Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Errol Sawyer


 * 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.  MBisanz  talk 02:01, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Errol Sawyer

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PROMOTION, COI, N, OR, NPOV, V. Article seemingly created as promotion, with two major contributors (including subject's wife/agent, M. Fischer) doing their best to turn non-notability into notability through various breaches of Wiki policy; the content is almost entirely:


 * original (and likely unverifiable) research
 * quoted intro's to his work that push a positive POV with citation links that don't verify the text, or quotes from Sawyer himself (who was promoting himself earlier using Christie Brinkley in attempts to verify once and for all my professional legitimacy due to feeling slighted by the lack of Google search results mentioning him) that add little real content to the article
 * what appears to be activism campaigning sourced with blogs and the comments lists of online articles
 * examples of his work

Every source but one fails RS, and that one source (the only reliable secondary source anyone can find on Sawyer) only briefly mentions him in regards to discovering Brinkley. Neither Sawyer nor Fischer seem to take my policy explanations seriously and rewriting the article to conform to Wiki policies probably wouldn't leave more than a footnote to Brinkley's career.  Mbinebri  talk &larr; 17:31, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Weak Keep If his work has indeed been purchased by the museums specified, he's notable by our standards, and all the rest of it is a matter for editing. We do need 3rd party evidence of that, and now we have it added . This is the basic criterion for notvility as a creative professional artist.   DGG (talk) 17:37, 24 January 2009 (UTC) (supplemented, DGG (talk) 02:01, 28 January 2009 (UTC))


 * Note Countless artists have had work in museums, which is why WP:CREATIVE puts an emphasis on the work having been a "substantial part of a significant exhibition" or "represented within the permanent collections of several notable galleries or museums." The content of Sawyer's article doesn't satisfy this: no citations prove the claims or support the significance of any of these exhibitions or that the purchases are on permanent display in the few (not several) venues that seem obviously notable.    Mbinebri   talk &larr; 17:44, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete - The sources do not verify the museum claims, nor establish notability or meeting of wp:creative --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 21:20, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Living people-related deletion discussions. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 00:01, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Photography-related deletion discussions.   -- the wub  "?!"  13:16, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment/question, rather a ghastly article, but I do like the look of the five books whose covers are illustrated. However, WorldCat hasn't heard of any of them. Has anyone found any disinterested mention of any of them, anywhere? -- Hoary (talk) 14:15, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Note I just did a brief Google search and couldn't find any mention of the books outside Sawyer's official website or any companies selling them. Not to mention, they look more like normal prints than book covers after browsing photobooks on Amazon.    Mbinebri   talk &larr; 16:36, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Above, you say Every source but one fails RS, and that one source [...] only briefly mentions him in regards to discovering [Christie] Brinkley. [... R]ewriting the article to conform to Wiki policies probably wouldn't leave more than a footnote to Brinkley's career. Which made me wonder who on earth this Brinkley might be. Her article informs me that she's an American model perhaps best known for her three appearances on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition in the late 1970s and early '80s, her long-running contract with Covergirl and [being the [?]] ex-wife of musician Billy Joel. Which makes her sound to me like an utter non-person. This is all rather sad, as the illustrations of what might or might not be Sawyer's books make them look far more interesting (to me) than the alleged discovery of somebody who'd later be photographed in swimsuits and marry a pop singer. My guess is that these are self-published booklets. If that's indeed what they are, they may still be notable: Takanobu Hayashi's sole "standalone" publication is a very slim self-published book, but it's a book that is shelved in specialist libraries and is discussed (and Hayashi's work is verifiably in the permanent collection of at least one museum). I hope to see more evidence for Sawyer. -- Hoary (talk) 00:57, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Haha. You show a bit of bias there, Hoary!  Brinkley is one of the most famous names in the history of American fashion modeling, although I can sympathize with you for not finding someone famous for wearing bikinis to be worth arguing about (and I would obviously disagree).  But this isn't about her, of course.  Yes, Hayashi has legitimate claims to notability based on that his work has been discussed in anthologies on Japanese photography and he won a notable photography award.  If the same can be found for Sawyer, I would have no problem with the article staying (after a great deal of editing-down, of course) - but nothing similar has surfaced despite so much searching by the exact people who would know to look for these things if they existed.  As for Sawyer's books, the discussion on DGG's talk page reveals that the books have yet to find a publisher.    Mbinebri   talk &larr; 02:26, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah. It looks more and more hopeless. -- Hoary (talk) 04:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Far from hopeless, quite the opposite. What the discussion on my talk page reveals, is an honest though belated attempt to trim down the article to what is supportable, The existence of his work in permanent collections of major museums, which has now been demonstrated, including by the Dutch profession photography magazine PF is sufficient to meet the requirement of WP:BIO the person's work either (a) has become a significant monument, (b) has been a substantial part of a significant exhibition, (c) has won significant critical attention, or (d) is represented within the permanent collections of several notable galleries or museums, or had works in many significant libraries I really see no policy-based objection to having an article. i regret all the fuss about Binckley, which I think shows nothing much, but thats a question of editing. DGG (talk) 02:01, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Each reference to PF was to pages [?] 51 of a single article, and came with a link to the website's search facility. Dutch is sufficiently close to English for me to know where to type in "Hoeneveld and "Sawyer"; I did so and got no hits. (I've just now amalgamated these references, commenting out the external link.) I clicked on the link to the Houston gallery but its website failed me; I took the link to the BnF but it told me that my session was invalid. None of this goes to prove that there's anything fundamentally wrong (the website of PF may omit stuff that was genuinely in the magazine, I may have just had bad luck with the galleries), but I've yet to see evidence of articles on Sawyer, exhibitions, placement in permanent collections, etc. Have you? (Meanwhile, a lot is sourced to a page in "Intute"; this does exist but it does not seem a disinterested source.) Would you care to rewrite the article? I'm still hoping to be persuaded to "!vote" "keep". -- Hoary (talk) 03:07, 28 January 2009 (UTC) ............ PS the Houston gallery does list photos by Sawyer. Hoary (talk) 06:03, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment I had a look at PF, too (I'm Dutch myself, no language problem). If I search for "Sawyer" I find the "p. 51" article, however, it is not linked and not available online. So it exists, but their is no way apart from consulting a hard copy to know whether "p. 51" is the whole article or only the starting page of a longer treatise, nor can I see what's in the article. --Crusio (talk) 08:24, 28 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete. If getting shown in a museum was sufficient for notability, we'd have a hell of a lot more artists' biographies. As far as I can tell, the only reason this particular photographer has a page whereas others of equal stature do not is because this one happened to register an account. Seems like precisely the kind of situation that promotion, autobiography, and COI were designed to avoid! LSD (talk) 00:28, 29 January 2009 (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.