Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Candid Camera (Australian photographic exhibition)


 * 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   no consensus. -- Cirt (talk) 07:32, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Candid Camera (Australian photographic exhibition)

 * – ( View AfD View log )

fails WP:GNG. it is not common practice to create separate articles for a 3 month art gallery exhibition unless it gets significant coverage, given that galleries hold exhibitions all the time. the best coverage i could find in Australian news siteswas a photo slide show and a competition to win tickets. LibStar (talk) 00:01, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete I agree, one exhibition is not worthy of its own article, unless it was very extraordinary and/or influential. Having said that, there is tons of WP:Other stuff that also should go. BigJim707 (talk) 00:26, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep Common practice and notability are not even remotely the same thing, but LibStar tries to link the two. The only relevant question is notability. The gallery in question is undoubtedly one of the most important in Australia, and the exhibition was an enquiry into the Australian nation's social history via a 30-year retrospective of work by noted social documentary photographers such as Max Dupain and David Moore (photographer). True, galleries hold exhibitions all the time, but nationally important art galleries don't hold exhibitions as significant as this one all the time. According to WP:BEFORE, LibStar has a duty to investigate the article history and the subject before nominating it for deletion and, as part of that, make a 'good-faith attempt to confirm that such sources don't exist'. But the reality is that LibStar hasn't even properly read the article, which includes a link to an 850 word review in the leading daily newspaper published in one of Australia's state capitals (Australia only has one truly national general interest daily newspaper). Though the links aren't yet attached, there is plenty of other coverage, including a television interview of a participating photographer that was carried by the Australian national broadcaster. The link to that was recently pasted in another of LibStar's AfDs, as part of the refutation by another user and in part of the discussion that LibStar explicitly responded to, and LibStar should therefore be well aware of it. Again, LibStar seems to be deliberately ignoring evidence rather than trying to find it so that the article can be strengthened. The call for deletion is unwarranted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BlueThird (talk • contribs) 02:51, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The gallery in question is undoubtedly one of the most important in Australia may be true but this discussion is about the notability of this specific exhibition. LibStar (talk) 03:51, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a dishonest argument, LibStar. You're trying to suggest that I don't go on to address the question of notability, when I start to do so in the very same sentence that you selectively quote. BlueThird (talk) 04:30, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * any coverage outside of Adelaide? LibStar (talk) 04:39, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The fact that the link above says Adelaide at the end is completely irrelevant. Here's a link to the same interview on the ABC's local station in Oodnawoopwoop. As I'm sure you'll realise, that link certainly doesn't mean that Oodnawoopwoop exists. The interview is offered, by Australia's national broadcaster on its national website, to anyone who wants to see it, wherever they may be in the world. BlueThird (talk) 07:08, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Source: Stateline South Australia. LibStar (talk) 07:11, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Once again: produced by Australia's national broadcaster, offered for global access on its national website. BlueThird (talk) 09:42, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * anything published online can be viewed globally online. that does not make it internationally notable. LibStar (talk) 06:38, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * important art galleries don't hold exhibitions as significant as this one all the time.  where is the evidence of this? I don't see it being covered anywhere outside of Adelaide, surely such a claim would be backed with national coverage of such a super signficant exhibition. LibStar (talk) 07:14, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Here's a link to a 1600 word review, carried in both the print and and online editions of Australia's only national newspaper, written by their national art critic. BlueThird (talk) 09:42, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Photography-related deletion discussions.  — Logan Talk Contributions 00:56, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Australia-related deletion discussions.  — Logan Talk Contributions 00:56, 24 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Weak Delete. It's my view that the sources mentioned aren't quite enough to meet WP:N.  The three sources given here and in the article do discuss the exhibition in some depth but I don't think that's quite enough as exhibitions etc are always going to get a certain amount of "what's on" coverage and the organisers will obviously be pushing for that sort of coverage.  As such, ideally, I'd like to see coverage from after the exhibition has finished.  