Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sephardic Pizmonim Project

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 no consensus to delete, default to keep. Sandstein 20:00, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sephardic Pizmonim Project

Sephardic Pizmonim Project (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - (View log)

Non-notable community project. Current assertions of notability in the article are unsourced. DLand^TALK 17:46, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletions. IZAK 09:38, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete at least for now. ghits only produced wikipedia mirrors and a few other non-related sites. not notable enough for now. maybe someday. --Tainter 18:04, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment I'm certainly favorably disposed to keeping what seems to be a worthwhile cultural project, and I understand the Web may not be the best place to look for notability in this situation, but there need to be sorurces indicating notability to avoid deletion, and there currently aren't any. The one independent link provided, the Brooklyn College News article, is on recent alumni and mentions the project only in passing as part of a brief paragraph on an alumnus. There need to be sources that say something substantial about the project, enough to verify an encyclopedia article and establish notability. --Shirahadasha 19:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
• DeleteWeak delete as we're having real trouble getting it cited. And it's somewhat annoying as I too would be favourable disposed to keep and have been searching for cites in my own time to save this article but so far can't find any as it's not really my field. For some reason I came over this article whilst backtracking an edit to a template which broke the template and saw an unusual pattern of edits by a user David Betesh and an IP address 216.46.79.2 (who are the same IMHO). Their idea of what constitutes "notable" hasn't really changed since this edit [1] back in October last year from now where they added themselves as "Notable Alumni" to the Brooklyn_College article; err wouldn't the date of graduations of the other notables give you a clue ?. I must admit I've added a TEST3 and a LONGTERM4IM on their talk page as stuff gets changed without any talk. I want people to stay as editors so quite willing to remove any warnings if I saw a pattern of edits that drew a line in the sand and started from afresh but yesterdays edit [2] broken the references in that article: does this person even know about watchlists and edit reviews ?. Ttiotsw 20:37, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

**Comment to me - there I was about to change my mind (full tummy edit as per WP:COOL as new stuff has been added which makes it look much better and what do I see...216.46.79.2 AKA the web site owner AKA David Betesh has removed AfD notice and mucked around with the same set of articles in the same way ! I've thus discounted my delete to a weak delete as I can't trust what's been added, though it seems on the surface better. If we can get a CD ASIN or similar ID for that CD they made then that would make it a keep IMHO. I'm just really disappointed about the way the editor has gone about it. He's not making friends here (especially with edits like this [3]). Ttiotsw 20:24, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• keep and relist if necessary after a more concentrated effort. Cannot any of the people associated with the project tell where material reporting their work might be located.? Perhaps the NYC Jewish newspapers, etc. ? DGG 22:54, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep (for now) because at this point it's basically a stub, and needs time to develop, after that it could be evaluated again. (Also, there are relatively few articles relating to Category:Sephardi Jews topics.) It's official website seems to make a good case [4] BUT this is a conditional decision since an important concern here is that this article's creator is User:David Betesh who is also the creator of this organization [5]: "He is also the founder of the "The Sephardic Pizmonim Project" [6] that probably runs counter to WP:NOT#WEBSPACE. IZAK 09:30, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• comment One reference from a 3rd part has been added & the author is looking for more. DGG 16:59, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached
 Please add new discussions below this notice. Thanks, W.marsh 19:35, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• Sorry, I realize this has been open for a while already, but I am relisting to attract some fresh eyes. References were added late and I think this needs some further review. Thanks. --W.marsh 19:35, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep for now. It's a stub, let it grow! --Dennisthe2 19:54, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment I'm not sure this satisfies WP:N or WP:CORP. There are at least a couple citations, though, that might do that. Citing the organization's website and "sister" project don't count. I think this has the potential to be a relevant article, provided more reliable sources are found. However, as it stands, this is teetering towards deletion. -- Kesh 23:26, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. I really don't have a reason to delete, but I feel like sticking up for DLand for nominating a potentially nonnotable musical entity. YechielMan 05:50, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep article makes explicit claims of notability with sources provided. Any article with a delete vote using the pathetic excuse of "I really don't have a reason to delete" deserves to be kept on that basis alone. Alansohn 14:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment regarding sources:I have looked into the references provided by User:David Betesh. First of all, the only relevant text for the article in the book Aleppo: City of Scholars is on page 58, not 58-62. The text is as follows:

"Mr. David Betesh, a great-grandson of Gabriel Shrem, received these tapes [of pizmonim] as a Bar Mitzvah gift from his grandmother, Florence Zeitouni, the daughter of Gabriel Shrem, and resolved to pass on this treasured gift to the entire community. He re-released and upgraded both the published and the unpublished works of his great-grandfather to create an inclusive and wide-ranging recording of pizmonim. The CD set, which is distributed by the Bnai Yosef Synagogue, also includes an explanation of the origin of each maqam, as well as the perashah or occasion during which it should be used and why."

While this reference certainly illustrates the importance of the Sephardic Pizmonim Project, it does not illustrate its notability at all. One short paragraph within a veritable tome of information about the Syrian Jewish community does not constitute notability - not even among Syrians - and definitely not for Wikipedia's standards. As for the article in Community Magazine, all it indicates is that the Project was an idea that sparked interest in 2004 in the editors of Community Magazine, a publication with an exceedingly limited readership demographic. It is not an independent source to boot. The Sephardic Pizmonim Project is a nice and noble endeavor (kudos to David Betesh) but it is simply not notable. --DLand^TALK 16:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Delete Per discussion above, I feel the subject simply does not meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines. There is not enough outside sources to discuss the matter, yet. Perhaps when it becomes more notable, an article would be appropriate here. -- Kesh 20:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
• Weak keep - I was for a delete but have stuck out my delete (see a few entries back above) and given the cite in the book I feel that there is sufficient traction for a weak keep with a stub on it so people can see it's coming along. This is a niche topic (we're not talking manufactured Europop songs after all) and after some searching I feel it would be a loss to Wikipedia to remove this article. We really need a different criteria to judge this type of "cultural artifact" from more modern or more commercial content. Like recordings of the last person to talk in a niche spoken language it is important to humanity but no one is expected to make much money from it. Compare that to a garage band recording - probably same low cashflow but I question the value to humanity (kind of said jokingly but it's the best analogy I could think of right now). I personally think we need to look at how to judge notability of this niche content so we don't set too high a hurdle and lose culturally valuable content. As long as the "author/web site owner/wikipedia editor" tries to stay detached from what is probably quite an emotive and engaging subject for them and thinks critically about how what they add will be viewed by others who have only a tangential concern about the topic (e.g. like me). Ttiotsw 12:10, 3 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.