Talk:Little Baby Face Foundation

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[edit] Why

Why was this marked Spam? In what way does it differ from an initial page describing any Nonprofit? Gromlakh, if you don't like the wording, edit it. Don't mark the page as SPAM just because you don't like my first effort at writing it.

[edit] CSD

You have two problems. The first is that it's very much written as an advertisement. Rather than neutrally describing the purposes of this group, the article as written uses words like "world-class surgeons", "transforms the lives and faces", "finest facilities", etc. That's sales speak.

Second, as currently written, it's a blatant copyright vio from the official website. Copyright vio is also a criteria for speedy deletion. Gromlakh (talk) 18:28, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


I thought about the words you comment on. The problem with your complaint there is that they are each literally accurate and part of what distinguishes this organizations from other similar organizations. They are not offering facial surgery to those who can't afford it, they are offering the best facial surgery to those who can't afford it. The issue of copying from the website makes a bit more sense. I can work on that. Stephen123 2008 (talk) 18:37, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd suggest reading up on the Manual of Style, then, as well as the guidelines on peacocking. Right now the article doesn't pass, but I can see how it might at some point if you could clean it up and find some reliable, verifiable third-party resources to cite to to establish notability. The copyright vio has to go immediately, though. Gromlakh (talk) 18:40, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
I've removed the CSD nom for now, as well as the introductory paragraph that was a copyright vio. It's still not a keepable article in its current form, but that will give you a bit of time to expand it. If you can do so, I'm sure it'll be a welcome addition to Wikipedia. Gromlakh (talk) 18:43, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
How about this text? What do you consider a source to establish notability? News articles? Stephen123 2008 (talk) 18:58, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
That takes care of the copyright vio, but you're still peacocking like mad. Just tell the reader what they offer. Instead of saying it's the "best", cite to a reference that shows some award they won or something. Otherwise, the article just reads like an advertisement for the foundation.
Yes, newspaper/magazine/etc. articles would be nice. Right now, everything on the page is original research. You have to remember that the standard for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. Even if everything on the page is "true", if there is no reference on the page from someone other than you or the company that says it it's original research. Find a couple of articles from the New York Times, Post, or some other reliable media company that at least mentions them. If they're actually notable enough to be included in Wikipedia, I'm sure you won't have much trouble finding a few places where they get mentioned in the media. Gromlakh (talk) 19:04, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
OK, I edited the language and added 3 external sources. Stephen123 2008 (talk) 19:26, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, you haven't added any external sources. You've added three external links -- two of which are controlled directly and solely by LBFF, and the other is an interview with your PR firm. You need something that's written by an independent outfit.

I've found two news articles mentioning LBFF. Both are in from local/NY media: "Local foundation gives the gift of hearing", which appears to be an average human-interest story about a patient that LBFF (and others) helped, and a single sentence when they decided to honor someone who had also won a Telly Award. There aren't enough reliable, verifiable sources to expand this article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:57, 4 February 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Notability

I have nothing against LBFF -- I wish them all the luck in the world -- but I think it's fair to point out that they are a really small organization right now, and this isn't likely to dramatically change any time soon (=in the next five years). Here's some information that other editors might consider relevant:

  • Impact: A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that about 150,000 babies worldwide are born each year with facial deformities related to LBFF's mission; they arranged surgery for exactly twenty-one children and teens during 2007. This is about average for them: their website claims that they have helped about 100 kids in the last six years. Compare this to The Smile Train, which has performed almost 300,000 of these surgeries in the last nine years, and Operation Smile, which has performed more than 100,000 surgeries in the last 25 years. Helping anyone is certainly noble, but helping 0.014% of the people who need it is probably not notable enough to merit inclusion in a worldwide encyclopedia.
  • Activity: They have three part-time employees, maybe two dozen volunteers at any given moment, an annual budget (on a three-year average) of about $200K, and total assets of about the same amount. They get maybe three contacts a week from healthcare professionals, and maybe three contacts a day from families looking for more information.

I suggest forgetting for a moment that this is a noble charity, and just looking at it as an organization. Would Wikipedia normally accept an article on, say, a medical clinic that arranged a single surgery every couple of weeks? How about a clinic whose total revenues were less than half what one Manhattan attorney makes in a year? Or one that only heard from three potential patients each day?

If LBFF is specifically associated with a larger organization (e.g., all the surgeries are performed at the same hospital), then they might merit a sentence in a larger article, but I'm not feeling the notability here for a stand-alone article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:57, 4 February 2008 (UTC)