Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lorraine Bow


 * 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. " Lorraine Bow is about to break into mainstream music education." That about pretty much says it. Consensus seems pretty clear.  DGG ( talk ) 01:13, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Lorraine Bow

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Non-notable person. Few references given don't confer real notability, only fleeting interest when the media was briefly interested in the ukulele. The article reads less like an encyclopaedia entry and more like a resume. Fundamentally she doesn't meet the general notability criteria, nor the musician notability criteria. Bob Re-born (talk) 17:19, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete. Not notable, no significant coverage elsewhere, no good reason for this article to remain. &sup;&deg;' Hot Crocodile  '…… +  17:47, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bands and musicians-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 18:39, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:RFD#KEEP.

"Someone finds them useful"

"Notability is not temporary: once a topic has been the subject of "significant coverage" in accordance with the general notability guideline, it does not need to have ongoing coverage."

This page is useful to people who are in the know in the ukulele scene, and beyond. Lorraine Bow is about to break into mainstream music education. She has taught thousands of people how to play the ukulele, many of whom have become very successful, other students are notable themselves. She has also inspired thousands more ukulele players via her free jam night, Ukulele Wednesdays, and band, KaraUke. The media interest in ukulele is not temporary, or short lived. It has been ongoing for the past 5 years, since Lorraine started Ukulele Wednesdays, a very popular night in London, which has over 1000 participants on facebook, and 100 weekly attendees, celebrity attendees include Keira Knightly and famous band members after recording sessions in Denmark Street. Lorraine has been laying low as she has been writing a book, which is due for release in May. She will receive more media coverage at that time, and this article should be given a chance.

Can you suggest ways in which to make it less 'like a resume'? I took information from her interviews and things I have gleaned from others and formatted it in a way that I felt was concise and chronological. I am new to wikipedia and want to update on new ukulele happenings, right now, rather than past dating it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iloveuke (talk • contribs) 19:52, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment. You're misquoting the idea of WP:USEFUL. The point of that is to say that it isn't a valid reason to keep an article. Being useful is never a good reason to keep an article. It doesn't matter if it tells you how to turn cure the common cold. If it isn't backed up with multiple reliable sources to show that this particular case is notable, then it cannot be kept. Also, I want to mention that we're not a crystal ball. (WP:CRYSTALBALL) It doesn't matter how soon it may or may not be before Bow "makes it big", the point the nominator is trying to make that right now it doesn't appear that she has enough consistent and reliable coverage to have notability in the here and now. We can't keep an article just because her book might push her into the public limelight. Wikipedia doesn't work that way because while it's possible that the book might get tons of media attention, it's just as likely that the book will end up flying under the radar and never getting any media attention. As far as the public interest in ukeleles goes, the notability of the ukelele does not extend to any of its performers. For example, if Israel Kamakawiwo'ole had not gotten as much media coverage as he had, he'd never have merited an article- regardless of how talented he was. Talent does not give you notability, nor does playing a notable musical instrument. Playing the ukelele did not give him instant notability and just because Kamakawio'ole achieved fame does not mean that everyone else that's played the ukelele has notability. The same thing goes for famous people that might have attended her performances: just because they attended does not give her notability. (WP:NOTINHERITED) I'm not trying to be mean, it's just that none of these arguments are ones that can keep the article. Now you might want to see if you can WP:USERFY the article, which means that it would be moved into your namespace so you can continue to work on it until the point comes when it would pass notability guidelines. During this time I heartily recommend that since you are new, that you look into getting someone from WikiProject Music and/or WikiProject Musicians to help you. They can help walk you through the common pitfalls that many new users stumble into.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 10:45, 25 February 2012 (UTC)tokyogirl79
 * Additional. I don't want you to feel bad about not knowing any of this or misapplying any of it. ALL of us were new here once and I guarantee that 99.9% of us made these exact same mistakes when first editing. Even now I'm still making mistakes that others have pointed out, and I've been using Wikipedia for a long while now. (Some of the stuff I used to do is actually sort of embarrassing now, lol.) Tokyogirl79 (talk) 10:45, 25 February 2012 (UTC)tokyogirl79
 * Additional additional: I wanted to voice a small concern that a few of us have had. I have to ask, are you Lorraine Bow or someone who knows her? I only ask because the amount of coverage she's had is rather small in comparison to other musicians. If you are, then there's nothing about this that is against the rules. You can be Ms Bow or one of her friends/relatives/students/coworkers and still edit the article. The only thing is that you should be upfront about your involvement because if someone else were to discover this connection and you weren't already upfront about it, it would cast a shadow on your involvement in the article and AfD. I'm not trying to gang up on you or discourage you, just saying that it would be a conflict of interest and you should tread with caution if you are. (WP:COI) If you are, then no worries- you can still contribute to the article, but it'd be better to work with someone in one of the WikiProjects I've mentioned above so that everything is on the up and up. It's just that it's so incredibly easy to misinterpret notability and to write non-neutral statements when you're personally involved with the article's subject. I know that if some of my author friends were to ever make it big, I'd never be able to work on their articles for the exact same reason.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 11:32, 25 February 2012 (UTC)tokyogirl79


