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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 keep. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 10:55, 2 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Brad Fraser

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Brad Fraser (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Subject does not meet general notability and article is not supported by reliable sources for a Biography of a Living Person Luke Kindred (talk) 04:38, 25 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The current source is Brad's own website, which is a violation of every basic source and notability policy we have on Wikipedia. I could not identify a single reliable source upon which to defend this BLP. The internet is filled with subjects that have 1,000's of search results on Google and very few of them have enough reliable sources to merit an article. The fact that you "told me" a multitude of sources exist doesn't alter the fact this this page will be deleted in seven days if it is not improved.--Luke Kindred (talk) 05:12, 25 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 05:23, 25 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 05:23, 25 September 2019 (UTC)Not a fictional element. ミラP 22:05, 26 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 05:23, 25 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 05:24, 25 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 05:24, 25 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Luke Kindred - The article does seem to be on the razor’s edge of notability so I can see both sides of the issue. It looks like someone has added a few additional, independent third party sources though which could tip the scales in favor of keep. In addition, I reviewed WP:Notability_(people) and there’s a guideline for creative professionals that mentions the person has created or played a major role in co-creating a significant or well-known work. I think Fraser meets this criteria as the creator of Love and Human Remains, Leaving Metropolis and a few others which are reasonably notable works within the field of theater and film. He has also won a Genie Award for his work which fits the additional criteria of the person has received a well known and significant award or honor The sourcing in the article is indeed very light but in my opinion with the new clarification it is just barely enough to establish notability per the aforementioned guidelines. Thoughts? Michepman (talk) 12:33, 25 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. AFD is NOT for problems with citing sources. Unless the things cited in the article are outright false, the claim that the subject doesn't meet GNG is outright ludicrous. Also I could not identify a single reliable source upon which to defend this BLP indicates that the nominator should leave the editing of Wikipedia articles to others. --Calton | Talk 14:52, 25 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Yes, the article needs some improvement — but we judge notability based on whether suitable reliable sources exist, not on whether they're all already in the article or not, so even an inadequately sourced article is still kept if better sources are available to improve it with. It's been a few years since Fraser debuted a new play, so he doesn't have as much current coverage at the moment as he had five and ten and fifteen and twenty years ago, but he's an established major playwright and screenwriter who's won major notability-making awards and has plenty more coverage than editors have actually added to the article so far — just in ProQuest's "Canadian Newsstand" database alone, he gets 2,071 hits dating all the way back to 1982, and that's just in one database that only covers major-market Canadian daily newspapers, and still misses all the stuff he received in mid-market papers, magazines, literary criticism journals, books, radio, television and American or British newspapers. Again, notability is based on the existence of suitable sources, not the current quality of the article, and Fraser absolutely has more than enough of the correct kind of coverage to fix the problems here. We also, for the record, do not have any rule that the sourcing has to Google, either: we are allowed to cite print-only sources, such as the newspaper coverage he was already getting in 1982, regardless of whether we find it on Google or in a newspaper archiving database — and that's precisely the reason that some articles about notable people aren't sourced as well as they could be, because a lot of Wikipedians are lazy and just source to Google stuff instead of actually looking for the older coverage.
    This is also exactly why we have a WP:BEFORE rule: before you nominate an inadequate article for deletion, the onus is on you to check whether better sources exist to repair the article with before you nominate it for deletion, and you obviously did no such thing if you didn't find 2,071 hits of coverage extending back over nearly 40 years. For current topics, like a writer who just published their debut book this year or a band who just put out their first album in 2018, Google indeed tells the story in and of itself — but for a person who's been around for 40 years and got over our notability bar on things he accomplished in the 1990s, you need to dig into archiving databases to determine whether they have the coverage or not rather than resting solely on Google. Bearcat (talk) 17:16, 25 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Bearcat - This is a common mistake in my experience. I made it too when I first joined Wikipedia. Luke Kindred I encourage you to look into obtaining an account on some of these archival search sites from Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library if you are interested. It is a great tool that goes more in depth than what is readily available on Google. When I first joined Wikipedia I was heavily reliant on Google and as a result I made a lot of mistakes like this; I'm still eternally grateful to Krelnik and other users who took the time to set me straight (after I erroneously nominated Bennye Gatteys for deletion because of my own bad research) and show me how to do a proper WP:BEFORE search before making an AFD Nom. Michepman (talk) 01:48, 26 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Bearcat. I have recognized this as well and have been greatly looking forward to arriving at 500 edits so that I can begin accessing these other resources. I'm SO close - like just a day or two away.--Luke Kindred (talk) 02:22, 26 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Same haha I think have a week or so left. I’m not a bear cat though. Michepman (talk) 12:48, 26 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Bearcat, What matters for GNG is if the subject has received in-depth coverage from multiple reliable sources and that it does not violate WP:ISNOT (which it does not). Not having the needed references yet in the article is not a valid reason for deletion (unless is a BLP with no references at all). Deletion is not cleanup. In any case, Bearcat has done extensive edits and added additional sources. GNG is clearly met. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 07:52, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It only takes a moment to add citations for sources once they are identified and vetted. Why is it such a big ask that instead of saying "trust me, i found something, i swear", which is meaningless and unverifiable, that editors improve article such as this, which some judge as, "on the razor’s edge of notability"? Other than Bearcat most of you have chosen to use this Afd as a smoke break. Luke Kindred (talk) 16:27, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

As nice as it would be if everybody always pitched in to repair a "badly-sourced but notable" article right away, that's not actually one of our rules. Our only rule is that the better sources have to be demonstrated to exist — adding them to the article is certainly ideal, but the only requirement is that the correct sources to tip the scales are shown to exist, and beyond that there's no further deadline for when they do or don't actually get added to the article. There are definitely flaws in our quality control processes, you'll get no disagreement from me on that — but our only definitive rule is that sources exist to repair the article with, not that the article has to already surpass any specific quality standard as written. Bearcat (talk) 16:04, 2 October 2019 (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.
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