Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/GreenFacts (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. --MelanieN (talk) 03:51, 30 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

GreenFacts

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

I've taken a closer look at the article after some prodding from User:Deselliers about his/her desire to use a primary source. Taking a closer look, I see the article is primarily cited to the org's website and has only 1 independent source that has just 1 paragraph on the org. Google Books searches reveal a few brief mentions, Google News is completely empty and my library's archives only show press release reposts.

Some unreliable sources accuse the org of being a front group, which I believe is what the Funding section is alluding to, because much of its funding comes from corporate interests. However, without actual secondary sources, this is all original research and we cannot confidently create a neutral article on this org, or even know what a neutral article would look like (whether it should be identified as a front group or not).

A prior AfD from 2007 resulted in KEEP, but no sources were provided that verify notability. Note to closer: This article apparently has a long history of COI editing and if it is a front group (I'm not saying it is, but am withholding judgement), you can expect astroturfing of this discussion; something to look out for. CorporateM (Talk) 15:26, 13 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

delete per WP:Golden rule. Jytdog (talk) 16:22, 13 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Belgium-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:52, 14 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:52, 14 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:52, 14 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Not sure how it ever passed an AfD, but I guess standards were lower in 2007. Fails WP:GNG and WP:ORG. Joseph2302 (talk) 20:07, 19 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
A Google search of “GreenFacts” (with quotes) gave about 98,000 results, some of the ones I found relevant among first ones being:

- Google search: 43 mentions on the UNEP website

- Google search: 2,360 mentions on the European Commission website

- The Global Mechanism (a body of the UNCCD)

- Belgian Walloon environment ministry

- DIVERSITAS International (a Biodiversity NGO)

- The Association of American Geographers (AAG)

- La Banque des savoirs

- European Centre for Ecotoxicology and Toxicology of Chemicals

- http://phys.org/news/2006-04-chernobyl-years.html

- http://forestportal.efi.int/view.php?id=1107

- http://www.toxipedia.org/display/toxipedia/PCBs

- http://www.eoearth.org/profile/Green.facts/

Indeed, for some reason, none of these relevant articles are referred to in the article about GreenFacts. I was actually trying to improve it with external sources when my edits were reverted by CorporateM, which started our discussion in the talk page. Regarding the accusations of front group by some sources, I was managing GreenFacts when they started, and we then had reasons to believe that it was part of a smear campaign, possibly organized by an industry-funded organization that disliked one of the scientific report that we had summarized.

Hoping this will help clarifying the issue --Jacques de Selliers (talk) 21:05, 19 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Deselliers. I still don't this represents an understanding of Wikipedia's principles for sourcing. Maybe someone else at AfD will do a better job explaining. CorporateM (Talk) 21:10, 19 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, CorporateM I don't understand what would be more credible references than, for instance, 43 mentions on the UNEP website, 2,360 mentions on the European Commission website, an article by a body of the UNCCD... Would the following references be better?

- http://www.iupac.org/publications/ci/2006/2802/2802-pp12-14.pdf an article by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC)

- http://www.unccd.int/en/programmes/Capacity-building/CBW/Resources/Pages/Publication-Page.aspx?ItemID=62 A referral by the UNCCD

