Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/12 Peers Theater (2nd nomination)


 * 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   redirect to Theatre in Pittsburgh. Mark Arsten (talk) 18:49, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

12 Peers Theater
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Userfied after the previous AfD Articles for deletion/12 Peers Theater. Many sources, but closer inspection shows that they are either passing mentions, primary sources (the theater and organisers of events), unreliable sources (blogs and the like), or sources that don't even mention the Theater. Not a notable company. The sources that are supposed to give recognition are, a blog; which has a short mention of a top ten of local things to see and do, and  which is another blog. One paragraph in the Pittsburgh Magazine isn't sufficient to establish notability. Fram (talk) 09:13, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Theatre in Pittsburgh. I removed a lot of unusable sources from the entry. The ones I removed were non-notable blogs that cannot show notability, a Salon article by someone involved with the theater, and a score of brief trivial mentions and notifications of upcoming events. There was also one article that did not specifically mention the theater at all. The only ones I left were the various Pittsburgh Magazine articles and the link to the Pittsburgh New Works festival site. I do know that PM is considered a RS, but here is the issue: the articles aren't actually about the theater but about some of the people associated with it or performances held in it. Even if we ignore that, the theater has only been covered by one magazine. That's not showing a depth of coverage. What I suggest is that this article be redirected to Theatre in Pittsburgh. While the PM articles don't show that the theater is notable enough to warrant an entry, it does show that the theater has enough of a presence to merit a mention in the TiP article. Nothing has to be merged, as the theater is already listed in the article. The only thing that would be necessary is that the brackets be removed from the name within the article. Other than that? It's doubtful that this theater will gain enough notability to merit an entry. It doesn't inherit notability from the performances held within it or from people that happen to work with the theater, although I could argue that the brief mentions in the articles about the performances could merit that mention in the TiP article.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 10:33, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

An article about people associated with a theatre or performances held in a theatre is about the theatre. Those are really the only two things one can write about when one writes an article about a theatre company. Therefore the PM articles cited are ostensibly about 12 Peers Theater, making it notable enough to receive significant attention from a secondary source. The PM articles include a review of a production and two preview articles about upcoming productions. These articles talk about the theatre for considerably longer than a paragraph. No, there is not a huge wealth of secondary citations, but if you look at articles about similar theatre companies, such as Organic Theater Pittsburgh, Throughline Theatre Company, Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company, and Barebones productions, you'll see that they have been considered notable on the strength of citations from one or two secondary sources. Is it a major regional theater? No, but it meets the minimum requirements for notability on Wikipedia.Frankgorshin (talk) 15:51, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Arts-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:01, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:01, 20 November 2012 (UTC)


 * WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS isn't really an argument for inclusion and besides, even if we count the PM source we still have the issue of that being the only magazine that has covered the theater at all. While there have been articles kept with one source, that source is usually something along the lines of a notable and authoritative book written specifically about the subject by a known authority. If the only sources we have come from one magazine or paper, that in itself is almost never enough to pass even the most basic notability guidelines. It doesn't help that even with the sources on the page, there are issues with them:
 * 1) This is more a notification of an upcoming event than an actual article. It doesn't really go into depth at all and it really isn't even a review. It just says "hey, this will happen and it will probably be fun, so let me list everyone that's performing and when it'll happen". It's not in-depth and is more of a trivial source than anything else.
 * 2) This one is actually a review, so it's good if we're going to say that the theater inherits notability from performances held in it. However, was this really that notable of a performance that we can say that the theater is landmark for presenting it? If my local comedy club hosts Bobcat Goldthwait's latest standup and it gets a brief review in the local paper but nowhere else, would that really give the comedy club notability enough for an article? I'm not entirely sure about that, especially if the theater itself is only mentioned as the place the performance is located and isn't actually discussed in depth.
 * 3) This just says that the group took part in a festival. Other than very insanely brief mentions elsewhere, the theater received no coverage for this. The most they got were a few mentions in relation to other things or a mention in a schedule roster.
 * 4) This has the same issue as the second link. It's a review, but the theater is only mentioned briefly in passing as the place it's held.
