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International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers

International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Non notable group, self declared group, all references re either dead links, or blogs (excepting one catholic reporter ref), or self published items by the group.

Article is not written in an encyclopedic manner, and is written like a pamphlet from the group. Gaijin42 (talk) 14:55, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

• nominator delete Gaijin42 (talk) 20:56, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
• Keep. Article may need an edit, but that an entire book was written about them from an independent publisher, and that they're the subject of two different documentaries? That's significant. Thargor Orlando (talk) 16:40, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

The book is by them, using a (ghost?) writer, not about them. It is primarily collection of their essays etc. I do however concede the documentary as a sign of notability, but the award the documentary won was restricted to films about indigenous cultures, and the source discussing the documentary is in fact the same book just discussed Gaijin42 (talk) 16:51, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

I also note from our page on the publisher, that everyone involved with that publisher appears to be from the same family, so the notability and editorial oversight that would make this a reliable source may be suspect "Samuel Bercholz (Chairman),Sara Bercholz (Executive Vice President),Hazel Bercholz (Vice President)" Gaijin42 (talk) 16:59, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

• Keep. The article is kinda ridiculous. I just spent what seemed an eternity listening to "Grandma Aggie" spouting on for nearly an hour and managing to say nothing whatsoever beyond the blindingly obvious or the ridiculous ("I have been teaching people all over the world that water can hear...Masaru Emoto, the Japanese scientist... has validated what I've been saying, that water can hear"). But these mighty sages have had some coverage. There are quite a few references to them in various items in google books . It's all new-agey stuff, but there seems to be enough to pass the test of notability. Paul B (talk) 17:50, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
• Reluctant Keep, unfortunately I agree with Paul B. It's all nothing but new-agey bullshit smoke and mirrors and self-promotion, but they seem to be good at self promotion. Heiro 17:59, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Delete. Since all of the available sources seem to be self published and self promotion per Gaijin and Guy Macon below. Heiro 20:32, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:07, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:07, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

• Keep. I created this article, some years ago, - I'm still no good at grammar (as you can see). I have just replaced an archive link for a dead link. Also, thanks for this heads-up have found an article by Mail Tribune newspaper relating that the Tibetan Grandmother is the 14th Dalai Lama's sister (I didn't know that when I wrote it and my chief interest is in the Vajrayana). I have never met any of the group - or spoken with them either. As I can't write in my own mother-tongue of UK English for toffee so my apologies for my poor grammar. If I was the group's 'ghost writer' I think they'd have picked a better one... Best, Fountain Posters (talk) 18:14, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

the ghost writer I mentioned was the author of the book, not the author of the article. Gaijin42 (talk) 18:16, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

self published primary source I also note that the vast majority of citations are to the "Out of babylon" podcast or "future primitive" podcast, both of which are a self published podcast, and furthermore a WP:PRIMARY source since it is an interview with the (one of the) subject of the article. I posit that these are an unreliable source, and everything sourced to that needs to be gutted, or at a minimum heavily caveated as "so and so from the group claims that" etc. Gaijin42 (talk) 18:16, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

• Delete. Just read the thing. Really, this belongs in an encyclopedia?Stenen Bijl (talk) 05:08, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

sources really, the sources just keep getting worse.

by my count, I see

• Indian Country Today - possibly rs
• National Catholic Reporter blog - possibly rs
• futureprimitive podcast - self published podcast, primary source interview with subject
• futureprimitive podcast (x2) - self published podcast, primary source interview with subject
• own site
• primary interview with subject
• WP - WP is certainly a reliable source, but the article is written by one of the 13 grandmothers per the attribution at the bottom
• book - consisting of essays written by subjects (primary)
• out of babylon podcast - self published primary interview with subject
• out of babylon podcast (x2)- self published primary interview with subject
• documentary, but not independent, as the "Center for Sacred Studies" made the documentary, and explicitly lists the grandmothers as one of its own projects. In fact per http://www.alternet.org/story/20423/grandmothers_unite the 13 grandmothers was put together specifically for the purpose of making the documentary.