- Six referrals on the website of the Millennium Assessment

What else would help? Thanks, Jacques de Selliers (talk) 22:16, 19 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Deselliers, you need to go away and read Wikipedia's Golden Rule and its lengthier cousin, the General Notability Guideline. These describe the principles that guide judgements as to whether an organization is notable. Broadly, an article subject requires significant coverage, in reliable sources, that are independent of that subject. Very few of the links you have added above actually meet those criteria. I'm not even going to start on the Google hits, as Google is not in itself a source and sheer numbers do not denote the significance of a source. I do not have the time or inclination to trawl through each of those hits and work out exactly what Google is seeing, but a casual glance suggests that most are trivial. Of the specific sites given, an awful lot of your supposed "mentions" and "referrals" are actually either directory or catalogue listings (which just show that something exists) or are inclusions in a list of references (which just shows that the organization writes stuff). Based on those criteria pretty much any scientist or scientific organization that actually publishes papers would be considered notable. As for your links from UNCCD, these are not independent as that body is actually funding GreenFacts, and at least one of the links you have provided is simply a press release from that organization stating that fact. The UN funds an awful lot of research projects across a huge range of fields; merely receiving their money doesn't make the organization notable. Only one of your submissions above is slightly more interesting, and that is the feature article which appeared in Chemistry International. This is exactly the sort of significant (in that it is a detailed piece that describes the organization) coverage in a source that might be considered reliable (in that IUPAC is an esteemed international organization itself, and the magazine is produced by a professional publishing company) that may change people's minds. However, the article reads like a gushing promotional item rather than an independent critique and analysis of GreenFacts, and that alone raised many red flags regarding the circumstances behind its writing. I note that Chemistry International accepts Feature Article submission from all and sundry, and that the article's author (Manuel Carmona Yebra) is listed as having been GreenFacts' Communications Officer until shortly before that article was published. Therefore, I am about as certain as I can be that this was an article submitted by a GreenFacts employee and therefore fails (and, oh, how it fails) the independent test again. So-called native advertising and advertorial can be difficult to spot when done well. This piece was easy. Pyrop e 00:33, 22 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hey @Pyrope:. Just FYI, the article was started by @Cacycle:, whose userpage says they are an administrator. The original contained the phrase "GreenFacts has many characteristics of an industry-funded front organization" cited to sourcewatch. It's extremely unlikely the article was started by an employee at the company. CorporateM (Talk) 02:24, 22 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@CorporateM: My comments were concerning the provenance of the article in Chemistry International. Apologies if that wasn't entirely apparent. Pyrop e 02:32, 22 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oh my bad. Thanks for clarifying. Sometimes I'm multi-tasking and am not paying as close attention as I should! CorporateM (Talk) 02:34, 22 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for clarifying, @Pyrope:. Considering the mission of GreenFacts, I had thought that producing scientific summaries for notable organizations such as the European Commission and UN organizations (such as UNCCD, the Millennium Assessment and the IAASTD) would be a valid notability credential, but I am not a Wikipedia expert. So if this is a consensus view, I humbly accept it. I would however be pleased to hear the opinion of other Wikipedia experts. Thanks again, --Jacques de Selliers (talk) 12:14, 22 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

To put this on an intentionally trivial footing, somebody probably also screws in light-bulbs for those organizations as well, but we don't have articles on John Smith (UN janitor), do we? The fact that your organization produces materials for and provide services to notable organizations doesn't confer notability on you (see WP:NOTINHERITED). Writing papers and being cited by others is a run-of-the-mill part of being involved in the scientific professions. Many tens of thousands of scientists write original papers for esteemed international journals each year, and thousands of these are used by the UN, MA and others to prepare their reports. For any entity with an article in Wikipedia, including scientists and science communication organizations, it isn't the work that makes them notable, it is the notice taken by the world at large that makes them notable. Pyrop e 16:40, 22 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for these new clarification, @Pyrope:. Again, I am not a Wikipedia expert, so if this is a consensus view, I humbly accept it.

However, I'm not sure that your comparison with John Smith (UN janitor) is relevant. Even if he were the best light-bulbs in-screwer of all UN organizations, I don't think his website would have 58,460 Daily Pageviews (according to http://mysite.reviews/stats/greenfacts.org), or that it would be cited 98,000 times by Google, including in over 700 books and 900 scholarly articles. :) Jacques de Selliers (talk) 14:43, 23 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: I'm extending this another week to give people a chance to evaluate the list of sources presented late in the debate. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:05, 21 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, -- RoySmith (talk) 17:05, 21 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with the above, lots of primary sources and so fails WP:GNG, therefore still support deletion. Joseph2302 (talk) 00:38, 22 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: Having looked through Deselliers' list of supposed reliable sources above, pretty much all of them fail at least part of WP:42. In digging around I found very little that suggests GreenFacts has had any impact on society, and nobody within the mainstream media has taken a blind bit of notice. See comments above for further details. Pyrop e 00:42, 22 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment GreenFacts.org is cited in a significant number of books - and indeed we refer to it many times on Wikipedia. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:30, 22 June 2015 (UTC).[reply]
Comment: CorporateM: The article was 'not' started by me, it was in fact started by GreenFacts employees and was an obvious attempt to give the impression of an independent grass-roots eco-NGO when in fact it was an industry funded lobby group. I then edited the article accordingly and, if I remember correctly, a small edit war started as they realized that this had backfired for them... I am not sure about their notability, but I guess, it is important to have independent and objective information about lobby and front groups easily accessible online. Cacycle (talk) 11:02, 25 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I just double-checked, but the editing history does verify that you started the article in March 2005. You used the edit summary "created" [1] and it was the first recorded edit on the page. CorporateM (Talk) 16:02, 25 June 2015 (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.