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 no consensus. Black Kite 07:30, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Non-notable fringe figure in nutrition field; mostly primary sources. Orange Mike | Talk 03:41, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - assuming the article is factual, she's published, peer reviewed, and decorated. The fact she's fringe doesn't make her non-notable. - DustFormsWords (talk) 04:42, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete There are no substantial, reliable, independent sources. Almost everything availible about her was either a) written by her or b) in blogs or other unreliable sources. She has a job, and has published articles in a few journals, and published a few books. Having a job where you write things that get published sometimes has never been a baseline for inclusion in Wikipedia. This person seems to fail both the general notability test for lacking any substantial, independent, reliable writing about her life, and fails the WP:PROF test as well, for showing no evidence of passing that guideline either. --Jayron32 05:12, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I can't find any reliable sources that would support her inclusion either. WP:GNG and WP:PROF both seem to demand her exclusion. Crafty (talk) 10:00, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Agree that this is a non-notable, fringe figure without coverage by reliable sources. The article ends up being primarily a comprehensive repository for her articles with little mention of how out of the mainstream they are. OccamzRazor (talk) 18:05, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: the "Eat Fat, Lose Fat" book was published in 2005 and is based on specifically substituting coconut fat for other fats in the diet. The book's cover claims that Enig is an "International Expert on the Biochemistry of Food and Fat." Having a dedicated WP article may seem to support that claim, however the article is cited by primary sources, rather than qualifying WP reliable sources. OccamzRazor (talk) 19:43, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Keep Any mention of her is normally going to be highly associated with the Weston_A._Price_Foundation- so one solution would be to merge some of the article info to a small section there (as Sally Fallon, the other co-founder has). Given the below Post article and this Times article, the media appears to be using her as expert source for trans fat.
The issue of deletion came up because OccamzRazor was willfully violating NPOV and NOR for the article and I asked for a third opinion. The first third opinion suggested that it would be easier to delete the article than deal with these violations. And now It is much easier to simply voice an opinion on the current article then do the research that needs to be done as to what the article could be. Kudos to John Z for doing some. Gregwebs (talk) 14:51, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. The article does read as a personal promo. Especially worrying are numerous expressions of the subject's opinion on various dietary issues, which IMO is not appropriate on WP. Materialscientist (talk) 01:28, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Merge and redirect to Weston A. Price Foundation. I don't really see her fulfilling WP:AUTHOR, but as Gregwebs said, most of her work is associated with that foundation. A small section on that page about her background would probably do just fine. — HelloAnnyong(say whaaat?!) 16:33, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: With 200+ gnews hits for "Mary Enig" and more for "Mary G Enig", it looks like there is enough reliable material on her and her theories, which appear to be becoming more popular. For instance this Washington Post article credits her with being a pioneer opposing trans fats since 1976. H-index according to gscholar looks like 8, not decisive, but doesn't seem fringy. The talk page has a comment about the big business or "industry powers stopped her group .." text being unsupported by the cite and not claimed by her. BLP and overly critical editing may be real concerns here. The 236 Gbooks hits show plenty of independent sources calling her e.g. "a well-respected researcher in the field of fats and oils" "fellow of the American College of Nutrition and president of the Maryland Nutritionists Association", an "eminent scientist" and even "arguably one of the most distinguished lipid biochemists in the country". Don't have the time to look more in depth now, but sourcing a much better article seems to be no problem.John Z (talk) 07:11, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. While I do not think she passes WP:PROF criterion #1, I do think she meets the more general WP:BIO based on the analysis by John Z. Also, an argument can be made that she meets WP:PROF criterion #7 (substantial impact outside academia in academic capacity). Her position regarding saturated fats versus trans-fats is increasingly becoming more accepted, as are other of her long-standing claims (the cholesterol myth). Regardless, there is enough coverage to justify keeping the article.--Eric Yurken (talk) 02:53, 3 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Question to those voting to keep: Due to the fact that this person has received scant mention by reliable sources, how do you propose to overcome the fact that this article presents only her non-mainstream views and nutritional advice without citing any reliable sources? If you are voting to keep the article, could you please improve it with citations from reliable sources rather than just vote to keep the article as is? It seems to me that her numerous WAPF articles and overall influenence in the field of nutrition have not been deemed significant enough for reliable sources to even bother to comment on them. Why should Wikipedia give her and her views an uncontested article? In my opinion, this article should be deleted if it were to stay as is. However I would support her biographical information being incorporated into the Weston A. Price Foundation article in the same mannor as the co-founder, Sally Fallon. OccamzRazor (talk) 20:02, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think she has received more than scant mention by reliable sources, more than enough to support the article, as pointed out above. WP:PROF #7, as Eric Yurken points out above, is probably the clearest support for retention.John Z (talk) 00:03, 5 October 2009 (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.