Talk:Graffiti Kings

Help for Sarah1971!

Hi, Sarah! I saw that you despaired a bit, and felt that your article has been "ripped to shreds". What has happened is two-fold:

a) Removal from lead section material that properly belongs in main text, not in lead text. This is the expanded sentence: "Graffiti Kings have created graffiti art murals for various clients ranging from neighborhood businesses and institutions to large corporations such as Sony, Red Bull, Google, Microsoft, Dolce & Gabbana, Warner Bros., Adidas and the Royal Shakespeare Company and many more. Their graffiti art work has also appeared on Hollywood movies & music videos & television shows like The X Factor and The Apprentice"

This is TOO detailed on lead section level!! The present sentence is better. Your detailed overview can, however, constructively be added in your "history" section, or a new "Clientele" section, as long as it is well-sourced. OK?

b) Removal of imputation of motives, badly sourced material.

There are a number of claims you make in your original that needs clearer sourcing:

b1) " Their clients may want them to provide graffiti workshops/team building activities for kid & adults, live graffiti art performances for birthdays & bar/bat mitzvahs, product marketing & graffiti murals. " Where do you have this from, Sarah?? It doesn't belong in the lead (but say, in a Clientele section), and should be introed like this ""SPOKESPERSON" says that (insert reported client motives)..." and SOURCE it.

b2) "When Cullen started Graffiti Kings in 1991 Cullen had no intentions of registering the name as a limited company & having a full time career in graffiti art, Cullen formed a collective of artists & they called themselves Graffiti Kings. They would get together on Sundays to hang out & paint graffiti murals because it was their hobby. Years past & artists from the collective would get private work for running graffiti workshops in youth centers & local schools in London."

LOTS of claims here, Sarah, where did you get it from??? WHO is saying it? Is it from an interview with Cullen himself? Then SAY so!

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All in all, the edits that have been made are perfectly proper; try to restructure the article along my advice, and notify me when done, if you would like my opinion on it!Arildnordby (talk) 17:26, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

@Arildnordby: I must say I disagree with you on the "list of clients" part. I do not see this sort of list having any place in the article, regardless of sourcing. The article for ExxonMobil does not contain a section (in the lede or otherwise) that lists the companies they have done business with. WP:NOTINHERITED is an essay about deletion, but the concept applies here as well - listing a bunch of notable companies does not contribute to an encyclopedic understanding of this topic. VQuakr (talk) 17:54, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, it goes for notability of Graffiti Kings itself. A slight historical sketch that includes some major clients wouldn't be amiss. But, obviously, that remains debatable.Arildnordby (talk) 18:01, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Debatable, certainly. If someone can present a well-sourced draft I might be convinced. I would also be open to a lightweight DR method, particularly a third opinion (still suggest a draft first, though). VQuakr (talk) 18:41, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

At the moment, I'll place Sarah in my "good faith" box. She is the one to prove herself worthy on that, in particular by working on sourcing properly. Undue promotonial stuff can be discussed later, if found.Arildnordby (talk) 18:57, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Hello :) I have taken all the info from the many links that mention Graffiti Kings & its founder Darren Cullen. The links are: 1. HERE 2. HERE 3. HERE 4. HERE 5. HERE 6. HERE 7. HERE 8 HERE 9 HERE 10. HERE 11. HERE 12. HERE 13. HERE 14. HERE 15. HERE 16. HERE 17. HERE 18. HERE 19. HERE 20. HERE 21. HERE 22. HERE 23. HERE 24. HERE 25. HERE 26. HERE 27. HERE 28. HERE 29. HERE 30. HERE & of course their website. Now take all these links as pages in a book & your come up with what Im trying to write. Now heres the thing, so far many users say my edits sound to promotional, I personally find it hard to get away from this as their work is promotional because they work for commercial brands creating artwork for promotional projects. Is this not the same problem for all commercial brands on wiki? Sarah1971 21:40, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

No one thinks you have invented anything, Sarah! BUT, and this is a MAJOR difference between Wikipedia and a standard encyclopedia: You are NOT allowed to synthesize your material in such a way that it becomes difficult to double-check your sources on each and every claim!! OK? The reason for that is in an ordinary encyclopedia, we TRUST that the selection of editors was good, while in free-editing Wikipedia, it is ONLY the sources themselves that can have reliability, not the editors!Do you see the difference here?Arildnordby (talk) 21:41, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

@Sarah1971: the first two sources I tried were 404 errors; you might want to check the addressing formatting. Also please avoid typing in caps. I see at lease one primary source and several unreliable sources (blogs, wordpress) that are just static. That said, the AfD already closed as keep so what we need are sources of information about the subject that are independent of the subject itself. Don't just provide a list of links, provide a draft statement followed by the one or two sources that support that statement. VQuakr (talk) 21:50, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

