Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bristol Indymedia

This discussion was subject to a deletion review on 2009 February 16.
For an explanation of the process, see Wikipedia:Deletion review.

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 no consensus. MBisanz ^talk 00:07, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Bristol Indymedia[edit]

Fails our notability and reliable source, as almost all of the sources provided are self-published, and the ones that aren't don't say anything that indicates notability. Google News turns up nothing except a minor incident involving the seizure of a server. The article seems to be mostly full of trivial humdrum detail that can only possibly be of interest to people involved with Indymedia themselves. That is not necessarily a reason for deletion in itself but it does indicate that the organisation has no claim to have done anything significant or noteworthy. THE GROOVE 00:47, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Week keep. It seems from the sources (especially the link to the BBC article, even if the link is broken) that this organization was slightly notable even before the server seizure event. The server seizure wasn't what I would call a "minor incident" as it generated a lot of media coverage (the idea that the police can seize an independent web site's servers, effectively taking them out of business, in order to look for information that they have been informed by the owner of the servers does not exist is kind-of scary). JulesH (talk) 09:03, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Weak delete. I am not sure if this scrapes across the notability threshold or not, but if it does, the article is going to need to be rewritten from the ground up based on reliable sources. The writing is highly unencyclopædic to the point of implicating WP:OR and WP:NPOV (e.g. "Opinions vary on their success; for example, previous versions of this Wikipedia entry contained a vitriolic rant which, while ill-suited to Wikipedia's NPOV neutral tone, is indicative of the strong feelings that Indymedia can sometimes evoke"). At any rate, I'm not convinced as to notability beyond the server seizure (see WP:EVENT), of which there is some limited coverage by other indymedia outfits, and nearby news outlets (Wikipedia:EVENT#Local events seems to cover that). If this local indymedia outfit is notable independent of arguably notable events, why Bristol Indymedia but not Scotland Indymedia or Portland Indymedia? (But see WP:WAX.) Virtually every line of the article is cited based on work published by the subject of the article, and the sole independent source - a link to BBC news - turns out to be dead. WP:BURDEN and WP:RELIABLE require more of an article than this. All in all, while I could be pushed back into the keep camp, on evidence currently available, I lean towards deleting. That position is bolstered by my suspicion that even if the subject is notable, Brian Eno was on to something: sometimes the fastest way to get something to where it needs to be is to delete it and start afresh, rather than getting bogged down trying to patch up a defective version. - Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 16:39, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. I don't think you're right about the coverage of the server seizure being local in scope. There are lots of stories about it in media that I would not consider local, e.g.: [1] (a UK site catering to international audiences) [2] (a US web site, although probably not a reliable source) [3] (a London-based professional body) [4] (an Irish legal expert commenting on the legal situation concerning the seizure), [5] (an internationally targeted magazine). JulesH (talk) 09:53, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - I'm not sure what to make of the register in this context - it's london-based, but as you say, caters to a general audience (I skim it once a week myself). A couple of those other sources, I'm really not sure whether they count as sources for purposes of notability (the Irish blog and slashdot), even if they might be reliable sources for content. Still, there's the reg, and there's the magazine you mention, so let's assume those two are good enough to establish notability. Even then, however - notability of what? Those two sources - indeed, every source you've mentioned - is focused on the singular event of the server seizure, not the organization (cf. WP:ORG (an organization "is notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage" (emphasis added))). I could imagine, therefore, having an article on the seizure, but to cover the seizure in an article about the organization (or to give the organization as much coverage as there is in this article in an article about the seizure) would be an WP:UNDUE problem. I still lean towards deletion of this article, I'm afraid.- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 14:20, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, MBisanz ^talk 02:20, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. VEnue magazine has covered this website on several occasions - I will go and look up in the libarray when it stops snowing!. The REgister is a reliable source. I will look for others and do some work on teh article. Jezhotwells (talk) 02:49, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Assuming the Register is a reliable source, the particular story cited is a reliable source for the notability of an event involving this organization - not of the independent notability of the organization itself. Thus, el reg does not cut against this article's nomination for deletion. - Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 04:12, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to Independent Media Center, where the notable event involving Bristol Indymedia is already mentioned. Other content of the article is based on primary sources, and does not assert notability. —Snigbrook 23:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: Insufficient 3rd party sources. I have doubts over The Register being a reliable one. JamesBurns (talk) 05:19, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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.