Gaijin42 (talk) 18:33, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

• delete every single claim of an independent source above turns out to have strong evidence that it is in some way or another self-published. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:33, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
• Delete: I could find exactly ZERO mention in independent reliable sources. Sorry, but totally not notable by any of our criteria. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 02:40, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. Alexbrn 03:53, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
• Delete No significant mentions in independent reliable secondary sources, IRWolfie- (talk) 10:49, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
• Comment I've only scanned news sources but the group appears to be on the mainstream's radar screen. Example: Once the selfpub and fringe sourced cruft is removed, there may be the makings of a stub here. - LuckyLouie (talk) 22:48, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

You'll want to give that another read. Especially the information about the author. Fails as an independent source. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 22:54, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

• Delete or stubify - No reliable sources, little to no mention in mainstream media, fails WP:N as far as I can see. WegianWarrior (talk) 07:27, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

• Related WP:AFDs Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Julieta Casimiro and Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Flordemayo Heiro 08:54, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

• also added Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Aama Bombo Gaijin42 (talk) 19:30, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

• Delete, no significant coverage found in multiple reliable sources of the organization, therefore subject appears to fail notability as defined by WP:GNG.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 05:30, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

• Keep Regardless of what your own opinion is of the topic, would anyone else find this "notable" or want to know what it is? Yes, but if this is deleted from wp it will be just one more thing that they will have to get their info on from google or other sources. Some snobbish or biased "notability" standards must be in place, because things that are most definitely "notable" to one group of people, are being systemically judged because they aren't "notable" to another group of editors. Because different groups of people consider different things notable, defining notability can be tricky, but this seems like abuse of standards that fail to take into account to whom something may be notable, or even condescendingly portray some groups' interests as less important than those of the more "prestigious" people, and therefore destined for the memory hole. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 14:31, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Part of me wants to keep all these subjects— and to tell the truth about them. And that article in this case would read something like, "this new age center out on the west coast called up a bunch of older women on the theory that white males have lost touch with something or other and assembled a group which has no real claim to any kind of teaching authority. Nobody really cares about them but if you want to read up on it there's this book they've published." But our standards don't allow writing that article either. Instead, everything I touch here seems to be part of a publicity campaign to make this group (and by extension the sponsoring center) look like something of some importance. I have to object being used as their advertizing agency. Mangoe (talk) 15:04, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Again you seem to have some trouble here distinguishing between "the truth" and what is strictly your opinion, or else you seem to think they are one and the same, and expect everyone else to either see it your way or shut up. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 15:24, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

I do not subscribe to an ontology in which it is possible for there to be a set of opinions, each of which gets to become subjective "truth". My assessment may well be in error, but my intent is that it correspond as closely as possible to the objective reality of the situation. And after several decades of doing this, it seems to me (and to a lot of other people) that my assessments tend to be accurate. And I am willing to be corrected: you can go back into the FT/N archives and see a couple of cases in which my initial impression was mistaken. Yes, people should see things my way, and I think less of people whose defense of their own opinions is no stronger than an sense of entitlement to believing as they please. You accuse me of a virtue, not a fault.

Be all of that as it may, in our scheme the material on this council is, at best, of the same ilk as my "opinion". It is only their opinion that they are important, and not anyone else's. Even by the credulous standards of new age material this fails to obtain corroborating support. It's not only that I don't accept their claims to authority; nobody else seems to even care, one way or another. Even you cannot defend the principle that everyone who publishes a book promising some revelation or Truth or whatever thus earns a place on this website. Mangoe (talk) 16:35, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

I get it. All topics have to "earn" a "right" to be on wikipedia by meeting the approval of your esteemed opinion. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 16:38, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Such a reading of my last paragraph offers a choice between incomprehension or malicious misrepresentation. Mangoe (talk) 16:50, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Til, you have a misunderstanding of what notable means to wikipedia. Notability is not the same as "important", or "interesting" etc, it means very specifically that they have been covered by multiple independent reliable sources - and this group has not been. To a degree, there is a bias in wikipeida by reliying on what we consider reliable sources, that things like indigenous knowledge or other information primarily passed down via oral tradition etc cannot satisfy WP:V unless some anthropologist writes a paper about it - but circumventing that rule woud open the flood gates to every person's pet fringe topic and they could claim that all the sources just are important people that don't like to write things down. Gaijin42 (talk) 15:15, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

• Keep and merge all the daughter articles (pun intended) into the main article. I've been here long enough to see this is exactly the sort of list-type article that is usually kept for cost/benefit reasons. As some facts may not be individually key or important in a legal case, but key as a group of facts, so lists of this type keep everything together in one place for convenience and context. I'm not a fan of "new-Age-ism" (pun also intended), but it's what our readers want and has been past consensus to keep. It would be much worse to have a bunch of little articles but not one main article, or other other hand, nothing here when people are looking for it. We have rules for fringe topics, and I think this abides. Slap me with a trout if I'm being unreasonable. Bearian (talk) 17:06, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

