Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Historical Panorama of Alabama Agriculture


 * 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. WPSNOW  MBisanz  talk 05:18, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Historical Panorama of Alabama Agriculture

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

Unnotable local mural series unnotable outside of the university and the Alabama Cooperative Extension System (which created the article as part of its on-going self-promotional editing within Wikipedia). No reliable sources found discussing these murals beyond the Extension service, its associated University, and local news. Bulk of Google hits just replicas of this article. Won no awards, and not a single news article nor book mention found on it. -- Collectonian  (talk · contribs) 04:58, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * OrangeMike added a speedy tag shortly after this AfD ... from your description, it sounds like you might want a speedy too, is that right? If you two want it, I'm fine with that.  I'd rather the article not hang around in the speedy queue for 5 days, so let's either speedy it or remove the tag. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 05:45, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I hadn't noticed he had. As the user has now been blocked for the same issue, I'd be fine with it being speedied as I really see no redemptive value in it. -- Collectonian  (talk · contribs) 06:12, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep Delete . The speedy has now been declined (by Schuminweb). (Rationale?  I don't need no stinkin' rationale.) - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 14:29, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * My link, Dystopos's link, the fact that the spammer has now been blocked, and support below are all persuasive. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 20:30, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Alabama-related deletion discussions.  —Artw (talk) 07:19, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Arts-related deletion discussions.  —Artw (talk) 07:21, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. Though it remained for me to add one, there are significant independent, verifiable sources. The article clearly has value, even if for a limited field of interest. --Dystopos (talk) 14:29, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Can you point to some of these independent sources? None are in the article except maybe the Alabama Heritage article. Everything is stuff written by the Alabama Cooperative Extension service or its two affiliated university, which makes them all non-independent. -- Collectonian  (talk · contribs) 14:34, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The article in Alabama Heritage is the primary independent source. Although the author of the piece is Dupree, the journal's editors are not associated with the cooperative extension service and can be expected to uphold the requirements of scholarship. Clearly there is some promotional activity going on with this article, but that activity seems to be aligned with Wikipedia's own aims -- providing detailed factual information about a legitimate subject of study. It is not marketing a product or service. --Dystopos (talk) 15:06, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The Living New Deal reference is hijacked by a promotional site. The last EL is broken.  The WPA database EL is potentially useful.  I guess I'm an "incrementalist" in practice: if Alabamians enjoy this level of cultural detail and are willing to put in the work to get the details right, and if that seems to be happening with this article in particular, I'll gladly switch my vote. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 14:39, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep I would think New Deal public art is notable per se. Let's find some sources and see-- it's a fine article in itself...sourcing the only problem. Rhinoracer (talk) 15:11, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep, mostly because I find the subject intriguing as an interesting American example of social-realist propaganda. Encyclopedic notability, once acquired, does not fade.  The article is in fact referenced to multiple Auburn University publications as well as a handful of others, and I know of no reason why these sources might be considered unreliable.  Conflict of interest is not a per se reason to delete an article.  - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 15:14, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I never said they were unreliable, but they are also not independent. If I go write five books about my own history, that doesn't make me notable. -- Collectonian  (talk · contribs) 15:33, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * However, even if you are notable, circumstances may still conspire to produce a dearth of outside sources about you. It appears that although many public murals from the WPA project have been widely studied, the this one sat in storage, unremembered, until recently, so most of the research about it has been done in-house. In this case, I would expect that the one comprehensive feature story in a peer-reviewed publication would be enough to satisfy us that we're not furthering a campaign of misinformation, which is the danger when covering subjects with few independent source. In other words: Though the recipe for a conflict of interest is present, I think we have enough evidence to be satisfied that the conflict itself is not present. --Dystopos (talk) 16:08, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * In this case, I think that concern about the lack of independence of the Auburn University publications is not really all that compelling. For it is written: "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications."  The academic sources at Auburn mentioned seem likely to qualify.  More importantly, there is no real reason to suspect them of fabricating any of the information for personal gain, which at least for me is the chief concern.  - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 16:16, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep as the subject appears to cross the thresholds for both verifiability and notability. Sources like the Mobile Press-Register are clearly independent of the creators of the work. - Dravecky (talk) 17:48, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * A well-written and informative article about some extremely interesting artwork. The pictures speak for themselves, and the facts given in the article back up their importance. There is every reason to assume that the article is accurate. Let's use common sense. Aymatth2 (talk) 20:06, 5 March 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.