Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mike Adriano (2nd 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. Neither side is budging on this, and the personal attacks don't help either. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  17:21, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Mike Adriano
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

A BLP that lacks sources that discuss the subject directly and in detail. Does not meet WP:GNG or WP:PORNBIO as awards are niche or scene related. The article is sourced to online directories and industry PR materials; significant RS coverage not found. The article was kept at the 2013 AfD as meeting PORBIO at that time, i.e. multiple award nominations. However, PORNBIO has been significantly tightened since then. The community consensus also appears to have evolved that articles on adult actors need to demonstrate that reliable, 3rd party sources indeed exist. So I believe it's a good time to revisit. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:15, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Actors and filmmakers-related deletion discussions. Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk &bull;&#32;mail) 02:53, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Spain-related deletion discussions. Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk &bull;&#32;mail) 02:53, 4 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete a non-notable pornographic actor.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:40, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment I find it hard to believe that Adriano doesn't meet our notability guidelines -- not as a performer, but as one of the industry's top directors. When I have access to a desktop computer, I'll see if I can find some material about him. — MShabazz Talk/Stalk 17:41, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been added to the WikiProject Pornography list of deletions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:27, 5 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep Satisfies two of the four criteria under WP:DIRECTOR:
 * 1) Adriano is "regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by peers or successors". John Stagliano: "He understands the erotic value of POV. Through his lighting, framing and choice of women he creates ass images of voluptuous perfection. And when he perfectly frames one girl sucking his cock while another sucks his balls and a third licks his asshole, we are seeing erotic art on the highest level. He is a true fetishist, exploring ass, tits and oral sex with intimate power." Bonnie Rotten: "Mike Adriano was one of the first people who made me want to direct." Candice Dare: "I like working for Mike Adriano. It's always a hard day, just because he has a big cock and there's lots of gaping. I think it’s cool when I go back and I see the gape. It's really weird because he always wants to see how big your gape can get. It's like oh my god, I didn't know my butthole could do that. I've worked for Adriano a lot."
 * 2) Adriano is "known for originating a significant new concept, theory, or technique". Peter Warren at AVN: "The signature style that won Adriano this year's AVN Award for Best POV Sex Scene reigns supreme in American Anal Sluts, which focuses on the director's main interest of anything to do with a girl's ass, including gaping, anal toys, A2M and butt-licking." AVN: "Mike's trademark POV style that helps viewers immerse themselves in the action ... Fans of Adriano’s work know him best for producing anal scenes; however, his work in blowjob and oral releases for Evil Angel has garnered him the most industry awards." Besides which, he has won four AVN Awards for his directing.— Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 20:07, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment: Are you seriously claiming that this guy discovered that many men are erotically attracted by female butts? The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by many administrators since 2006.   (talk) 12:54, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Yeah, and all Newton did was discover that if you drop something, it falls. — MShabazz Talk/Stalk 18:14, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Comment -- All of the above is AVN coverage; I don't think this meets the requirement for SIGCOV in independent, reliable sources. K.e.coffman (talk) 21:09, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Indeed it is. People in the film industry are covered in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, people in the music business are covered in Billboard, and people in the adult film business are covered in AVN. If you don't think it's a reliable source, WP:RS/N is that way. This is WP:AfD. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 21:17, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep per passing WP:DIRECTOR per Malik Shabazz. Morbidthoughts (talk) 13:27, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   09:35, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. —Syrenka V (talk) 02:45, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep for reasons established at Articles for deletion/Mike Adriano. Minor porno actor, but more important as a porn director.  In any event, article and coverage did not get worse in the meantime. Serial AFDs ought to have a good reason.  7&amp;6=thirteen (☎) 12:51, 12 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. I've added sections on "Gonzo pornography" and "Influence", with academic references from Porn Studies (Maina and Zecca 2016) and from an anthology on paratext[!] (Saunders 2014), as well as some of the AVN material provided by above (thanks!). Adriano may not have originated gonzo pornography (his colleague and studio head John Stagliano did that) but he appears to have been influential in pushing it, and its performers, to extremes.
 * On AVN and XBIZ as sources: WikiProject Pornography has specifically addressed industry sources, and it characterizes AVN as a "reliable source for adult industry news and movie reviews", with some caveats. It characterizes XBIZ flatly as a "Reliable source for adult industry news", without any caveats. While community consensus on a wider scale could in theory override the local consensus of WikiProject Pornography per section WP:LOCALCONSENSUS within policy WP:CONSENSUS, I see no signs at RSN or elsewhere of any movement toward such a contrary wider consensus.
