Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Frank O'Connor (director)

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 Speedy Keep‎. Nomination withdrawn. (non-admin closure) Let'srun (talk) 23:03, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Frank O'Connor (director)[edit]

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Topic fails WP:GNG. Available reliable secondary source coverage consists of being listed in credits for movies and little else. Searches for sources just to substantiate the alleged birth and death dates were unsuccessful (likely was sourced from WP:IMDB, which is a user-generated source). Finding reliable sources about the man himself has also been unsuccessful; even being careful to try to filter out other Frank O'Connors mostly yields results that are either not significant/independent/reliable (user-generated or are credit-information on movie-streaming platforms) or are about the Irish author or the actor husband of Ayn Rand [1] [2] [3]. While prolific in his career, Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate catalog of information, and this O'Connor does not meet the general notability guideline. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 22:11, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Actors and filmmakers-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 22:23, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 22:23, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 22:23, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 22:23, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - While difficult to parse the information available, definitely meets WP:FILMMAKER, and there is enough to pass WP:GNG as well, such as obit in the Los Angeles Times, story in the Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, a paragraph in article in the San Francisco Examiner, piece, article, and quite a few others.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 00:34, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Close inspection suggests there isn't much more than two paragraphs of substantive coverage. The obituary is three paragraphs long, but the first paragraph is about when his funeral is, and the third is about his widow and children; only the third is about him and his career as a filmmaker. The 1935 San Francisco Examiner article has a singul paragraph that is directly about O'Connor. The other articles mention him only in passing: he's the writer for a film, or the director of a movie, but his writing and direction are not themselves the subject and not themselves examined, analyzed, reported on, etc. These mentions resemble the classic example of what isn't significant coverage: Martin Walker's statement, in a newspaper article about Bill Clinton, that "In high school, he was part of a jazz band called Three Blind Mice" is plainly a trivial mention of that band. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 02:13, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: Meets WP:FILMMAKER as the director of multiple notable early films, as well as the obituary and articles identified by Onel5969. Toughpigs (talk) 00:46, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I agree with both !votes above that he does meet Wp:FILMMAKER and thanks to Onel5969 for the sources that do attest O'Connor was director/writor of multiple notable films (which is what is needed to meet criterion#3), which the nominator apparently concedes.-My, oh my! (Mushy Yank) 09:49, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Creating a body of work is only the first part of criterion #3. The full criterion is The person has created or played a major role in co-creating a significant or well-known work or collective body of work. In addition, such work must have been the primary subject of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews, or of an independent and notable work. O'Connor's plural films do not on their own substantiate notability; the films must be themselves significantly covered as a primary subject. From what I can gather, much of his filmography is of works that are documented in mostly a catalog-like fashion that doesn't demonstrate notability. Contemporaneous reviews (what a historian would call a primary source for the film and its reception) seem to be of an indiscriminate nature, with periodicals documenting and reviewing every movie that comes out; such coverage doesn't demonstrate notability. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 19:44, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Contemporaneous reviews (what a historian would call a primary source for the film and its reception) seem to be of an indiscriminate nature, with periodicals documenting and reviewing every movie that comes out; such coverage doesn't demonstrate notability. That’s not the consensus on Wikipedia, I’m afraid. -My, oh my! (Mushy Yank) 13:06, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed: the periodicals covered "every movie" in the 1920s because films made by major studios tend to be notable. The same is true now for major studio films. It's not indiscriminate; it's a reflection of what the industry is like at a given time. Toughpigs (talk) 16:41, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Withdraw: Toughpigs's elaboration that a periodical's comprehensive coverage of newly released films is not necessarily the same as an indiscriminate coverage of a subject prompted me reconsider my assessment of the newspaper coverage of O'Connor's movies. I would like to withdraw my nomination. (If I read the deletion nomination instructions rightly, a neutral editor should still be the one to close the discussion, not myself?) P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 23:54, 23 February 2024 (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.