Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Raymond Salvatore Harmon


 * 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. Having read over it quickly, I just cannot find any consensus at all for deletion. MuZemike 23:32, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Raymond Salvatore Harmon

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No sources at all, and totally fails WP:NPOV. Questionable notability. U-Mos (talk) 20:28, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

From article creator user:Creatcher

This article was nominated for deletion out of a debate on the unreferenced material that was added by a vandal on September 24th 2009. After having my attempts to undo the vandalism reverted several times by user U-Mos I tried to open a discussion with the user (on their talk page) who was reverting everything I did to remove the vandalism. At this point the user nominated the article for deletion because I disagreed that his revisions were unreferenced and potentially libel.

This wiki article has been actively maintained since May of 2007 and has gone through several revisions. It conforms to the standards for biographies for living persons. I feel that the user U-Mos is simply attacking the article out of spite over the subject of the potential revisions. U-Mos reverted the article 3 times in under a few hours before nominating it for deletion. In fact, based on the talk page for the user U-Mos it is apparent that they regularly have this issue.Creather (talk) 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Update September 28 2009

I have added verifiable references to much of the content of this wiki article. The accusation of 'questionable notability' seems a bit much considering a simple search for the artist's name reveals and extensive amount of material.Creather (talk) 28 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I object on the strongest terms any suggestion that I nominated this article out of spite, or that I have some kind of pattern of unconstructive behaviour (yes, I have been blocked for 24 hours in the recent past for breaking 3RR, but I have learnt from that mistake). This nomination came because of the quality of the article, regardless of the edits I had made to it before (which were absolutely not three reverts, but a revert and two further edits on the same text in an effort to find a compromise). Creatcher: this place is for discussing whether the article should remain or not. You've added some sources, excellent. That's the way to go about getting this kept. There's still the issue of NPOV, and there is still questionable notability (google results does not mean notability. Has he been covered in mainstream publications/news outside the recent Thom Yorke video? I don't know. Perhaps he is notable, but the article doesn't make it seem so.). Please discuss that here and leave the issues you clearly have with me at the door, or on my talk page if you so desire. U-Mos (talk) 12:40, 28 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment. The article claims that Mr. Harmon's work has been reviewed "most recently in the LA Times, TimeOut London, Chicago Tribune, Flux Magazine, Signal to Noise, Wire Magazine, New York Times, Pop Matters, All About Jazz, Downbeat, Jazztimes, Point of Departure, Foxy Digitalis, among others." The LA Times review appears here, byline Howard Reich of the Chicago Tribune.  A search in Proquest brought up the Tribune review, but nothing for the LA Times.  I also did not get any results Raymond Salvatore Harmon (All three words, not in quotes) in the New York Times, either through Proquest or at the NYT website.  The other publications are not available via database, so I was unable to verify them one way or the other (A cursory google search with Mr. Harmon's name and the name of the publications mostly brough up noise and wikipedia mirrors, but I didn't have time to search thoroughly enough to conclude whether the sources exist or not).  His work is reviewed by Foxy Digitalis, but my CD is reviewed there too, so in terms of establishing notability, I'd be wary.

I'm on the fence, re: notability. If the article survives, if definitely needs POV work and shoring up of its references. Some jerk on the Internet (talk) 23:08, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, JForget  22:59, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.


 * Further thoughts Even a simple google search reveals an incredible amount of references to Harmon's work. His films have shown internationally at dozens of film festivals, he has been the director of several cultural organizations, his writing has been published in academic journals and he has lectured extensively at universities. How much more "notability' is required for a wiki page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Creatcher (talk • contribs) 14:32, 5 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment after further research. I've been searching google for "Raymond Salvatore Harmon" (in quotes), and in the first six pages, I've found, in addition to his personal website, the WP article in question, his myspace & facebook pages, and a whole slew of pages with uploaded videos of work he's done (none useful for establishing notability, if I understand the guidelines correctly), the following:
 * This interview on Bad Lit. It calls itself "the journal of underground film," but it's a blog (though apparently a respected one).
 * A show listing in Free Williamsburg, also a blog, but of the "local free underground rag" type.
 * A piece on him from Center Stage Chicago. This article the has identical list of works he's supposed to have been reviewed in that I tried to verify above.  Where the list appeared first, I didn't attempt to check.  Here's C.S. Chicago's about page.
 * An interview in PEEL Magazine. PEEL was founded in 2003 [http://www.pe3l.com/?page_id=2 "as a 1/2 size black-and-white zine documenting street art with a focus on stickers."
 * a press release from Inspire Fine Art for a shoe he did in 2007, on the Frugal Fun website.
 * An article about one of his exhibitions in Art Slant. Their about page is here.
 * http://www.independentexposure.com/filmmaker/893/Raymond_Salvatore_Harmon.html A page about him from Independent Exposure 08] The write-up is there, but he does not appear to have won any awards.
 * Three search results for his name from the San Francisco Weekly website. All three are hits for his names in film listings.  No additional content.
 * I searched again for his name (full name, without quotes), in Ebsco, Gale, and Proquest databases to which I have access, and besides the Chicago Tribune article mentioned above, found nothing. As an underground artist, he's obviously much more likely to appear in small, nichey, online publications than established mainstream ones, but I personally found him almost exclusively in the former, and never in the latter.  Without wishing to disparage his work, I feel I can say that based on my research that while he has a large presense online, he fails to appear in sources which establish his notability. Some jerk on the Internet (talk) 20:46, 5 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Additional questions