I will happily reconsider my !vote if such sources, or a significant number of extra sources like the current one, are found. Dpmuk (talk) 10:26, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. A modest article making modest claims, on an event written up (getting quite a bit more than "a certain amount of 'what's on' coverage") in one of Australia's few major national newspapers. Ideally, I too would like to see "coverage from after the exhibition [...] finished"; however, coverage need not be ideal in order to be adequate. -- Hoary (talk) 13:11, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * ARTICLE COMPLETELY REWRITTEN. It now places Candid Camera in context within the overall subject area: social documentary photography in Australia. What was implicit, for someone who read the article with some existing knowledge of the subject and checked the references, is now explicit. Noted on a sentence-by-sentence basis; linked whenever possible. I’ve tried to make sure that the other edits have been carried forward, where that’s appropriate, but apologise if I haven’t got them all. Can I suggest that anyone who has commented or voted so far take another look? My personal feeling is that it's too early for 'after the event' coverage. Any journalist writing about the show now would simply make readers wonder why they weren't told about it at the time. The original Six Photographers only lasted a few weeks, if that, and probably only came to be seen for how important it really was many years, even decades, later. That said, I'm entirely confident, and hope to have shown, that as photographic exhibitions go, this one was extremely ambitious. BlueThird (talk) 07:51, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Weak delete. There are numerous hits that cover the event but most do it as routine journalism, and there's nothing that points to any lasting significance (i.e. to the point where notability becomes not temporary). The usual caveats applies - frankie (talk) 10:32, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The exhibition closed less than one year ago, and so there has not been much time for mention of it (or more) to appear in books on Australian photography. (And there are few such books: When I looked for some three years or so ago, I found just two, neither of them mentioned in this article and both of them seriously flawed, to put it politely.) -- Hoary (talk) 00:05, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. After BlueThird's recent reworking, the article strikes me as exemplary. This doesn't mean that it is exemplary: I haven't chased up the references and done the other work that I might do if, say, it were more ambitious, longer, and a FA candidate. But it's at the point where the AfD looks absurd. Or rather, it would look absurd but for either or both of two objections. The first is that such exhibitions are routine. The second is that no deep coverage has been dug up. Neither objection can be laughed off so quickly. However, I (who don't matter) and the world in general (which does matter) can laugh off Wikipedia as a whole, for its combination of (a) a demand for proof of importance of any material such as this, and (b) the warm and undiscriminating welcome it gives to stuff that appeals to little boys. &para; No, this is not an OTHERCRAPEXISTS argument; it is a WHYDOESWIKIPEDIAWELCOMECRAPMORETHANNONCRAP point. -- Hoary (talk) 00:05, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the vote of confidence, Hoary – it's much appreciated. I beg to differ, however, on the idea that exhibitions like this are routine. I only wish they were. I'm not going to pretend that I know of every exhibition of social documentary photography held in the Australia since it first started to become recognised way back when, but a very quick check on Google produced an astonishing result. A search on "documentary photography australia exhibition" produces the article we're talking about as the first result, which obviously suggests that exhibitions like this are rather unusual, at least in this part of the world. And that's before you start narrowing it down to exhibitions that are ambitious enough to attempt a 30-year retrospective dedicated to Australia's best work in the field. Something else that astonished me: neither the In Our Time exhibition nor Manchester's book get a mention on Wikipedia. I'll try to get round to those at some point. ... added by BlueThird at 06:36/06:37, 30 May 2011
 * I'm sorry, I expressed myself poorly. I meant something along the lines of: exhibitions of this degree of interest to somebody are routine. (Or so I guessed; I don't know for sure.) I did not want to suggest that Australian exhibitions this significant of photography, let alone those of what might be called social documentary photography, are routine. Even before I came across this AfD, I had good reason to think that they weren't. &para; In general, photographs (whether prints from darkroom or inkjet printer, or reproductions in books etc) are poorly represented in WP. Any historian of photography could name a lot of photo exhibitions that were important for bringing new light on this, revaluating that; but WP will tell you far more about any episode of Family Guy than about any photo exhibition. -- Hoary (talk) 10:14, 30 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep The rewritten article now has an adequate level of citations. PRL42 (talk) 16:07, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep: I don't see strong enough arguments to delete. WP:GNG? Naah, with citations, it looks respectable enough. Tony   (talk)  13:35, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep Rewritten article clearly presents proof of notability and non-trivial coverage. Qrsdogg (talk) 14:38, 31 May 2011 (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.