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Alis Rowe

Alis Rowe (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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An obscure activist. All sources cited in this article are autism-related websites, a dead link, and sites like Goodreads (a book review website, I'm not sure you're even allowed to use that as a source on Wikipedia). I can't find a single mention of her in mainstream media. She appears to be completely unknown outside of the "autism community" and is therefore not notable enough for a Wikipedia article. SThompson (talk) 00:21, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. Everymorning (talk) 00:29, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. Everymorning (talk) 00:29, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment She is only featured in a small portion of that Huffington Post article. That is not nearly enough coverage to justify keeping the Wikipedia page. There is a problem with the lack of reliable secondary sources about her which is the main reason I proposed that the article be deleted. While her books may be significant to people with Aspergers, her work has not received adequate attention outside of the autism community to make her notable enough for a Wikipedia page.SThompson (talk) 06:11, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I'll take the strict policy-based approach. See WP:BASIC: "People are presumed notable if they have received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject." Alis Rowe has NOT received significant coverage in reliable published secondary sources. As far as I know the only usable secondary sources that have given coverage to Rowe are the aforementioned Huffington Post article and the Reading local news article cited; however, neither article is actually about Rowe and in both she is only mentioned in passing. The basic criteria also says "trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may not be sufficient to establish notability." I would say that the coverage of Alis Rowe in secondary sources is indeed trivial. Also see WP:QUESTIONABLE: "Questionable sources are those that have a poor reputation for checking the facts, lack meaningful editorial oversight, or have an apparent conflict of interest. Such sources include websites and publications expressing views that are widely considered by other sources to be extremist or promotional." One of the sources cited, Able Magazine, describes itself on its website as a magazine that "Highlights and PROMOTES lifestyle issues important to disabled people in the UK." It describes itself as promotional, which means it's considered a questionable source according to Wikipedia's guidelines. Also see WP:SPS: "Self-published media, such as books, patents, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, personal or group blogs (as distinguished from newsblogs, above), content farms, Internet forum postings, and social media postings, are largely not acceptable as sources." One of the sources cited, the Jigsaw Tree, is a group blog so it would not be acceptable as a source according to these guidelines. Needless to say, Amazon and Goodreads should not be cited as sources on Wikipedia. Based on this, my conclusion is that the Alis Rowe article does NOT meet the criteria for notability or for reliable sources and should be deleted.Sdc3000 (talk) 23:54, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Notability within a specialty field is enough to meet GNG. A magazine such as Able is more than adequate 3rd party coverage… advocacy is not the same as “selfpub” or in-house promotional material. One could as easily say that Car & Driver “PROMOTES” cars and driving. Still would be RS for specs on a Honda Civic… Montanabw (talk) 08:44, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment A person with notability within a specialty field is only notable enough for a Wikipedia article if that person has enough coverage in reliable secondary sources. As I said before, the main problem is the quality of the sources cited. A mention in Able magazine is not enough to establish notability, and there are very few mentions of her in reliable secondary sources. I don't know enough about Able to say whether or not it counts as a reliable source. If it does, that means there are only three reliable secondary sources that cover her, and two of those (Huffpo and Getreading) only mention her in a small portion of the article. As I also said before, the article cites a dead link, Goodreads (a book review website), Amazon (an online store), Jigsaw Tree (a blog), and Future Horizons (a group that spreads media about autism) but the page cited only has a few sentences about her and I'm not sure that it counts as a reliable secondary source.SThompson (talk) 22:04, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep WP:GNG seems to be met by my standards along the lines Montanabw suggests. I don't see a suitable merge target. As a comment to Sdc3000 it is of course just fine as a personal decision to take a "strict policy-based approach" but notability is a guideline, not a policy, and it is contrary to the guideline to take such an approach. However, as the guideline says, it is only advisory. Thincat (talk) 10:02, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I agree that a "strict policy-based approach" may be too, well, strict but I still can't see how you could say that she receives enough attention to be notable enough for a Wikipedia article. There are almost no reliable secondary sources that could be used for this article, and the few that do exist say very little about her, and don't contain nearly enough information for a Wikipedia article.SThompson (talk) 22:04, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The sources cited are largely unreliable. I went through five page of Google search results and didn't see any good secondary sources. It looks like this issue can't be solved. On the issue of notability, a brief mention in Huffington Post and the Reading Post's free Friday edition does not prove notability. This issue also can't be solved. My two