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Leo Ford: PORNBIO is not an established guideline; subject fulfills basic notability requirements.
Leo Ford: COMMENT
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Article fails on all three bullet points for [[WP:PORNBIO]]: No significant awards to his name, no unique contributions, and no notable mentions in mainstream media.
Article fails on all three bullet points for [[WP:PORNBIO]]: No significant awards to his name, no unique contributions, and no notable mentions in mainstream media.
*'''Keep''' - satisfies [[WP:BASIC]] - "A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has been the subject of multiple published secondary sources which are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject." Several independent published sources. Connection to the Smiths makes this an interesting article. Wikipedia would not be improved by deleting this article. [[User:Ground Zero|Ground Zero]] | [[User talk:Ground Zero|t]] 17:27, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
*'''Keep''' - satisfies [[WP:BASIC]] - "A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has been the subject of multiple published secondary sources which are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject." Several independent published sources. Connection to the Smiths makes this an interesting article. Wikipedia would not be improved by deleting this article. [[User:Ground Zero|Ground Zero]] | [[User talk:Ground Zero|t]] 17:27, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
**'''Comment'''. The connection to The Smiths appears to be debunked per the talk page so I've deleted it. Also, there's no evidence that the depth of coverage in any of these sources is substantial. None of the sources are online, and the only link is dead, so the extent of the coverage in the sources cannot be verified. Judging the by the titles of the sources, my guess would be that the coverage isn't centered around Leo Ford. --[[User:Nintendude64|'''<font color="#000099" face="Arial Black">NINTENDUDE</font>]][[User_talk:Nintendude64|<sup><font color="#FF0000" size="2">64</font></sup>''']] 00:01, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
:<span style="font-size: 85%;">Note: This debate has been added to the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Pornography|WikiProject Pornography]] [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Pornography/Deletion|list of deletions]]. [[User:Gene93k|• Gene93k]] ([[User talk:Gene93k|talk]]) 17:48, 6 May 2012 (UTC)</span>
:<span style="font-size: 85%;">Note: This debate has been added to the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Pornography|WikiProject Pornography]] [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Pornography/Deletion|list of deletions]]. [[User:Gene93k|• Gene93k]] ([[User talk:Gene93k|talk]]) 17:48, 6 May 2012 (UTC)</span>
:<small class="delsort-notice">Note: This debate has been included in the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Actors and filmmakers|list of Actors and filmmakers-related deletion discussions]]. <!--Template:Deletion sorting--></small> <small>[[User:Gene93k|• Gene93k]] ([[User talk:Gene93k|talk]]) 17:48, 6 May 2012 (UTC)</small>
:<small class="delsort-notice">Note: This debate has been included in the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Actors and filmmakers|list of Actors and filmmakers-related deletion discussions]]. <!--Template:Deletion sorting--></small> <small>[[User:Gene93k|• Gene93k]] ([[User talk:Gene93k|talk]]) 17:48, 6 May 2012 (UTC)</small>

Revision as of 00:01, 7 May 2012

Leo Ford (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • Stats)
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Article fails on all three bullet points for WP:PORNBIO: No significant awards to his name, no unique contributions, and no notable mentions in mainstream media.

