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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pacific Coast Association of Magicians

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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 (and if I wave this wand and say the magic words ... *piff* *puff* *poof* ... the article is kept!). Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:00, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Pacific Coast Association of Magicians (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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This article has apparently been unsourced for eleven years. While there are a good number of passing mentions of the society ("[x] was a member of the ..."), I don't see any of the sort of extensive in-depth coverage in various independent reliable sources that would demonstrate its notability and allow us to write a proper article about it. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:18, 16 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Magic-related deletion discussions. North America1000 19:21, 16 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. North America1000 19:21, 16 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete If we have no sources of any kind that discuss it, which seems to be the case, it clearly would ipso facto fail WP:CORPDEPTH. Chetsford (talk) 17:03, 18 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, though I admit the sources are few, they aren't nil, and I think there is a strong likelihood there are others off line. The organization was founded in 1933, so a fair fraction of news about it will be from before the Internet age. Harry Houdini's widow attended the third annual meeting in 1935.[1][2] Here is an indepth article about the latest, 2018, annual meeting, [3], The Bakersfield Californian and here is a less indepth article.[4], KBFX-CD. Only one indepth reliable source, unfortunately, and we often want 2 or more to meet WP:GNG, but I am pretty sure there are at least a few out there, for some of the meetings between 1933 and 2018 - they were not always in Bakersfield - so I'm saying "keep", and I hope sufficient others will too. --GRuban (talk) 22:53, 20 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep (as creator). I created the (sourced) stub over 10 years ago,[5] and it has waxed and waned over the years.[6] I haven't paid much attention to it, but a glance at article history will show that it has been several times larger than its current state. The article could definitely use expansion from an experienced editor, unfortunately I'm short on wiki-time at the moment or I'd do it. I would agree that there was a fair bit of unsourced information in it at one point (not added by me), but in my opinion it has been stripped down to a far smaller stub now than it should be. The topic is notable, this association is well-known within the magician community, has international recognition, and a prestigious set of awards.[7] Sources do exist.[8] --Elonka 23:33, 20 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep the organization has been in existence since 1933 and has influenced the magic community and fostered the careers of countless magicians including myself. I am not an expert at Wikipedia but over the past few months I have been researching the history of the organization. Most of the history is prior to the internet and the majority of the books, magazines and article I have sourced are not for public offering. Magazines such as Genii and the Diebox are online but not available for public viewing. The PCAM is mentioned often in these well respected publications. A quick internet search will still result in mentions of the PCAM such as [9] or [10], [11] The successful TV duo the Property Brothers mention it in their book It Takes Two: Our Story [12]ShawnFarquhar (talk) 09:29, 21 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Nosebagbear (talk) 10:46, 23 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note. I went ahead and expanded the article and added several sources.[13] It could still use more cleanup, but hopefully this will help to verify the claim of notability. --Elonka 01:44, 24 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. So, now the page has a good deal more unreferenced content than before, still without any vestige of a citation. I took a look at the proposed sources:
  1. Scott, Jonathan; Scott, Drew (4 April 2016). Dream Home: The Property Brothers’ Ultimate Guide to Finding & Fixing Your Perfect House. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 0544715675.
  2. http://www.conjuringcredits.com/doku.php?id=misc:pcam_publications
  3. https://www.kcet.org/history-society/off-the-boulevard-of-broken-dreams-the-knickerbocker-hotels-haunted-history
  4. http://auctions.potterauctions.com/pacific_coast_association_of_magicians_group_portr-lot11227.aspx
  5. https://www.bakersfield.com/entertainment/magic-the-gathering-convention-brings-conjurers-to-bakersfield/article_c131b222-9b67-11e8-b356-2b0f2668c67b.html
  6. https://bakersfieldnow.com/news/local/bakersfield-hosts-magician-convention-for-first-time-in-30-years
  7. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/aimee-heckel/behind-the-scenes-with-on_b_6118954.html
  8. https://www.surreynowleader.com/entertainment/honoured-for-sleight-of-hand/
  9. http://www.insidemagic.com/magicnews/2006/08/cameron-fisk-pcam-gold-medal-winner-magic-success/
As far as I can see,
(1) is book about fixing up houses, with no mention of this organisation
(2) is somebody's website, not WP:RS
(3) is a reliable source with a brief mention
(4) is an auction listing for a photograph of the same meeting mentioned in (3), no value as a reference
(5) is local press coverage of a meeting, presumably from a press-release, most of it sourced to the organisation itself (not available in Europe, accessed through this link)
(6) is more of the same, probably from the same press-release
(7) is a reliable source with a passing mention (I said above that there are several of these)
(8) is a passing mention in local-boy-makes-good local press article
(9) is a blog post on somebody's website, not WP:RS
That does not seem to add up to the "significant coverage in multiple independent, reliable, secondary sources" required by WP:NCORP. If those sources were tabulated as in the example in WP:ORGCRIT, only (3) might conceivably classify as "pass". Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 10:58, 24 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Everything in the article has references. Just because it doesn't have inline citations, doesn't mean it's unreferenced. If there's a specific thing you'd like to challenge, you are welcome to do so by adding a {{fact}} tag, but I think you'll find that all the current references match the current information. --Elonka 00:00, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regarding the Scott book, it is sourced to page 87, which I have added to the citation. Thank you for the Google Book link, but please keep in mind that it is not 100% searchable. In this case, page 87 is not available at Google Books. --Elonka 16:26, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Elonka; what Gbooks search normally does is identify the page where the text is found even if that page is not available in preview; in this case, it seems that it has not. Since you have the book, perhaps you could tell us exactly what it says about this association? Thanks, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:11, 26 August 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.