- 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. The general consensus is for keeping the article. There is only one endorser of the nomination; the debate has been in AfD for over two weeks. A relist would not have anymore effect in my opinion. (non-admin closure) st170e talk 11:36, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
- Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)
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Does not meet GNG or NBAND. The only cited portion of the article is the overview. All the ELs and refs save one are dead, and because they 404ed and weren't inline, there's no way to tie any reference to any statement. It also looks like each release in their discography was released on a different indie label, so there's a real question of notability of those albums as well. MSJapan ( talk) 23:07, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
- Keep - no way are they not notable. This band was a fairly big deal around 2002-2003, and there must be a lot of press about them from that time. Besides what's already in the article, I just found writeups from NPR, The New Yorker and (from 2011) DigBoston. Korny O'Near ( talk) 01:48, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- Reply - A lot of press from a very specific period of time does not confer notability, because notability is not temporary. Recentism is also an issue to consider as well. One of the major problems is their releases - they're a band who meet no NBAND criteria, so if they got press for one year or less of their 11-year existence, that's not going to confer notability. There's also depth of coverage - what I notice in a lot odf these articles is that they revolve around Jason Trachtenburg rehashing the origin of the band as "I came home and we taught Rachel drums, and Tina had slides from an estate sale" as the majority of the article. Multiple rehashes of the same material don't contribute to depth of coverage. By all means, though, source whatever you can in this article to the New Yorker article. MSJapan ( talk) 18:22, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- When you say "notability is not temporary", are you referring to
this guideline? Because if so, it may mean the exact opposite of what you think it means. It doesn't mean "something truly notable stays notable for a long time", it means, "even if something is notable for a short time, we'll consider it notable". As for the type of coverage they got: it's true that a lot of it was repetitive - as befitting what was basically a novelty act - but I don't think that's one of the criteria for music notability.
Korny O'Near (
talk) 19:00, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- No, I'm speaking about the other piece of the policy that states "there's a threshold to reach significant coverage", and it's got to be outside the cycle of flash-in-the-pan news, for one thing. The criteria for music notability is
WP:NBAND. There are twelve criteria, and according to the criterion on coverage: "Has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial, published works appearing in sources that are reliable, not self-published, and are independent of the musician or ensemble itself. This criterion includes published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, books, magazine articles, online versions of print media, and television documentaries except for the following: Any reprints of press releases, other publications where the musician or ensemble talks about themselves, and all advertising that mentions the musician or ensemble, including manufacturers' advertising. Works consisting merely of trivial coverage, such as articles that simply report performance dates, release information or track listings, or the publications of contact and booking details in directories. Articles in a school or university newspaper (or similar), in most cases." So, in short, no interview of the band is acceptable towards this criterion because of a lack of independence, and every single article is either an interview with Jason Trachtenburg, a crib from the New Yorker article, or both. There's no way they meet any of the other 11, either.
MSJapan (
talk) 23:34, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- Are you saying that interviews don't count toward notability? That doesn't sound right... I think the "independent of the musician or ensemble itself" wording is meant to prevent using articles like, say, one about Jason Trachtenburg and his new pet ferret as proof of notability. But these are interviews about the band, and their music. By your logic, if a band had hundreds of pieces written about them, but they agreed to an interview for every single one, they couldn't be considered notable - provided they didn't win any awards, etc.
Korny O'Near (
talk) 15:10, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- You are correct, but let's look at the comment, because it does make sense despite your phrasing. If a band did nothing but interviews, that's entirely self-promotion. If they only had interviews, that means no third-party critic ever reviewed their shows or albums. An interview isn't necessarily objective (Ex: David Bowie claimed he was bisexual in an interview back in the 70s, and the comment followed him for decades, after which he disclaimed it and regretted saying it), so addressing a lack of third-party objective coverage of the band (via material independent of talking to the band) is what the notability guideline is focused on. So, yes, it is correct, and the material in quotes above is directly from NBAND criterion 1.
MSJapan (
talk) 21:47, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- You make a fair point. I just did a search on "trachtenburg family slideshow players review", though, and found a bunch more stuff: here are non-interview reviews in A.V. Club, BBC, The Guardian, The Independent, and (for what it's worth) LAist. Good enough? Korny O'Near ( talk) 00:33, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
- You are correct, but let's look at the comment, because it does make sense despite your phrasing. If a band did nothing but interviews, that's entirely self-promotion. If they only had interviews, that means no third-party critic ever reviewed their shows or albums. An interview isn't necessarily objective (Ex: David Bowie claimed he was bisexual in an interview back in the 70s, and the comment followed him for decades, after which he disclaimed it and regretted saying it), so addressing a lack of third-party objective coverage of the band (via material independent of talking to the band) is what the notability guideline is focused on. So, yes, it is correct, and the material in quotes above is directly from NBAND criterion 1.