 * Comment. I did a HUGE cleanup of the article and took out all of the extraneous information out as well as the decidedly non-neutral parts out. I will say that I'll have to weed through the sources to see if this helps her pass WP:MUSICBIO. The information I posted above still stands and I would encourage the original editor to read through it carefully.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 14:40, 25 February 2012 (UTC)tokyogirl79
 * Comment. I removed one of the sources. I also looked at the remaining sources and I'm a little concerned that, , were all written during a short period of time and wouldn't be considered enough to keep the article. She received a brief spurt of attention in 2010 as an oddity, but hasn't received any media attention since then. As far as the performances she's done are concerned, I'm not sure if those would count since she wasn't really the focus of those segments, but a guest performer. Also, from what I've read of the documentary in the Warrington link, the documentary isn't about her- it's about George Formby and she'll just be briefly appearing in it. Neither of those really count as far as notability goes, I'm afraid. I'm still working on this and I don't want iloveuke to think that I'm completely against the article, but unfortunately I'm not certain that this passes WP:MUSICBIO.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 14:51, 25 February 2012 (UTC)tokyogirl79


 * Delete. I thought about this for a good long time and I just don't see where Bow has achieved the amount of notability needed to pass WP:ENTERTAINER or WP:BIO. She did get a brief spurt of news articles about her, but has not gotten any media attention since then. The thing about "once notable, always notable" does not mean that a brief amount of news coverage will always give notability. Bow did participate on a BBC radio show and supposedly sang on a TV show, but was not the focus of either the radio or TV spots. This doesn't mean that these performances are meaningless, just that they aren't enough in and of themselves to pass WP:ENTERTAINER. This was a tough decision because she really is thisclose to being notable, but she just hasn't crossed over from "occasionally noticed oddity" to "notable oddity". (I mean no disrespect by the usage of the term oddity.) The article's claims of her teaching or working with notable people don't give her notability either, as notability is not inherited. (WP:NOTINHERITED) I'm unfortunately not sure that her upcoming "how to play the uke" book for beginners will be enough to give her notability, as most "how to" books of any kind tend to fly under the radar, but I do encourage the article creator to look into userfying the article back to their namespace. I have no problem with them working on it until/if the point comes when she does pass WP:ENTERTAINER.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 05:00, 26 February 2012 (UTC)Tokyogirl79

Thank you. These comments are all very helpful. Bow is notable, there are more up to date references to her. She was my teacher, a few years ago, but I moved away from the area so we're not in touch at the moment. I follow her on twitter and know that she did a concert with 200+ children at the V&A in December. Stu Heritage, the writer from the Guardian tweeted about it. [fr.twitter.com/stuheritage/status/144810938321731584] and it was featured in the Times Educational Supplement Pro, but the article wasn't online. There is a link here. and the editor tweeted about the front page of it. She also arranged a 40 strong concert band at Shakespeare's Globe Theater in January. 

She is an entertainer and music educator, notable in many circles, and featured when she performs or arranges shows. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.249.120.224 (talk) 00:10, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment: I edited the links slightly so they would show up here and I had to remove one since it's on Wikipedia's blacklist, which means that the links are not supposed to be used on Wikipedia at all. While you should use reference linking in the articles, you need to use [ ] in other areas since there's no reference areas elsewhere. In any case, the links you just gave us don't count as reliable sources. Twitter is pretty much never usable as a reliable source and in this case, the twitter post by Stu Heritage pretty much just lets people know of an upcoming performance. It's not really the type of thing that's used as a reliable source. The second link  just has a list of links, one of which is a link to Bow's uke page and is unusable as a reliable source. The link to a twitpic of a magazine cover is good, but we need to know what the article inside of it was like. I also have to ask if it was about Bow or about the performance as a whole, because there's a big difference there as far as notability goes. If the article was predominantly about ukuleles and the performance, with Bow being briefly mentioned, it wouldn't be something that could count towards notability and would be usable more as a reliable source. It doesn't really matter that it was about a class or band she worked on or in, the article wouldn't be able to show notability for her. Now by supplement, does that mean that is something that was put in a newspaper or is it something that was just handed out at an expo? If you have a copy of the magazine or can get a copy of its contents, I recommend that you bring this up at Reliable sources/Noticeboard to see if it's usable as a source. The issues with the last two links is that the first link  is just a press release and press releases are never usable as reliable sources. (Plus it never mentions Bow by name, so even if it wasn't a press release it'd still be unusable to show notability for her even though it mentions something she worked on.) The second link  is also unusable since it's just a mention of an upcoming performance and routine listings of upcoming performances aren't usable as even trivial sources. So pretty much the only thing that you might be able to use is the supplement, so if you can get your hands on that, please do.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 10:45, 27 February 2012 (UTC)tokyogirl79

Here's the article, via Lorraine's Google+ account: https://plus.google.com/photos/105515087014331546653/albums/5713783074835728705?hl=en — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iloveuke (talk • contribs) 12:14, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete without prejudice - if there was any evidence that she'd toured nationally throughout the United Kingdom, I'd like to keep this per WP:MUSICBIO, but right now it appears she's not yet notable. 1,000 facebook followers is not that high. Bearian (talk) 22:24, 7 March 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.