P.S. On a serious note, I also think this passes muster because there is significant coverage, in reliable sources such as daily newspapers, over more than one year for more than one event. Bearian (talk) 17:14, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Do you have any sources in mind that you think satisfy the policies? Gaijin42 (talk) 18:16, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, thank you. These four sources are in the article already: (1) This newspaper article from Portland, Oregon has a three-paragraph discription of the making of the documentary, as part of a longer article about the Dalai Lama's visit to that city. (2) This newspaper article from Billings, Montana runs and on and on for five pages about the Grandmas' visit. (3) This is a short abstract of a 532-word article about the group in State College, Pennsylvania's major daily. (4) This is a fairly in-depth article about the film being screened in Washington State. In addition, this mentions the grannies in passing in a longer review about a native American musician, and my hometown newspaper printed this press release for the group. The fact that the coverage exists in six different states indicates broad, if shallow, coverage. Altogether, some of the coverage is certainly spotty, but I think the article now passes. Bearian (talk) 20:43, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Just a clarification that the Mail Tribune is not published in Portland but in Medford, the area from which Agnes Baker Pilgrim is from. (The event described did take place in Portland.) So it is a bit more local than the regional newspaper, but it is a reliable source. Valfontis (talk) 23:26, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

• Strong keep: abundant coverage by mainstream news as well as obvious global significance. Page has good use also because it links to articles about the members. (Should be telling that 11 already have Misplaced Pages articles.) Would add that the Council might describe such organizations as the "United States" as "Non notable group, self declared group". groupuscule (talk) 18:41, 6 June 2013 (UTC) via WP:CSB

All individual pages were created by the same person that created this page, at the same time, using the same sources, so the fact that the articles exist say nothing about the notability of the people. Gaijin42 (talk) 18:49, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, didn't realize this at first. Provides some support for merge proposal. groupuscule (talk) 20:13, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm also looking at these "news items" and seeing press release-type material. This hit from the Wash. Post, for example, was written by one of the grannies, and though I couldn't get to the Corvallis hit the title suggests it was written the same way. Mangoe (talk) 19:10, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

What about this coverage from the utterly "mainstream" newspaper USA Today? groupuscule (talk) 20:13, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Actually, it looks like yet another rehash of the groups own press release. No evidence from the writing that the writer even left their desk or picked up the phone. Again, all the information about the group seems to come directly from the group itself. The independent comments contain no information about the group, just personal opinions of random non-experts. Even if they were independent of the press release, which is unlikely, they contribute nothing in terms of notability or content. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 20:54, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

... groupuscule (talk) 21:29, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Mangoe and groupuscule. Bearian (talk) 20:47, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Additional coverage:

• "Gathering, Telling, Preparing the Stories: A Vehicle for Healing" (2010), published by academics in the Journal of Indigenous Voices in Social Work
• "Indigenous Grandmas and the SocialJustice Movement" by Raquel D Gutiérrez, in Living Indigenous Leadership (2012), ed. Carolyn Kenny & Tina Ngaroimata Fraser
• "Women as Judges" entry in Encyclopedia of Women in Today's World, Volume 1 (2011)

These are open access sources found by searching Google Scholar. groupuscule (talk) 21:29, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

• Keep: See all the articles linked in this news.google.archive search. This really is WP:Systemic bias vs. elderly women and tribal peoples if you ask me. CarolMooreDC - talkie talkie🗽 21:27, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
• Keep per Paul B. Many independent mentions in different regional papers and books, and smaller mentions in national media, over ~10 years. – SJ + 22:43, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
• Keep. There are sufficient reliable sources to meet WP:GNG. Yworo (talk) 00:22, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
• Keep. The group is mentioned in several sources, including 'Grandmother Earth,' Graydon, Nicola. The Ecologist 38, 3 (Apr 2008): 22-23 and Breinig, Jeane T'Áaawxíaa. Studies in American Indian Literatures 25, 1 (Spring 2013): 53-67,129. I feel that this article meets notability requirements, and adds to Misplaced Pages's coverage of indigenous cultures. Superbellymonster (talk) 00:41, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

• Keep - Doesn't appear that the nominator or those calling to delete have lifted a finger here. The Washington Post and USA Today, and the Seattle Times seal the deal, along with others. I'm generally a pretty hardcore deletionist, but there are no valid reasons to delete here. Seriously, it's not even close. Tarc (talk) 00:48, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

