Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Friends of NRA

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 no consensus. The discussion has already been relisted twice and votes seem to be split between keep/redirect/delete. (non-admin closure) Omni Flames ^{let's talk about it} 05:05, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Friends of NRA (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Not notable. It's an article about a group that supports an unnotable foundation that supports the National Rifle Association. There ain't even one secondary sourcethat's worth using. It's got tags dating back four years, but no one cares enough to fix it. I proposed a merger before I noticed that it's all written from press releases, etc. There's nothing worth merging and no good target for a merge. Felsic2 (talk) 18:18, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. /wiae /tlk 04:05, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. /wiae /tlk 04:05, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect to the NRA article. Niteshift36 (talk) 03:17, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Notability well established for wikipedia proposes. Drive by tags not reason enough to delet J8079s (talk) 18:21, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• • Huh? How is it established? Where are the secondary sources? Is the NRA Foundation notable? Nope. Neither is the group that supports it. Felsic2 (talk) 20:36, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• • @R'n'B: - Pinging the editor who added the "drive by tags". Felsic2 (talk) 22:41, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong Keep Very notable organization within the gun culture. Friends of NRA has held over 17,600 events, reached over 3.2 million attendees and raised over $600 million for good causes. Seems notable enough in terms of its impact, and the article has footnotes. Miguel Escopeta (talk) 17:01, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Where are you getting all this info? If it's a notable entity then let's see some sources. Felsic2 (talk) 17:19, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect the NRA at best for now because this is likely best connected to them and is best put aside until a better improvable and notable article is available. SwisterTwister talk 22:11, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete or Redirect Gun-worship above does not excuse the absolute lack of reliable secondary sources on this organisation. AusLondonder (talk) 02:16, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect: The page has a lot of references, but many of them only serve to support the contents of the article without mentioning the organization. Of those that do cover the organization, most of them appear to be primary sources or lists/registries. Per Felsic2 and AusLondonder, there really isn't a lot to work with here in terms of coverage from secondary sources, so the subject appears to fail WP:ORG. However, it could still be worth mentioning on the National Rifle Association page in a similar manner to the NRA Foundation. --Erick Shepherd (talk) 10:54, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. I have to wonder if dislike of "gun-worship", gun rights and NRA is driving the Delete votes. This appears to be a huge organization. No one has disputed its 17,600 events and its raising $600 million (did i get that number right?). References look fine. If Wikipedia deletes articles because many of its editors, probably the majority of them, are liberal, then Wikipedia loses credibility. --doncram 17:29, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Linked AFD search on news alone yields many many current news items on local events. If this was about a nonprofit helping disabled orphans in Atlanta, say, the availability of 3 or 4 local news articles would produce a slam-dunk Keep resolution to its AFD. --doncram 17:33, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

PPS. Further, frankly it would be valid for the Friends of NRA article to include a list of significant Friends of NRA events, i.e. to include a list of many thousands of items. Arguably many of the individual events have been covered in multiple reliable sources and themselves would be Wikinotable. "Events of Friends of NRA" no doubt meets wp:LISTN as a topic and List of Friends of NRA events would be valid as a list-article. I am not chomping at the bit to start such a list-article myself right now, it seems a bit much to delete the main article on Friends of NRA in which it could be a section. --doncram 17:42, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

PPPS. From looking at the Friends of NRA website and the wikipedia National Rifle Association webpage in full, it seems to me that the NRA Foundation (currently a redirect to a short section in the NRA article) and the Friends of NRA are substantially different and distinct from the NRA itself, and deserve separate coverage, but the two might be covered in one article. The NRA itself is concerned with legistlation, broadly. The NRA Foundation supports "the shooting sports" nation-wide by grants that fund nation-wide programs (getting 50% of funds raised by Friends of NRA) and local programs (getting other 50%). This is huge and genuine...it really does support gunmanship training programs, Boy Scouts programs, etc. etc. ...and it should be thought of like a foundation supporting another sport like skiing, say, or like supporting the training of Olympic athletes, that also has a huge grassroots fundraising arm. From 2 seconds of searching about foundations supporting skiing, this can be compared to say the Billy Poole Memorial Fund which provides for "opportunities for kids to learn to ski" and has an annual movie and fundraiser event at the Washoe Theater in Anaconda, Montana. If the Billy Poole foundation does anything like $1 million revenue I would support it having a Wikipedia article for sure; the combo of the Friends of NRA and the NRA Foundation does $59 million per year now. The Billy Poole program perhaps has a side "benefit" of putting skiing in general into the public's mind but there is no nation-wide legislative or public policy issues about skiing; I suspect it is a deliberate (although perhaps unstated) goal for the Friends of NRA & NRA Foundation to put shooting as a sport into the public's mind as part of supporting the legislative/public policy mission of the NRA. The United States Olympic Committee supports Olympic sports and we cover it. One might support gun control and be against the current agenda of the NRA, but that is not reason to suppress coverage of the massive fundraising and grants program supporting the "shooting sports". --doncram 19:21, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I would be open to keeping it, but there would need to be a substantial rewrite. The bulk of the "Supported shooting sports and safety programs" section is composed of external links to sub-domains of the NRA website (not even the Friends of NRA website) as opposed to descriptions of the programs, and virtually all of that section discusses the activities of the NRA Foundation as opposed to the Friends of NRA. It seems a bit ungermane, and the sheer number of consecutive external links makes it seem like the goal is not to provide information to the reader but to generate page hits for the target websites. Additionally, as mentioned above, I think the subject could do with better referencing to demonstrate depth of coverage. If the topic does in fact have significant coverage in reliable independent secondary sources — as opposed to passing mentions in relation to other NRA activities by other NRA associated organizations — great! But we need to evidence that in the article. --Erick Shepherd (talk) 20:51, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Firearms-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 01:38, 8 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 01:38, 8 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - References reasonably establish notability, especially with what are currently references 4 and 5 (this version).—Godsy^(TALK_CONT) 02:26, 8 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Keep - Article is definitely notable. Many references are easily found, for example:
• http://www.enidbuzz.com/friends-of-the-nra-banquet/
• http://www.kgwn.tv/home/headlines/Friends-of-the-NRA-Host-fundraiser-290709171.html
• http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=5450#.Vwa4PP_mrZY
• http://www.scnow.com/sports/outdoors/article_f8206318-9d6b-11e3-9a94-001a4bcf6878.html -- Samf4u (talk) 18:20, 8 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Samf4u Those "references" do not meet the criteria at WP:RS nor do they amount to in depth coverage. AusLondonder (talk) 18:48, 11 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete References that are really just notices of fundraisers really doesn't count. Not notable. VanEman (talk) 22:31, 8 April 2016 (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.