 * I honestly don't think that reviews about local performances are enough in this instance. They might help back up claims of people performing, but none of these performances were really covered in-depth elsewhere or if they were, they didn't mention the location. Even then, nothing I've found shows that these shows were so notable that everything associated with them inherits notability. I'd be hard pressed to even say that the plays/monologues/etc would merit their own entries. If the theater had ever received indepth coverage from an independent and reliable source then we could debate whether the sources would help push it beyond being your typical non-notable theater, but it hasn't received anything of that sort. Other than brief mentions in relation to other things, this theater is pretty much a non-entity to the media world in general. I know that not every theater has to have the notoriety of say, Ford's Theatre, but they do have to have received coverage in reliable sources and to gain notability from their performances, the performances would have to be more notable than one or two offhand mentions in the local press.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 06:01, 20 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Once again, I'm not sure what more you want from an article about a theatre company. Reviews and previews of performances are pretty much the only kind of coverage you can find for any kind of theatre organization.  A theatre company is composed of the performances it's held and nothing else, really.  Ford's Theatre is not an example of a theatre company, it's a building that has hosted performances.  A theatre company is an arts organization that actually produces the performances; that is, 12 Peers Theater as an organization was directly involved in creating the performances referred to in the articles.  It's different from Bobcat Goldthwait performing in a comedy club.  12 Peers Theater is not a building, it's an organization that has put on performances in multiple buildings.  Bobcat Goldthwait is notable because he has received coverage for his performances, just as 12 Peers is notable (to a much, much lesser degree, obviously) because of the coverage it has received for the performances it has developed.  I realize that the "other stuff exists" argument is not reason alone to keep it; however, Wikipedia does say, "In consideration of precedent and consistency, though, identifying articles of the same nature that have been established and continue to exist on Wikipedia may provide extremely important insight into general notability of concepts, levels of notability (what's notable: international, national, regional, state, provincial?), and whether or not a level and type of article should be on Wikipedia."  The articles I pointed to do establish a precedent that small arts organizations which may not be notable on a national level but have still received coverage from the local press are notable enough for Wikipedia.  Pittsburgh Magazine has devoted three separate articles to performances that 12 Peers Theater has created as an organization; similarly Organic Theater Pittsburgh was considered for deletion and kept due to three or four articles from secondary sources, including Pittsburgh Magazine.  I think the key here is to understand the difference between a theatre building that merely hosts performances and a theatre company that is directly responsible for the performances itself.Frankgorshin (talk) 15:26, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
 * But there's no depth of coverage to these sources. Only one place has covered the theater at all and the big difference between the sources for Organic Theater Pittsburgh and 12 Peers is that more than one paper actually covered OTP. Not including the primary sources, I see at least 5-6 different sources covering OTP. Only one source seems to have given any notice to 12PT and given that the sources aren't really deeply in-depth reviews, I have to say that this isn't enough to show notability for the theater even if I were to agree that every performance review necessarily gives notability to a theater. I'm just not convinced that reviews for a production held at a theater give it notability, especially when you consider that not every production held at a theater is actually produced by the crew there. Some just come through on a tour. I'm not saying that the particular reviews for this article are tour productions, just that not every production is actually put together by the theater hosting it. Even ignoring the debate over reviews, only one magazine/paper has actually reviewed the theater or mentioned it in anything other than passing, and that's not enough to show me that this place has notability. The only times one source is enough is when the source is such an authority and is so in-depth that notability isn't questionable in the slightest. Magazines and newspapers are almost never the types of sources that would fall under these guidelines to where only being reviewed/covered by them would show notability. Will the theater eventually get this notability? Maybe. Maybe not. They just opened last year and so far it's too early to tell, but we don't keep articles based on the "maybe". You have to prove notability in the here and now and I'm not convinced that 1-2 reviews by one magazine is enough. The other two sources in the article are really just mentions of performances and are trivial at best. So far this theater isn't notable enough for its own article based on what I could find and the sources already in the article.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 08:31, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

