Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Slate Star Codex


 * 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  14:47, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Slate Star Codex

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Fails the General Notability Guideline because all sources located through a WP:BEFORE search are blogs or passing mentions. There is no significant coverage in reliable, independent sources as required by the GNG, and let me pre-empt comments by saying that blogs are user-generated content and are therefore not considered reliable sources. Exemplo347 (talk) 09:58, 19 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete: Fails GNG and NWEB after checking notability. KGirlTrucker81 huh? what I've been doing 11:46, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete. No in-depth coverage; provided references consist of bare passing mentions. —Keφr 13:42, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. The previous comments in this deletion discussion were written before I added a substantial new, referenced subsection to the article. Each of the mentions of the Slate Star Codex blog in the reliable sources may be relatively short – but together, they add up to enough material to sufficiently reliably source the current version of the article as of now. I would implore my fellow Wikipedia editors to employ their common sense here. Common sense suggests that if an otherwise roughly valid Wikipedia article can be written on a topic and reliably sourced, the topic satisfies one of the reasons for instituting the GNG in the first place –  to exclude articles which could never be non-trivial if they were reliably sourced with currently-available sources, no matter how much they were improved. Also, the GNG does not actually say that coverage should be "in-depth", or should not be "passing mentions". It requires significant coverage, and says "Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material." So for the avoidance of doubt, it is OK, from the point of view of the GNG, that none of the independent sources cited have the SSC blog as their "main topic". What they do contain, collectively, is enough facts about the blog that are worthwhile to include in a Wikipedia article, to make it a non-trivial article. I think the current version of the article, as linked above, with over 700 words excluding references, counts as non-trivial. The GNG also explains: '"Significant coverage" addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content.' Again, I think the intent of the guideline matters here, and I think the article is currently reasonably free of original research, which also being detailed, so that criterion seems to be satisfied sufficiently to make an article, which is what matters. --greenrd (talk) 17:10, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * It appears that you've misinterpreted the GNG here. The term significant coverage in reliable, independent sources cannot be selectively cherry-picked. Sources must be found that contain significant coverage, and those sources must be both reliable and independent. All these conditions need to apply at once - and no, a whole bunch of passing mentions cannot possibly add up to "significant coverage". Exemplo347 (talk) 17:57, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * You say "a whole bunch of passing mentions cannot possibly add up to "significant coverage"" - but why not? What do you base this belief on?--greenrd (talk) 18:01, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Like I said, you can't cherry-pick. "Significant coverage" is a straightforward term, defined in the GNG as "more than a trivial mention." Trivial mentions don't suddenly morph into "significant coverage" just because there's a lot of them. Exemplo347 (talk) 18:10, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * OK, I guess I should have spoken in a more lawyerly way. To be more precise, my full argument on this matter is actually (a) the letter of the GNG is met, the coverage of SSC in the reliable sources - such as this one - is mostly not trivial - but (b) I have a fallback argument if you don't agree with (a), which is that even if you don't think the coverage is non-trivial, their cumulative effect is non-trivial.--greenrd (talk) 21:43, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The article you have referenced does not talk about the blog itself, rather it talks about a blog entry - the difference may seem ridiculously picky but Wikipedia's notability guidelines state that Notability cannot be inherited. As to the cumulative effect of lots of trivial articles somehow adding up to something non-trivial, I'm not sure how many times I need to keep repeating myself. Exemplo347 (talk) 23:00, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * But what is a blog but a collection of blog entries, an optional sidebar of links, and a usually-trivial About page? Come on! By your logic, no number of notable events in a person's life would make a biographical article about them pass the GNG, because the notability of the events that they notably participated in would not "transfer" to the person themselves! But that's ridiculous! The reality is that if a person is non-trivially covered participating in an event in reliable independent sources, it contributes towards that person's notability with respect to the GNG, and in the same way, if a blog post is non-trivially covered in reliable independent sources that explicitly mention the name of the blog or the blogger, I would argue, it contributes towards the notability of the blog with respect to the GNG. The non-inheritance of notability principle is meant to prevent things like a son inheriting his father's notability, or a restaurant inheriting its new proprietor's notability. --greenrd (talk) 20:45, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Look, the GNG is straightforward. If you want to change it, then you'll need to head over to the appropriate forum and get it changed. Until then, articles have to meet its requirements. If this blog had coverage that meets the GNG I would have found it and !voted accordingly. I didn't find any - now let's not WP:BLUDGEON this point over & over, it's not going to change my mind because I've based my nomination on Wikipedia's policies, not my personal opinion. Exemplo347 (talk) 23:34, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Wait, I'm not following this. I think the Weekly Standard reference is insufficient for a WP article, but I've never seen the blog vs. blog entry notability distinction before. A blog is its blog entries. That's not inheritance as far as I can tell. Can you give an example of another AfD discussion where this distinction or a very similar one was drawn? Utsill (talk) 14:16, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
