Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Recharge (magazine) (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 no consensus. Sandstein 09:32, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Recharge (magazine)

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This article was recently deleted in an Afd that saw little participation. After a discussion on my talk page, I've decided to undelete it and reopen a second deletion discussion. I am Neutral for the purpose of this discussion, and I won't be relisting or closing the debate. Mark Arsten (talk) 04:40, 2 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I was the author of the deleted page and I must admit that is difficult to find secondary sources for a publication, for the simple reasons that publications tend not to write about other publications (unless they have done something controversial). Therefore it is hard to prove 'notability' using purely online sources. As the note at the bottom of Wikipedia:Notability (periodicals) states: "A periodical that is considered reliable enough to be used regularly as a reliable source by a large number of other works (especially scholarly and other academic works) is considered notable enough to have an article." The publication in question has been used 80 times (at the last count) as a source on other Wikipedia articles, and a quick search of Google Books shows that is often used as a source by academic authors. In the industry that this trade publication writes about, Recharge is one of the biggest, most-respected and most talked-about players, but that is not something tangible that can be proven by clicking on a single URL. Having said that, I've just found this link, which describes Recharge as an 'internationally-renowned renewable energy publication'. Does this count? :) LAC75 (talk) 19:15, 2 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Another thought: would it help to provide links that show how major news outlets have sourced stories from Recharge? Here's one example from the BBC (click here - see the fifth and sixth paragraphs). I'm interested to know what people think. LAC75 (talk) 19:18, 2 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Or what about major companies or organisations talking about articles in Recharge (rather than about Recharge per se)? Would that help show notability? LAC75 (talk) 19:33, 2 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've added a couple of lines to the Recharge_(magazine) page that support its notability (in line with what I wrote above). LAC75 (talk) 09:59, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000^(talk) 03:17, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000^(talk) 03:17, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I understand that LAC75's edits to the articles are good faith, but I think the attempts to show notability of the article make the page look more like an advert. I'm open to the ideas of notability given above by LAC75 - but the article is not ok as encyclopedic content as it stands - currently the article looks somewhat like promotion/puffery. The new links are either the companies own press releases, and a award of questionable value from a industry award body (ie www.windmade.org). That material needs to go.

I accept that the magazine has been listed as a source by other reliable publications. I don't think we have enough significant coverage at present - Wikipedia:Notability_(periodicals)#Criteria actually states - The periodical has had regular and significant usage as a citation in academic or scholarly works - this is extended in scope in the footnote - , and I don't think the coverage is yet significant.Prof.Haddock (talk) 18:22, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Prof. Haddock. Those new links were meant to show that "The periodical has made significant impact in its field", as stated in Wikipedia:Notability_(periodicals)#Criteria. I thought the quotes from the Siemens executive would count as an independent third-party source. They may be contained in a press release, but they were not written by the author of that press release. Would they be acceptable if that press release had been published on Siemens' website? It might be for all I know. I also thought the fact that a major multinational like Siemens was effectively buying 9,000 subscriptions would show Recharge's notability (which is, after all, the reason you want to delete the article).

I think you have also misunderstood what Windmade is. It's not an industry award body, as you stated, it is a consumer label (like Fairtrade) that is backed by the United Nations (and others) to show consumers that a product is made using 100% renewable energy. I would have thought that would count as a reliable secondary source.

Can I also ask Prof.Haddock when he thinks coverage becomes significant? Does he have a number of citations in mind? 100, 200? I'm not trying to be facetious, I'm just curious because 'significant' is so subjective.