cents is that an issue with two big unsolvable issues should be deleted.2602:30A:2ED1:2EE0:141C:9E8B:6F41:2A29 (talk) 23:27, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I thought I needed to point out there is an important problem that has not been adequately addressed by people voting to keep the article, and that is the problem with the lack or reliable secondary sources. I have to wonder if they have looked at the sources cited in the article. There are seven secondary sources. One is a dead link (Richmond), one is a blog (Jigsaw Tree), one is a book review website (Goodreads), and one is an online store (Amazon). Everyone should be able to agree that these are not reliable secondary sources. Another (Future Horizons) appears to be a website that sells media about autism. I don't think this counts as a reliable source. Another is a local newspaper article (Reading) about an autism conference. This is a reliable source, but there is only one sentence about Alis Rowe in this entire article. The last source (Able magazine) may be reliable but that could be debated. That makes, at most, two reliable secondary sources and one of them contains only one sentence about Rowe. No offense to whomever wrote the article, but they must have been desperate for sources to cite Goodreads, Amazon, and the Jigsaw Tree blog. That should tell you something about Rowe's lack of notability and coverage in secondary sources. This is the main reason I proposed the article be deleted, and this problem needs to be addressed by anyone voting to keep.SThompson (talk) 07:21, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Clear lack of reliable secondary sources. No eligible additional sources found on a quick look either. --Jack Frost (talk) 10:16, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep BBC interview, Able Magazine national award nominee profile, and other refs meet WP:GNG, though some need clean up. She also appears to be featured as an expert for national organizations and publications such as National Autistic Society (UK), AuKids Magazine and others. Hmlarson (talk) 22:07, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The BBC Radio link lists her as an interviewee, it does not appear to actually have the interview. I don't see how that could be used as a source in the article. I'm not sure that the National Autistic Society and AuKids count as reliable secondary sources, especially since she appears to be connected to them (a secondary source has to be independent of the subject). This still fails to establish notability and none of these count as reliable secondary sources that could be used in the article. You mentioned "other refs" that you say would establish notability. Could you name them?SThompson (talk) 22:46, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Interesting. I just listened to the entire 13-minute+ interview by clicking play on the video. It's the fourth segment entitled, Living with Autism which you can access directly once you hit play on the video. She's also noted as a "public figure" by the interviewer. Hmlarson (talk) 23:00, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okay, fourth segment. Another example of trivial coverage. It was pointed out earlier that Wikipedia guidelines state that trivial coverage is not enough to establish notability. It doesn't really matter that the interviewer called her a public figure; I proposed that the article be deleted because of the lack of reliable secondary sources about her, not because I don't think she counts as a public figure. My understanding is that Wikipedia judges notability based mostly on significant coverage in reliable secondary sources, the keywords being significant, reliable, and secondary. All examples of sources so far have been trivial (HuffPo, Getreading, BBC Radio) in which she is featured in a small portion of an article or radio program, unreliable (Goodreads, Jigsaw Tree), questionable (Able magazine), an online store (Amazon, Future Horizons), or primary (AuKids, National Autistic Society). Do you or anybody else have any examples of significant coverage in reliable secondary sources?SThompson (talk) 01:54, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • 13+ minute interview on BBC Radio is trivial to you in addition to the other sources you note. Ok! You've made your arguments repeatedly in this discussion. Is there a reason you need to repeat them after another editor disagrees? Or is this another case of WP:BADGER? Hmlarson (talk) 17:50, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • The BBC Radio interview is not enough to establish notability. That takes numerous examples of significant coverage in secondary sources. If you want to call the interview significant, then it is only one example. I keep repeating those points because nobody has addressed any of them. I'll ask you point blank, do you think Goodreads, an online store, a blog, and a dead link are reliable sources?SThompson (talk) 18:44, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Goodreads is sill there, the Jigsaw Tree blog is still there, the online store Future Horizons is still there. The Richmond dead link was replaced with an active one, but it is yet another example of trivial coverage in which an article that isn't about her mentions her briefly. AuKids and the National Autistic Society article that she wrote are both primary sources because she is connected to them, and secondary sources are needed to establish notability. Still no evidence of significant coverage in reliable secondary sources. And interesting that you didn't answer my question.SThompson (talk) 21:43, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The Goodreads list is just a list. It doesn't contribute to notability, any more than the list of her books at Amazon wood. A blogs are SPS and don't conribute to N either. Jytdog (talk) 00:30, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • The British Weight Lifting site you added is yet another example of trivial coverage. It is about the coach Martyn Riley and barely mentions Alis Rowe. While it appears you removed Amazon as a source, the