Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Texas Alliance for Life


 * 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 no consensus. After this discussion was relisted, one userfy !vote and three additional keep !votes were posted, and several new sources were presented in the discussion by User:Carrite to qualify the topic's notability, per WP:N and WP:GNG. Also, one user changed their !vote from weak delete to keep per the new sources presented in the discussion. However, the delete !votes with arguments that the topic fails WP:NGO and WP:ORG remain existent. Although consensus in this discussion is leaning toward a keep result, at this time there's no overall consensus here to close the discussion as such. Editors in this discussion have stated that the article requires expansion, better organization and the addition of sources, so the cleanup AfD template has been added to the article. (Non-administrator closure.) Northamerica1000(talk) 02:22, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Texas Alliance for Life

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  Stats )

A non-notable lobbying organization from Texas. Hahc21 [ TALK ] [ CONTRIBS  ] 21:29, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 00:58, 28 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment This was the eigthth AfD posted by user Hahc21 in only thirteen minutes. I do not see how they could possibly perform due diligence on so many articles in such a short time. Dricherby (talk) 19:48, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Weak delete Coverage in reliable sources (via GNews archives and Highbeam) exists, but seems to be exclusively limited to mentions that the Alliance endorse or supports this or that political candidate. There's no real coverage of the group itself that I've found. I'm open to reconsidering my !vote in the light of additional sources, however. Yunshui 雲&zwj;水 09:49, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Changing !vote to Keep in light of sources subsequently uncovered. Yunshui 雲&zwj;水 06:48, 7 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment The Texas Alliance for Life is primarily an endorsing organization, which would explain why that is what they get press for. Texas is having an election today so most of what you see in the press will be election related. TAL also do lobbying during Texas's legislative session but the Texas legislature meets every other year. So you would have to go back two years to see press on the lobbying they do. This is the biggest pro-life group in Texas by any measure. I don't see how 20,000 Facebook fans is non notable. The motivation for nominating this page for deletion must be politically motivated. neovita (talk) 09:02, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Neovita, please remember to assume good faith. There does not appear to be any basis for accusing the nominator of political motivation. --MelanieN (talk) 19:03, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * 20,000 Facebook fans does not mean notability because notability comes from "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject", not from having some number of Facebook fans. Notability is not the same thing as popularity. Be very careful about arguing by numbers: one can just as easily say, "What, only 20,000? That doesn't even fill a college football stadium!" Dricherby (talk) 19:29, 2 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete Weakest sources I remember seeing for a political group. All of the article except for a phrase is effectively uncited, as two of the citations are from the organization itself. The third, or should I say only, cite does not even verify the phrase, "Political Agenda: Defunding Planned Parenthood", as the TAL is said in the article to be "funding abortion alternatives". Moreover, it is a single sentence mention in an article about the Texas Senate voting for more money for women to get physical exams and tests, etc. If it were only the current state of the article, I would say as I always do, that is an issue for the talk page, not AfD. But there is only passing mentions and local coverage WP:NGO available. Anarchangel (talk) 22:27, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep Anarchangel, your points are valid for expanding the page, not for removing it. Do a google news search for "Joe Pojman" the Texas Alliance for Life Executive Director and you will see him quoted frequently by news sources all over the state. I will be working to expand the page over the following days. I have already updated the page with non local news coverage. neovita (talk) 16:31, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment The article read like a "sourced" advertisement... -- Hahc21 [ TALK ] [ CONTRIBS  ] 00:33, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep As a Texan who stays reasonably up to date on politics, I can say the TAL and especially Joe Pojman are pretty influential in Texas government. In fact, I would say a lot of this article should talk about Dr Pojman. --Constitutional texan (talk) 04:17, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete Fails WP:ORG for lack of significant coverage ABOUT the organization. Although it gets numerous hits at Google News Archive, all of them are passing mentions along the lines of "TAL endorsed so-and-so" or "the executive director of TAL said such-and-such." There is no significant coverage at all that describes the organization. Per WP:ORG, "A company, corporation, organization, school, team, religion, group, product, or service is notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in secondary sources. ... The depth of coverage of the subject by the source must be considered." WP:ORG also specifically states that "quotations from an organization's personnel as story sources" are regarded as trivial coverage, not counting toward notability. --MelanieN (talk) 19:03, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:NGO. Texas Alliance for Life is a regional organization that has not had significant impact on the national or international issues. --Joshuaism (talk) 15:26, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I think you're miss-reading that criteria. Certainly an organization doesn't have to be notable nationally to be notable enough for Wikipedia. "These criteria constitute an optional, alternative method for demonstrating notability" IE: National recognition definitely establishes notability, but it's not a hard requirement. It wouldn't make sense to me that locally active organizations are automatically disqualified from being in Wikipedia... In that case, we should also remove the Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health. --Constitutional texan (talk) 03:37, 5 June 2012 (UTC)


