Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daniel Sekulich


 * 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. (non-admin closure) CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 19:12, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Daniel Sekulich

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WP:BLP of a writer and filmmaker, who has potentially valid claims of notability but isn't reliably sourcing them. Of the four sources present here, all four represent classes of sourcing that cannot be used to establish notability: a Q&A interview on a blog, a primary source "staff" profile on the website of a radio show with which he has a direct affiliation, a piece of media content in which he's the bylined author and not the subject, and a piece of media content which glancingly namechecks his existence but is not about him. And on a Google News search, he gets just four hits not already cited here, all of which are also bylines or namechecks rather than coverage about him. As always, neither filmmakers nor writers are automatically entitled to Wikipedia articles just because they exist; they must be the subject of enough media coverage to clear WP:GNG for a Wikipedia article to become earned. Bearcat (talk) 15:06, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep - notable enough for ABC News to interview him as a "piracy expert". I reviewed this brand spanking new BLP, did a bit of online research before I gave it a green-go, and as you stated above, the potential is there.  Unfortunately, I didn't have time to dig for more because we're trying to catch-up on a growing backlog at NPR, and I'm currently in transit internationally, so my time is limited. , just curious - did you try to find any sources that would establish his notability, or did you feel that because the cited sources didn't pass that it was best to delete the article?  Perhaps it should've gone to the article TP first? I came across a few other articles with questionable notability - not even with the potential of this BLP - and they survived AfD. Atsme 📞📧 18:28, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
 * For starters being the interview guest does not assist notability at all, because if he's talking about something other than himself then he fails to be the subject of that coverage. The only kind of source that can assist notability at all is where a reliable source is publishing or broadcasting content in which other people are writing or speaking about him in the third person. And secondly, as my nomination statement already plainly demonstrates, I did undertake a search for the necessary type of sourcing — but I came up completely dry for anything at all. Bearcat (talk) 18:46, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Addional sources have been added, and there are more but I'm comfortable with what's there now as having satisfied N. He clearly meets N as a "creative professional" (filmmaker, director, author, expert on piracy, etc.) PBS programs/specials don't always get the kind of media attention as would a major network series or specials.) Atsme 📞📧 19:35, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Except that the new sources you added are virtually all still either primary sources or glancing namechecks of his existence in coverage of other things. The only one that counts for anything at all toward getting him over WP:GNG is in his hometown newspaper — but one piece of media coverage is not enough to claim GNG all by itself, and it doesn't support anything that would constitute an automatic pass of any SNG. His hometown newspaper might very well still have covered him if his only claim of notability was "owns a coffeeshop at the corner of Wellington and Pim", so the fact that one article exists in his hometown newspaper is not a GNG pass in and of itself. Wikipedia's inclusion criteria hinge entirely on the sourceability or lack thereof, not on mere existence — creative professionals do not get an automatic inclusion freebie just because their work exists, so the fact that "PBS programs/specials don't always get the kind of media attention as would a major network series or specials" does not exempt him from having to pass GNG just because one of his films aired as a PBS special. His includability depends entirely on media coverage about him, and the sourcing here just isn't showing that he passes that test. Bearcat (talk) 12:14, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Your arguments for deletion are contradicted by WP:N and the reasons follow:
 * You stated: "His includability depends entirely on media coverage about him, and the sourcing here just isn't showing that he passes that test." Please see the ABC News article which is hardly trivial mention about Sekulich's expertise on piracy, and his book "Terror on the Seas: True Tales of Modern Pirates."  One of the sections begins "Sekulich has little sympathy for the plight of the pirates, and he doesn't exactly buy their tale of losing the fishing industry or their claims about rampant pollution from outside ships."  There's also the Variety review about the film Sekulich directed, Aftermath: The Remnants of War, which further serves as verifiability in an independent RS and includes information about him, such as "Helmer Daniel Sekulich follows the grim work of Valery Shtrykov, who is trying to identify and reclaim the remains of the battle’s dead, both Russian and German."  Hotnews.ro, is an international news source that was cited in the article, and it states: "Piracy is today a multinational entity that produces billions of dollars of income and affects the security of the global economy," says Daniel Sekulich, a Canadian journalist who has been pursuing the phenomenon of global piracy for years. What is Pirateria SRL, which are the most dangerous oceans, why some of the pirates believe modern Robin Hood and how to manage some people in tiny boats and boats to capture thousands of tons of superpowers, Sekulich tells us in an interview with HotNews .com.."   When major news sources are writing articles and interviewing a person about their work, and consider them an expert in their field, WP:GNG considers the personal notable.  Being notable is not the same as being famous.  When you stack the multiple sources about Sekulich and his work, it's rather obvious that he passes GNG.
