Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Our Road To Kosovo


 * 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. j⚛e deckertalk 00:40, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Our Road To Kosovo

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Article about a student documentary, created by the director (who also created the article about himself and has protested the tagging of both articles with COI tags (see the lengthy post on my talk page)). There are admittedly a lot of references, but most of them are either to the university the director attended (not a third party independent source), a couple to a local newspaper, one from a magazine and the remainder are from film festivals. I don't really know that much about films and what makes them notable, so I thought this should be brought to wider attention so that people who know what they're talking about can judge. What particularly concerns me most is that the film only has 23 hits on Google (half of which have been used as references), which is not what I would expect for a notable film produced in the last 10-15 years. Number  5  7  18:05, 11 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep There seems to be enough coverage in the media for it to be a notable documentary, even if half of it is from Southern Illinois University. IJA (talk) 19:51, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete I've had second thoughts after realising this James Saldana aka Film Blog 101 has created an article on his own piece of work, probably for the purpose of self promotion. Wikipedia isn't a place for advertisement. My initial keep argument wasn't very strong in the first place. Perhaps a violation of WP:SOCK too? IJA (talk) 23:31, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * IJA james.saldana did attempt to blank the page about himself after the first warning from an Admin Ruby Murray about contributing to an article about himself but the page blank was undone by the Admin Ruby Murray (no disrespect R.M.) and here we are now arguing about something that the subject himself attempted to remove based on the rules. Note, no such warning was given on the Our Road To Kosovo page. Film Blog 101 (talk) 15:29, 14 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete - wow, ref-spam. There's a whole bunch of "references" there, few of which would be considered independent enough by our standards. A university writing about one of its own students is not an independent reliable source. Much of the remaining coverage is from local papers (from the student film-maker's local area) or constitutes passing mentions in more significant press. Hardly significant coverage of the subject. The award it won was an Angelus Award which doesn't seem significant enough to confer notability. It's also won a couple of category awards at various local film festivals. Also not enough (in my view). I also have serious questions about the notability of James Saldaña who seems to have created an article about himself and his documentary and filled them with "references" from university colleagues and local papers. The biography, in particular, seems to hang it's hat on the fact that a production for which he was a cameraman received three Emmy nominations by suggesting he had a wider role in a pre-cursor production. Stalwart 111  23:17, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete – I fail to see the notability of this film and why it should merit its own article. 23 editor (talk) 13:36, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:37, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Film-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:37, 12 March 2014 (UTC)


 * talk Temecula Valley International Film Festival and the Sacramento Film and Music Festival. Both are notable international film festivals that the subject's film has been screened at. Our Road To Kosovo won an award at the Temecula Valley International Film Festival and was screened at the Sacramento Film and Music Festival. Neither festival is local to Illinois, both are international film festivals.
 * talk Note that the the Oscars - Academy_Awards like many other film festivals and festivals awards is a process of peer review, "(i.e. only directors vote for directors, writers for writers, actors for actors, etc.). In all major categories" so what I said about establishing "notability" in film is factually correct. This practice is common throughout the film festival circuit and accepted by the public in general for the "notability" of film work in general. News and magazine articles about filmmakers are generally considered good publicity, criticism and look really good on DVD covers or Amazon product pages, but filmmakers general look to peers in their field as do academic researchers in order to establish "notability". Film Blog 101 (talk) 14:47, 13 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete due to lack of significant coverage from multiple reliable sources. The brunt of the coverage is by Claire O'Brien at The Southern Illinoisan, which is a local newspaper in the town where Saldaña went to graduate school. (If we treat a film's release as an event of sorts, then WP:GEOSCOPE may apply here in terms of how little reach it had outside the town.) Beyond this, I only see passing mentions. I would suggest scrutinizing James Saldaña further as well, especially considering the COI in starting and writing the article. Erik (talk &#124; contrib) (ping me) 15:49, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The Southern Illinoisan is a regional newspaper that covers a large geographical area in the the State of Illinois. Film Blog 101 (talk) 15:37, 14 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment - Erik is right and the article creator has since suggested my view of Saldaña's notability is "extreme", so I'm opening it up for community discussion at Articles for deletion/James Saldaña. Stalwart 111  01:15, 13 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep If you're a scientist "notability" is conferred by having your research published under peer review at an industry conference or in a professional journal. Same goes in the film world, having your film screened at a film festival or receive an award at film festival is how "notability" is conferred; all film festivals use some form of jury review. I viewed Stalwart opinion as "extreme" because newspaper or magazine articles citing a filmmakers accomplishments are not how notability is established amongst filmmakers. Sure articles about a filmmakers accomplishments are great publicity but it's not the standard of "notability" for filmmakers. A film festival in of itself is "significant coverage" - even if the film festival is not so well known in the circles of popular culture. Saldana's accomplishments are all factual but don't seem to be notable to non-filmmakers, such as journalists. The fact that he was a student at the time, in a non-filmmaking graduate degree program (his resume is online), doesn't depreciate the accomplishment of having his Kosovo film shown in several "non-student" film festivals in "non-student" categories, such as, the Temecula Valley International Film Festival and the Sacramento Film and Music Festival. The Both are international film festivals, maybe not Sundance, but reputable all the same for filmmakers. Who sets the standard for filmmaker's notability, Wikipedia or the film industry? Film Blog 101
 * Note that this is the article creator and probably also the film's director. Number   5  7  11:37, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Note that the the Oscars - Academy_Awards like many other film festivals and festivals awards is a process of peer review, "(i.e. only directors vote for directors, writers for writers, actors for actors, etc.). In all major categories" so what I said about establishing "notability" in film is factually correct. This practice is common throughout the film festival circuit and accepted by the public in general for the "notability" of film work in general. News and magazine articles about filmmakers are generally considered good publicity, criticism and look really good on DVD covers or Amazon product pages, but filmmakers general look to peers in their field as do academic researchers in order to establish "notability". Film Blog 101 (talk) 14:47, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * A film screening at a film festival does not mean that it is automatically notable to include on Wikipedia. Wikipedia's general guideline for notability is that "a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". The specific guideline for films emphasizes retrospective notability where applicable. We do not count any film festival screening because that bar is considered too low. Erik (talk &#124; contrib) (ping me) 19:50, 14 March 2014 (UTC)