Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/SALt lamp (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. There is a clear consensus that this is not an appropriate topic for a standalone article. While some interest was expressed in merging, it was not clear what the appropriate target would be, or indeed if such even exists. If a consensus is reached for where material should be merged and there's still interest in doing that, let me know and I'm happy to facilitate that. Seraphimblade Talk to me 01:09, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

SALt lamp

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SALt lamp (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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I'm nominating this article for deletion as it doesn't appear to meet WP:GNG and possibly WP:V too. I've reviewed the references and the only reliable source that has a non-trivial mention of the product is The Enquirer Inquirer (WP:SIGCOV). There's no reliable evidence other than this eight year old article that the product even exists, as their web page no longer seems active. At the very least, this doesn't meet WP:NSUSTAINED. 99% fad-free (talk) 09:47, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Merge into an article or list that deals with startup companies/inventions in the Philippines or SEA. I don't doubt that this product exists, a lamp powered by a Metal-air battery is nothing new. The citation in the lede has more on the technology. Most of the initial interest seems to have come from inaccurate statements (including one by Obama) that the lamp runs on saltwater. I'm not seeing any coverage from revent times. I think per WP:NPRODUCT it should be merged into a different article. HansVonStuttgart (talk) 07:02, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. There's no new or interesting technology here. The energy is derived from corroding a piece of metal; and the promotional descriptions downplay that. Fifty years ago, newspapers ran occasional articles on how someone had invented a "lemon-powered" battery, made by inserting two electrodes of different metals into a lemon. Same idea, same deceptive description. Maproom (talk) 07:17, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom. Not everything Obama talks about automatically becomes notable. Actually I felt like the bad guy with my relatives and friends in Facebook when I explained to them what this "miracle" lamp is all about. After a week or so, everyone in just forgot about it. --Lenticel (talk) 12:37, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete mostly due to failing WP:NSUSTAINED and WP:SIGCOV as well as the above delete comments. I don't think this is a useful redirect term either. The article comes across trying really hard to use instances of name drops to make it seem of more lasting significance. The only two sources that caught my eye for a bit were the Inquirer source mentioned earlier, but that's an opinion piece, and Rappler.[1] The latter pretty much says this isn't anything unique. KoA (talk) 18:13, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep or Merge - Coverage is from a span of about two years. That's fine for NSUSTAINED. SIGCOV and NSUSTAINED are, of course, separate requirements -- as long as we have significant coverage and sustained coverage, we have GNG. After the initial wave of coverage in 2015-16, the project continued to pop up in Buzzfeed listlcles, La Vanguardia, and Nikkei. That this shouldn't have received attention doesn't mean it didn't; I'd argue the same for most of the meme/youtuber/influencer/fictional elements articles we have. That said, I'm not opposed to mentioning it elsewhere per WP:NOPAGE if that makes sense. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 19:12, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Those three articles are all in 2017, which might just be the tail end/lagging indicator. IMHO that doesn't reach the threshold for WP:NSUSTAINED. I don't believe that this alone fails WP:GNG, but it should be taken in context with other concerns. 99% fad-free (talk) 00:16, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Coverage across three years means NSUSTAINED is unequivocally not an issue. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 00:52, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    My interpretation understanding of WP:NSUSTAINED is that encyclopaedic content should still be relevant after the event indefinitely. Either by press articles, talks at conferences, lectures, books, backyard BBQs (refer to @Lenticel's comment above, e.g. "Hey, remember that SALt lamp product from the Inquirer article?", "You mean Himalayan salt lamps?", "No..." or "Hey, remember Phenomenology of the Spirit?", "Yeah! Hegel's the bomb!"), posts in forums, etc. Not going into whether each of the articles were significant or not (that's a whole other discussion) there hasn't even been any insignificant coverage or tertiary sources for five years, let alone WP:SIGCOV. Depending on the reliability and significance of the secondary sources, these may have a longer shelf-life. e.g. A book written a hundred years ago may still count as WP:NSUSTAINED if it's in libraries, still being sold, still being read, etc. Likewise, a really popular blog article that's still being read years later might be a good secondary source if there's still a buzz around it through tertiary sources (e.g. comments on the blog article, articles about the blog, high PageRank). Unfortunately, no one is talking about or paying attention to this any longer except for us. If we are the only ones that care, it probably doesn't need to be Wikipedia. I guess my argument boils down to WP:NOTEVERYTHING. 99% fad-free (talk) 01:24, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Rhododendrites, maybe I missed something, so what sources were you basing SIGCOV off of? I mentioned Rappler above as what I thought was the most in-depth article, but that was more of a "SALt got a little attention at a conference, here's how metal-air battery lighting works in general." KoA (talk) 14:51, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I cannot vote on this AFD because of conflict-of-interest issues. However, I would like to raise some glaring issues that need to be addressed in this article, should the consensus is to have this kept.
  • Much of what is left here appeart to be PR-ish and may need to be rewritten, in case this is kept.
  • I am aware of some criticisms related to the topic itself. Putting them back in---in case they existed in previous editions but were removed---should put some balance on how the article is written. (I need to look it up again if needed, but I'm aware that there were articles that were critical of both the alleged product and the marketing behind it.)
    • I will not be surprised if those criticims, if they existed before, were removed by Mijeno---more on this later---or another user sympathetic to her, as IRL Mijeno was known to block people critical of the project, in order to keep social media accounts related to the SALt lamp free of criticism. (I was one of the persons she blocked.)
  • At this point, from what I can remember, the fifteen minutes of fame that Mijeno enjoyed on this SALt lamp project has already passed and no one cares about this anymore. So the level of importance this article has, from the standpoint of notability within the Philippines, already diminished to a low level or even non-notable.
  • I'm saving this for last. There were significant edits from an account whose only contributions were on this article. One of those edits were additional details about Aisa Mijeno. I have strong reasons to believe that this account is owned by Aisa Mijeno herself, based on the full name displayed on this (public) Pinterest account that has the same name "analoguechick" (archive.org mirror of the said Pinterest account). Had this been noticed early on, the said account should have received a warning regarding editing an article with a potential conflict of interest.

