Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ruthie the duck girl


 * 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.  So Why  07:28, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Ruthie the duck girl

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Biography of a person whose only discernible claim of notability is being a local oddball in a city that's full of local oddballs. This doesn't suggest any reason why the rest of the world needs to know about her, and it's not sourced to anything like the depth or range of media coverage that it would take to clear WP:GNG -- the few sources here represent exclusively local coverage, not evidence that she ever attracted notice beyond her own local area. As I've pointed out before, if all you had to do to get a person into Wikipedia was show two or three pieces of local coverage regardless of whether that coverage existed in an encyclopedically noteworthy context or not, then our permitted article topics would have to include every fire and police chief on earth, every president of an elementary school parent teacher association or a condo board or a church bake sale committee, every teenager who ever tried out for his high school football team six months after having a toe amputated, the woman who lives a mile down the road from my parents who got into the papers for finding a pig in her front yard, and me. There simply isn't enough substance, or enough sourcing, here to make a person encyclopedically notable just for walking around her hometown with a duck. Bearcat (talk) 15:32, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 16:14, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Louisiana-related deletion discussions. Arxiloxos (talk) 21:48, 17 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep She had a documentary made about her. https://www.amazon.com/Ruthie-the-Duck-Girl/dp/B00JVY77P2 Obit. in the LA Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2008/sep/17/local/me-ruthie17  http://www.pbs.org/pov/abnormal/essential-documentaries-about-new-orleans/ Ross-c (talk) 22:39, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Weak keep. Ruthie was also the subject of theatrical work by the prominent performance artist Susana Ventura (aka Penny Arcade), as noted for example in this New York Times review).  And she pops up in all sorts of literature about the culture of New Orleans.  I acknowledge the nominator's point about the nature of her notoriety, and I might support a merge to some more general topic if we had a suitable one, but I don't think our coverage of New Orleans is improved by removing her entirely from the encyclopedia..--Arxiloxos (talk) 23:23, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletion discussions. North America1000 00:12, 18 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep Based on new coverage found.  D r e a m Focus  00:22, 18 August 2017 (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.