Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Royal Rife

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 keep. John254 00:38, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Royal Rife

Royal Rife (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Does not seem to have any significant sources that pass WP:RS, or much chance of ever acquiring them. Everything's referenced to sites trying to sell something in his name. Adam Cuerden ^talk 19:57, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

• Strong keep. This must be a joke. Rife is extremely notable as one of the biggest quacks of modern times, and a pervasive influence within alternative medical quackery. Just ask any scientific skeptic or check anti-quackery websites. That is reason enough to have his article here where all sides of the story can be told. You can bet that alternative medicine sites do not tell about what a quack he was and how worthless his machines are in their many versions and variants made by lots of quacks who copy him. You can also check out the FDA and FTC who regularly bust people for using and selling such machines. It's criminally dangerous activity which they attempt to stop. A search of Quackwatch and its associated sites is enlightening. [1] If your concerns are about misuse of the article to promote his quackery, then follow Wikipedia policies and guidelines to achieve balance and solve weight and advocacy issues. -- Fyslee/talk 22:09, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
• keep, the internet in english and german language (and many other languages i suppose) is full of garbage and ads around the strange pseudoscientific claims of Mr Rife. We decided to keep a german Rife-page during a similar discussion. Wikipedia may help some ads-impressed or interested people to better understand this issue. Like Lakhovsky, he is a sort of prototype-quack. Redecke 22:32, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep, a well-known quack. The rife.org and rife.de websites are not "selling something in his name" (except maybe Google ads), they are simply everyday personal websites that may not meet the highest standards of WP:RS, but include many reprints of sources that do. I'm sure stronger sources could be found including quite a few scientific/medical journals that have investigated the Rife enigma. --Dhartung | Talk 03:40, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
• A couple of comments:

• The crucial question here is whether Rife meets any of the criteria at Wikipedia:Notability (people). If he is, in fact, "one of the biggest quacks of modern times", we should have no problem finding a reliable, published source that discusses him. At the moment, however, the article is almost entirely dependent on lunatic websites (and a couple of ridiculous books by Barry Lynes, which certainly aren't "credible independent biographies"). If someone can find a reliable, published source that discusses the guy, I'll vote to keep the article. If we can't find any reliable sources, nothing in the article will ever be verifiable so it should be deleted.
• Bear in mind that it's possible that Rife's machines are notable but he's not. If there's substantial coverage of his machines in reliable, published sources (like the FDA and the FTC), we might want to create an article about them. Notability is not inherited though, so we don't automatically have to have an article about the inventor. Sideshow Bob Roberts 12:37, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep Inventors are notable because of their inventions. He did invent a microscope based on sound optical principles capable at least potentially of visualizing some viruses. He also did hypothesize some notable nonsense. In either case, he's notable. A fascinating career. DGG (talk) 06:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, If the guy is found to have been even partially accurate, then egg should be on all of the "Rife was a Quack" detracting editors who have deleted large parts of the article (even Pub-Med sourced information) based somewhat on their feelings about him. Oldspammer 00:04, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Definitely notable. scholar.google.com lists 1270 entries under his full name:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=royal+raymond+rife&btnG=Search&hl=en&lr= 82.208.2.214 21:09, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

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.