  • Keep - satisfies WP:BASIC - "A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has been the subject of multiple published secondary sources which are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject." Several independent published sources. Connection to the Smiths makes this an interesting article. Wikipedia would not be improved by deleting this article. Ground Zero | t 17:27, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. The connection to The Smiths appears to be debunked per the talk page so I've deleted it. Also, there's no evidence that the depth of coverage in any of these sources is substantial. None of the sources are online, and the only link is dead, so the extent of the coverage in the sources cannot be verified. Judging the by the titles of the sources, my guess would be that the coverage isn't centered around Leo Ford. --NINTENDUDE64 00:01, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been added to the WikiProject Pornography list of deletions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:48, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Actors and filmmakers-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:48, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep.
WP:PORNBIO, despite having a nice all-caps redirect, has not been established as a Wikipedia policy or guideline, and quite properly so. To establish PORNBIO as policy would be to enshrine a bias against inclusion of information about gay porn and to establish a bias in favor of heterosexual porn. To see why this is so, one need only look at the current (re-!)nomination. Leo Ford was one of the most prominent gay porn actors of the 1980s. He died in 1991. PORNBIO would have us judge his importance based on whether he won a "significant industry award", such as the AVN award. Yet the GayVN Awards weren't started until 1998, eight years after his death. It's like assessing the importance of silent movie stars based on how many Academy Awards they won. Basing an assessment of importance on such industry awards introduces a bias towards inclusion of more recent actors, as the awards have multiplied and weren't given out (at all, let alone in great numbers) during the period of history we are interested in for this article. And a requirement that gay actors be featured multiple times in "mainstream" media again reinforces bias against appropriate coverage of gay subject matter: the correct criteria would be coverage in gay media (which of course Leo Ford had before his death), and in scholarly studies, or what passes for them, of gay pornography.
Is Leo Ford made "more notable" because he appeared in the first commercial production of a safe sex video? (Life Guard, 1985) (Escoffier, Jeffrey (2009), Bigger Than Life: The History of Gay Porn Cinema from Beefcake to Hardcore, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Running Press, p. 212) I don't particularly think so; he's notable because he was popular, but those who adhere to PORNBIO could assert—if they bother to do the research—that this is a unique contribution to a specific genre.
Is he more notable because Andy Warhol writes an unflattering review of a Leo Ford porn video in The Warhol Diaries? (Warhol, Andy (1989), The Andy Warhol Diaries, New York: Hachette, p. "Saturday, July 13, 1985") I don't particularly think so; he's notable because he was popular, but those who adhere to PORNBIO could possibly argue that it does. If they are aware of it, of course. But that's the problem: those doing the judging are unfamiliar with the subject matter, and haven't bothered doing the research they would need to do to make an informed decision about notability.
In a biography of Divine, Ford is described as the (then) "gay America's current wet dream. The six-foot, twenty-year-old blond was on exhibit everywhere: in gay movie theaters, on best-selling videos and in show-all magazine photo spreads. He was a highly marketable commodity as the most popular young stud in gay—and some bisexual—porno movies." (Jay, Bernard (1993), Not Simply Divine: Beneath the Make-Up, Above the Heels and Behind the Scenes with a Cult Superstar, New York: Fireside, p. 203) Does the fact that Ford was a sexual partner of a famous transvestite actor make him more notable. Well, arguably, though it doesn't seem to be taken into account by PORNBIO, but I would still suggest that it's Ford's ubiquity in the 1980s (as attested to by this passage) rather than that that would make Wikipedia a poorer reference if the information on him is censored out of it.
Does having an imdb page, such as this one, mean we should think more highly of an actor's notability? I think probably not, but the consequence of that is that Wikipedia will be a less informative reference source than is imdb.
Is Leo Ford more notable because such newspapers as the Bay Area Reporter and Frontiers covered his off-screen activities, such as fundraising for the KS Foundation? (see, for example, Allen White's profile, "Cover Story: Leo Ford" in the September 9, 1982 Bay Area Reporter). Does the inclusion of his September 1982 event at the Nob Hill Cinema ("porn sensation Leo Ford performed his erotic stage show with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to benefit the reprinting of the Sisters' War on VD pamphlet") indicate his relevance? (Román, David (1998), Acts of Intervention: Performance, Gay Culture, And AIDS, Indiana: Indiana University Press, pp. 14–5) Does the fact that his obituary appeared in The Advocate argue for his importance in gay culture? Yes, I think so; the difficulty being that people shooting "straight" from the hip—rather than having an informed opinion—about notability will be unfamiliar with the basic information needed for such an assessment.
As Ground Zero points out, there's no need for the application of a proposed, non-established guideline here in any case: the subject's notability is established by the "multiple published secondary sources which are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject" which were already cited when this nomination was made. - Outerlimits (talk) 23:37, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]