Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/RationalWiki (2nd nomination)


 * 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.  MBisanz  talk 01:07, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

RationalWiki
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This article is pretty well-written, but the substantive content relies almost entirely on primary sources, and it seems likely that RationalWiki hasn't been covered enough to be notable. If we exclude the trivial mentions and primary sources - which seem fine individually, but don't contribute to notability - the only secondary reference that covers RW in detail is here. American Thinker might normally be considered reliable - it's a real publication - but (to be blunt) the article seems like an angry rant and not anything resembling "real journalism".

FWIW, User:David Gerard is the founder of RationalWiki, and he himself has said that it's of questionable notability. Spectra239 (talk) 11:42, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep. I think its notability is pretty clear between Snopes and other citations. COI Disclosure: I am also a SYSOP for Rationalwiki. Zero Serenity (talk - contributions) 12:15, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
 * AFAICT, though, none of the Snopes references describe RationalWiki, they merely quote from it. They don't describe what RationalWiki is, even in a minimal sense of eg. "RationalWiki is a site where skeptics go to hang out." I think this classifies them as "trivial mentions" under WP:GNG. The purpose of the notability guideline, as I understand it, is to ensure that material is verifiable, and facts about RationalWiki can't be verified by citing Snopes if Snopes never describes what RW is. Spectra239 (talk) 12:30, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment (as someone heavily involved in RW) we get referred to in the press (including RSes) and by scholars regularly (see http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:Mentions ) but very few of these are about RW itself. For what that's worth. I don't think there's been an RS directly about RW since 2007 - David Gerard (talk) 12:55, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 16:08, 2 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment: I'm not the founder at all, where on earth did you get that from? - David Gerard (talk) 17:14, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
 * This blog post describes you as "a current trustee, administrator, host and moderator of [RationalWiki] and also the founder." Obviously that's not a reliable source, my apologies if I got it wrong. Spectra239 (talk) 23:18, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The blog that calls literally everyone who's ever blocked him on the web a pedophile? I'm afraid my opinion of your grasp of sourcing just went down - David Gerard (talk) 09:55, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Obviously it isn't a reliable source by Wikipedia's standards; nobody ever claimed it was. Please don't bring in mostly-irrelevant off-wiki disputes, and please don't make personal attacks. You asked, and I answered, because I thought you might want to know if someone was misrepresenting you. You corrected me, and I accept the correction. Let's move on. Spectra239 (talk) 11:42, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Forgive me then, did you read the article then? You know, this part? Zero Serenity (talk - contributions) 05:15, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I saw that, but it's very common for groups to have co-founders that aren't mentioned. Eg. very few people know that Apple had a third founder (Ronald Wayne). I founded at least one thing with a Wikipedia page, but I'm not mentioned in the article, and I haven't tried to be. In any case, this is an irrelevant tangent. I don't dispute David Gerard's claims about the history of RationalWiki, and Gerard's role is itself mostly irrelevant to notability. Spectra239 (talk) 11:30, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment. It's been argued before (and upheld) that a whole bunch of trivial mentions can satisfy the requirement for significant coverage.  I've never found that a very compelling argument, but, for what it's worth, we sure do have quite a lot of trivial mentions collected here.  I guess I'd lean toward keeping this, but maybe there's a place it could be merged. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 13:58, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment - I would like to keep this article. I am currently linking to it from a Wikiversity course I am developing. --Lbeaumont (talk) 16:46, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep: Even though the mentions are mostly trivial, their high number shows notability. COI: I am a mod at RW. FuzzyCatPotato (talk) 01:14, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep: I think that RationalWiki is notable enough (it is quite well known within the atheist/skeptic community). It is likely to be of interest to people reading about the modern skeptic movement, if nothing else. Potential COI: I am an infrequent contributor to RationalWiki. Archon 2488 (talk) 15:47, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Strong keep I think it as important as its "sister"(!) article Conservapedia. If primarily primary sources then just tag a such.  (Until I read this I had never heard of either so no COI at all.)  Looks this has previously survived delete actions, as early as 2008?   Perhaps these decision need to be taken into account too?  Aoziwe (talk) 14:35, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, the previous action turned it into a redirect, which makes it seem like the article survived that long. There's a gap there. Zero Serenity (talk - contributions) 15:56, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
 * In the strictest sense, the fact that WP has an article on Conservapedia is not a reason for it to have an article on RationalWiki. However, one might reasonably point out that there are NPOV issues with deleting only one of the two. The previous (2010) discussion linked to above provided several links to secondary sources regarding the Conservapedia/RW "wars" back in the day. I honestly don't see why this has been reopened. Archon 2488 (talk) 23:32, 9 February 2016 (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.