Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christian Stepien

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. --Coredesat 16:31, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Christian Stepien

Christian Stepien (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

An unencyclopedic article on a Canadian poet and musician who fails WP:BIO and WP:MUSIC. The address of the subject’s record company, Ego Trip, is the residence of one M. Stepien. His books, “accepted” by three universities, are unrecognized by Amazon.ca and Chapters.Indigo.ca (the country's two largest booksellers). The publisher “H. Bear Publishing” has no web presence. All article references are drawn from the Ego Trip website. The article originates with and has for the most part been edited by Stephenmcd, a single purpose account. Victoriagirl 04:49, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

• ’’’Weak keep’’’. The three entries under “Sites about specific albums and works” are probably reliable sources which just establish notability, although the third entry, a newspaper article from the Mississauga News, appears on a Tripod.com page rather than the newspaper’s own site. (However, the newspaper’s own site only offers articles from the past 14 days.) Victoriagirl's points are all valid ones, but I think that a review in Exclaim and one in ChartAttack.com provide a measure of notability. -- Eastmain 05:20, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment: Point taken. That said, I should add that Stepien's albums are in no way issued by an "important indie label" (just one of the criteria found in WP:MUSIC). In fact, nearly all the CDs offered for sale on the Ego Trip Records website are single copies of new or used discs by established artists like B.B. King and Aerosmith. The fact that one Stepien CD (out of a discography of ten titles) was reviewed in Chart is not, particularly notable - the magazine is very devoted to the independent scene. Exclaim, too, is devoted to the independent scene, and reviews literally thousands of CDs every year (many only on the web). Victoriagirl 05:44, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

• Delete: And so I add my vote. Victoriagirl 00:29, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached
 Please add new discussions below this notice. Thanks, Agent 86 00:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep, but Clean-up Seems notable, just needs to sound more encyclopedic. Ganfon 00:27, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Seems to fail WP:BIO most of the "references" on the article are primary sources, web pages belonging to the subject and or his "publisher", there are a number of news releases none of which seem to have meet been actually published The person has been a primary subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the person Jeepday 03:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Can't clean up what's not there. --Calton | Talk 04:08, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Fails just about every criteria there is. Alex43223 ^{Talk | Contribs | E-mail | C} 04:45, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
• delete per aboveOo7565 06:23, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delay delete Force a clean up. If they don't make it acceptable within a reasonable period of time, get rid of it. -Adun 14:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Appears to be not internationally known and definitely fails WP:BIO!Tellyaddict^{Editor review!} 16:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Nearly all of the article's edits are done by the same user whose only contribution is to edit this article. He has one other contribution, and that was to put this artist's name in a list on another article (see WP:VANITY). Also fails WP:BIO Fundamental Dan 17:09, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete WP:BIO,fake assertions of notability are worse than none IMHO ⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 18:40, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Please review the three references which I consider independent: a newspaper article from the Mississauga News (the text is posted on a Tripod page, presumably because the newspaper doesn't have extensive online archives), the review in Exclaim and the review in ChartAttack.com He is not a world-class musician. Victoriagirl's comments about Exclaim and ChartAttack are correct, but I think that all three qualify The person has been a primary subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the person if one accepts that a record review makes the musician the "primary subject" of the review. He passes, even if some primary-source material in the article should be moved from "references" to "external links". --Eastmain 02:50, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment I understand the point being made about the WP:BIO statement ("The person has been a primary subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the person"). That said, I note the guideline fails to define "multiple". In Stepien's case, he has been the subject of one article and one of his ten albums has occasioned two reviews from publications dedicated to covering independent releases. This amounts to a total of three pieces about Stepien and/or his music. Of these, the most recent, the Chart review of Brodie, dates from October 2000. The longest of these published works, that found in The Mississauga News, amounts to less than 500 words (I should add here that in the article he identifies himself as the founder of Ego Trip Records). Again, each of these pieces concerns Stepien as a musician - as already noted, he clearly fails the "criteria for musicians and ensembles" in WP:MUSIC. One more observation concerning Stepien's literary profile: the claim in this Wikipedia article that his book "The Palimpsest mind of Christian Stepien" was "critically acclaimed" is backed up by a press release in which the book is not mentioned. What is included, however, is a claim that the book/CD I Fall into Oblivion garnered "rave reviews from those in the literary community". The press release provides no further information. I can find no evidence that the book was ever reviewed. A google search combining "i fall into oblivion" and Stepien results in only three hits: this article, a post made by the author on youtube and a similar post by the author on dabble. Victoriagirl 05:12, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: While I'm not at all convinced of notability here, I do want to sound a note of caution. Certainly nothing in the article as written passes our notability guidelines, but at least on the music side a couple of things point to the remote possibility that he could meet them under certain circumstances. As far as the magazines go, Chart and Exclaim! do pass WP:MUSIC criteria themselves, as they're the only two Canadian music magazines currently in publication which focus on a general readership (as opposed to a music biz insider perspective). That said, however, the type of attention the magazines give can be an issue: if either magazine has done an actual article on him, then he's certainly keepable, and if he's actually charted in either magazine, then he's certainly keepable. But if all he's got is one capsule review in each mag, then that doesn't really pass the "non-trivial" part of the core WP:MUSIC criterion. Similarly, New Music Canada being what it is, the fact that he has a profile on there points to the possibility that he's gotten airplay on CBC Radio 3, which would give him WP:MUSIC criterion number 10, but as I can't vouch for ever having heard him on there, I simply don't know if that's happened or not. So, to be honest, I'm a bit ambivalent at this point — if he has actually received more substantial coverage than what's currently noted in the article, then I'm willing to change my position to keep if that information is added. But if all he's got is two reviews and an NMC profile that's flown below Grant Lawrence's radar, then he's a delete. Bearcat 08:08, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• Comment: Hi everyone. I've been away from this site for a bit, and just noticed the comments for deletion. As far as how the article is written, I'm not used to writing encyclopedic entries (as one of you have noticed this is the only page I've worked on in Wikipedia. I wanted to make sure I got the hang of it before creating more sites) so I understand when users complain about my...embellishment, if you will (I'm speaking in particular about the "critical acclaim" reference. I understood the comments made in Christian's bio as meaning "critically acclaimed", but I guess if it doesn't explicitly say "critically acclaimed" I shouldn't have used that term). With regards to articles on Christian, I personally have 5 newspaper and magazine articles on Christian, however I don’t have a website and am not sure how to get that information onto Wikipedia (can I source an article or information source that’s not online?). One of them I believe makes reference to his touring with Chantal Kreviatzuk a few years ago, if that makes a difference at all. Before setting up this page I tried to find out what the Wikipedia criteria was for Musician’s and Writer’s, and it appeared to me at the time that Christian had met those criteria. I could really use some help in fixing the page, because I’m sure Christian fits the criteria (it’s more my lack of research and writing skills that are being called into question). If someone could make a short list of what Wikipedia is looking for (or give me the link to where it’s listed), I’ll try to find references that prove he fits the criteria. Thanks for the help, Stephen. Stephenmcd 17:30, 9 February 2007
• Delete due to notability and likely vanity. Rkevins 08:27, 13 February 2007 (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.