Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/In Unison

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. As always, no prejudice to re-creation should In Unison achieve wider notoriety. Mackensen (talk) 11:02, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] In Unison

In Unison (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Contested prod. Non-notable college student publication. No independent sources. No relevant Google hits aside from its own web site. Realkyhick 06:01, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

• Keep.Realkyhick, I would like to contest the proposed deletion. The article's sources aren't online (in fact, they predate Wikipedia), but I believe they are still legitimate. I have cited the text, author, and month, along with contextual quotes where appropriate. I believe the article expresses a neutral point of view, and I envision this as an ongoing chronicle of the magazine. Both Craccum and Critic (magazine) are similar articles with arguably more grounds for deletion (minimal information in one and lack of referencing in the other), but each of these publications are significant and have been allowed to remain as ongoing chronicles. I'm afraid I'm rather new at this, so I'm hoping you could help me improve the article by embedding a cover image - I've uploaded it as In_Unison_cover.jpg Underscore b 06:07, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: The fact that supposedly similar articles exist is not a valid rationale for keeping an article. Besides, both of the other magazines you cited have been in existence for a very long time, which in itself makes them notable. (I did tag both articles as lacking sufficient references, though, and thanks to you for bringing that to my attention). If In Unison had been around a bit longer and had more recognition by other reliable sources, it might clear the bar of notability, but not yet. You envision this article as "an ongoing chronicle of the magazine," but that role should fall to the magazine itself. Realkyhick 06:21, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. The "sources" needed for this article are not excerpts from the In Unison magazine itself, but discussion of the magazine in other, reliable publications. The only independent source that has been provided so far is in Chinese, which is unusual for an English-language student magazine from New Zealand; I would need to hear from a Wikipedia editor who can read Chinese to find out if that Chinese article gives significant coverage to In Unison. --Metropolitan90 06:49, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment The Chinese article is definitely not significant coverage; one bullet point in a long list of brief news items called "One sentence of news" (一句話新聞). In its entirety, it says: "Unitec's student magazine published a poem by the name of An Auckland Story, which was written by an arts faculty student named Chris Kirk, and contained content which clearly insulted Asians. 3000 copies of the student magazine were distributed around campus, raising the anger of students of Asian descent. Because of this, the magazine issued an apology to all students and teachers." (In Chinese, that was all one giant run-on sentence). cab 10:51, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that information about the Chinese, cab, it sure helps this discussion and your knowledge is much appreciated.OfficeGirl 18:40, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

