Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation


 * 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.  Spinning Spark  12:39, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation

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Delete per WP:ORGDEPTH. In 2007 someone announced that a fantastic sum of money would establish a foundation. Since that time, their website has hardly been updated and still talks in future tense ("The Foundation will...") and no third party media source seems to report on any Foundation activities. This article was made in 2009 after the foundation had been in existence two years. More years have passed. There are no sources describing activities of this group. Delete this article and recreate it if the foundation gets back in the news. This organization does not meet Notability (organizations and companies).  Blue Rasberry   (talk)   21:02, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Middle East-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 23:56, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 23:56, 5 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete, agree with the nominator.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:44, 6 March 2013 (UTC) On hold, pending my new search for sources.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:28, 18 March 2013 (UTC) Changing to weak keep, see below.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:12, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Courcelles 00:37, 12 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete. — Preceding unsigned comment added by METOKNOWONLY (talk • contribs) 02:40, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep Seems a little silly to delete the sixth-largest charitable foundation in the world just because English news sources aren't covering it. Further, English news is available. Plus, the homepage is updated: right on the landing homepage is the announcement for its upcoming Arab Strategy Forum on 26-27 March 2013, the Twitter feed appears very active (altho, of course, in Arabic); it offered scholarships to attend IMD in Switzerland and London School of Economics mentions it; in 2012 it funded 30,000 books for kids in Gaza, and funded an Arab Knowledge Report with the United Nations. I hope one of the hasty delete !voters will find the time in their schedule to add sources to the article. II  | (t - c) 23:57, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * This is strange, I did seacrh for recent sources (in English, obviously), and nothing reasonable came out. I will give it a second try later today.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:28, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I checked the sources you provided, II, and I do not feel that any of them meet WP:RS. Some things on the website may have been updated but overall, it seems likely to me that the foundation is not employing a full-time webmaster because many parts of it are years out of date or have not been touched since it was made. I find that strange that one of the world's largest charities would be doing newsworthy things and getting no response. I would be happy if Arabic sources were being cited but you can check Arabic Wikipedia on this also - there are no sources cited there either. I checked the Twitter feed and found no links to sources. Schedules have nothing to do with this; I am not seeing sources worth citing.  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   11:51, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Did you read WP:NONPROFIT? All that is required is that we have third-party reliable sources on its program activities, which we do. I find it hard to believe that the United Nations, London School of Economics or IMD, one of the top business schools, are not reliable. So you do you read Arabic? I do not. I did run through the Twitter feed with a translator and it is mainly about the strategy forum, although there's a Feb article linked further back. There's a discussion of a press conference for the strategy forum. But it's not surprising at all that there's little coverage. Most Members of the National Academies have no third-party articles about them, same with most top scientific journals, and yes, the same goes to many sizeable foundations in the United States which give out tens of millions of dollars. That's why there are certain exceptions in the subject-specific guidelines: because serious topics often don't attract serious attention. You need to understand that by spending some time reviewing the subject-specific guidelines and spending some time in the area you're tackling. We could have almost no articles for foundations with a very high bar; Wikipedia would just be about celebrities and stuff most people already know about it. II  | (t - c) 15:34, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I disagree with your interpretation of WP:NONPROFIT. That guideline requests that "Information about the organization and its activities can be verified by multiple, third-party, independent, reliable sources", and I do not believe that such information has been identified. In particular, no one has identified any third-party source about the foundation, even though there are some sources about other things which mention the foundation.
 * We have sources which say that a conference, a university seat, and a paper distributed by the UN were sponsored at least in part by the foundation. Co-sponsoring a conference is not indication of notability; the conference itself is not notable and even if it was, notability is not WP:INHERITED from marginal connection to something else. The same is true for sponsoring the university seat. The sources mentioning those are reliable sources for information about the conference and the university seat but not about the foundation, because those sources are not about the foundation. The UN paper may or may not be a reliable source; just because someone gets funding from the UN or a foundation does not mean that they are speaking on behalf of either. This is grey literature, self-published, and perhaps distributed by the UN as the UN often does distribute thing., Irrespective of what this is, it has nothing to do with the notability of the foundation because it is not about the foundation.
