Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/CandyRat Records (2nd 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 no consensus. T. Canens (talk) 23:37, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

CandyRat Records[edit]

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Article about a record label, not reliably sourced as clearing WP:NCORP. Notability is not inherited, so record labels are not handed an automatic notability freebie just because they might have one or more notable artists on them -- a record label's notability remains contingent on whether or not it is the subject of enough reliable source coverage to clear WP:GNG and WP:CORPDEPTH. But pretty much right across the board, the sources here are all either primary sources that are completely irrelevant to establishing notability at all, or glancing namechecks of its existence in coverage of other people — the only one that's more than trivially about the label at all is from a digital news startup whose status as a reliable or notability-making source is uncertain at best (I cannot, for instance, find a clear editorial masthead on its website, but only a directory of its advertising sales staff), and reads suspiciously more like either a press release or a thinly veiled rewrite of one than it does like real journalism. This is not the kind of sourcing it takes to make a record label notable.Bearcat (talk) 15:39, 26 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Music-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 15:43, 26 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Wisconsin-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 15:43, 26 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. This nomination is directly inspired by the conversation at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ewan Dobson, which may also be of interest. As I have argued elsewhere, the application of WP:CORP to record labels is a Procrustean bed that makes little sense as a yardstick, and WP:NOTINHERITED arguments are ultimately red herrings. WP:MUSIC has language - the only language specifically addressing record labels in our guidelines - about what constitutes an important record label, and it suggests two indicators: length of operation and prominence of roster (clearly intended to be taken holistically - a longstanding label with no notable acts probably wouldn't qualify unless it somehow also met the GNG). CandyRat, I think, ranks - it's been around for about 15 years and has signed quite a few notable acts (acts not notable merely for having been signed to the label), the most well-known of which are probably Michael Manring, Don Ross, Preston Reed, and The Reign of Kindo (not to mention, of course, Ewan Dobson). The prior nomination, closed as keep about two years ago, is also instructive. Chubbles (talk) 20:31, 26 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Record labels most certainly can and do get reliable source coverage about the label, so there's no legitimate reason to deem CORP somehow a poor gauge for the notability of a record label. Your argument in the past discussion, that "whether or not a record label is notable ought to be decided by experts in music, not experts in business", is the real red herring here, because nothing in NCORP indicates that the coverage necessarily has to be financial reportage in the business section, and somehow can't be news or arts coverage about the company's cultural or artistic significance. NCORP merely mandates that coverage about the company has to exist, and nothing about NCORP suggests or even implies that said coverage somehow has to come from business writers and can't come from music writers.

Being the subject of notability-supporting coverage is not a test that record labels have a pattern of being consistently unable to meet, because record labels most certainly can and do get coverage about them. As I noted, the references here are all either glancing namechecks of the label's existence in coverage of other things or primary sources that do not constitute support for notability at all — if this type of sourcing were all it took to make a record label notable enough for inclusion, then there would be never be any such thing as a non-notable record label anymore, because no record label in the entire history of music has ever gone completely unverifiable in at least some of these kinds of sources.

And anyway, even if we did have a consensus that record labels were exempted from having to pass CORP and just had to satisfy NMUSIC instead, even NMUSIC also explicitly states that the inclusion test is not just the thing being claimed, but still hinges on the quality of the referencing being used to support the claim. A record label is not automatically "culturally or artistically significant" just because you say it is — reliable sources have to establish its cultural or artistic significance by covering it as a subject. Bearcat (talk) 12:45, 27 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 03:18, 27 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This seems part of a larger campaign to supplant SNG's with the GNG, which I have disagreed with in the past. We could just as well declare that a band needs to meet NCORP to be included, but we do not - we never do that, even though a band is most certainly an organization (usually a profit-seeking one, to boot) organized together for a purpose, as CORP states. WP:MUSIC suggests a few criteria that indicate whether a label is important enough to merit inclusion, and I think we should look to those rather than to some broad guideline that may result in impoverished conprehensiveness of coverage (just as we do for musicians, and for athletes, and for populated places, et cetera). Once we've determined that an entity meets an SNG, it is not a requirement that we find half-a-dozen longform articles about it to establish that importance, because that would mean the only way to have an article, de facto, is the GNG. We merely have to ensure that what is in the article is verifiable, as a matter of policy - and it is rarely difficult to verify artist rosters and discographies, especially for twenty-first-century labels. Chubbles (talk) 12:05, 28 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that we regularly see people or organizations make false claims about themselves designed to make them sound like they clear the SNG: musicians falsely claimed to have bigger chart hits than they've ever really had; writers falsely claimed to have nominations for awards they were never really shortlisted for; politicians claimed to have held offices they didn't really hold; and on and so forth. So getting a topic over an SNG is never just a matter of saying that the topic passes an SNG — the topic still has to have some evidence of GNG-worthy coverage which verifies that its claim to passing the SNG is true, and is never automatically exempted from having to have any reliable source coverage at all just because of what the article claims. SNGs don't exempt topics from having to have any reliable source coverage just because passage has been asserted, and GNG doesn't mean we exempt unsigned bands from having to pass NMUSIC just because they've gotten their name into their local newspaper three times and can thus claim to pass NMUSIC #1 in lieu of actually achieving anything noteworthy — every topic always has to have both a notability claim that passes an SNG and a GNG-worthy volume of reliable source coverage to support it, not just one thing or the other. SNGs exist to clarify what counts as a notability claim, and GNG exists to clarify how the notability claim has to be supported in order to translate into a keepable article — they work together, not as alternative paths that cancel or replace each other. Bearcat (talk) 16:32, 28 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I think that is a reading at variance with the actual text of WP:N, but ultimately I guess that's a topic for a different and much wider conversation somewhere else. Chubbles (talk) 00:55, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The core definition of notability is the existence of reliable source coverage about the topic. There are exactly zero things in the entire universe that are so critically important for us to have an article about that they're exempted from having to meet the basic definition of notability just because of what they claim about themselves. Bearcat (talk) 19:14, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

