Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Max Vadukul

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. No point in keeping this open any longer. There's been substantial change since the AfD was opened, and the nom is withdrawn. Well done to all concerned for some excellent research and cleaning up. Wiki at its best. Tyrenius (talk) 04:31, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Max Vadukul[edit]

A fawning tribute to a fashion photographer, originally created by the SPA Pr61 (contributions) and the SPA coincidentally named Maxvadukul (contributions). The article has had an "unreferenced" flag for over half a year. Its named sources are Vadakul's own site and Vadakul's section within a promotional site. Googling for Max Vadukul brings up good evidence that he has photographed the pop singer Beyoncé and that people want to download the pics, and also shows that other sites of dubious significance fawn over him, but that was about it, at least till I ran out of stamina in skimreading the flimflam. Google news has a hit for him, this from "Earth Times": it says that Internationally renowned Kenyan photographer Max Vadukul is responsible for the stunning campaign photography -- but it's a retailer's press release, mere advertising intended to whip up a froth of excitement as Saks Fifth Avenue announced the return of its acclaimed Want It! campaign for Spring 2008. (Oh, wow.) As for Google books, a photo by Vadakul is here neither described nor discussed but merely mentioned in a litcritty book -- Popular passages / Page 114 / If the inner truth of gender is a fabrication and if a true gender is a fantasy instituted and inscribed on the surface of bodies, then it seems that genders... -- as having been mentioned by Isabella Rosselini. We can infer that Vadakul is a real photographer who has photographed celebs; however, the article on him is dreadful and I see no prospect for its improvement. -- Hoary (talk) 09:07, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well well, contrary to the impression given by the adulatory flatus in the original article, and the vacuous gush on display in the first few pages of Google hits for the man, this article has indeed been improved.

It seems clear that Vadukul has an important role at the New Yorker. I'm surprised that a magazine such as the New Yorker -- parts of which are so good that I actually buy a copy now and again -- would not then write him up decently in some accessible web page. I'm also surprised to learn that National Geographic finds space among its stories on global warming, deforestation, oil, el Niño, decreasing biodiversity, etc etc for a feature on a celeb photographer: clearly I am ignorant of geography. But no quirk of the US infotainment industry detracts from Vadukul's newly demonstrated notability. And so, with surprise but not regret, and with thanks to various editors (Johnbod and Fountains in particular), I withdraw this nomination. -- Hoary (talk) 01:43, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Visual arts-related deletions. -- Hoary (talk) 09:12, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
~~Delete~~ - never mind, look like notability has now been established; the AfD succeeded in that sense. Dicklyon (talk) 15:35, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
~~Delete~~ - hopelessly POV, and the lack of independent sources and doubtful notability would make a useful rewrite difficult to do. You could probably have justified speedying this under G11, but I suppose it's good to err on the side of caution. Iain99^{Balderdash and piffle} 16:10, 14 February 2008 (UTC) _{changed to keep per below}[reply]
~~Delete~~ Keep whilst this person is clearly a professional photographer [1], the article's assertions of notability seem more or less unsupported. I agree this could have been speedied as blatant advertising but since he does have some published work I think the nom has been helpful in running it through AfD to get a consensus. With the blatant promo text gone, a thorough rewrite and the NYT source, I think this photographer is notable enough for an article. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:20, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Some published work"? He has 1,000 results on the New Yorker archive alone! Johnbod (talk) 21:23, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Yes, the article is terrible, but the various portfolios at the second link show pretty clearly he is a top-of-the-tree magazine & advertising photographer in NY, which makes him notable. We have kept loads of people with far more slender claims. Johnbod (talk) 17:30, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete until he gets in front of the camera. -Kmaguir1 (talk) 19:20, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hardly a deletion criterion. Johnbod (talk) 21:23, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Keep Googling around shows more than just someone blowing his own horn. A small collection of hits where other people are blowing his horn for him shows he does get notice[2][3][4][5][6]. I'm a little weak on this addition since it gets into "just because you work in a mass market industry, does the mass market products you appear in mean your notable?" If this guy shot DMV photos of celebrities would he be notable? The article its self needs to be cut back... almost to a stub since there is no reputable biography to source and the text is so self serving. All you can really cite is this guy has shot allot of celeb photos[7] , invalid criteria for WP:BIO and seems like building an article by synthesis. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 19:42, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- You list a string of five "hits where other people are blowing his horn for him". Sounds good, but he turns out to get an average of under one sentence in each. -- Hoary (talk) 23:20, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Yeah... ain't much, but what several show is "peer" citations. We may not be able to judge this one because we don't have access to peer level information. Photographers/art directors at this level all know who each other are, so its not stuff that gets out into mass media. This may be a real case of "we lack the reference but reference probably does exist out there somewhere". Hard line would be "Un-referenced? -->delet it". Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 16:48, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, fails WP:BIO. _{WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN} ^{it seems the winds have stopped...} 20:13, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I continue to be surprised by these comments. A quick look around Category:Fashion photographers, Category:Commercial photographers and Category:American photographers shows a majority of individuals with less impressive records that Vadukul, not to mention heaps of equally peacocky prose. The article is terrible & needs referencing, but I have no doubt this guy is notable. Johnbod (talk) 21:20, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I think you're getting into WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS arguments here - the fact that we have some terrible articles isn't a good reason for keeping other terrible articles. You've shown that he has a significant body of work, that's true, but by itself I don't think that's enough: to write a good article we'd need some third party sources commenting on him or his work - say a reasonable independent review - rather than just a list of his photographs. Otherwise, if nobody else thinks he's worth writing about, neither should we. I'm still of the view that if the article doesn't get rewritten and sourced it should be deleted; the deletion should of course be without prejudice to someone writing a neutral article in future with enough independent sources to demonstrate notability. Iain99^{Balderdash and piffle} 21:43, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A poor article is not valid grounds for deletion; lack of notability is, but he is notable. Johnbod (talk) 21:57, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment (on Johnbod's comment immediately above in particular, but the direction of this AfD in general): A wretched article can indeed be deleted. In principle (and still often in practice) it's the article that's being judged, not the subject; and deletion of the article via AfD need not doom subsequent articles on the same subject to speedy deletion. (It's re-creation of the same article that would be speediable.) ¶ There have been various claims above that Vadukul is notable and merits an article. It seems to me that these claims are compatible with my initial proposal to delete the article. Having little knowledge of (or interest in) fashion/celeb photography, I didn't know whether Vadakul was notable. (I found it hard to believe that he was particularly notable, as for example he doesn't rate a mention in the index of the Oxford Companion to the Photograph.) Five minutes of looking around Google suggested to me that it would be hard to find anything about him other than that he had photographed this or that celeb or had worked for this or that magazine. Others with a deeper interest in this kind of stuff than I am, or with actual books about it, were and are welcome to correct me on this. Anyone has been, and still is, welcome to fix the article. However, the article so far has not been fixed; indeed, nobody has touched the article since I slapped the AfD notice on it. If you think a decent article on Vadukul should be provided, and if you don't want the dreadful article that now exists deleted in the meantime, please create that decent article. Until I see such an article, I have no reason to change my mind: this article on Vadukul should be deleted, because (i) it's junk and (ii) there's no prospect of a suitable article emerging from it. -- Hoary (talk) 00:49, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- I might be ready to do a little if the hanging jury were not so evidently wondering when lunch will arrive. The Oxford Companion to the Photograph. (published when exactly?) is a ridiculous test. Try matching up the index to their equivalent Art companion with the artists we find notable - only 1/500 will be there! Totally absurd. Johnbod (talk) 01:36, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Look at it this way, maybe: The article seems junky because there is no independent support for notability to put into it. There are lots of folks snapping pix of celebs and making money from it, most of them are not notable or noted. Gwen Gale (talk) 01:29, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Steady on. I was not proposing, and would never propose, that having an article in the Companion -- published in 2005, large, not