Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Miss Pooja (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 Keep The consensus of this discussion seems to indicate that she does in fact meet the bar of WP:N. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:56, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Miss Pooja
AfDs for this article: 
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Re-delete. This article was already deleted once by way of consensus after a previous deletion discussion, but has since been recreated. I still cannot find non-trivial coverage of this artist from various third party publications. It has been asked once before, and I will ask it again: perhaps she has been reported on in another language? If sufficient coverage still cannot be found then I would suggest salting this page as well. JBsupreme (talk) 18:33, 11 January 2010 (UTC) (reset indent) Right, unclaimed source of caste..., would you really call that contentious info?, comprised by the extremely serious concerns of BLP? I call it trivial vandalism. You are the one changing the subject with your invocation of BLP concerns, when in reality you want to send other editors scrambling for sources in Punjabi language within seven days. Power.corrupts (talk) 22:27, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: Google news hits all seem to be from user-edited sites. Polarpanda (talk) 19:32, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions.  —Polarpanda (talk) 19:46, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * comment i was able to find a track listing for the album romantic jatt, which features Rishi Rich as a vocalist. also this small mention, . She appears to have some notability, just poorly documented. oh, and romantic jatt is released on mp3 only i believe. not looking good.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 19:56, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bands and musicians-related deletion discussions.  — J04n(talk page) 22:41, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - I have had this page watchlisted since I declined a G4 speedy on it in Jan 2009 and cleaned it up. I think that the problem we have here is that Miss Pooja/Gurinder Kainth/Gurinder Kaur (if you are googling then you should google all three) is a "household name" but not necessarily in English speaking parts of the world, hence admitted dirth of reliable sources in English.  I think this is a classic case of the effects of cultural bias and on that basis I can't !vote Delete at the moment.   Nancy  talk  06:59, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Would a rescue tag help? If someone can show that there are actual reliable sources covering this subject (in more than passing) I will happily withdraw the nom.  I do not care what language those sources are in, so long as they meet our standards for reliability as defined in Reliable sources.  I'm kind of shocked that there is nothing printed about her in English, given that all the "pop" songs I've managed to locate by this artist are in the English language.  JBsupreme (talk) 07:13, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * A rescue tag could do no harm. We need someone who speaks Punjabi as I'll bet that is where the sources are. Take your point about the English language songs/lack of English sources - it is a little odd. Nancy  talk  07:35, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Searching for mentions of "Miss Pooja" on the BBC website gives 46 pages of results. Most of these are archived playlists rather than prose pieces but they do show that she gets masses of airplay on a UK national radio station - I don't know if that counts as "rotation" enough to meet criterion 11 of WP:MUSICBIO?  Nancy  talk  08:13, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete. Her main claim to fame (notability) is this unreferenced puffery in the article "Miss Pooja is one of the best-selling female Indian Bhangra singers.". This in my view is the core issue for retention of this article. Commenting as an Indian, her recording credits with "T-series" and "E-series" do not in any way contribute towards establishing her notability. These recording companies maintain "talent banks" of thousands of "clone singers" for their "audio piracy" legalised by a loophole in section 59 (??) of the Indian Copyright Act which allows anyone to publish a "version" / "cover" of an audio work by paying the original publisher the princely sum of Rupees 5 (about 10 US cents). Annette46 (talk) 13:45, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep This is a hard-charging and uncompromising interpretation of the notability guideline: either fix this article's references, likely to be written in Punjabi language, within 7 days or it will be deleted and salted. This is at odds with WP:DEADLINE, AfD is WP:NOTCLEANUP, and, ironically the Notability guideline itself. "For articles of unclear notability, deletion should be a last resort". With half a milion Google hits for "Miss Pooja" it could reasonably be assumed that RS exist, in Punjabi language or otherwise, and the airing on BBC would also support this assumption.  It is certainly not a clearcut Miss Nobody, this is at the very least a case of "unclear notability".  The first AfD is also borderline, with low participation, muddled discussion, and reservations concerning possible WP:BIAS -- not the clear-cut community deletion consensus story that JBSupreme tries to sell as a veiled G4. Power.corrupts (talk) 17:45, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. That is not even remotely true.  