Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Meg Patterson

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 keep. It's snowing. (non-admin closure) Winged Blades of Godric^{On leave} 08:29, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Meg Patterson

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

Not a notable person. Alexbrn (talk) 11:34, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Err... is that it? “Not a notable person”. Not exactly attempting to explain in what ways she fails our notability guidelines. I would have thought that a British Medical Journal obituary might have carried some weight. Or did you just not bother checking? Her BMJ obituary goes so far as to claim that she ought to have won the Nobel Prize (maybe pushing it a bit)Mais oui! (talk) 12:32, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Lack of notability is a reason for deletion. Apparently no source has "significant coverage" of Meg Patterson, so she cannot be notable in Wikipedia's terms. Alexbrn (talk) 14:31, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That depends on what you consider "significant". The sources provided below seem significant to me. Diego (talk) 15:36, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A Google Books search for "Meg Patterson" "Eric Clapton" and "Meg Patterson" "Pete Townshend" reveals pages of stuff. Can we WP:SNOW close this now? Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 19:50, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thus Keep. merge and redirect the content with the article of the notable person she was related to. Diego (talk) 11:45, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

She was awarded an MBE but her husband wasn’t, and yet he is notable, and she isn’t. Hmmm... go figure.Mais oui! (talk) 12:25, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Changed to Keep after finding several newspapers mentioning her. [1][2][http://www.wnd.com/1999/08/3778/] It seems that nominator failed to perform a proper WP:BEFORE search for "Meg Patterson, neuro electric therapy". Diego (talk) 14:15, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I did indeed look and there are indeed "mentions". But mentions don't constitute notability. "Neuro electric therapy" is more notable (though not enough for an article IMO) and we already have a redirect for that. Alexbrn (talk) 14:19, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The WND article (assuming it is RS,and I have never heard of them) would pass muster, but we need multiple RS giving in depth coverage to establish notability, not just one article and a few passing mentions.Slatersteven (talk) 14:30, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No WND is not RS [3].Slatersteven (talk) 14:40, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And how about Wired and The Scotsman? The latter is an in-depth article about the person, and the former provides a notability-conveying assertion (not merely a mention in passing), and a link to UNODC's website where a report by Patterson was published. Diego (talk) 15:34, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Scotsman piece is hardly about her (not "directly and in detail"), but is about the therapy. This suggests a brief mention of this person may be due at our Cranial electrotherapy stimulation article, but it's not going to be possible to make a credible article by scraping together mentions. Alexbrn (talk) 15:39, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

She's also described in this paper as "In Britain, the best known exponent of this sort of approach in the management of withdrawal", so arguably she passes WP:NACADEMIC. BTW, Notability doesn't require that the articles themselves in RSs are directly and exclusively about the topic, just that its coverage is significant. Diego (talk) 15:42, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wired (on sentence about her, about as trivial as it gets), the Scotsman (about 5 sentences (her husband gets almost as many in this article), the article is about NEt , not her). Find another couple if sources with the depth of the Scotsman and we may have something.Slatersteven (talk) 15:45, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The sentence in question at Wired is Dr. Meg Patterson invented Neuroelectric therapy and contains a link to her work published by a United Nations organization. I wouldn't call that "trivial"; so I suppose we just will have to agree to disagree. Diego (talk) 15:50, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah but NET is quackery.[4] And what this article is (or would be) is a coat rack for it. I wonder if there's a topic to be unearthed on the historical place of electric shock therapy in religious thinking? Alexbrn (talk) 16:20, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. This properly referenced sentence, which helps established her notability was removed, twice, with no attempt at explanation in the Edit summary. It is indicative of an attempt to downplay the significance of this woman. (“She established that electro-acupuncture analgesia, usually applied to control pain post-surgery, could also significantly ameliorate the symptoms of opiate withdrawal.”)Mais oui! (talk) 12:22, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
merge and redirectThe only source is actually about her husband.Slatersteven (talk) 12:34, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Nonsense. That is not “the only source”. There are lots of sources. But that was the only one I managed to get up before the page received a barrage of attacks, including the removal of properly referenced material establishing notability.Mais oui! (talk) 12:36, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry but I can only judge on the ones I can see,not the ones that I have not seen. If it did not have an inline citation it was not "properly referenced", and the only inline citation I can see is not about her.Slatersteven (talk) 12:49, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It did have an inline citation, but was removed, twice, with no explanation in the Edit summary. You clearly do not understand how AFD works: it is our job to assess the notability of the *topic* (ie. Meg Patterson). It is *not* our job to take the fact that the article is only a stub as some kind of evidence of non-notability. Lots of notable topics only have stub articles.Mais oui! (talk) 12:55, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have looked for sources and have not found any. And in an AFD if you cannot find sources you vote for delete or merge. As I said I can only see one inline citation ever in this article, and it is not about her. If there was another please post it here.Slatersteven (talk) 12:58, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep she seems mostly known for WP:FRINGE stuff, but that nonetheless counts as being known for something. This passes WP:GNG, and should be kept. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:51, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Did you find some sources? Alexbrn (talk) 14:08, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. As per W:BIO, this person is notable because she was awarded both an MBE and a FRCSE; a cursory internet search pulled up a People Magazine article written about how Boy George used her approach in the 80s for heroin detox and the controversy involved. To properly reflect notability, the page needs to have a source other than her husband's obituary. --Blueclaw (talk) 14:02, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yet her BMJ obituary makes no mention of an MBE.Slatersteven (talk) 14:06, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A mention of her supposed "heroin detox" method doesn't count as significant coverage of the person, does it. Alexbrn (talk) 14:08, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That would depend on whether it was a passing mention or an in depth article about her.Slatersteven (talk) 14:10, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes indeed. Perhaps Blueclaw can furnish us with a link? It appears that "NeuroElectric Therapy" is more notable than its inventor[5] - though is pure nonsense. Alexbrn (talk) 14:12, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I mention the People Magazine article because it indicates that she entered the public zeitgeist at some point, which means that there is likely other information available to write a satisfactory article beyond somebody else's obituary. Her having an MBE and a FRCSE already meets the criteria to keep a biography article. It doesn't matter that her scientific/medical contributions are now regarded as more of fringe than fact - MIT scientists Stephanie Seneff and Peter L. Hagelstein both have pages in spite of their contributions being debunked. --Blueclaw (talk) 19:27, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. Mais oui! (talk) 14:56, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Mais oui! (talk) 14:56, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Scotland-related deletion discussions. Mais oui! (talk) 14:56, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Mais oui! (talk) 14:56, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The bio at the bottom of this piece in the Scottsman verifies her MBE in 1961 and her FRCSE at age 25 for her work in India. It also identifies her as "one of Scotland's most renowned medics of the last 50 years". In addition, her obit from BMJ was also printed on the National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine site. Whether or not NET is quackery, she meets GNG. Cheers! — Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 17:03, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - As per Mais oui! and Grand'mere Eugene, the sources they have found in the BMJ Journal and The Scotsman demonstrate that she meets WP:GNG. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:52, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Satisfies professional notability. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:44, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - She got Pete Townshend off heroin - what more do you want? There are two pages in Dave Marsh's biography of The Who that cover his stay at Meg's clinic, so I've dropped that into the article. I dare say any decent Eric Clapton source will give a paragraph or two over to her as well. And she cleaned up Keith Richards too, so as a result of this woman, we've got The Who, The Stones and Clapton all touring as of 2017 (I'll leave whether that's good or bad to the reader, but at least it's happening!) Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 17:24, 22 September 2017 (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.