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 to delete W.marsh 18:14, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thomas Hellman[edit]

Thomas Hellman (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

disputed PROD for NN-artist delete Cornell Rockey 20:51, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached
 Please add new discussions below this notice. Thanks, Nishkid64 01:49, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There are plenty of references although few quality ones in English. I've added one from Radio-Canada. In any case, Thomas Hellman isn't a "borderline pass": he's gotten plenty of media coverage in Quebec in English and in French. Reliable third-party coverage is abundant and this debate should be closed. Pascal.Tesson 13:48, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Extra comment I'd also like to suggest that whoever put up the prod tag with the rational "NN-artist" should do his homework next time around. The external links that were there at the time all contained perfectly verifiable references to multiple shows in Quebec and in France, as well as perfectly reliable links showing that he had recorded two albums. Pascal.Tesson 14:04, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well I added one link in French which is from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation which is third-party and meets all our requirements for reliable sources. What else do we really need? Pascal.Tesson 01:02, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The link you added is a start, but are there any published articles or interviews with this guy (aside from blogs, etc)? Also, the link looks to be a short paragraph about the musician but (as my French is lacking) I can't tell if it's something written about him by an independent source or is a blurb submitted to the site by the singer's publicist. Normally you want to have multiple (ie more than one) independent published references talking about the person to verify the information is both notable and not autobiographically biased. Dugwiki 23:42, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Look, I really don't have any interest in developing the article. All I'm saying is that there is clearly more than enough third-party coverage to justify keeping the article. We can tag it with ((unref)) if need be. Pascal.Tesson 14:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, if you're not developing the article, then someone will have to. I'm personally getting out of the habit of using unref tags, though, since technically unreferenced articles are supposed to be deleted. Dugwiki 18:07, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, you might want to review the deletion policy. If the article is lacking in references, the article should be tagged as such and references added by whomever is bothered by that absence. If, however, it is established that sources on the subject are so scarce and unreliable that the content is unverifiable, then the article should be deleted. As people keep saying: if we start deleting unreferenced content on Wikipedia, you can say goodbye to 50% of the database. Pascal.Tesson 21:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And saying goodbye to the unreferenced and unverified portions of the database would be a problem because...? Dugwiki 22:04, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, one more thing. It's not the responsibility of the person tagging the article to add references. It's the responsibility of the author of the information that is unreferenced. "The burden of evidence lies primarily with the editor who adds or restores material" And unreferenced material can be, and often is, deleted. Dugwiki 22:07, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Again, all I'm saying is that the overwhelming consensus and practice is that unreferenced articles are routinely kept and tagged, whereas unreference-able articles are not. You may or may not agree with that practice but that's not what this debate is about. Pascal.Tesson 22:54, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the author has a responsibility to provide the references up front as much as possible. The original author does not, however, own the article, and therefore does not necessarily have any special responsibility to monitor the article on an ongoing basis to see if his or her work is being challenged by others. Especially when the original author was an anon IP — you can invent all the theoretical responsibilities you want, but do you really think an anon IP's going to honour them? If you find it insufficiently referenced, then nothing's stopping you from taking on the job — maybe it's not your responsibility to do so, but it sure as hell ain't mine or Pascal's, either. So if somebody has to do it, but nobody has any particular responsibility to take it on themselves, then where does that leave us? It leaves us at "if you see something that needs doing, you may as well go ahead and do it yourself since it's right in front of you", that's where. Bearcat 11:02, 6 February 2007 (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.