Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Laurent Mettraux


 * 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   delete. Jenks24 (talk) 14:21, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Laurent Mettraux

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This article is such ugly example of bombardment that it is pure spam. So many references and non references that have nothing to do with Mettraux and are just puffing up this bio. Remove all the crap and we are left with nothing much more than some unsubstantiated quotes from his own website. duffbeerforme (talk) 11:37, 16 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Nom seems to be right. I've de-peacock'd the article and removed irrelevant links (e.g. websites of orchestras that say nothing about Mettraux). All that's left is a CV with quotes cited on his own website. I'll have a look on the web for possible RS. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:18, 16 October 2012 (UTC)


 * A quick look reveals 15 news items on Mettraux in distinctly minor places, though perhaps they might be enough to establish notability. No well-known newspapers among them.Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:22, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Switzerland-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:05, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bands and musicians-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:05, 18 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete My first thought on looking at the article was "This is the cleaned-up version?". Looking back at the history, I confirmed that it indeed is. The previous version was so unambiguously promotional that I am bewildered by the fact that a speedy deletion was declined. The current version is better, but still substantially promotional in character. However, it is possible to despam an article if its subject is notable, so let's look at the references and see what is there. Exactly half of the current references are pages at www.laurentmettraux.com. One is a dead link. Several are links to pages that don't even mention Laurent Mettraux. In fact there is a grand total of one reference to a page which mentions him, other than his own web site, and that does no more than give credit in a concert programme. OK, so next thought is "were there better refs which were lost in the process of cleaning up?" Well, there were 43 references, and I have checked a random sample of 12. Not one of them mentions Laurent Mettraux at all. So the only independent source listed in any version of the article, as far as I have seen, that mentions him merely lists his name in  a credit. It may be that in fact he is notable, but so far we have no evidence that he is. However, I thought maybe there are suitable sources, but the author of the article failed to provide them.


 * I started with a Google search. There were some Google images. Those that I checked all turned out to be hosted either on his own web site or on sites promoting his concerts, etc etc. Other than that, the first page of Google hits was as follows: 1: his own web site. 2: Wikipedia. 3: YouTube. 4: LinkedIn. 5 & 6: Two pages at indiatimes.com, for both of which the most they tell us is "There are no Quotes on Laurent Mettraux". 7: A page on a web site that sells space for users to post their own content. Also, the page merely lists Laurent Mettraux's works, so even if it were an independent reliable source (which it isn't) it would not be substantial coverage. And the next page of Google hits was no better.
 * I searched on Google books. First was a book which said "the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online". I didn't see anything else about him, rather than ''by him.
 * I searched Google news. I found a total of two reports, each of which made just one passing mention of Laurent Mettraux. (Incidentally, the sentence mentioning him was word for word the same in both.)


 * Conclusion: Neither in the article itself nor anywhere else have I been able to find any evidence that he satisfies Wikipedia's notability guidelines. In the unlikely event that he does, then rather than try to further clean up this piece of promotion and find proper references to add to it, far better to start from scratch and write a new, non-promotional article. More likely, he isn't notable. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:02, 19 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete, yes, he doesn't seem to have left much trace in WP:RS anywhere: hard to credit if his work was performed by so many fine orchestras. Perhaps he made most of it up, who knows. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:09, 19 October 2012 (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.