Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mega Society (third 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 keep. east.718 at 08:43, February 1, 2008

[edit] Mega Society

Mega Society (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Article twice nominated for deletion as a non-notable organization with an intervening DRV (First AfD, intervening DRV, and second AfD). Present draft is now being considered for deletion per recent DRV‎. Justification for deletion has been notability concerns. Procedural listing, so I am Neutral. IronGargoyle (talk) 02:16, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

• Delete, as far as I can see, the sole "improvements" to the article are the addition of an infobox ([1]), and a sort-of relevant source. Other than that, deletion rationales from the first AfD still seem to apply - its a club with a handful of members, only a fraction of which seem to be actually active. Lankiveil ^{(complaints | disco)} 03:33, 26 January 2008 (UTC).

• Keep The article was substantially improved after the first AfD and DRV, which is in accordance with policy, was suggested by the closing admin, and actually is the preferred outcome of an AfD. Several primary and secondary source citations were added to the article. The second AfD was closed prematurely with no consensus. References to the mere adding of an info-box are ahistorial since they refer to changes since the second AfD, which because of the premature closure are not relevant. Thus there is no historical case for deleting the current version of the article.

As for the merits of the case, the operative Wikipedia standard is WP:Notability (organizations and companies). Here is the primary criterion from the standard:

A company, corporation, organization, team, religion, group, product, or service is notable if it has been the subject of coverage in secondary sources. Such sources must be reliable, and independent of the subject. The depth of coverage of the subject by the source must be considered. If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources should be cited to establish notability. Trivial or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability. Once notability is established, primary sources may be used to add content. Ultimately, and most importantly, all content must be attributable.

The article cites several secondary sources from reliable international books, magazines, and newspapers over a span of more than twenty years. All of these sources are independent of the subject. Some of these sources are about the subject and others refer to the subject in a way that establishes its notability (e.g., the Guinness listings). The article is rounded out with details from primary sources, the Society's journal and Web site. In all these respects this article clearly meets the primary criterion.

Finally, let us look at the size issue. The nature of the Society limits its size, so this issue must be given special consideration. Here we can be guided by explicit language in the standard:

Large organizations are likely to have more readily available verifiable information from reliable sources that provide evidence of notability; however, smaller organizations can be notable, just as individuals can be notable, and arbitrary standards should not be used to create a bias favoring larger organizations.

The drafters of this standard clearly intended that size alone not be used as a reason to exclude an article about an organization.

In summary, the article meets the requirements of the relevant Wikipedia standard and should be kept.

Canon (talk) 06:02, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. -- the wub "?!" 13:52, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
• Keep Omni magazine and the Wall Street Journal certainly aren't trivial, and there is too much coverage to claim this group is not notable. As per Canon above, the criteria has been met.Jim Miller (talk) 15:18, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

• Keep Nor is Guinness Book of World Records trivial, having strict, formalised entry requirements of its own. The small number of members cannot reasonably be quoted for deletion, because in this type of society, the notability is inversely proportional to the stringency of entrance. It is for similar reasons that any elite society or location is notable, including eg. Skull and Bones. Bards (talk) 10:29, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

• Keep The changes requested by the closing admin of the first AfD were implemented. The second AfD was procedurally flawed, to put it mildly. No need to rake the over coals for a 3rd time. --Michael C. Price ^talk 12:28, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

• Keep Why does this keep coming up for deletion? Nominator says reason is "notability concerns" but is "neutral" and thus can not make direct argument as to why he thinks it is non-notable. No argument to rebut or discuss. I'll just say then, that I think it's obviously notable.Tstrobaugh (talk) 14:42, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

• Keep The Mega Society is notable as the highest-cutoff high-IQ society with credible admission standards. Mega is widely known; a Google search returns over 4000 hits. The Mega Society has existed for over 25 years. High prestige is attached to Mega membership by members of the high-IQ-societies community. Many issues of the society's journal, *Noesis*, are available at the Mega Society website. Recent issues have included many high-quality articles. Kevin Langdon (talk) 20:20, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

• Keep The notability of Mega is the rearity of what the group represents. This is a clasic case of less being more. Mega Society is also a link in a progression of high IQ societies that start around Mensa at one in 40, and go up past prometheus society at one in 32,000 and onto mega society at one in 1,000,000. A member of Mega Society wrote CTMU as a ToE and this was deleted from wikipedia. 6 votes to 4. This is staggering. Mega Society needs to be kept and as a product of the internet only wikipedia can contain this dynamic. As Obama said it "Yes we can" keep Mega Society. RoddyYoung (talk) 22:10, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

• Delete for the same reasons as presented on the last AfD. As noted above this is recreation of deleted material - the page was salted for a reason and I fail to see why the salting was removed. Also, just like the last AfD none of the keep arguments are even remotely related to our established notability standards. I urge the closer to consider the validity of these arguments in relation to guidelines and keep in mind that G4 applies here. Canon's self-admitted COI and his wikilawyering above makes this a clear cut delete. EconomicsGuy (talk) 13:35, 29 January 2008 (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.