Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jessie Baetz

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. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:31, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Jessie Baetz[edit]

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Fails WP:SIGCOV, WP:BASIC, WP:MUSICBIO, and WP:NARTIST. The sources listed only mention the subject in passing, or are trivial local press covering minor events. The New York Times article for example includes her name in a long list of names. (FYI The article's title is "Art In Review" in the subsection of "At the Jumble Shop") The reviewer, Edward Alden Jewell, didn't even review the art only mentioning food was available and people could walk around and look at the art. The main criticism of the piece was directed at other unconnected art events in other parts of New York City. A WP:BEFORE search didn't yield anything better. There isn't anything here to suggest the subject is encyclopedic. 4meter4 (talk) 14:18, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: More than enough discussion of their work as a composer in Gscholar. A quick perusal shows the first 6 mentions in Gscholar to be decent. Oaktree b (talk) 14:59, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Oaktree b I looked at most of those (as in actually read them). They only mention Baetz in passing as a student of Johanna Beyer who performed with Beyer at the Composers’ Forum Laboratory Concert in 1937 (a work composed by Beyer not Baetz) with no other biographical content or discussion of Baetz's music compositions or work beyond that. The articles in question only briefly nod at Baetz, and do so entirely in the context of coverage of Beyer's music and its performance in 1937. Can you please point to a journal article that actually has "in-depth coverage" that goes beyond a passing mention in a single sentence (literally that is the length of Baetz's coverage in those journal articles).4meter4 (talk) 15:31, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I've had deep dive in the sources, (the Jstor one in particular), Baetz seems to be a student of Beyer, mentioned as you said over, and over, in her article. I feel like we could selectively merge some of the Baetz article into the Beyer. I mean, Baetz is mentioned several times, but always as being "a student of" Beyer. That would make the most sense to me, rather than a wholesale deletion of this article. Oaktree b (talk) 20:28, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's what it seems to be, this thesis on page 52 [1] mentions Baetz in a footnote; that appears to be the extent of coverage/notability. She's a student of Beyer with some connections to her, but never rising to her level of critical notice. Oaktree b (talk) 20:35, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Artists, Bands and musicians, Women, and Canada. Hey man im josh (talk) 16:32, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - much of the original article, and the current one, directly matches this article (footnote 38) - however, the user who added that text has a username that matches the author of the article, so this is presumably not a copyvio as such. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:38, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment, leaning Keep. There seem to be multiple articles discussing her as a composer, esp. "Never Call Us Lady Composers": Gendered Receptions in the New York Composers' Forum, 1935-1940 by Melissa J. De Graaf American Music, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Fall, 2008), pp. 277-308 (JSTOR 40071709) as well as the book The New York Composers’ Forum Concerts, 1935–1940 also by Melissa de Graaf (review by John D. Spilker mentions Baetz; Journal of the Society for American Music, Volume 10 , Issue 4 , November 2016 , pp. 511 - 514 doi:10.1017/S1752196316000420). Newspaper search finds local newspaper coverage of an art exhibition (Kingston Daily Freeman 31 Oct 1970) and several other mentions. Not really seeing a pressing need to delete. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:09, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Changing to formal keep per additional sources found by Tagishsimon. Espresso Addict (talk) 21:46, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep as per Oaktree b and Espresso Addict. I'd like to add too that as a female composer of note, she would be of historical interest there as well. I'm confident that going through books more will be turned up. Karl Twist (talk) 08:47, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting. There is a consensus to Keep but it's unclear if newly discovered sources are sufficient to meet GNG.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:33, 26 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I personally believe the keep voters haven't demonstrated WP:SIGCOV. In looking at the sources presented by Espresso Addict and others above, the coverage appears to be very thin. There isn't any critical commentary on her compositions and no larger discussion of her work as a composer. She's largely only mentioned in passing in connection to Beyer. Further, it's telling that no one has been able to come up with a review of her music; which to my mind demonstrates a lack of notability for a composer. One would think a critical review of a concert where here music was performed would be locatable, but there isn't anything newspapers.com, The New York Times archives, or music magazines or journals. That would be very odd for a notable composer based out of New York. The "art reviews" aren't all that significant as they are all small local affairs and not at a significant art venue, and the reviews themselves don't have in-depth coverage of her art and work as an artist. They are more focused on her husband's work (the couple exhibited together), and the one larger art review in the Kingston Daily Freeman only mentions her as creating new pieces while people were watching at the art exhibit as a form of "improvisational art" in one sentence while her husband's work got a few paragraphs of coverage. In short this is all trivial coverage in my opinion. I also note the subject doesn't meet any WP:SNG criteria either. 4meter4 (talk) 00:19, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, we're aware that you believe the article should be deleted, but I don't personally believe that you have demonstrated a case for the necessity for deletion. None of us can access the book I mention, so the extent of coverage of Baetz is only known via the fact that a book reviewer explicitly chose to highlight her, which to me suggests likely to be significant. I don't believe anyone commenting here has access to specialist music library sources -- I certainly don't. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:14, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Besides incidental mentions, there's a couple of pages on Jessie Baetz in The New York Composers' Forum concerts, 1935-1940 by Graaf, Melissa J. de, pages 100 & 101, available via Internet Archive. Not sure if this was the book Espresso Addict is pointing to. More generally, an IA search for "Jessie Baetz" comes up with plenty of hits suggesting that she's not obscure. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:47, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I am aware, but I fail to see how this essentially one event passes GNG. All of the music related sources are about the New York Composers Forum. The one you found, while in-depth (where the others are not), is so negative in its reception of the subject and her work I question whether this really lends notability/credibility towards creating an article on the subject. It looks to me like we have a composer who had her music performed at only one notable event at which point her music was harshly received and she simply stopped after that. To my mind that doesn't reach the standard of GNG, WP:MUSICBIO, or WP:NARTIST. 4meter4 (talk) 19:00, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ima stop you at 'while in-depth'. 'so negative in its reception of the subject and her work' might be said about any number of people; it's not an AfD criteria that people must like her music. --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:47, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tagishsimon I never said a positive review was required. However, WP:SIGCOV requires multiple sources with significant coverage and this is only one source. Further I take issue with this source as providing a neutral or balanced picture of Baetz. Reasonably WP:NPOV requires a balanced reporting on a subject. Ironically, the author of the book including this coverage was doing so to demonstrate a larger historic pattern of bias against women composers in music criticism; and really the main topic here was not Baetz and her music but the potentially unfair assessment of Baetz and women like her through a cultural problem of systemic bias against women composers of that era. Unfortunately, there is no counter-assessment from a contemporary author to remedy the historical critique.