 * As far as I can tell, they're saying that it's not enough for a news article to merely talk about a particular article on a blog - it has to talk about the blog as a whole. Of course, by this standard about half of List of blogs should be deleted... [edit] It seems obvious to me that notability must transfer along the same lines as merging, or merging is fundamentally broken as a tool. The notability of a set of articles should never go down as a result of a merge. It is hence absurd for a blog that has multiple notable articles to not be itself notable. As far as I can see, the Notability (web) rule merely concerns association, not composition. For instance, "Similarly, a website may be notable, but the owners or authors do not "inherit" notability due to the web content they wrote" seems to imply by omission that the website itself does inherit notability from the content on it.  please opine? 2003:D4:FBC8:8047:900:5EE1:3907:49F6 (talk) 19:41, 22 March 2017 (UTC) — 2003:d4:fbc8:8047:900:5ee1:3907:49f6 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * (I'm 49F6.) I've posed the question on VNN.FeepingCreature (talk) 21:15, 22 March 2017 (UTC) — FeepingCreature (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Yeah, that all seems roughly correct to me, though note as per my vote below, that I don't think SSC meets notability criteria even if we assume significant coverage of blog posts is significant coverage of the blog itself. I do wish would explain his (weird) view here, ideally with evidence from elsewhere on WP. Utsill (talk) 13:54, 23 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete: Fails GNG taion (talk) 19:09, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * delete is well discussed in the blogosphere, but WP is not part of the blogosphere. Not now, anyway.  If it were, this would pass GNG.  Jytdog (talk) 02:51, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete - Does not meet basic notability threshold.Glendoremus (talk) 04:59, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete: It's a blog with a handful of links from other blogs. Fails GNG Jsilter (talk) 12:55, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
 * But Slate Star Codex was referenced in the print edition of Reason magazine, which is not a blog, and in newspapers in a syndicated column by Bloomberg View columnist Noah Smith - also not blogs.--greenrd (talk) 20:45, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Mentions are not significant coverage. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 22:01, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Why not? If we can write a substantial, well-referenced article based entirely on putting together material from what you characterise as mere mentions, what's the problem? And, if so, are we now to delete all articles in Wikipedia that are based entirely on material from mere mentions - including other articles about websites and biographical articles? Be very careful what you wish for, would be my advice. You might find that the scope of this exacting interpretation of what is, after all, a Guideline, catches more than you would like.--greenrd (talk) 23:47, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep - What's with the deletionism? It's not like Wikipedia will run out of space. SCC is a fairly prominent blog whose content is mentioned in many places. Philosopher paper. Interdisciplinary paper. Ethics paper. ESP discussion book. Paul Bloom's Empathy book, which received widespread attention, cites it too. And so on. Deleet (talk) 06:15, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Those are passing mentions. Also, I'd remind you to assume good faith - it's not "deletionism" to request the removal of articles that don't meet the GNG, every editor should be working to improve Wikipedia. This isn't a repository for articles on non-notable subjects. Exemplo347 (talk) 07:39, 21 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete. the entire notability is dependent upon one posting, not of particular importance . That's not enough.  DGG ( talk ) 09:34, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete I do worry people are falling into deletionism/dogpiling here, but my best search for multiple independent RS's covering SSC in significant coverage is nonetheless coming up short. I think the Weekly Standard and Vox references come close, but they're opinion pieces and few in number. Utsill (talk) 14:16, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Nowhere does the GNG exclude opinion pieces as applicable reliable sources for notability purposes. You might believe that it should, but in point of fact, it doesn't. On the contrary, it references the reliable sources guideline which is written in terms of "all majority and significant minority views", making it clear that the notion of a reliable source is supposed to include publications that publish "views", i.e. opinions. As we can all no doubt acknowledge, opinion pieces often state true facts within them.--greenrd (talk) 22:08, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I was thinking mostly about: "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact." from WP:NEWSORG. I am not suggesting any changes to WP:GNG, and I don't think the antagonistic tone of your comment is helpful. Utsill (talk) 00:46, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
 * If you really wanted, we could of course replace statements like "Scott Alexander has written blog posts about scientific methodology" in the article with "A Vox writer has claimed that Scott Alexander has written blog posts about scientific methodology", but that would be unnecessary and silly. I don't see the relevance of classifying certain sources as "opinion pieces" per se to the article's notability, or to this deletion discussion. To show that a source was unreliable, you would have to do more than cast vague aspersions such as "it's an opinion piece".--greenrd (talk) 20:42, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