--- Tito Pao (talk) 10:31, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What about User:Saltaim? This seems fairly obvious. If there is WP:Sockpuppetry going on perhaps it should be reported to WP:Sockpuppet investigations. 99% fad-free (talk) 11:34, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure if it's related to Mijeno's account, as Mijeno's "SALt Lamp" was not marketed in the Philippines as "saltaim/salt aim" AFAIK. (It also doesn't help that there were some edits which looked like it came from Pakistan, based on the edit history messages, so that only adds to the confusion. This "analogue-chick" account was the one that I was able to track down to Mijeno's other social media account.) --- Tito Pao (talk) 13:56, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I mean "Salt" being the product and "aim" presumably being the letters standing for AIsa Mijeno. There is a possibility of User:Saltaim being a WP:Sockpuppet account for User:Analogue-chick. 99% fad-free (talk) 22:44, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fair point, will have a look at any other suspicious accounts that edited this article and then will file a report in one go. --- Tito Pao (talk) 05:01, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The saltaim user is blocked though. Tyw7 (🗣️ Talk) — If (reply) then (ping me) 01:57, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@User:Tyw7, there has been more vandalism after that user that has also been reverted with those accounts blocked too. That said, there has been nothing recent. If you are suggesting that a WP:SPI is a waste of resources, I take your point. 99% fad-free (talk) 23:46, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting as opinion here is divided. If this article was Merged, what would the target article be?
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 16:22, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to LED lighting or part of the conference where Obama mentioned it, either one seems fine. Oaktree b (talk) 19:25, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The main issue I have with merge is that it kicks the can down the road to other editors who may decide it's non-notable and delete it anyway. However, if the consensus is merge then I won't object. 99% fad-free (talk) 10:34, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, my vote is now delete. 99% fad-free (talk) 10:35, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, CycloneYoris talk! 04:41, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'll echo comments concerned about merges above as I review this after the second relisting. There isn't really a clear concise topic from the notability standpoint that led to my earlier delete comment (this product wasn't inherently unique), but I did not think a merge/redirect was worthwhile because there isn't a clear home for the brief attention this particular company got with their iteration of this product. Had there been a clear redirect target I would have said redirects are WP:CHEAP and just suggested that. This looks more and more like a WP:NEOLOGISM term though, so I do think we need to follow the policy and delete rather than try to retain SALt lamp in some fashion. KoA (talk) 19:44, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    At the risk of dragging this out further, I think that (if merge was the outcome) the appropriate place to do so would be List of Filipino inventions and discoveries#Modern technologies. But, I still think the editors of the page wouldn't appreciate it and delete is better. 99% fad-free (talk) 23:36, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Or even List of Filipino inventions and discoveries#In urban legends. Doesn't have to be real to be notable. 99% fad-free (talk) 01:03, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I would prefer the in urban legends section since this "tech" is already known before. I'm still on the Delete camp though. --Lenticel (talk) 00:53, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    If I may add...there are some articles that point out the same technology was also listed in online selling platforms at the same time Mijeno was claiming to have "invented" this. So it's really unlikely it will withstand scrutiny to be listed as a Filipion "invention". Tito Pao (talk) 04:20, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Agreed, I feel like trying to find a merge/redirect target is just bending over backwards at this point with nothing really apparent for a grounded target, and no strong reason to keep either. I just go stronger into delete territory on this article as I revisit it. KoA (talk) 23:59, 11 September 2023 (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.
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