 * No sources have been identified about this foundation. The foundation may publish or sponsor things being written on other topics or perhaps somewhere on itself. I do not read Arabic but I will confirm that neither Arabic Wikipedia nor their Arabic Twitter feed seem to link to any articles about the foundation. I cannot read the Albayan source in Arabic but it is only a paragraph and in a blog-format, and I suspect it may not be a reliable source about the foundation.  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   16:55, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, I added a few more, including another article on the founding (about) by Aljazeera (in addition to the original BBC article), plus a couple clearly independent sources on its activities. I really don't understand what motivates you to try to delete an article on a very large and significant organization such as this, especially when it is a foreign language situation and you haven't run an Arabic language search. I suspect your latest response is derived mostly from the natural tendency of people to dig in their heels and stick to their original view, which is why I note on my talkpage the following quote: "To change your mind and to follow him who sets you right is to be nonetheless the free agent that you were before". What purpose does it serve to try to delete something which is so significant that it will likely be recreated in a year at most? Isn't that kind of a waste of time? Why not go after one of the any number of articles on obscure pop-culture articles or sports players? II  | (t - c) 02:41, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * If you want to talk about my personal views then come to my talk page. This organization has existed for 6 years and that is enough time for it to do something, if it has activity. I actually doubt that this organization even exists. I think it was an idea which fell through because I cannot imagine how it is possible to found an organization which has as its mission the goal to seek international attention for a region and then fail entirely to appear in media on the Internet.  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   19:28, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete, or merge into Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Apart from a few sources from around the time the organisation was set up (which as pointed out in the nomination aren't terribly convincing) and trivial mentions such as this one, the available sources appear to consist of press releases and content from the websites of organisations funded by the subject. Such sources are not independent of the subject. WP:NONPROFIT doesn't affect this, as it also demands that independent sources be available. Hut 8.5 17:24, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Now weak keep. I searched differently from the last time (Google sucks), and was able to found three sources which tell something about some foundation activities (added them to the article). Whereas they seem to be reliable, they are both from Dubai, and I am not sure they are such independent, but at least there is some coverage above press-releases and the foundation website (both Zawia articles contain a press-release at the bottom, but my understanding is that a genuine article is followed by a press-release, not that the whole thing is a press-release).--Ymblanter (talk) 22:12, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I added a few more. WAM is a newswire and should be fine; Al-Qabas is a notable Kuwaitii newspaper; and Aljazeera covered the founding for two sources on that end. Vastly more you'd find on most private foundations, which really should have some sort of notability presumption at a certain asset-level test, similar to the guideline on WP:ACADEMIC. II  | (t - c) 02:41, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * The Emirates News Agency is a branch of the Ministry of Culture . Since the founder of the subject is the prime minister of the UAE (and absolute monarch of Dubai) this is a government mouthpiece reporting on the activities of a very prominent member of the government - not exactly independent. and  do seem to be press releases in their entirety - apart from the bit saying "Press Release" at the bottom they are also tagged as press releases at the top, and are filed in a category of press releases (see the bit at the top to the right of the title). Hut 8.5 09:44, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, you are right, they indeed seem to be press-releases.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:13, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Added a couple more clearly independent sources. WAM is like Xinhua. I think we might be inserting our cultural biases a little bit here. It's not ideal, and if there was something particularly dubious or self-serving, best not used. But for these purposes it seems independent enough, and I suspect that journalism in the Arab world is not the same as here. The old saying is that "news is what people don't want you to know, everything else is publicity". Unsurprisingly, this foundation has not yet made news. It shouldn't be punished for it. II  | (t - c) 20:49, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ‑Scottywong | converse _ 17:00, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

 Keep: There are some sources from the Google search (GB and GS) above which seem like they might be OK and with the other sources convince me that notability is verifiable in reliable sources.
