Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Oscar van Dillen (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. Notability for other than Wikipedia has been established. Consensus to keep, including late withdrawal ( talk→  BWilkins   ←track ) 12:40, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Oscar van Dillen
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

The first president of Wikimedia Nederland should be there somewhere, but I failed to find him in all the standard searches either in this capacity or as a composer. WP:MUSIC, WP:BIO, WP:PROF, and WP:N all fail since WP:V fails. Sorry, Oscar! Jubilee♫ clipman 23:45, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I should add that though the Dutch article is sustantial, most of the links in it are either dead or fail to mention him at all. The only link that both lives and mentions him is a plug for a record.  Of all the links provided by  in the previous AfD (none of which were added after the discussion closed), only one might be useful:   The others fail to mention him by name, are lists of compositions, appear to be personal websites, make only passing mentions or are in Dutch.  If any one can translate the Dutch stuff and verify that it established establishes notability, that would be fine.  Otherwise I don't find much out there at all to prove all the assertions made about him in the WP articles in any language. Also Eigen website (in ELs in the Dutch WP) is a Wiki, not his official site [addendum - actually it does appear to be his official site: see below]. Furthermore, neither this nor this mention him as having any connection with Cybele nor does the About us linked in the previous AfD.  [consolidated from previous comments: see edit history] --Jubilee♫ clipman  00:43, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, I have tried really hard to source this article but have failed at every turn. The link I provided above from the previous AfD does not establish notability, his own website  is actually a wiki (same as "Eigen wesite" above), and the record labels are rather small and neither have WP entries Etcetera Records/Etcetera (label)/Cybele Records/Cybele (label)/etc. I can't see I can go any further in sourcing so I stand by my proposal.  --Jubilee♫ clipman  01:05, 9 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Weak keep Perfectly genuine both as a composer and a WP person. The question is whether he is notable. Online refs. are hardly substantial but that is true of most of these university-supported modern composers. I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt. -- Klein zach  01:52, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * But Kleinzach, even you have failed to provide any actual sources! The Cybele records EL you added merely names him as composer/conductor and the label is not particularly notable (if at all, given the lack of a WP article on it).  The review only comments that the work sounds like a Pink Floyd album and that the production quality of the disk is superb (not that the music is). That's a very weak keep!  --Jubilee♫ clipman  02:04, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, very weak keep. But I'm not convinced he is really any less notable than the other half dozen modern Dutch composers we have. Perhaps we need new notability criteria for contemporary composers? If we are strict with the existing criteria we would probably delete most of them. -- Klein zach  02:23, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * That's a fair point, actually. We'll have to look into that as a project.  It looks as though this composer might just scrape through on the strength of evidence you and Deskford have provided but we'll have to see what non-CTM editors think, too.   See my comment to Deskford below, however...  --Jubilee♫ clipman  02:35, 9 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep. Weak keep  as a composer &mdash; not sure as a Wikipedian! Recordings on Cybele and Etcetera suggest notability.  Here's the full review that the Cybele website quotes from.  --Deskford (talk) 02:15, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll add that as an EL. [you already added it] The review on the Cybele site actually links to more reviews in German which I have only just spotted.  That link can be added, too.  However, we still need actual sources to verify the information about van Dillen himself.  Otherwise we have a very poorly sourced article (at best) about one of our own which really does not look good at all!  --Jubilee♫ clipman  02:31, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I think Kleinzach and I were both adding the same reference at the same time, so it ended up in twice. I am struggling to find any decent third party coverage.  He's not even listed on the Donemus website.  He is listed on the Rotterdam Conservatoire website as teaching Western music theory in the Turkish music department, but there is no more than a mention.  --Deskford (talk) 03:45, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Haha! That link nearly went in three times in three different styles: I added it too until I noticed it was already there! Anyway, I am not convinced of any of this: if there are no secondaries or tertiaries to use we have no business retaining the article especially since it is a very poorly sourced article about a major Wikipedian.  It's the last bit that's the worst part: if we retain poorly sourced articles about our own people that looks very bad to the outside world considering our strict policies and guidelines.  The other difficult-to-source articles should go, too, in fairness, if they are sourced from primaries only or from not-very-reliable-sources, but they are not as critical.  The article on van Dillen just isn't viable without proper RSs, period.  We need to be setting an example with our own people's articles if we are to be respected for our editing of other people's article.  --Jubilee♫ clipman  04:43, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Recent edits to the article and newly added references convince me enough to convert my "weak keep" to a straight "keep". --Deskford (talk) 18:23, 12 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bands and musicians-related deletion discussions.  —Jubilee♫ clipman  05:40, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Weak delete: not every professional musician is notable enough to have an article. There're many musicians with careers like his, and he doesn't seem to have made any impact in the classical music world.--Karljoos (talk) 12:13, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete I think the nom makes the relevant case here. Eusebeus (talk) 00:21, 10 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep. Kept before, lots of Google hits, nominated for a Golden Calf Award. – EdvardMunch (talk) 04:36, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Just because an article was kept before doesn't mean to say it should stay the next time. Lots of Ghits does not mean lots of notability.  