Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International Space Elevator Consortium

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. ^{(non-admin closure)} samtar^{(leave me a message)} 12:29, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

International Space Elevator Consortium

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Not notable. Tagged for notability a while ago, but tag was removed without providing evidence. A search turns up our article Space elevator competitions so probably merge into that. JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 12:32, 19 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. Everymorning (talk) 13:29, 19 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Meets WP:ORG due to the following reliable sources: Pacific Standard CNN CNBC Space.com Everymorning (talk) 13:31, 19 August 2015 (UTC) I have changed my mind and now think that a merge as proposed by RockMagnetist would be better, the coverage of this organization does not appear to meet ORGDEPTH. Everymorning (talk) 16:31, 31 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 19:17, 19 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 02:53, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep as Everymorning says. Snowsuit Wearer (talk|contribs) 21:05, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I improved the article after attending the 2015 conference in Seattle at the Museum of Flight. I was impressed by the technical sophistication of the material presented there (My qualifications are that I'm an inventor with over 30 patents granted and a Principal Engineer in a very large and well-know software organization). I met people who had traveled from Japan and Europe to attend, people who currently have positions in reputable and well-known space agencies, and notable inventors and authors.

Isecscribe (talk) 09:39, 30 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Merge with space elevator. None of the sources meet the depth of coverage criterion for WP:ORG. For example, several sources simply include the Consortium as part of a list. Putting together the four sources mentioned by @Everymorning, all we can learn about the Consortium is that it has an annual meeting and its president is Peter Swain. The articles mainly cover the subject of space elevators, so why not merge? RockMagnetist(talk) 16:23, 31 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I find your argument convincing and so have struck out my previous !vote. Everymorning (talk) 16:31, 31 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely Keep. Notability is a requirement for the subject. It's not a measure of how well an article conveys that notability. When an article on a notable subject doesn't convey that notability well, the fix is to improve it so the notability is conveyed better. ISEC is absolutely notable. They are the center of the space elevator world. They make it all happen. In the modern era (post Edwards, post X-Prize), they are the keepers of the very definition of what a space elevator is. They're actively engaged in improving all aspects of design. They coordinate efforts of people all around the globe. No-way, no-how should ISEC be deleted for notability. Neither should it be merged, because ISEC is a separate and separately notable subject. Skyway (talk) 05:22, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment The thing I forgot to mention in my vote was that I searched diligently for better sources and couldn't find any (and clearly @Everymorning did some searching as well). Anyone claiming that the subject is notable should produce the sources. RockMagnetist(talk) 06:01, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Done! It's just a stub article, but it has twelve(!) sources. Some of them support other stated facts and don't add to the showing of notability, but a bunch of them do support notability. You should have searched on the page itself. Your own failures and inabilities are not a reflection on the notability of any subject. :-) Skyway (talk) 07:02, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment (leaning toward keep) - The existing refs are hopeless - all blogs, self published, or infotainment. In its current state it fails to demonstrate notability through reliable secondary sources. That said, a google news search turns up plenty of hits, several of which seem fairly decent. While none of them appear to be explicitly about ISEC, many quote extensively from ISEC, and some have done interviews with representatives of ISEC (this one from CNBC is fairly good]. This suggests ISEC is considered an authority on space elevator construction/economics. Does that make ISEC notable? As a moderate WP:inclusionist, I'm inclined to say yes. Definitely needs to be tagged with refimprove though.--Yeti Hunter (talk) 07:57, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Yeti Hunter: Your search is the same one we have all done, and some of the sources (including the CNBC one) have already been discussed. Most of them would be useful sources for Space elevator, but only use the head of the International Space Elevator Consortium as a source for a quote - one of the examples of trivial coverage that are explicitly mentioned in WP:ORGDEPTH. RockMagnetist(talk) 17:25, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@RockMagnetist:, apologies, I failed to check Everymorning's struck-out refs before doing my own search. WP:ORGDEPTH defines trivial mentions as, for example, a list of meeting times or sporting results, or (relevantly for this discussion) simply identifying a quoted person as belonging to the organisation. Several of these sources (CNBC, Space.com, possibly CNN) are more than mere mentioning, and describe what the ISEC is and what it does. Not much more, I'll grant, but it counts as a non-trivial mention, which gets it over the line of WP:GNG. ORGDEPTH defers to GNG.--Yeti Hunter (talk) 11:11, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I still have my doubts. For example, the relevant text in the CNBC article says

That's the goal of the International Space Elevator Consortium, a group of scientists, aerospace engineers and other big thinkers devoted to the development of "inexpensive, safe, routine and efficient access to space." They believe the answer lies in suspending a very long—and very strong—elevator cable from the surface of the Earth to a point thousands of miles in space.

Which is just a long-winded way of saying that the International Space Elevator Consortium is devoted to developing a space elevator. This CNN article has just a bare mention - is there another one? However, there is good coverage of some of their conferences, like this Space.com article. Maybe that's enough. RockMagnetist(talk) 17:25, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Not notable by definition: few if any of the citations are to conventionally defined reliable sources. Basically, the argument is that it is notable because they say that it is notable. 77.99.195.233 (talk) 18:07, 2 September 2015 (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.