 * Relisting rationale - Looking for comments on the quality of the sources that were recently added to the article. ‑Scottywong | chatter _  17:02, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I do not feel that these new sources establish the subject's notability due to their either not meeting WP:RS or not containing the sort of information which would establish notability.  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   17:51, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Mohamed, Mirghani S., Kevin J. O'Sullivan, and Vincent Ribiere. (2008) "A paradigm shift in the Arab region knowledge evolution." Journal of Knowledge Management 12.5 107-120.
 * This includes At the latest Middle East World Economic Forum, held in Jordan in May 2007, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, launched an endowment of ten billion US dollars for an avant garde foundation called the ‘‘Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation’’ to promote knowledge in the region. Although the effort is not the first of its kind, it is nonetheless the largest contribution to the enterprise of knowledge in the region’s known history.
 * Pagliani, Paola. (2010) "Influence of regional, national and sub-national HDRs." Human Development Research Paper 19.
 * Pagliani argues:
 * The 2003 Arab Human Development Report, Building Knowledge Societies, for example, was well received in the Arab countries and prompted Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Dubai to launch a $10bn foundation for the betterment of knowledge in the Arab Countries. and The mission statement of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation reflects to a great extent the recommendations of the 2003AHDR. Moreover, in 2007 the UNDP Regional Bureau for Arab States agreed to partner with the foundation to support the production and develop capacity for the production of a series of Arab Knowledge Reports (AKR), following a similar methodology to that of a UNDPsponsored Human Development Report. The first AKR, Toward Productive Intercommunication for Knowledge12, was launched as the flagship publication of the 2009 Arab Strategy Forum, a high-level policy dialogue among policy-makers, private sector representatives, and opinion leaders from throughout the region and around the world, held in Dubai in October 2009,13 In addition to the AKR process representing a strong endorsement of the relevance of UNDP HDRs, and a sign of UNDP’s role in developing analytical and advocacy capacity in external organizations, it also pointed to a possible niche for UNDP in NCC countries – that of partnering on high-quality, strategic analysis that responds to country demand and is energetically endorsed by the highest levels of government. after which it was extensively covered in the regional media.
 * Smith, Kimberly.(2001) "United Arab Emirates statistical reporting to the oecd Development Assistance committee."
 * This mentions Five major foundations in the UAE have been established to grant funds made available as a result of decisions by the Rulers of the Emirates of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. and the Al Maktoum Foundation is listed there.
 * Cagney,Penelope and Bernard Ross (2013) Global Fundraising: How the World is Changing the Rules of Philanthropy, John Wiley & Sons
 * This is visible on GB and Amazon and Chapter 10 has three paras on the foundation.   (Msrasnw (talk) 18:47, 21 March 2013 (UTC))
 * I was not able to find the text on Amazon or GB, but by the information you gave the other sources all say the same thing - in 2007, 10 billion dollars went into a foundation. That is just one event, and I would like to see sources accounting for some activity since then. I am looking for something more than an isolated, minor, sponsorship mention.  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   19:25, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
 * No, you are not up to date with the article. There has certainly been activity since then, for example here. Thincat (talk) 20:01, 21 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep, I suppose, but this is an interesting situation and discussion. I have linked from other WP articles and added some references but these are still press-release-like and refer to MBRF activities rather than to its importance. I take the WP:NONPROFIT guideline to mean that independent reliable sources are required but that in-depth discussion is not essential (usually). With the references now provided, and with those above, this bar has been crossed. The foundation certainly exists though it does seem rather nebulous – the surprising lack of in-depth coverage may well be due to cultural bias. Editorially, there is a case to merge with the Sheikh Mohammed parent article (and certainly not to delete). However, I do not like mandating a merge at AfD because a redirect without merge can all too easily result. BTW a stubby article about a United Nations Secretariat Office was recently kept although it had a dearth of "notability references". I think it was regarded as inherently notable and in my view that applies in the present case too. Thincat (talk) 20:01, 21 March 2013 (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.