Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/God Made Me Funky


 * 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. Significant edits have been made to improve the article and it now meets the criteria for inclusion. Nakon 21:29, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

God Made Me Funky

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

This was first brought to my attention through WP:RFP (Special:Diff/664377358). Essentially, there's a feud in the band including a trademark lawsuit, and two rival groups within the band have begun edit-warring over this page (see Special:diff/664343201 on Jaaron95's talk page). Given the WP:BLP issues involved and the thin notability of this band, I'm requesting deletion on the "notability unclear, default to delete due to BLP concern" argument. Deryck C. 10:54, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Switching to keep after Bearcat's edits. Deryck C. 08:11, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. Deryck C. 11:00, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Music-related deletion discussions. Deryck C. 11:00, 28 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete non-notable band, fails WP:GNG and WP:NMUSIC. Joseph2302 (talk) 11:03, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete per Joseph's rationale and since the article is a stub containing no referenced info of any importance other than the fact it is a funk band.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 11:59, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete non-notable band --nonsense ferret  13:31, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ontario-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:04, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bands and musicians-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:04, 28 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete the only non dead ref link is to the bands website.  Chris  lk02  Chris Kreider 15:41, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete with regret: It's sad to see the pain involved, and we needn't go insulting folks already suffering injury. (It's more of a wonder that any bands last than that they do not.) On the basis of BLP, delete. Hithladaeus (talk) 19:41, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Hello. I represent this band and it's seven current members. I started this band in 1997, years before this ex band member joined the band. We greatly appreciate you taking the time to consider this page for deletion. While we would like it to remain alive it would only be with the correct information. Otherwise we ask that it be deleted. A former band member (who was let go due to unprofessional behaviour) with whom we are in a legal battle with does not represent the band God Made Me Funky and has changed the website url to a fraudulent website. Further more they have locked us out of several social media pages and are still performing under our name. Furthermore there are pictures of myself and all current band members which we want removed if this page will not be deleted. As you can see the official website of the band is www.godmademefunky.com and has been listed as such since at least 2005. A quick google search will show you the strength and trust of this domain. We control and own this domain name. While the band has released a few albums we are focusing on performing at private events, weddings, and corporate events and are putting the original band music on hold for now. Thank you for considerations in advance and we hope to put this issue behind us. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.116.180.31 (talk) 16:14, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Hello. My name is Michael Wilson (PKA. PHATT al) and I am the lead band member and business license owner of the Toronto band and recording act God Made ME Funky. I am also the lead writer and publisher of all of the original material produced by God Made Me Funky. The former members are currently a cover band, operating out of Toronto, using the www.GodMadeMeFunky.com url. There has been a dispute with the band's previous event booker, Fusion Events, resulting in them taking the band's original url from us. We have since updated our official band website to: www.godmademefunkyband.com, as seen on our official twitter, facebook, and various social media sites. I've included documentation of our current valid business license in the dropbox link below: https://www.dropbox.com/s/q1wmm4sul2o5b6a/God%20Made%20Me%20Funky%20-%20Ontario%20Busines%20License%20-%20Michael%20Wilson.pdf?dl=0 Please let me know what else you would need from me in terms of verifying that we are the group actively known as God Made ME Funky. I hope to keep our wikipedia page active and close this matter once and for all. Thank you. Michael Wilson — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.246.59.204 (talk) 17:43, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Hello again. To respect Mr.Wilson's privacy I did not name him however he did that himself. While Mr. Wilson does indeed own “a” business called God Made Me Funky (as proven with his Provincial business license), I’m sure you are aware that there is nothing to prevent more than one business from using the same name. In fact, you will note on that on Mr. Wilson’s business license the date of issue was three months ago. The God Made Me Funky that I own was first registered as a sole proprietorship almost 10 years ago and I have performance contracts, signed by me, going back that far and which mention the band name to prove that we were doing business as God Made Me Funky long before Mr. Wilson’s business registration and long before he was even a member of the band. We are also registered federal in Canada, which means we collect federal sales tax and remit