Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Canadian Automobile Association

Canadian Automobile Association[edit]

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 speedy keep. Nomination withdrawn by nominator, without prejudice to re-nomination in the future. At present, consensus favours keeping this article, albeit one in need of substantial clean-up, including removal of the puffery prose and adherence to WP:NPOV, and/or merging. As well, notability has not yet been established, and while we would need to prove sources exist, there may be further offline sources that should be at least checked before re-nominating. (non-admin closure) Doug Mehus (talk) 22:09, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

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

As written, fails WP:NORG. All sources are primary sources. A Google quotation mark-enclosed phrase search for "Canadian Automobile Association" reveals limited, if any, press mentions of or about the organization—all of it is either passing mentions, which mentions the organization in a tangential way, or which provides coverage of trivial matters such as surveys the organization commissioned or new products and services. As such, fails current and future WP:SIGCOV coverage. I note, too, that few automobile associations meet WP:Notability, with only American Automobile Association attracting enough coverage to meet WP:SIGCOV. Doug Mehus (talk) 21:50, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note this is one of a related series of AFDs:

--Doncram (talk) 20:17, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. Doug Mehus (talk) 21:50, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. Doug Mehus (talk) 21:50, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Added comment As well, article, as written, is written entirely like WP:Advert and is another textbook example of WP:CORPSPAM that slipped through the cracks. Doug Mehus (talk) 21:52, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: As the nominator says, as written, the article does not pass WP:NORG; however, I think it's a reasonable argument that an organization with 6.4 million members is notable, so the problem here is that the article needs to be rewritten - and AFD is not cleanup.Vulcan's Forge (talk) 01:48, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to Vulcan's Forge, 6.4 million members does not equal notable, though. Where's the significant coverage that would substantiate its notability? Note that press releases, or press coverage of press releases, related to company-commissioned surveys, employee departures or hires, tangential mentions, passing mentions, asset sales or purchases, or routine business arrangements, products and services, etc. does not count as significant coverage. With respect, you can't just throw around keep without proven, verifiable, independent, and exhaustive sources that establish its notability. Bearcat even said that we cannot keep articles on the basis that there may be significant sources available; we have to find them and prove they're there. I propose that we delete this article now, without prejudice to its re-creation, until such time as someone can do better (perhaps someone with access to local Ontario area libraries that can access offline sources. -Doug Mehus (talk) 02:00, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The question is whether the organisation is notable, not whether the article is good. Hill Times is not a primary sourceRathfelder (talk) 16:30, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Rathfelder, But where's the sources that justify its notability? Press releases, company-commissioned surveys, tangential or passing mentions, and press coverage related to annual seasonal driving campaigns, executive or personnel changes, and business partnerships are trite and trivial coverage. Also, notability is WP:NOTINHERITED. We don't have to keep this article just because it's been here for a long time. Most automobile clubs are not notable and thus don't have their own articles (case in point being BCAA, which redirects to here, indicating it may have had an article but was deleted due to lack of notability. Doug Mehus (talk) 16:33, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It was founded in 1913, so it would be surprising if there were not print sources. I think with an organisation this old you have to prove its not notable. Rathfelder (talk) 16:36, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Rathfelder, I would remind you, though, we have to prove such sources exist; not that we suspect they exist. Why not delete it, without prejudice to someone with access to print sources eventually re-creating it? As such, it will go through AfC process and be a much better article at that time. Doug Mehus (talk) 16:38, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The component organisations have their own articles. Without this they are less useful. And actually Google gives me lots of references to the CAA. It's often quoted in reputable sources.Rathfelder (talk) 16:46, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Rathfelder, Being quoted in reputable sources doesn't equal WP:Notability, though. The coverage has to be significant (see WP:SIG), and the organization has to have at least five sources that meet all five notability criteria. As such, I haven't been able to find any sources that establish this, using Google web, news, and book searches. Doug Mehus (talk) 16:50, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Since when have five sources been required? And what has WP:SIG got to do with it? Rathfelder (talk) 17:27, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Rathfelder, Oops, sorry, meant WP:SIGCOV, which I see is the same as WP:GNG. Have a look at WP:ORGCRIT for the five source requirement. Doug Mehus (talk) 17:44, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
WP:ORGCRIT does not say 5 sources are required. It says the organisation must have significant coverage in multiple independent, reliable secondary sources.Rathfelder (talk) 17:47, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Rathfelder, Okay, but it doesn't say what constitutes "multiple". I would argue more than only two sources that meet all five criteria should be required. 3 would be barely passable; 4-5 would be what I constitute a minimally passing requirement. Also, WP:ORGDEPTH has to be considered such that if we were to strip out the puff sections from this article, we'd be able to write more than a company perennial company stub. Doug Mehus (talk) 17:50, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep A quick search found the Canadian Encyclopedia entry for Automobile Assocaitions, which gives two paragraphs on CAA history and numbers. With an entity this old and large, there's going to be reliable coverage out there. The Interior (Talk) 19:26, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The Interior, Okay, that's one. Can you find at least two more instead of saying there's got to be more? Doug Mehus (talk) 19:30, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, obviously. This is obviously a huge and notable retail-oriented organization touching millions of persons' lives. I am not bothering to read the nomination or any other discussion, it is not necessary. But for the heck of it, why are you not trying to delete the American Automobile Association? I will probably not see any reply if there is one, though. --Doncram (talk) 18:23, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Doncram, It's not to say keep though without proving there are sufficient, multiple independent and reliable sources exist that take into account WP:ORGDEPTH. You haven't done that. You're just saying, "it's old, it's got a lot of members; therefore, it's notable". I would remind you, and others, that admins consider arguments, not votes. Simply voting keep without supporting evidence could still see the article deleted per WP:NOTVOTE. Doug Mehus (talk) 20:23, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I disagree. It is enough for us to have reasonably certain belief that plenty of sourcing does exist. Someone above said this was created in 1913(?) and there will exist plenty of off-line sourcing. Someone else suggested that to delete you would have to prove sources do not exist, which seems a bit much to me, it is very hard to prove a negative. But you would have to make a case that it is probable or likely that sources do not exist or could not be found if someone wanted to make the effort (e.g. by visiting any big library in Canada). Offhand, nothing you assert along those lines will change my view in a Bayesian updating way, because I hold nearly 100% certainty (prior probability) belief that plenty of history about the organization exists, based on my experience with this kind of stuff (you don't have to accept that I am any kind of expert, but I do happen to have a lot of experience on this kind of stuff). Perhaps it might help you to consider what happens when an article about any historic place listed on a major historical registry gets nominated for deletion: it gets shot down immediately because from experience/knowledge we (or many editors) might know that that the specific registry generally requires lots of documentation to exist, and we don't need to see it to make a decision. Even though technically for U.S. National Register of Historic Places registry listings, say, I know there a few cases where it turns out documentation in fact does not exist, and eventually it may be better to merge/redirect the topic to a list-article row, say. Because without making the effort to request/find offline documentation, we already know in advance that there is very high probability (say 99.5%) that plenty of documentation exists.

