Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kin Fables

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 defaulting to keep and w/o prejudice to a future renomination. Ad Orientem (talk) 01:32, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Kin Fables

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Semi-advertorialized article about a short film series whose claims of notability are not adequately sourced. Winning craft awards at second-tier film festivals is not an automatic free pass over WP:NFILM that would exempt the article from having to be sourced up to scratch -- the test for whether an award is notable enough to make its winners notable for winning it or not hinges on how much the media do or don't report on that award as news. (If primary sourcing the award win to the award's own self-published website were enough, we would have to keep an article about everybody who ever won any award at all, all the way down to local writing awards and employee-of-the-month programs at fast food restaurants.)
But of the nine footnotes here, four are Q&A interviews in which the filmmakers are speaking about themselves rather than being written about in the third person (a type of source which can be used to verify additional facts after the basic notability equation has already been covered off by stronger sources, but does not count as a data point toward the initial matter of establishing notability in the first place); one is an awarding film festival's self-published website; one is the filmmakers' own self-published Kickstarter; one is a short blurb which nominally verifies that one of the filmmakers exists as a musician, while supporting nothing that would constitute a notability claim as a filmmaker; and one is a university student newspaper. Literally the only source here which counts for anything at all toward establishing a WP:GNG pass is #8, the Montreal Gazette, but one piece of substantive media coverage in the subject's own hometown newspaper is not enough to get a topic to the finish line all by itself if all of the other references around it are primary sources and WP:SPIP. Bearcat (talk) 18:24, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete agree, sources don't show notability. – Broccoli & Coffee ^{(Oh hai)} 18:40, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Film-related deletion discussions. Bakazaka (talk) 20:25, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Quebec-related deletion discussions. Bakazaka (talk) 20:25, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep as clearly passes WP:GNG with a substantial piece in the Montreal Gazette which is most certainly not a local hometown newspaper but a major regional source and a national reliable source. Reference one has three paragraphs of prose before the interview, which is admissable as coverage as articles including interviews are not summarily dismissed on that basis if they have valid extra content apart from the interview. Reference four from The Concordian has seven paragraphs in prose about the project before and mixed in with the interview and is clearly substantial coverage, university newspapers are generally reliable sources especially as they do not have the commercial pressure applied to them. Reference nine has six paragraphs of prose directly about the project before the interview section and is clearly substantial coverage. The Montreal Gazette piece documents the two main awards that the films have won so the awards are being reported on in reliable sources and are therefore notable awards according to the nominators rationale. Also it is not just a three film project it also included an album and written work, and I don't see anything advert like in the tone. The article was more or less abandoned till I published it and the project lost all momentum after the premature death of one of the brothers who created the project so there has been no publicity drive. In conclusion the article passes WP:GNG and deserves to be included, thanks Atlantic306 (talk) 23:13, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The filmmakers are from Montreal, so the Montreal Gazette represents local coverage, not nationalized coverage, for the purposes of how much weight it does or doesn't carry on the GNG scale. If you're aiming for "doesn't have a hard pass of any SNG, but is notable under GNG anyway just because media coverage exists", then hometown media coverage is not enough to get a topic over the bar — the test is not "what is the footprint of the source's overall reputation?", but "what is the immediate relationship between the precise geographic location of the source's publication and the geographic location of the topic's home?" The existence of one or two pieces of local coverage in the topic's own hometown is not in and of itself an instant GNG pass — if it were, then we would have to start keeping articles about presidents of church bake sale committees and winners of high school poetry contests and unsigned garage bands and kids with cancer. GNG is not just "any topic that has gotten its name into any newspaper twice, no matter what context" — newspapers often devote coverage to local residents who have accomplished nothing of encyclopedic interest at all, so GNG does test for factors like the coverage's geographic range and whether the context in which the coverage is being given satisfies an SNG or not, and not just for the number of footnotes that exist.