This isn't the type of theatre that hosts tour productions. It is an example of a resident theatre; if you read that article it explains the nature of this kind of organization and how they are actually responsible for the artistic content--once again, it's very different from a theatre building booking a pre-existing performance. Anyway, the OTP article only had about 3 sources that were considered legitimate when it was considered for deletion and kept. That's the precedent that I'm basing this on. Over time, more sources were added, but at the time it was considered notable based on 2-3 reviews of one performance and nothing else. If OTP met the minimum notability requirement, this article, which has exactly the same level of credentials, does as well. There is precedent for a small resident theatre which has had its performances covered either as a review or a preview by a magazine or newspaper to be notable enough for Wikipedia. Again, these articles are not passing mentions of a theater that happens to have booked a pre-existing show; they are articles which critique and/or otherwise describe artistic content that this organization is responsible for creating. Are they tremendously in-depth? Are you going to find long editorial essays about 12 Peers Theater in the New York Times? No, but you're not going to find that depth of coverage in the types of sources cited in articles about organizations similar to this. Precedent is important here. If you look objectively at the precedent established by small resident theatre Wikipedia articles, it is notable. Frankgorshin (talk) 15:08, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
 * But the fact still remains that it was coverage in more than one magazine. As of this edit of OTP, I count five different sources: Pittsburgh Magazine, Pittsburgh City Paper, Pittsburgh Out Theater Reviews, and Pittsburgh Broadway World. The last two are dubious, in my opinion, but it's still far more sources than this article currently has. You can't compare an article that has received coverage in multiple sources to a theater that has only received coverage in one and that's ignoring my skepticism over sources that only report on things held in the theater. My point is that there is no depth of coverage for 12PT and there has only been one source that's reported on them and even then that one source is rather light in their coverage. I think it was very premature for you to transfer this back to the mainspace. I have no issue with you userfying it, but I would recommend that you get more sources and maybe getting an experienced WP:THEATER editor to help you out before deciding to move it to the mainspace. Even a non-theater WP user would be good and I recommend Schmidt for anything art world related in general because he's savvy when it comes to recognizing RS and when something isn't yet ready for the mainspace. This is just a case of WP:TOOSOON when it comes to this theater because it hasn't received anything than a few offhand production reviews from Pittsburgh Magazine. I know you want to help promote the theater in your area (NOT insinuating COI here, just that you take pride in your local scene) but I really think that you're seeing more notability here than there really is.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 16:55, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, 12P has a Broadway World article as well that I can add, but as you say, that is considered kind of dubious as a source; I don't really see what the huge difference is between having one article from City Paper and another one from Pittsburgh Magazine and having two articles from Pittsburgh Magazine if all of the articles are of comparable length and depth of coverage. In my opinion, that's really splitting hairs in terms of notability. I just don't see how you can argue that OTP has more depth of coverage than 12P, especially considering the fact that OTP has received coverage for one production and 12P has received coverage for multiple productions. I think you're drawing distinctions that aren't particularly important. Frankgorshin (talk) 17:43, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The difference is that there isn't a depth of coverage. You can't show that something has received a depth of coverage if ultimately and quite frankly, nobody thinks that the theater is worth covering in anything other than 1-2 sources. That's ultimately what it means when an article has only received coverage from one or two sources. That there is another article out there by someone other than Pittsburgh Magazine is good, but I really ultimately think that this is just too premature for the mainspace. I think that you're overestimating the strength of Pittsburgh Magazine. I'm not entirely certain about the PBW source, as someone in the previous AfD questioned the neutrality of the site as it sells tickets. What it ultimately comes down to is that even if PW has covered multiple productions, it's still just one source covering the theater whereas multiple sources covering one production means that more than one place thought that OTP was notable enough to take mention of. It's ultimately very important as far as establishing notability goes. It's very, very rare that one source shows overwhelming notability and this is not one of those exceptions.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 17:50, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