One last point, I wrote the Recharge article because the Wikipedia article for Windpower Monthly had been sitting there for three years without any secondary references. Windpower Monthly is not well thought of in the renewables industry, whereas Recharge has kind of been setting the industry agenda in recent years (it hosts a lot of important forums, has a big presence at all the major conferences, etc). If you delete the Recharge article, you should surely delete the Windpower Monthly one as well... LAC75 (talk) 18:56, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There are over 4 million articles on WP. Please read WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 19:22, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I particularly liked the bits that said: "Dismissing such concerns simply by pointing to this essay is inappropriate" and "While these comparisons are not a conclusive test, they may form part of a cogent argument; an entire comment should not be dismissed because it includes a comparative statement like this" LAC75 (talk) 12:39, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Magazines are typically very difficult to find sources for so I give extra weight to even small evidence. This article asserts a number of lines of evidence of notability. -- GreenC 18:09, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The current tone of the article is not a reason to delete, but for tagging and improvement. Claims for importance on obscure topics often take the form of praise by third parties, this is hardly surprising. LAC75 has established notability by the GNG. --Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 17:13, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Agree that the article needs work but notability has been established nonetheless. -AuthorAuthor (talk) 20:04, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Strong delete It's perhaps a revolutionary notion, but I actually looked at each and every one of the "sources" in the article. They vary from press releases ("source: Recharge"), in-passing mentions (sometimes in an "article" of two lines"), non-independent sources, blog-posts, and whatnot. What I did not find were independent reliable sources. In short, there is no indication of any notability at all, and after the large effort by editors to find sources, this most probably means that there aren't any. --Randykitty (talk) 20:16, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The European Wind Energy Association, Windmade and the Renewable Energy Association are serious, reliable and independent organisations, and your declaration that they are not would be very insulting to them. LAC75 (talk) 08:58, 10 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, -- Trevj (talk • contribs) 02:09, 10 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(respond to comments above about sources) - They're industry trade associations and advocacy organisation - their independence is debatable. I was also wanting to raise the source "Windmade" - Henrik Kuffner who has positive things to say about the magazine appears to have some association with the magazine, including writing for it, and at the same time the magazine gives him a level of coverage, including pencil portraits, that are out of scale with his prominence on the rest of the web.

The European Wind Energy Association EWEA is a bigger org., but in this case the EWEA has nothing to say about the magazine - they just produced some documentation for trade shows. This is worthwhile, but it isn't the sort of stuff that makes a topic notable. I don't get to be notable because I wrote articles for a notable website (wikipedia) -same here.

Subjectively what I am currently seeing in the article is a sort of circular backslapping behaviour that whilst not offensive or objectionable, doesn't have much in the way of encyclopedic content.Prof.Haddock (talk) 23:47, 10 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In answer to Prof Haddock, EWEA does have something to say about Recharge: "Recharge is the multi-channel news service of choice for senior renewable energy professionals" (see http://www.ewea.org/offshore2013/whats-on/recharge-onsite-keeping-know/). And the remarks about Henrik Kuffner having 'some association with' and 'the magazine gives him a level of coverage...' is not really fair. Recharge has a 'Thought Leaders Club' in which members (all senior industry executives) can write one-off columns for the magazine. I believe they use a pencil portrait to accompany each column. Kuffner is probably the least well known of the Thought Leaders. Others include Tulsi Tanti and Henrik Stiesdal (see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ice_thomas/Workbench), who is a bit of a wind industry legend. The fact is that a lot of these 'Thought Leaders' are pretty influential people and would not bother unless Recharge had a significant impact on the industry.LAC75 (talk) 23:17, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete An interesting publication, but I don't see anything in the article indicating notability. As has been noted above, the article is based largely on press releases and other promotional material. DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 11:43, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep As others have said - it's an industry publication and magazines are hard to find sources actually *about* the magazine when it's..well..a magazine! SarahStierch (talk) 00:39, 19 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That is true, but that doesn't mean that there never are any sources about magazines. Other magazines sometimes publish reviews of a new magazine, for example. And we do need a minimum of sources to build a neutral article on. We manage to get all that for many magazines, but not for this one. I don't see any reason why we should give carte blanche to a magazine, just because it's..well..a magazine... ;-) --Randykitty (talk) 11:46, 19 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep TI wouldn't limit our coverage of trade magazines to the few that are very famous, or the somewhat laerger number that happen by accident to get some sourcing. I think recognition as a major international source in an industry is probably the best way of judging, and I think that's been shown here. (I don;t think I'm being particularly inclusive--I do not feel comfortable with accepting major national source as sufficient) (Another way of looking at it that has been suggested is that if it would be a RS for WP articles, we should include it. This would be a significant except to the general concept of notability, on the basis of usefulness to the readers of the encyclopedia. Usefulness to the encyclopedia and its readers can be a good reason for making exceptions, but I'm not ready to go that far at this point.) DGG ( talk ) 03:31, 20 December 2013 (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.