Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Raptor Education Group


 * 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. No arguments for deletion aside from the nominator. (non-admin closure) Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:06, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Raptor Education Group

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Unnotable organization. Article create as blatant plagarism from the group's website, was speedied, but others demanded it be restored claiming plagarism isn't WP:COPYVIO. Article partially cleaned up, but still pretty much nothing but promo statements sourced by Raptor itself and a repeat of its own website mission statement (again). Bulk of the few Google News hits are all for a local radio station and television station, showing no notability outside of its own area. -- Collectonian  (talk · contribs) 13:24, 26 September 2009 (UTC) Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds has been notified of this AfD. Clayoquot (talk
 * Neutral I have no strong opinion either way on the notability, and I commented on my talk page (linked above) that I wouldn't nominate this for AfD myself if the plagiarism were cleaned up. That being said, I don't think the encyclopedia will lose anything if this is deleted or turned to a stub. As Collectonian says, both times the article was created it contained large chunks of text copied-and-pasted from http://www.raptoreducationgroup.org/What_REGI_Is.cfm (one time this was even done by an admin with two FA credits, which I find quite sobering), and the first time it actually contained the entire text of the page. So long story short, I don't care whether or not Wikipedia has an article about the Raptor Education Group, but I do care whether Wikipedia has plagiarism in it. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 13:28, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. I dispute the assertion that the subject has no notability outside its own area. My search of Google News archives (all dates) shows coverage of the organization's work in the largest state paper and from as far away as the Miami Herald and The Guardian (UK). The state governor told a story about their work in his State of State address in 2004, which we can put down as another data point of significant coverage in a secondary source. Furthermore, the way that sources write about the group's work indicates that the group is regarded as experts in their field. Regarding the allegations of plagiarism, followed by allegations that people think plagiarism is OK: Text that is attributed to others is a quote, not plagiarism. Text that cannot be reworded without changing its meaning is not plagiarism or copyvio. A quote of an organization's mission statement in an article about the organization is, in my opinion, appropriate fair use. Oh, and another thing: Nobody "demanded" that the article be restored. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 18:08, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
 * It wasn't just about the mission statement, Clayoquot. As I have said over and over again, there were full sentences (or, in the earlier-deleted version, full paragraphs) copied directly from the website&mdash;not just the bulleted list in the mission statement. They were not attributed (there were no footnotes), and even if they were, they need to be put in quotation marks if the exact wording is going to be used. Please read WP:Plagiarism for more information about what constitutes plagiarism. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 18:54, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I am aware of the need to use quotation marks and attribution, as I told you yesterday. If an article can be salvaged by adding punctuation and a few words, we should add the punctuation and the few words, not delete the article. Furthermore I don't think you're getting the point that if there is only one accurate way to say something, it is not plagiarism to say it that way. In your good-faith effort to change wording to avoid plagiarism, you removed factual information and changed a word to a different one that has a different meaning, as I explained in my edit summary here. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 19:09, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not necessary to report every single miniscule fact. The fact that they "hold permits from state X to do Y" is not important, all you need in an article is to say what they actually do. It's the drive to regurgitate every single fact in every single source that leads to plagiarism. And for what it's worth, just changing a few words around in a sentence doesn't necessarily correct plagiarism; in a case this bad it's often necessary to restart from scratch, without using copyrighted text as the scaffolding. This is why I was frustrated when, after I had said "recreate the article without copyvio, or as a stub", User:Sj seemed to think it appropriate to repost a bunch of blatant copyvio. (Again, I don't care how necessary the wording is: copying that wording with no quotes and no attribution is copyvio.) r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 19:16, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, regarding the sources...again, I have no strong opinion either way, but I should point out that the Guardian article you link appears to be no more than a passing mention (and is more about an incident they were involved in, rather than about REG itself), and the governor's speech is essentially the same. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 19:00, 26 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. The organisation was responsible for rehabilitating the bird which was the centrepiece of the guardian article, pretty similar to this other article too. Presuming there are other similar, they are enough to satisfy notability for me :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:26, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. If it houses 150 birds at any one time and has had as many as 13 Bald Eagles, it is similar it scale to a small zoo, and probably has more Bald Eagles than most zoos. The article may need a clean-up, but I think it should be kept. Snowman (talk) 13:47, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. If a non-profit group is notable enough for its activity to achieve coverage in international press (the Guardian), it should be notable enough for Wikipedia. Sjakkalle (Check!)  11:11, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. There seems to be two reasons offered to delete this page: notability and plagiarism. In my opinion neither claim has merit. With regard to plagiarism you have to look at what content is on the page today, what text it had in previous versions seems irrelevant. The text today seems to be within Wikipedia and fair use guidelines and is adequately referenced. With regard to notability, in addition to the coverage of their rehabilitation work mentioned above by local, state and international press and a governor's speech there is also the article "Miracle' sandhill crane survives after arrow shot" that ran in the San Jose Mercury News - Mar 31, 2009 as well as in Forbes, and in the San Francisco Chronicle (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/n/a/2009/03/31/national/a174609D79.DTL&o=1) which also includes a picture - not a passing reference here. Also in regard to notability, that the founder of the organization is an expert in the field also seems beyond question - international educator, past president of IWRC, previous work covered in the Los Angeles Times (4+ articles from 1989 to 1990) and is a private individual licensed to hold the national bird of the United States in captivity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mckennagene (talk • contribs) 08:05, 1 October 2009 (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.