Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/April Wilkerson (3rd nomination)

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. The keeps seem to have the advantage in arguments and source notability. (Also, not reasons for this close but still of note, the keep !votes form a numerical majority and this article has survived 2 AfD's previously.) (non-admin closure) – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 03:25, 5 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

April Wilkerson[edit]

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Not notable. Almost every reference is the introduction to one of her own videos on various sites. Reference 3 is a mention of one of her youtube videos, in the context of an article about a charitable project run by somebody else. Ref 1 is a single image of her workshop and 1 line of text, in a more general article. Ref 6 is an interview on a LifeHacker site, in which she simply tells whatever she chooses to, so it's not independent. And a count of YouTube views is not evidence for notability

In the first AfD, the publication names were emphasised, and this was accepted as a reason for notability. But that was apparently without consideration for what was actually in them--that they were a combination of not-independent, and basically to her own work. I'm more careful now to view or read the actual reference in its own context, Sometimes that's not possible, and we tend to give the benefit of the doubt to sources that are difficult to find or access, or in a language little read here. I think that's a good practice, if what is claimed in reasonable and the reference looks appropriate, although strictly speaking it would be questionable in BLPs. . But when we can see the references, we should. That's what Verifying means: check the sources. Not just check that references are present to what might be sufficient sources. DGG ( talk ) 20:44, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 21:09, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 21:09, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Texas-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 21:09, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy Keep. This is the third attempt by DGG to delete this article, with the first one here and the second one here. Both times the community said 'Keep'; so DGG, what's your problem? Magazines like Woodworkers Journal and Popular Mechanics have profiled her and her projects -- they trust her -- so to try to invalidate them because there's a lead-in to her YouTube videos is dubious. To claim these sources are "not independent" is spurious reasoning at best; these magazines have to keep faith with their readers and provide good information, which they do. Wilkerson is one of YouTube's new stars, getting millions of views, and helping all kinds of do-it-yourselfers finish many projects (including myself -- I'm a handyman and her advice is sound and helpful). She's received plenty of coverage in Popular Mechanics and also here with international coverage and also here in Australia and in Woodworkers Journal. Her shop has been covered in Popular Mechanics and her projects such as turning a barrel into an illuminated decoration have gotten coverage in Simplemost magazine. Notable person who clearly meets the general notability guideline.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:44, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I'm not seeing what has changed since this was kept after you last nominated it. We do cover YouTubers (and for YouTube gamers, the fanbase ensures that notability need only be extremely minor). When such YouTubers get coverage in Popular Mechanics, which is the relevant large-circulation paper magazine where we'd expect to see DIY channels getting covered, then that's WP:N. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:47, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I have looked at all the Popular Mechanics articles listed as sources, and I do not see them as profiles of April Wilkerson, they are basically republishing her projects. The only one that says anything about Wilkerson herself is this [1], which presents videos of 5 people's workshops, and has 2 sentences about each person. So that's 2 sentences about Wilkerson: "April Wilkerson works out of a 500 square foot shop, and most of the workbenches, storage bins, and tool holders were built by her. She narrates the tour and shares details on why and how she uses everything in her workshop." (That source is used as a reference for the size of her workshop, though how "500 square foot" got to the "3000 square foot" stated in this article, I don't know.) The LA Daily News source is about abandoned babies being buried, and it also has 2 sentences referring to Wilkerson: "The urns began coming shortly after a video was made by April Wilkerson of Fort Worth, Texas, that went out to her fellow DIY woodworkers all over the country. It’s five minutes long, but it feels like 30 seconds because it’s so mesmerizing watching this talented craftswoman show us how to build a baby urn fit for a king or a queen — or a pauper." That tells us where she's from, at least. The Woodworkers Journal is a profile of Wilkerson, the only source that counts as significant coverage in an independent, reliable source (and even then, it's part interview, so taking only the content written by the reporter about Wilkerson shortens it considerably). The February 2018 issue of Woodworkers Journal has a brief profile of her (4 sentences), which confirms that she lives in Texas, but doesn't count as another source because it's the same journal. And that's all I've been able to find.

WP:BASIC is a useful guideline, because it allows that "If the depth of coverage in any given source is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability". But here we have one longish source and two others which each have 2 sentences about her. I'm not convinced that this adds up to multiple independent sources. So unless there is other coverage about her, rather than reposting/republishing her projects, then I would have to say Delete. Maybe just WP:TOOSOON, or maybe not everyone whose projects and plans are published in magazines like Popular Mechanics and Woodworkers Journal is notable. RebeccaGreen (talk) 00:04, 20 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

When an afd discussion goes against my opinion, and I am not convinced by the result, I keep track, and look agin in a few years. (i lose about 10-20% depending on how you count NC closes--the reason that's so high is that I deliberately try to nominate borderline cases ,with the intention of clarifying consensus) If the article has been kept, I don't renominate unless I think there's a good chance consensus has changed, or at least is changing. I think that's the case here. We have finally over the last year or two shown signs of becoming skeptical about people and firms who may technically meet the notability requirement, but where the sources are border line, and there does not appear to be any genuine encyclopedic interest. This consensus has already firmly changed for firms, with WP:NCORP, and I think it is in the process of changing for people.

