Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nikki Craft (2nd nomination)

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. --Coredesat 07:27, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nikki Craft

Nikki Craft (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - (View log)

This was tagged as a speedy deletion candidate as an anonymous user with the reason that Nikki Craft is "non notable" and that everything in the article is self-referenced and not reliable, outside sources. This had a previous AFD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nikki Craft where there was no consensus. Also note that there is a User:Nikkicraft who has edited this article. No opinion from me, just a procedure nomination because I feel it is above speedyable but the opinion of the anonymous user is worth examining through AFD. Metros232 17:11, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

• Delete for the same reasons as last time, really. The article did squeak by early last year, but we've really tightened up our policies since then regarding verifiability and reliable sources in particular. No reason to think another year would help things, either. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 17:57, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Nikki Craft is a notable feminist anti-porn activist. She was probably better known in the 1980s and 1990s than she is today, but I still think she meets the criterion for notability. (Also, the person who nominated the article for speedy deletion was likely doing so in bad faith – this is an anonymous user who's done a string of hasty edits removing links to Nikki Craft's site, which in most cases amounted to removal of needed citations in various articles (I've reverted these edits.)) All that said, I do think there are serious problems with this article that need to be addressed. The article is maintained by someone who is an associate of Nikki Craft, some of the edits may have been made by Craft herself, and as a result there are real NPOV issues with the article. These problems need to be dealt with, but the article itself should stay. Peter G Werner 18:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Seems notable enough for inclusion in this project. --Tom 19:20, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, easily passes WP:BIO. 18 Google Books results, 37 Google News Archive results. Nikkicraft (talk · contribs) has contributed but a brief scan indicates not disruptively (she appears to have strongly curtailed her activity on the project last August after an ANI issue). See also (possibly) the contributions of 68.122.118.161 (talk · contribs). --Dhartung | Talk 20:01, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete non notable but loud activist. Jcuk 22:05, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
• KeepDelete and rewrite The article is very poorly written with almost no sources outside of her own web site. I've been trying to improve that though, and that talk pages has a list of referencesTalk:Nikki_Craft#Sources_for_future_use_in_the_article that I have collected for someone to possibly integrate someday. I have added a few references, but it still needs considerable work to meet Wikipedia standards. What makes it challenging is that nearly every change to the article is challenged or reverted by a friend of the subject.

Facts cited that have no source:

• born 1949) is an American political activist, artist and writer who is known for her provocative and controversial approaches to societal problems and political situations.
• She is also known for radical feminism
• has been arrested 50 times for acts of civil disobedience. (Can we say that in a BLP with no cite?)
• Her work has been recognized by numerous academics considered experts on civil disobedience including Marge Frantz. (Perhaps, but dubious as there is no record of any published books by the subject)
• She is perhaps best known for researching and publicizing cases of nudists/naturists who have been arrested or convicted of pedophilia and child molestation.

• In 1976 she altered a billboard by changing it from "Miss America" to "Myth America," an action covered in the Dallas Morning News and Parade magazine[1]. (however, te reference is Nikki Craft. No reference from the Dallas Morning News, or Parade Magazine can be uncovered.

• The same year, Craft founded Women Armed for Self Protection (WASP), which advocated armed self-defense for women and retaliation against rapists by their victims
• she wrote and recorded the Rape Song about Inez Garcia and Joan Little. (only reference is her web site again)
• In 1976, Craft co-founded the Kitty Genovese Women's Project (KGWP) when she and another activist posed as sociology students under the pretense of doing a "statistical study on violent crimes" and obtained the names of every indicted sex offender in Dallas County from 1959 to 1975 (Can we say that she broke the law in a BLP, without a cite?)
• On 8 March, International Women's Day, the group read the names over local community radio KCHU for 13 hours.[3]
• In 1979, Craft helped organize the first Myth California Anti-Pageant in Santa Cruz, California. In 1980 Craft joined other pageant protesters and over the next nine years conducted other actions, including throwing raw meat on the stage and pouring the blood of raped women across a pageant entryway.

I'll stop here, but there are at least 20 other statements uncited, or uncited except by the subjects web site.

