Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michael Rogge

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. But the article may merit cleanup. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:42, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Michael Rogge

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If there were ever a time to say it, it's now: this page is rubbish and a disgrace to WP: (1) no independent sources whatsoever; (2) zero notability; (3) obviously created by subject or someone very close to him; (4) PROMO; (5) lovely page for the family history album Sirlanz 04:18, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Actors and filmmakers-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 04:35, 30 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Photography-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 04:35, 30 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Netherlands-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 04:35, 30 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Artists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 04:36, 30 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, I must say I am by no means anyone notable, but I love to recognize "valuable" people and document information about them. Since you claim and jump into conclusions that the article is "obviously created by subject or someone very close to him" or that it is a "family history album", I STRONGLY disagree and profess that I have absolutely no relation with, had no idea about or never heard of Michael Rogge. That is, until I recently came to know of some of his works (photographs, videos) on post-WW2 India, especially from some rural areas (which is indeed very rare, and perhaps does not exist outside any privileged British archives maybe) that became very popular in social media during the recent years. Later on, I came to know of his impressive work on South East Asia, Hong Kong and Japan. I also came to know that his works are being used by history/sociology/anthropology students or TV documentaries as primary sources (but mostly unofficially, so difficult to get citations). In fact, the main motivation for this article came from the situation that people who had freely used his work had absolutely no idea about who this person is.

I fully recognize your right to call this "rubbish" and "a disgrace to WP", but I thought senior Wikipedians would respect my personal efforts to record a brief history of a previously unknown person, but a great soul who has contributed remarkably to humanity. Yes it is true that I have not added many primary sources on the only section on his early life that I have added so far; I added what I got first, and could not do further research as I got busy with my own work schedule. Nevertheless, in true Wikipedia spirit, I thought someone else would contribute with additional sources over a sweet time and absolutely do not expect any to kill my efforts like this. I have to state that it is a work in progress (like the majority of Wikipedia articles), I need time, and I hope to complete it in the next few months depending on my availability.

Now, I have two questions to you:

Do you consider only this particular article as "rubbish" and "disgrace to WP" (in its current state), or Mr. Rogge's works also as rubbish and non-notable? If it is the latter (as you may have intended when you said "zero notability"), I would respectfully disagree to your world view and how you consider historical contributions of an individual as valuable or not. FYI I just saw now that Mr. Rogge's YouTube channel (that I had included as a primary reference and which speaks volumes by itself if one looks with an unbiased eye) has over 60,000 subscribers and several videos with million+ views. If you are still not convinced, will this interview on History TV Channel (and associated videos on the Far East) suffice to convince you to give Mr.Rogge "non-zero" (> 0) notability? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp0TljCpCUc. If you are still not convinced, I have nothing more to say than a humble request: please do not to jump into conclusions based on your own views, rather please "try" to recognize the worth of this particular old man who has left a lasting legacy to humanity yet remained in private domain for most of his life until recently.
If it is just a rubbish article about a notable living person, then do you think it is meaningful for a voluntary "community" like WP to reject a voluntary contribution within 3 days of its creation, rather than giving any concrete suggestions for improvement or at least marking it as a stub article? As a volunteer, I would rather like to learn what should a budding Wikipedian author have done to make it notable? Would you consider it appropriate (as per your definition of notable content), if it is marked as "under construction"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sahrudayan (talk • contribs) 06:55, 30 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing in what has been said by the page creator has addressed the problem of establishing notability through credible independent sources. What is most important, though, is that BEFORE creating a page on the encyclopaedia, the editor must arm him/herself with such sources and provide them in the page ab initio. If the editor fails to do so, he/she must expect the page to be rejected because it is the first principle of this encyclopaedia that the material be independently verifiable. This editor has completely failed in that most fundamental aspect of page creation. It is extremely undesirable for editors to take the view that they know something/someone is notable and they know there are sources to show this somewhere out there but they are not obliged to provide them and they can then expect other editors to come to their aid, do the leg work on the research and provide what ought to have been there in the first place. It is completely out of place to then seek to turn this around and say that I have failed in any respect, e.g. rushing to conclusions unfairly, etc. The onus is in the creator to exercise basic prudence and discipline in page creation. WP is in many respects a junkyard for this failing. sirlanz 09:24, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

