Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ron L. Zheng


 * 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. Jayjg (talk) 18:51, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Ron L. Zheng

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

A "photographer, poet and award-winning graphic artist" who has impressive websites and has been the subject of one article ($4.95) in a Vancouver newspaper and who's had one book reviewed on one website.

He's also won, or been finalist for, a lot of awards from:


 * "National Best Books Awards". These are explained here! There are many exclamation points! It's quite infectious! There are loads of categories and every entrant costs just $69. Here are the awards for 2009. No, wait, before you look there, consider for example what might have won "Audio Book: Fiction, Unabridged". Now look. One winner, by L. Ron Hubbard. Four finalists, three of them by L. Ron Hubbard.
 * Eric Hoffer Awards. Entries for these cost $45 a pop.
 * "Reader Views Literary Awards". Mind boggling stuff. Most of the winners are published by BookSurge, iUniverse, Outskirts Press, and a few others. Not names that trip off my tongue when I think of publishers, though I could be underinformed.
 * "Next Generation Indie Book Awards". Only $75 per entry! The bare-faced messiah scores pretty well here too.

These awards look to me like build-a-résumé components: your money for their ersatz notability. If people want to pay for this, fine, but Wikipedia needn't take any notice of it.

Zheng's form is "Poetography", whose meaning eludes me, though it's somehow related to tanka. Zheng's wouldn't be the first book by a photographer/poet (I think for example of Jorn Ake). Anyway, the poetography article tells us that the art has one exponent, Zheng.

One of Zheng's books has got one review, "The artisitic [sic fecundity of despair]" (outinjersey.net). It's most heartfelt but somewhat difficult to follow. Sample: "Perhaps it is best that we recall our own abilities of vision and voice as we confront the terrors and tribulations of our own world, for much can be seen and much can be said, but nothing can be felt which has not been experienced by those before us and those around us. I contend that those feelings will never diminish in time."

While these come from a small publisher even self-published books would be fine. Several photographers (e.g. Suzuki Kiyoshi) are best known for them. When those books win attention, the photographers merit articles. (A [wretched] article on Suzuki is in en:WP because his work is in the permanent collection of, and has been written up by, Japan's premier museum of photography.) But I see next to nothing to Zheng's work: no substantial appearances in magazines, no exhibitions in galleries of note. For now at least, NN.

(Incidentally, although the article sports a link to its equivalent in zh:WP, this does not appear to exist.) -- Hoary (talk) 11:52, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I am also nominating the following related page because it appears to have no significance beyond that of Zheng himself:

-- Hoary (talk) 11:58, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Edited to remove the implication that the Literary Road Press is Zheng's self-publisher. (It is not.) -- Hoary (talk) 00:48, 14 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Photography-related deletion discussions.  —Hoary (talk) 12:02, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Poetry-related deletion discussions.  —Hoary (talk) 12:05, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Visual arts-related deletion discussions.  —Hoary (talk) 12:10, 13 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete -- no notability demonstrated. N2e (talk) 22:57, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
 * At 18:12, 13 March 2010, Genekellyinla altered Now, self-published books are fine within the nomination to Now, self-published books are fine. The book was not self-published. It was published by Literary Road Press, an independent publisher. Yes, Literary Road Press is an independent publisher. I made a mistake there. If anyone finds any other mistakes in what I wrote, please say so below, rather than tampering. -- Hoary (talk) 00:48, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Whoever wrote this does not understand how book competition works. There is no book competition does not require entry fee. He or she who started this discussion complaining about the cost of these competition fee but that is so irrelevant. The winning is winning and not every book has submitted to these competitions won something. I think the person who wrote this complain has very biased view on what Wikipedia should be. Wikipedia is a encyclopedia so I think it does not matter how big and how small the publishers and competitions are they should have included without any discriminations.

And for your (to the person who stared the discussion) information his book is not self published.

