Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Noreen Oliver

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. Davewild (talk) 12:20, 9 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Noreen Oliver

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Non notable and promotional--presumably written for her by a press agent, for it's exactly in that style. MBE is the lowest level of the award, and not enough for notability,tho it keeps it from being speedy A7. DGG ( talk ) 04:37, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is bizarre - I am not this woman's press agent (nor anyone's press agent). I don't even live in the UK. I'm a big proponent of drug law reform - if you look at my profile, you'll see I've also written the articles on Dr. João Castel-Branco Goulão (I'm also not his press agent) and the book Chasing the Scream (not the press agent for the author either). I saw her in the documentary, looked her up, and thought she was highly interesting and accomplished, so made an article on her. I think what she has done is remarkable. I don't see why she fails notability - she popped up in 40+ news articles in the Google news search (you can click above), including national UK publications like the The Guardian (full profile on her) and even VICE (USA). She's also a member of the UK Honours Committee, a Cabinet subcommittee which only people of high esteem are invited to join. This is an exclusive list of people, full of dames and knights. Additionally, @DGG: as for your accusation that it was written like a press agent would, if you feel any part of that article is WP:PEACOCK or it somehow makes it read like a news release, I'd love to know specifically what that is. If there is some kind of scandal or controversy she's involved with that you think was omitted, then feel free to add it to the article. Otherwise I will just assume you think it's too good of an article, in which case, thanks for the compliment 👍. —Мандичка^YO 😜 04:58, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry. We have been so inundated by paid editing that it's easy to think it's everywhere--and many there is so much of it that many people seem to think it's OK to write an article after the model of the promotional articles they see already here. And the article none the less seems oriented to promote her work: the long section on the Centre she founded includes " The centres have had tremendous success and impact on the community." and "has become nationally renowned, " Phrases like " is a strong advocate of abstinence-based recovery." although not intrinsically promotional, typical of promotional writing--a NPOV bio would leave out the "strong" Unsourced adjectives of praise must be eliminated. The inclusion of quotes from her own autobio telling how she became interested in the subject is also a standard promotional technique--there is obviously no source for it except herself, and she could have told the reporter whatever she pleased. Excessive personal detail is characteristic of promotional writing and autobios: Why would a reader of an encycopedia article be interested to know that "she suffers from diabetes and damaged nerve endings in her legs. " Inclusion of trivia, like being selected to carry the Olympic torch through a village, or speaking at a conference, tends to be promotional. Name dropping is promotional: that she's on the Honours Committee might be significant, but including the name of the Queen is not. (Looking at the list, I see that most of the people are clearly notable independent of their membership there, while a substantial number of others do not seem to be ).

If she is considered notable by the community, then of course these elements of the writing can be fixed. DGG ( talk ) 22:16, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@DGG: Thanks for the explanation. I agree that COI editing is a serious issue, but if you suspect someone is a paid editor, you should definitely take a look at their contribution history, because it's usually pretty obvious what they are up to. If you had looked at my history, I don't think you would have thought that. IMO the best course of action in these types of situation is to edit the article yourself/flag sections as peacock/discuss it on the talk page/flag for notability rather than propose the article for deletion and say it's clearly written by a publicity agent, which is really a slam on me and not WP:AGF. As for the specific parts you took issue with, since the article is still flagged as AFD, let me go over them:

Mentioning the queen: that's what the Honours Committee does - it nominates the people for the Queen's New Years and Birthday Honours (or officially, the New Years and Birthday Honours for the Monarch of the United Kingdom) and those awards only. I actually didn't know what the Honours Committee was, as profiles about her just said she was on the "CVL Honours Committee" and it took me forever to figure out that stood for "Community, Voluntary and Local Services" and what the Honours Committee was. After I wrote her article, I ended up creating the article for the Honours Committee seeing as one did not yet exist (even though there was one for the Honours Forfeiture Committee, go figure) and I was annoyed that it took me so long to find out what it was. I just tweaked that part of her article so now it just says the Honours Committee nominates people for national awards for merit and service (linked to the UK national awards list), even though they only nominate people for the Queen's NY and Bday honours.
I also changed the part about the success of her clinic - I took away her quote and put in the statistics the centre claims, crediting it to her. There was also a BBC article that mentioned these claims, which gives it come credibility as well. Even though it's a hard thing to gauge, being that this kind of information is confidential and subject to the honesty of the participants, I don't think the BBC would publish the article specifically about the clinic's claimed success rate if they had any suspicion it was a marketing ploy. There are numerous media references to the clinic being "award-winning" but I didn't really spend much time searching for those, since it wasn't about her specifically, but I'm happy to do that. I do think it has had significant local impact, as there are articles saying it has from the local newspapers, but I won't add that back in until I find the quote again. Additionally, I think it being nationally renowned is fully supported - if the prime minister has praised it, that is about as nationally renowned as you can get.
I think running with the Olympic torch is a huge honor and should be included with the awards section, as the torch committee only invites accomplished people/community leaders/Olympic hopefuls to run with the torch. I would imagine a significant number of the Wikipedia articles on torchbearers mention they ran in the relay.
As for the part about her being a strong proponent of abstinence-based recovery - this is not a promotional thing or flattery thing; this is her stance. It goes toward her activism: she is an advocate for this type of recovery and actively participates in events related to promoting it. I can put in more information about this (events she's participated in, etc) if you think it's necessary. I don't have any personal experience with drug or alcohol addiction (although I'm sympathetic to those who do), but from watching various documentaries like the one she was in, I've learned the typical solution to heroin addiction in a lot of countries (including the UK) is to park people on methadone, instead of truly detoxing them and going the abstinence route, which involves intense rehab, dealing with the issues that got them addicted to drugs in the first place, and providing social resources to support them after care. Prescribing methadone is significantly cheaper in the short run and this is the main issue. There are doctors who insist it is helpful, but there are addicts who, in addition to methadone, take heroin and other drugs on top of it because they still need to get high, and then they eventually fail a drug test or get arrested for something else and the cycle continues. In one documentary I watched they were talking about this NHS doctor who prescribes methadone all day long b/c that's his job, but he said if his own child was an addict, he would never prescribe her methadone but would put her in an abstinence-based rehab immediately. So you have pro-abstinence recovery people trying to change the system by actively lobbying the government and medical community to convince people that in the long run, abstinence and community support are the most successful way to help people and society.
The diabetes and leg pain in her personal life - I don't care that much about this, but having a chronic medical condition is something that fairly frequently appears in Wikipedia articles in the "Personal life" section, as it tends to affect people's lives in a significant way. I don't think it's trivial and I doubt she does. I didn't even know you could get diabetes from alcoholism but apparently it causes pancreatic damage. Trivial is "she has three dogs, a rabbit, and 12 houseplants" and "she has a subscription to Netflix."