MSJapan (
talk) 21:47, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- Are you saying that interviews don't count toward notability? That doesn't sound right... I think the "independent of the musician or ensemble itself" wording is meant to prevent using articles like, say, one about Jason Trachtenburg and his new pet ferret as proof of notability. But these are interviews about the band, and their music. By your logic, if a band had hundreds of pieces written about them, but they agreed to an interview for every single one, they couldn't be considered notable - provided they didn't win any awards, etc.
Korny O'Near (
talk) 15:10, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- No, I'm speaking about the other piece of the policy that states "there's a threshold to reach significant coverage", and it's got to be outside the cycle of flash-in-the-pan news, for one thing. The criteria for music notability is
WP:NBAND. There are twelve criteria, and according to the criterion on coverage: "Has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial, published works appearing in sources that are reliable, not self-published, and are independent of the musician or ensemble itself. This criterion includes published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, books, magazine articles, online versions of print media, and television documentaries except for the following: Any reprints of press releases, other publications where the musician or ensemble talks about themselves, and all advertising that mentions the musician or ensemble, including manufacturers' advertising. Works consisting merely of trivial coverage, such as articles that simply report performance dates, release information or track listings, or the publications of contact and booking details in directories. Articles in a school or university newspaper (or similar), in most cases." So, in short, no interview of the band is acceptable towards this criterion because of a lack of independence, and every single article is either an interview with Jason Trachtenburg, a crib from the New Yorker article, or both. There's no way they meet any of the other 11, either.
MSJapan (
talk) 23:34, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- When you say "notability is not temporary", are you referring to
this guideline? Because if so, it may mean the exact opposite of what you think it means. It doesn't mean "something truly notable stays notable for a long time", it means, "even if something is notable for a short time, we'll consider it notable". As for the type of coverage they got: it's true that a lot of it was repetitive - as befitting what was basically a novelty act - but I don't think that's one of the criteria for music notability.
Korny O'Near (
talk) 19:00, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- Two of those review the same DVD (the AV Club and LAist sources), The Independent reviewer didn't like them much, and BBC Berkshire might be considered local (I'm not sure, but we've had issues in the past where people have tried to portray BBC regional coverage as BBC national coverage, so I would have to ask someone more knowledgeable about that). I noticed that all the UK coverage is from a several-month period in 2004 (clearly when they were on tour there, and the articles are very similar), and the DVD reviews are in 2006. Given that the band existed for 11 years, WP:SUSTAINED seems to come into play, but WP:NBAND #4 might be met; I'm not sure, because again, the sources are basically saying the same thing, so depth of coverage still seems to be a problem. MSJapan ( talk) 19:10, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
- Delete at best for now as I actually found a few several news sources at News, but it's all still questionably better comparing against the article. Delete at best since the coverage is also expected in that it was only active for 11 years thus not entirely noticeable. SwisterTwister talk 21:38, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, MBisanz talk 23:49, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, MBisanz talk 23:49, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
- Keep. Plenty of coverage to pass GNG. Substantive coverage includes a New Yorker profile [1], a Weekend Edition feature [2], the Los Angeles Times [3], Irish Times [4], American Songwriter (in 2010) [5], Brooklyn Paper (also 2010) [6], a Sundance Channel documentary (as noted in a Variety review) [7], and more as noted above (and by the way, it is irrelevant whether a reviewer likes the band or not). -- Arxiloxos ( talk) 02:21, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
- Keep per Arxiloxos. Clearly passes the GNG. The fact that it was for a short period of time is not important when the coverage is so significant. When a subject passes the primary criteria for notability, then the subject-specific guidelines are far less important. WP:NOTE only requires one of the two. -- RM 03:02, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
- Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bands and musicians-related deletion discussions. NewYorkActuary ( talk) 06:00, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
- Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. NewYorkActuary ( talk) 06:00, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
- I'm currently leaning toward keep because the band certainly gained widespread coverage in major music magazines and newspapers when they were around – when I'm in the UK next month I'll have a look in NME and other British music magazines because I'm 100% certain they would have been featured in there, and they certainly were played on the alternative music shows on the national music station BBC Radio 1. Richard3120 ( talk) 15:34, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
- 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.