The wash post article was written by one of the grandmothers. The Usatoday one was discussed above, and is a decent ref. The seattletimes one is a press release giving the date and time of a movie screening and is certainly not any kind of in depth coverage. However, I am willing to compromise on the deletion of the individual articles and keeping the group article, if it is trimmed down to just what can be soruced from the reliable sources and gets rid of the self published or primary source information. Gaijin42 (talk) 00:56, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't matter if it was written by one of them, it is still an appearance in a reliable source and that is what will count towards notability. As for the Seattle Times, it is not a press release, Lynda Mapes has been a Times reporter for over 20 years. And compromise? Who the hell do you think you are, you offer to "relent" on this AFD (which is quite clearly trending keep anyways) in exchange for deleting other articles? This isn't a poker gamer or a Yankee Swap, this and any related articles will be decided on their individual merits. BLPs are not poker chips. I find your attitude here rather disgusting. Tarc (talk) 01:09, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Whether Mapes is or is not a reporter, she's clearly repeating (uncritically) what she was told, by them. The Wash. Post material is not reportage: it's a guest column, and I do not agree that the Post agreeing to publish it magically converts it into reliable secondary material. That is the central problem: once all the primary source material is eliminated, there is essentially nothing to work from. Even the USA Today article isn't really enough. Mangoe (talk) 01:24, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

• delete per my various comments above. I am increasingly convinced that adequate secondary sourcing doesn't exist. Mangoe (talk) 01:26, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
• keep The book is both by them and about them, and the publisher took it on, which is a sign. There are several sources on the talk page that tip the scales and bring this group to GNG. If the sub-articles are deleted the content if appropriate should be moved here.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 02:58, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
• note to closing admin re canvassing CarolMoreDC canvassed for keep !votes in multiple venues and forums, resulting in the sudden flood of keep !votes , Gaijin42 (talk) 14:52, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

  Oh, you poor thing. That there is a systemic bias against female editors and subject material has been a long-ranging discussion within the WMF for years. The gender-gap mailing list is not secretive or shadowy, but an open part of the project that highlights areas where, as the title implies there are chasms to be bridged. The sourcing for this subject isn't impeccable nor as in-depth as I'd like, but it is more than adequate to satisfy our notability guides. There are tens upon hundreds of articles out there on Pokemon creatures, My Little Pony fanclubs, minor television characters, and so on that are far, far worse off source-wise than this is. Yet you single this one out and hold it to a higher standard. Why does Safeguard (Transformers), a nerdcruft article sources to a fan site and a toy catalog stick around while the Indigenous Council here, who reliable sources ACTUALLY COVER, get held over the coals? This i a critical problem in this project, and if it takes a bit of outside influence to affect change, then . Tarc (talk) 15:16, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

I am equally against the cruft - I think we should allow one page per show/toy whatever, and bulk move the rest of them to wikia vs the page per char/episode/model we have for many things. I agree that there is sytemic bias here, but it is nothing against females. It is against 1) self promotional groups and 2) indigenous cultures that rely on oral tradition rather than books - but if we allow the second, how would you propose to stop the cruft? Everyone can claim that important people discuss their topic but they just don't like to write it down. I will admit that Carol and others in this discussion have done excellent work at trying to uncover additional sourcing, which may push consensus into a GNG keep (although I would say such hypothetical notability is not sufficient for 14 articles on the group as we currently have) - but doing good work is not justification for blatant disregard for established policies with extremely wide consensus such as canvass and finding actual ]. Gaijin42 (talk) 15:24, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

"blatant disregard for established policies with extremely wide consensus such as canvass" Nope. WP:CANVAS is a guideline but not "policy". Does it have consensus? Before wikipedia, there was nothing inherently shameful or derogatory about the word "to canvass" in the English language, only canvassing done improperly. There seems to be a "consensus" among those who like to limit participation in the discussion to a small, selected few, that there is something improper about ALL "canvassing" views from the wider public. Robots were supposed to notify all the relevant deletion lists, but only "California topics" and "Organizations topics" got notified. Why? I only found out about this AfD yesterday when robots notified the "Indigenous topics" list about the subarticles' AfDs. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 15:47, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Only those wikiprojects had added themselves to this article, therefore only they were notified? (unless the bots were misbehaving). Had the canvassing been neutral (both in message, and forum) then certainly it would have been fine, but she did not go post to reliable sources noticeboard, to fringe noticeboard, etc, only to ones where she thought her POV would be receptive. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:06, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

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