Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Royal Free Radio

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 delete. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:26, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Royal Free Radio (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Radio station not properly sourced as passing WP:NMEDIA's criteria for the notability of radio stations. Every radio station that exists is not automatically presumed notable — a radio station has to pass all four of four criteria to qualify for a Wikipedia article. But this station appears to fail two of the four conditions: radio station requires a permanent OFCOM license, not just temporary special authority licenses, and it requires that the station is the subject of reliable source coverage to properly verify the article's content. Bearcat (talk) 17:17, 19 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. Kpgjhpjm 17:23, 19 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. Kpgjhpjm 17:23, 19 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Radio-related deletion discussions. Bearcat (talk) 18:02, 19 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Query @Bearcat: - where are the four conditions that you mention documented? I looked at WP:NMEDIA as suggested, and did not find these conditions. I did find, for radio stations, Notability can be established by either a large audience, established broadcast history, or being the originator of some programming. Ross-c (talk) 18:30, 19 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The four base conditions that a radio station always has to meet to be deemed notable are that (a) it has a broadcast license from the appropriate regulatory authority (note the section on "unlicensed stations" that deprecates those as not notable in most circumstances), (b) it is actually on the air ("established broadcast history") rather than existing solely as an unlaunched construction permit, (c) it originates at least a portion of its programming schedule in its own dedicated studios ("originator of some programming") rather than existing as a pure rebroadcaster of another radio service, and (d) all three of those facts are referenceable to reliable sources outside the station's own self-published web presence. (People have created fake websites to "wikiverify" the existence of radio stations that didn't really exist at all, so a station's self-published claims about itself are not evidence that it actually meets any of the other three conditions.) Bearcat (talk) 18:36, 19 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Bearcat:. I don't think your interpretation of the guidelines are reasonable. The use of words such as 'either' and 'or' clearly shows that not all conditions need to be met. Having looked into the station, it does have an established broadcast history having broadcast since the 1970s. I wasn't going to vote on this one, but I'm very concerned that your AFD summary includes an incorrect description of what a radio station needs to do in order to pass as notable. Ross-c (talk) 19:42, 19 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, I was one of the core writers of our notability standards for media — so my "interpretation" of what a radio station has to do to pass it can never be incorrect. If I worded it unclearly in some places, I can certainly revise that — but nothing I say about the notability criteria for radio stations can ever be wrong, because I was directly involved in the process of creating them in the first place, so I know exactly what they are and what they're supposed to be. Reliable source referencing about the radio station, for instance, is always absolutely mandatory, and never optional or overlookable — no radio station, regardless of what notability criteria the text claims the station passes, ever gets a free notability pass without reliable sourcing, because Wikipedia has seen hoax articles created about radio stations that didn't really exist at all. There are extremely rare exceptions where an unlicensed radio station, such as the North Sea pirate stations of the 1960s, got enough coverage and had wide enough cultural impact to clear WP:GNG regardless of the lack of a conventional broadcast license, but that still depends on its sourceability and not just on the fact that its existence as a radio station has been claimed — normal radio stations operating in normal contexts do have to be licensed to be presumed notable, and unlicensed stations are not automatically considered notable just because they exist. And all radio stations, with no exceptions for any reason, must always be properly referenced to be notable — no radio station gets handed a notability freebie just because of what the body text says, if the body text doesn't properly reference that what it says is true. Bearcat (talk) 13:05, 20 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Bearcat: As I understood it NMEDIA isn't a policy anyways, so your interpretation could be wrong. Is not policy determined by the consensus of the community, rather than just being whatever you wrote or intended to write? I think you're being a bit self-important with your declarations about the rightness or wrongness of the guideline interpretation. That said, I agree that reliable sourcing is essential regardless of the station's claimed audience size. Zortwort (talk) 20:39, 28 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete: unsourced original research; no attempt has been made to show notability or provide sources. No value to the project. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:25, 23 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete: No sources. Zortwort (talk) 20:40, 28 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as above, no attempt to cite the article XyzSpaniel Talk Page 19:09, 29 August 2018 (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.