Dragon8864 (talk) 08:34, 14 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The person who nominated this for deletion is me. The nomination contained a mistake: the statement (or clear implication) that his books were self published. I had retracted and corrected this before you pointed it out above. &para; Zheng is of course free to submit his books and competition entrance fees to as many contests as he wishes. However, it's hard to see what the significance is of awards that are handed out to such claptrap as is written by L. Ron Hubbard. &para; You say that There is no book competition does not require entry fee. Are you sure that this is true of the National Book Award and the like? -- Hoary (talk) 09:31, 14 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Narrow Delete best chance is on busy exhibition history, which I haven't checked. Are these solo shows - probably not. Johnbod (talk) 13:07, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I do wonder how it is that Dragon8864, creator of the list of exhibitions, can have such an extensive knowledge of Zheng's exhibitions, past and future. Could there be some relationship with Zheng? Well, let's take a look at the list, as it appears in this, the current version. I'm afraid that this is going to be very repetitive, but anyway here goes. Bits in italics after the double hyphens are mine.


 * 2007/9/21-10/17 Vancouver East Cultural Centre 2525 Michigan Avenue, Bldg. d4, Santa Monica, California 90404 http://www.jamesgraygallery.com -- Zheng's name does not appear on this page. The site has no list of past exhibitions. It does have a page of artists, within which Zheng does not appear.
 * 2007/11/20-2008/1/15 The Perfect Exposure Gallery 3519 West 6th Street, Los Angeles, California 90020 http://www.theperfectexposuregallery.com -- This page doesn't mention Zheng, and the site's page about previous exhibitions doesn't either
 * 2008/6/28-7/27 James Gray Gallery/Bergamot Station Art Center 2525 Michigan Avenue, Bldg. d4, Santa Monica, California 90404 http://www.jamesgraygallery.com -- Zheng's name does not appear on this page. The site has no list of past exhibitions. It does have a page of artists, within which Zheng does not appear.
 * 2008/10/1-11/30 The Center 885 West Georgia Street, Vancouver, B.C. V6V 3E8 Canada http://www.pendulumgallery.bc.ca -- The site's "archive" page doesn't go back this far.
 * 2008/10/2-10/12 Los Angeles Municipal Gallery 133 McMillan Street, Parksville, B.C. V9P 2H5 Canada http://www.oceansideartscouncil.com/ -- The site has a page about 2008 exhibitions, but this doesn't mention Zheng. It advertises a PDF with more details for October, but the link is broken.
 * 2008/12/5-2009/12/25 Infusion Gallery 2425 St. Johns Street, Port Moody, B.C. V3H 2B2 Canada http://pomoartscentre.ca -- No mention of Zheng on this page. The site does talk about the Blackberry Gallery but I see no description about any Infusion Gallery.
 * 2009/1/1-2009/1/31 C & P Coffee Company Gallery 1800 Market Street, San Francisco, California 94102 http://www.sfcenter.org/ -- No mention of Zheng on this page, and I don't see either any archive of past events or description of any "C & P Coffee Company Gallery".
 * 2009/1/1-2009/2/28 Q Center Gallery 3519 West 6th Street, Los Angeles, California 90020 http://www.theperfectexposuregallery.com -- This page doesn't mention Zheng, and the site's page about previous exhibitions doesn't either
 * 2009/1/29-3/12 The Perfect Exposure Gallery 3519 West 6th Street, Los Angeles, California 90020 http://www.theperfectexposuregallery.com -- This page doesn't mention Zheng, and the site's page about previous exhibitions doesn't either
 * 2009/2/10-2/22 Nishinomiya Municipal Gallery 15-26 Kawazoicho, Nishinomiya, Hyogo, 662-0944 Japan http://amity.nishi.or.jp -- Unsurprisingly, no mention of Zheng on that page, and the site lacks information on earlier exhibitions. (And yes I can read Japanese sufficiently well to be able to say this.)
 * 2009/4/7-4/30 Bronco Student Center at the C&E Corridor California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, California http://www.csupomona.edu -- Unsurprisingly, there's no mention of Zheng on this page. There is a search engine, which takes us to this PDF, which confirms that there was an exhibition but for more information refers us here, which tells me "Words of An Artist: An Exhibit by Ron L. Zheng / You are not authorised to view this resource. / You need to login."