We have seen a flurry of IP editor activity on the page since nomination. There is an awful lot of fluff on the page obscuring the true extent of notability of the subject, i.e. that a short amateur documentary and some travel/home movies were made in Hong Kong in the 50s/60s by the subject and which were once screened by a government department organised film festival there. The article dresses this up to look like a professional director's page, lovely filmography table and all. Look below the surface and what you have is an expat banker who loved taking photos and film and set up a film club, resulting in a few fun clips and one little docudrama. I maintain my objection to its publication on the ground that there is insufficient notability here. sirlanz 02:34, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The actual facts are: a) Hong Kong Purchased his films for their official film archive, b) several retrospectives of his films have been screened, c) reliable sources like Speigel online have done in-depth profiles on his work, d) He directed and had broadcast several television documentaries, e) he's very notable in the Youtube world, and this has been covered by several in-depth articles in reliable sources, and f) more than enough people have written about him in WP:RS to establish GNG. There's also the issue of insulting an editor who went ot a lot of trouble to create an article on a notable subject. The main issue here in this AfD is how could a nomination by a 'veteran editor' be so far off base, and what's the point of trashing the article creator so viciously on this page and on his talk page? Your hole is already dug, no need to continue. 104.163.153.162 (talk) 23:34, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Let's keep this debate rational. Anyone interested in facts about this AfD may find a viewing of the article as nominated for deletion instructive. It discloses absolutely nothing notable about the subject. Not a single one of the six aspects of notability described above appeared in it. It gave a folksy history of an amateur photographer expat traveller who did nothing whatsoever worth knowing to anyone except his no doubt proud family members or the subject himself. The only sources were a youtube video (deprecated), a blog (deprecated) and the subject's own website (deprecated). The page was unmitigated trash unworthy of our encyclopaedia. It is no longer trash, thankfully, but it still fails notability criteria. sirlanz 00:53, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

So far you are the only editor advancing the argument that he's not notable, against the evident facts. WP:IDONTLIKEIT is not a valid argument.104.163.153.162 (talk) 22:52, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Notability is the issue: if the article is to remain, it must be made clear that the bases are these: (1) one amateur one-man band short of 20 mins made in Hong Kong; (2) one amateur short made with a bank co-worker in Japan (neither short made at a time when film material was in any short supply, rare or particularly unique and against decades of film-making preceding it in both locations); (3) one commercially staged exhibition in Japan; (4) one of many filmmakers screened at one film festival put on in Hong Kong by a government department; and, if you are so inclined (and I am certainly not), (5) made some 150 home-movies/travelogues that people enthuse about (at at time when thousands of people were doing just the same thing worldwide and in the subject locations); and (6) being a great collector of material for publishing on subject's youtube page (and bear in mind that subject is also promoting is book (http://www.bluelotus-gallery.com/shop/hong-kong-fifties-by-michael-rogge). sirlanz 05:31, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The article will remain: you're the only one (misguidedly) arguing for deletion. It has numerous reliable sources. What's your beef? Totally uncalled for. Drop the stick. 104.163.153.162 (talk) 01:07, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Our IP editor is not contributing anything to the decisionmaking process at this point. We need to hear something of substance from the other side of the debate about the crux of the claimed notability. Thousands took fascinating home/travel movies in the 50s the world over; thousands have assembled intriguing collections of all manner of things, historical and otherwise. Many of them have had exhibitions of their collections. Where is the remarkability justifying a WP article? What we need is something in the material itself that reflects something notable from the creator. There is absolutely no evidence of this in the case of Rogge. He did so little more than the average tourist, hobbyist videographer that I do not think we should be promoting his book/youtube promotional interests here. sirlanz 01:38, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There's zero wrong with being an IP editor. BTW, please read WP:BLUDGEON as it applies to your approach.104.163.153.162 (talk) 07:36, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep This is quite a pointy nomination. It's not really necessary to insult so many things-- the article, its author etc. As to the article subject, he seems notable if you do some background searches. Here's a good source on HKmemory, which is published on the government of Hong Kong. That leads me to believe that the Wikipedia article is probably accurate. I see more sources in Google Books, of which some seem to be in other languages. It would seem that at least GNG is established.104.163.153.162 (talk) 05:45, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Here also is a long profile in the German publication Der Speigel. That just about nails the notability. User:Sirlanz should try WP:BEFORE and actually checking for existing sources next time. Here's another profile, this time in French, on a site called globalvoices.org. He is apparently very well known for these films. And lastly, here are two pages by the HK ministry of culture describing a MIchael Rogge Film retrospective. Part one and part two. As the HK government itself says in the articles, "Michael Rogge began documenting Hong Kong on film even before the Hong Kong government formed its own film production department. This is why Rogge’s document of Hong Kong life – adding up to over 200 minutes of footage – has become an extremely valuable artifact for Hong Kong." SO basically all of the nomination criteria here are false-- most importantly, he is notable, recognized and good sources exist. 104.163.153.162 (talk) 06:06, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per all the new sources brought up. Yoshiman6464 ^♫🥚 02:45, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep the initial concerns about this newly-created article are no longer relevant. I see no remaining argument for deletion other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:48, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per new sourcing, but this article needs to have the fluff cleaned up and probably significantly reduced in length as it would appear to give undue prominence to this guy. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 16:59, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Nomination failed WP:BEOFRE completely and there are obvious sources, easily found through searching and since added, to comply with WP:GNG. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:24, 6 January 2018 (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.