Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The American Society for Cell Biology

The American Society for Cell Biology

 * 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   Result was keep. This is truly a well-known and notable society. Orlady (talk) 17:20, 28 February 2011 (UTC)


 * – ( View AfD View log )

I hate you a lot tdf (talk) 17:28, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Not notable. I hate you a lot tdf (talk) 17:28, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep for now. At first glance, this organisation looks to have won several notable awards, including the WICB Junior and Senior Awards, Early Career Life Scientist Award and the Merton Bernfield Memorial Award. All we need to find now is the references. Minima  c  ( talk ) 17:40, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Where is the evidence that those awards are notable? All of them have Wikipedia articles tagged as having no references, and five other awards listed in The American Society for Cell Biology don't have any Wikipedia articles at all. I am not yet saying either "keep" or "delete" because I have not yet researched this enough, but so far I can see no evidence of notability at all. JamesBWatson (talk) 17:56, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions.  -- Danger (talk) 22:19, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions.  -- Danger (talk) 22:19, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep Established learned society with Gnews presence. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:28, 18 February 2011 (UTC).
 * (1) What exactly does "Established" mean? Does it mean anything that relates to Wikipedia's notability guidelines, and if so how? (2) As for "Gnews presence", it is never constructive to simply say that there is a "presence", without any analysis of the quality of that "presence". I have looked at a fair number of the GNews hits, and have not found a single one which gives more than one brief passing mention: in most cases simply mentioning that a person given a one-sentence quote is a member of the society. Typical is a report headed "Senate passes stem cell Act, but Bush may veto it", which merely says "There are millions of Americans who care passionately about this," says Kevin Wilson, director of public policy with the American Society for Cell Biology. If the "keep" claim rests on such evidence as this then it is a thin claim, and if it doesn't then we need to actually be told what the evidence is, not merely informed that there is a "presence". JamesBWatson (talk) 12:21, 21 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete Following my earliest comment in which I stayed on the fence I have researched further, and found no evidence of satisfying Wikipedia's notability guidelines. As I have indicated in my two comments above, the claims of notability in the two "keep" comments are not sustained by the available evidence. It may be that evidence of notability is out there somewhere, but both the failure of my own searches and the failure of others to provide evidence discourages me from thinking so. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:21, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep, plenty of sources can be found by searching for ASCB+. -- John Vandenberg (chat) 01:05, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The link given, displayed here as "ASCB+ ", actually links to a Google search for Fawcett ASCB. "Plenty of sources" is subject to exactly the same criticism as above. The first four hits are on the organisation's own site. The next one is Wikipedia. The next is a search page which lists people called Wayne Fawcett on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Linkedin, Wikipedia, etc, and amongst numerous other hits for completely different Wayne Fawcetts includes a link to a document on the organisations's own web site about Don Fawcett (whose middle name was Wayne). The next page is another search page, again hitting other people called Wayne Fawcett, and again including a link to the same document on the organisation's site. The next is an obituary of Don Fawcett, which makes a couple of brief mentions of the The American Society for Cell Biology in passing, but does not give any substantial coverage to it. And so it goes on. I have checked the first 20 hits in detail and looked briefly through the next page of hits. I did find one or two independent sources which gave more than one or two passing mentions of this organisation, but apart from pages on the organisation's own web site not a single one of them was primarily about the American Society for Cell Biology. The best I found was a document which made several brief mentions of the society in the course of dealing with other subjects, and even that was exceptional, as the substantial majority were of the quality I have described above. Whether we say "Gnews presence" or "plenty of sources can be found", to merely state that Google produces hits does not establish notability: it is essential to look at the hits and find among them some which constitute significant coverage in reliable independent sources. Neither of the people giving Google hits as reasons has cited any such source, and, as I have indicated, my checks of the hits have failed to produce any. "There are lots of Google hits" and nothing else does nothing to indicate notability. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:24, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * What do you take me for; An idiot? you searched 20 ghits on a google web search with only a surname of someone who was president in 1961-2 and you rested your case??  Try Google Books for more than one of the presidents names, use their full name, etc.  If you are not going to do some proper research to defend this ridiculous AFD (initiated by a sock), just say so. John Vandenberg (chat) 04:55, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps that comment could have been expressed more civilly, but more significant is the fact that it was not I who put forward that particular search, but you. You gave a link which you said provided "plenty of sources", and I checked the link you gave, and found it wanting. No, I don't take you for an idiot, but if you have good sources it would help to say what they are. I don't know whether the link you gave was a mistake, and you intended something else, but I find it odd that when I check and report on a search link that you have provided, you then criticise me on the grounds that it is not a suitable search term. Incidentally, I totally agree with your concerns about the editor who started this AfD, but the case must be assessed on its own merits, not on the merits of the person who made the nomination. Also I am not sure what you mean by "you rested your case". If you mean that I concluded my comments about the particular link you gave, yes indeed I did. If you mean that you think my "delete" comment above was based only on checking that link, then it certainly wasn't. I have indeed done much more extensive searching. JamesBWatson (talk) 16:13, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I was referring you concluding your investigation based on a single search. I am aware that you voted delete before my comment.  I am a bit surprised that you haven't looked at more than one president, using google books, etc.  Sorry I wasnt very civil.  I will put some more time in and put those good sources to use in the article. John Vandenberg (chat) 16:29, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * After I went off line it occurred to me that you probably meant the link you gave to be just an example, and " " was meant to mean "substitute her the names of various presidents to get various searches". Perhaps that should have been obvious to me, but it originally didn't occur to me, and I just took the link you gave as being the search you were referring to. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:48, 24 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. This is well known and notable society.Biophys (talk) 00:11, 23 February 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.