 * On changes in WP:PORNBIO: I checked the version of 1 August 2013, at the time of the first AfD nomination. The only substantive difference from the current version of that section is that the clause "or has been nominated for such an award several times" in the old version is omitted from the current one. It has not been "tightened" in any other way. And the relevant section for this article is WP:DIRECTOR anyway, not WP:PORNBIO.
 * On alleged evolution of a community consensus that "articles on adult actors need to demonstrate that reliable, 3rd party sources indeed exist": for all of the special notability guidelines, satisfying the condition of the guideline is supposed to be presumptive evidence of notability in and of itself. Any demand for additional evidence of notability, above and beyond that, would defeat the purpose of the special notability guidelines. It would render them superfluous. It would amount in effect to repealing the special notability guidelines altogether, and accepting only WP:GNG as evidence of notability. That approach is favored by a vocal faction, but it is explicitly rejected by WP:N, the guideline of which WP:GNG is merely one section. I don't see any consensus for repealing WP:PORNBIO, WP:DIRECTOR, or any other special notability guideline—nor any evolution of community consensus in that direction.
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 07:36, 13 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete. I have reviewed the sources. These are: AVN (multiple times), XBiz, and one paper in a journal with negligible reach and citations. Basically, everything we have about him is Kayfabe, there are no substantive reality-based sources about this subject. Guy (Help!) 09:12, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
 * and I have already addressed the dismissal of AVN and XBIZ as sources. But the dismissal of Porn Studies as "a journal with negligible reach and citations" does merit further response. That dismissal is not consistent with the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) for Porn Studies, freely available at the SJR page for Porn Studies, nor with SJR's comparative rankings for Porn Studies relative to other journals in the same fields of study. Porn Studies ranks in the top quartile (57th out of 702) among Cultural Studies journals, in the top quartile (30th out of 118) among Gender Studies journals, and in the second quartile (103rd out of 230) among Social Psychology journals. Not bad for a journal that began publication in 2014. Also, it can be seen from its own SJR page that these quartiles, and most other metrics, for Porn Studies have increased sharply from 2015 (when SJR began tracking it) to 2016.
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 12:48, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I also just now noticed, and reverted, your removal of the book reference I had added (Saunders 2014) based on the claim that IGI Global is an "academic vanity press". I see no evidence of that, and it is not on WP:List of companies engaged in the self-publishing business.
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 19:43, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I have seen your assertions regarding the purported reliability of these sources. I reject them. Guy (Help!) 09:15, 14 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete as non notable porn actor, Hasn't won any notable/significant awards, Fails PORNBIO & GNG. – Davey 2010 Talk 12:41, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Um, Davey2010, you do realize that Adriano is an award-winning director, right? — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 02:39, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Regardless of who he is he's still non notable anyway, AVN report on everything trivial and pointless so I wouldn't consider them a reliable source at all. – Davey 2010 Talk 03:01, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment on levels of consensus and evaluation of sources: WP:CONSENSUS implicitly—and, in some places, such as the section WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, explicitly—sets up a hierarchical scale of levels of consensus, and states unequivocally that:
 * Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale.
 * WP:CONSENSUS describes the iterative processes of editing and discussion that generate consensus and legitimize its outcome as authoritative. The general picture is of a slow, extended process, highly visible to the community over a period of time, with participation available to all who are interested in the topic on which consensus is being built. WP:LOCALCONSENSUS places the consensus of policies and guidelines at the top of the hierarchy, since their effects are pervasive across a wide variety of topics, and mandates especially conservative procedures for modifying them.
 * So how do AfD discussions measure up on this scale? They just barely qualify as generating consensus at all. Even with multiple relistings, the fate of an article is decided, in a way that is not easy to reverse, over less than a month. They do not appear to attract a representative sample of those interested in the topic, nor is it easy to see how they could, given the short time frame—and that Wikipedians have lives.
 * This is why the admonitions of WP:CONSENSUS, that narrower levels of consensus should defer to wider ones, and that votes and pure opinion should count for little or nothing, apply especially strongly to AfDs. AfD consensus is about as narrow as Wikipedia consensus can get. AfDs are answerable to policies and guidelines, not the other way around. And the same is true even of broad consensus at a level lower than policy—such as that of longstanding, highly visible projects concerned with the relevant subject matter. What any one editor thinks of AVN and XBIZ as sources is less relevant than what WikiProject Pornography thinks. It's true that Wikipedia consensus cannot legislate matters of basic fact; we're still free to argue that WikiProject Pornography is simply wrong about this, but the burden of proof is very much on those who would make that claim, not on those who agree with the project. It's also possible to generate a level of consensus that would trump the project's consensus—for example, by writing specific caveats against sources from the adult film industry into the policies and guidelines. Yet another possibility is for those who want to see stricter rules on sources to enter WikiProject Pornography and change its consensus directly.
