Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/GOSH! Magazine


 * 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. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 17:14, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

GOSH! Magazine

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

free arts magazine published for less than a year and with a limited distribution. I'm not finding significant 3rd party references to this publication nor anything that would help it pass WP:NB. A soon to be published German magazine with a similar title is making finding references a bit more difficult. RadioFan (talk) 12:21, 7 July 2009 (UTC)  Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 23:59, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions.  -- TexasAndroid (talk) 23:48, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.


 * comment what is going on with those references? Do any of them actually mention the magazibe? Artw (talk) 00:11, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
 * ref 1 - listing of subscription by Smithsonian
 * ref2 - what appears to be a collection of his stuff that Dennis Cooper left to his local museum
 * ref 3 - tells you who Sara Arledge is
 * ref 4 - tells you who Rodney whassisface is
 * ref 5 and 6 - are about the flip book art installation
 * refs 7 & 8 - tell you about Harry the jazz musician
 * ref 9 is guzmano cezaretti's website, in which he notably does not mention Gosh magazine
 * ref 10 - is Terry Cannon talking about baseball (without mentioning Gosh mag)
 * my security protocol won't let me near ref 11
 * ref 12 - is Terry Cannon talking about his film collection (without mentioning GM)
 * ref 13 is a baseball site (no GM)
 * ref 14 is a blog about a baseball exhibition (no GM)
 * ref 15 cites Terry Cannon as the editor of a magazine....on car restoration
 * ref 16 is about some baseball event at the Pasadena public library (no GM
 * ref 17 is a very arty website about a coffee shop in Pasadena, that (you guessed it) doesn't mention GOSH magazine.


 * So, other than source 1, which shows that the Smithsonian once had a subscription, no, none of the sources mention the magazine.Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:52, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

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 * Delete: The sources in the article make me highly doubt that the magazine is notable. Fails WP:N. Iowateen (talk) 14:12, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment on:

"There are a lot of references but they I'm not finding mention of the magazine in these references. These references demonstrate the notability of the people mentioned in the article but not this magazine.--RadioFan (talk) 12:28, 6 July 2009 (UTC)"

Response: One of the references indicates that GOSH! has been archived by the Smithsonian Institution, which is not trivial. The Smithsonian is THE major repository of American culture. The Smithsonian has strict policies and criteria about what it takes the responsibility for archiving.

Another reference has been added about the GOSH! articles written by Dennis Cooper being archived at the Fales Library and Special Collections of New York University.

The people described in this Wikipedia article were not just reported about in GOSH! In many cases, these people contributed original photographs, articles, and artwork. One of the notable things about GOSH! is that it is an early storehouse of works by people who have gain prominence in their fields (as indicated by the blue internal links for so many of these people). It is for this reason that I think GOSH! should not be deleted. It was and continues to be influential, not only for being one of the few printed documents to report on an important period in contemporary art, but also because many of the original articles, photos, and artworks are, in themselves, also noteworthy and notable. Time River (talk) 03:49, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

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Comment on:

"what is going on with those references? Do any of them actually mention the magazibe? Artw (talk) 00:11, 14 July 2009 (UTC)"

Response: As for the above reviewer's  "analyses" of the references, several are incorrect. Ref 1 mentions GOSH! Ref 2 mentions GOSH!. Ref 17 mentions GOSH! and Terry Cannon as its editor. ("ref 17 is a very arty website about a coffee shop in Pasadena, that (you guessed it) doesn't mention GOSH magazine."). Incorect. Both GOSH! Magazine and Terry Cannon are mentioned in the reference to the Espresso Bar, which incidentally was about as far away from being a "coffee shop" as Julia Child was to being a "short order cook."

Another reason why GOSH! should remain in Wikipedia is it might help that reviewer learn that who he or she called "Rodney whassisface" ("ref 4 - tells you who Rodney whassisface is") is the person who was pretty much single-handledly responsible for introducing the world to musical groups The Bangles, Iggy Pop and The Stooges, and this list from his Wikipedia page:  The Runaways, Blondie, The Ramones, Social Distortion, Van Halen, Duran Duran, Oasis, The Donnas, No Doubt, Dramarama, The Offspring, The Go-Gos, The Germs, The B-52s, X, The Vandals. Bingenheimer is whasshisname's name, and GOSH! Magazine was one of the first on the scene to do a piece on him, almost 40 years before Wikipedia got to it.

