Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2020 February 6

Christopher Martenson (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

Reason for deletion was the supposed lack of notability. Notability is not admissibility or correctness. There are citations in the original AfD page from twenty years ago on him plus citations find able of news sites discussing him. Wikipedia articles should be edited to reflect the information on a noted source. Noted and notable because the subject appears in the news. Hfarmer (talk) 06:58, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse- closer correctly judged consensus at the AfD. Reyk _YO! 07:21, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose- "The supposed lack of notability" when his videos have gathered half a million views each about the critical pandemic threatening the entire Earth civilization? When other media are trying to shut him down and ridicule him? What a joke. Even if the article were not "notable", I would wait till March purely not to take sides in this (as the article had been up for a decade).--Adûnâi (talk) 08:43, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Overturn- Over the past two weeks Dr. Chris Martenson has been specifically talking about the 2019-nCoV outbreak from the perspective of his academic education in virus research and pandemics on YouTube[1],. Presented as part of his broader work in understanding global instability and effective solutions related to intersecting issues of global finance, health, energy, et cetera[2]. This looks like Dr. Martenson's page was unreasonably deleted when he became notable this week for expressing his relevant academic knowledge on a topical subject. After one article authored by Ali Breland opined that he was doing this on YouTube just to 'Cash In' and 'make money'[3]. Using Breland's underlying assumption from his own article that humans only publish for their own financial gain, we can say that Breland must have written this article just to 'Cash In' and 'make money' for himself. In addition a Wikipedia editor expressed a rash opinion that Dr. Martenson is 'now a conspiracy theorist' that seems to have been taken as fact, however that is a false claim. Jaspercool (talk) 12:01, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Oh God, here we go. Hi, everyone from YouTube! Welcome to Deletion Review, where we don't "oppose" things. We "endorse" the decision to delete, or we "overturn" it. On Wikipedia notability is admissibility and nobody cares how many million billion trillion times your videos have been viewed. Nobody is going to provide sourced quotations to you. The burden of proof is on those who want to include disputed material. That burden is satisfied only by providing direct links or unambiguous citations to mainstream, reliable, secondary or tertiary sources that have discussed the subject of the article.—S Marshall T/C 12:18, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Be nice to the newcommers.--Hfarmer (talk) 16:21, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  My previous remark made more sense when I wrote it; but it seems that some of the contributors to this debate are editing their contributions even after they've been replied to.—S Marshall T/C 00:45, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse Not the best AfD of all time, but there's no other way this could have been closed. I'll also make some popcorn for everyone who wants to contribute. SportingFlyer T·C 14:13, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• endorse but... [4] (listed above as the 3rd reference) has significant (though largely negative) coverage just in the last 5 days. Not enough, even with previous stuff, to get over the WP:N hurdle, but just noting that this could change quickly. One more "mainstream" (yes, I just called Mother Jones mainstream) article like that and he's probably over the bar. It will likely be a largely WP:NBLP if the 2nd article is like the MJ one, but... Hobit (talk) 15:54, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Given that the article existed so long if just a bit more coverage.... One article can do it keep it. An article need not be about a hot topic, or positive. If the sources say negative things add them. He just made a Chinese news website. 虚假内容圈粉 部分YouTube视频作者大发“病毒财”--Hfarmer (talk) 16:21, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment- it doesn't matter that an article is X number of years old. There's no "grandfather clause" that exempts articles from WP:V or WP:N once they hit a certain age. Wikipedia is a big place and bad articles sometimes escape notice for a long time. That doesn't mean we shouldn't clean them up. Reyk _YO! 18:22, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  True... there is also no expiration date on a PhD in pathology. There is no obligation to keep an article around forever. However, a subject being written about in the media for a prolonged time makes them notable.

