Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nimis (artwork)

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 Keep Ladonia (micronation) and merge Nimis (artwork) into it. Cúchullain ^t/c 02:32, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nimis (artwork)

Nimis (artwork) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Ladonia (micronation) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

This is an art project by artist Lars Vilks, spread over 2 articles. Lars Vilks is a redlinked artist; he has no other incoming links. The first article, Nimis (artwork) about a sculpture, offers up no assertions of notability and no reliable sources whatsoever. It has 1 incoming link (excluding a link from Ladonia and a dab link from Nimis) and I think it can be safely deleted as non-notable.

The second article, Ladonia (micronation) (previous nomination), about the place where the scultpure was made has several problems too:

• The article presents the entity as a country and not as an art-based concept (WP:NPOV)
• The most serious concern is the lack of reliable sources to demonstrate compliance with the verifiability and notability policies. If we examine the sources provided:
  • Implode Ladonia website. Not an RS by any stretch of the imagination.
  • A Swedish website. I'm not sure exactly what it is, it's either a museum or a contemporary art site.
  • www.powerofculture.nl, not a reliable source as far as I'm aware
  • (an article in Swedish)
  • a trivial BBC News South Asia piece about Pakistanis applying for visas in the belief it's a real country. Not everything on BBC News is enyclopedic.
• Very few incoming links.

I recommend deletion or, if the sources can be found and if he's notable, moving and refactoring both into an article on Lars Vilks. --kingboyk 17:44, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