The reviewer's comment about Reference number two as "ref2 - what appears to be a collection of his stuff that Dennis Cooper left to his local museum," shows a lack of knowledge about how museums operate. The reviewer leaves the false impression that people can just dump off anything they want at a museum. Because of the high costs of archival storage, registration, and conservation, museums do not just take "stuff." For that very reason, one major museum in Los Angeles, The Japanese American National Museum, currently has a total moratorium on collecting anything. The fact that these articles from GOSH! magazine are now sitting in the Special Collections of New York University, is not a trivial reference, and the Special Collections at NYU is not what can be typified as "stuff" at " his local museum."

It will not be especially helpful to this discussion to go through and critique each of the above references one by one, but I hope whoever decides the fate of this article will not give too much credence to that supposed "analysis" of the references. GOSH! was and is notable enough to be archived by two major institutiions in the United States, The Smithsonian Institution and New York University. And if notability is solely determined by other people writing praises, then you must remember that no one wrote anything about the Bible until hundreds of years after it was written. Does that mean the Bible was not notable for hundreds of years? Time River (talk) 07:40, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Ref 1: I'm a Brit. In Britain, the British Library maintains subscriptions to a lot of journals. This is not of itself indicative of their notability in Wikipedia terms. If I need to know the policy of the Smithsonian on journal subscriptions to appreciate its significance, then there should be a reference to that as well in the article.
 * Comment: On the contrary, I think it would be extremely helpful to critique each reference, as I stand by my interpretation of them.

Ref 2: The bio of Dennis Cooper that introduces the list makes no mention of GOSH, - I had to click thru the links to the actual item by item listing of the archived material. For GOSH, this consists of the drafts and published texts of three articles that I presume he wrote for the mag, in a box full of press clippings. This is not evidence of notability of the mag. Ref 17 - OK, I missed the throwaway reference, which does not contain any kind of implication of notability..

if notability is solely determined by other people writing praises, then you must remember that no one wrote anything about'' the Bible until hundreds of years after it'was written. Does that mean the Bible was not notable for hundreds of years?'' In Wikipedia terms, if that statement were true, then yes it probably would.Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:44, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment I appreciate the ref by ref commentary. It provides well rounded analysis of the article as a whole and shows that this editor really put time into their consideration of this article.  Far better than "its notable", "not notable" or "per above" !votes so often seen in AFDs.  As for the journal being in the Smithsoneon's collection, simply being a part of a Smithsonian collection doesn't guarantee notability here.  Had this publication been part of a Smithsoneon exhibit on local arts magazines, then we'd have a strong case for notability but all we have is a URL to a library catalog system. The Smithsonian calls itself the "Nations Attic" as it collects a little bit of everything. Presence in the collection doesn't tells us much.  --RadioFan (talk) 16:28, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I am working on the assumption that the Smithsonian takes out subscriptions to quite a lot of stuff, in the way that the British Library does; and that if you leave your papers to a museum (as Tolkien did with Marquette) they will archive everything in the box.  What I would have expected to see, if this journal is as notable and influential as the article creator claims, is reference to it in more recent works.  There are plenty of 'scene' books/journal articles out there - I'd expect them to reference it in the way that books on the English punk scene reference Sniffin' Glue.Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:24, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 05:21, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.

I am sorry, but I have no more time to devote to this. I am doing this in my spare time, of which I have very little right now. It took hours to research and write the article and now it has taken almost as many hours trying defend it. I just don't have any more time to work on this before the 7 day deadline. It's too bad, too, because GOSH! was a great magazine. If you editors decide you don't see the value in this article than I may try to merge it into an article about Terry Cannon. I don't think anyone can dispute his notability. There are hundreds of references to him on the internet for the work he has done in promoting, preserving, and presenting experimental film and with the Baseball Reliquary. In fact, he was just mentioned in two separate articles this last Sunday in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times (with his picture). Thank you all for your efforts reviewing this. It probably is in your spare time too, but I am going to have to rest my case with my previous arguments listed above, hope you will consider them, and leave this to your wisdom. Time River (talk) 08:28, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Notability established by magazine's contents. It's hard to find coverage of one periodical in others (for obvious reasons) but losing record of this magazine and the stories and people it covered would make the encyclopedia worse. I'd be okay with merging it somewhere if a stand-alone article isn't appropriate, but it shouldn't be lost all together as an resource and historical documentation of the culture and people of its time. ChildofMidnight (talk) 16:33, 21 July 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.