  Things that were notable for a decade don't cease to be notable because they get some negative press. Remember being in Wikipedia isn't a value judgement. In fact if someone strongly believes Martenson is a quack given the situation it would be more logical to use the negative press mentions to edit his WP article to say so. --Hfarmer (talk) 19:15, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse. Are people actually arguing he passes WP:ACADEMIC? No evidence for any of the criteria: no substantial number of citations, any professorships, etc. As for SIGCOV, there is none at this time. Apart from the MoJo article, there is nothing significant, so more articles such as this one should appear for a decent notability argument to be made. Nobody's arguing about the time issue. No quality sources have been presented from a decade ago either. Note that earned media is of particular concern these days. We're not futurologists, if there is coverage in the future, so be it. He fails the GNG at this moment. I also agree with Fourthords and others in pointing that this discussion is not supposed to rehash the deletion arguments but should pertain to whether the AfD was properly closed, which it obviously was insofar as the consensus was adequately assessed. Best, PK650 (talk) 21:48, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Merely arguing that he's notable. The reason given for deletion was that he was not notable. He is not an academic but I would dispute the idea that we equate being a Scientist with being a Professor. Plenty of people who have advanced degrees in the sciences leave academics to find something that pays better. That or they just get tired of the many MANY aspects of being an academic that have nothing at all to do with ones learned discipline. --Hfarmer (talk) 23:35, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Nobody's saying he needs to be a professor. Which criterion of WP:ACADEMIC does he meet? PK650 (talk) 05:15, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• This discussion's instigation does not meet WP:DRVPURPOSE. That being said, I see no obvious problems with the AFD, and endorse the closure by Sandstein (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA). — Fourthords | =Λ= | 23:00, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  One of the criteria you cited is "if significant new information has come to light since a deletion that would justify recreating the deleted page" Which this very discussion brought to light. As Hobit said he is right on the line of being notable. Mainstream sources are covering what he is doing. The coverage is not positive. In fact some think he is spreading misinformation. If so that is all the more reason to keep the article and edit it to reflect that fact. SO yes it does meet the reasons to have such a review.

  I request that this discussion be kept open so that this can be openly and transparently hashed out so as to avert any real conspiracy spreading type talk. Lets show people how WP works.--Hfarmer (talk) 23:38, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  So, in the 33.63 hours between closing the AFD and your opening this discussion, "significant new information has come to light since a deletion that would justify recreating [this] deleted page"? If so, that could've been communicated better, but feel free to hash out those claims. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 00:19, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  It won't be closed until, at the earliest, 168 hours after you opened it, so Dr Martenson's advocates will have plenty of time to make their case. You can try replying to most of the people in this discussion, if you think that'll help; but Wikipedians as a group are skeptical, critical thinkers and we respond to evidence, not rhetoric. The effective way to get this article restored and improved will be to provide links or unambiguous, checkable citations to two reliable, secondary sources that discuss Dr Martenson and/or his work. If you'd like a clear definition of the Wikipedian definition of reliable source, this page is a good starting point.

