Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alexis Marie Rivera

Alexis Marie Rivera

Alexis Marie Rivera (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Poorly sourced biography of a person notable primarily as a case manager at a local non-profit agency. While Wikipedia doesn't inherently preclude people of primarily "local to a single area" notability from getting articles if they can be reliably sourced over WP:GNG, that's not what the sourcing here is doing -- of the six references here, four are primary sources (the self-published webpages of organizations she was directly involved with, and/or YouTube videos) and the other two are blogs. (And of the two blog sources, The Huffington Post is widely read enough that it would be an acceptable source if the rest of the referencing around it were more solid -- but it's not a source that can carry GNG all by itself if it's the best thing you can find.) She may have done interesting work and she was probably an awesome person, but unfortunately there's just nowhere near enough legitimate sourcing here to hang an encyclopedia article on. Bearcat (talk) 05:34, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. TopCipher (talk) 06:19, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bibliographies-related deletion discussions. TopCipher (talk) 06:19, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions. TopCipher (talk) 06:19, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

• Keep: Bearcat - trust that the primary concern for this AFD is sourcing and not notability and I agree with your assessment; although it has potential, just not in it's current state, I suppose it would be trumped by the fact that notability guidelines do not apply to content within an article or article content does not determine notability and quite importantly, notability is based on the existence of suitable sources, not on the state of sourcing in an article; also, here are some of the other references that I was able to source (not listed in any order of significance)-
  1. Widely cited by subject's peers in various books
  2. Played casting role in a documentary film
  3. Similar article as HuffingtonPost on WorldNews
  4. Member of the Transgender Community Panel at United States Conference on AIDS Trans Institute
  I realize that most of these references do not speak "about" the subject per se, they do credibly indicate the claim of significance.
  Query: Please confirm which of the citations are self-published webpages as most of the ones that I've referred are about or after her death - not that I hold any prejudice against them. I was further unable to clearly see them (webpages) as "primary sources" as I'm given to understand that they have been published by organizations / institutions that existed long before the subject was involved.
  Comment: Would you happen to know anything about a 'Alexis Rivera Trailblazer Award'? Saw a mention here. Thanks. TopCipher (talk) 07:17, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Just for the record, the wn.com citation doesn't help bolster a notability claim either — it's not an originator of content, but a news aggregator that merely collects headlines from other news services — the reason it's "similar" to the Huffington Post article is because it is the Huffington Post article. Nor does it matter whether an organization existed before she was involved with it or not — if she was involved with it at all, then it is a primary source, because her direct involvement in the organization makes it not fully independent of her. Bearcat (talk) 13:12, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Of note, in regard to other organizations that reference Alexis Rivera: GLAAD Article Published after shortly after her death [1]. Friends Research Institute in Los Angeles runs a program named after Alexis Rivera [2]. Techgirlwonder (talk) 14:27, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

• Keep: Obviously I'm the primary author so my vote is biased. Responding to TopCipher, I can tell you that Trans Pride is Los Angeles local transgender pride celebration [3], and gives an award every year recognizing a local transgender advocate. Since Alexis death in 2012, the award has been titled the Alexis Rivera Trailblazer Award in honor of Alexis work. Further references can be found here: [4], [5], [6].
  Query: Part of what makes Alexis Rivera important is she was an advocate 15 years ago, at a time when the transgender community was largely invisible to mainstream society. As a result, there is very little documented media from that time period (and what there is did not make it to the internet). Is there a recommended method for sourcing articles about communities are rarely written about in major media sources? I am committed to improving this article as the primary author based on the feedback here. Techgirlwonder (talk) 12:49, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

For the record, Wikipedia does not have a requirement that our sources be accessible on the internet — if you can find print-only media coverage in an archive or a news retrieval database, you can use that for referencing. But regardless of whether it's web-accessible or to paper-only content, the referencing does still have to be to reliable sources. We do not have any "alternate path to sourceability" rules that exempt members of underrepresented groups from having to be reliably sourced, or that allow them to rest on social networking posts, or blogs, or primary sources, or YouTube videos, or other types of sourcing that would not ordinarily be good enough, instead — as unfortunate as it may be that transgender people historically didn't get as much coverage in the media as they might have deserved, it's not Wikipedia's role to rectify that visibility gap if the required quality of sourcing doesn't exist and we have to rely on substandard sourcing instead. The fact that there was less reliable source coverage than there maybe should have been in principle does not exempt a person from the reliable sourcing requirement — if the depth of reliable source coverage just wasn't there to meet GNG on the same quality of sources that anybody else would have to show, then there simply isn't an alternate path to sourcing a keepable article. Bearcat (talk) 13:33, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Additional secondary sources -- Bay Area Reporter [7][8], Bilerico project [9][10], OnTop magazine [11]Techgirlwonder (talk) 14:27, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Techgirlwonder you should add these additional references to the article. I hope they're considered strong enough, but I'm not an expert by any stretch of imagination. Most importantly, two things. First, this is not personal, Wikipedia kind of has a mind of its own in attempt to be reliable and verifiable. And second, know that in the worst case if the article is still deleted, you can still improve it and try again. Wikipedia has a Draft namespace which is meant for that kind of work. Milimetric (talk) 15:04, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

I have added the articles from the Bay Area Reporter, which is by Wikipedia's own definition "one of the largest circulation LGBT newspapers by circulation in the United States and the country's oldest continuously published newspaper of its kind"[12] -- the Transgender Law Center source which was the main previous source has been removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Techgirlwonder (talk • contribs) 20:22, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

• Note from original Author: I have now removed 3 of the 4 primary sources in the original article and replaced them with secondary sources. The remaining primary source is the Quest pagaent, and it simply to verify that Alexis was the original winner of the Quest pagaent. It seems to me that a contest reporting on who won in a given year falls under the category of "a straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge". I also added a sentence about the Trailblazer award, using the San Diego piece as well as an announcement form the Transgender Law Center. While Alexis is worked for the transgender law center while she was alive, this article simply reporting the fact that another person has received this award, so I think it's hard to say the source is primary. I do also know this fact was reporting in Girl Talk magazine at the time, but it is an out of print publication and as far as I can tell it is not archived anywhere. I understanding sourcing is not perfect but I sincerely hope this article will be not be deleted and instead can continue to be improved over time.