And, wp:AFDISNOTFORCLEANUP, so please don't be too strident about demanding that others come forward with sources that you like, right away, now. It is okay for you to put a negative tag or two on the article as a whole, or in a few specific places, calling for more explicit sourcing though. Hope this helps. Sincerely, --Doncram (talk) 20:52, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Doncram, I disagree that AfD can't be used for merger proposals that generate little traction, but arguably, what I should've just done was been bold and merged the articles, fixed up as best I could, and tagged the articles. I was mainly hoping to delete the redirects, though. That said, if this is kept, I'm willing to work on cleaning them up, removing the obvious puffery and lack of WP:NPOV and merging them. Doug Mehus (talk) 20:59, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Okay i think now we are not far apart. If by your first phrase you mean something like:

When a merger proposal is not likely to attract sufficient attention to establish a new consensus, but there could still exist opposition, opening an AFD can be helpful to get the decision made reasonably well (like because the AFD system attracts regular AFD editors and usually establishes a pretty good consensus)

then yes I agree. Yes also about BRD here, I think, though I see some good advice about using BRD on mergers, or not, at your Talk page. I hear you wanted to delete the redirects, but I don't see why you would want that, and IMO that would be wrong because a) we should seek alternatives to deletion (see wp:ATD?) and b) doing so would lose the content and credit attribution that otherwise is kept in the edit history. Useful for meeting our obligation to past contributors, and for allowing me or anyone else to review the merger you might do and maybe move over a little more or not. I see elsewhere u say you could have created those articles in 10 minutes, but I don't necessarily agree, and even if so then it is still proper to leave credit in place to the original editors for having identified the topic as notable and for their doing what they did, including making judgment about what to include or not out of more material than we can see. And that leaving that credit in place is more important if it turns out in the future that the article should be re-established, say if plenty of good sourcing is found or some majorly newsworthy event happens. I think we agree about going forward. Thank you for all your consideration about these topics and the AFDs. I am glad you are contributing. This is probably all for me. cheers, --Doncram (talk) 21:36, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Doncram, yes, I can see we're not that far apart, though I'd still disagree on your use of speedy keep in the other articles. Merge can be used in AfD discussions or, if you feel on keeping it but don't have an opinion as to standalone or merging, then you could just keep. My understanding is "speedy keep" has special meaning, per Speedy Keep. Doug Mehus (talk) 21:52, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Doncram, Where I'd disagree is on the need to credit prior editors. Articles are routinely deleted, re-created, revised, and the like, without necessarily attributing the original creator. Content on Wikipedia is licensed under a CreativeCommons ShareAlike (same, or better) license terms, not necessarily with the requirement to attribute. Case in point is other sources, including Everipedia, have re-used Wikipedia content but don't necessarily highlight the preceding editing history. Doug Mehus (talk) 21:57, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Content is licensed under a CreativeCommons-Attribution-ShareAlike license, but that means only crediting Wikipedia, not the individual editors. By editing Wikipedia, you agree to give up your claim of separate attribution. Doug Mehus (talk) 22:00, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Just want to make something clear regarding the number of sources, per WP:MULTSOURCES, the number of sources required is not set in stone. It is the judgment of the community on what multiple means. Rollidan (talk) 21:20, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Rollidan, Yes, thanks...has there been any discussion in terms of what constitutes multiple sources? I'd argue more than two; three that meet WP:ORGCRIT would acceptable, but 4-5 would be better. At the same time, WP:CORPDEPTH or WP:ORGDEPTH, as applicable, need to be considered. Doug Mehus (talk) 21:49, 17 October 2019 (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.