  You might think that Dr Martenson's professional qualifications make him a reliable source in his own right, but on Wikipedia, this only applies insofar as his work has been published in scholarly journals or other sources that are peer-reviewed or have another kind of fact-checking regime that we can verify. We don't accept academic experts' opinions via their Youtube channels or blogs, because those aren't checked by anyone else and I'm afraid that there are people with PhDs who'll put their name to all kinds of idiocy; if you're interested in the reasons why we take this view, try this page.—S Marshall T/C 00:45, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  He had written a contribution that was published in Nature.[5]. Yes I got that information from his rebuttal video (in which I happened to feature, because I was the only opposing voice at the time).[6] But it is still a publication in a respected scholarly journal. Someone Not Awful (talk) 07:36, 11 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  I know about those policies. I wrote on Wikipedia a lot from 2007 to 2019. Please don't assume people who disagree with your interpretation of policies are ignorant of them. Especially if those people played a part in shaping those policies over a decade ago. :) Evidence has been presented, not rehtoric. Those presenting rehtoric have been those who want this to stay deleted. Here's a story on him from the Hong Kong China News Agency http://www.hkcna.hk/content/2020/0205/807117.shtml is that unreliable for some reason? Do you think only news from Xinhua is reliable? --Hfarmer (talk) 23:22, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In terms of notability that's potentially a source for an entirely negative article about Dr Martenson in which we say that he's described in the sources as a purveyor of misinformation. I would maintain my opposition to Wikipedia hosting any such article, on WP:BLP grounds.—S Marshall T/C 00:49, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Notability is not admirability .... not "admissability". Notability is not that someone is a great person we like. Again you couch your incivility in civility. Do as you please. In light of the revelation that Chinas Hubei province was not counting cases correctly, they have admitted to underreporting by a factor of nine, people are right to be very concerned about this. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/02/13/805519117/a-change-in-how-one-chinese-province-reports-coronavirus-adds-thousands-of-cases --Hfarmer (talk) 14:10, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse if this is an appeal from the close. If it is a request to re-argue, which it appears to be, that is not the purpose of DRV, but the appellant should be permitted to submit a draft. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:55, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - I see no newcomers here. I see editors with varying amounts of experience who should all be treated with civility. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:55, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Agreed. I was responding to the comment which said with exasperation "this is how we do things on Wikipedia". Let us be welcoming to those who want to contribute. --Hfarmer (talk) 23:16, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  That's not what S Marshall said. If you're going to use quotes, quote accurately. Lepricavark (talk) 06:07, 11 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Overturn and Restore - this deletion smacks of cleansing by those opposed to his presentation of information or opinions. He is published. He has been present in media. There are hundreds of people with Wikipedia articles with less press or research presence (recent or past). How long has the article been up? Then in the midst of the virus outbreak he's deleted. RE-INSTATE. Review after the hubbub has died down. (say Jan 2021). -User:Alanbrowne —Preceding undated comment added 14:14, 7 February 2020
  • Could you provide sources that meet the requrements of WP:N, our primary inclusion guideline? I'm only seeing the Mother Jones article. We need things that are in-depth, independent of the subject (so not his website etc.), and reliable (which is a bit harder to define, but most newspapers, news shows, and the like all count). Without that, we won't host an article, especially about a living person. Hobit (talk) 02:14, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse. To all the people being canvassed off-wiki to this discussion, this page is not to re-argue the deletion discussion. All we do here is determine whether the person who closed the discussion judged the consensus correctly, and there's no way anyone could credibly claim that Sandstein wasn't correct in judging that the consensus in this discussion was in favor of deletion. ‑ Iridescent 15:17, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse per Robert McClenon, fourthords and others. This is not the place to rehash AfD arguments. Best, GPL93 (talk) 20:24, 10 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse but permit rewriting. The final state of the artile was unsatisfactory, giving little indication of why ther might be any controversy. A NPOV might be able to show notability . DGG ( talk ) 01:25, 11 February 2020 (UTC) �[reply]
• Comment Only administrators can view the article. So how about making a copy available on a nonindexed page so we can judge for ourselves? Someone Not Awful (talk) 01:35, 11 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse as a correct reading of the consensus, although it might have been preferable to relist it at least once given the limited participation. Lepricavark (talk) 06:07, 11 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am for relisting the article. There wasn't much participation. It should get a second chance. Someone Not Awful (talk) 07:27, 11 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment FWIW - seems copies of the original article — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Martenson ("currently deleted" from Wikipedia, a/o 20200204) — may have been "preserved" at the following ArchiveSites: https://archive.ph/ixWLX (at ArchiveSite => https://archive.ph/ ) - and - https://web.archive.org/web/20191109165809/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Martenson ( at ArchiveSite => https://archive.org/web/ ) - hope this helps in some way - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 16:57, 11 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment A lot of what was criticized about the subject of that article has been proven correct see here https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/02/13/805519117/a-change-in-how-one-chinese-province-reports-coronavirus-adds-thousands-of-cases

--Hfarmer (talk) 14:10, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]