so pricy, and excellent value -- should be a test. I didn't think of looking if Vadukul had an article. I did, however, look him up in the index. His non-appearance even there neither surprised me nor damned him to insignificance. (I do most of my rather limited creative work at WP writing up photographers who also aren't mentioned in that index; most recently Fukuda Katsuji.) The only reason why I looked him up there was to make one easy check (as the book is just two metres from where I sit) that I hadn't overlooked somebody who was indisputably well known where it mattered. After all, the article does make great claims (e.g. Vadukul set out to reform the rigid structure of fashion publications) that the Companion might find worthy of note. -- Hoary (talk) 01:51, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It looked like a test to me, and doubtless others. We all agree much of the text is bullshit (though perfectly moderate by the low standards of these categories). Johnbod (talk) 01:58, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FYI How about a non-trivial writeup?-->Frieze Magazine, Stepping Out, Issue 3, January-March 1992 Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 02:05, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Excellent find! I hope this will change some minds, especially as it refers to other books with his photography. Johnbod (talk) 02:45, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - This is a single write up from 16 years ago. Are there any others showing similar depth and editorial care? Gwen Gale (talk) 02:51, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    - I must say I am finding this debate increasingly wierd, running in conjunction with Carlo Frigerio two down on the arts-related list, where I am the only person arguing for deletion. Johnbod (talk) 02:57, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      - I think with Frigerio, editors think it's helpful to note a (very) minor painter whose career, over two centuries after his death, seems to have settled into a notable context (however fleeting, as noted in the article about him) in Italian classical art. However, I still don't see a notable context to Max Vadukul's career (yet). Taking snaps of celebrities for pay is not encyclopedic, it's a living. Gwen Gale (talk) 03:12, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        Right. However, he's wangled a couple of books out of it. Have these achieved any recognition? Also, celeb photographers in Japan sometimes exhibit their commercial work and more often additionally pursue their own non-commercial projects that they exhibit or have published in books. Japan may be atypical here, but the point is that celeb photography is by no means incompatible with photographic notability, and I'm open to news of this about Vadakul. -- Hoary (talk) 06:20, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        Clearly, an article about someone who takes snaps of celebs can be encyclopedic. Gwen Gale (talk) 07:00, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    - On the observation that this is 16 years old: It could be that his newsworthiness or even notability peaked at around that time. That shouldn't be held against him. -- Hoary (talk) 06:20, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Credit where due: this is not the most informative of articles but it's far better than anything proffered so far, and FBM did a good job in unearthing it and linking to it. I don't get the impression that there's enough in it to generate an article. It may be that the content when added to the dribs and drabs available from other reliable sources would add up to a respectable little stub. So anybody interested is welcome to do this. If it is done, I'll change my vote. If it isn't done, the article will still deserve deletion even though we know of this piece in Frieze: deletion of a ghastly article won't preclude later creation of a tolerably good article on the same person. -- Hoary (talk) 06:20, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - I did a cleanup of the article, paring it back based on WP:TONE, WP:NPF, and WP:SELFPUB. Still some stuff in there un-checkable by other sources (other than checking them via Google Images) but got rid of the self serving advert stuff. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 18:11, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've done some more cleanup and flow, at least it reads like an encyclopedia article now, although citations are still lacking and even with them, as an editor I would not take this topic as notable since no assertion has been provided that his photographic work stands out or has had meaningful sway in his profession, although I'm very open to seeing anything which might support such an assertion. Gwen Gale (talk) 19:28, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Those with US cable might like to watch the documentary tonight [8] ! Johnbod (talk) 20:55, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. Changing to keep per FoBM and Gwen's cleanup and better sources being found. Iain99^{Balderdash and piffle} 21:04, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment after nom withdrawn An excellent result, with a much improved article as a rwesult of this process; thanks to all involved. Johnbod (talk) 01:50, 17 February 2008 (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.