those to the government through an annual tax filing, all done under the name God Made Me Funky. Proof of these claims is available should you require it. What controls use of the name is the trademark. And, while Mr. Wilson has applied for that trademark, we have contested this filing and are confident that the “first use” provision in Canadian trademark legislation will see that we, the original band members, will ultimately be granted the trademark. Until such time, we do not want Mr. Wilson to be using Wikipedia to promote his band or misrepresent information about the band to your users. However, unlike Mr. Wilson, we are not asking you to take a side. We realize that that is something the courts must do. We are simply asking that you not take either side by not allowing either version of the Wikipedia page to stay up. In particular, it is a threat to our business to have the Wikipedia page pointing to Mr. Wilson’s website. The website is, as it has been for over 10 years, godmademefunky.com. However, once again, we are not asking you to take a side. Please simply remove all references to a band website. Once a legal decision is made regarding the trademark dispute then we will of course accept the decision of the courts and ask for the appropriate Wikipedia entry to be put back up (and would expect Mr. Wilson to do the same or face further legal challenges). We have been informed that this could take upwards of two years to achieve. Thank you very much for you attention to this matter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.119.148.124 (talk) 13:27, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep. Juno nominated . There is coverage out there, egs, , , , , , , . Wikipedea is not the venue for personal battles. duffbeerforme (talk) 03:39, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
 * This article was created at a different time in Wikipedia's evolution — as long as it was possible to verify the information somewhere, sourcing didn't have to be cited in the article nearly as extensively as it does now, and our rules about what constitutes a reliable source weren't nearly as well-developed as they are in 2015 either. Yes, things have changed, and no, the article was not in accordance with current wikistandards in the form that existed at the time of nomination. But the volume of coverage necessary to bring the article back up to contemporary standards does exist per Duffbeerforme, and being a Juno Award nominee is a valid notability claim which does satisfy WP:NMUSIC #8 right on its face. (They also get over #2, #4, #5, #10 and #11 — but admittedly most of the stuff which satisfies those criteria had never actually been added to the article until now.) I've already repaired the existing sourcing problems and bolstered the basic notability with Duff's links and some further additions via ProQuest — while further sourcing improvement is certainly still needed, it's already enough to pass both WP:GNG and NMUSIC. The existence of a trademark lawsuit between two competing versions of the band following an internal creative dispute, further, is not a reason why the article should be deleted outright — it's certainly a reason why the article should be monitored for editwarring, and potentially pageprotected on a neutral version for the time being, but it does not constitute a reason why an article should not exist at all. Which is especially true if the same people who want it deleted also want it to subsequently come back when the dispute is over — if they're not notable enough to have an article now, then they're not notable enough to simply have the same article recreated later on either. Keep, with indefinite page protection in place to kibosh any POV disputes until we can properly source that the trademark dispute has been resolved one way or the other — this is a matter of mediating between competing conflicts of interest, not something which falls within the purview of AFD to fix. All we have to do to stay neutral in this matter is to not touch the question of name ownership at all for the time being, which will be quite easy to do since no reliable source coverage of the matter actually exists yet. And even if such coverage does eventually start to exist, we can quite easily document the existence of a trademark dispute without actually prejudging who's right and who's wrong. As unfortunate as all of this is, they're not the first band, nor even the first notable band, in musical history ever to go through it — so it's not a situation that we need to treat differently than we did when it happened to The Beach Boys, The Drifters, The Platters, Ratt, Queensryche, L.A. Guns or Hawkwind. Bearcat (talk) 16:39, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep Seem notable to me. — MShabazz Talk/Stalk 14:52, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mr. Guye (talk) 18:24, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep - tl;dr; Juno-nominated —Мандичка YO 😜 18:36, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Bearcat asked me to comment, as I often edit articles on Canadian music. First I'll emphasize the obvious point that this article when the AfD started has undergone significant change since Bearcat added to it. Second, I'll say that the sources are definitely reliable ones – multiple Canadian newspapers and the music magazine Exclaim! which is well respected and is often used in sourcing of Canadian music articles on Wikipedia. Paul Erik  (talk) (contribs) 23:59, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep - Band is clearly notable. Wikipedia is not a battleground, especially for people with conflicts of interest. -- Whpq (talk) 19:07, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep - passes WP:NBAND # 5, 6, 8, 10 and 11. Kraxler (talk) 16:12, 14 June 2015 (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.