Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Minikillers

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 per WP:SNOW‎. (non-admin closure) Bruxton (talk) 22:58, 31 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Minikillers[edit]

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WP:OR. There was one, very obscure short film "The Mini-Killers". The claims about the series of 4 and the tank station use can apparently only be found at a youtube video (in itself probably a copyvio of the copyright owners of the movie) from a channel with 135 subscribers, with as far as I can tell a total lack of reliability. Removing these claims would leave a very short stub about a short film which received hardly any attention. A redirect to Diana Rigg may be a good WP:ATD. Fram (talk) 12:38, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Film, Germany, Spain, and England. Fram (talk) 12:38, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I also can't find any source for the petrol station bit. Some coverage exists, but always saying it is very obscure. Redirect to the actress, perhaps cover as a footnote to her filmography. —Kusma (talk) 13:53, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Thank you for your input, but I feel that the above reason for deletion, like the Proposal for Deletion, is based on cursory research. Yes, these films are obscure, they are poor quality, and Rigg herself may have regarded them as an embarrassment. But ...
- That there are four short films, not one, can easily be confirmed from any number of sources, including Rigg's biography, a Google books version of which I linked on the talk page of the article, or the Avengers book I linked on the same talk page, or any other number of web sites, including IMDb. One can find graphics of the original promotional material online.
- That the title is Minikillers, without a hyphen, is also easily checked, although some sources do indeed give "Mini-Killers" or even "Mini Killers".
- The number of subscribers of that youtube channel is entirely irrelevant. The videos are variously available on Youtube from a number of channels, as a simple search would confirm. Copyright claims regarding these films from 1969 should be made by the copyright owners themselves, not by third parties.
- It is quite true that the claim that it was used in petrol stations is difficult to confirm from other sources, so we may need to qualify that. For example Rigg's biography (which I linked in the previous discussion with Fram) claims that the origin of the four films is a complete mystery. The director and writers of this film seem to be completely obscure people, and apparently did not make any other materials than this.
- I don't think that this topic would be a useful addition to the article on Diana Rigg, even though she is the star of the films, any more than any other film should be kept in the actor's biography. For example, would the plot or the cast of "Minikillers" belong there? I don't think so.
- Most of Wikipedia's movie articles are not very substantial and mostly consist of the plot and the cast of the movie, and since this article doesn't yet feature either the plot or cast, the lack of content as a reason for deletion isn't valid in my opinion. Adding a plot to this article poses the small problem of trying to work out what the plot actually is, of course. I appreciate the prodding from Fram to improve this article by adding the plot and cast.

Thank you again most kindly for your input. Mains Olsen (talk) 20:55, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a plot and cast section to the film as well as clarifying the origin somewhat and correcting an error about the film. Mains Olsen (talk) 22:50, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"That there are four short films, not one, can easily be confirmed from any number of sources, including Rigg's biography" I have now checked that book multiple times, and all I see are references to Mini-Killers as one film: "[...] the silent short films Das Diadem and The Mini-Killers.[...] Both films were shot [...] It consisted of four parts: Operation Costa Brava, Heroin, Macabre, and Flamenco." It goes on to describe it as a film, not four films, and discusses a press piece which promotes it as a film, not four films. So, a film in four parts, not four films. Imdb, archive.org, youtube, ... aren't reliable sources.

The youtube source is a) not a reliable source, and should for that reason not be included at all, and b) a probable copyright violation, and Wikipedia policy is not to link to such, no matter whether the actual copyright holders care or not. Claims which you can only source to unreliable sources (like the youtube video) shouldn't be "qualified", they should be completely removed, they have no place in our articles at all. You have since added another claim, sourced to a comment underneath a blog post.[1] Please read WP:RS thoroughly and stop using such sources or basing anything in articles on it. It just isn't acceptable.

