Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Helfensteller, Hirsch & Watson


 * 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.   A rbitrarily 0   ( talk ) 18:11, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Helfensteller, Hirsch & Watson

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Architectural firm. Article states that "a number of their works are listed in the US National Register of Historic Places" which, I don't think, is enough to indicate notability by itself. I searched and found lots of articles where they are mentioned trivially as the architectural firm attached to a particular project, but no independent coverage of the firm as an individual entity. If this is deleted, the redirect at Hirsch and Watson Helfensteller should go too. Liv it ⇑ Eh?/What? 15:42, 17 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. As the article documented already within its first 10 minutes of existence before the AFD nom, the firm designed not one or two, but 12 different notable buildings listed on the National Register, each notable enough for its own wikipedia article.  With two references already.  There should be a strong presumption that the firm will be notable. -- do  ncr  am  16:05, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Architecture-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 16:12, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 16:12, 17 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Userfy until such time as the article creator can supply some substantive content about this architecture firm. As Doncram states, the NRHP listings establish a presumption that the firm is notable per WP:N, but the current content about trivia like the misspellings of "Helfensteller" is insufficient for an encyclopedia article. --Orlady (talk) 17:23, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Nom-Comment I'm not going to wiki-lawyer this to death, but I anticipated the notability arguments, but on reflection, I don't think I was clear enough in my nomination. Yes, the firm has worked on many famous and historically important projects.  But Notability is not Inherited.  Those projects and historical sites may (or may not) be notable on their own merits, but the fact that the project or site is notable, does not make the architectural firm that headed the project notable.  If anyone can find one non-trivial mention in a reliable source that covers the firm and not a project the firm headed then I'll withdraw this AFD and go away.  But "They worked on notable projects, so they are notable" is not a valid argument.  I've said my piece and I'll crawl back into my wiki-hole now.   Liv it ⇑ Eh?/What? 18:14, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment - Perhaps I should clarify my comment about a "presumption". Because multiple works by this firm are listed on the National Register, I presume that this firm is sufficiently documented in the National Register documents that it will be established as notable at some time in the future when Doncram has obtained and read the National Register materials and writes up what he has learned about the firm. Until such time, its notability is not established and the page does not belong in article space. Due to the likelihood that the firm's notability can be established in the future, I think it's acceptable to allow Doncram to maintain the page in user space. --Orlady (talk) 19:41, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with userfy - as long as it doesn't get moved back into article space until the firm has independent coverage.  Liv it ⇑ Eh?/What? 20:33, 17 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Userfy - I have several concerns... 1) - there is the need for Secondary sources. The NRHP itself would be a PRIMARY source for the fact that an architect or firm designed buildings that are listed by the NRHP. We are not supposed to use primary sources to establish notability.  What is needed is a secondary source (say an article in an architecture magazine, or a book on architectural history) that notes that the firm designed all these notable buildings.  Do we have such a source?  2) - we need to be careful when it comes to claims that "the firm is mentioned in the NRHP documentation."... in many cases the mention is nothing more than a passing reference.  The building may be listed for reasons that have nothing to do with the architect.  For example, the building may be listed on the NRHP because of its association with a particular famous person (such as being the person's birth place).  If this is the case, the fact that a particular architect or firm designed it is really nothing more than trivia... or at best, background information.  Again, what is needed are some secondary source that note the connection between the building and the architect, and discuss it in some depth... enough to make it clear that the connection is considered important.  All this said... I absolutely agree that there is a strong potential for an article in this specific case.  An architectural firm that designed 12 historic buildings should be mentioned in lots and lots of secondary sources that can be used to establish its notability.  But... we can not assume that this is the case.  The article should stay in user space until some of those likely sources are actually found and added. Blueboar (talk) 03:08, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Userfy per Orlady. What we need to do is research architectural history and see if this firm is notable within that context. The NRHP nominations for the properties, if available, can shed some light on whether the properties were nominated for their architecture or historic personages or events associated with them. Certainly the fact that so many of their buildings have been listed suggests there might be some notability there, but we need specifics beyond "X number of buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places". Daniel Case (talk) 02:46, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment I don't see the WP:NOTINHERITED as working in this case. It is clear in the literal cases, that Person X being notable does not make the children of person X notable. Person X was notable for certain things, which usually have nothing to do with their children, parents, siblings, or casual friends. The situation is different with a notable building. It is often (but not invariably) notable because it is architecturally interesting. The architect or firm is the proximate cause of that notability, not merely related in some irrelevant fashion. Would we declare that David is notable, but Michelangelo not? Would we declare that The Starry Night is notable, but argue that Vincent van Gogh is not? I'm not arguing for an automatic, inflexible rule, but a general presumption seems warranted. On the merits, I support Orlady's suggestion to userfy-- SPhilbrick  (Talk)  15:26, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment: I agree with SPhilbrick. Broadly paraphrasing the WP:NOTINHERITED, items associated with notable subjects do not inherit notability simply because of the association. In this case, however, we're talking something different.  Most or all of the Helfensteller, Hirsch & Watson buildings are on the NRHP for architectural criteria (for those unfamiliar, structures can be listed on the Register for one or more of multiple reasons, "architectural criteria" being one of them).  That means that the architectural firm created the very thing that makes these structures notable to begin with.  That's a far cry from mere association. Andrew Jameson (talk) 19:49, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