And as for what I said about an award's ability to make its winners notable for winning it depending on media coverage, that test is also not automatically passed the moment you can show that one newspaper article exists in the subject's own hometown: again, that would force the creation of an article about nearly everybody who ever won any award at all, all the way down to neighbourhood arts or gardening awards, because human interest coverage of local people winning minor awards that aren't encyclopedically notable is a thing that newspapers very routinely publish. (There would even be a Wikipedia article about me if the existence of one piece of local human interest journalism in my hometown newspaper about me winning a minor award were all it took to get me over ANYBIO.) Rather, the notability test for winning awards requires the award to be one that generates regular coverage in a broad range of media outlets, such as the Academy Awards or the Canadian Screen Awards, and is not automatically passed by every award that can show the existence of one piece of local human interest coverage about the winner in their own hometown newspaper.

Q&A interviews can absolutely be used for additional verification of facts after GNG has already been covered off by enough stronger sources — but as they represent the topic speaking about themselves, Q&A interviews do not count toward the initial question of whether the topic has cleared GNG in the first place. It doesn't matter how much prefatory text is present before the first Q — the substance of the source is still Q&A. And student newspapers work the same way: they can certainly be used for additional verification of facts after GNG has already been established, but they don't contribute much to the initial question of whether the topic gets over GNG in the first place either.

And it's not particularly relevant that this project also includes an album and written work — nothing stated in the article clears WP:AUTHOR or WP:NMUSIC either, so that doesn't bolster the topic's notability at all. Bearcat (talk) 16:51, 12 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Unfortunately you seem to be making up the rules as you go along in this case. The Montreal Gazette is a national source not a local hometown paper and does not cover the more insignificant items or subjects, and I have not read in WP:GNG that a national reliable source should be excluded because the subject covered happens to be from the area that it is printed. For example an Evening Standard piece reviewing a London West End show is permitted as a reliable source showing notability. Also the WP:GNG guidelines make it clear that exerpts from a piece can be sufficient for establishing notability; and the prose in an article that includes an interview is not necessarily sourced to the subject at all, that is just your presumption. Major articles in reliable sources most often include interviews particularly for balance and often after negative comment that is obviously not sourced to the subject so interviews can be reliable sources if they contain independent prose content and there is no evidence the prose in these interviews were not the result of independent research before the interview. When the new WP:CORPDEPTH rules were being drawn up I specifically asked if prose content from interviews was acceptable for notability and I was told by @Renata: that such prose is acceptable even if the main part of the article is an interview so if such sources are acceptable for corpdepth which is much stricter than GNG then such sources such as six paragraphs before an interview are certainly acceptable for WP:GNG as applied to film articles, regards Atlantic306 (talk) 20:21, 16 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment No, I'm not making up any rules as I'm going along. I am entirely correct about how the distinction between "local" and "national" coverage works, for starters: the test is not applied to the source's distribution range, but to the context of what it's giving the topic coverage for. Say, for example, that The New York Times and the Peoria Journal Star both publish human interest articles about food truck operators in their own respective cities — the guy in Park Slope does not automatically get over GNG as a topic of greater notability than the guy in Peoria just because his piece happens to be in a more famous and more widely-distributed newspaper, because the context of what the NYT covered him for is no different in substance from what the Peoria guy got. And by the same token, this article does not instantly render Popi Rani Das more notable just because she lives in Toronto than she would be if she lived in Sudbury and the exact same article were appearing in the Sudbury Star instead of the Toronto Star — the context it's covering her for is still of purely local (not nationalized or encyclopedic) relevance, so it's still local coverage regardless of the fact that the Toronto Star has a more nationalized circulation.
The Montreal Gazette works the same way: even the major big-city dailies most certainly can and do still publish one-off human interest coverage about residents of their own home cities without instantly making those people nationally or internationally notable: the question of whether coverage is "local" or "national" does not attach to a newspaper's distribution range, but to the context of what the newspaper is covering the person for. Even The New York Times and the Toronto Star and the Montreal Gazette most certainly can and do still publish coverage of people of purely local interest that doesn't help to establish its subject as encyclopedically notable just because they happen to live in a city whose local newspaper has a wider distribution range than some other cities' local newspapers do. When it comes to establishing whether a person passes WP:GNG or not, the "local" vs. "national" test does not attach to the media outlet's distribution range, it attaches to the physical distance between the paper's head office and the topic's home. The context of what the coverage is being given for still has to satisfy a subject-specific inclusion criterion. Bearcat (talk) 18:04, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 13:47, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 13:22, 25 February 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.