If this were a clearcut "Miss Nobody" then the article would be speedy deleted under CSD A7 criteria.  We have strict policies, such as WP:BLP which prevent the ongoing publication of material which is not reliably sourced.  There was a discussion 2 years ago where no sources were found.  No sources have been found since then, either. I find that telling.  So rather than put words in my mouth, why don't you put quality sources in the article?  If the article gets deleted and sources are found at a later date, we can re-create the article at that time.  JBsupreme (talk) 17:50, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Honestly, I have little interest in sifting through half a million Google hits for some singer, half a globe away, who I would never ever listen to. And neither do you, I suspect, as you prefer other editors do that work.  Theoretically, it is possible to recreate an article, assuming you were aware that it existed in some form, but in practice, as Wikipedia deletions work at present, only a select group of less than 2,000 persons worldwide, with Wikipedia admin status, are able to view deleted articles.  Your reference to WP:BLP is simply misleading, as the concern there is contentious information -- the concerns of other editors are more mundane, vanity etc.  If you would like to invoke BLP, please highlight your concerns about contentious info, e.g. libel or defamation. I doubt you will find any.  Power.corrupts (talk) 20:46, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * There are plenty more (and for that matter, far worse) potentially libelous/defamatory claims in the page history. I need not highlight all of them, they will take you seconds to find.  JBsupreme (talk) 20:48, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Your link points to plain vandalism, as do some of the other reverted edits, e.g. by Hullaballoo, this could be an argument for semi-proctection, not deletion. Power.corrupts (talk) 21:07, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Now you're changing the subject. The highlighted link above makes an example of unsourced claim of caste, which is not vandalism per se, although there are plenty of examples of vandalism within the article.  The lack of non-trivial coverage from reliable third party publications is the reason for deletion.  WP:DEADLINE cuts both ways.  JBsupreme (talk) 21:45, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Please keep a cool head and WP:AGF. I believe that I have clearly outlined and identified the problems with this article.  Should it be deleted as a result and then proper sources be discovered (which would surprise me at this point) the article can and should be re-created from those sources, as I've said above.  I have little sympathy for your "7 days" argument given the number of years we've presented this material with zilch to show for it.  JBsupreme (talk) 22:39, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * All I'm asking is that you qualify your BLP concerns... Power.corrupts (talk) 22:45, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm done repeating myself here. JBsupreme (talk) 22:52, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * COMMENT FYI, guys, the first Google hit now claims that she has been shot and killed. I'm not sure how that changes things in this AfD, but I suspect it will change how the article will be edited/seen during this discussion. . SMSpivey (talk) 04:14, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Ugh, I found one of those reports that gives a date (they are from July 09), so whoops and carry on.SMSpivey (talk) 04:22, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep-I remember working on this article when reports regarding her death was in full flourish. Later those reports turned out to be wide spread rumor. But I realized then that she is notable in northern part of India, specially Punjabi speaking region. Her album has a review at BBC Review, there may be more reviews. This BBC article suggests that her hit album proves that bhangra (an Indian genre of music) is definitely not dead. This may satisfy Point number 7 of WP:MUSICBIO. Hitro   talk  07:19, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep Keep Change made in light of BBC sources found by User:HitroMilanese. I've found a readable English-Language site which has a number of articles about Miss Pooja and seems like a legitimate magazine concerned with this type of music . It would be great if we could find some non-English articles, but unfortunately I do not speak any languages they could be written in. Perhaps if kept, we could punt further article citations over to Wikiproject India? SMSpivey (talk) 04:30, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Click the Google news search at the top of the AFD. See how much press coverage she gets?  She is also the winner of BEST INTERNATIONAL ACT at the UK Asian Music Awards 2009, an award which gets plenty of coverage  and therefore is considered notable by Wikipedia standards.   D r e a m Focus  05:20, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment User:Power_corrupts gets "half million Ghits" for "Miss Pooja", I get precisely 312, the bulk of which are either user generated or torrent sites including some like these "http://rapidlibrary.com/index.php?q=miss+pooja+boobs".  