article still cites Goodreads (book reviews), Jigsaw Tree (blog), Future Horizons (online store) and Richmond (dead link). Everybody should be able to agree that these are not reliable. The article now cites nine secondary sources which are the four unreliable ones I just pointed out, four reliable sources that give trivial coverage to Rowe (HuffPo, Getreading, BBC Radio, British Weight Lifting) and one questionable source (Able magazine). Your edits didn't solve the problem. There is still no evidence of significant coverage of Alis Rowe in reliable secondary sources.SThompson (talk) 06:49, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, the point of the British Weight Lifting piece is it adds a citation for a sentence that did not have one and points to another article in Autism Magazine from the National Autism Society in which she is featured. She discusses weightlifting in the BBC interview prompted by the host. Hmlarson (talk) 17:50, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I see the reason you cited it, but it is still trivial and does nothing to establish notability. As for the article it points to, she appears to be connected to the National Autism Society (she wrote the article for which you provided a link in a previous comment) in which case it may not count as a secondary source (a secondary source has to be independent of the subject). Secondary sources are needed to establish notability.SThompson (talk) 18:44, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Health and fitness-related deletion discussions. Lemongirl942 (talk) 10:40, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. Lemongirl942 (talk) 10:40, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • delete. this is marginal. I was heading toward keep because she has published a lot of books but then I saw that they all appear to be self-published, on Amazon's CreateSpace or through her self-publishing imprint, Lonely Mind books. If you take those away, as we should, you are not left with much. I am going to have to say delete for now. This may be a WP:TOOSOON thing. Jytdog (talk) 11:21, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I disagree that the article's subject lacks notability simply because her notability is limited to a niche audience. WP:N tells us that "Information on Wikipedia must be verifiable; if no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article. Wikipedia's concept of notability applies this basic standard to avoid indiscriminate inclusion of topics. Article and list topics must be notable, or 'worthy of notice'. Determining notability does not necessarily depend on things such as fame, importance, or popularity—although those may enhance the acceptability of a subject that meets the guidelines...." As such, I believe strongly that the subject meets WP:N guidelines with reliable source links coming from the Huffington Post, the BBC and the U.K. National Autistic Society. Her work is now in its fourth year, so her notability has "attracted attention over a sufficiently significant period of time." In my opinion, the guidelines suggest that articles must meet a minimum standard not an abundance of that standard.73.131.228.245 (talk) 13:35, 8 March 2017 (UTC) — 73.131.228.245 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
    The reasons for deleting the article are less to do with her "niche audience" and more to do with the lack of secondary sources. I'll admit I should've better phrased my original statement. The problem with the BBC Radio and National Autistic Society is that they are primary sources (BBC is an interview, which counts as a primary source, and she wrote the National Autistic Society article), as are AuKids (she is involved with it) and the Curly Hair Project (her own website). Recent edits that have added these sources have actually created a new problem because the article now relies too heavily on primary sources. While she is mentioned briefly in a few reliable sources, that is not enough to establish notability. Wikipedia states "Just because topics are covered in primary sources does not mean that they are notable. Information about an author from the book jacket copy of the author's own book does not demonstrate notability, for example. Secondary sources are needed to establish notability for the purposes of deciding which articles to keep. However topics that are only covered briefly or in poor quality secondary sources may not meet the general notability guideline." The Huffington Post article, the British Weight Lifting Article, the Reading article, and the Richmond article only mention her briefly and are not about her. Everyone should be able to agree that Goodreads, the Jigsaw Tree blog, and the Future Horizons store are poor quality secondary sources. It appears that Wikipedia states this article shouldn't be kept.SThompson (talk) 18:27, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, J947 19:10, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment This is a good time for an update. There are two new problems that haven't been addressed yet. 1. Due to recent edits to the article, it now relies too heavily on primary sources. They are the BBC Radio interview (interviews are primary sources), the National Autistic Society article (she wrote it herself), AuKids (she is connected to it), and the Curly Hair Project (her own website). The addition of primary sources does nothing to establish notability and there is still no evidence of significant coverage in reliable secondary sources, therefore no evidence of notability. 