 * But these attempts should be made at the appropriate places, like policy, guideline and project talk pages, or RSN, or the Village Pump. AfDs are not the place to try to gain leverage against established wider consensus.
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 05:21, 15 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete - Fails GNG. Carrite (talk) 03:01, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * If that's based on rejection of AVN and XBIZ as sources—see above. —Syrenka V (talk) 03:25, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete. Fails PORNBIO and the GNG. The AVN sources quoted above are little more than retouched PR copy, and the superlatives come mostly from other employees of the porn company he was working for. The "Porn Studies" mentions Adriano in passing a few times, but has no substantive critical commentary on his work. The harangues, above, about the porn wikiproject and consensus are belied by the extensive discussions that have taken place over the last few years, both on the guideline talk page and in the many discussions listed at WikiProject_Pornography/Deletion. WP:BLP and WP:RS, by well-established consensus, carry more weight than a Wikiproject's opinions. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by many administrators since 2006.   (talk) 06:44, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm sure your viewpoint has been expressed vocally on policy, guideline, and project talk pages—and those, unlike AfDs, are at least appropriate venues to seek consensus. But the outcome, the bottom line on consensus, is the policies, guidelines, and project pages themselves, and the wider consensus you claim does not exist. If it did, WP:BLP and WP:RS would warn us explicitly against use of AVN and XBIZ as sources, and they don't. WikiProject Pornography isn't the highest level of consensus—just the highest level that has anything specific to say about the reliability of those particular sources.
 * The "retouched PR copy" statement is baseless, the relevant special notability guideline (as noted repeatedly) is WP:DIRECTOR rather than WP:PORNBIO, and the mentions in Porn Studies are not "in passing". They are used to illustrate the central points that Maina and Zecca are making. They don't critique Adriano; they use his work to critique gonzo pornography—and to identify it as "the privileged choice of award-winning directors such as ... Mike Adriano".
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 10:22, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Stop lying, Syrenka V. It's not at all "baseless", as you so falsely declare, to say that AVN posts retouched and recycled PR copy. It's a simple fact. It's been demonstrated repeatedly. Before I posted here, I checked the specific article at issue. Here's just one example of the PR source . Here's another . Your "point" about BLP and RS not specifically citing AVN and XBIZ as unreliable sources is just plain crap. The pages don't warn us "explicitly" against using the Weekly World News, Vox Populi, or reaganwasright.com, either, because there are way, way, way, way too many unreliable sources out there to list. You've only been editing for about three months, and it's clear you don't understand the policies you attempt to invoke. It's time for you to pull back and pay attention to the established practices of the more experienced community here. And that distorted quote you provide from "Porn Studies" is just a passing mention, as is clear from the text without your curiously selective editing: "the first sequence with a 'tease' or 'interview'. the second sequence with sex. These materials represent the real industrial backbone of contemporary gonzo in terms of volume of production; moreover, this model is often the privileged choice of award-winning directors such as Mason, Mike Adriano,and Jules Jordan". The real text tells us that directors like Adriano and others adhere strictly to a conventional structure, which is hardly supportive of the claims you make about Adriano's distinctive style, to the very limited extent that the text says anything nontrivial about the article subject. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by many administrators since 2006.   (talk) 13:37, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Now that you've presented your basis for the PR charge, I do see your point about the quotations from John Stagliano and Peter Warren. It would have been better to present that evidence at the time you made the charge. For all I knew, there was no more evidence for it than for the earlier attempt to marginalize Porn Studies, which I have refuted above by reference to SLR rankings. Note however that I had not used those quotations in the article—only the ones from Candice Dare and Bonnie Rotten. Even without evidence of PR recycling, Stagliano—Adriano's studio head—appeared to me to be too closely linked to Adriano. Are you also claiming that the sources quoting Candice Dare and Bonnie Rotten are recycled PR?
 * The policy WP:BLP actually does specifically condemn tabloid journalism, in the section WP:BLPSOURCE, though it does not enumerate specific tabloids by name. There is no reason why WP:RS or WP:BLP couldn't include "specific caveats against sources from the adult film industry", as I put it in an earlier part of this discussion; that would be explicit enough, without singling out AVN and XBIZ by name. Alternatively, as noted, the consensus at the project page for WikiProject Pornography, which does discuss numerous sources by name, could be changed to reject these sources, or to limit them to specific, narrow uses (such as listing the awards given out by the adult film industry).
