Talk:Lifeboat Foundation

Previous deletion discussion

This article was previously deleted for failing to establish notability. The sources used in the deleted version were blogs, so were not RS. Since numerous Wiki articles linked to this article, it might have been better to redirect to one of those articles, instead of being deleted entirely. There are now RS to establish notability, but in my opinion not enough content to justify its own article. So I redirected the article to global catastrophic risks and merged content from the RS into the appropriate section of that article. FloraWilde (talk) 16:55, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Notability

Lifeboat is now clearly notable, even if it wasn't in the past. Notability is established by the substantial coverage in reliable sources here, here, here, and here. None of these sources are mentioned by the previous deletion discussions. The Bloomberg one isn't mentioned by the 2013 discussion despite predating it by over a year, which suggests that people didn't look very hard, as Bloomberg is a major well-known magazine and Ashlee Vance is a major well-known journalist (he's the biographer for Elon Musk). NeatGrey (talk) 21:01, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Are you sure the first one is a reliable source? I have my doubts as to what fastcompany is. Could you clarify a bit? The other sources are not having lifeboat as their main subject, so they don't help to establish that Lifeboat is covered in multiple sources as their main subject... L.tak (talk) 21:05, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Fast Company is a well known professional media outlet (see Fast Company (magazine)), and the author of those articles (Neal Ungerleider) is a professional journalist who is employed by them.

Being the main subject of an article is explicitly not required for notability. The criterion is "significant coverage", not "main topic". WP:N says "Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it need not be the main topic of the source material." (link) NeatGrey (talk) 21:19, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

One of those Fast Company articles is very short (and so can't be "significant coverage"), and mostly parrots press releases, so is not independent; the other is actually on their FastCo.Exist blog, which, lacking editorial oversight, wouldn't generally be considered a reliable source. The Newsmax article was written by someone who was invited to join the Foundation for their trouble (a recurring theme in these articles), and is based on an interview with the founder, as such it's not at all independent, and there's a general consensus that interviews don't count towards notability. The Bloomberg article is pretty good: a reliable, independent source, with four whole paragraphs on the Lifeboat Foundation, however, we'd need several more sources of similar quality to say "Lifeboat is now clearly notable". ʍw 01:19, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Co.Exist is not an independent blog; it's on a separate domain from fastcompany.com because the magazine decided to split their articles by topic (see here). The author is a professional journalist who is employed by Fast Company, as are (based on some quick checking) all of the authors at that domain.

This other article is on Bits, which the New York Times refers to as a "blog", but it's by a well-known professional journalist and so can be a reliable source. See WP:NEWSBLOG.

Independence means that the author of the article does not have personal ties to what they're writing about; it doesn't mean that the author isn't allowed to use what they're writing about as a source themselves. That's up to the author's own judgement. According to WP:INDEPENDENT, "An independent source is a source that has no vested interest in a written topic and therefore it is commonly expected to describe the topic from a disinterested perspective. An interest in a topic is vested where the source holds a financial or legal relationship with the topic, for example." This clearly does not apply here. NeatGrey (talk) 01:52, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Your own link says Co.Exist is for "hearing directly from the people". Note how WP:NEWSBLOG says "...use them with caution because the blog may not be subject to the news organization's normal fact-checking process." Similarly, WP:USERGENERATED goes as far as to say: "...these may be acceptable as sources if the writers are professional journalists or professionals in the field on which they write, and the blog is subject to the news outlet's full editorial control." These are better then some random wordpress or blogspot blog, but if these are your best sources, then notability is definitely in doubt.

Never quote an essay unless you've verified it agrees with the relevant policies or guidelines. In this case, your WP:INDEPENDENT disagrees with WP:GNG: ""Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by the article's subject or someone affiliated with it."; guidelines trump essays. And articles based on press releases or interviews never contribute to notability.

The rest of the sources in the article (and previous AfDs) are generally passing mentions or not independent of the Lifeboat Foundation. I remain unconvinced that notability has been demonstrated. ʍw 02:35, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Not sure what else to say. If you remain unconvinced, just put it up for deletion again. There are certainly new sources to consider since the last AfD, which was three years ago. NeatGrey (talk) 02:46, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Reliability of sources

I've found these additional sources on Lifeboat, can anyone comment on their reliability?

• This here is in a newspaper, but it's a student publication, and appears to be by a "guest writer" rather than a professional journalist
• This covers Lifeboat extensively, but it's a polemic, and the writer doesn't appear to be a journalist; what kind of outlet is the "IEET"?
• This is in a student law review journal
• This is from a math journal (?)
• This and this are from "Nanotechnology Now", which appears to be a real media site, but they look like they're copied press releases
• This is from Tubefilter, which "operates media businesses focusing on the online entertainment industry"
• This is from the news site CoinDesk
• This is from Metro (British newspaper)
• This looks like a French newspaper, but I can't read it because it's in French NeatGrey (talk) 02:30, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Bullet points, from the top:

1 & 2 are not reliable sources.

3 has two sentences on the Lifeboat Foundation - what I would consider a passing mention.

4 appears to be a review of a book. The review mentions the Lifeboat Foundation in passing, as something not in the book (I find that quite amusing).

5 are definitely press releases, and do not confer notability.

6 has a passing mention (plus a quote from a letter, not independent).

7 has one sentence (passing mention).

8, again, has just one sentence on the Lifeboat Foundation.

9... I also can't read French, but the Google Translation isn't promising.

Of course, this is just my impression of these sources.

Though you seem to know this, I'll point out that dozens of passing mentions are worth less than one source with in-depth coverage, particularly when it comes to proving notability. ʍw 03:09, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, but you seem to be analyzing these from a notability standpoint, rather than a reliability standpoint. Self-published sources, for example, obviously do not contribute to notability, but can be reliable in some cases; see WP:ABOUTSELF. What is your position regarding reliability (that is, appropriateness for inclusion in the article, assuming it has already been proven notable), rather than notability? NeatGrey (talk) 03:19, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

You got me - I was stuck on notability. From a purely WP:RS standpoint, I'd say that 1-4 aren't at all usable; 5 are usable as press releases; 6, 7, & 8 don't have any information that isn't available in better sources (they basically just confirm the Lifeboat Foundation exists); and I still can't read French. ʍw 03:28, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Permission to copy

Can I have permission to copy the cells in Lifeboat City? 66.25.143.249 (talk) 20:36, 26 January 2022 (UTC)