 * My interpretation of WP policy is that the opinionated nature of the articles does count against them being RS's. You seem to disagree with the policy, not the interpretation. I do think this policy is a good one, because for example opinion pieces tend to mix around opinions with facts in ways that are difficult to discern. It's also easier to get coverage from an opinion piece or editorial, so that may lower the over GNG standards and have associated downsides. Utsill (talk) 17:13, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * My point was that any contentious claim in the article could be rewritten using in-text attribution, thus rendering the source's alleged unreliability irrelevant from a notability point of view, and that this would not be necessary for all the claims in the article, some of which are just of the form "there are Slate Star Codex posts about topic X" and so are not controversial. Again, I'm applying common sense here, rather than the letter of the policy.--greenrd (talk) 23:40, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * You say "Rendering the source's alleged unreliability irrelevant from a notability point of view," but I don't think in-text attribution would do that. Notability is not measured by the content or wording of an article, but rather by the nature of the sources. I think WP Notability is a distinct concept from any features of the WP article itself. For example, we wouldn't want a renegade editor to change the wording of the article in a way that made it so non-notable that the article should then be deleted. And if you agree with me here, but then think opinionated sources in themselves do more to establish notability than I credit them for, then I think we just circle back to our earlier discussion. Utsill (talk) 17:34, 26 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep The blog is actually cited by reference 2 and two paragraphs are given explaining and responding to his view. For a blog to be mentioned in a peer reviewed academic paper as a notable opinion worthy of elucidation/rebuttal counts as a good point in my view.  K . Bog  20:25, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * There's a world of difference between a "peer reviewed academic paper" and an essay that's part of a College publication. Exemplo347 (talk) 22:28, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * It's a peer reviewed journal published by a college. That doesn't make it any worse than other academic journals, as far as I know.  K . Bog  22:41, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * It isn't peer reviewed at all, that's what you're not getting. It's a College publication. Nowhere in the link you've given, or on the site for the publication, does it say it's been peer reviewed. Exemplo347 (talk) 22:48, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * You can see from the site that the papers are accepted or rejected by editors:  . The general editor, Ramona Ilea, is a faculty of philosophy . The style and format of the publication are very similar to how peer-reviewed journals usually are. In my experience, journals (at least in philosophy) don't specifically advertise further details; there certainly isn't any reason to suppose that it wasn't peer-reviewed.  K . Bog  23:37, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * This is just silly. If it was peer-reviewed, it would say so. It doesn't, so let's just leave it there. Exemplo347 (talk) 23:41, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't think journals often specifically say that they are peer reviewed. I've opened an RFC on the WikiProject Philosophy noticeboard.  K . Bog  23:52, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * For whatever it's worth, a Reddit user here claimed that they were the author and referred to the 'revise and review stage' for this paper.  K . Bog  23:54, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * That's fine, an RfC discussion will not have any effect on this AfD discussion. Exemplo347 (talk) 23:57, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't see why it wouldn't.  K . Bog  00:27, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, Request for Comment discussions can go on for weeks - and the one you've started does not address any element of my deletion rationale. To be quite frank with you, if you've started it as a delaying tactic then that's not exactly a good faith thing to be doing. Exemplo347 (talk) 00:31, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * But it does address the rebuttal you made to my statement (which disproved the claim you made earlier that Kissel's paper constituted a "passing mention"). This is also a very simple matter which anyone with background in philosophy can clear up. And clearly I couldn't have foreseen that you would assert that Essays in Philosophy isn't peer reviewed when I decided to comment. The reason I didn't comment earlier is that I wasn't yet sure that this article ought to be preserved.  K . Bog  00:39, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * You don't need a background in Philosophy to tell the difference between a peer-reviewed journal and a college publication. I must ask you not to forum-shop or canvas for comments - it's disruptive behaviour. Exemplo347 (talk) 00:45, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * "College publication" usually refers to magazines and other collections of student work. The paper here was clearly a collection of reviewed academic papers submitted by philosophy professionals and graduate students in multiple countries. It looks like the only topic of dispute here is whether the papers were reviewed by peers or by less authoritative individuals. Also, I already responded to your accusations of forum-shopping and canvassing in the WikiProject Philosophy noticeboard where you followed my link in an attempt to tell WikiProject Philosophy users that they shouldn't comment in your AFD.  K . Bog  00:52, 27 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Note There's no reason that a dispute about college journals should derail this discussion so I'm leaving it there. Exemplo347 (talk) 00:54, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete--Fails to pass WP:GNG. Winged Blades Godric 13:54, 27 March 2017 (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.