Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Elephants Delicatessen


 * 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. Aside from nominator, consensus is GNG met. 78.26 (spin me / revolutions) 18:51, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Elephants Delicatessen

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

Non-notable company. Article does not credibly indicate any basis of notability ('Green' and women-owned?). Fails WP:NCORP. Announcements of branch openings don't contribute towards notability. What coverage there is seems to be PR-based, and local in readership. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 17:46, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Food and drink-related deletion discussions. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 17:46, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 17:46, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Oregon-related deletion discussions. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 17:46, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep per GNG (disclaimer: article creator). I've written ~40 Good articles about restaurants in Portland, so I'd like to think I have a good understanding of notability criteria and what types of coverage and claims are needed for a quality entry. I agree that the article's current text should be improved to more clearly indicate notability. However, this nomination is NOT an assessment of secondary coverage overall. When I do some online searching, I can see plenty of content to add. In my opinion, we should be able to expand the article with the basic building blocks of a company/restaurant article, based on sourcing: Description, History, Locations, and Reception, focusing on company growth and milestones, operational history (including openings and closures), recognition, etc. Also, asserting coverage is only local is unfair... I see books, magazine, journals, and even plenty to add from The Oregonian, which is the largest newspaper in Oregon and the second largest in the Pacific Northwest by circulation. The article should be kept and expanded, not deleted. --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 18:02, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment As nominator, here's my assessment of the sources as they were as of :

Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 20:58, 24 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Ok, you've assessed current sourcing, but not all available sourcing. Searching "Elephants Delicatessen" at the Oregonian archives from 1987 to present at the Multnomah County Library yields 183 results. Searching the "historical" database for 1861 to 1987 yields an additional 97 returns. Also, quite a few things to add from Google Books. --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 20:59, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
 * , it looks like you've written about 75% of this article. The AfD process is here to evaluate the article that exists, or perhaps the article as it is improved during the process. Sure, if there are available sources that could tip the scales to "clearly notable" that should influence whether an AfD is filed, or failing that, should influence how it's improved to assure a "keep" outcome. But I'm not clear on how a general finding of hundreds of sources, without any evaluation of which, if any, are relevant or useful, contributes to the AfD process. Are you planning to use this information to make substantial improvements to the article during the AfD? Or do you see potential in one or two of the sources to make such improvements, but lack the time to do it yourself in the short term? A hint of what these sources say to you might be helpful here. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 22:40, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I appreciate what you're saying/requesting here, but actually AfD is not only for evaluating the current article. WP:BEFORE asks editors to search for sourcing not in the current article prior to nominating an article for deletion. Perhaps the nominator did so, but I too have done some digging and I disagree with their assessment for the reasons noted above. Honestly?, I don't plan on dropping what I'm working on just to rescue this entry. My life goes on just fine if Elephants Deli doesn't have a Wikipedia article. But, I've written enough of these entries to know there's plenty to use to create a quality Wikipedia entry. --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 23:29, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Most Wikipedians don't have access to the Oregonian archives. I do, I looked at a random sample (the most recent of the 183 articles in that archive from each of the decades mentioned) and none was pertinent to the present discussion. Finding a high quality source takes work, and if you feel that more such work is needed, but you are unwilling to do it, to me that sounds like you're leaning toward "delete." (For myself, I don't really have an opinion about whether or not there are enough sources there as of now.) -Pete Forsyth (talk) 23:08, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I may not enter a !vote here, but I want to point out several flaws in 's assessment of sources above. The Portland Business Journal is a serious newspaper with strong editorial standards; the presence of quotes from the company's personnel in no way undermines the independence of its coverage. See here for a detailed look at PBJ's editorial practices. Willamette Week is also a serious publication, and its "Best Of..." series is not sponsored content; I do not see that term on the page, and I suspect you may have seen it associated with an ad that ran on the page, rather than referring to the page itself. Oregon Business is also a serious publication, and the article specifically enumerates the methodology of the survey, something that non-journalistic surveys generally do not do; the ability of a company to enter a survey no more corrupts the survey itself than my ability to self-nominate an article for GA or FA undermines the integrity of the GA or FA process. The fact that the Business Journal disclosed that it had not fact-checked company disclosures is a point in favor of its methodology (transparency to readers); if Elephants declared that it had 280 employees at that time, the lack of a rigorous fact-check does not suggest that the number might be completely outlandish. The prevalence of mistaken assumptions about these sources suggests either a lack of familiarity with the field of journalism and its standards, or possibly an agenda of some kind. So this chart, which should be a useful tool for taking a sober look at the sources used, in this instance seems unhelpful for making a decision about this particular article. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 22:25, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for weighing in here as well, Pete. I am going to step away from this discussion and let others contribute, but I have problems with some of the contents of the nominator's table as well. --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 23:34, 24 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep per Pete Forsyth and Another Believer above. Forsyth makes some valid points about the sourcing. Tyrone Madera (talk) 18:30, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep agreed that nominator's assessment/reasoning is lacking. --truflip99 (talk) 19:17, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources.  The article notes: "For more than a quarter of a century, Elephants Delicatessen held center ring at the Uptown Shopping Center, it's original small space expanding ever outward as her store's reputation grew as the place for gourmet foods, wines, unusual ingredients and catering, as well as informed advice on any of the above. Tanzer began her deli out of sheer chutzpah. ..."  The restaurant review notes: "Elephants Delicatessen is known for beautifully prepared and delicious take-out and catered foods, as well as sense of style with French flair. ... The room's wainscoted walls are topped by multi-paned windows with views of leafy green trees. Urns of flowers provide seasonal color."  The article notes: "According to Jim Dixon, the reformed food writer-turned-specialty foods guru at Northeast Portland’s Real Good Food, there just “wasn’t much else” in Portland when Elephants hit the scene. “It’s not like today when you can go into Whole Foods or New Seasons or even Fred Meyer and find interesting cheeses,” Dixon said. “You might find an aged white cheddar from Tillamook. But unless you went to a restaurant, unusual things were not widely available.”"  The article notes: "I was never particularly taken with the old location of Elephants Delicatessen. It always felt cramped, and while I admired the food, it was strictly a place to grab and go, not sit and enjoy. That changed last month, when the shop moved three blocks east into the enormous digs vacated last year by Il Fornaio restaurant. Now, Elephants feels like a glorious Parisian market, the sort of place where you might sit and enjoy a light meal before dashing off to an afternoon at the Louvre."  The book notes: "Elephants Delicatessen has been in business since 1979, and like a good elephant, it's been slowly growing for many years as a PDX catering and food and drink depot. What sets Elephants apart is its ready-make selection. The Northwest Elephants is the largest location by far, with the most diverse offerings. In fact, the Northwest Elephants usually feels like a food festival taste pavilion."</li> </ol>There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow Elephants Delicatessen to pass Notability, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". Cunard (talk) 06:51, 31 January 2022 (UTC) </li></ul>


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> 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.