 * You stated: "Wikipedia's inclusion criteria hinge entirely on the sourceability or lack thereof, not on mere existence." Well, WP:NPOSSIBLE disagrees, and specifically states (my bold): Thus, before proposing or nominating an article for deletion, or offering an opinion based on notability in a deletion discussion, editors are strongly encouraged to attempt to find sources for the subject in question and consider the possibility of existent sources if none can be found by a search. Wikipedia articles are not a final draft, and an article's subject can be notable if such sources exist, even if they have not been named yet. If it is likely that significant coverage in independent sources can be found for a topic, deletion due to lack of notability is inappropriate.  Look again at what editors have already sourced with limited searching.
 * You even agreed in your deletion request: "who has potentially valid claims of notability but isn't reliably sourcing them.". Sekulich is a new article created 10 May 2017, and should not be deleted if we're following WP:PAG.
 * Again, it's rather obvious that he easily passes GNG based WP:CREATIVE and RS media coverage to satisfy verifiability including ABC News, Variety, Hot News.ro, and local media such as Sault Star. I'm changing my position to Strong Keep. Atsme 📞📧 15:32, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
 * 1) A person gets a Wikipedia article by being the subject of the sources, not by being one of several soundbite-givers in an article whose subject is a topic that is not him. The ABC News article falls in the class of "glancing namechecks of his existence", which is not a class of sourcing that assists in showing notability. Variety also namechecks his existence, but is about the film rather than him. HotNews.ro is not a reliable source at all, so it counts for nothing. And the Sault Star is local coverage in his own hometown, in which again he's providing commentary on an issue rather than being the subject of the coverage. So the ABC News, Variety and Sault Star sources would be acceptable for supplementary sourcing of stray facts within a mix of much more solid sourcing than the article is showing — but none of them is substantively enough about him to bring the GNG in and of itself.
 * 2) You're misreading what that criterion means. The possibility of improved sourceability existing despite one's own lack of finding viable sources on a search does not create a blanket exemption from an article having to be sourced properly — and it pertains mainly to historical topics who might not turn up much in Google searches because they didn't get media coverage during the era when that media coverage was reliably locatable on the web. If he'd lived and worked and died 100 years ago, then one would have to dig deeper into news retrieval databases before going ahead with a nomination, because 100-year-old media coverage won't Google properly. But for a person who is currently active in his field and producing current work, Google is a reliable judge of whether the necessary level of sourcing exists or not — for a contemporary topic in the era when all media coverage that exists at all is always web-accessible in some form, it's quite literally impossible for any valid sourcing to somehow still exist outside of the ability to locate it via a Google search.
