Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Andrew Schlafly (2nd nomination)

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 and redirect -Doc^g 23:48, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Andrew Schlafly

Andrew Schlafly (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

The article Andrew Schlafly was nominated for deletion a little less than a month ago Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Andrew Schlafly. I have been trying to find sources for the article, and encouraging others to do likewise all this time. Nothing has come up, I was going to wait till a whole month had passed but have been encouraged to go ahead and put this in now.

One of the fundamental criteria for articles at wikipedia is verifiability. This is a core principle. Another core principle is Neutral point of view. If these two criteria can not be met then no amount of "notability" or "really wanting an article about something/someone" matters. I intend to show that this article can not meet the criteria for verifiability and can not meet a neutral point of view. These are the primary issues. I am not questioning his notability, his "worthiness" of an article, but rather the fact that no matter how much some of us would like a well researched article about this person it is impossible to build one meeting core wikipedia guidelines.

Article fails verifiability:

Below are all the sources that have been found the whole time we have been working on this article, and a month after a call was put out to find the best sources we can. These are not sources that can construct an article.

These articles focus totally on Conservapedia and offer only passing mention of Andrew Schlafly

Nunan, Tim (2007-03-08). Conservapedia Demystified. Nassau Weekly. Retrieved on 2007-04-23. [1]

Cotey, John (2007-04-03). Online Conservapedia pitched as conservative alternative to Wikipedia. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved on 2007-04-21. [2]

Weird, wild wiki on which anything goes. Metro (2007-03-19). Retrieved on 2007-04-23.[3]

These are primary sources

Eagle Forum University, Instructor ID. www.eagleforum.org. Retrieved on 22 April 2007.[4]

PoliticalMoneyline. cspan.politicalmoneyline.com. Retrieved on 22 April 2007.[5]

Sources that are referenced to address claims in the article but do not mention Schlafly

FDA Press Release [6]

HPV FAQ from the CDC [7]

Beral V, Bull D, Doll R, Peto R, Reeves G (2004). "Breast cancer and abortion: collaborative reanalysis of data from 53 epidemiological studies, including 83?000 women with breast cancer from 16 countries". Lancet 363 (9414): 1007-16. PMID 15051280.

Abortion and Breast cancer from National Cancer Institute [8]

Secondary sources that mention Schlafly not related to conservapedia

The Discernment Ministries: British-Israelism. Watch Unto Prayer. Retrieved on 22 April 2007. [9]

This source mentions Andrew Schlafly only once and only includes birth date and birth location, not really a great WP:ATT source either.

Catherine Kosarek, Medical Student, Marries Andrew L. Schlafly, Engineer - New York Times. www.nytimes.com. Retrieved on 22 April 2007.[10]

A Wedding announcement, thats it.

MSN Video of discussion on HPV Vaccine.[11]

Features Schlafly but tells us nothing about him other than he dislikes the HPV vaccine

Study of abortion-cancer link 'meaningless': Expert says surveyed group didn't include those typically hurt, WorldNetDaily May 4th 2007 [12]

Probably fails WP:ATT offers very little information about Schlafly.

This is it, there are no non-trivial secondary sources that we can use to build this article. Therefore, it fails WP:Verifiability.

Article can not be written with a NPOV

A review of the article history will show that it has been difficult to keep out inadequately sourced criticism. This is particularly worrisome for a WP:BLP article. The other angle though is most of the criticism is valid. There are things to say about this man that are not the most flattering. But there are no sources for it. There are no sources for the things that we can say good about him. The only thing we can put in this article are basic skeleton facts. Born, raised, married, children, ect. This is not an interesting article, and more importantly it is not an article that reflects a neutral tone when weighed against the extensive criticism that has been leveled against him and his actions.

This at first might seem like a contradiction, how can someone have extensive criticism and not have sources per verifiability? The problem is that the criticism is located in sources that fail WP:ATT.

Summary

Based on the above reasons and evidence I urge this community to reevaluate its previous decision to keep this article. Anything that needs to be said about Andrew Schlafly can be said in the conservapedia article since all the sources relate to that anyway.

Tmtoulouse 18:57, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

• Delete After !voting keep last time, I'm one of the ones who volunteered to source, expand and keep this libel free, and I (and everyone else) am failing on all three counts. While Schlafly has, obviously, received a lot of publicity, it's virtually impossible to find anything to say about the man himself as opposed to his role on Conservapedia. A number of editors are - I'm certain in good faith - repeatedly adding potentially libellous personal attacks on Schlafly, sourced from blogs, other wikis and Conservapedia itself, and aside from than nobody has managed to find any legitimate content to add. As those of you who've had any dealings with me on XfDs presumably know, I do make an effort to dig out sources & expand articles, but there really does not appear to be anything to add to this page. This article seems to be unexpandable and increasingly unmaintainable - and at some point someone will post something offensive enough to goad Schalfly & Brandt into taking action (yes, they'd probably lose - but do we really need the hassle and bad press). Although he undoubtedly does pass WP:N, I feel that in this case we should WP:IAR and delete this article, without even merging the content to Conservapedia, as attempting to preserve NPOV is proving impossible. If sources can be found to genuinely expand an article about the man himself, as opposed to the organisations he works for, the page can be recreated (although, I think it would warrant at the very least semiprotection from the moment of its creation), but with the sources as they stand at present, delete — iridescenti (talk to me!) 19:27, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per nom on account of failure to satisfy WP:V. Article which talk about Conservopedia make only passing reference to SAchlafly, and things like his wedding announcement are also inadequate. Edison 20:15, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per Tmtoulouse & Iridescenti. A textbook case of how the lack of sources actually about a subject can make it impossible to write a policy-compliant article. Schafly is already mentioned at the articles Conservapedia and Phyllis Schlafly. (I'm unsure if a mention in Eagle Forum is warranted, but there isn't any there right now.) --Dhartung | Talk 20:26, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
• Merge with Conservapedia, which he purportedly founded; his curriculum vitae seems impressive enough for that, at least. 216.194.0.154 00:51, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect to Conservapedia. If all that we can write about him is in that context, then let's send his information there. His name is certainly associated with it (and thus a valid search term), so there's no real reason to axe this entirely. Serpent's Choice 10:20, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per Tmtoulouse & Iridescenti. KillerChihuahua^?!? 14:48, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect to Conservapedia, don't delete entry totally. (reasoning as previous) --Aulis Eskola 14:49, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, leaving redirect to Conservapædia. A couple sentences may be worth merging, but not more than that. Anville 17:12, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Maybe we should redirect Conservapedia to Conservapædia just to annoy him, since (as all the other familiar names I see here who tried to steer it vaguely towards sanity in the early days & got indefblocked for it will testify), it's a blocking offence there to use British spelling — iridescenti (talk to me!) 23:48, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per Tmtoulouse & Iridescent, although a redirect will also work fine. JoshuaZ 23:23, 24 May 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.