Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Genevieve Robertson

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 delete. Some editors have noted that the artist is close to achieving notability. Any editor is free to request undeletion of this article into draft space, and continue working on it until notability is established. — Newslinger talk 06:15, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Genevieve Robertson

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A visual artist with some really neat artwork, but frankly I'm not seeing the required coverage. By my count, there's one solid review [1], four exhibition catalogues, and six passing mentions. I'm not getting the impression that the exhibitions were "significant" or are a permanent part of "notable galleries" sensu WP:NARTIST. One more solid review might push it over the threshold, but I can't find that, and currently I'd say we are just about on the wrong side of notability. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 20:39, 15 March 2020 (UTC) Elmidae (talk · contribs) 20:39, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Artists-related deletion discussions. Elmidae (talk · contribs) 20:39, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 21:39, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Visual arts-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 21:39, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if I'm adding this comment in the correct place, but additional resources have been added, including 3 critical reviews of Robertson's work, taken from The Tyee [2], Galleries West [3], and the UBC Undergraduate Journal of Art History & Visual Culture [4]. --FriDaInformation (talk) 17:00 PST March 15, 2020.

Erk, you are not making this easy... the first strikes me as a mention. The second may be more what's needed because it discusses the individual artists a bit more. The third is a specific review, but I'm not sure to what extent the UBC Undergraduate Journal of Art History & Visual Culture counts as solid coverage. Still, I may be too picky. Let's hear what people say. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 00:09, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I would tend to say she is notable in a weak way, although I have not checked the sources. The problem was that this was so hard to see, given the huge swaths of descriptive text for every tiny little show she has done. I have trimmed those. This is a very early career artist, so this discussion seems relevant.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 01:22, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've done an independent search; I would say weak delete based on the fact that the coverage is pretty superficial. There is an obvious effort here to puff up a very young artist whose accomplishments are fairly average for an artist. WP:TOOSOON.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 01:26, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh. <rant> Why is it that we HAVE to delete completely harmless articles on women artists with just too little coverage, but we leave the hundreds of articles on soccer players with no coverage beyond an entry in some sports database alone. How is it that on a given day last week, 855 articles were created: 240 biographies of men, 155 of those on (male) sportspeople and 50 biographies of women. And yet, we feel compelled to delete the bios of women where it's just a little bit too soon. Yes, it's too early for this emerging artist to have an encyclopedic article, but can we get our priorities right, please?</rant> Vexations (talk) 17:18, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You are not wrong... I'd also like to have easier notability thresholds for academics, who at this time basically have to put in a lifetime of stellar work to qualify, whereas Chad A. Ballkicker just has to take a dive in one national game to become Notable^(tm) (that is, gain the patronage of WP's most pile-on-capable Wikiproject). - However, as an NPPer who at least aspires to impartiality, for the time being I'm trying to follow our guidelines. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 17:56, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't agree that it is harmless. For an artist at such an early stage of their career it is essentially using Wikipedia for promotion. I think this is about keeping the quality up. That said, we could keep all article on artists if we got as many editors interested in artists as there are interested in football, which apparently has a much lower standard for inclusion. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 20:49, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As important as it is to improve our coverage of underrepresented groups, we can't do that by creating special lowered notability standards for women (or people of colour, LGBTs, etc.), so that they basically get articles just for existing while only straight white men actually have to clear any objective standard of notability or sourceability. The key is to identify the women who do pass our notability standards but have been getting overlooked, not to waive our notability standards just because the subject happens to be a woman.

Also, it isn't useful to compare apples to oranges. The notability standards in sports are based on how sports works, and the notability standards in visual arts are based on how visual arts works — so it's not useful to compare an artist to an athlete as evidence that the artist is being treated unfairly. If you want to make a gender-based argument that a female artist is being railroaded, you need to compare her to male artists, not to soccer players of any gender. Bearcat (talk) 13:54, 19 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete does not pass notability standards. I am the first to say our current sports notability criteria are rubbish. I am currently limited to one deletion nomination a day and if you look at how that came about it was because I nominated lots of soccer players for deletion, that is the proximate cause. The enthusiasm with which empty articles on soccer players are created and preserved is very distressing. This is no reason though to have other unsourced articles.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:41, 20 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - A really interesting, timely artist, but the article is lacking and seems like it might be a case of TOOSOON. However I did look at her CV on her website (which I know does not count toward notability) and there seem to be some awards and possibly some SIGCOV that are not in the article. Will try to take a deeper look into these before casting an !vote to see if any are worth adding to the article. Seems there are no collections, tho, but I'll see if any turn up. Netherzone (talk) 14:59, 21 March 2020 (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.