- Question: @Bearcat and Wcquidditch: What is a "license exempt church station"? I know it's Canadian (I'm from the US), but I'm not familiar with these. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 21:45 on February 21, 2018 (UTC)
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- According to this site, which admittedly is not reliable in nature, it appears if CFPP changed it's callsign to VF8000, which was removed from the "ISEDC" database. Not sure what ISEDC is, maybe you Canadians will know. I know we AfD'd alot of VF stations en masse awhile back. Perhaps we can bring that one back, merge it's history with CFPP, do a little updating and see what if we can get a real article out of it. I'm willing to help, but seeing as I know US stations, I might need some help from up north on this one. :) Worth a shot? - Neutralhomer • Talk • 06:01 on February 22, 2018 (UTC)
- Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. Government agency. Bearcat (talk) 18:08, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- It's pretty self-explanatory; it's a license-exempt radio station operated by a church. We don't use the term Part 15 for unlicensed low-power stations in Canada, because 15 isn't the number of the section in Canadian broadcast law that governs them, but they're exactly the same thing as Part 15s outside of the differing terminology. The CRTC used to require these stations to be licensed just the same as any other more conventional radio station — but in an early-2000s round of regulatory simplification it dropped that requirement, and then issued a bunch of pro forma decisions to revoke the licenses of stations that had them — but the revocation doesn't necessarily mean the station had ceased to operate at that time, it just meant that the CRTC had no reason to maintain or monitor the licenses anymore due to the rule change. But we can't keep articles about them just because they're technically referenceable to the old CRTC decisions themselves, because we have no other way of verifying what happened to any of these stations after they no longer had to go back to the CRTC for license renewals anymore: no reliable sources will address whether such a station is still operating or not, if a station has stopped operating no reliable sources will address when or why, and on and so forth. There's simply no sourceable substance that can be written about these stations besides "it used to exist but we have no way of verifying whether it still does or not", and there's no encyclopedic reason for anybody to care about them. Even conventionally licensed general interest radio stations still require their notability to be sourceable to at least some evidence of reliable source coverage in media or books, rather than resting solely on CRTC/FCC sourcing alone. Bearcat (talk) 18:05, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- @Bearcat: So we can't use the "it had a license, now it doesn't, so the station is defunct and the page is here because the station once had a license" arguement? - Neutralhomer • Talk • 23:13 on February 22, 2018 (UTC)
- What would be the value in that argument if we can't source anything about when or why it went defunct? Bearcat (talk) 23:18, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- Maybe if we could bring back VF8000, there is some more information we could use. Plus, if the ISEDC database is searchable, unlike the CRTC database, we might find that when or why. I'd rather check everything before putting a radio station article out to pasture. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 23:35 on February 22, 2018 (UTC)
- There's never been a VF8000 article for us to bring back, and there's no more reliably sourceable information out there about it in that form than there is about it in CFPP form. And no, Spectrum Management doesn't offer a way to recover deleted details about defunct stations — it verifies the defunctness of a station only via the lack of any record on a call sign or frequency-and-location search, not by maintaining a record with a "defunct" flag on it. If a station doesn't pull up a live entry in their database, there's no way to recover a deleted one that might have existed in the past. (Oh, and just a reminder: the CRTC database is not "unsearchable", there are just some things — call sign changes, etc. — where it isn't useful because they aren't part of what the CRTC does.) Bearcat (talk) 23:48, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- @Bearcat: Crap. I think we should still try to save it with what information we have and just call the sourceable end date 2014, but beyond that, there isn't much we can do. But we do have sources, so it isn't a total loss. I was unaware that it was searchable. Can you link me to what parts are searchable? - Neutralhomer • Talk • 00:04 on February 23, 2018 (UTC)
- I don't see what purpose maintaining an article about it would serve at all — it's not a general market station about which there would be any ongoing interest, but a station of about as much inherent notability or public interest as the "music synced to the house's Christmas lights" iPod "station" that I drove past on the way to my brother's house last Christmas Eve (which was a nice little Christmassy moment, but nobody would expect an encyclopedia to have an article about it.) Technically speaking, even our notability criteria for radio stations have less to do with "because it existed" and more to do with "because there's a reasonable prospect that some people will actually be looking for information about it" — which is exactly what a VF station like this doesn't have, and exactly why we deprecate prerecorded tourist information stations and Part 15s. And I'm not sure what you mean by asking what parts of the CRTC website are searchable — the CRTC doesn't do all of the same things on it that the FCC does (frex, there's no way to make a usable "AMQ" or "FMQ" template out of a preformatted CRTC search — decisions and notices are organized by date, not by station, so there's no magic URL that will automatically generate a complete station history, and nothing on the CRTC website is going to help you document or source a call sign or branding or format change, or the shutdown date of a license-exempt VF station, or whether a newly-licensed station has actually made it to air yet or not), but anything that's on their website is searchable if you type a term into its search bar. The only issue is knowing what it is or isn't relevant to search their site for. Bearcat (talk) 00:16, 23 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- @Bearcat: I still think, with the information we have, even if it is all CRTC links, it's still enough to say the station existed, had a history and then under Canadian law, "didn't exist" anymore. I can't in good conscience !vote to delete an article that has even stub potential. So, I gotta !vote Keep on this one.