Anyway sorry for the long response but I felt it was necessary. —Мандичка^YO 😜 17:25, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately your response makes it clear that the purpose of the article is to advertise her organisations and promote their principles. We don't do promotion, even for the most worth of causes DGG ( talk ) 18:40, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

ORLY? It's clear that I'm trying to advertise her organization and principles, is it? Is it AS clear as me being her "publicity agent," or is it less clear? Or is it exactly as clear? Because you know, according to you, I'm clearly the publicity agent of a woman I've never met and only heard of two days ago. Whatever. —Мандичка^YO 😜 02:59, 14 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's true enough I can see only the result, not the motive. That's all I intended to talk about, and my apologies if it appeared otherwise. DGG ( talk ) 05:40, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:44, 14 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:44, 14 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have read the article and the deletion discussion and I feel that the page should not be deleted. I have seen many articles far less notable than this about celebrities. It did not feel promotional but it did carry overtones of being written by someone in her favor as opposed to a neutral stance although this is easily fixed. I do not feel this is promoting the principle of her organisations, however, I do feel they should be limited to a short statement on what they do without going in to depth on why they do it. Kittykat28 (talk) 09:36, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Kittykat28: Thank you for your response. I don't feel there is anything promotional in the actual article. The statement above was me trying to explain to the reality challenged nominator why the mention that "she is a strong proponent of abstinence-based recovery" is NOT any kind of flattering statement but simply her view. There are some people who would see that statement and feel negatively about her, because they personally feel there are other manners of recovery. Anyway, if anyone feels there are overtones of it being positive or something promotional in the article then someone should go ahead and CHANGE it and not nominate the article for deletion (and certainly not accuse someone of being a press agent). The thing is that every news item about this woman that I found is positive, winning awards, having people come from other countries to visit the center to learn from it, her being involved in national or international events etc. So the article includes those mentions, and like I said, I didn't even include them all, because it's more about the center and not her. If I had found articles saying something negative about her (like she was involved in some kind of medical fraud, etc) then I would have put that in too, but I didn't find anything like that. —Мандичка^YO 😜 22:54, 16 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 19:13, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: I'm going TL;DR on the filibustering, and sticking with whether the subject's notable or not. I'm seeing multiple media sources discussing the subject in detail, and that's a GNG pass. Done deal. Nha Trang ^Allons! 16:43, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - NukeThePukes has it exactly right: this is a clear GNG pass based on sources showing in the piece, including THIS. The nominator is cautioned that suspicions of COI is not sufficient reason for a deletion nomination. Carrite (talk) 16:46, 27 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I considerthat ref to be another example of successfulPR.We should not follow their example. DGG ( talk ) 01:51, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Successful PR? Oh yes, clearly, she won a lifetime achievement award and her PR "team" is stealthily using it to establish notability on Wikipedia... FIVE YEARS LATER!!!!!! Damn, foiled again!!! —Мандичка^YO 😜 11:15, 29 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Holy crap, since when do we get to decide whether or not a reliable source has been manipulated into posting a good citation for a subject, or whether an award a reliable source post an article on is a credible award or not. The GNG is a bright-line guideline, and we've got no business at all second-guessing the motives behind the publication of an article. Successful PR? Maybe. What does that have to do with anything? Nha Trang ^Allons! 17:51, 29 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

NukeThePukes yes, my initial reaction has not changed: I find this whole thing very bizarre (and stupid). —Мандичка^YO 😜 11:24, 2 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 08:11, 30 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep as notable enough. This article does need a LOT of work, but not so much that it needs to be started from scratch. If it is kept, please, whomever has worked on it, please fix the writing. Bearian (talk) 19:00, 7 May 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.