Additional, I have become skeptical about the nature of coverage in routine news and web sources. An appropriate role for a news source is to spread information about things that may not be notable, but seem interesting.(the usual name for this is "human -interest" stories There's nothing wrong with this, if they're not concealed advertising; I like most other people sometimes read such articles. (for that matter, I even read advertising when it's something in which I might be interested) But that does not mean the material is encyclopedic, which is supposed to contain information of permanent interest. So when I see what might be such references, I go and actually read them. There's probably tens of thousands of blps here which seem to be based on such sources. As with other widespread problems, it will take years for us to either improve or remove them.

I have never been a deletionist. If something appears to be of potentially long term interest, or even serious interest about important things in the world, I try to keep an article. When such articles get deleted, I also look after a few years to see if I can find something further that might justify them. As all regulars here know, improving articles is harder work than making arguments ,so i am not able to do it as often. DGG ( talk ) 05:16, 20 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for trying to explain, but the problem with your reasoning is this: you're trying to second-guess news sources, saying this one's 'good', this one's 'bad', this one is 'permanent', this one is 'temporary'. That's not something we Wikipedians are equipped to do. We're not the editors of Woodworkers Journal or Popular Mechanics.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 10:44, 20 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. As I've observed previously and as many past AfD cases have proven, secondary sources can be wrong or the notability they might suggest can be false or fleeting. The problem with the simplistic "there are sources" basis of WP is that it does not account for the fact that a large fraction of content that is generated today is done so basically to fill our modern infinite channels of zero-cost communication. (This is opposed to, say, a century ago, when communication was expensive, for which a source was written to confirm/report some aspect of already-existing genuine notability. Then, one could not easily be famous for being famous.) So, it should be clear that it is absolutely WP editors' jobs to judiciously evaluate sources. If we're not doing this, then how/why are we "editors"? Why not just have smart people write a big script to crawl the world's knowledge banks and automatically create a WP of all sourced information infinitely more efficiently? Answer: because that would not really be an encyclopedia. The only real value that we editors add to WP is through discriminating discernment and judgement of what is, in fact, encyclopedic...then we write it down. Unfortunately, social fads have pushed WP into significant mission creep. Enabled by "there are sources" philosophy, one of its main goals has become WP:RGW by flooding WP with non-encyclopedic bios that are supposed to (by various subjective and shifting criteria) "balance" the overall content. I don't know if this is one of those cases, but it looks like DGG has done the homework. Agricola44 (talk) 22:08, 20 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. Thsmi002 (talk) 12:15, 20 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Tomwsulcer, I mentioned above that I do not see the Popular Mechanics articles as contributing to Wilkerson's notability because they are basically republishing her projects. If they were articles (or even one article) about Wilkerson, then they would contribute to her notability. It's not the publication that's in question, it's the focus of the article. Profiles of craftspeople in publications like Popular Mechanics and Woodworkers Journal certainly do contribute to notability; just being the author of projects published by those magazines does not, in the same way that just being the author of published books or being a journalist with published articles (even if those articles are republished by other newspapers, etc) does not. We need other media to write or talk about the authors and their work, and provide information and/or considered opinions about them, to establish notability. Woodworkers Journal has written a profile of Wilkerson - are there other profiles in other publications? RebeccaGreen (talk) 00:41, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Reply RebeccaGreen, When Popular Mechanics published Wilkerson's plywood truck rack project, their editors were saying to their 1,208,642 readers that her project is important. It's worth doing. The editors vouch that Wilkerson knows what she's doing. Do you think the article is bogus? fraudulent? untrue? It is good stuff; Popular Mechanics has standards. It's a national magazine. In addition to the existing sources in the current Wikipedia article, there are others, such as here. She was a guest on this podcast about tools. She did a meet and greet event here. It's why almost 6700 people have read her Wikipedia page since May 21st of this year which averages 74 views per day. Pageviews, while not an official test of notability, does indicate that there's substantial interest in this person. Wilkerson is a YouTube star in the DIY woodworking and tool world.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 02:19, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Tomwsulcer, I am not questioning that, but those are not Wikipedia's criteria for notability. Popular Mechanics publishes projects by many people, and has over its long history. Those people are only notable by Wikipedia criteria if other people have written about them. There are many people, organisations, etc, that I might think are notable who have made substantial contributions in various fields, but unless there is coverage about them in independent sources, there can't be Wikipedia articles about them. Not all sources are online, though, so if you are aware of other coverage about Wilkerson in reliable sources, that might help establish Wikipedia notability. RebeccaGreen (talk) 02:45, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