• Keep The previous nomination of Ladonia made it clear this is a real, verifiable, notable instance in local Swedish politics. The artwork is a real, notable thing that attracts tourists who want to climb it. It's easy to find google references. Reliable references should be easy to find as well, but they might be in Swedish. Not being able to read Swedish references is not a valid AfD nomination.SchmuckyTheCat 17:50, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Where did I say that this is nominated for deletion because I can't read Swedish? It's nominated because it's 2 unsourced or undersourced near orphan articles on one piece of work by a (non-notable?) redlink artist! The previous AFD was 2 years ago and had pretty much no intelligent content whatsoever; I wouldn't pay much attention to it personally, plus we're not bound by precedent, we're here to form a new consensus. --kingboyk 18:57, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment: There was an unequivocal 80% consensus to KEEP in the last AFD on Ladonia - and the only "unintelligent content" in that discussion was contributed by the dissenting minority. This renomination is another case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. --Gene_poole 02:01, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep and merge The BBC article, the Power of Culture article, and the Svenska Dagbladet article appear to be reliable sources, and this subject is notable per the work done by Uncle G at the previous AfD discussion. But there's no need for two separate articles about basically the same thing, so they should be merged, probably to Ladonia (micronation). Please avoid the temptation to automatically assume foreign language and offline sources don't count. Svenska Dagbladet is a major Swedish newspaper. Wikipedia isn't about the English-language Web. PubliusFL 18:02, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I didn't say foreign language or print articles don't count (and geez I'm quite annoyed you could even think that I'm so stupid; print sources are better than online crap almost every time); I merely put it the Swedish source in brackets without further commentary because I can't read it. Articles must be sourced and there should be help for readers - if it's a major Swedish paper the article should say so. It's also incumbent on Swedish editors to get these articles referenced properly if they want them kept. I maintain that the sourcing here is totally inadequate, and notability isn't clear. I totally reject any notion that the BBC article can be used to assert notability because it is trivial at best; the BBC are of course purveyors of reliable material, so certainly don't dispute that. --kingboyk 18:57, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
    • I apologize for the offense, I should have been more careful in my wording. Apparently I misunderstood you when you said on the Morac-Songhrati-Meads AfD page that you "don't see any reliable sources in the article," while noting there is a published book listed as a source. What I meant to say is that when an article has references that are offline or foreign language, editors ought to assume them to be valid unless they have some real reason to believe they are not. I think that's part of "assuming good faith." But when you say "no reliable sources whatsoever" as in this nomination, it sounds like an assumption that the sources that are in the article are unreliable unless someone proves otherwise. In other words, there are often better ways to clarify the reliability of sources than proposing deletion and hoping it gets sorted out in the AfD. I do understand that you're trying to be bold in clearing up what many editors consider to be a long-standing problem area, though. PubliusFL 21:15, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Regarding the BBC article, I would argue that that source is non-trivial. The wording of WP:N on this point has been the subject of a lot of discussion lately, but notability currently requires "significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic." Significant replaces non-trivial, and the guideline further clarifies that significant "does not require that a topic be the sole focus of a source, but does require that the source speaks on the subject in detail, rather than a mention in passing or name drop. Significant means more than trivial but less than important." A BBC story specifically about Ladonia (sole focus), although a fairly short one, is far more than "a mention in passing or a name drop," and I think falls within the spirit of "significant coverage" as used in WP:N. PubliusFL 21:15, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
      • I think, unless I'm mistaken, that I only said no "reliable sources whatsoever" in relation to Nimis (artwork), which I deal with in the first part of my nomination and which does indeed offer no references at all. Never mind; it's only semantics. I think we'll have to agree to disagree on the BBC source, as far as I'm concerned it's a "fun" news story more about Pakistanis' eagerness to emigrate than it is about Ladonia (it's in the South Asia section after all). Thanks for the response, and for the message on my talk page. PS I generally prefer printed sources to low grade online links (the world existed before the internet!) but it's damn inconvenient when one doesn't have the books articles are relying on :) --kingboyk 21:53, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
• Delete The last sentence was the nail in the coffin for me: All interested persons are invited to apply for a citizenship in Ladonia. To me that sounds like advertising or that they are in need of suport. Either way, it's definitely not NPOV. How can you belong to Ladonia, when it isn't even recognized? Also, if this is a long running dispute, where all of the reliable and independent secondary sources that confirm the conflict with the government? There are not any sources listed that could verify any of the claims. My other question is this: How are driftwood statues made by one person in a nature reserve notable? If you're going to claim it's a popular tourist attraction, then provide some statistics on the number of people that have visited. Instead of claiming it's notable, show that it is notable. If this article is going to be kept, then some sources need to be produced. I'm sure that the editors of the article are fine people, but we can't just take their word that this topic is notable without any proof. --Cyrus Andiron 19:43, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment That sentence is definitely objectionable, and should be removed immediately. Which I'll do unless someone has beaten me to it. NPOV issues can be fixed. But I think people have shown that Ladonia is notable. Starting with Uncle G's comment in the last AfD, which led to the article being kept then. PubliusFL 21:15, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Indeed. We have a sculpture in my town centre. It too was rather controversial, and got written about several times by the local daily newspaper (a reliable source). I could write an article about it. I won't, of course, because the artist is red linked like this fellow, and probably not notable, and it would be a WP:POINT violation... I do accept, of course, that the artist didn't then create an "independent state" or get mentioned in a trivial BBC item; that makes this a touch more notable but not notable enough AFAIC unless I see more sources. --kingboyk 21:58, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Lars Vilks has written and published many books, as you can see from here. Among them a book called "Theory about Everything" (Original: Teori om Allting). How can somebody who wrote a theory about everything not be notable? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.192.198.233 (talk) 14:43, 12 May 2007 (UTC).
• Keep and merge per PubliusFL - there's no need for two articles, but the micronation is of itself notable. JRG 08:38, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Well known micronation, referenced in numerous reliable sources as well as participant (as a micronation) at a current ongoing exhibition on the subject of micronations at the Palais de Tokyo (Paris' main contemporary art museum). --Gene_poole 12:25, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep and merge - Per above, sculptures alone are not particularly notable; but their combined influence as a proclaimed micronation carries more significance and notability. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Thisisbossi (talk • contribs) 17:52, 12 May 2007 (UTC).
• Keep as above. No real reason for deletion. Lankiveil 01:22, 13 May 2007 (UTC).
• Keep Ladonia and merge Nimis to Ladonia Ladonia is quite notable; Nimis is a different story. ''[[User:Kitia|Kitia'']] 19:46, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
• Merge sounds like a good solution. >Radiant< 13:59, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Ladonia and merge Nimis to Ladonia Ladonia is notable, well-sourced and well-written. The fact that the artist is redlinked is completely irrelevant; who says that an artist must necessarily be more notable than his artwork? — Kwi | Talk 19:34, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Ladonia and merge Nimis to Ladonia per Kwi. Perhaps in the future there will be enough to say about Nimis to merit its own article, but for now it doesn't seem to say much more than is already said in the Ladonia article. --Quuxplusone 00:02, 15 May 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.