I just don't think the difference between 1 source and 2 sources makes something worthy of deletion. That's ultimately what it comes down to. OTP had two sources, 12P has one. There is coverage of 12P from other sources that are considered less legitimate. If coverage from 1-2 sources considered legitimate by Wikipedia is not enough to merit notability, then OTP should have been deleted, but the fact is, it was not. I think that precedent should be respected. Other sources may come along for 12P, but as of right now, it has the bare minimum. Not enough for a large Wikipedia article, but not enough for deletion either. Frankgorshin (talk) 17:59, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Also, you can say that only one publication thought 12P was worth covering, but you can also say that 2 publications only thought OTP was worth covering once. You can also say that one publication thought 12P was worth covering multiple times. What's more notable? A theatre company that receives two reviews from two different publications for one production, or a theatre company that receives two reviews from the same publication about two different productions? You see how that's splitting hairs? Either way, you can find the theatre mentioned in two different places, whether it's in one issue of a newspaper and one issue of a magazine or in two different issues of the same magazine. I don't see how you can say that's not comparable depth of coverage.Frankgorshin (talk) 18:30, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The difference is that you need articles from multiple sources that cover the subject in-depth. That's pretty much the most basic, most simplistic definition of WP:RS in a nutshell. While one source can sometimes, very rarely show enough notability to warrant a mention, these sort of things are usually very very rare. In these cases the source is almost always a book or journal written by a trusted authority on the subject that has been reviewed by peers that are also considered authorities in the subject. I'm talking journals along the lines of The Lancet or similar. Even then, the source must be saying something about the subject that is so overwhelmingly notable (winning an amazing prize, doing an accomplishment so notable that it gives automatic and permanent notability) that all we need is one reliable source to back it up. The reviews by PM do not do this. They are run of the mill short reviews for a production held in the theater. I'm going to try walk away now because I'm just re-stating my point over and over again, but you really do not seem to understand how reliable sources are supposed to work when it comes to sourcing articles. Theaters are not special exceptions to the notability rules. If anything, theaters would probably fall under WP:GROUP, which is one of the more difficult notability guidelines to fill because of all of the stipulations in WP:ORGDEPTH, but I've been going by the more basic rules of WP:GNG. You can't re-write the rules to make an exception for something you feel passionate about. Trust me, I know it stinks to put something out and then for someone to say it's not enough, but this is just far too soon for an article about this theater. It just isn't notable enough yet.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 05:19, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Again, you seem to not understand my point that I am not "re-writing the rules" but merely pointing out the precedent established by an article that was in a very similar situation where the consensus was that it should be kept. You seem to be defining the phrase "multiple sources" as multiple publications, whereas I define it as multiple articles, be they from the same publication or from different publications. You seem to be drawing the distinction that OTP is notable because it has citations from two publications and 12P is not because it has citations from one; I think this is an arbitrary distinction, and furthermore, I can't find anything in the pages of notability guidelines you've cited that back up this reasoning. At the end of the day, Wikipedia operates by consensus; similar articles to 12P have been kept by consensus, and the 12P article as it exists now has been kept for months without any controversy. So, in the end, given the consensus about these kinds of articles and the kinds of sources they need to be considered notable, I don't believe there is a very strong case for deleting this article.Frankgorshin (talk) 15:51, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Per WP:RS: Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. And per WP:GNG: Sources",[2] for notability purposes, should be secondary sources, as those provide the most objective evidence of notability. The number and nature of reliable sources needed varies depending on the depth of coverage and quality of the sources. Multiple sources are generally expected. Sources, plural. In 99.9999999% of the people on Wikipedia, this is considered to be different papers. I've had AfDs I've participated in where the subject received coverage, but only from one source (a local paper/magazine, usually) and the AfD consensus was that one news source is not enough, no matter how many times that one source has reported on the subject.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 01:16, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

That's just my point. Your estimation that "99.9999999999% of the people on Wikipedia" interpret "sources" as coming from different publications is, I'm guessing, not a precise statistic but your own assumptions based on your experience of Wikipedia, which is not all-inclusive. What you're citing are guidelines, not black-and-white rules, that ultimately have to have some kind of subjective interpretation by the people who edit Wikipedia. I interpret "multiple sources" to mean multiple articles, and you interpret it to mean multiple publications. It seems that we won't be able to come to a consensus on how we interpret this guideline, but as I said before, I think it's important that we defer to the consensus of the Wikipedia users who have not found several Wikipedia articles of an extremely similar nature appropriate for deletion, especially OTP, which had pretty much exactly the same amount of coverage in secondary sources when it was debated for deletion and