Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Walters

:{{la|The Walters}} – (View AfDView log{{int:dot-separator}} [https://tools.wmflabs.org/jackbot/snottywong/cgi-bin/votecounter.cgi?page=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/The_Walters Stats])

:({{Find sources AFD|The Walters}})

Three-year-old unsigned rock band from Chicago. All the puffery on Earth doesn't make this group notable. Calton | Talk 06:16, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

::With the upmost respect, I disagree most emphatically. While they may be an unsigned band, my understanding of the guidelines for music notability suggest that the fact the Walters have "received non-trivial coverage in independent reliable sources of an international concert tour, or a national concert tour in at least one sovereign country" makes them notable. I posit that we should move away from some of the conventional methods of determining an artist's notability, such as putting so much weight on being signed to a recording label. In the modern musical climate, it is quite possible to achieve notability without one. Perhaps more consideration should be put into the fact that the band has charted on Spotify's "United States Viral Top 50", a list that regularly features artist who are unquestionably deserved of Wikipedia entries. As music is often consumed through streaming services such as Spotify [http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/6835216/us-recording-industry-2015-streams-double-adele-dominates-nielsen-music (statistics compiled by Nielsen suggest 317 billion songs were streamed in 2015)], the significance of this feat should not be overlooked. I would also like to strongly reject the assertion that the article is filled with "puffery", and while I revere your dedication to Wikipedia and I appreciate your criticism, I intend to remove the deletion tag. As I have taken steps to meet the guidelines for notability, I feel a consensus should be reached if this article is to be deleted. Thanks --Zachrom (talk) 15:47, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

:::What "non-trivial coverage" would you be referring to? From "Medium"? It's a blogging platform. From the Columbia Chronicle? It's a local college's student newspaper. The Vice posting? It's a music-video release announcement. And your attempts to rewrite notability standards notwithstanding, nobody outside of Chicago -- and apparently not much within Chicago, either -- has said much at all about this band. --Calton | Talk 18:54, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

:Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bands and musicians-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (✉) 06:24, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

:Note: This debate has been included in the list of Illinois-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (✉) 06:24, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

:Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (✉) 06:24, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

• Comment: I've cleaned up the article some for flow and tone, so that angle has been covered. I do share concerns for the sourcing, though. They have received a review from Consequence of Sound for their single and I'd consider the Noisey post a review as well, since they do comment on the music itself. The question, however, is whether or not Noisey/Vice would be considered a reliable source or not. I know that Vice itself is typically not considered a reliable source because they engage in guerrilla journalism, however I do see Noisey used as a RS fairly frequently so I don't know if they would be included on that. Several of the sources are local. They appear to be fairly in-depth, but local sources are almost always depreciated on Wikipedia because local sources are more likely to cover local people/groups/events.

:I'm uncertain about the source by Ben Niespodziany (These Days). The name seems incredibly familiar for some reason and I can't put my finger on why. I'd like to say that I've seen him writing for RS in the past, which may give These Days some credibility, but without pinpointing that I can't rely on that to help the sourcing out. The site does have a staff and doesn't seem to solicit user submitted content, which is good, but they also don't have anything about their editorial process and from what I can find, the site was launched in 2015. There's not a lot out there, so I'd lean towards this being a self-published source and not really a notability giving WP:RS right now. Medium.com would also be considered a non-RS SPS in this situation. They do have a staff that writes content, but they also accept user submitted content - and this looks to be a user submitted article from what I can see. Staff content might be usable, though. As far as the college newspapers go, a select few can be considered usable. Those are usually the ones who have won very major, notable journalism awards, however these are relatively few and far between. I'm not as familiar with journalism awards to tell whether or not the ones that this paper has received would count. Other than that, the sources are all primary.

:Offhand this looks like it's a band that has gotten some decent press and are inching closer to passing NBAND, but haven't quite passed it yet. NBAND can be fairly hard to meet for indie and local bands as far as notability guidelines go, partially because so much of the coverage can be local and based on press releases. My recommendation would be for you (or any other interested editor) to incubate the article and see if they gain more coverage after appearing in Lollapalooza, as that's a fairly major festival. {{u|Zachrom}}, don't let this discourage you - right now the best thing to do would be to continue looking for sourcing and if necessary, incubate the article until more coverage becomes available. I can help you with this even after classes end, if you like. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 08:08, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

• Weak Keep - They are on a legitimate national tour (often as an opening act) at the present time [http://www.songkick.com/artists/5878244-walters/calendar] . If they do perform at Lollapalooza in August, they may get reliable coverage. That said, I'm not convinced they meet NBAND today. Power~enwiki (talk) 17:40, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
• Week Keep - Because of what they are doing now and what is expected in the near future I was thinking it was WP:TOSOON but I then fell on the side of waiting. - Pmedema (talk) 01:54, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
• Delete. Based on what can be said about them right at the moment, they don't meet notability. It's entirely possible that they might do so at some point sooner or later, and there'd be no obstacle to re-creating the article when and if that occurs. Saying that they may achieve notability and should therefore have an article sounds to me like putting the cart before the horse. I'm also going to go on record to the first commenter that the word is "utmost", rather than "upmost". BigHaz - Schreit mich an 02:45, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

• Week Keep borderline, but just enough references to justify a weak keep... Deathlibrarian (talk) 05:30, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

:Draftify. Both Pmemeda and Power~enwiki highlight concerns about WP:TOOSOON, and point out that more coverage may emerge after Lollapalooza. Why not draftify until then? If more coverage emerges, great, we add it in and move it back to mainspace. If not, then the article can exist as a draft for at least 6 months, which is a reasonable amount of time to see if any other coverage emerges. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 00:10, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

{{clear}}

: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.