Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/B'Ginnings (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 delete. Spartaz Humbug! 18:08, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

B'Ginnings
AfDs for this article: 
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Article deleted in previous AfD with only one !vote for Keep by. That user then created this article three months later stating they had "removed fluff" so it at least makes a claim to not be CSD:G4. The only source added in this version that is significanlty about the nightclub is a Wordpress blog entry from the local library. All other sources are at best passing mentions. WP:BEFORE discloses no significant coverage. No evidence this qualifies under the general notability guideline or under any applicable subject-specific notability guideline. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 23:59, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Music-related deletion discussions. MarginalCost (talk) 00:05, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. MarginalCost (talk) 00:05, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
 * KEEP - Many famous bands played this club. Evangp (talk)


 * Keep I created the article that was deleted. I am one of the many, many thousands of Wikipedia contributors who nonetheless have many other interests and responsibilities and cannot monitor and "guard" my articles. Props to those who have little else in their life, or have hours a day to devote to Wikipedia. Maybe I will someday. In any event, I am just now seeing that, rather rapidly, an article that had existed for years was deleted, apparently on the initiative of less than a handful of persons.

I believe it is wrong to delete something simply because it is uninteresting to some. B'Ginnings was at least as important as any of many articles I could cite that some of the "pro-delete" faction have authored or contributed to, such as a restaurant that has been open for less than a decade in Chicago. The principal importance of B'Ginnings -- other than being the project of a legitimate rock star, Danny Seraphine -- was that it was one of the VERY FEW venues even available to see rock and roll during its existence, and thus it played an important part in increasing acts' access to a very major (yet very controlled and hard-to-crack) market.

If B'Ginnings had ONLY been the first place that Tom Petty ever played in Chicago it would be significant. Yet a glance at the now-deleted list of acts who played there -- which, as I recall, was admittedly an amateurish scroll (I did not add that feature to he article, others did, attesting to the importance the venue had for a generation) shows that Seraphine and ownership too chances on bringing a number of not-yet-headliners there. The critical role of such "incubator" clubs in artists' careers, and in changing the tastes of the larger audience by exposure to acts they might otherwise not have seen, cannot be overstated.

Chicago mainstream press and radio was in the 1970s considerably more conservative than, say, NY arts media. Relatively speaking, punk was ignored, New Wave was ignored, wavy-power-pop bands struggled to get any airplay and attention. By definition, rock and roll has always had an underground aspect, and punk, again by definition, especially so. Part of music history is simply to chronicle, then let others draw conclusions. Part of the special value of Wikipedia is to allow such chronicling. There are few contemporaneous accounts of many early Delta blues masters; some R&B and jazz artists barely exist in memory or recorded history, yet were very important. There is something disturbing and wrong, arrogant and judgmental, about the creeping overuse of "notability" as thin veil for a difference of taste (at best) or censorship (at worst).

Obscurity is not the same thing as not being notable. Notability has to do with importance, not with fame. Otherwise Wikipedia becomes People magazine. This venue -- again, one of the few midsized venues in Chicagoland at the time, as well as one of the VERY FIRST in the suburbs, and an important milestone in the development of Schaumburg and The Land Beyond O'Hare as more than just Home of Woodfield, see the post at https://ourlocalhistory.wordpress.com/2010/12/26/only-the-beginning-of-the-nightlife-scene-in-schaumburg/, which as the blog of a unit of local government by a professional researcher is, I would submit, a reliable and credible source -- has at least the historic importance of Victoria's Secret Models of 2000-2009. I mean, really. Come on.

The 1970s and 1980s -- the decades immediately predating the Internet -- are very poorly documented online. They were so recent at the WWW's inception that, it seemed, no one saw need to chronicle and archive. Predating millennials' birth, they are deemed unimportant. So there is an Internet bias, and thus a source bias, against many content areas that are, nonetheless, important.

It does disrespect to fellow Wikipedians delete when, clearly, an article is not the vanity work of one person but the type of collective contribution that a forum like this should promote. The smug dismissal of contributors as "fanboys" is needlessly rude. As I recall -- and it's been a while since I visited -- the article had attracted much interest, of which the long laundry list of acts persons had posted serves as evidence. While I did not add the "list" that existed here, I have in fact used the content in it that others posted as a useful reference a couple times over those years. Isn't that why we have encyclopedias, as reference works? A better course would have been to improve the article. Or to mentor some of the contributors in how they could make it better, or become more polished Wikipedians. And I would have liked to have been invited to the conversation more directly.

I thank Evangp for the reinstatement. I will try to flesh out the article. If anyone has a cached version, that would be of use, and I would be grateful.Popsup (talk) 04:15, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Wow., those two responses together hit pretty much every one of the "keep" arguments to avoid in deletion discussions.  I encourage you both to read that document and the Notability content guidelines  In particular, the claim: "Notability has to do with importance, not with fame" is completely wrong here.  The general notability guideline provides more information.  I hope this helps. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 04:55, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep -- Meets the GNG easily. See Illinois Club's Switch To AOR... in Billboard, and another Billboard article, and an entry from a guide in Chicago Magazine.  The club is also mentioned in various rock bios. 192.160.216.52 (talk) 16:53, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep - Passes GNG some modest sources exist such as This librarian/historian blog and Billboard + some aforementioned links.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:45, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete. Merely having notable acts perform there doesn't transfer notability to the venue. An AfD that is relevant would be WP:Articles for deletion/Alrosa Villa. In that case, the venue was the scene of the murder of a notable person. It had other notable bands play there, but the venue itself wasn't notable. Mentions in guides, non-RS blogs or minor local coverage don't get it past the bar. Niteshift36 (talk) 19:25, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 04:11, 9 April 2018 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete upon review of the two mentions in Billboard, they appear trivial. There is an article about the club, but it's on a "general club news" part of the magazine. Other sources are mentions. The blog here is probably the best source, but I don't think it passes GNG on its own as there's not much else out there in terms of reliable sources. SportingFlyer  talk  05:58, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   19:39, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete: does not meet WP:NCORP and significant RS coverage not found. Fails WP:PROMO. K.e.coffman (talk) 17:44, 22 April 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.