Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Australian Relief & Mercy Services

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 merge to Youth With A Mission. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 21:29, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Australian Relief & Mercy Services

Australian Relief & Mercy Services (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Spammy article with very questionable notability. Contested prod, borderline speedy. MER-C 03:40, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep, but cleanup - the article reads a bit like an advertisement, but a quick online check sees the charity involved in quite a lot of overseas aid and development work. I vote we keep it and clean it up. JROBBO 06:07, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, but cleanup Skeptical I agree with JROBBO on all comments. I don't like the article, but I see the subject as notable. --Kevin Murray 06:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
  • AR&MS Annual Statement says that they reached a milestone of giving away their "millionth dollar", and the financials show assets only in the sub-million; pretty small numbers for a notable organization. Now I'm Skeptical! --Kevin Murray 23:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, but cleanup - I concur with the above. --Arnzy (talk • contribs) 08:44, 28 December 2006 (UTC)Merge per below. --Arnzy (talk • contribs) 13:48, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Weak delete Sounds like a great humanitarian organization. How do they do all those good works with not a single newspaper article or TV news story? Find same and then you have a basis for keeping the article. Edison 23:31, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Australia-related deletions. -- Longhair\^talk 07:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as above, if they've really got so many services and programmes, then why only a smattering of ghits? One would think a notable charity like this claims to be would have more of a public profile. Delete as nn charity/ministry. Lankiveil 06:03, 1 January 2007 (UTC).

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached
 Please add new discussions below this notice. Thanks, Quarl ^(talk) 08:38, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• Delete Merge per below. Looks like a great small faith-based charity doing some good work but a million dollars is tiny (although the net effect of many of these not-notable charities can be huge and very effective). Keep up the good work.--Nick Y. 00:36, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Merge per JROBBO- the size of the org is not important. What is missing here is reliable third-party references. A search of google news and the ebscohost news databases shows no mentions at all. No books on them and all of the web hits I can see are other christian charity sites. They lack verifyability from reliable sources - Peripitus (Talk) 01:23, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep or merge. Unfortunately the article does not explain that ARMS is part of Youth With A Mission Australia, a notable global youth ministry organisation. I'd prefer to keep, but failing that, merge with the YWAM article. Sarah 19:29, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

  I've done some more research and I agree with JROBBO. I think the material should be merged with the Mercy Ministries section of the Youth With A Mission article. I favour a straight merge, but for the closing admin, if it comes down to delete/keep, this is a keep. Sarah 09:43, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep or merge per Sarah - I'll lean towards a merge though if we can't get any sources— I had a look again and there isn't too much online besides mentions of the Charity on some web pages (and I don't know where you could find offline sources). JROBBO 05:45, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Oops... I realise I'd voted keep twice - I've got rid of the above vote. Seems like Ozmercy has done a bit of work on the article, and I'll lean towards a keep now. JROBBO 07:37, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep but help us to make the page better I am the contributor who first put this up on Wikpedia and I am still learning the ropes. Some coaching would be welcome. I have put in some cross referneces and rewritten sections of the article, I trust that this will set skeptical minds at rest. In answer to Kevin's comment on our financials - true we have few assets - we give everything we can away. The article about the millionth dollar clearly says that it is talking of funds donated over the past seven years. Our momentum is such that we should give away a million dollars every 2-3 years now. Yes we are part of Youth With A Mission but we are seperately run entity and to merge us into the larger YWAM pages would deny us the distinctive place we have cut for ourselves in Mercy Ministries - we are known as ARMS before we are recognised as being part of YWAM.Ozmercy 12:47, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
• Sorry I may have put my comments on the wrong end of the debate and am not sure of the etiquet of moving them once they have been uploaded. I think we have addressed notability issues.Ozmercy 01:20, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I will not make any further defense of who we are after this, you guys will have to do whatever it you are going to do, but I am surprised at some of the above comments. for instance I not sure why Sarah says that the article does say that ARMS is part of YWAM when the opening statement of the article reads Australian Relief & Mercy Services Ltd (ARMS) is a Christian aid and development organization that cares for the poor and needy both within Australia and overseas and is the mercy ministry arm of Youth With A Mission in Australia. The organization was founded in Canberra in 1988. and links to the YWAM page.

With regards to the comments made about our budget size - regular NGOS have admin fees of 30% + that pay wages etc - we do not pay wages- all of our staff pay for their own travel - so effectively our budget could be measured as 30% higher than what it is - even though we have a small budget - our influence in some sectors of the industry is significant. Are we notable? I think so. But money and budget size does not define notability. Have we shown outside sources and news articles - yes. Do we seek organizational fame no. A lot of what we do we quickly and well. When we were in Iraq at the out break of the war we were the first western NGO to be operational in Iraq. The officer in charge of the Humaniatrain operations center medical response commended us on our work and ability to make a quick response - but there were no news articles about it, other than those we generated ourselves - but self praise is usually seen as no recommendation. When we were in Aceh Australian TV news covered our work in the refugee camps there and credited it to another agency who used the footage to fund raise for themselves nationally. We did the work but because of the inappropriate actions of others we lost the opportunity to tell our own story, as the Australian public saw that incident as being someone else. We find these things sad, but we are still detemined to do the work God has called us to whether any one recognises it or not. Thanks for taking time to comment on our aticle, I look forward to your final decision.Ozmercy 10:24, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment: Oh dear. Um, Ozmercy, please see: [1] I said the article didn't mention ARMS was part of YWAM because it didn't. I was the one who added that sentence in. This was the version of the article at the time I made that statement, and as you can see, YWAM doesn't rate a mention. The opening statment you quote is the opening now and not what we had a week ago when I commented. I think you are too close to this article and should take a step back. Sarah 13:09, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

• Delete the article, the almost sole contributor has too much conflict of interest. Alternative: reduce to stub, leaving the references, and blank the history. User:Ozmercy should contribute to some other articles of interest until (s?)he better understands policies, practices, and culture of Wikipedia. If they are notable, someone not directly associated with them will write the article. Garrie 03:28, 11 January 2007 (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.