 * There is no requirement that a Wikipedia subject have national or international impact, only that it be the object of coverage in multiple, independent, published, so-called "reliable" sources. This group seems to clearly meet that threshold. Carrite (talk) 15:39, 5 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  DGG ( talk ) 08:03, 5 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Userfy   Ability to meet wp:notability is likely, however such has not yet been done in the article. Few or no wp:notability-suitable sources.  North8000 (talk) 11:37, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment - This is a really terrible article. What year was the group organized? What were the circumstances of its organization? How does it relate to Texas Right to Life, the other large Texas anti-abortion organization? There needs to be an enormous amount of work done to this piece, which of course is not what AfD is about. Just sayin'... Carrite (talk) 15:14, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment - It goes without saying that there is an enormous IDONTLIKEIT and ILIKEIT potential for articles dealing with the hot topic abortion issue. I hope everyone here is able to put that aside. If you can't do that, don't say a word, just move along... As for the nominator — I am unclear, was WP:BEFORE followed? What leads you to believe that this is not a notable organization? Carrite (talk) 15:17, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep - This seems to easily pass scrutiny as a noteworthy and notable (in Wikipedia terms) political organization, no matter what you think of their politics. THIS PIECE (HighBeam) from the Texas Tribune calls Texas Alliance for Life one of Texas's "two leading anti-abortion groups" and deals entirely with the philosophical and political debate between it and Texas Right to Life. (more to follow). Carrite (talk) 15:21, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
 * THIS PIECE (HighBeam) from the liberal Texas Observer in 2006 details the way that Texas Alliance for Life rallied forces to scuttle a proposed $41M bioresearch center at University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston by blocking state funding. Carrite (talk) 15:24, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
 * THIS PIECE from the online version of the Dallas Observer deals with Texas Alliance for Life Executive Director Joe Pojman as a political mover and shaker, getting expert commentary from him on the Rick Perry campaign. It also lists Texas Alliance for Life as one of "two main pro-life groups in the state," along with Texas Right to Life. Carrite (talk) 15:31, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
 * THIS PIECE from the Bay Area Citizen deals entirely with a Texas Alliance for Life political endorsement. Carrite (talk) 15:36, 5 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Weak keep - from a brief review of the available sources, it appears to be noticed; whether it's truly notable depends on whether one considers those sources to be reliable. In this case, I am leaning towards notability.  The sources generally are of the 'alt-weekly-press' type, but there's also a discussion by the Austin American Statesman - considered by most reasonable users to be a reliable source. Disclosure: I am pro-choice. Bearian (talk) 15:42, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Weak keep - The article may satisfy notability, but it doesn't do so yet. There's very little information and the organization of the article is poor. Still, being a genuinely bad article does not mean the article isn't worth inclusion, it just means that it needs to be improved. Adding reliable sources to the article (besides the organization's own website) would help tremendously. Kari Hazzard  ( T  |  C ) 16:26, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Notice I am returning the article to the way it was when the AfD was started. I do not have time to figure out which of the politically biased sources and external links might possibly have more merit than the others. They all stink to high heaven of violations of WP:RS, WP:INDY, and WP:THIRDPARTY. Perhaps there are reliable sources out there, but the contributors (who are also some of the voters to Keep) are making a mockery of this article, the AfD process, and Wikipedia in general, with their choice of sources. Anarchangel (talk) 20:54, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Struck much of my comments, and retract same. The article is much better now that I worked on it. That is to say, it is no longer pretending to be of worth while actually being not only worthless but also a political advertisement. There were violations of not only the above rules, but political WP:SPAM, for god's sake. Many external links also removed per WP:ELNO #10 and #19. I am more convinced than ever that the sourcing of this article is a problem, if only because of questionable available ability and will to play by the rules. Anarchangel (talk) 21:50, 6 June 2012 (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.