Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies

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. A pure count of heads gives 2 for delete, and one who doesn't explicitly come down on either side. (LEvalyn raises questions about the reasons for deletion, but does not explicitly support either keeping or deletion, and indeed does explicitly say that his intention is more that he "wanted to make sure people were not too hasty with a delete". He makes such points as "I strongly suspect more coverage exists" and "I still think a thorough search might turn up some good sources", but we don't make decisions on the basis of editors' speculations as to what sources might exist: see WP:MUST.) Consequently, although it would have been preferable to have had more participation in the discussion,there is a clear consensus for deletion. As for the suggestion of redirecting, any editor is free to create a redirect if they think it appropriate. JBW (talk) 21:32, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies[edit]

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Non-notable subentity of the University of Toronto. See WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES, generally subentities of a university are not considered notable unless they've made significant contributions to their field. The cited contributions made by this entity don't seem very major, they provided a small amount of assistance on Apollo 13 and received a minor award in an unremarkable press release from a museum. They didn't actually produce Canada's first space telescope on their own; that was a project they collaborated on according to MOST (spacecraft). The only significant contribution appears to be James DeLaurier's ornithopters, which have Wikipedia articles of their own. But I don't believe UTIAS inherits notability just because they created the first verifiably human powered ornithopter (UTIAS Snowbird) or maybe created the first engine powered ornithopter (appears to have been the first remotely piloted engine-powered ornithopter [1]).
In terms of WP:NORG this entity fails those requirements as well. Most coverage appears to be brief and passing mentions of "of non-notable awards received by the organization", mainly the one they received from the Canadian Air and Space Museum for the Apollo 13 thing. Much of the other coverage I could find is for the ornithopter, but aside from brief mentions of who supported the ornithopter the sources don't really cover the institute that much. The remaining coverage either briefly mentions UTIAS or is produced by the school itself, including an entire book length history made by UofT called "Pathway to Excellence: UTIAS, the First Twenty-five Years". Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 16:17, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 16:17, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Engineering-related deletion discussions. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 16:17, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Ontario-related deletion discussions. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 16:17, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ✗plicit 23:45, 9 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 11:12, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. No evidence that a WP:BEFORE has been done. I don't have time for one myself, but since the Canadian Air and Space museum is more than just "a museum" (it is the premiere cultural heritage institute for the relevant topic) and because NASA is not Canadian (making it very unusual for UTIAS to be involved with them!), I strongly suspect more coverage exists than is cited in the article. The book Pathway to Excellence received at least one review, by DG Ivey, so I would not entirely discount it either. UTIAS may have been more notable in the 1970s during the space race than it is now (I am not in the right circles to know) but notability is not temporary. As a collegiate university and the largest institution in Canada, U of T is likely to have more independently notable sub-entities than any other school in Canada. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:29, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I would discount Pathway to Excellence given that it's written by UTIAS. While I'm sure it's a good book, it's not independent of the subject. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 23:01, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Chess: Very true, but the review of the book is independent. I was able to turn up the review here. But it looks more like SIGCOV of Gordon Patterson than UTIAS, really, though it refers to UTIAS as "a remarkable institute." I still think a thorough search might turn up some good sources, given the 930 hits I get in ProQuest newspapers for "University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies" -- there sure look like a lot of articles like this one (on my first page), which is a full page on Barry French getting a joint grant with NASA to design the Viking orbiter. That mentions UTIAS a few times, and some of the others might go into more detail about UTIAS as well. But I confess I haven't found any really solid SIGCOV to explicitly support a "keep" yet. In which case, it would be good to identify some merge targets: maybe Patterson's bio? ~ L 🌸 (talk) 01:37, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's worth noting that Gordon Patterson, per his wikipedia article, was awarded the Order of Canada for founding UTIAS. Yes, that's explicitly a point for his notability, but you get national orders for doing notable things. -- asilvering (talk) 07:10, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: Similar case to Munk School of Global Affairs. Individual/stand-alone page is unwarranted. - Hatchens (talk) 17:50, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't actually think UTIAS is very similar to the Munk school-- that's why I !voted a strong keep for Munk, but here mostly wanted to make sure people were not too hasty with a delete. UTIAS is definitely less notable and less widely covered than the Munk school (though I don't have a firm opinion either way on whether that makes it non-notable). I think it is best to consider these AfDs seperately.~ L 🌸 (talk) 08:29, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: What do folks think of redirecting to University of Toronto Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering as WP:ATD?
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Missvain (talk) 02:51, 25 December 2021 (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.