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. Only because nobody besides the nominator is arguing for deletion. No prejudice against a speedy renomination if the article isn't improved. (non-admin closure) Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:20, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The National Monument to the U.S. Constitution[edit]

The National Monument to the U.S. Constitution (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

The article has many issues in it's current form: a serious conflict of interest, copyright infringement, and I'm not sure if it satisfies the notability criteria. The author and I have gone back and forth, but I believe that the article in it's current form should be deleted. See article page and talk page for more references. [mad pierrot][t c] 06:18, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete as nominator. [mad pierrot][t c] 06:45, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak Keep - This needs a re-write, and it needs to be renamed but I have found sources that I belive are on these monuments that carry good information, and confer notability; [1], [2],[3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12]. With that being said I also assume good faith I find no reason to believe that this articles creator made this stuff up. I am willing to help re-write this article if need be. -Marcusmax(speak) 13:50, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• keep an eye on it. it seems like this meets our notability requirements, however other editors are needed to keep an eye on any possible COI. in the spirit of good-faith and not biting the newbies i think we should give this 10-day old article a bit more time. --ΖαππερΝαππερ ^Babel_Alexandria 14:45, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep as a notable monument, but I concur with the nominator and the other "keep"s that it needs some serious revision & cleanup. youngamerican (wtf?) 15:02, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• COI and copyright issues can be resolved easily enough with rewrites. The real question is whether it meets the requirements for notability, and I think it will turn out to. There's a Business Wire article [13] (full text without having a pay is here [14]) which talks about the creator, Brett-Livingstone Strong - "The Constitution Bicentennial Monument dedicated by President Reagan at Independence Hall in Philadelphia in 1987, and the United States Presidency Monument, commissioned by Chief Justice Warren Burger in 1993 are two awe inspiring works which were recently appraised for $21 million." I am a bit confused about exactly what is being described though. There's "The National Monument to the United States Constitution", "The Spirit of Freedom Monument" and "The Constitution Bicentennial Monument" (and also talk of "The United States Presidency Monument" on the article creator's web site [15]). My confusion isn't cleared up by the links Marcusmax provided, which (amongst other things from that fairly loose search phrase) refer to a fountain rather than the eagle shown in the picture in the article and web site. Ha! (talk) 15:24, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment- I have been assuming good faith, I know that the contributor is just passionate about the subject. I've tried hard to make the Larry feel welcome (see here) and I don't believe he made it up anymore, just at first. I think that the article should be submitted to the articles for creation now so that Larry has some help in cleaning it up and any conflicts of interest are addressed while it is being written. [mad pierrot][t c] 20:33, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think anyone is criticizing you or thinks that you haven't assumed good faith, as it's obvious from the talk page that you have. I'm not sure that deleting the article and then recreating it will be any different from rewriting it though, and an experienced editor above has offered to help with the rewrite so it shouldn't be too hard to deal with the issues the article currently has. Ha! (talk) 23:32, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good point. Does anyone have anything else to add? Otherwise I think we can close this discussion with Keep and have a more experienced editor assist with writing the article. [mad pierrot][t c] 16:02, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: just wanted to note that the appraisal seems to be in a press release by the Marketing firm hired to handle the artist and hence should probably be regarded as a primary source. It may or may not be true, but I don't think it offers much help on determining notability, my weak "Keep" below notwithstanding. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:46, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - I came to this article in response to the third party request raised. As notability has been sufficiently addressed here (which I would agree with) and the potential COI is not sufficiently problematic to raise on wp:COIN, I shall remove the request for the time being.—Teahot (talk) 19:20, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Pennsylvania-related deletion discussions. -- TexasAndroid (talk) 12:02, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: I'd like to see the re-write accomplished before this AFD is closed, otherwise delete. — Athaenara ✉ 19:40, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I assume that I can comment on the discussion: I appreciate the support and will provide any information I can to assist with the re-write. I understand the confusion about the name of the monument. It was titled "The Spirit of Freedom Monument" by the artist, but was commissioned as the "The Constitution Bicentennial Monument". Once dedicated it became the "National Monument to the U.S. Constitution". --Lawrence Creeger (talk) 05:00, 18 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment. Lacking reliable sources to verify, these alternate names are not usable. I've done a google search and only come up with two hits connecting "The Spirit of Freedom Monument" to this particular statue. Since I cannot verify, I've removed that title. Please see Wikipedia:Original Research for more information on what should and should not be included. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:43, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep (but without a lot of passion). Note that I've extensively rewritten this. This monument doesn't quite make it under the general notability guidelines, I think, but the artist is certainly notable and it seems to me that any monument unveiled and dedicated by a president ought to be notable in itself. I've rewritten quite a lot of it, incorporating some of the sources listed above that were connected to this sculpture and not others created for the occasion. (The one with all the rocks, for those who've followed those links). I've searched for any other source I can find and included every reliable source I could access. I've eliminated some of the unsourced claims I could not verify under "Display". These, of course, can be restored with reliable sourcing. I also removed the video, since there is nothing to indicate it is not hosted in violation of copyright and it is a promotional snippet that was not necessary to verify the information in the article. (If it is displayed at a primary source, I think it would be very appropriate to include as an external link.) I also have to admit that I found it kind of interesting. I didn't know that a "national monument" could be privately owned, much less used as collateral for a loan. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:43, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The rewrite was very well done; however the American Spirit Foundation was only involved with the monument from about 1989-1992 and never owned the monument. Global EventMakers, Inc. was awarded ownership in October of 2007 by a Federal Court in Nevada. I am merely interested in getting the facts about this monument out and have other links that I will post here later today.--Lawrence Creeger (talk) 14:00, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Question: The article did not say that the American Spirit Foundation owned the monument, but the American Spirit Corporation. (See [16]) The New York Times indicates quite clearly that it at least was owned by the American Spirit Corporation (not the Foundation, which is a separate entity), which used it as collateral for a loan. See [17]. I have no reason at all to doubt it has different ownership now, but do you have a source to verify this? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:04, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment:: Sorry, you are correct. For a short period of time the American Spirit Corporation owned the Constitutional monument; however when the corporation failed the ownership became private again and remained so until ultimately Global EventMakers acquired them in 2004. As far as verification on the internet, the Federal Court decision is public record and is accesable on the internet. I'll ask how to find it and let you know. The court order is of course available from the company as well as the validation from the Federal Appeals court in San Francisco. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lawrence Creeger (talk • contribs) 17:34, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Question: Should the article be renamed to "National Monument to the U.S. Constitution"? Or "National monument to the United States constitution"? I'm not sure what the policy is on including the word "the" in article titles. [mad pierrot][t c] 16:17, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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.