My main concern in creating an article based on this one solid piece of evidence is we are essentially encoding the negative reception of Baetz from a single event into an encyclopedia article on her, and are taking one small window of her life and work to build an article which will inevitably skew negative. More importantly, there are zero sources with a broader view of her life and work as either a composer or an artist, which all add up to failing WP:SIGCOV in my opinion. In short, I believe the scholarship just isn't there to create an ethically responsible encyclopedia article. This is clearly a woman that deserves to be researched and potentially re-assessed. However, that is not our job at Wikipedia. Until that original research is done by academics in published sources, I really don't think we should have an encyclopedia article on her. 4meter4 (talk) 23:06, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

tfw it's your ethical responsibility to remove an article supported by 15 referenes, on a women, b/c. --Tagishsimon (talk) 10:02, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Kepp. Appears to be sufficiently notable.--Ipigott (talk) 07:39, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: "Notability" appears to be based entirely on passing mentions. Looking through newspaper archives and JSTOR does not turn up any significant coverage. Am I missing something here? —CurryTime7-24 (talk) 18:43, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Flipping through the de Graaf book right now. Again, mentions of Baetz are all in passing: as being one of several "ultramodernists" (p. 46), her music was played at the Forum ~~twice~~ once (p. 97), the audience derided her music (p. 101). What very little is mentioned sounds tantalizing enough to make one want to hear her music and learn more about her. But as de Graaf herself admits (p. 100) "unfortunately, very little is known about Baetz". —CurryTime7-24 (talk) 18:53, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You are missing pretty much all of WP:GNG here; notably, pages 100-101 are 'significant coverage' in GNGs terms, and the rest of GNG is met. Only knowing little about the subject is not a reason for deletion. --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:47, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

According to WP:SIGCOV, significant coverage would address "the topic directly and in detail". However, de Graaf's book does not do this. I agree that knowing little about a subject is not necessarily reason for deletion, but in Baetz's case there are also no studies, books, reviews, etc. that specifically cover her work. Whatever the worth of her music—and, again, de Graaf suggests that it may have been very interesting—that does not make up for lack of significant, much less sustained coverage. —CurryTime7-24 (talk) 19:59, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of pages is in detail, CurryTime. It's not a passing mention. It is direct. GNG is satisfied. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:42, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Four fleeting references that total about 2 1/2 paragraphs in a 290-page book is not "detail", Tagishsimon. They are passing mentions. They are not direct. GNG is not satisfied. —CurryTime7-24 (talk) 22:24, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

SIGCOV is not determined based on the length of the rest of the source. 2 1/2 paragraphs is indeed significant coverage. A passing mention would be one or two sentences. Silver seren^C 22:41, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We are just going to have to agree to disagree on this matter. To me, 2 1/2 paragraphs of scattered passing references in a book that otherwise is not about her specifically, but about an organization of which she was but one member of many (and where her music appears to only have ever been performed once) is not significant coverage.

My vote to delete has nothing to do with the possible intrinsic quality of her music, which may be considerable. If any other editors turn up reviews, interviews, studies, etc. about her specifically, believe me, I would enthusiastically vote against deletion. —CurryTime7-24 (talk) 23:20, 29 September 2023 (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.