All of the sources are about her. Who she is is what she does. That's true for everybody. We are what we do.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 03:08, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Your logic necessitates the conclusion that all woodworkers who've been similarly featured are notable and therefore merit WP bios. Moreover, they do not have to be adjudicated on an individual basis, so someone can just (hypothetically) write a script to populate WP with these bios. Or, is the notability issue really a little more complicated and subtle than this? Yes. Agricola44 (talk) 22:26, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Not my logic. Wikipedia's rules.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 03:15, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Nope, patently false. There are lots of past deletions where knee-jerk "there were sources" squawking did not carry the day because the sources themselves were shown to be flawed, indicated fleeting (rather that WP:LASTING) notability, or failed for some other reason. These findings were due precisely to careful adjudication by editors (not advocates, who seem increasingly to be populating WP) doing their editorial due diligence. Agricola44 (talk) 04:07, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Okay let's examine the sources.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 10:53, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Popular Mechanics, a national magazine with over 1,000,000 readers. They've published numerous projects: fold-up and fold-down workbenches, plywood truck rack, french cleat storage system, outdoor shower. Each project by itself might be insufficient but taken together it's a solid source.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 10:53, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Woodworkers Journal. Profiles her, her career as a YouTuber.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 10:53, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Makezine magazine. Another profile.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 10:53, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That's three solid sources. Do you think they're wrong? untrustworthy? Nonsense, they're good ones. From them, we can learn all about Wilkerson (to respond to RebeccaGreen's point): she's from Texas, married, she's a self-taught DIY-er, she has a YouTube channel, she built much of her own shop, she helped fix up her father's shop, she graduated college 2012 with a degree in business administration, she's motivated to improve her home, and the numerous things she's built: pantry, coffee table, shop tables, etc. All taken together: she meets the general notability guideline.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 10:53, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment in a nutshell: You want an article on someone whose notability is basically knowing how to saw wood and who "helped fix up her father's shop". WP continues to stumble sadly toward WP:DIRECTORY as more and more advocates lose their ability to distinguish what is encyclopedic from what is not. Agricola44 (talk) 13:02, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You haven't addressed my points above.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 14:05, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

OK, let me address your points, such as I understand them to be: (1) there are sources on this person and (2) those render her notable, therefore (3) this article stands. Essentially, you are arguing that sources are a sufficient condition. I claim they are not and that this can be for a variety of reasons: errors, overstatement, transience, limited scope, too local nature, promotion, trivial coverage, etc. Jacob Barnett is a good counter-example to your claim. There were many dozens of sources in mainstream media, but they were eventually deemed by a large editorial discussion to be too unreliable, promotional, or some just plain wrong. I do not know if this particular person is notable (I have not !voted), because I have not really yet delved into the sources myself. However, at the very least, I could see a recentism issue: will that Popular Mechanics project be of LASTING interest? Was this fleeting coverage of human interest, or is this an individual who is respected in the field such that she will continue to be covered widely in DIY, home improvement, and woodworking sources? Nobody can answer that (yet). So, I'd say that I do not yet see any convincing argument for keeping this article. Agricola44 (talk) 22:42, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

My argument is there are good sources. You wrote "errors, overstatement, transience, limited scope, too local nature, promotion, trivial coverage". Can you be more specific? What's wrong? What's overstated? Your "too local nature" claim is odd, considering Popular Mechanics is a national magazine. Recentism isn't a reason to nullify sources.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 22:57, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Like I said Tom, I have not delved into the particular sources in this case, nor have I !voted. You and I have different philosophical takes on the sufficient conditions for a WP article. I'm going to sign-off now because the closing admin is already going to have to read too much off-topic text. Best, Agricola44 (talk) 13:44, 23 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per WP:BASIC based on these two profiles: [2], [3] plus coverage in Popular Mechanics. Thsmi002 (talk) 11:52, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep subject satisfies WP:GNG, what more is there to say? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 07:26, 24 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Publication in two nationally recognized woodworking magazines plus meets guidelines. Terasaface (talk) 17:24, 27 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 11:56, 27 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Sourcing is adequate to establish wiki-notability. The profiles mentioned above are sufficiently in-depth, and they are in publications that can be presumed reliable for the purpose. The Jacob Barnett case invoked above is not comparable; there, we had a profusion of low-quality reporting, where the sources looked plentiful but turned out to be uncritical churnalism. (There was also a real concern that perpetuating such uncritical churnalism would be harmful to the subject.) XOR'easter (talk) 01:38, 28 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I really don't think three interviews/profiles meets the hurdle for significance alone - half a mark there. At present these magazine have many other wood workers who have been profiled many times, written books etc have apparently not met the significance for wiki inclusion - just take a look at a few of the other profiles on those woodworking sources for examples. Next, I looked at the additional criteria at WP:AUTHOR for Creative Professionals - her 1 million subscriber count is impressive, but I still don't know that it completely satisfies criteria 1 - half mark there. No one has given evidence to support WP:AUTHOR criterias 2 and 3 yet, no marks. But, she has received Google Play buttons for her large youtube channel, and for that I would give a half mark for criteria 4(c). Overall, that is just enough for me to not say delete, but only barely enough to say keep. pinchies (talk) 14:21, 1 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I agree with the above deletes that the coverage on her is not significant, independent, and from multiple sources. Yes, there are several sources, but they are either youtube videos, things she built as described by someone else, or interviews dressed up as articles.Rockphed (talk) 18:43, 3 September 2019 (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.