With films this obscure, where so little is reliably known about them, it is better to redirect them to the main filmography of Riggs than to write a speculative, poorly sourced article. Fram (talk) 07:39, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your very thorough interest in this article. Here is a photograph of the original film packages, from a collector blog in Dutch, showing that there are four separate films. But this is already clear by skimming through the youtube video. It's four separate episodes in one video as you can see from the credits rolling, and that is described in the biography, which again you're disputing, saying "it consisted of four parts". Yes we do need better sources, that is not a reason to delete an article. Mains Olsen (talk) 09:33, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Even that blog literally says that it is one film... In any case, more blogs or unreliable sources won´t help in keeping this as a separate article. Fram (talk) 10:21, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much for responding. What a wonderful conversation this is turning out to be. The blog uses the Dutch plural form films in its first sentence, right above the photograph showing four films in four boxes. You've also repeatedly insisted that the youtube video is a copyright violation, without any evidence that the films are in copyright. But thank you indeed muchly for responding. You are a self-assured correspondent, and you cannot be said to be lacking in self-confidence with your very bold and yet strikingly counterfactual statements. I wish you the very best of fortune. Mains Olsen (talk) 10:59, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Please avoid personalising this discussion. The issue at hand here is mostly that there are very few reliable sources talking about the film(s), so there is precious little to use to write about them without engaging in WP:OR or reporting speculation from blogs or random youtube channels. There are some sources mentioned in the book I linked to above, perhaps you should try to find those to see if there is further reliable information that would allow us to make a more informed decision. —Kusma (talk) 11:13, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to take this opportunity to very lavishly and most humbly apologise for commenting personally on the above-mentioned most greatly esteemed correspondent. This conversation should be considered an educational model for future Wiki-discussions if nothing else. To business. Let us glean some facts in the midst of fog. The article in its current, admittedly paltry, state already contains more referencing from reliable sources, such as Diana Rigg's published biography, than literally tens of thousands of other film articles on Wikipedia, such as The Deceiver (film), which has only one reference, or Riders of Destiny, which is completely unreferenced. You yourself point to a reliable source and yet you claim that there are not enough reliable sources. Would I yet again be straying into the abyss of erroneous behaviour which I previously did if I were to be so bold as to point out that this might be considered a contradiction, if only by the extremely unkind, not to say martinets and pedants? The case for deleting the article seems extremely weak and becomes weaker, as if perchance you had been "hoist by your own petard" in the immortal words of the Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon, by the very fact that you yourself have pointed out reliable sources for the article? Does a mind so mighty that it can encompass all of these contradictions exist, or must we await the awakening of an artificial form of intelligence, superior to the mere human brain, which can muster the sheer brainpower necessary to cut this Gordian knot? Until the arrival of such a fortunate beast, the decision is yours, my very good and faithful Wiki-friends. I wish you all possible wisdom, courage and fortitude necessary for this endeavour. God speed you! Mains Olsen (talk) 11:51, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The source I found is a one-sentence mention that confirms that the thing exists, not that it satisfies the general or film-specific notability guidelines. It is highly likely that we have articles on hundreds of films that do not meet these criteria, but those articles are not under discussion here. See WP:OSE. Anyway, back to this article: I still think mentioning this as a footnote in Diana Rigg's article is the best way forward at the moment, but this is fairly decent. Happy to defer to people more experienced in 1960s films on whether a standalone article is merited. —Kusma (talk) 14:23, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've edited the article to remove the most blatantly unreliable sources and claims not matching the single truly reliable source. Posting these issues here clearly didn't help, perhaps things will get clearer this way. Fram (talk) 13:13, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The 2 books on top of the Googlebooks link above, the sources on the page, and this would tend to prove this is really notable. Also, I would like to point out that the actress's surname is obviously Rigg not Riggs...— MY, OH, MY! 13:34, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Given the two book mentions (and other sources) and after crafting a few Google searches, this gets a fairly significant mention in The Telegraph [2]: round the same time she made the obscure foreign shorts – The Diadem and Mini-Killers, made in 1966 and 69 respectively – which played up to the sex bomb persona. Indeed, these shorts could be seen as unofficial Avengers episodes .... Distributed on 8mm, there’s a psychedelic, sleazy quality to them, and “So far, nobody has come forward with an explanation of how either Das Diadem or The Mini-Killers came into being or how Rigg became involved with the projects,” wrote biographer Kathleen Tracy., and Mini-Killers, made in Spain, looks like a bit more cash behind it .... It’s in colour, and has Bond-like aspirations with its exotic locales. The story is told in four parts: slinking around in various Sixties styles .... Rigg investigates a group of assassins who use a killer doll that sprays a poison from its eyes (Q Branch, this is not)., and Mini-Killers directed by Wolfgang von Chmielewski, who was from the German TV station WDR, and co-starred José Nieto and Jack Rocha, who appeared in Spanish exploitation flicks. Versions of Mini-Killers range between 28 and 42 minutes, depending on if you're watching a slightly sped-up version. Skynxnex (talk) 19:21, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - IMO the sources identified above are adequate to show that the subject meets WP:GNG. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 10:38, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per point 2 of WP:NFIC and the sources identified above. 2001:48F8:3004:FC4:D480:5FD5:9310:3BA4 (talk) 22:09, 31 May 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.