Mentions lizzie in danger.
 * #27 - Major publication. +1. Blog -1. Mentions being in a panel with lizzie -1.
 * #28 - #30 in passing. all regarding the same speaking event that lizzie was in.
 * #31 - In passing. Possibly not intellectually independent.
 * #32 - #34, By lizzie. All from Voltaire, which identify lizzie as a team member
 * #35, Directly about lizzie +1, blog -1
 * #36, Directly about lizzie. I personally dont think the source is reliable, independent, but I will leave it to consensus to decide.
 * #37, About lizzie and others in danger (notable as group?) +1. Published by the employers of the group (Voltaire) - 1
 * #38, Voltaire. Only mention of lizzie is in the caption to a picture. includes the phrase 'we can testify that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had personally given the order to execute him' which hurts the reliability of the source quite a bit.
 * #39, twitter feed, doesnt even linnk directly to a post so no way to know what it references

Gaijin42 (talk) 14:25, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment Gaijin. Thank you for reviewing all the new sourcing -- this is extremely helpful. Question for you. Do you think, based on your review of the sources, that Lizzie Phelan could pass muster per criterion #1 at WP:AUTHOR? That is, do we have evidence in here that she is "widely cited by peers"? I have not done the detailed review of new sourcing that you have, so I'd like to defer to your judgment on this. IMO, the only way Ms. Phelan can be viewed as notable is via that particular criterion. I'd be inclined to discount her being "widely cited" if the "peers" at issue are mostly or all of the type that are going on record saying that Hillary Clinton is signing execution orders, but I'm curious to learn your opinion on this. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡ  bomb  15:49, 24 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I do not think so. The majority of the sources are closely related to lizzy, using her as a freelance/affiliated corespondent. Many of the sources are very small, radical left outfits, that I do not think are reliable. The sources that are more reliable (examiner, etc) are really all from a single author which doesn't lend itself to the "widely". Gaijin42 (talk) 17:19, 24 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment. The Examiner.com references cannot be considered as they fail both the WP:RS test and the WP:GNG independence test. Examiner.com is a content farm using volunteer writers who are given micropayments based on clicks, without an editorial filter or fact-checking.  The Phelan references fail the independence test because they share the same political advocacy as Phelan and echo her own reporting. patsw (talk) 16:11, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep: There seem to be plenty of sources both written by her and written about her, so I think this should be enough to establish notability. Jagged 85 (talk) 21:55, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment This is a borderline case. The subject is known mainly for activities related to a single (recent) event, but I still think that keeping or merging the information to a more suitable article would be better solution than deleting. The article could be possibly called Critical reactions to the 2011 Libyan civil war. However, there's no such an article. At the moment, we have several pages describing the reaction and criticism of the international intervention in Libya:
 * Protests against the 2011 military intervention in Libya
 * International reactions to the 2011 Libyan civil war
 * Free speech in the media during the 2011 Libyan civil war- the title of this article is a bit misleading, as it "...describes the ability of domestic and international media to report news inside Libya free from interference and censorship during the civil war."


 * I'm not sure whether any of those articles would be suitable for this kind of information. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 14:42, 25 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep Major news sources around the world cover her activities, quoting her often enough.  D r e a m Focus  02:53, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
 * comment One thing I just learned, examiner is generally considered "not reliable" and is quite often in the spam blacklist on wikipedia. That reduces the weight of some of the links mentioned above. Gaijin42 (talk) 17:01, 26 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep – There are sources that show that this person is notable. Inter rest (talk) 20:28, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete - self promotion of a not notable journalist using Self published sources. Off2riorob (talk) 01:45, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Not all of the sources are self published, she was given space in important (I'm not talking about bias or reliability) media in countries that 'opposed' the intervention. It is a verifiable fact, see, (Iranian TV channel PressTV), ,  pravda.ru,  Russia Today. The information could provide context and background to our readers. I agree that it is probably not enough to warrant a stand alone article, therefore I asked above whether it is possible to merge the information elsewhere. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 07:08, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * You're Wrong Off2riorob a journalist does not self publish but is published by her credentials which are accountable for the publication. You're not familiar with journalism are you? GrandPhilliesFan (talk) 07:44, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The last part of your comment has nothing to do with the subject of this discussion, GrandPhilliesFan. Please, focus on commenting on the content of the article, not on the competence of other editors. Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 08:15, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I was unclear - this person is a journalist - she writes for a living as such all the articles written by her that are being used in the article - and that is most of them, do nothing to assert independent wikipedia notability, they just serve in using wikipedia in a self promotional manner in a cite farm situation to articles written by this journalist. For example, this section, Lizzie_Phelan - is nothing but her own opinions cited toher own writing. Off2riorob (talk) 14:29, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, I completely support Vejvancicky's notion of incorporating any verifiable content from this article elsewhere, where relevant. I don't think there's any reason to squelch alternative POVs on the Libyan war such as Ms. Phelan's. It'd have to be a fairly careful merge -- the sources supplied vary widely in terms of their reliability -- but I think on principal that's a perfectly valid solution. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡ  bomb  16:33, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I second (third?) this solution. Gaijin42 (talk) 18:37, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete. The article seems to be a compilation of her reporting. It's a good compilation, but it's not a biographical article.  Her reporting should be edited into the articles she reported on, if it has not been already.  A request from me to the advocates of the inclusion of this article: the default arrangement of the References doesn't quite work in this article.  They need to be grouped into:
 * Reports by Phelan
 * Reports quoting Phelan reports
 * Content that is actually about Phelan

Biographical articles need content which is about the subject, independent of the subject. This article fails that test. It would be helpful for keep voters to discuss the WP:AUTHOR tests and not keep repeating sources exist -- each of those votes will be discounted. patsw (talk) 01:52, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete -Per Gaijin. Lack of third party coverage about her. Sergecross73   msg me   14:50, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete - Ick, I don't like this discussion so far, lots of weak !voting that will probably get dismissed, and therefore probably some pissed off people one way or another. That being said, the significant and independent coverage of the actual subject required by the GNG is not met here unfortunately.--Yaksar (let's chat) 20:54, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * comment - We are at 8 days, does something need to be done to either cause the vote to be tallied, or if this discussion should continue, to make sure it doesn't drop off the admin's notice? Gaijin42 (talk) 21:00, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Well votes aren't necessarily votes, per se, and it's not really tallied. The discussion is closed based on the strength of the arguments. But it can also be relisted; 7 days is not always the limit.--Yaksar (let's chat) 21:07, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I jus twant to make sure this isnt lost. Im fine with letting it linger without relisting, as long as it wont fall off some noticeboard and never get closed. Gaijin42 (talk) 21:11, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * No risk of that - they all go in a queue based on when initiated, and administrators who do closes look at those on the top of the queue that are past the 7 days, and either close them or relist them (sending them back to the bottom of the queue), or if they feel they don't have the time or competence in the area to do a close for one, leave it for someone else. The higher it gets in the queue, the more imperative there is to address it rather than leave it, so rather than falling off, it is climbing to the top. If you want to see where it currently stands, go to Articles for deletion/Log/2011 October 21, where it is #68, and about half of those above it have been closed (and all from the previous three days, meaning that the admins are keeping up with the task as well as can be expected of volunteers). Or just check back tomorrow and it will likely be done. Agricolae (talk) 22:14, 28 October 2011 (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.