Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Band 'O Gypsys


 * 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__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__. ✗ plicit  14:13, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Band 'O Gypsys

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Completely unsourced article and it appears that no such band has existed. Only a discogs entry exists with a 1959 similar band's name. https://www.discogs.com/artist/5161139-Band-O-Gypsys aggarwala2727 (talk) 12:21, 29 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Speedy support - can't find anything either, looks to me like Speedy Deletion WP:A7 may apply here.  Frzzl  talk  · contribs   16:01, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete. Yeah no coverage, I'm gonna tag this for WP:A7 as I think it qualifies. ULPS (talk) 17:22, 29 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Bands and musicians and South Africa.  Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 17:57, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Per a request on my Talk page, I've restored the article (I had deleted it per A7) to allow the AfD to resume.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:47, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment I asked for the AfD to be resumed because I didn’t believe the speedy delete criteria were met, and because there seems to be a passionate fandom for this group, which seemingly has a long history, and has been described by fans as “the godfathers of South African rock” and “legendary” in the non-RS sources I found. WP:BEFORE may have been tricky, because the band named themselves after a Jimmy Jimi Hendrix song album. I found a Google Books source ("History of Contemporary Music of South Africa - Part 1 - Page 7") that states "They play heavy Hendrix - ZZ Top influenced music and have been around for years . Originally, they were known as the Sasons . They live on a farm , outside Johannesburg and are living proof to the maxim - " you never get old with rock ..." I found these YouTube videos  and Facebook posts . None of the social media posts are, of course WP:RS, I’m not voting keep, so this isn’t a WP:TMBS argument and as it stands there would be very little choice but to delete the article. I’ve personally never heard of them (they’re from before my time, my parents were Bee Gees and Beatles fans) but editors may be able to dig up something in WP:RS about this group. It’s a long shot given how hard it is to find SA sources, and the low participation but there may be something out there. Also this article should probably be moved to Band O’ Gypsys EDIT: another editor found  a number of results when Googling for: "band o' gypsys" site:rock.co.za" EDIT 2: They were interviewed on a national radio station (Radio Today) in 2006 . I found this SA rock legends "family tree" that mentions them . African Music Magazine had a 2004 writeup about an album release that said "they were the family band that ruled the SA heavy metal scene in years gone by" and they seem to have been selected in some sort of fan competition for the Oppikoppi 10th anniversary show . I don't know if these add up to notability or even if these sources qualify as WP:RS, but I'll dig some more - there seems to be an obsession with gypsies in the metal world, which makes it quite hard to filter. EDIT 3: Found this 1998 reference to them on USENET . Again, not a RS, but definitely supports the notion that they existed and were popular. If the article is deleted and recreated, that should at least save it from another WP:SPEEDY.  Park3r (talk) 16:43, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The article says they formed in 1962, so they cannot possibly be named after the Jimi (not Jimmy) Hendrix album (not song), which was released in 1970. This indicates the dangers of unreliable Internet chatter about stuff from long ago, and I would bet that both the formation year and the Hendrix connection are wrong. Blogs and YouTube comments are useless for verification purposes. However, I will affirm the last person's point on how the article misspells the band's name, as it should be "Band O' Gypsys" (apostrophe after the O). ---  DOOMSDAYER 520 (TALK&#124;CONTRIBS) 17:49, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The Google Books source I quoted above states that they were founded as The Sasons, and renamed themselves so there isn’t a contradiction there. As for the rest, I’ll defer to you-Hendrix was long before my time. Park3r (talk) 17:58, 30 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Delete - Searching is tough due to many other things called Band of Gypsys, and the article doesn't help by providing no other info with which to search. I found a MusicBrainz page stating that the singer's name is Peter Pulvenis, so I tried searching for him in conjunction with the band. All I can find is a hodgepodge of contradictions and wispy speculation in unknown blogs and the comments sections for videos. I see formation dates ranging from 1959 to 1965, multiple spellings of their name, and anachronistic allusions to being named "after" the Hendrix album (see above). I also found a Facebook post announcing that Pulvenis died in 2019, making me wonder if the band is truly still active. If the survivors are still playing rock today when they're probably in their mid-80s, good for them but someone in the reliable media is going to have to notice. As an old band, they might have been noticed in pre-Internet books and newspapers, but via targeted searches I can find nothing beyond the brief listing of their existence in the book found by the last commenter. In closing (finally), they really existed, they have directory listings at sites like Discogs.com, and occasional live appearances in recent years generated some basic social media chatter. But if they're so "legendary" in their country they would not be so invisible today. ---  DOOMSDAYER 520 (TALK&#124;CONTRIBS) 18:08, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The fact that they’re low profile/“invisible” today isn’t surprising. They almost certainly played for whites-only audiences at segregated venues. Their fans would be quite old (55+) and many would have emigrated from SA or died by now. They seem to have played well into the 2000s, so I'm striking my last sentence. South Africa has experienced massive cultural shifts in recent decades, and a bunch of old white rockers, alive or dead, and no matter how popular they once were (bearing in mind WP:NTEMP) simply wouldn’t have much of a mainstream profile in contemporary South Africa. Park3r (talk) 18:20, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * That's exactly the problem, because here we need something to write about, in the form of facts that can be reliably verified. I can see that they existed, but this is an encyclopedia and not a list of things that, you know, existed. ---  DOOMSDAYER 520 (TALK&#124;CONTRIBS) 14:38, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I never said otherwise. If no WP:RS that support the relevant inclusion criteria can be found then of course the article should be deleted. Park3r (talk) 15:41, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry if this looks like an argument, but you're the one who requested that the speedy delete be overturned in favor of a fuller discussion in which you have largely agreed with deletion anyway. This has turned out to be unnecessarily bureaucratic, and that original speedy delete would not have prevented someone from creating a new article for this band in the future if they could demonstrate reliable sources after their own research. But will that ever happen? You, me, the nominator of the current AfD, and those involved in the original speedy delete have found nothing, and yet here we are still talking about it. ---  DOOMSDAYER 520 (TALK&#124;CONTRIBS) 14:26, 2 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The speedy delete nomination was flawed because the person who asked for the Speedy Delete seemed to be confused about the difference between WP:SPEEDY and WP:PROD, and the AFD had already started. You, me, and the original nominator are not the only people who might be able to salvage the article or find sources, and we've already had a new editor try: (and I haven't actually stopped looking yet, see above). I don't think allowing a WP:SPEEDY on flawed grounds to short-circuit the AFD process is a good idea, WP:NOTBURO or not. If, at the end of the AFD, no WP:RS are found (by any editors, not just me or you) then the article should be deleted. I added a Book reference to the article already as well, and that can be evaluated. Park3r (talk) 00:10, 3 July 2023 (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.