• Weak keep - if notoriety counts as notability, this article passes WP:N. However, I agree it needs more sources. I am also concerned that "Underscore b" may be a single-purpose sockpuppet, as the In Unison subject is the only one in which he has participated and he is suspiciously competent at using Wikipedia's system (creating articles as well-written as that, contesting its deletion): I certainly wasn't that competent myself. Voxpuppet (talk • contribs), 09:00, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't see any evidence that Underscore b is a sock puppet. Note that other than you, Underscore b is the only person who has endorsed keeping this article yet. It takes multiple identities to have both a puppeteer and puppet. --Metropolitan90 13:49, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
    • keepHi Vox, I can assure you I'm not a sock-puppet. It is my first article, but I have every intention of contributing to others in the future, particularly those relating to student publications and alternative media in New Zealand. I'm flattered that my work is "suspiciously competent", and I must confess it took several hours of drafting and reformatting before I felt it was ready to upload. Bearing in mind that Wikipedia has unlimited space, and that the article is carefully and objectively written and cites references (offline, as they predate Wikipedia), I hope the article will be retained with plans for future development. I will be sure to update and edit this page as necessary.Underscore b 22:41, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Don't see any instance of reliable, independent sources taking note of this student publication among the 500 or so GHits for Unitec "In Unison" [1]. Doesn't seem to have much notoriety over the racism incident; Google search for "An Auckland Story" gives only 5 hits. [2] The Chinese article cited is just a trivial mention, as I stated in my reply to Metropolitan90 above. cab 10:50, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
  • KeepProbably not the best reference, no, but I've made an effort. Unfortunately many New Zealand online publications such as the NZ Herald require a subscription to view their online archives. The information is out there, and I will do my very best to source this article more comprehensively in future.Underscore b 22:41, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
• Delete It's going to take a LOT of significant coverage from outside sources to make a college newspaper notable for Wikipedia purposes. Awards are great, but if the awarding agency is just an association of school papers hailing form only 13 schools, then that's not going to indicae what we need in terms of notability. One brief flash of externally noted controversy about a poem that was published in this school paper is not enough to confer notability. This isn't an appropriate topic for a Wikipedia article.OfficeGirl 15:42, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep Hi OfficeGirl, the Aotearoa Student Press Association is another article I intend to edit and expand on. 13 member publications may not sound like much, but bear in mind New Zealand only has nine universities, which lends some perspective. ASPA is actually a fairly significant body within New Zealand's journalism community and has been recognised and sponsored by some of NZ's major publications like the NZ Herald and the NZ Listener. As I said above, I believe Wikipedia has room for a comprehensive article with admittedly limited appeal, and I will take responsibility for sourcing and referencing this and related articles in future.Underscore b 22:41, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per OfficeGirl and Metropolitan90. I don't think this really meets WP:ORG. Bfigura ^(talk) 17:29, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of New Zealand-related deletions. -- Bduke 00:19, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
• Note to Underscore b: You are only supposed to list the word "keep" or the word "delete" once to indicate your overall position in this discussion, though you may comment or respond to any remarks made by anyone else in this AfD. Just mark your subsequent responses something like COMMENT or reply or Note. This will help the Admin evaluate more quickly how many different people are in this discussion and each person's stance on the issues. Think of it as a "one user, one vote" principle. You are not the first person to be confused on this procedure, so don't worry about it. But that's why all but one of your "keep" notes have been struck through. OfficeGirl 01:02, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
• Weak keep, certainly needs more sources, but as has been pointed out above, this is the case for many student newspapers. A better google search is one which restricts itself to New Zealand pages ie [3]. There's still a lot of false hits to wade through, but I found a link to the press release of the ASPA awards of 2005, where an In Unison journalist got best education writer, and the paper was judged second best designed. I've added this link to the article.-gadfium 02:00, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

They did well in the ASPA awards of 2006 as well. I don't think the 2007 awards have happened yet.-gadfium 08:47, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. As far as I'm aware, the main justification for deleting stuff as non-notable is that if everything of equal notability (ie all unsigned rock bands, all chiropractors etc) were featured Wikipedia would be dominated by pages no-one is interested in. But even if every NZ student magazine had a page, that would only be nine or ten pages. So we're not setting a bad precedent here. Since it's entirely plausible people might want to find out about the magazine, I can't see the harm in the page. Also, 14 years is fairly old for an alternative publication; it's not like it is something founded this year which might cease publication at any moment. --Helenalex 00:23, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Well, the main reason behind the notability policy isn't space (disk space is cheap), but maintainability. Wikipedia is a world-wide encyclopedia; New Zealand may only have nine or ten student magazines, but what about all the other student publications at all the other universities in the world? It's quite hard to write much verifiable information about people and organisations which reliable sources haven't discussed previously. Your Wikipedia article becomes either:
    1. An unbalanced collection of little factoids resulting from passing mentions of the subject in random newspaper articles which are mainly about something else
    2. A bunch of unsourced material
    3. A repetition of whatever the person or organisation says about itself on it's own website or in its own publicity materials.

  None of those kinds of things should appear in an encyclopedia. cab 05:29, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

  • • I'm not sure I agree with you entirely, cab. Certainly encyclopediae should not feature regurgitated PR screeds, or entirely unsourced material. But the maintainability of this article should be self-evident. All articles are a process of ongoing revision, and the number and range of sources in the article will surely grow if it's allowed to remain. And I would submit that the lack of external references in the article at this time is countered by its neutral point of view: it certainly pulls no punches with regards to the magazine's past. So in that regard, it certainly isn't a repetition of publicity materials etc., and as I've said above, if the article remains we can expect a more comprehensive range of sources resulting in less 'factoids' and more narrative/organised information.Underscore b 22:09, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
• Weak keep: five other members of the Aotearoa Student Press Association have student newspapers/magazines that have Wikipedia pages. In Unison looks as notable as those and has won ASPA awards (but I don't know how significant that is). Bondegezou 10:31, 20 September 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.