Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brent Murray

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. Several votes said "Keep if references are added." Though external links were added, none of the originally questionable info was referenced; in fact, most of it has been removed. Thus, I add those borderline votes to the 60% or so who are voting straight delete. Chick Bowen 17:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Brent Murray

This seems to be simply a Vanity Page. There are no references, the subject is not notable, and the text is merely copied verbatim from one of the external links provided (by the subject himself!). Pinkville 00:15, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. While I think this subject will one day be notable, I agree with Pinkville that he is not now. SteveHopson 00:47, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep assuming the list of clients is correct, seems notable enough. Needs sourcing though. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 00:50, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as spam -- no reliable source. This would be a copyvio, except that the user posted his own website material. Robert A.West (Talk) 00:50, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep if references added before end of AfD, agree with Starblind. JYolkowski // talk 01:21, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I'm concerned about the copyvio on this page, since many of the sentences are outright copied from his website. FrozenPurpleCube 01:36, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Make that ALL of the page. Sorry, but I think that means delete It would be one thing to rewrite it, but I'd still prefer to start from a blank on it. Not that I agree he is notable enough, though he may be better than some in the American photographers category. FrozenPurpleCube 01:37, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Unusually, his website does not seem to claim copyright, and there's good reason to think that the content has been reproduced in WP by its creator. The combination of these two stops me from summarily deleting it as a copyvio. -- Hoary 02:00, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

• Delete if he ever becomes notable someone else can write the bio. And from scratch. ...added at 01:48, 16 October 2006 by Therin83
• Delete because the content is not independently verifiable. -- Hoary 02:01, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Additional references have been added that appear to demonstrate notability. --TruthbringerToronto (Talk | contribs) 03:51, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
  • The NYT links need registration. (No, this doesn't automatically disqualify them, but it is irritating or worse.) The next link I tried was the BBC one. It doesn't mention either "brent" or "murray", or perhaps the search function in my browser is broken. At that point I gave up looking, at least for the time being. -- Hoary 04:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Keep and rewrite. NPOV is a MAJOR problem. This article is 100% autobiograhpical, but he's somewhat notable. IMDB has an entry, though its paltry. However, a google search turns up MANY pages that do not include self-created pages. He does seem to be the guy he claims. Still, by the standard that "if no one who doesn't know you is inspired to write about you, you are probably not notable" then, well, maybe he's not notable. His body of work is impressive, and the article can be brought up to standard if someone were so inspired. --Jayron32 03:53, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
  • First, IMDb is not really authoritative, information can be submitted by anyone who registers (i.e. possibly Murrary himself) and IMDb doesn't maintain the standards and quality checks that Wikipedia does. The Google search is pretty underwhelming; only two sites apart from his own turn up: lightstalkers.org, which seems to be nothing more than a CV hosting service, and modelmayhem.com, which is the same thing. Both these sites merely host information supplied by the photographer himself. Conducting my own search I found a hit for a site from which his member name has been deleted and one credited photo from a brief NY Times article, plus one or two others. There's also this hit (with a link to an article that requires registration): "Ms. McNally joined The Times in 2004 as director of photography. ... And special thanks to Brent Murray of our Web site who painstakingly inserted visuals ..." that makes Murray sound like a fairly low-level employee, though more might have been revealed if I had registered. I suppose. Pinkville 13:23, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. In its most current iteration, the article appears to be unbiased, and the NYT articles references are indeed legit. There are sufficient Google hits for me to believe his claim, and it appears that the POV issue has been resolved. Consequentially 04:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - Commercial photographer with multiple publications. Article has been much tidied from vanity first edition. Watch, however, for recurring POV/vanity issues. Robertissimo 05:16, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

• Switch me to a weak delete on this one; should have reviewed WP:BIO on photographers before opining, and while his work is published, he seems not to meet the notability threshold... Robertissimo 12:06, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