2. It was brought up recently that her books are self-published as evidenced here. This should call into question her notability. Wikipedia doesn't generally give much weight to self-published authors.SThompson (talk) 07:04, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Although this case is more "borderline" than many, I can see some notability coming from the niche publications. There's nothing suspect about that -- people who operate in specialised areas can be expected to derive their coverage from specialty publications. That's true for many of the academics who have articles here. And it is certainly true for the hundreds upon hundreds of sports figures whose articles are sourced solely to an on-line sports database (and it is difficult to imagine anything more "niche" than that). I also see some notability coming from the BBC interview. Although we tend to downplay the significance of interviews in our notability discussions, the fact remains that the BBC does not have an unlimited amount of air time and that some editorial discretion went into the decision to devote some of that time to the subject. I also note that the nominator here has been insistent about removing sources from the article while the discussion is still on-going, doing so based on their declaration that the sources are unreliable and that, by removing them, the discussants will have "accurate information". But the reliability and usefulness of sources are precisely what we discuss here at Articles for Deletion. The nominator's insistence on hiding them from potential discussants suggests that the nominator does not believe that their argument is strong enough to withstand scrutiny and this, in turn, pushes me even further in the direction of "keep". NewYorkActuary (talk) 13:01, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    The sources I wanted removed are a blog, online stores, and Goodreads. Everyone should be able to agree that these are unreliable sources. The other source to which I have some objections, Able magazine, is of questionable quality but I have not removed because I think there needs to be a discussion about it. It is questionable because it doesn't come from an established reputable publisher (the publisher is Primas Media LTD. https://www.linkedin.com/company/primas-media-ltd) and it has been pointed out before that the Able magazine article may be too promotional. Here are a few quotes. "Alis Rowe is both an acclaimed author and the founding CEO of esteemed social enterprise, The Curly Hair Project." "With great difficulty and determination, she has managed to overcome such social obstacles." "One impressive example of Alis’ defiance against her Asperger’s  is the fact that she has a strong academic track record." "Incredibly, Alis has managed to do this through writing and publishing a range of books." " To date, ‘the girl with the curly hair’ Facebook page has earned over a staggering 9,300 ‘likes.’" "There is absolutely no surprise as to why she has been shortlisted for the Entrepreneur of Excellence award at the National Diversity Awards 2014." Sounds pretty promotional to me, and therefore of questionable reliability.SThompson (talk) 17:44, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete There just aren't enough reliable sources. As noted by Jytdog above, the books are all self published. Now coming to the sources available,
  • BBC This is a brief interview where the subject was a guest. We require sources where someone else is talking about the subject, not where the subject is talking. (And these kind of brief interviews are a dime a dozen)
  • Autism.org Entirely written by the subject, so clearly not an independent sources
  • Aukids Self published magazine which simply lists the subjects name in a page called "experts". No indication why and anyway, this is not significant coverage
  • LonelyMindBook Yes, this the subject's self publishing imprint as noted above
  • HuffingtonPost The secondary coverage is 2 sentences, 3 sentences are quotes by the subject. This is really brief.
  • Every single of the other sources in the article are either primary/affiliated or not reliable.
Overall, this is just WP:TOOSOON. The sources are not good enough. There is also clear conflict of interest editing (See Special:Contributions/JustAnotherWiki166), which looks an attempt to promote the subject's books. I will go with a delete. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 18:40, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete This article looks "padded." It's divided into four sections, too many for such a short article, and has two photos; normally only longer articles have multiple pictures. There are also repetitious statements: it's repeated three times that she founded the Curly Hair Project, twice that she as Asperger's and four times that she writes about autism, to provide a few examples. This article is severely lacking substance and this likely can't be remedied since coverage of her in secondary sources is negligible. If you remove the padding-the photos, the repeated statements, the unnecessary section headings-you're left with five or six sentences and a list of her self-published books. Not much of an article. Imalawyer (talk) 06:47, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep She has sourcing in Huffington Post and a biography written in Able Magazine. Passes GNG. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 23:39, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia states that trivial mentions aren't enough to establish notability and "Secondary sources are needed to establish notability for the purposes of deciding which articles to keep. However topics that are only covered briefly or in poor quality secondary sources may not meet the general notability guideline." The Huffington Post article, while a reliable source, is not about her and mentions her only briefly (a few very short paragraphs in a very long article). Able magazine may not be a quality source because it doesn't come from an established reputable publisher and may be too promotional. This is not evidence of significant coverage in reliable secondary sources, therefore this article does not pass GNG.SThompson (talk) 00:33, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. If the Huffington Post is the best we can find, she doesn't meet the GNG, because we do not usually regard it as a RS, at least for living people; the degree of editorial control is much too erratic, and contributors can write about whatever they want to. It's published, not edited in the convention sense. DGG ( talk ) 20:33, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Yet more problems have been brought up.