 * The problem with policies and guidelines vs. "the established practices of the more experienced community here" is not that I don't understand the policies and guidelines—it's that "the established practices of the more experienced community here" frequently deviate seriously from the policies and guidelines. WP:CONSENSUS does not give any special authority to an insiders' club, nor to discussions in which outsiders are less likely to be inclined to participate. On the contrary, WP:CONSENSUS gives most authority to the documents with the highest visibility and widest participation. The rampant attempt to use the marginal consensus of AfD (and DRV) discussions to override the plain meaning of policies and guidelines, or even of their interpretation at high-visibility project pages, is in my opinion a form of WP:FORUMSHOPPING. If AVN and XBIZ are as bad as deletion advocates here seem to think, it shouldn't be hard to make an overwhelming case at WikiProject Pornography and change the consensus there.
 * More about the Porn Studies article later.
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 07:27, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
 * On the passages from the Porn Studies article: there are actually three paragraphs in which Adriano's work is mentioned: two on page 341, and one on page 345. The one on page 345 is referenced in the article to show that "Adriano is recognized as a major director in the genre of gonzo pornography." Which it does. It emphasizes his role as definitive of the common conventions of gonzo. As the full context of the section "Monstrative attraction and feigned reality" (starting on page 343) makes clear, the relevant conventions are specific to, and characteristic of, gonzo. The quotation from page 345 was not supposed to illustrate the distinctive characteristics that set him apart from other gonzo directors; that was emphasized instead in the other two paragraphs, from page 341, which are referenced in the article to support that point.
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 08:34, 18 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment -- I don't see how the subject meets WP:DIRECTOR. The awards are scene related, and the requirement in CREATIVE is that they'd be widely cited by peers and successors. The praise is mostly interviews with adult actors. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:34, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
 * It's true that this isn't the clearest case of WP:DIRECTOR in existence. But note that Bonnie Rotten is a director as well as an actor, and specifically credits Adriano as a mentor in her role as a director. Also, the Porn Studies article meets the "regarded as an important figure" clause of WP:DIRECTOR; Maina and Zecca include him in their example list of three "award-winning directors" in the gonzo pornography genre, in a scholarly article on the genre as a whole.
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 08:45, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   09:35, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
 * delete imo fails gng and the clained sng passes based on self serving industry noise areextbook arguments of why blps should default to the gng rather than sngs. Spartaz Humbug! 09:53, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Except for the specific case of press releases for the Stagliano comments above—which are not used in the article, and are not needed for the WP:DIRECTOR argument (nor for a WP:GNG argument)—no case has been made for why adult film publications should be treated as "kayfabe" or "self serving industry noise", any more than Billboard or Variety. And if the adult film industry is as bad as professional wrestling in that respect (as the use of the term "kayfabe" implies), that case should be made at WikiProject Pornography. If it had been successfully made there, this AfD conversation would likely be going very differently. This is the third round (second relisting) of this AfD, and still no serious and general attempt has been made to refute 's comments comparing adult film industry sources to the trade papers of other entertainment industries.
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 01:57, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Spartaz knows this isn't the right place to propose changes in policy, but he wants to pretend it is. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 02:27, 23 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete for lack of WP:SIGCOV. There was a high school track star by this name in Kansas City in the 90s who gets lots more hits on a proquest news search - where this film director gets zero hits. Sourcing consists of several mentions in a single article in a minor academic journal called Porn Studies, two mentions in a magazine about adult videos, and winning a series of porn industry awards in categories such as "Most Outrageous Sex Scene."  This is not enough to pass WP:CREATIVE.E.M.Gregory (talk) 01:04, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The claim that Porn Studies is "minor" (or any similarly dismissive term, however vague) has already been refuted by reference to its SJR rankings (see above). How this topic passes WP:DIRECTOR (= WP:CREATIVE) has already been explained above. And search engine hits are a very crude measure at best, as I'm sure deletionists would be quick to point out if they were used to justify a keep for a topic that had a large number of hits.
 * —Syrenka V (talk) 02:38, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
 * My point is that I cannot locate any INDEPTH or SIGCOV in a mainstream or non-porn-industry, secondary source. Sourcing is mostly to AVN (magazine), the trade journal of the porn industry.  Genuinely notable individuals - or the films, books, paintings they create - are expected to have at least some coverage outside the walled garden of the industry they work within. the fact taht Adriano lacks such coverage is a demonstration that it is WP:TOOSOON.E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:49, 27 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep per WP:DIRECTOR. Imho the subject suffices item 1. gidonb (talk) 03:47, 27 November 2017 (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.