 * 3) Notability criteria are not passed just because their passage has been asserted — lots of self-promoting wannabes try to get Wikipedia articles for publicity purposes by hyping their notability claim past the actual or sourceable reality of the situation (e.g. a musician falsely claiming to have achieved a higher chart position in Billboard than he ever actually did, a writer claiming to have been "nominated" for a major literary award for which she never actually made the shortlist just because her book was submitted by its publisher for consideration, a filmmaker PR-bumfing himself as "award-winning" without actually naming or sourcing what awards he won, etc.) So the mere claim to passing a notability criterion does not constitute a notability freebie that exempts a person from having to have a WP:GNG-satisfying level of reliable source coverage — the claim still has to be supported by a stronger volume of coverage than anything that's been shown here. Bearcat (talk) 15:57, 19 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep, Notable journalist and award winning film maker. One of his films picked up 9 awards. Quoted and referred to in many books relating to various issues. Easy keep for me, but I have to point out that the page needs some improvement here and there and a bit of a tidy and re-arrange. Karl Twist (talk) 09:21, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Firstly, what properly sourced evidence is there of his winning any award notable enough to confer an automatic WP:CREATIVE pass because award? This article, as written, claims no award wins at all — it claims one honourable mention for a non-notable literary award, and one nomination for an award at a local film festival, neither of which is grounds for a CREATIVE pass. For a nomination to be enough in and of itself to get a person into Wikipedia, the award has to be on the elite level of the Oscars or the BAFTAs — and outside of the elite Cannes-Berlin-TIFF-Sundance tier of film festivals (which Hot Docs is not in), even a win of a film festival award still wouldn't confer an automatic CREATIVE pass in the absence of a demonstrated GNG pass. And his IMDb profile lists no awards at all either — literally the only sourcing I can find for his winning any award at all, let alone any award that would actually be notable enough to constitute a valid notability claim in a Wikipedia article, is his own self-published elevator pitch about being "award-winning".
 * Secondly, a person gets a Wikipedia article by being the subject of reliable source coverage, not by being "quoted" or "referred to" in coverage of other things that aren't him. But nobody's shown any evidence that he's the subject of any degree of reliable source coverage — this is based almost entirely on primary sources and glancing namechecks of his existence in coverage of other things, not on coverage which has him as its subject. Bearcat (talk) 15:57, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Actors and filmmakers-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 03:59, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 03:59, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Journalism-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 03:59, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 03:59, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * His Aftermath: The Remnants of War is an article that I see I created back in 2009. It won a handful of awards -- but nothing that would satisfy CREATIVE, on their own. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:45, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Winged Blades Godric  03:37, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
 * strong keep surely he meets WP:CREATIVE according to the third criterion, "The person has created or played a major role in co-creating a significant or well-known work [...] In addition, such work must have been the primary subject of an independent and notable work [...] or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews [emphasis added]." Clearly his documentaries have been the primary subject of multiple articles AND reviews, whether or not these are cited in the article in its current form. Newimpartial (talk) 07:58, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep career as a journalist and author are readily source-able, (WP:NOTCLEANUP]]; both books got come media coverage, especially the second book (pirate!). Serious journalist, respected writer, patent notability.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:34, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
 * He garners just six Google News hits total, of which five are glancing acknowledgements of his existence, usually as a soundbite-giver, in articles whose subject is something other than him, and the other is a blog — where is there any evidence locatable that he or his books have been the subject of enough reliable source coverage to pass WP:GNG? Bearcat (talk) 13:39, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
 * On the films, first. Aftermath: The Remnants of War has a wikipedia article, won awards in 2002 (Gold Camera Award US International Film &Video Awards; Special Jury Award Houston International Film Festival; Wilbur Award Best Theatrical Documentary; Bronze Plaque Columbus International Film &Video Festival; Special Prize International Environmental Film Festival in Barcelona; UNESCO Prize/Jury Prize Brazil International Environmental Film Festival) and was independly reviewed, e.g. . Per WP:CREATIVE anyone who creates a notable work is notable, whether or not their name receives hits on Google News. Newimpartial (talk) 15:13, 26 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep: per Newimpartial --Guy Macon (talk) 01:38, 27 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep:Satisfies WP:CREATIVE#3 criterion. I have added the link to his Contemporary Authors entry. They have strict criterion for inclusion. His works have been extensively discussed. Bearcat, Google News doesn't cover everything. --Skr15081997 (talk) 12:32, 29 May 2017 (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.