 * This is why we need to userfy and not delete outright. I see this as being akin to the "restaurant" example at WP:NOTE... only in reverse.  Unless it can be established that the buildings are primarily notable for their architecture, the architects should not inherit notability from the building.  If that can be established through reliable sources, then the situation changes. Blueboar (talk) 16:00, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I'm not finding the restaurant example you mention at WP:NOTE; could you please steer us to it? Thanks.  Ammodramus (talk) 21:49, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * My error... I got my notability guidelines mixed up... the example is at Notability (organizations and companies) (specifically: ORG) Blueboar (talk) 01:32, 20 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete. First, I'm afraid that I can't agree with Sphilbrick's and Andrew Jameson's argument.  The architectural notability of a structure doesn't necessarily translate into notability for the architect.  For example, properties might be listed under the "architecture" area of significance because they're surviving examples of a type or style that was once widespread; the architect's contribution might have been mere hackwork, of a sort done by scores of other architects at the time.  Second, a passage in WP:SOURCESEARCH states, "Notability requires the presence of in-depth and significant treatment of a subject..."  I assume that the editor who created the article wouldn't have done so had he/she not been strongly interested in the subject, and devoted considerable research time to it.  The fact that all this research didn't turn up a source attesting to the notability of the firm seems to create a fairly strong presumption of non-notability.  Ammodramus (talk) 22:56, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
 * We may be closer than you think. I agree that the oldest surviving example of an architectural style may be notable, even thought the architect involved may not be, but I think that is an exception, rather than common. I tried to address that with "not ... an automatic, inflexible rule, but a general presumption", assuming that we would start with the presumption that the architect was notable, but could override that with consensus, based upon arguments you suggest. However, I don't see any such arguments presented in this case, so not following the "delete" recommendation. Lack of references will ultimately doom this article, but I have no way of being sure that no such references will ever be found, this suggests userfication in this case, where it seems plausible that such documents may exist somewhere.-- SPhilbrick  (Talk)  14:59, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep First, in this particular case, I think the wide use of their standard designs is a suitable criterion to showe their notability. And the NHRP is a secondary source. It is prepared by historians on the basis of primary documents. They're as much secondary work as any other interpretative work by historians.  But more generally, what are architects notable for, if not for designing notable  buildings?  When there's an historic building, for whatever reason, the architects' name will of course be part of the article. People should be able to link from that to a description of their career. Perfectly natural encyclopedic  question once you're reading about the building: what did they do before and after? The proper use of NOT INHERITED is that not all the works of a notable architect will be notable, except for the case of famous  architects --most notable architects  will have done some trivial work among the important projects=. I see I'm a minority opinion, but that is no reason not to give it,  because a minority view sometimes gets adopted sooner or later.  I continue to maintain the general proposition that criteria for notability should be categorical when such a criterion is applicable, so we do not have to debate the notability of each individual case. If it leads to  a few articles on subjects of borderline notability , this harms the encyclopedia  less than the time spent in the discussions,  time spent quibbling when we ought to be writing about all the truly notable ones we do not yet have.   DGG ( talk ) 06:25, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes! -- do ncr  am  20:23, 28 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment There is some general consensus above that the firm is in fact notable, that most agree that documents do exist that would satisfy everyone, although specific documentation has not yet been found to satisfy everyone yet. Then, tag it with "stub" or "expand" or "refimprove".  It's likely that a St. Louis area historical society person, or a librarian, or someone out there with the right books and clippings files and access to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's archives will add further to the article, if the article exists.  If the article is "userfied", that won't happen.  I don't want it;  it doesn't belong to me.  And, the deletion record, plus bureaucratic enforcement of a no-article status quo, would most likely confound and frustrate the good efforts of any St. Louis area new editor who actually wanted to try to start from scratch.  Why not let the person start from a pretty good effort that provides nice links to 12 NRHP-listed works by the firm, plus links to Moolah Temple and the theatre article, and which already provides some good context.  It could be better yes, and it eventually will be. -- do  ncr  am  16:46, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid that to me, this argument sounds a lot like: "I'm sure that X is notable, although I can't be bothered to research it myself; but if we put an article out there, sooner or later somebody else will do the work."


 * First, this seems to be going about things backward. In WP:YFA, we're told to gather sources and establish notability before we ever launch an article.  Here, however, the plan seems to be: post an article based on a general presumption of notability, and trust that someone, sometime, will make the effort to demonstrate that the subject actually is notable.


