Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reported haunting of Alcatraz

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. L Faraone 02:48, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reported haunting of Alcatraz

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

Fringe view presented as an article. Violates WP:FRINGE and WP:FORK. All sources appear to be written from a fringe point of view: no legitimate scholarly source suggests that there are ghosts on Alcatraz Island. Jehochman ^Talk 20:00, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Any accounts of alleged haunting can be mentioned in the main article for Alcatraz Island or Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary if reliably sourced. (Unless that would violate WP:UNDUE of course.) --Atlantima (talk) 21:53, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Paranormal-related deletion discussions. Atlantima (talk) 23:05, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. Atlantima (talk) 23:05, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)~~Keep~~ or Redirect to Alcatraz Island. Although I understand the paranormal nature of the subject of the article in question may get some people to think this kind of stuff is fringy and thus doesn't belong on Wikipedia, but an AfD is about notability. If one looks at searches such as this, this, this, and this, one will see that the subject of paranormal activity on Alcatraz Island has received significant coverage from multiple sources. Some of the publishers are reputable, and do not fall within the realm of vanity publishes. Therefore, given the depth of coverage given to the subject it is my opinion that the subject meets WP:GNG. At the very least the content can be summarized, and told as literary history of the Alcatraz Island, and a redirect to the Alcatraz Island be left in this article space.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:49, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Can you name the reliable sources that have documented this topic? I am not interest in fiction, fantasy, self-published silliness, or opinions of paranormalists, psychics, pop stars, etc. Do you have anything from a historian, professor, or high quality news source? It's fun to tell ghost stories and make up legends, but unless these have widespread recognition, they don't belong on Wikipedia. Jehochman ^Talk 12:35, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The topic is notable as shown by the sources. Merging to the main article seems wrong to me, because that article should be about factual information on the island and prison itself. Kitfoxxe (talk) 00:12, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete and Redirect. Remove all the credulous fringe sources and all you're left with is a couple of sentences about how Alcatraz is claimed to be haunted. Not enough to build an article on. The hauntings themselves are not facts, but the *claims* of haunting are, which can fit into the Alcatraz Island article. - LuckyLouie (talk) 00:16, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per RightCowLeftCoast and Kitfoxxe; it's not about whether the stories are true but whether they are notable, and they are. --Arxiloxos (talk) 02:37, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note, this article appears to be duplicated at Reportedly_haunted_locations_in_the_San_Francisco_Bay_Area#San_Francisco_Bay. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:28, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete without a redirect. This material could and should be included in the main Alcatraz article (as is the case with other haunting reports - they get mentioned in the main article to the extent that they are reported in Reliable Sources), but it is not significant enough for a separate article. Even the title here, "Reported haunting of...", is more suitable for a section heading than an article title. This kind of report attaches to many places and buildings, from the RMS Queen Mary to the Whaley House (San Diego, California) to the Tower of London, but we don't have a single other Wikipedia article titled "Reported haunting of..." (BTW I have noticed before that there has been enormous splitting off of everything related to Alcatraz into separate articles, to the point where every single building has its own full article, see Category:Alcatraz Island. I had considered whether to propose a merge/redirect for minor facilities like Warden's House (Alcatraz Island) and Parade Grounds, but I decided it wasn't worth the effort.) In this case, the "haunting" material is well-to-excessively covered already in the other Alcatraz articles and is entirely inappropriate for its own article. --MelanieN (talk) 16:31, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Merge with Reportedly haunted locations in the San Francisco Bay Area. As this is a WP:FRINGE topic and the reliability of the sources currently used in the article is questionable, it seems to me that an entire article dedicated to the subject is WP:UNDUE. (As previously pointed out, it's also not standard WP practice to have separate articles dedicated to the "Reported hauntings" of specific locations.) Yet it is a reliably reported fact that Alcatraz is popular with ghost hunters (e.g. [1][2][3][4]). A paragraph or two mentioning this aspect of Alcatraz's reputation is appropriate within the broader context of Reportedly haunted locations in the San Francisco Bay Area. --Mike Agricola (talk) 16:42, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I like the idea that the reliably sourced info about Alcatraz haunting claims is probably not enough for a stand alone article, and that it could be put into the larger article. Somebody looking for supposedly haunted places in San Francisco can discover that Alcatraz is one of them. Somebody looking at the Alcatraz article should not see a bunch of content about the site being supposedly haunted. Wikipedia does cover notable fringe topics, but that fringiness should not be inserted willy nilly into mainstream articles. We have Flat Earth which mentions that there are modern Flat Earth thinkers, but the article Earth only mentions the historical aspect (people used to think the earth was flat), not the fringe theory (people today still claim that the earth is flat). Jehochman ^Talk 18:38, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment If edit546852230 by LuckyLouie is kept, there is little reason to keep as a separate article, as it leaves the article as little more than a two-sentence statement-of-fact that could be easily merged into the main article. If the consensus changes and the old references are found to be valid, then the article should be kept as apppropriate WP:SPINOFF. 78.26 (I'm no IP, talk to me!) 18:50, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I see that books published by Capstone Publishers, Pelican Publishing Company, University of Missouri Press, Rosen Publishing, Sterling Publishing, and Barnes & Nobles have since been removed. These publishers appear to be reputable publishers, and the removal of this content could weigh negatively upon editors' opinions on whether to keep this article or not. As I said in my original statement, I can see a summarize, merge and redirect, but to whole delete reliable source content is uncalled for, especially when the article is undergoing AfD and the outcome has yet to be determined.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:34, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The reputation of the publisher does not decide the question. What matters is the reputation of the author and the editor. Reputable publishers produce books that are the opinions of their authors, they publish fiction, they publish fantasy. Wikipedia is looking for reliable, scholarly sources. Jehochman ^Talk 21:42, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Kommentar U Missouri Press is a scholarly source. if that book discusses the legend of the hauntings, its a reliable source, and should be added back. I agree the others are not scholarly.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 02:55, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Have you looked at this source, or are you just asserting something you don't know anything about? A publishling label does not magically make a source reliable. Jehochman ^Talk 12:32, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In this particular case, I was not able to find anything about "hauntings" on the pages cited to U Missouri Press book, so remvd it. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:20, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. This article looks like a concerted effort at pro-paranormal POV pushing and synthesis. When we find a bunch of cruft and reference verification failures, we need to strip the article down to what's reliable, and then we see that there isn't enough to have an article. Jehochman ^Talk 13:59, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the reputation of the publisher is a determining factor whether a source is reliable or not. For instance a book published by a vanity publisher would not normally considered a reliable source. Also a book published by a scholarly publisher, for instance say the University of Missouri Press is normally taken as a reliable source. Now of course, either way content is subject to verification that what is written is actually supported by the source provided.

Also calling the article "pro-paranormal POV pushing" does not assume good faith of the article creator, which I am not. Newer editors are not as failure with the rules of the road regarding creating content on Wikipedia. That being said, a POV issue is something that can be worked on, and AfD is not a substitution for article improvement; AfD is whether the subject is or is not notable.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 15:45, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete or Merge - I was utterly shocked to find that there is actually a prison in San Francisco noted for its hauntings and it wasn't this one. Life is not fair. I don't see enough here to warrant its own article, and barely enough to warrant a mention on the main article. It's a lovely idea though. Panyd^{The muffin is not subtle} 21:53, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect J04n(talk page) 18:44, 31 March 2013 (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.