- As for the CRTC site, I misunderstood, I thought you meant that there were parts that were finally searchable. As in searchable by callsign, frequency, etc., like the FCC site. Again, I misunderstood. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 01:08 on February 23, 2018 (UTC)
- But nobody has any reason to even need a stub for this. It serves no value to retain it, because nobody cares or ever will about a "Part 15"-type station that formerly existed only to broadcast Sunday mass and nothing else — and NMEDIA explicitly states that while CRTC/FCC sourcing is necessary for some details, it's not enough sourcing to get an article kept all by itself if it's the only sourcing that can ever be provided. "Stub potential" isn't the point of Wikipedia — if the article has no potential to ever become more than a mere stub, because the topic is so unsourceable that the article can never say anything more than it already does, then an article simply isn't necessary or warranted. Bearcat (talk) 04:28, 23 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- First, let's let the reader decide what has value and what doesn't. We don't, they do. Personally, I don't think see the value of listing every germ, but we do. An article can "live" on FCC documents alone, not sure about CRTC, but FCC, yes, per NMEDIA. We have five (5) sources, that's enough to meet NMEDIA and GNG in my book. That would take it from stub to start. Since Canada doesn't have Part15s, we can't use NMEDIA's Part15 rules in this instance. I'm sorry, we just aren't going to see eye to eye on this one. We normally do, but we aren't here.
- Just for the record, Sherbrooke, isn't a "small town", it's actually a major city of 161,323 people as of the 2016 Canadian census. According to this coverage map from RECNet (a highly reliable source), CFPP covered/covers most of the city with a 60dBu signal, the rest covered with a listenable 54dBu signal. That's 161,000+ people with 1 watt, nothing to sneeze at. Again, just for the record. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 06:21 on February 23, 2018 (UTC)
- No, actually, NMEDIA explicitly states that FCC/CRTC licensing documents are not in and of themselves enough to get a radio station kept forever if no other sources can be provided. They're a necessary source for some details of what a radio station's article needs to contain (e.g. they're necessary as the reference for a station's ERP and HAAT), but they're not a sufficient source in and of themselves if they're the only source available. And secondly, you completely missed what I actually said if you think "Canada doesn't have Part15's, so we can't use NMEDIA's Part15 rules". We just don't use the term "Part 15" to name them — we call them "VFs" — but we do have stations that are the same thing in substance, and fall under the same "not inherently notable" rules, as Part 15s. NMEDIA's "Part 15" rules do explicitly state that they do also apply to VFs in Canada: they're based on the substance and sourceability of what such a station does, not on whether "Part 15" is the name of their authorizing legal framework or not. The rule explicitly names both USian Part 15s and Canadian VFs alongside each other as examples. Bearcat (talk) 16:04, 23 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless of what it was after it turned it's license, it had a license, which under NMEDIA, makes it notable and notability doesn't end when the station signs off. Again, I'm sorry, but you aren't going to sway me on this one. My !vote remains Keep. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 17:31 on February 23, 2018 (UTC)
- NMEDIA explicitly states that the existence of the CRTC licensing documents is not in and of itself an exemption from the article ever having to contain other sources besides the licensing documents alone. A radio station does have to be sourced to at least some evidence of reliable source coverage in media before it gets a notability pass — it doesn't have to have a ton of that, but it does have to have more than none of it. And nobody ever said that all defunct radio stations automatically cease to be notable just because they've gone defunct — but regardless of whether it's active or defunct, a radio station's notability does depend on its sourceability, and this one never had the necessary sourceability even when it was active. Bearcat (talk) 21:32, 23 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- Actually, that was accepted by the community and was quoted numerous times by Dravecky (may he rest in peace). Throwing a mass of text with as many italics as you can is just going to entrench me even more on my Keep !vote. We may see eye to eye on a lot of things, but this one isn't going to be one of those. Let's walk away, OK? - Neutralhomer • Talk • 22:21 on February 23, 2018 (UTC)
- It may have been the case that CRTC/FCC documentation was once considered to be all the sourcing that a radio station ever actually had to show at all, but that isn't the case anymore — consensus can change, and consensus has been tightened up to require sourcing beyond just the license itself. For one example of why, keep in mind that stations that never launched at all, and had their licenses expire unbuilt, can still technically be referenced to their initial CRTC/FCC licensing. So CRTC/FCC sourcing is accepted as necessary sourcing for some of a radio station's technical details, but not sufficient sourcing in and of itself to confer a permanent notability pass on a station that can't actually be referenced anywhere else.
- And you were part of the discussions where the consensus was established that we needed to tighten up the notability criteria for radio stations to require more than just the license itself for referencing, for that matter, and you've agreed in the past with the deletion of other stations in the exact same boat as this — so I simply don't understand why you view this as somehow different from all of the other low-power license-exempted stations we previously deleted as having verifiability and sourceability problems, when you supported those other stations' deletions.