 * Second, I don't share my fellow editor's optimism about the future improvement of the article. Wikipedia has an abundance of embarrassingly minimal substubs about NRHP sites that were created as two-sentence one-reference stubs over a year ago, and that remain two-sentence one-reference stubs to this day.  I'm not at all sanguine about the intervention of the hypothetical St. Louis historian, and I think we must proceed on the assumption that the article will go unimproved for a long, long time after its posting.  If we allow an article to go up that doesn't satisfy WP:NRVE today, it doesn't seem likely that someone will fix it in the reasonably near future.  Ammodramus (talk) 21:57, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Ammodramus, thank you for caring. I hear your concern for the NRHP articles, several thousand of which I agree are pretty crummy.  One way that many of them are crummy is that the writer had no clue what was the association of a listed person or firm.  Several hundred existing Wikipedia articles probably falsely assert (explicitly, or by infobox "architect=" assertion) that an associated person or firm is an architect, when in fact the named person or firm is a builder or engineer instead.  Also many hundred falsely assert that a building was built in a given year, when in fact that was a year of other significance.  And there are other problems in the one- or two-sentence NRHP articles.  But your taking a stand against this architect article is misplaced.  Removal of the article would impoverish 12 NRHP articles and 2 other articles that link here now.  If the current architect article is removed, what then for the 14 linking articles?  I suppose one could basically copy the entire current architect article into each one of those, to provide some context for the readers of those articles.  Or construct a Navbox with information about the other buildings designed by the same architect.  It seems best to let there be an architect article which answers the question of who the hell is "Helfensteller, Hirsch & Watson" and what else have they done, rather than forcing know-nothing ignorance into each of the 14 articles that are somewhat informed currently by the existing article.  I can't promise, of course, that this particular architect article will get better developed by a local historian or librarian coming forward.  But, odds are a lot better that we'll get to a decent article a year from now, if we have this one as a pretty good start.  At the moment, it fully establishes that the firm is an architectural firm, rather than a building contractor or an engineering firm.  And it provides convenient navigation.  I think it is all right, more than all right, to leave this in an article, rather than to force duplicative copying of the information into 14 articles, in order to provide appropriate context in each of them separately.
 * Creating articles for the architects, engineers, and builders associated with many NRHP sites is a way forward to improve the NRHP articles, which is what you want. FWIW, there are now 364 articles in Category:NRHP architects, 48 articles in Category:NRHP builders, 8 articles in Category:NRHP engineers. -- do  ncr  am  00:57, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Doncram... in a comment above you said "There is some general consensus above that the firm is in fact notable"... I disagree. I think there is a general consensus that the firm is likely to be notable... I would even go so far as to say there is a consensus that it probably is notable.  But "probably" does not equate to "is".  To move from probably to is, you need reliable secondary sources that discuss the firm (and do so in some depth - a passing mention on the NRHP database, or in a nomination document is not enough). Blueboar (talk) 01:42, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * "To move from probably to is, you need reliable secondary sources that discuss the firm (and do so in some depth - a passing mention on the NRHP database, or in a nomination document is not enough)"—And we've now come full circle back to the statement that I made in the original nom... Liv it ⇑ Eh?/What? 13:18, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I've added some more. Livitup, no offense, but your view would support putting a "stub" tag in the article (already present), calling for further expansion, and does not support removing the article from the wikipedia altogether. -- do  ncr  am  19:56, 28 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment: There is some non-trivial (but not exactly in-depth) coverage of the firm in the book, Parkview: A St. Louis Urban Oasis 1905-2005 as well as in Missouri's contribution to American architecture. Andrew Jameson (talk) 20:58, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. -- do ncr  am  20:23, 28 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:12, 24 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep - Enough blue links of this firm's projects showing that it could be renamed List of buildings designed by Helfensteller, Hirsch & Watson and pass muster as a list. It's far better for the encyclopedia to have this article than that, or worse yet, to blow it all away. Sufficient collective achievement to merit encyclopedic history. Carrite (talk) 18:38, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, a voice of reason. -- do ncr  am  19:56, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Why not turn it into a category then?  Purpleback pack  89  ≈≈≈≈  20:34, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
 * To Purplebackpack89, there's a good discussion of how categories and lists are complementary at wp:CLT, including admonishment that some duplication of function is not a valid argument for deletion of one. And, in particular here, if the article were deleted, there would be no location where complete info on the architects is given, though one could navigate by category among the articles, each containing a redlink to the architect.  It would beg for creation of a central architect article. -- do  ncr  am  19:56, 28 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep per Carrite and others. Clearly a notable architectural firm based on its accomplishments of record. bd2412  T 01:02, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. Please note I have reformatted and rearranged the existing text in the article (no new text was added to the body). Notability has been established by the existence of peer reviews alone: non-notable architectural firms do not get any coverage. My name is Mercy11 (talk) 01:46, 29 December 2011 (UTC), and I approve this message.
 * 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.