  • 1. The problem of padding. It was pointed out that the article keeps repeating itself. The picture with Tony Attwood appears to be for the purpose of padding and/or an attempt to establish "notability by association." I don't see why a short article needs two pictures and I've never seen another article of this length with more than one picture.
  • 2. The creator of this article, as you can see here (Special:Contributions/JustAnotherWiki166), has only made seven edits. One for the creation of the article, five edits to the article after its creation, and one edit to another article a year later. It appears this person may have joined Wikipedia for the sole purpose of creating this article. As further evidence, here are a few quotes from the original version. "Alis Rowe is a well-known author and speaker on Asperger's Syndrome in the UK. She is the founder of The Curly Hair Project, which has nearly 20,000 followers and aims to help women and girls with Asperger's Syndrome." "She lives in London and is one of the leading speakers in her field." "Since then she has written over a dozen more books, all of which have received an abundance of praise. "She has also received lots of awards for her work, including the prestigious Temple Grandin Award." This is an obvious example of WP:ADVOCACY, WP:PEACOCK and WP:PROMO. That this article began as an apparent attempt to promote an activist with no significant coverage in reliable secondary sources is a strong argument for its deletion.SThompson (talk) 20:58, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, J947 00:19, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment there is absolutely zero evidence of conflict of interest despite your melodramatic affrontery, the article may well have been written by a fan of her books who may have been a little over-enthusiastic but that has been toned down by later edits. It is also worth noting that this article was approved by the WP:AFC process. Regarding your own editcount it is mainly centered on this AFD and nominating another aspergers author article so by your own logic do you have a conflict of interest regarding autism/aspergers publications? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atlantic306 (talk • contribs) 16 March 2017 (UTC)
  • I didn't say conflict of interest, I said promotion and advocacy. Those are different things. The evidence for it is stated above, so I won't restate it. I think the creator of this article is probably a fan of her books, and that you suggested the same thing and called the original version "over-enthusiastic" is an admission that there is evidence for it. Since you brought up the AFC, I thought I should point out that this person submitted two of them, and the first was rejected (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:JustAnotherWiki166). This is further evidence that 1. this person really wanted the article to be created and 2. the first editor who reviewed it questioned the quality of the sources and rejected it.SThompson (talk) 23:25, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Most successful AFC submissions are declined at first then improved with added references etc and approved on a second, third or more review. That is what happened in this case as after first refusal more references were added so it was approved on second review.Atlantic306 (talk) 02:08, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • It appears what happened is that the editor who approved it was lenient about sources. The original version's sources included Amazon, Goodreads, and blogs. I don't see how that could be an improvement over whatever was in the first submission.SThompson (talk) 17:07, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Additional references incorporated including, but not limited to: Marie Claire Magazine (UK), Healthy Magazine, Your Autism Magazine, and Surrey Hills Community Radio. Maybe the not-so-random IP address making edits will find some more or comment below to discredit. Hmlarson (talk) 17:27, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Surrey Hills Community Radio interview is a primary source. Interviews are primary sources (https://www.sccollege.edu/Library/Pages/primarysources.aspx). We've been through this already. Your Autism Magazine is a primary source because it is distributed by the National Autistic Society, with which she is involved as evidence by the fact that she wrote about herself for the NAS page (http://www.autism.org.uk/get-involved/tmi/stories/alis.aspx). Secondary sources have to be independent of the subject. And only half of the article is about her. I can't read the Marie Claire article because it isn't online, but the title "The Truth About Women And Autism" suggests that it may be like the Huffington Post one, an article that isn't about her and only mentions her briefly. The Unltd. page barely mentions her at all and is an obvious example of WP:TRIVIAL. The Bath Echo article and the Richmond & Twickenham Times article are fine, but a couple articles in local papers is not enough to establish notability.SThompson (talk) 20:01, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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