How can you call no.15, the NewStatesman ref a source, Sarah? There is NOTHING in that article relevant to Graffiti Kings or the founder. http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/lifestyle/2012/07/round-retired-graffiti-artists-london-olympics/ Arildnordby (talk) 21:55, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

The first two sources are: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jul/18/graffiti-artist-adidas-banned-olympic/ & http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/graffiti-kings-british-transport-police-arrests-olympics-london-2012/ miss type on no.15? With some of these links provided can someone please help in adding content as Im 100% now qualified as bad user. Sarah1971 22:15, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Can someone please tell me what web links above are OK to use. Also thanks Arildnordby for the help really xxx Sarah1971 13:25, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

1. and 4. OK, not sure about 2 or 3. 4 is Ok, 5 doesn't work, 6 is just a blog, but 7 is a legit source, Myria Georgiou being an academic. Stay away from Youtubes, such as 9 and 10, but 8 is legit. 11 and 12 just blogs, stay away. Throw out 13 and 14 as well, for the same reasons. You must find out why 15 should be relevant, 16 I'm not sure about. 17 just looks like a blog. 18 and 19 should be legit.

I'll stop there for the moment.Arildnordby (talk) 13:59, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Arildnordby Is it OK to take info from the links already on the Graffiti Kings page? like this link http://www.ukstreetart.co.uk/interview-graffiti-kings/ . Seeing as these links was on the page when it got the OK to not be deleted. I will try & write something & post it here first to be approved :) Sarah1971 14:18, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Again, this isn't an approval site or anyhting. But, if you like a look at what you want to write, prior to insert it on the main page, go ahead! :-)Arildnordby (talk) 14:25, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

CNN ireport (#19) is self-published - that link is written by an author called gkings - therefore not much use for anything. It's been a favourite source for paid editors, as at first glance it appears reliable: [1]. SmartSE (talk) 14:32, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Well spotted SmartSE this Wikipedia stuff is all coming together for me now, its been & still a great learning experience :) over the last few days I have been pushed right in at the deep end on here & its working out for the best. Its like an intense workout. Sarah1971 14:54, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Verifiability

WP:V is a core content policy - content in this article should be able to be verified by readers from the sources cited. I have removed content which I have been unable to verify from the sources cited. I'm particularly concerned about the claims of being officially recognised by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions because the only source I can find making any mention of this is this source (that probably does not have a reputation for fact checking) but which states that this supposed approval is part of GK's marketing spiel "he has adopted as a tagline for his business: 'The only professional graffiti company approved by the British Government.'". I have searched for evidence to support this claim, e.g. looking for sources mentioning the department, cullen and graffiti, but haven't found anything other than the Animal New York source. Until we can find a better source for this, I think it should be left out of the article. It is important to note that the burden is on editors who add content to ensure that it is verifiable. SmartSE (talk) 12:15, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Notability Suggestion

I think there is very little evidence of notability for this company, maybe it should be merged with Darren Cullen? Theroadislong (talk) 15:56, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I was starting to think the same. Cullen is the subject of most of the sources and Graffiti Kings is only mentioned in passing. It doesn't appear that the notability was examined particularly closely at the AFD and there doesn't appear to be much information available about the company from RS. SmartSE (talk) 16:04, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, I don't think Sarah1971 would automatically oppose this, since Graffiti Kings is so much of Cullen's project with minor independent content. But, I think a merger discussion can wait, let Sarah work diligently on the Graffiti Kings article, let us scrutinize it constructively, in particular on source use. THEN we might see if the material retained most naturally needs its own article, or most naturally can be subsumed into Cullen's life as an important phase of that.Arildnordby (talk) 16:17, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Ah sorry didn't see this... I was busy proposing the merger!Theroadislong (talk) 16:35, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm fine with what ever decision is made. The amount of engagement in this project so far has been overwhelming & I'm sure my university professor will grade this work/project much better than I intended. But yes first lets see if the page can be saved, is there a time limit? Sarah1971 16:41, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

There is no time limit on Wikipedia. Also, remember, presently deleted material is perfectly acceptable to reintroduce, but think about WHY it was deleted, so that when you reintroduce it, you ought do so with, say, better sourcing, or improved clarity of its relevance or notability. Arildnordby (talk) 16:46, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)There's no time limit, but since the decision is mainly affected by the notability of the company, spending time editing this article further could be a waste of time if it is then merged into the article on Cullen. SmartSE (talk) 16:48, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Not really, if Sarah takes note of this possibility, and crafts her article in such a way that it with minimal editing readily can be merged into Cullen as a subsection, rather than as an independent article. Graffiti Kings seems to be a principal part of Cullen's activities, and a devoted subsection in his bio to Graffiti Kings is well in orderArildnordby (talk) 17:14, 16 March 2014 (UTC)