Out of these about 80 are for that fake story about her death. BTW Indians, ie. people from India don't know this Non Resident Indian lady so its no use asking us to pitch in to salvage the article. The "desihits" website is unreliable.Annette46 (talk) 15:42, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not a question of whether you or people you know know Miss Pooja, it is a question of whether or not people from India can look for reliable sources to assert (or not assert) her notability that are written in a non-English language. There are plenty of English-language musical artists who I don't know that meet WP:N. SMSpivey (talk) 18:42, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The point is that she is NOT from India. I am a regular bhangra listener and I've never heard of her in any significantly notable connection. To claim that she is the most famous Indian Bhangra singer is patent nonsense. The sources cited as RS like desihits.com, desiblitz.com etc are UK based websites targeted towards Non Resident Indians. So don't look to people from India to salvage this article. As far as we are concerned "Bhangra" is an exclusively male vocal folk dance form (women dancers are just eye candy), the female equivalent being called Giddha. "Bhangra Music" however is a UK invented bastardisation. Annette46 (talk) 19:51, 13 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Annette46 is right, if you scroll to the end, the Google hits evaporate, my version of Google returns 333 hits, and if I opt to see also "similar pages not omitted", 999 pages are available. Much less that ½ mio.  I then experimented with Google translate, which changes English "Miss Pooja" into Hindi "कुमारी पूजा".  Google for "कुमारी पूजा" and you have 32,000 hits, which evaporate to 571 unique hits.  There seem to be some respectable RS, e.g gwaliortimes.wordpress.com, thatshindi.oneindia.in/news , navbharattimes.indiatimes.com  - the curled letters are completely volapuk to me though. My experience with searching both Mexican and Danish sources are, however, that many online media actively keep Google out with a NOINDEX tag, and require paid subscription to both searching and viewing.  This raises massive systematic BIAS issues, for those who see lack of Google footprint as proof of non-existence.  For non-English sources in AfDs under time pressure, I therefore lean on less formalistic approaches, if a singer performs on several continents, if Google indicates an extensive fan base, if she makes so much of herself outside India, a country with a 1.2 bn population, she would at least qualify to be of "unclear notability" and unsuitable for guess-based deletion. If local language editors makes a serious search attempt for that specific location, then I bow to them.  Power.corrupts (talk) 19:54, 13 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I receive 342 unique hits (more than Power corrupts 333). JBsupreme (talk) 20:11, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I understand that she is a non-resident Indian. While I respect that it is against your traditions, it is totally immaterial how people from India view female participation in Bhangra Music. All that matters is if she meets WP:N; and I cannot see how we can say she does not if we cannot search through articles written in another language. No one is asking Indians to "salvage" the article. I instead hope that someone with the language skills to do so can make a good faith effort to check through non-English sources that could hold information related to a cross-cultural artist. If there is nothing there, there is nothing there, but we can't know if we can't check. And if there are sources and we delete this article, then it is a tragic example of textbook cultural bias that comes from Wikipedia relying on English Google sources for notability. SMSpivey (talk) 20:21, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The assertion of notability in the article, namely that she is the most famous Indian Bhangra singer is provably false as I have demonstrated. What else survives ? just PR fluff !!! Also since she is based in UK, I believe they speak (and write) a variant of (Google searchable) English there. Annette46 (talk) 20:27, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * With All Respect, in response to Annette46's comment.-- Giddha is a form of folk dance as per wikipedia article and concerned lady is a singer where as Bhangra may have lyrics, its not just only dance. A sourced snippet in wikipedian article Bhangra, clearly says that "Women are turning into Bhangra as way of defining culture" (you may refer to reference number 7). "Bhangra Music" may be a bastardisation but it can not be cold-shouldered, BBC Asian network plays these music in rotation you may want to look bhangra section here. Please give a glance at my keep comment above regarding few more sources. Hitro   talk  20:31, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I respect your comment. Bhangra is a traditional folk dance of Punjab set to a unique beat and male vocals. Yes in UK and Canada a few females may sing bhangra, but this is a bastardisation, and is not bhangra (as purists understand it) and is comparable to the female Elvis impersonator example I cited. Yes they may even be perfect - but its fake -like female Kathakali or Kabuki performers. The BBC is not always considered as an RS for India or things Indian :-) Annette46 (talk) 20:44, 13 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep. The "best selling/most popular Indian" part isn't even sourced in the provided reference so it's probably a red herring here and should be removed. The sources seem to revolve around her popularity in the UK scene, and show she