- UNC Clef Hangers (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)
This page was nominated for deletion and a decision was made to merge into another page, all within a few days. I was never notified of this discussion and was a couple of days late, when the decision had already been made and the page was already merged and deleted. The reviewers were not given the full picture for the reason to keep the page, and unfortunately it was removed before any arguments to keep it were presented. At a high level, the group this page is for is internationally renowned, having earned many prestigious awards and having presented for President and Michelle Obama this year and the president of Iceland, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson a few weeks ago. The decision to merge the page was made speedily and without the proper arguments to make a more informed decision. This request is to undelete the page either before or after we are able to make edits calling out the group's significance to an audience who may not be as familiar with the genre, famous alumni, or significance of the group. Some references included from NY Times, People, Bleacher Report, and more [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] alfadur (talk) 16:40, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse decisio. Though I chose not to participate in the AfD discussion at the time, the decision to keep the essential elements of the article by merging with the subject's home university seems fair and sensible. In examining the citations (those listed by alfadur were already in the article) while performing the merger I struggled to find anything substantial that was in an independent reliable news source (the Daily Tar Heel is the university's student newspaper). Apart from the DTH, other articles contain brief mentions of the Clef Hangers and the articles are about something/someone else. Though I agree it would have been polite to invite the original author, alfadur, to participate in the AfD, their argument above doesn't present anything new. At the end of the day, Wikipedia shouldn't be a hosting site for university music groups. Sionk (talk) 17:49, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse. There were only three people participating in the AfD. Had I closed it, I might have relisted it, but given the agreement of all three, closing it as merge is certainly not unreasonable. Looking at the sources presented here, the three from the school paper clearly don't meet WP:RS. All of the others are about specific people, and simply mention that they were members of the Clef Hangers. This is the classic definition of a passing mention, and does nothing to establish notability. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:52, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- On what basis are you claiming the college paper isn't a reliable source? I've historically found better coverage in school papers than the local ones and this school in particular seems to have a paper that is commonly listed in the top 10 or 20 in the nation. I'd trust it more than at least 50% of the traditional papers in the nation... Hobit (talk) 01:46, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, perhaps reliable is the wrong word here. I'm not claiming they're unreliable, in the sense that you can't trust the accuracy of what they write. But, I don't think a college paper writing about something which happens at the school is a good indicator of notability. A school paper has a limited and well-defined audience; the school community. So, they tend to write about topics of interest to that community. Wikipedia has a global audience; we should be picking topics of (potentially) global interest. We gauge that interest by looking for sources which have chosen to cover a topic. If a source with a global readership (say, a major newspaper) has chosen to devote some of their limited resources to covering a topic, that's a good signal that the topic is of interest to a wide audience. The more focused a source is (either geographically, or by concentrating on a particular industry, segment of society, or activity), the less strong that signal is. A school newspaper, even a well-respected one at a major university, is pretty low down on that scale. -- RoySmith (talk) 11:45, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Makes more sense, thanks. And though that opinion is held by a lot of people, as a matter of Wiki-philosophy I'd disagree. I believe we should cover what we can cover well by using reliable secondary sources. A Wikipedia article isn't a "prize" for having done well or being important. Rather it's a source for people wanting to learn more about a topic. I think this topic is covered well enough in RSes that having an article is reasonable (though not having one isn't horrible). But sadly, consensus didn't go that way this time. Hobit (talk) 18:34, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Surely that's one of the basic tenets of Wikipedia, that we only cover things that have a wider importance. That is the basis of WP:GNG. Sionk (talk) 19:38, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Nope, not at all. In fact, WP:N was originally pushed as just a variation of WP:V. The point wasn't, and still isn't, that it's "important". I mean, why on earth would we care? If someone can write an article using RSes, the article can exist, it's the joy of crowd sourcing. For better or worse, we've gotten away from that (and I certainly acknowledge some would say for better and even acknowledge they have good points). But in doing that, we've made having an article akin to a "gold star" in some people's mind. And so we've put ourselves in judgement about what's important "enough". We do have to draw the line somewhere, but WP:N doesn't say anything about importance (last I checked). Hobit (talk) 01:47, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Some pushed that notion, but it is not really true. Notability is not much connected to verifiability[8]. Instead, notability is an extreme end case of WP:NOR, WP:PSTS specifically. In non technical language, Wikipedia covers things only if others have already covered them. If a topic is "important", then others will already be writing about it. This means secondary sources exist. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:00, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Agreed. But we shouldn't be evaluating if the sources are "important enough". Just if they are reliable. Hobit (talk) 04:47, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- No. Sources must be evaluated for more than reliability. The phone book is reliable. Sources must be evaluated for: (1) reliability; (2) independence (from the topic, and from other sources being evaluated); (3) depth of coverage of topic (we exclude sources making only incidental or passing mentions). Sources containing secondary source content (transformative content created by the author) should also be assessed for the reputability of the author and publisher. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:18, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse. As established above, the article subject fails WP:GNG and WP:ORG. The closing merge is appropriate per WP:Summary style. Regards, James (talk/contribs) 00:25, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm not a fan (at all) of arguing for deletion on the basis of sources being too local. WP:N doesn't address that (and while WP:ORG does, I generally don't have much truck with SNGs increasing the standard for coverage over WP:N). But that said, I'm not seeing significant coverage outside of local coverage even including the sources provided by the nom. So while I disagree with the outcome of that AfD, I can't claim it's not a reasonable policy-based consensus. If the nom could provide sources that aren't local that provide more than a passing mention, I'd be thrilled to have a basis for relisting. But I don't see any in the list given... Hobit (talk) 01:40, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse. The page is to be redirected until there is a consensus at Talk:University_of_North_Carolina_at_Chapel_Hill supporting making a spinout article due to University_of_North_Carolina_at_Chapel_Hill becoming too large. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:42, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse Sufficient consensus. I and hundreds of other admins have routinely closed AfDs in this manner. Since we have draft space , it's always possible to try to make a stronger article. True, consensus can change--the consensus for whether local sources are sufficient for the notability of local organizations has swung back and forth repeatedly. But one aspect of this has been true for many years now: we do not regard college newspapers as sufficient for the notability of any thing conencted with the college. DGG ( talk ) 03:20, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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