kept. The only difference is that it was covered in two different publications instead of one, a difference that I don't think you can rationally say is huge by any means. I think the only reasonable way to decide this is not based on how one person interprets the guidelines of Wikipedia or the myriad ways the vast amount of Wikipedia articles about organizations are set up but through looking at it in the very specific context of how similar Wikipedia articles about small theatre companies establish notability. Pittsburgh is a small city that has only a few publications that would count as secondary sources; therefore, you are going to find a limited number of sources that establish notability for a Pittsburgh theatre company. Multiple articles of any kind from a secondary source establish that a theatre company has a presence in that city, and the fact that the 12P article has existed for a while implies that other Wikipedia users have seen this article and not been troubled by the fact that the sources come from only Pittsburgh Magazine, and not one from PM and one from Pittsburgh City Paper. I vote let's respect that consensus and not draw distinctions that are ultimately pretty insignificant and arbitrary in the context of similar articles about theatre companies from this region.Frankgorshin (talk) 03:53, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I've asked for clarification on this from other users, so we'll see. I'm going to stand by my affirmation that it has to be coverage from multiple separate sources and not multiple articles from one source.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 05:48, 24 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Redirect title to Theatre in Pittsburgh where it can be listed as its existance is sourcable AND, if he wants it, Userfy current content back to User:Frankgorshin for continued work just as one done at conclusion of first AFD in July 2011. I was asked to look in on this topic, and researched before coming here to comment. Please review the essays WP:LOCAL and WP:MILL.  My conclusion, just as was decided in July 2011 (arguments about other topics not withstanding), is that THIS topic still lacks an acceptable level of notability.   Yes, it has been written of quite briefly, and is mentioned in a few Pittsburgh sources about theater related events, but it remains a local institution. If or when this changes, I would urge Frankgorshin to seek input from those editors who opined last year and those opining here, before another return to mainspace and a risk of an AFD #3.   Schmidt,  MICHAEL Q. 22:11, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Again, I realize that comparisons to other articles and AfD debates are not reason alone to keep something, but I still stand by the concept of precedent exemplified by the statement in WP:WAX: "...It would be ridiculous to consider deleting an article on Yoda or Mace Windu, for instance. If someone were, as part of their reasoning for keep, to say that every other main character in Star Wars has an article, this may well be a valid point." Similarly, my point is that practically every other theatre company in Pittsburgh that has had the same level of coverage is undisputed and/or decided to be kept. Regardless, this essay goes on to say that it's better to look at the policies that were cited in a similar debate rather than compare the articles themselves. The OTP AfD debate was concluded citing this policy: "When some topic has been found notable due to sources and other information, the burden of proof falls on those wishing to delete, by a preponderance of the evidence, which has not been met here." I do not think there is a preponderance of evidence here. The article, having multiple secondary sources, meets the bare minimum of notability. WP:LOCAL states that "Evidence of attention by international or national, or at least regional, media is a strong indication of notability." It then goes on to make the distinction that "local" coverage is not enough. I think you can make a solid argument that Pittsburgh Magazine is an example of a regional, not local, publication. Its audience is the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, which covers numerous communities, boroughs, and townships. Many of these townships and boroughs have their own newspapers; these I would consider "local." But any publication covering the whole of the Pittsburgh area covers a broad range of southwestern Pennsylvania, making this theatre company a step up from the run-of-the-mill type of restaurant that has only gotten reviews in the local papers. If this theatre had only been covered in the Norwin Star or the McKeesport Daily News I don't think you could consider it notable. PM reaches a wider audience and a broader culture.Frankgorshin (talk) 00:51, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I still think it better to return the topic to you for more work... and when comparing it to other Pittsburgh theaters which have articles herein, it is worth noting that those other theater/groups have longer documentable histories. Toward the newer 12 Peers Theater, we have numerous writeups of performances at that venue, and information ABOUT the venue to be found in articles at Broadway World,  and enough information in the "mentions" of it in other sources to verify information that could be added to the article. Yes, it has caught the attention of Pittsburgh Magazine   but to be honest, local theaters almost always have a difficult time establishing notability, and this discussion has become one of subjective interpretations of what constitutes local. I am not at all suggesting it be deleted when it could benefit from additional work.  