I think most of these are true, even if not cited. Also, Duke University has a collection[1] described as "Nikki Craft Papers (1970-1992) — Activist who uses guerilla theater to protest the media's control of women's bodies, e.g. anti-beauty contest, anti-pornography. One small box of mostly flyers, photos, newsletters, newspaper accounts of her projects, more. .3 linear ft." Which seems to means she has/had some notability. Atom 22:55, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Based on Brenneman's comments, I could support that the subject is notable, but the article needs a complete rewrite.Atom 17:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

• keep, noticing in addition the attempted use of a speedy after a dispted AfD. A non-consensus AfD is clear eveidence that the deletion would be controversial, and the speedy thus out of order. DGG 02:24, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
• The current sources (plus two in-line external links) in the article are :

  1. ^ Myth America Billboard Enhancement. nostatusquo.com. Retrieved on 2006-03-01.
  2. ^ War Stories: My Demo at Rockwell International. nostatusquo.com. Retrieved on 2006-02-23.
  3. ^ Exposing the Rapist Next Door. nostatusquo.com. Retrieved on 2006-02-23.
  4. ^ Nikki Craft's Pottery Pages. nikkicraft.com. Retrieved on 2006-03-02.
  5. ^ Baxandall, Lee (1983). World Guide to Nude Beaches and Recreation, 1st edition, New York: Harmony Books, 23. ISBN 0-517-54983-2.
  6. ^ Craft, Nikki. "Busting Mr. Short Eyes", On the Issues, Dec. 1995.
  7. ^ Peckenpaugh, William D. (1996). Familial and Societal Attitudes Toward Nudity, and the Effects on Children’s Development. Lake Edun Foundation. Retrieved on 2006-11-03.
  8. ^ Murez, Cara Roberts (2005-12-21). Man gets 30 years for sex abuse. Retrieved on 2006-11-03.
  9. ^ Estimada, Abe (2004-12-02). Silverton man faces charges of videotaped sex with son. KGW.com TV. Retrieved on 2006-11-02.
  10. ^ HB 158 Nudist camps for juveniles; prohibited.. State of Virginia (2004-04-26). Retrieved on 2006-11-03.
  11. http://www.nostatusquo.com/audio/rapesong.html
  12. http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=176328

Of these numbers 1,2,3,4, and 11 are self-published. 5 I don't have a copy of at hand, but it appears to be a simple claim that craft is in a photgraph in an otherwise non-notable book. Number 6 I am unable to evaluate, as every repository I tried in universities on-line women's issues collections returned a 404. Numbers 7,8,9, and 10 do not relate to this person. Number 11 is a dubious one, as the claim in the article "An award-winning documentary called Miss or Myth examines these protests and Craft's role in starting them" is not supported by the link. It's a precis only, but a more complete exposition on the film does not mention the subject of this article at all. Dhartung's links appear to show that there may be an article to be written on Craft, but this self-aggrandizing and reference-free work is not it. If I may quote myself from the previous deletion discussion, "This is a person who's made a lifetime out of getting publicity, let us recall, so as to not be used for the same end." Looking over the very long first debate, I see in-depth analysis of the sources provided, and identical conclusions that this had serious issues with verification and bias. There was a great deal of talk of cleaning it up and providing real sources, however this was not done. Delete without prejudice to a new, acurately sources sourced article, not written or "maintained" by anyone associated with Craft. In the event I (or anyone else) gets off thier arse and savagly trims back this article to a verifiable stub, wave a magic wand over that to become "keep."- brenneman 06:37, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Comparison of the version of this article after the last close and current: [2]. Clean-up is not a realistic option here.
brenneman 06:50, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

• comment If the article is biased, edit it. if there is no agreement over the edits, use dispute resolution. Doing as suggested above, deleting it and making a new one, is hardly likely to solve POV problems. Though I probably share the previous editor's opinion of the subject and her views, the suggestion above for a "new, accurately sourced article, not written or "maintained" by anyone associated with Craft. " is wholly against the principles of WP, and threats to delete material if the article is kept are wholly out of order. DGG 05:55, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
• comment: My personal experience has been one of battling any changes with a friend of the subject. Dispute resolution has not had any results, as no one responds to an RfC. I can't make even a minor change without a battle, much less delete and remove all unsourced statements, as is required. Regardless, the recommendation for deleting and starting over suggested by brenneman are not based on that. His rationale was that 1) The article has many occurences where there are no citations. Where there are citations, most of them rely on the subjects web site. A removal of all of the uncited and self-cited references would essentially leave an empty article. 2) In the previous discussion on AfD it survived on the premise that you suggest, that it would be rewritten. The diff[3] he offered shows that the changes from that time (mostly mine) are minor compared to the scope of work that needs to be done; And, in fact it has not been rewritten to meet Wikipedia standards. Atom 20:11, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - Nikki Craft is a well-known and influential (i.e., "notable") organizer and activist in feminist community. Problems with biographical article are not a reason to delete the article, but to fix it. --lquilter 22:22, 18 January 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.