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. Withdrawn by nom with no opposition. (non-admin closure) Natg 19 (talk) 02:14, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Society for the Study of Social Problems (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Fails WP:NORG, total lack of secondary coverage. Article appears to have been created and extensively edited by someone associated with the org. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:24, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Withdraw / Keep per sources found to support notability. COI issue has been resolved. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:53, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:24, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:24, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Tennessee-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 01:22, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete: No reliable, independent sources listed. Must have additional sources to be of inclusion in the articlespace. Multi7001 (talk) 03:17, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Multi7001: You have altered your comment without heeding WP:REDACT, which is a problem. From the sources added since your first edit, do you consider the OUP Dictionary of Sociology and Julia Wrigley's article[1] to be not "independent"? Alexbrn (talk) 19:34, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Alexbrn, that is an incorrect assertion. The guidelines state: "so long as no one has yet responded to your comment, it's accepted and common practice that you may continue to edit your remarks for a short while to correct mistakes." There was an edit made to increase clarification and prevent misinterpretation of the comment, as no one had commented on it yet. With regards to the sources, it has been marked for deletion by another user for a reason; I could not confirm whether the sources were both independent and reliable to the subject and contained SIGCOV. In some cases, low-level organizations with no media presence tend to have press releases published in academic journals and subscription databases as articles. I am skeptical that just these three academic articles are the subject's only indication of notability, as notable organizations that meet WP:GNG and WP:NORG tend to have multiple articles in mass media outlets, of which there is no presence in the media, from what I saw - in addition to mentions on academic journals. That is just my opinion, as all users are subject to their own opinion, respectfully. Multi7001 (talk) 20:25, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

More sources were added after my nom was posted. I redacted the deletion nom but will decide to stay impartial given that some of the content in the sources cannot be accessed in full due to a paywall. Multi7001 (talk) 22:50, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Whatever problems the current article has, this looks like a viable topic with decent (if difficult-to-find/get) secondary sources available, e.g.

• A Dictionary of Sociology (OUP)[2]
• RS published accounts from the (ex-) president.[3]
• Historial overview from 1976.[4]

Alexbrn (talk) 10:38, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Alexbrn, here is an example of what I was referring to: [5]. Sometimes, academic publications tend to mask subtle mentions or entire articles in their print/online publications as genuine coverage, but it is actually PR paid for by the subject. Sometimes disclosed, and other times not; similar to editorial newsrooms and companies wanting intricate PR. As you can see, the publisher is the University of California Press, and this one, compared to others that don't follow this process, discloses the following: "University of California Press on behalf of the Society for the Study of Social Problems." Organizations that do this are usually the ones with no media presence and a lack of notability, but with direct access to editorial tools within the academic publications. Multi7001 (talk) 20:38, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What has that source got to do with this article? You said there were "no reliable sources"[6] But now they've emerged, such as this, then that statement is incorrect. Will you respond to new evidence or double down? There are more sources of course (did you look?) Alexbrn (talk) 20:50, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Just enough independent sources.Rathfelder (talk) 21:03, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Another (quite critical) source is:

→ Leedham CS, Eitzen DS (1994). "Advocacy and the SSSP: An Analysis of Research Articles in Social Problems". American Sociologist. 25 (Fall): 66–73.

This cites several other sources on the Society, which I shall try and track down. There's quite a bit of (older) stuff out there. Alexbrn (talk) 21:09, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Sourcing such articles is always difficult, as anyone who tried knows: even the Modern Language Association suffers from a dearth of secondary sourcing, but there is no denying that within its area it's the most important organization there is. Anyway, it seems to me that Alexbrn has done enough to prove this outfit deserves an article, though the article has a clear COI origin (and I'm going to block Tomhoodster, who did not participate in the COIN discussion and hasn't responded to messages, from editing the article) and needs some hard work. BTW funny--my office used to be in the same building. McClung Tower might deserve a Brutalist article. Drmies (talk) 21:19, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hah, didn't realise this was at COIN. That'll learn me to take anything off my watchlist, be it ever-so-tedious. Alexbrn (talk) 21:35, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Alexbrn, I don't use my watchlist at all, but the obvious COI flavor of the article made me look for the main editor in the history, and thus their talk page, and so I found User:MB's notification. It's the old rabbit hole--but with an administrative edict at the end. Drmies (talk) 00:03, 16 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep: In addition to the sources that have already been provided, I found it straightforward to find independent sources describing this organization in at least some depth just by paging through google scholar results for "Society for the Study of Social Problems". - Astrophobe (talk) 21:56, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • User:Astrophobe, if it really was so easy for you, please improve the article--you seem to have the skills and the information, and I'd appreciate your efforts. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 00:04, 16 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Drmies: thanks for the suggestion, but I've barely even had time to look at my watchlist recently. The existence of sources is the criterion by which articles are judged at AfD per WP:NEXIST, and actually fixing an article is much harder than just assessing whether or not an article subject meets notability criteria. There's a place for SODOIT but it's not relevant to my !vote. But if the issue is actually that you doubt that I saw sources then please do say so and I'll be happy to go back and find them, I just thought plastering this AfD with more sources wasn't really relevant after several have been supplied above. But I'll add this article to my mental list of pages to come back to, and please feel free to follow up any time at my talk page. - Astrophobe (talk) 01:05, 16 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • User:Astrophobe, I hear you. I know it's easier to prove notability than to write decent articles--one wishes that these COI editors would acquaint themselves with our guidelines and would take us seriously. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 01:22, 16 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep It can be hard to document an organization like this, because sources about them get lost among the sources published by them. But we seem to have crossed that bar. XOR'easter (talk) 14:32, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. It was me that initially suggested on WP:COI/N that the article didn't provide independent sourcing to demonstrate 'notability', but I think what has been found since is sufficient now to meet the criteria, and to write a better article. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:20, 19 December 2021 (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.