keep one of the "more important independent labels" because of numerous notable artists by NMUSIC#5. Also meets GNG, additional sources [1] [2] 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 13:24, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Those aren't reliable sources. Bearcat (talk) 19:10, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You're right about Mint, it is an advertisement. Just plain missed it. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 20:22, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm right about "Ever Widening Circles" too. Bearcat (talk) 20:33, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 19:11, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

comment I think the Article is good enough and also it is notable itself, and the only think that I think the Article need, it is more expanding... so I think keep the Article is my mind.Forest90 (talk) 21:16, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete As much as I sympathize with Chubbles viewpoint above, the criteria for establishing the notability of record labels is not tackled within WP:NMUSIC. The entire purpose of having policies and guidelines is to establish a "procrustean bed" so that we can consistently apply the same rules and guidelines across a wide variety of different articles on wildly different topics. There is not a single SNG that is not seen as a subject-related clarification of GNG and not one waters down the requirements of GNG. Therefore it starts with a requirement of (at least) two independent and significant sources. NCORP does a great job of explaining what types of sources are required for any type of organization. None of the references provided meets the requirement, therefore not only does this topic fail NCORP, it also fails GNG. It is unfortunate that some specialised topics (which are obviously notable to specialists in their field) means some article fall through the cracks, but the minimum standard of two independent and significant sources must be met regardless of the topic. As such, this topic fails GNG. HighKing⁺⁺ 16:21, 7 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I have found and added some more sources. While one of the sources with the most significant coverage in the article is not considered independent because it is an interview, I don't see why the LiveMint source would not be considered RS. As for the other sources, while they may not be significant, I do not believe that the coverage in articles about its artists or tours is trivial - for example that the style of playing used by many of its artists has become known as the CandyRat style, or movement. And that coverage is from several countries, including the US, Canada, Italy, Australia and New Zealand. I think there is enough to meet WP:GNG. RebeccaGreen (talk) 16:18, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@RebeccaGreen: thank you for adding sources. The LiveMint "article" is an advertisement. It says so (not exactly conspicuously) right on the page. It is content paid for by the record company. It can be used for basic factual information, but it doesn't help establish notability. I still think the encyclopedia is better off with this article than without it for reasons I may or may not have time to get to. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 17:19, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@78.26 and Bearcat: Please explain how the LiveMint article is an advertisement. It has advertisements intermixed with the article but I not sure where It says so (not exactly conspicuously) right on the page. StrayBolt (talk) 20:27, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@StrayBolt: The words "Advertisement" are placed within the article four times. However, it appears that all their articles are formatted like this, see [3], and if the space isn't sold, then the word "advertisement" appears and nothing else. However, this State Bank of India article is written by a reporter with many, many contributions, while the CandyRat article's author has only this singular contribution, which almost certainly means he is not a staff writer for the newspaper and which raises suspicions. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 20:49, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The word "Advertisement" appears inside a box in which ads appears. It does not say the article is an ad. You can't say any page with an ad intermixed with ads makes an article an advertisement. Also, maybe the LiveMint contributors with many articles are really pseudonyms for ad generated content or the salesperson who made the sale and the ones with only a few contributions are the real "reporters". Maybe the article didn't generate enough ad revenue so LiveMint didn't accept any more. Maybe the contributor found something that paid better. We don't know. StrayBolt (talk) 21:34, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I think it has enough to pass StrayBolt (talk) 21:38, 10 May 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.