Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Richard Spece

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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. Seraphim♥Whipp 23:25, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Richard Spece

Richard Spece (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (delete) – (View log)

Classical clarinetist of dubious notability. Involved in some recordings, but most if not all references are trivial. Article was created by subject's wife. --Finngall talk 21:41, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Comment. There's clearly a conflict of interest here and a fair amount of 'hype' + very vague references. All that can be remedied (in theory) and shouldn't necessarily be a factor in deciding notability. However, from my research, his notability (if any) is extremely marginal. His wife, Ava Spence, is probably more notable than he is, at least in Google News. [1]. She's the Director of the DC Youth Orchestra Program. Not surprisingly, that article was also created by User:Ecepsava. Nothing for either him or Saeculum Aureum Players in Google Scholar or Books. A few mentions of him in Google News (all dates) - basically very brief concert notices. [2], apart from these relating to "Saeculum Aureum Players. [3] Below is all the relevant stuff I could find on the web.
  1. Re his PhD. from ISU, true, here's his doctoral recital. [4]
  2. His most prominent recording is probably Vintage Woodwinds. For more details, see [5]. It was reviewed a fair amount in the specialist press. See this section of the Saeculum Aureum Players web site. (I checked out the ones that are online and the ones at the SAP site are accurate quotes.) The rest are either 'forthcoming' and/or on very small labels. He appears to have been a 'band member' rather than a soloist in Saxophone Vocalise (Delos 1994) and Mozart Piano Concertos - Northwest Sinfonietta (Sonic 1999).
  3. Re this claim in the article: "In 2005, critically acclaimed and Pulitzer-nominated American composer Scott McAllister, wrote a piece for Spece entitled BlingBling. Spece premiered the piece at the Strathmore Music in the Mansion Series in January 2006..." Spece did indeed premiere the piece, see [6]. I haven't found any evidence that suggests McAllister has been "critically acclaimed", although he seems well enough known on the contemporary music circuit. As for the Pulitzer Prize nomination... um... anyone can nominate someone, even themselves. What counts is the jury's final selection. Having searched the Pulitzer Prize data base, [7], there's no mention whatsoever of McAllister as a "nominated finalist".
I'll wait to see how the discussion develops, but I'm highly inclined to vote delete as of now. Voceditenore (talk) 10:50, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per Voceditenore's research (thanks for your work) and failure to meet notability and musician notability guidelines. I was hesitant to nominate this for deletion as I didn't feel like doing the sort of research that Voceditenore did and felt like that was the good faith thing to do, although the burden of providing additional refs should really be on the article's creator. Although conflict of interest isn't necessarily a criterion for deletion, that should also be taken into account. Per the autobiography guidelines, if you're notable, let someone completely unaffiliated with you write an article about you! And if the anon editor from D.C. is reading this, it has nothing to do with academic snobbery and everything to do with the fact that Wikipedia is not here to help promote anyone's career. If Spece's work gets substantively written about in multiple non-trivial sources (think The Washington Post for example), then certainly this article could be recreated. This is the avenue you might consider exploring. Katr67 (talk) 16:37, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment I agree with you about research. I don't really feel that I can nominate an article for deletion (or even vote delete) until I've done everything possible to see if notability could be established. I've managed to save at least three from oblivion, when at first sight the situation looked pretty dire. But in this case, I'm afraid not. There really isn't enough evidence that Mr. Spece is a notable enough for an encyclopedia article. Voceditenore (talk) 14:46, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per my comments above. No evidence of notability from reliable sources has been forthcoming. I suggest the article's creator copy the article to a sandbox, e.g.User:Ecepsava/Sandbox, if she wants to save the Wiki mark-up. Voceditenore (talk) 14:35, 17 May 2008 (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.