Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arnold Mikelson


 * 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. Tone 17:48, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Arnold Mikelson

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Biography of an artist, not properly sourced as having any strong notability claim under our inclusion criteria for artists. Two of the seven footnotes here are unnecessarily reduplicated twice each, instead of properly using the named-reference format, so there are really just five distinct sources -- but one of them is a user-generated directory to which anybody can add any artist regardless of their notability or lack thereof; one is the primary source website of an art gallery he was directly affiliated with; one just states the existence of a public library, instead of citing the specific publication details of any actual content held by the library; and one is a press release from a university. And the last is a real (albeit local) newspaper article, but it's about his widow, not him. All of which means that exactly zero of these sources add up to evidence of his notability at all. Bearcat (talk) 23:32, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Artists-related deletion discussions.   C Thomas3   (talk) 05:47, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Latvia-related deletion discussions.   C Thomas3   (talk) 05:47, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions.   C Thomas3   (talk) 05:47, 3 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep Delete and possibly recreate at a later date. I met the widow of the subject about a year ago, and contemplated rewriting the existing Wikipedia article. It is largely lifted from the website of the Mind and Matter Gallery, the Mikelson's art gallery, see here . There is a book/memoir written about life with Arnold Mikelson, and a fair amount of newspaper coverage, which probably just clears the notability bar. However, there's not much point in reworking the current state of the article, it's best to just start over. I may do it myself if I gather the necessary sources. Curiocurio (talk) 12:54, 3 December 2018 (UTC) I did some digging on newspapers.com, and found four newspaper features on Mikelson with excellent detail, a 1956 article in the Edmonton Journal, two 1972 and 1980 articles from the Vancouver Sun, and one from a local paper. Besides the memoir on him,  which would likely supply much biographical detail, the article itself mentions coverage in the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail, which could perhaps be found in the institutional files that ThatMontrealIP indicates below. Curiocurio (talk) 14:55, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep Weak Delete (Changing to keep per CurioCurio's excellent work above). I could not find good sources, but did see a search result for a paywalled 1956 newspaper article. If someone can search old newspapers and find sources, I will change to keep. He probably had good coverage but we would have to dig very deep to find it. I added his listing in the offical Artists in Canada directory (run by the Canadian Heritage department of the govt), which shows four libraries as holding files on him. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 02:38, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep now. Hyperbolick (talk) 00:33, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep. Improved references demonstrate sustained coverage. Ifnord (talk) 14:02, 9 December 2018 (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.