Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/McGill EMF Conference


 * 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.  Sandstein  06:16, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

McGill EMF Conference

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Non-notable per WP:EVENT, with no significant coverage online in WP:RS per WP:GNG. This is a WP:Coatrack attempt at investigative journalism per WP:NOTESSAY and WP:NOR, rather than an encyclopedia article. It's terribly sourced, with most of what's written sourced by "smoking gun" correspondence and meeting notes uploaded to the "Truth Tobacco Industry Documents" archive at UCSF, per WP:Primary sources, which in each case support some tiny aspect of one allegation but are then employed in support of a wider argument not supported by the references given, per WP:Synthesis. It also claims in the lead section that one allegedly involved person also did work for the "Vatican's US arm of the Sovereign Knights of Malta", referenced by a conspiracy theory forum, which in turn is referenced by Wikipedia. The large section "Purpose" has just one reference, the sponsor list in a proceedings from the conference.

This is just one article in a WP:Walled garden of POV-pushing articles about the tobacco industry created by User:SAMFist and User:Sfist, which includes Good Epidemiological Practices, WhiteCoats, INFOTAB, Clark S. Judge, Henry Plumb, Baron Plumb, Thorne G. Auchter, Federal Focus, James J. Tozzi, Libertad (Philip Morris front) (AFD'd at WP:Articles for deletion/Libertad (Philip Morris front).

User:Hzh has made a valiant attempt at cleaning up Good Epidemiological Practices and adding WP:RS, and as Hzh wrote in the de-prod and at their user talk page, it does appear to be on a notable topic and can possibly be rescued. I've removed the worst of the unsourced and poorly sourced allegations on the BLPs above, to try to turn them from hatchet pieces into decent articles. But this article is a giant pile of poorly-sourced allegations about the tobacco industry and some of its people, glommed onto what's nominally supposed to be about the conference. There are several articles already about the Phillip Morris companies, the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, Operation Berkshire, Truth (anti-tobacco campaign), Project SCUM, etc., which for the most part document on-topic, reliably sourced incidents from the industry's terrible history. Articles like those are IMHO the correct way to write about the subject, and not via coatrack OR like this one. The Mighty Glen (talk) 09:23, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete I'm somewhat puzzled as to why the article is titled "McGill EMF Conference" when sources gives McGill ETS Symposium  - you can see that the two searches in Google Books yield different results, with the latter giving some correct search results.  Reports give the title as "International Symposium on Environmental Tobacco Smoke" .  There are obviously sources on this - in journals, ,, Google Books and other websites -, but I'd be inclined to have this deleted and someone else can then write a new article should they so wish, with the correct title or one with a broader subject (i.e. not focused on a single symposium) and one that isn't pushing a POV or OR. Hzh (talk) 11:54, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. The Mighty Glen (talk) 12:06, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. The Mighty Glen (talk) 12:06, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. The Mighty Glen (talk) 12:06, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Quebec-related deletion discussions. North America1000 09:06, 28 April 2018 (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.