• Questions: I'm still puzzled. There are two lists of links. The first has two links: one to Murray's own site and the other to what appears to be a page supplied by him to some networking (?) site. The second mostly has links to pages in the NYT that are said to show photos by him; of the two that aren't NYT, one shows nothing by him and the other shows a competent but completely humdrum publicity mugshot. Talk of "multiple publications" suggests to me a list of books, or at least major magazine features. Are there any? Any news stories about him? Any exhibitions by him? -- Hoary 06:52, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Reply -- Sorry, I should have been clearer -- he has multiple commercial publications of individual photographs, most of which do seem to be related in one way or another to the NYTimes. All links in "Photographs reproduced" do include a shot by him (Margo Jefferson on the Random House site and Ben Brantley (credited in the alt text) on the BBC's, and breaking the list out in that way was my attempt to clarify that the links were not, strictly speaking, as had previously been indicated, "References." I'm not saying he's Richard Avedon, but he does appear to be a working photographer of some established professional notability. That the page started with very definite vanity and autobiography issues seems to have been overcome, although it still needs stronger sourcing and, as noted above, will bear watching. Robertissimo 07:16, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Well done. I appreciate your work on this and your position. But meanwhile, this does say that photographers should have been published and have received multiple independent reviews of or awards for their work. True, this is a mere guideline, but I thought guidelines are, if not observed, then bent or broken only for good reason. On the evidence adduced so far, BM seems an unremarkable photographer. If his work (for the NYT or elsewhere) had won comment in some newspaper, that would be a different matter. -- Hoary 07:51, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

By the new Brent Murray standard of notability, I should have my own Wikipedia article. I'm also no Richard Avedon, but I'm a hardworking employee in a museum/research institute with several hundred thousand words of my own writing for this institution published on the Internet in the form of online collections documentation.... ;~) Pinkville 13:33, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

The problem with Robertissimo's standard is that we have not consistently applied this to other AfD discussions. Brent Murray's self article still fails the WP:Bio guideline that has been consistently applied to other AfD discussions that I've monitored. Yes Murray can show that his photographs have been published, but, as Hoary points out, these do not consitute 'multiple independent reviews or awards.' The article still does not contain verifiable references that were not self-generated. Many, many photographers have had work published by the NY Times -- will this be a new standard? As I've said before, I think Murray will someday be notable, but, unless we want to lower the standards for everyone else that we've deleted, he is not notable today. SteveHopson 14:54, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

• Delete - WP:OR WP:CITE WP:NOTABILITY /Blaxthos 07:33, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per Robertissimo. Cynical 07:34, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as vanity and non-notable and because of the lack of third-party sourrces. Ultra-Loser Talk / Contributions 14:35, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - fails the WP:Bio guideline completely. A couple of photos published by the NYT doesn't qualify as 'notable'. Also, I could find no verification of the rewards cited on this person's personal website. Alcarillo 19:52, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. Madchen Hoch 22:01, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Weak keep, if the article will start adding sources then it should be kept if not then delete . . . added at 22:43, 16 October 2006 by User:Seadog.M.S
  • You are free to add sources at any time during this AfD process. -- Hoary 01:16, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. he's a nobody, should never have written an article about himself. How many thousands of articles on photographers are there going to be if this is the criteria for an entry? Sam Hayes 23:04, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep + Rewrite. Somewhat Notable. Seeing some of his work + a rewrite should be all it takes. .... added at 23:09, 16 October 2006 by User:Iced Kola
  • You are free to rewrite at any time during this AfD process. -- Hoary 01:16, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. He's a commercial photographer. He sells pictures to magazines, just like thousands of other American commercial photographers, to feed the voracious appetite of hundreds of photo editors and art directors, no more notable or outstanding than all those other commercial photographers. This article has no outside references, no awards, no coffee-table books, no gallery or museum shows -- just links to samples of his work: in other words, it's a Wiki-CV/portfolio, not an biographical article. --Calton | Talk 05:24, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete No assertion of WP:BIO notability, given that it is now clear that some things previously taken as material about him was instead uses of his work. GRBerry 17:58, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, as per Andrew Lenahan - Starblind, above. Smeelgova 04:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC).
• Weak delete. Neutral. I would say keep as long as someone (not me) wants to rewrite it NPOV, with content. He seems notable enough to me, as per Andrew Lenahan, but the article was created as vanity or at least autobiography, and needs much work. If no one's willing to do the work, then that speaks for itself. If he had to create his own article, and even with that push no one wants to expand it, he probably isn't notable enough to be included at this time. Reasoning from WP:BIO. AubreyEllenShomo 18:40, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

• Also, I meant to say, reasoning from WP:AUTO. WP:AUTO is clear about this, and the proof is in the unwillingness (or inability) of others to expand and make a workable article. If this goes another day without some substantial further improvements, I'll probably switch my vote to a weak delete. AubreyEllenShomo 18:44, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
• No new adds, so I'm changing my recommendation to a weak delete, as I said I would. I don't thik the evidence of notability is clear enough. AubreyEllenShomo 00:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

• Delete for the autobio and notable reasons discussed above. - Corporal Tunnel 01:12, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - not yet notable and the curious links don't help. BlueValour 01:30, 26 October 2006 (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.