meets WP:MUSICBIO. The review of her album at the BBC describes her as "the poster girl of Punjabi music" and the "current Queen of Bhangra", which is evidence of point 7 ("most prominent of a notable style or of the local scene of a city"). The article points to a live session she performed for BBC Asian Network, a national radio station, and here's the tracklisting for that show, where she gave an interview and 7 of her tracks were played/performed live. It takes up roughly half of a two-hour show, meeting point 12 ("has been the subject of a half hour or longer broadcast across a national radio or TV network"). Another BBC page has a "played by" section listing some of the shows that have played her music, along with the search results linked earlier, which are nearly all from archived tracklistings (11: "has been placed in rotation nationally by any major radio network"). Finally, there's her "Best International Act" award at the UK Asian Music Awards, which was broadcast worldwide on the B4U Music satellite network . It passes the duck test for me, these aren't signs of a non-notable musician. Holly25 (talk) 03:44, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Miss Pooja is not a non resident Indian but based out of Punjab, India. She is currently one of the most popular Punjabi singers (male or female). Her songs appear regularly on TV channels such as Alpha TV Punjabi, ZEE Punjabi, JAS TV. There are hundreds of her songs available on YouTube, many of which have almost 1 million views. Her interviews with western TV/Radio media can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNvo0hcYOBM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyRDPGgFiHI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8vwSdsSCgc bal537 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bal537 (talk • contribs) 21:32, 15 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment. All this is very interesting, but you must back it up with citations from Reliable Sources. Unfortunately you are unlikely to get these from Indian sources (which incidentally is another reason why WP is so biased against Indians who live in India). For eg. a Gsearch for "miss pooja" at site:bbc.co.uk gives 740 hits. But a similar search for "lata mangeshkar" Lata Mangeshkar at site:ddindia.gov.in gets ZERO. Annette46 (talk) 08:54, 18 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep. Despite nearly !voting delete when I initially commented on this discussion, with the information that has come to light in the last few days I now am of the opinion that Miss Pooja passes at least one, and possibly two of the criteria at WP:MUSIC. Winning the UK Asian Music Award ticks the box for criterion 8, and the extensive airplay on the National UK radio station - BBC Asian Network - for me satisfies criterion 11. As I mentioned above, and as alluded to by Annette46, I do think this article a likely victim of the circumstances that cause Wikipedia's cultural bias however I think that the sources that have been found are just enough and that a delete !vote would make me part of the problem. Nancy  talk  09:42, 18 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment. The BBC Asian Network would not pass an independent assessment as a "national" RADIO network. On the standard radio frequencies it has incomplete footprint. It only gets its so-called "national coverage" as part of the DAB international radio project of the ITU - nowadays every piffling local station gets distributed globally via satellite. Also the station seems to have only a miniscule 0.2% audience share. Furthermore, I question if the UK Asian Music Awards qualifies as a major music award like the "Grammies", "Juno", "Mercury" etc. (BTW it doesnt have a wiki article)Annette46 (talk) 12:39, 18 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment notwithstnding the above, Miss Pooja does have 2 or more albums recorded /distributed by a major record label (T-series is as big as they come) but as a religious singer (ie. not as Bhangra singer), , Guess thats what threw me off=track. Annette46 (talk) 12:52, 18 January 2010 (UTC)


 * It's very much a national radio network; it's broadcast from the BBC's network of land-based transmitters rather than being satellite based, and they're switching all of their radio stations to that DAB network over the next five years. Holly25 (talk) 13:54, 18 January 2010 (UTC)


 * shows the "national radio network". BBC Asian Network is not exactly BBC Radio 2 or BBC Radio 4!! A 0.2% audience share is exactly the kind of tokenism which made the Kurims a laughing stock. Yes, by 2013 DAB will be national till then there are huge unserviced patches  for the A/N (which is not the case for 2 or 4). Annette46 (talk) 16:48, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * No, it's already very much a national network. The page you've linked to shows the dates when the analogue non-DAB radio transmitters are switched off, at which point DAB will be the only national radio medium. The "unserviced patches" refer to MW (analogue) coverage. The BBC themselves call Asian Network a "national digital radio station", it's not just my opinion. Holly25 (talk) 16:57, 18 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep. A recording artist with a track record of albums. There looks to be some anti non-Anglo-centric sentiment on Wikipedia sometimes. Of course English references will be harder to find in such cases. Follow WP:BEFORE first. — Jonathan Bowen (talk) 14:30, 18 January 2010 (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.