Also, after extensive research by numerous editors the Golden Calf nomination has not been cited.  Added cn to claim.  Any other reason to keep?  --Jubilee♫ clipman  05:47, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Notability was established in the first AfD. I suggest you read it. Also note that it shouldn't be Wikipedia's problem that you can't read Dutch. WP:V is about what can be verified, not about what unskilled editors are personally able to verify. – EdvardMunch (talk) 08:03, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I read the previous AfD thoroughly and checked all the links Oscar provided. I have commented in full above on both the AfD and the sources.  The Golden Calf website is defunct: here.  This claim is still to be verified; if it cannot be verified, the line should be removed. The other award was for emerging talent and fails WP:MUSIC.  I asked any one that can speake Dutch to verify that those sources were useful: I did not claim that they were not RSs nor that they did not establish notability.  So far all we really have that is verified is the fact he worked with a filmmaker on a project commissioned by the Canada Council for the Arts, the resultant work being presented in Images Festival in Toronto.  I know hothing about the Images Festival in Toronto—and its WP article does not help much: is it especially important and notable?  More to the point, were the results part of a major event or part of a very minor side event?  People do all sorts of stuff at the Edinburgh Festival but they don't all get viable WP articles.  Lots of composers have had CDs released, but not all of these CDs are especially significant: these recording do not per se establish notability in my opinion.  Nomination remains as is.  --Jubilee♫ clipman  19:02, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The previous AfD established notability based on English and Dutch sources. Imagine I said that the Dutch sources didn't establish notability and that I felt that was sufficient grounds to delete the article no matter what the English sources said. Would you accept that argument? – EdvardMunch (talk) 19:22, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Please review this statement from above: ''Of all the links provided by in the previous AfD (none of which were added after the discussion closed), only one might be useful:   The others fail to mention him by name, are lists of compositions, appear to be personal websites, make only passing mentions or are in Dutch. If any one can translate the Dutch stuff and verify that it established notability, that would be fine.'' I stand by that and every thing I have said since. (Yes there's a typo in "established" in the last sentence.) Obviously content that can only be verified in only one language is fine—even if that language isn't English, even if it is ancient Urdu or Icelandic; hence If anyone etc. --Jubilee♫ clipman 19:43, 10 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  —David Eppstein (talk) 07:13, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Delete. Does not meet the rather high notability standards of WP:CREATIVE or WP:ENT. Most of the references/sources quoted in the article, as well as in the last deletion debate, are neither independent or give van Dillen more than a passing mention. Like many entertainers/performers, there are many hits/"sources" that are little more than billboards or advertising. There is very, very little here in terms of genuine third part references that would support a position that van Dillen is considered important by his peers, that his work is of ongoing significance or that he has developed something new or notable. Van Dillen would need to meet at least one of these criterion to be considered notable as a creative professional. Wikipeterproject (talk) 21:53, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. By the way I speak and read Dutch!  Wikipeterproject (talk) 21:54, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * So you are saying that the Dutch sources are of no use also? If so, we have even fewer sources to verify the article's claims with.  --Jubilee♫ clipman  02:58, 11 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom, User:Wikipeterproject, and... me.  JBsupreme  ( talk ) 00:55, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment I should explain that JBsupreme made the first nomination of this article. His comments over there are worth reviewing.   --Jubilee♫ clipman  03:04, 11 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment - has anyone tried to contact the subject to ask whether he wants it kept or deleted? - A l is o n  ❤ 02:20, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
 * He commented in the last AFD. Although he said he made to stand one way or the other, he provided sources, which seems to be a clear desire for keep. Lara  03:27, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I messaged him. He emailed me to say that he prefers to keep out of it.  He did provide one possible source however:  the article "Komponisten im Sog des Globalen" in MusikTexte 117, by Ulrich Dibelius.  If any one has this periodical and can verify that it establishes notabilty that would be great.  --Jubilee♫ clipman  03:39, 12 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep sufficient to show notability as a composer. We should watch out for a tendency  against  articles on people connected with Wikipedia.    DGG ( talk ) 05:36, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
 * That last is a fair point. We need to be disinterested rather than partial whichever way our personal bias might tip...  --Jubilee♫ clipman  16:06, 12 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep per DGG UltraMagnusspeak 06:16, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep The last AFD closed on the 8th of November 2009. Sources were found during that AFD, and mentioned within it.   D r e a m Focus  15:14, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
