Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Errol Sawyer (2nd nomination)

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. Fritzpoll (talk) 21:38, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Errol Sawyer

AfDs for this article:

• Articles for deletion/Errol Sawyer
• Articles for deletion/Errol Sawyer (2nd nomination)
• Articles for deletion/Errol Sawyer (3rd nomination)
• Articles for deletion/Errol Sawyer (4th nomination)

Errol Sawyer (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Previously deleted article brought back after userfication w/o anything concrete to show for it. No photography books published, awards won, well-known photographs, inclusion in anthologies, or anything else that makes a photographer of note. Main editor — major COI — claims notability on presence of work in museums per additional criteria in WP:CREATIVE (is represented within the permanent collections of several notable galleries or museums, or had works in many significant libraries), but only three claims can be substantiated and these only through a catalog card, search engine, and a list with over 3,000 names. Per WP:BIO's "Basic criteria," I would argue such sources don't contribute toward notability in the same sense that primary sources don't (no coverage involved). Only independent secondary coverage demonstrated is left over from previously deleted version: a review in PF Magazine that backs up nothing of note (mainly bio info) and a few sentences in a book on having discovered Christie Brinkley. The rest of the sources are self-published, don't verify the text, or primary.  Mbinebri  ^{talk ←} 15:37, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

• Delete as per nomination, this article fails to achieve notability. The additional facts of the previous deletion, the recreation by a COIed editor, the survival of a Speedy Delete request by the narrowest of justifications, and the obvious stretching of the thin documentation are all further evidence of the attempts to create notability through the existence of an encyclopedic article. Sawyer would be better served by an article written after he achieved acclaim, rather than this promotional item. TheMindsEye (talk) 19:35, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Living people-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 20:19, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Photography-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 20:20, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
• Comment I'm not worried about the need for readers to do some work (typing name in search field, etc) to see that claims that Sawyer's work is held by museums are indeed verifiable. However, the verifiable holdings may be rather less than what's suggested above. One of the three places is said in the article to have just two photographs; the article is silent about another (the V&A), which turns out to have what appear to be three catalogue entries for the same item: "Errol Sawyer, photographer" upper surface of jewel case. / Contains Powerpoint Presentations and Word documents. / Local Notes: / Donated by Errol Sawyer. / Subjects: / Photography, Artistic -- Netherlands. / Genre or Form: / CD-ROMs -- Netherlands 2002. A self-donated, self-published CD is, I submit, rather minor. ¶ I'm also worried about what sourcing there is. Take the claim that "Since 1984, Sawyer has worked on multicultural beauty projects for Vis-A-Vis Magazine." This is footnoted with a link to what turns out to be an article about beauty whose only mention of Sawyer (or photography) is "Photography by Errol Sawyer". So all the "source" shows is that at least once, directly or indirectly, Sawyer recently worked for Vis-A-Vis. ¶ A number of editors have tried their best with this article, and it's better than it was. Maybe the "Article Rescue Squadron", as invited by Genovese12345, can find some critical discussion of Sawyer's work. I'll postpone my "!vote" for some days. -- Hoary (talk) 14:09, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
• Weak Delete It seems much effort has gone into rescuing this article already, and the sources just aren't there - Vartanza (talk) 05:17, 1 June 2009 (UTC).
• Keep I think there was just enough previously, and clearly enough now. His work is in the collection of several major museums, and several articles have been written about him--either alone would be sufficient. I really regret to have to say it, but I have the impression that the opposition to this article by the nominator is not necessarily in good faith; the history of the article shows excessive concentration on one minor point about the sponsorship or discovery of a particular model, and I think that' was the focus here--the questioning of the sources is in excess and pointy; the magazines listed are significant magazines,and print sources are just fine. I have tried to help the author find more, and to tried to persuade her not to includes some of the inadequate sources; I wish the article was stronger, but it is still strong enough. I cannot recollect the degree of challenge and disbelief shown here to any other similar article. DGG (talk) 21:57, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
  • DGG, what are these "several articles" that have been written about him? I've seen a single article (as a PDF briefly hosted by WP) in a magazine: Hoeneveld, "Errol Sawyer". What else is there in any magazine or book? Further, I don't think my characterization above of the "sourcing" for the assertion that "Since 1984, Sawyer has worked on multicultural beauty projects for Vis-A-Vis Magazine" is in excess. (It's certainly pointy: my point was and is that even what appears to be sourced may not be. I think that both you and I are free to make points. If we dismiss this AfD on suspicion of pointiness, we might as well dismiss the article for embarrassingly obvious pointiness; indeed, COI has already been claimed, although I'd say that OWN has been a much bigger problem.) But back to sourcing. Since I pointily pointed out on 31 May that it was off, and indeed since the "Article Rescue Squadron" announced a planned rescue effort, no improvement has been made. The article's main author probably has an unrivaled knowledge of what may have appeared in the press, etc, and I infer that what's cited in the article is all that exists to be cited; if it isn't, then let's see improvements by other editors. -- Hoary (talk) 00:16, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
    • I think DGG is a bit guilty of exaggeration in justifying his keep vote. But I agree with Hoary that there's likely nothing more to be found in terms of secondary citations/significant coverage to add to the inadequate amount the article currently has. If there was, the article's main editor would know to find it and have put a quick end to this months ago, but instead has been almost entirely focused on trying to "cite" existence of work in museums, when that work might just be more self-donated CDs like with the V&A, which no notable photog would have to resort to.  Mbinebri  ^{talk ←} 03:14, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
• Weak delete, "weak" in that I suspect that Sawyer does merit an article but there appear to be next to no materials for creating one. The page at intute.ac.uk is much cited, but this is only incidentally about Sawyer and instead is primarily about his website; it seems unlikely that Mary Burslem (whose name appears on many of these entries) would have done more than repeat assertions either contained within the website or provided within any recommendation of it that she may have received. Since the start of this second AfD, neither the "Article Rescue Squadron" nor DGG nor indeed anybody else has actually done anything to rescue this article, which in the past has been fiercely defended by one editor (who at times seems to want to own not only the article but its talk page too). Not that it should matter much, but I like quite a bit of the little JPEGs I have seen of Sawyer's work; if his book City Mosaic is published (as has been promised) or there is some major exhibition then I'd expect that this would get some discussion somewhere. A new article could then be considered on its merits (and not speedied). In the meantime, this one can be userfied to Efsawyer. -- Hoary (talk) 01:32, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
  • I think you're misinterpreting what the Intute page is. It's not about Sawyer's website — it's from Sawyer's website; i.e., it's a mirror, as the first sentence is, "This is the website of fine art photographer Errol Sawyer," and the publisher is cited as Fischer. Burslem is just the person who catalogued the entry apparently.  Mbinebri  ^{talk ←} 03:29, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
    • If it's a copy of part of Sawyer's, then perhaps you can point to where within Sawyer's site is written "This is the website of fine art photographer Errol Sawyer". I can't. (The Flash on that site is an irritation, but there aren't many [quasi-] pages to look through.) The publisher of the site is indeed Fischer. "This is the website of" would be a clunky thing to say on that particular website but it's just the kind of thing that an exhausted cataloguer might write about it, and indeed the cataloguers often do write it: here, here, here, etc. -- Hoary (talk) 06:28, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
      • My assumption is that the first sentence is added in such articles in order to state where the info presented came from, but it's not an important point at this stage.  Mbinebri  ^{talk ←} 19:22, 6 June 2009 (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.