Schmidt,  MICHAEL Q. 07:24, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the new sources! I just added them to the article. So are you saying the article should be kept? I can continue to work on it whether in the userspace or in the mainspace, but my point is, why move it to the userspace when it already meets the minimum notability requirements and continues to grow in coverage and have sources added to it?Frankgorshin (talk) 15:11, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete There is nothing that establishes the notablity of this theater and very little information that can be found about it. Until reliable sources begin to write about it, there is no basis for an article.  TFD (talk) 19:31, 26 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Again, I dispute the notion that "nothing" establishes notability since it features multiple secondary sources coming from a regional publication, and the same amount of coverage can be found for very similar articles about theatre companies from the Pittsburgh region, establishing a precedent that's extremely pertinent to this debate. Frankgorshin (talk) 22:44, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * You need to provide sources that establish the notability and provide information on the theater. You need to find a source that provides basic information such as whether the company has a permanent location or goes on tour, what types of plays they put on, do they present original work, have they won any awards, are they amateur or professional, which major American schools of drama have provided their greatest influence, what size of audiences they normally have, whether they are for profit or not for profit, do they have a political agenda, what did the founders do before they set up the company.  All you have are a group of mentions of upcoming plays presumably based on press releases.  TFD (talk) 23:12, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  MBisanz  talk 00:22, 27 November 2012 (UTC)




 * The sources do provide information on the locations 12 Peers has held performances, what types of plays they put on, who wrote them...the other litany of information you list is not required to demonstrate notability. What is required are multiple secondary sources, whatever information they contain.  They are not press releases; they are articles that are independent from 12 Peers Theater that review or otherwise describe performances that were held in the past.  Wikipedia articles about theatre companies do not need to contain all the information you describe; some of those bits of information are relevant to some theatre companies and not others.  The only thing all theatre companies do have in common is the fact that they have put on theatrical presentations of some kind.  Therefore, that's the only kind of information you can say is absolutely necessary for a Wikipedia article about a theatre company.  Look at the basic requirements for notability.  Multiple sources on a regional level indicate notability. Frankgorshin (talk) 01:10, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
 * IOW they have mentioned individual performances but almost nothing about the company itself. You could of course put together all the mentions of performances and form your own conclusions, but that would be original research.  That is what newspapers and books are for.  They do the research then we summarize what they have found.  Why do you not contact your local paper and ask them to write about the company then we might have the basis of an article.  TFD (talk) 01:20, 27 November 2012 (UTC)


 * The Wikipedia article lists the specific plays the theatre company has put on, which is backed up by the sources that are cited. This is not original research. Frankgorshin (talk) 01:26, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Redirect: per tokygirl above. Appears to fail WP:GNG --Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 00:29, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * And also, this idea that you can separate coverage of the performances of a theatre company from the theatre company itself doesn't make sense to me. The theatre company is the performances, the performances are the theatre company.  An article about a performance from a theatre company is ostensibly about the theatre company.  Please see the discussion above for an elaboration on this point.  The article summarizes what has been found about the theatre company at this point without doing any original research. Frankgorshin (talk) 01:43, 27 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Again, I don't see how it can be argued that the article fails WP:GNG when there are multiple secondary reliable sources that are more than just trivial mentions of the theatre company. Frankgorshin (talk) 01:33, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

I just added a mention of 12 Peers Theater's production of tick, tick...BOOM! in Pittsburgh City Paper. The show opens this weekend, and a full-fledged review of the show from City Paper is anticipated to go up by Wednesday, right around when this discussion should be drawing to a close. This should take care of tokyogirl and presumably Sue_Rangell's concerns that the theatre has not received coverage in multiple secondary sources in different publications. Frankgorshin (talk) 18:27, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I've been staying away because we were just endlessly bickering over the same things, but in this case the PCP article doesn't count towards notability because it's pretty much just a routine notification of a performance. What little there is to the brief paragraph would make it a trivial source at best and wouldn't show notability for the theater or the performance. It's not in-depth.