 * 2009/8/1-9/6 James Gray Gallery/Bergamot Station Art Center 2525 Michigan Avenue, Bldg. d4, Santa Monica, California 90404 http://www.jamesgraygallery.com -- Zheng's name does not appear on this page. The site has no list of past exhibitions. It does have a page of artists, within which Zheng does not appear.
 * 2009/8/9-8/29 Pendulum Gallery/HSBC Building Atrium 885 West Georgia Street, Vancouver, B.C. V6V 3E8 Canada http://www.pendulumgallery.bc.ca -- Yes, Here he is. "vancouver summer / it seems to pass so quickly / life has its seasons / one blink and it is winter / all you have are memories". Oh.
 * 2009/8/4-8/29 Oceanside Gallery 133 McMillan Street, Parksville, B.C. V9P 2H5 Canada http://www.oceansideartscouncil.com/ -- No mention of Zheng on this page. The site does not appear to have a list of what it did in 2009.
 * 2009/9/3-11/1 Port Moody Art Centre 2425 St. Johns Street, Port Moody, B.C. V3H 2B2 Canada http://pomoartscentre.ca -- No mention of Zheng on this page. The site does not appear to have information on past exhibitions.
 * 2009/10/13-10/31 Caelum Gallery 508-526 W.26th St. Suite 315, New York, NY 10001 http://www.caelumgallery.com/ -- No mention of Zheng on this page. However, this one does say that he was part of an exhibition with three other artists.
 * 2009/12/1-2010/1/15 SFGLBT Community Center 1800 Market Street, San Francisco, California 94102 http://www.sfcenter.org/ -- No mention of Zheng on this page. The site does not appear to have information on past activities.
 * 2009/12/14-2010/2/20 The Perfect Exposure Gallery 3519 West 6th Street, Los Angeles, California 90020 http://www.theperfectexposuregallery.com -- This page doesn't mention Zheng, and the site's page about previous exhibitions doesn't either
 * 2009/12/9-12/20 Propeller Centre for the Visual Arts 984 Queen W. Toronto, O.N. M6J 1H1 Canada http://www.propellerctr.com -- I thought I'd seen crappy web pages, but this one should win some award. The whole thing is a GIF image (and no, it's not even an image map), so clicking on "Archived Exhibitions" does nothing.
 * 2010/3/20-4/17 Santa Monica Art Studios 3026 Airport Avenue, Santa Monica, CA 90405 http://www.santamonicaartstudios.com -- The site employs Flash gimmickry, but anyway I don't see any sign of Zheng on it, even though his exhibition should be starting today
 * 2010/04/03-04/31 SAGA Public Art Gallery 70 Hudson Ave NE, Salmon Arm, B.C. V1E 4P6 Canada http://www.sagapublicartgallery.ca/ -- no mention of Zheng on this page. The exhibition schedule does say that he has an exhibition this month, but says nothing about it and doesn't link to any other page that might say more.
 * 2010/5/30-6/30 Museum of Northern BC 100 First Avenue West, Price Rupert, B.C. V8J 3S1 Canada http://www.museumofnorthernbc.com/ -- no sign of Zheng in this site
 * 2010/5/29-6/27 James Gray Gallery/Bergamot Station Art Center 2525 Michigan Avenue, Bldg. d4, Santa Monica, California 90404 http://www.jamesgraygallery.com -- not mentioned in this site, whose list of artists doesn't include Zheng]
 * 2010/8/11-9/5 Sunshine Coast Arts Centre 5714 Medusa, Sechelt, B.C. V0N 3A0 Canada http://www.suncoastarts.com/ -- I see no mention of Zheng in this site
 * 2010/9/11-10/10 James Gray Gallery/Bergamot Station Art Center 2525 Michigan Avenue, Bldg. d4, Santa Monica, California 90404 http://www.jamesgraygallery.com -- again, not mentioned in this site, whose list of artists doesn't include Zheng]
 * 2010/11/20-12/19 James Gray Gallery/Bergamot Station Art Center 2525 Michigan Avenue, Bldg. d4, Santa Monica, California 90404 http://www.jamesgraygallery.com -- again, not mentioned in this site, whose list of artists doesn't include Zheng]
 * 2011 Langham Cultural Centre Art Gallery. 447 A Avenue, Kaslo, B.C. V0G 1M0 Canada http://www.thelangham.ca/ -- Zheng doesn't appear in the list of upcoming events that appears on the top page
 * 2011 Vernon Public Art Gallery 3228 31st Avenue, Vernon, B.C. V1T 2H3 Canada http://www.vernonpublicartgallery.com -- Zheng's name doesn't appear on this page, and there's no page that I can see listing future exhibitions

Perhaps somebody would care to convert all the stuff in Zheng's article into a list of verifiable exhibitions, deleting the remainder. (This wouldn't be a bad model.) -- Hoary (talk) 02:09, 20 March 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.