 * ...but they weren't actually added and the most important are only just being properly evaluated. There does seem to be some evidence of notability now that this work is actually being done by, ,  and me with help from Oscar behind the scenes.  --Jubilee♫ clipman  15:36, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Speedy keep [1] Given the huge amount of references in Dutch national, regional, and ethnic press as well as in music magazines in the Netherlands and Germany, I believe that this nomination of a person, who is clearly notable by Wikipedia standards, is a no-brainer. [2] I am slightly disturbed that nominator sort of "argues" with every entry in this AfD after he had already made his case in the nomination. [3] I am somewhat insulted by the gentle suggestion that Wikipedians cannot be notable or that they should be held to more stringent standards then others. Are we a bunch of losers? [4] I believe that the process should be speedy, however, only because the page has been nominated just 3 months ago, resulting in a clear keep. gidonb (talk) 21:19, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Response to above concerns - First, when the article was nominated this second time there were absolutely no references in it at all. I spent almost 4 hours trying to ref it and gave up believing this guy was entirely non-notable.  I admit I missed the previous AfD before I PRODed by mistake.  However, I felt that even the previous AfD did not actually establish notability.  None of the sources, I felt were good enough, as explained above.   Second, my comments after each entry here are either requests for more info or acknowledgement of error on my part.  The only person I argued with (aside from a slight tete-a-tete with Kleinzach) was EdvardMunch and that because I felt his argument was very weak.  Since then I have been in contact with Oscar and other editors and we have done the work that should have been done immeadiately following the previous AfD viz verifying and adding the sources and citing them inline to help contextualise them.  If that work had been done, we would not be here again now.  I did not say that Wikipedians cannot be notable or that they should be held to higher standards than non-Wikipedians, I pointed out the likely reaction of the public if we allowed a badly sourced BLP of a Wikipedian pass AfD while deleting other better sourced BLPs of non-Wikipedians. That is quite a different thing.  Anyway speedy not necessary


 * Withdrawn - article now fully establishes notability of subject. --Jubilee♫ clipman  22:02, 12 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Jubilee, I really do not want to rub this in. Please be careful with AFDing. gidonb (talk) 00:22, 13 February 2010 (UTC)


 * gidonb: Be fair. This one was a difficult call - and the end result is satisfactory. -- Klein zach  11:38, 13 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Jubilee was careful. It's not his fault people love to vote keep in AFDs, but don't bother to do anything to improve the articles to any sort of standard the project should be proud of. You should be thanking him for taking the time to actually improve the content. Lara  19:59, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
 * To be fair, Gidonb has actually worked on this article himself adding yet more sources. Oscar has also provided me with a ream of other RSs today so the article could end up in GAN in the near future if expanded properly!  Watch that space...  --Jubilee♫ clipman  20:33, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Klein, there was a long series of failures in this AfD. The important thing is to learn from them. gidonb (talk) 11:18, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
 * There were far more failures in the previous AfD: we need to learn from those, first before nitpicking over minor blunders elsewhere.... --Jubilee♫ clipman  14:45, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I am not nitpicking. You missed the recent AfD and failed to pick up that Van Dillen is clearly notable both as a composer and Wikipedian. A simple search on Google News would have been enough to establish that. A look at his discography as well. Please be more careful in the future with AfDs and do not argue so much with everyone. You do great work on Wikipedia, so it is really not to your advantage to leave bad impressions in AfDs. gidonb (talk) 18:08, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
 * No further comment: I have explained in full both here and on your talk page. --Jubilee♫ clipman  23:26, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Explaining is not needed. Learning is. I have a very positive view of your activities on Wikipedia and only want to help you work better in the future. gidonb (talk) 23:50, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. Perhaps I should have asked the WP:WikiProject Netherlands to have a look at this one in hindsight. Since I neither read Dutch nor trust the online translation services, I really did not know what to make of any of those sources. Coordinating efforts with other Wikiprojects is something I feel strongly about, actually, so I will endevour in future to seek out any that might be able to help with relatively obscure (outside of their country) musicians and composers. And, yes: reading the history more carefully would have helped! BTW, Google News didn't help me much, actually. Maybe you refined the search in some useful way? I still feel that we ought to be very careful with articles on our own people, however. At a minimum they need to be sourced... --Jubilee♫ clipman 00:25, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually a simple push on the Google news button above shows that Van Dillen is notable as a Wikipedian, with nontrivial coverage in the Dutch national press. Of course, such a search should be done by the nominator ahead of nominating. Nothing fancy or special, just type "Oscar van Dillen" in Google news and the other quality areas with quotation marks. You can look up what the news sources are on Wikipedia. Asking at the relevant project or other people around, but most of all doing basic research yourself will keep you away from future wrongheaded nominations. gidonb (talk) 00:59, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I just did the News search again and got nothing. Literally nothing, I mean. Your search - "Oscar van Dillen" - did not match any documents.  Maybe it's because I'm in the UK?  --Jubilee♫ clipman  02:02, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, the archives comes up with 4 journals/newspapers (I forgot about those) but I did ask people to help out with the Dutch stuff as I couldn't reasonably translate it. --Jubilee♫ clipman  02:09, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Finally, the Books search comes up with works drawing from WP (note the "[WP]" after each entry) so that wasn't any use either as far as I could tell. --Jubilee♫ clipman  02:28, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh. The refined search (above) excludes these and comes up with a single book that isn't obviously useful as far as I can tell. BBV appear to be a TV production company.  (I don't know why I'm bothering to defend this all but I will anyway.  I did do the research expected of me during the attempt to source the article...  I only missed spotting the previous AfD.  Once I saw it, it still didn't help much, IMO.)  --Jubilee♫ clipman  02:39, 15 February 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.