Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/School of Homeopathy


 * 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. No-one has adduced proper sourcing and since there is a clear element of promotion here we are clearly better off without this Spartaz Humbug! 07:39, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

School of Homeopathy

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Promotional, non-neutral and highly misleading article (e.g. "knowledgeable", "wide-ranging skills", "considerable expertise", "professional"). Falsely states that the School offers an "undergraduate programme" i.e. a degree course, when in fact it's simply a diploma course. Fails WP:SPAM, WP:NPOV, WP:FRINGE/PS. Prod contested on the bizarre basis that there are reliable sources: yes, the School exists but there's no reliable source to demonstrate its "expertise" nor that its patrons include "leading" homeopaths because there is no publicly accepted definition of expertise in homeopathy. See Homeopathy which reports that "the evidence base shows that homeopathy is not efficacious". This article should either be deleted because it is misleading and supports a fringe theory or stubbed to simply state basic information about the school. andy (talk) 14:50, 29 November 2011 (UTC) andy (talk) 14:50, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep Homeopathy is nonsense, but I can't see why that equates to deletion. I've also just removed your prod on Misha Norland, for much the same reason.  Take a chainsaw to the weasel words and puffery by all means, but if pseudoscience achieves coverage per WP:GNG, it warrants a neutral, encyclopedic, article just as much as do superluminal neutrinos.
 * Lack of acceptable RS coverage would be reason to delete, but I'm not seeing that. There is independent coverage that homeopaths operate a school in Stroud (where else!) and that it is seen as a significant school for such a subject. The Madness of Prince Charles isn't within our remit to make judgements upon. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:26, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Question: You cited independent coverage showing that this institution exists. Is evidence that something exists a sufficient reason for it to have an article at Wikipedia? Does the coverage amount to notability? --MelanieN (talk) 15:48, 30 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Change to delete The independent coverage here just isn't strong enough. Likewise Misha Norland (which I'll AfD in just a moment). With no prejudice as to the value of magic fairy dust-based healthcare, if these two players in the field are really that important, they still need to get themselves noticed by real-world WP:RS before we have to worry about taking notice of them. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:08, 6 December 2011 (UTC)


 * That's why I'm conflicted. I don't like taking a chainsaw to a bad article - for a start it tends to grow back! andy (talk) 16:49, 29 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment It really is important to maintain a neutral point of view on these things. Exactly the same arguments can and will be made about other branches of medicine, conventional medical techniques which are no longer regarded as effective, religions and so on. If there is an established body of practice or knowledge taught and people willing to receive it the issue here really is whether the school is notable in WP terms. I will let others more familiar with possible sources argue that but I agree that it is likley to pass. I do not personally like the tone either, but I do not think it can simply be dismissed as spam without addressing notability; it may just be a matter of improvement rather than deletion. And before anyone asks, I have never sought, nor do I ever expect to seek, the services of a homeopathist. --AJHingston (talk) 16:33, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:25, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 01:25, 30 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete as non-notable - or else redirect to the page of its founder/guru, Misha Norland. (I would argue against a redirect because the name is so generic.) Wikipedia has broad acceptance criteria for schools, meaning degree-granting institutions, but this is not such a school. It is more in the style of a trade school and thus must prove notability through significant third-party coverage as per WP:CORP. I'm not finding such coverage. Google News finds almost nothing except verification that it exists and acknowledgement of its anniversary. The references at the article are no better. In any case the article name is bad - there are innumerable schools of homeopathy in the world - and if kept the article should be renamed to something like School of Homeopathy (U.K.) or School of Homeopathy (Stroud). BTW this "school" is supposedly located at Hawkwood College and proudly provides an external link to that college - but the college's website does not even acknowledge the existence of the School of Homeopathy as far as I could find. --MelanieN (talk) 15:43, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * BTW let's be careful, in evaluating this article, to keep in mind that we are evaluating an article about a particular institution - not about homeopathy in general, or whether the topic of homeopathy is worthy of coverage. Homeopathy already has a detailed article at Wikipedia. This discussion is about a particular school of homeopathy, and whether or not that school meets Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion. --MelanieN (talk) 15:57, 30 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Disambiguation should generally be done when it's needed, not usually beforehand, although I'd have no objection to School of Homeopathy (UK) or School of Homeopathy (Stroud).
 * The lack of linkage from Hawkwood is indeed strange. The most I could find was this corker of a link (put your coffee down before reading) . Andy Dingley (talk) 16:07, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * It doesn't surprise me that Hawkwood offers a course on homeopathy; Hawkwood seems like that kind of "college". What does surprise me is that the homeopathy course offered by Hawkwood doesn't mention the School of Homeopathy, which is supposedly "at" Hawkwood. I have a feeling that there is no real connection between Hawkwood and the School of Homeopathy except possibly a space-renting arrangement. --MelanieN (talk) 16:21, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I think you're right. This story says that Hawkwood "also provides a home for the School of Homeopathy", while the link on the Hawkwood website here says the school is one of "many organisations and people whose activities are linked or in some way allied to those of Hawkwood". So yet another misleading piece of information in the article. They don't run undergraduate degree courses at a "College" in the Cotswolds, they rent space there and run their own diploma courses. andy (talk) 16:44, 30 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Week Keep - Per coverage:, , . Northamerica1000 (talk) 05:47, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but those references don't even come close to significant coverage in reliable sources. andy (talk) 14:09, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Google news archive search has a vast number of hits to sort through. I don't see anything too notable yet though.  Do they have any physical locations?  Is this just an online course?  If they had an actual school building built in 60 different nations.  But I'm thinking its probably just having their online course translated and no way of telling if it was just one person from those nations, or a significant number.  How many people total have taken this course?   D r e a m Focus  15:51, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Based on discussion above, it appears that they have only one physical location (which may consist of rented space on the campus of another college) plus their online courses. --MelanieN (talk) 15:11, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * It all comes back to reliable sources that prove notability. The article says there's an international distance learning course but there are no references to show that it's in any way notable. The same is of course true of the school as a whole. Goodness know there are plenty of "schools" out there that would never make it into wikipedia. andy (talk) 16:13, 5 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. andy (talk) 14:51, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Education-related deletion discussions. andy (talk) 14:54, 6 December 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.