Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music (4th nomination)


 * 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 at this time. Dennis Brown &#124; 2¢ &#124; WER  21:55, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music
AfDs for this article: 
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Concerns about the notability of this article. Consisted solely of original research. Semitransgenic talk. 18:01, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Music-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:41, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:42, 26 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete. No evidence of notability.--  SabreBD  (talk) 14:44, 26 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete. Did not find significant coverage in multiple reliable sources to meet WP:GNG. Previous AfD "keep" votes seem to rely on either "it's popular" or "you can't prove it's not notable" as arguments; the latter I think is irrelevent, and the former does not establish notability. In particular, WP:WEB (the web-specific notability guidelines, which can be considered in addition to general guideline criteria in WP:GNG) requires a website to have attracted notice (which I agree the has, in both reliable sources and in blogs and forums), but also requires either significant coverage in reliable sources, or winning a well-known award (see WP:WEBCRIT), which the subject fails to meet.


 * There is a single paragraph description of the website here:


 * Additionally, Ishkur's Guide is cited or very briefly mentioned in the following works:
 * Agyle (talk) 06:01, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Agyle (talk) 06:01, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Agyle (talk) 06:01, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Agyle (talk) 06:01, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Agyle (talk) 06:01, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Agyle (talk) 06:01, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Agyle (talk) 06:01, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Agyle (talk) 06:01, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Agyle (talk) 06:01, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Agyle (talk) 06:01, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Agyle (talk) 06:01, 1 June 2014 (UTC)


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


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, -- RoySmith (talk) 14:55, 2 June 2014 (UTC)




 * Keep for a web reference source, I think that it is doing rather well in terms of being paid attention to. In addition to the mentions above, "Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music" was suggested as a reference source at  and its accuracy, good, and ecletic classification system was discussed at . It was also covered in an article at  which discussed its scope and organization, and praised its detail. Since the nominator's deletion just prior to this nomination, I don't see any OR problems in the article.  --Bejnar (talk) 17:18, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Bejnar, remember we're not talking about notability in the popular sense, but Wikipedia's definition of notability, which hinges on significant coverage by independent reliable sources, not just a bullet point, sentence or paragraph. From what I could determine using Google's snippet view, the second of the sources you link is a letter to the editor; I haven't seen either of the other suggested references. Can you describe the depth of coverage in those sources, like how many paragraphs of coverage are devoted to the guide? Agyle (talk) 19:46, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * One paragraph in Keyboard (magazine), and just short of two hundred words in the Guardian. But both were critical assessments of the reference tool. It is not how long it is but whether it is substantive, these were.  I am not familiar with Keyboard and "Dr. Dawg", so it may have been  letter to the editor.  I understand that we apply Wikipedia standards, but a reference tool receives different coverage than a literary masterpiece, we need to accommodate to that reality in interpreting our guidelines.  --Bejnar (talk) 04:08, 3 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep This article has been sent to AfD at least three times before with one no consensus and the other two verdicts being keep. I am not going to say a Keep verdict can never be overturned later on. But if you have two of them then there is a high burden on anyone calling for the article to be deleted. Has the article changed substantially in a way that it now violates WP:NOT? That would be a good reason. Otherwise the community has twice determined that the subject of this article is notable. And once established, notability is forever. -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:26, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Changing my !vote to Neutral. See discussion below and the related discussion here. -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:55, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Ad Orientem, your rationale ("a Keep verdict can never be overturned") contradict's Wikipedia's notability guidelines at WP:NTEMP: "...from time to time, a reassessment of the evidence of notability or suitability of existing articles may be requested..." Also, the last affirmative notability decision was in 2007, citing (in part) the June 7, 2007 version of the WP:WEB, which was more inclusive than it is today. In particular, #3 in the criteria list, which was later removed, deemed any work notable if it was included on a popular, independently-run, non-user-submitted website, which this work met. Agyle (talk) 19:46, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Agyle thanks for your reply. Perhaps we are misunderstanding each other. I did not say that a Keep verdict can never be overturned. Actually I said that I was not staking out that position. I did say that if you have two keep verdicts in AfD then you have a high burden if you want to overturn them, which position I believe is consistent with both community precedent and COMMONSENSE. But that's a long ways from saying it can't be done. And actually I outlined one scenario where it would be quite legitimate. As to the specific point you raise about changed policy, I was not aware of this, and thank you for bringing it to my attention. It is possible that the tightening of standards may be grounds for reconsideration. The question that needs to be asked is, are the more restrictive standards retroactive in their application? If the answer is 'Yes' then I think your point is well made. I also think that Wikipedia had better consider an increase in its budget for red ink. -Ad Orientem (talk) 20:15, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Ad Orientem, I don't agree that a different decision than in the past must meet a higher burden. I'm not familiar with the precedents you mention, and don't recall this being suggested in the many overturned AfD decisions I've seen. And "common sense" is like a "because I think so" argument that can't really be countered. :-) But I admit I can't find any explicit guideline on that or the question of whether to apply 2007 or 2014 guidelines. I raised the two issues in Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion to solicit additional opinions. Agyle (talk) 17:43, 8 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete User talk:Ad Orientem states: "I did say that if you have two keep verdicts in AfD then you have a high burden if you want to overturn them, which position I believe is consistent with both community precedent." Sorry but COMMONSENSE my ass, the so-called "community" changes, it's nebulous, editors come and go, consensus opinion changes, depending on who is active, fact is, right now, we have a one sentence article with one usable secondary source from 2001. It is up to the keepers here to demonstrate notability using multiple WP:RS sources, and, for the record, something like something like this is not an acceptable citation.  Semitransgenic  talk. 10:50, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep Cited and discussed, albeit briefly, in some of the book sourced linked above, plus coverage from The Guardian, is enough to meet WP:GNG. -- cyclopia speak! 18:00, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Of the 8 books linked, 6 have one sentence that mentions the subject, and 2 have two sentences that discuss it. I would consider the intent of WP:GNG's "significant coverage" requirement: "We require 'significant coverage' in reliable sources so that we can actually write a whole article, rather than half a paragraph or a definition of that topic. If only a few sentences could be written and supported by sources about the subject, that subject does not qualify for a separate page..." Agyle (talk) 03:05, 14 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep The sources satisfy WP:SIGCOV. Andrew (talk) 21:26, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep, I think the sources, particularly those identified by User:Bejnar are just good enough to kick this over the line. The question of whether the site is a reliable source of information itself, which is touched on in the discussion above, is an entirely separate matter.  Lankiveil (speak to me) 01:45, 14 June 2014 (UTC).
 * Personally I generally wouldn't count one-paragraph article as a significant source of coverage for notability purposes. As WP:WEB says, "Wikipedia's goal is neither tiny articles with no realistic hope of expansion nor articles based primarily on what the subject or its creators say about themselves." I'd be hesitant to consider even the Guardian piece without knowing more about it; sometimes people cite articles in AfDs, and when you check them they turn out to be an opinion piece, an interview, or otherwise lack the type of factual, encyclopedic coverage necessary to write more than a stub like the present article. However, in this case, since it's the only source of coverage I might consider significant, and more than one are needed, it's moot (for me). Agyle (talk) 03:05, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
 * WP:PERMASTUB is an essay which has no force as policy — it's just somebody's opinion. If you look at other works of reference, they commonly have small entries for topics as a means of summarising what's important and making it readily accessible.  In our case, there is not the slightest practical problem with a small page.  These are actually quite suitable for modern mobile devices with small screens.  It's the enormous pages of 100K+ which are bloated to the point of being unreadable which we should be avoiding. Small is beautiful. Andrew (talk) 15:49, 14 June 2014 (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.