So in order for a person to be notable they have to appear in a search of a commercially owned press search engine like Ebsco, Gale, and Proquest? What about the Harmon article in PAJ, published by MIT press? Or reviews of his work in magazines like Time Out, Signal to Noise, Wire Magazine, All About Jazz, Chicago Tribune and many others? Surely publications that can be bought at a Barnes and Nobles qualifies as more than "underground media"? The PAJ article alone establishes notability based on the wiki requirements.

To quote the wiki page:

"A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has been the subject of published[3] secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent,[4] and independent of the subject.[5]"

Of which the references sited above (PEEL magazine, PAJ, Internet Movie Database etc) qualify Harmon under these terms. Creatcher (talk) 12:59, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * One person's response to additional questions: I wouldn't say someone has to appear in one of the databases to be notable, but since they contain known and established newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journals, I find them a useful tool.  I can be confident that the information I find in them comes from reliable sources.  I didn't mean to condemn Harmon, just to report that I didn't find him in any of the databases I searched.  Obviously, they're not perfect or all-inclusive, since they don't have PAJ, Down Beat, or Wire Magazine.  If they had, I would have been able to verify his appearance in them.
 * The sources I did find via google search I felt were not sufficiently reliable to determine Harmon's notability, based on my understanding of WP's reliable sources page and its reliable source examples page. It's entirely possible that I was being too harsh on them, and I welcome others' interpretations.
 * For the three examples you ask specifically about, in my own opinion, I do not consider the Peel source reliable, since it's a website based on a 'zine. I consider PAJ a reliable source as an academic journal published by MIT.  However, since Harmon is the author of the article I think it's problematic for determining notability.  I don't feel confident making a judgment of imdb.  The reliable source examples page says "certain film authorship (screenwriting) credits on IMDb, specifically those which are provided by the Writer's Guild of America, can be considered to be adequately reliable," but my experience here seems to indicate it's reliable for verifying facts, but not for establishing notability.  I could be mistaken about that.
 * I apologize if my previous post sounded like I was attacking, insulting, or dismissing Harmon or any editor here. It was not my intent.  My only intent was to present the results of my research for others to interpret, and to provide my interpretation of the same.  Some jerk on the Internet (talk) 19:34, 7 October 2009 (UTC)


 * More comments No offense was taken but I do feel that the entire reason this article was nominated for deletion in the first place has more to do with Harmon's recent Thom Yorke/Banksy prank music video (and it's having offended some wiki users) than any real concern over the quality of this article.

As well as contributing an article to issue 91 of the PAJ Harmon is discussed as part of the editors article on esoterism in the art world in the same issue. The other issue is that at the moment any google search for Harmon yield's an enormous amount of links to reviews of the Banksy/Yorke video piece - which tends to bury any constructive links to actual reviews of his work/interviews/etc. There is certainly more than enough online data to establish notability, one just has to dig a bit deeper than the first 100 returns of a google search.

Beyond the many articles relating to Harmon's work there are also several major film festivals who have screened Harmon's films and list them online. Notably the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival which screen Harmon's work in 2007 and 2008. Harmon was also interviewed in a recent issue of Time Out London (2009 Summer Festival guide) in relation to his directorship of the Equinox Festival.

Again, though the article could use more input in terms of references I strongly feel that there is more than enough evidence available to establish notability for Harmon and his work. He meets all the basic criteria outlined in the wiki qualifications for notability from several different perspectives. Individual interpretation of the criteria for notability aside the letter of the rules outlined are met in full.Creatcher (talk) 09:05, 8 October 2009 (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.