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 13:14, 1 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Tokyogirl79, I realize that the City Paper source cited now is just a brief mention; I'm saying there will be a more substantial article about this production coming out on Wednesday that should take care of your concerns about it being reviewed in more than one publication. Once this source comes out, it will have the same amount of coverage in the same number of publications that Organic Theater Pittsburgh did when it was considered for deletion and kept. Frankgorshin (talk) 15:27, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete and redirect to Theatre in Pittsburgh : Per WP:Run of the mill. Fails all notability guidelines as far as substantial coverage in multiple reliable sources is concerned. Coverage is limited to local publications, and consists mostly of routine matters like announcements and reviews. Nothing out of the ordinary for just about any theater group, and nothing that indicates the topic is notable. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 09:07, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Please note the argument above concerning the concept of "regional" versus "local." Reviews and articles devoted to previewing upcoming performances are not "routine."  The publication covering the theatre has to decide the theatre is worth assigning a specific writer to cover it; the theatre doesn't just issue an announcement that the publication then reprints.  Please also consider the precedent established by many other articles of this kind, many of which are linked to in Theatre in Pittsburgh.  Especially Organic Theater Pittsburgh. Frankgorshin (talk) 15:27, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

What’s bothering me about this thread is that many of the commenters don’t seem to be taking into account the precedent of numerous other articles like this as well as the previous arguments that have been made. Yes, WP:Otherstuffexists is not a good argument alone, but as I quoted above and will quote again so that it is more visible to people jumping to the bottom of the thread, "In consideration of precedent and consistency…identifying articles of the same nature that have been established and continue to exist on Wikipedia may provide extremely important insight into general notability of concepts, levels of notability (what's notable: international, national, regional, state, provincial?), and whether or not a level and type of article should be on Wikipedia." There is a lot of talk about reviews and previews of productions from Pittsburgh publications not being enough to establish notability, that they are just “passing mentions” in “local” publications, but this is pretty much the only kind of source a Pittsburgh theatre company depends on to establish notability. Publications covering the Pittsburgh metropolitan area are regional, not local. And reviews and previews (different from press releases) feature writers independent from the topic describing or critiquing performances that a theatre company is responsible for in more than one paragraph. There are many theatre companies out there that do not have their performances reviewed or previewed at all, or if they do, they are only covered in publications covering the immediate area; these are not notable. Yes, this theatre is newer, yes, there are fewer sources for this than, say, Bricolage Production Company, but please look at Hiawatha Project, Phase 3 Productions,  and Theatre Sans Serif. I hesitate to bring this up again since I have many times before, but Organic Theater Pittsburgh had exactly the same amount of coverage when it was considered for deletion and kept. Even if you make the argument that OTP was reviewed in both Pittsburgh Magazine and Pittsburgh City Paper while 12 Peers was reviewed in only Pittsburgh Magazine, as Tokyogirl79 did, this will be remedied when a review of the theatre's current production of the same length and substance as the ones cited in the OTP article appears in Pittsburgh City Paper this Wednesday. This theatre is covered in multiple secondary sources that were considered good enough for other Wikipedia articles about theatre companies of a very similar nature, and it’s going to receive at least one more review from Pittsburgh City Paper for its current production in the upcoming week. I genuinely don’t understand why this article has caused so much controversy when other very similar articles have not. Frankgorshin (talk) 16:41, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Redirect as above and per WP:OTHERSTUFF. If anyone nominates any of the other pages raised here, feel free to ping my talk page. Stuartyeates (talk) 07:22, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I will reiterate that the burden of proof is on those wishing to delete; most of the commenters have briefly cited guidelines without explaining in-depth what their reasoning is or responding to previous arguments. Most of the conflicts here are arguments over subjective interpretations; what should be considered regional vs. local, what types of articles are considered "significant" coverage for a theatre company vs. what are "routine". tokyogirl79, Schmidt, and I have hashed out a lot of this, and I think we have basically come to a consensus that some Pittsburgh regional theatres are notable while others are not. This particular one is on the cusp due to the limited coverage, which may be considered enough for some and not enough for others, depending on how you subjectively interpret the guidelines. The coverage of it continues to evolve (i.e. reviews of the theatre's current production which will come out over the next few days). Again, the kind of coverage this theatre has received is the kind of coverage any theatre company receives; it just hasn't received a lot of it. However, the coverage continues to grow. Frankgorshin (talk) 18:08, 4 December 2012 (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.