- Keeping this would set a dangerous precedent that would disembowel parts of NMEDIA as it now stands — so I will decide when I'm ready to let go and walk away, because defending the established consensus is important enough to require a firm stand. Bearcat (talk) 22:52, 23 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- I was part of the discussion when there was ZERO references, but 5, even CRTC. I can't let that go. That, to me, meets GNG. I'm stubborn enough to stand firm on this, even if the AfD goes the other way, my !vote will not change. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 02:05 on February 24, 2018 (UTC)
@Bearcat: CFPP is an active callsign, I just can't tell you where. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 02:11 on February 24, 2018 (UTC)
According to the ISEDC's own database (heads up, it's a .zip file), last updated 12/12/2017, it shows CFPP-FM is "operational". Granted the information is just over 3 months old. But that shows as of December, according to the Canadian government, CFPP-FM was operating as CFPP-FM. Can't get anymore reliable than that. I can't explain the in-between though. That's for a Canadian who knows the CRTC and ISEDC databases better to figure out. Again, I will help as best as I can, though. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 02:25 on February 24, 2018 (UTC)
- I was going to update the page with the five (5) CRTC references, but with the new information, I'll hold off until you respond back. Do ping me, please. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 02:27 on February 24, 2018 (UTC)
- @Bearcat: I'm assuming that you've had a chance to take a look at the information from the ISEDC? Does this at least partially confirm this station is still on the air in some form? - Neutralhomer • Talk • 21:08 on February 24, 2018 (UTC)
- And I'm stubborn enough to stand firm on what NMEDIA says, which is that the basic government sourcing alone is not enough to get an article kept if it's the only sourcing that can be provided at all — the existence of those sources is a necessary condition, but not in and of itself a sufficient condition if there is no reliable source coverage anywhere else. What NMEDIA says is that the government sources can assist in building a temporary presumption of notability pending the addition of better sources, but cannot carry a permanent notability guarantee all by themselves if no better sources can be provided at all. And no, the ISEDC data dump does not prove that the station is still operational, or even that it was still operational as of December 2017 — that only proves that it was still present in the database as of the last time they did a deletion run on it, which is not a thing that necessarily happens daily or even weekly. A licensed station that goes out of business will get reported and deleted as soon as the CRTC publishes a license revocation, but can still linger in the database for years if its owners don't actually file an application to have their licenses formally revoked — and with an unlicensed station that doesn't have to answer to the CRTC, all bets are off as to whether any paperwork to report the station's defunctness ever happens at all. So exclusion from that database does prove that a station is defunct, but inclusion in it at any given time does not singlehandedly prove that a station isn't defunct. Even going back to the Canadian Radio News blog entry that you showed for the defunctness of VF8000, the two CHYK-FM rebroadcasters listed directly above it in the same "deleted" list were actually taken out of service a full year and a half before the date on that post — it just took Le5 that long to file the paperwork necessary to get them deleted from the database. Bearcat (talk) 22:09, 24 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- Then I will update the page with the 5 or so CRTC and ISEDC links here in a bit, that will update the page with all current and sourceable history. For the life of me, with all the information in front of you and all the information that I continue to uncover with simple Google searches and searches of CRTC and ISEDC databases, which you say are unsearchable (just not easily though), you still want to swat this article down. I don't get it and this is beyond policy. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 22:08 on February 25, 2018 (UTC)
- NMEDIA explicitly says that the government database sourcing is not in and of itself enough to get an article kept if no other sources can be provided. It explicitly says that some evidence of media coverage is required. And kindly stop misinterpreting or misrepresenting what I said about the searchability of the databases, as well: I never said that they were "unsearchable" — that came from you, not me, and I clarified that they are searchable, but that what they do just doesn't always help in every possible situation (e.g. the CRTC site cannot help you verify a call sign change, because the CRTC doesn't have anything to do with them. But that's not the same thing as the CRTC site somehow being "unsearchable", and the only person who ever said it was "unsearchable" is you, not me.)
- But again, no matter what you can find on the CRTC and ISEDC sites, NMEDIA explicitly says that's not enough to get a radio station kept all by itself if no other sources exist anywhere. This is not "beyond policy" — I'm acting correctly in accordance with what NMEDIA itself explicitly says that the rule for the includability of radio stations is.
- The exact statement from NMEDIA, if you need it, is as follows: In the case of radio and television stations, the licensing documents from the appropriate regulatory agency (the FCC in the United States, the CRTC in Canada, OFCOM in the United Kingdom, etc.) are acceptable references for some facts — they may in fact be the only possible source for some details, such as the station's transmitter power. However, these sources do not constitute a permanent pass of this notability standard by themselves. Radio or television stations referenced only to the licensing documents themselves are granted a temporary presumption of notability pending the addition of better sources, but are not granted a permanent exemption from ever having to cite improved sourcing — even if the licensing documents are cited in the article, it may still be deleted in the future if real media sources simply cannot be found. Bearcat (talk) 22:10, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've been extremely busy for the past two days and I'm very tired. So, I'm going to add the sources I have and I'm going to leave it up to everyone else. This entire thread is giving me a migraine and, not only trying my patience, but making me consider another year+ vacation from Wikipedia. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 01:10 on February 27, 2018 (UTC)
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