Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sedra Bistodeau


 * 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. King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 19:38, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Sedra Bistodeau

 * – ( View AfD View log )

15 year old fiddler and student that won a local state fair contest Travelbird (talk) 08:48, 15 January 2011 (UTC)  Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 15:42, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I guess it's all in how you present the facts. She's a 16 year old fiddler and violinist who won a statewide open talent contest when she was 14, as well as at least one national contest.  She's attested by references from the Minneapolis Star Tribune and PBS.  She's also a credited professional musician.  On the continuum of notability she may be at the lower end, but she's rising. Brain Rodeo (talk) 14:44, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bands and musicians-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 15:47, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. Winning a state fair talent contest and as part of a duet in the National Oldtime Fiddlers' Contest ("almost 350 fiddlers compete in 8 divisions", so she beat out maybe 20-30 other teams?) do not bode well for notability. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:34, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment: I'm going to refrain from casting a vote because I created the article, but I'll point out that she's also a credited studio musician and (I just added this to the article) has appeared as a guest performer on A Prairie Home Companion. Brain Rodeo (talk) 22:38, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. Yeah, she is notable enough to have a big Minneapolis newspaper write a feature on her and for Garrison Keillor to invite her on "Prairie Home Companion." People who heard her on the radio (all over the world) will expect WP to have an article about her. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 07:51, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment WP:MUSICBIO requires that she be "the subject of multiple [my emph. added], non-trivial, published works". The Minneapolis Star is one published work.  Is there another "published work" in which she's really the subject?  Well, it can count as another if she "has been the subject of a half-hour or longer broadcast across a national radio or TV network."  If the Prairie Home Companion appearance + commentary got up to 30 minutes, she might be clearing the bar, if only by a hair. Yakushima (talk) 16:15, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment The Prairie House Companion probably doesn't count as she was a guest performer there not the subject of the program. 16:59, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Reply Good point -- and she's listed as only one of several performers (including her sister) in that appearance Yakushima (talk) 05:34, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Keep: Sedra was also the youngest, and first female to ever win the "Gone to Texas Open" Division in the Texas State Championships in 2008. She also placed 4th in the Grand National Open division at the National Championships in Weiser, Idaho this year. She was also the youngest competitor in those finals. She has also just finished recording multiple tracks on a Grammy nominated musicians upcoming album. — Bist (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. The preceding unsigned comment was added at 02:23, 23 January 2011 (UTC).  Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NW ( Talk ) 02:39, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:MUSIC. One-time guest appearance on a radio show doesn't cut it. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  18:15, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment: I'm a little frustrated by the tendency of some editors to mischaracterize the "keep" case in an effort to support the "delete" case. The Prairie Home Companion is significant because it meant that she performed on a broadcast listened to by hundreds of thousands of people, not because it's being cited as a source within the article.  A second non-trivial, published source is cited in the article, Yakushima; that would be Twin Cities Public Television's video report and writeup .  And Clarityfiend, how many teams did the San Francisco Giants have to beat to win the World Series?  About thirty?  Maybe their performance wasn't so notable after all.  :)  Brain Rodeo (talk) 06:19, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Reply I agree, Brain, that there's mischaracterization (to the point of trivialization) of Sedra going on here, from the very beginning -- to the point where'd I'd support a clean-sheet relisting of this AfD just to get the discussion off on the right foot. However, there are weaknesses on the Keep side, too.  For example, the "non-trivial, published source" you point to above has an "artist bio" of only a couple paragraphs -- and for Sally O'Reilly, not Sedra.  (The title lists them both, Sedra first, confusingly.)  So who's really the subject?  My heart says "Keep", but my head keeps going back to WP:MUSICBIO (a guideline that's pretty new to me, admittedly) to see if she can somehow get across the notability line on points.   And I can't quite see it yet. Let's say it comes down to the competitions.  What counts as a "major competition"?  WP:MUSICBIO doesn't say.  Maddening! Yakushima (talk) 10:35, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep. OK, I've just watched the Twin Cities Television clip "Sedra Bistodeau and Sally O’Reilly" .  It's about 5-1/2 minutes -- well worth watching, even if you find yourself still on the "Delete" side of this discussion at the end.  I'll go out on a limb and say that this is a WP:RS "published work" (see the note that says the category is "deliberately broad") in WP:MUSICBIO terms, and that it yields, together with the newspaper piece already mentioned, the "multiple, non-trivial published works" on the subject that are required by WP:MUSICBIO.  Despite the title, the video is unmistakably about Sedra primarily, in terms of screen time and spoken content.  Since Prof. O'Reilly is Sedra's violin teacher, one might question the objectivity of her commentary in this piece; since Sedra speaks at length on screen, one might wonder whether it's too much a primary source.  It is not, however, a self-published work.  I retract my quibble above about the "Artist's Bio" section of the introductory text.  I suspect that the emphasis O'Reilly gets in the text might have been mainly motivated by Minnesota state regulations about justifying use of taxpayer funds in promotion of the arts.  After all, Sedra is unquestionably performing for popular entertainment as well as practicing "serious" music, but Minnesota Original styles itself an "arts and cultural" organization, and is partly tax-payer funded, as is the university at which O'Reilly works.  Minnesota Original may have strained a little to draw the public arts-support connection in this case, on the web; TV-only viewers wouldn't have noticed and wouldn't care if they did, probably, but perhaps readers on the web might forgiven for being a little confused, as I was at first.  As O'Reilly puts it, Sedrea "straddles" the popular and serious genres.  That Sedra  does it so well is, of course, a good part of what makes her remarkable in the first place, and I rather doubt that many people today except those affiliated with University of Minnesota's music department would know of Prof. Sara O'Reilly had it not been for Sedra and this video on local public television.  As far as I'm concerned, this makes the case that Sedra was the true subject of this work, and that her popularity was the motivation for producing it.  I am not, however, an expert on the application of WP:MUSICBIO by any means, and would be interested in other interpretations and precedents for those interpretations. Yakushima (talk) 13:57, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment - further to the issue of whether Sedra meets "9. Has won or placed in a major music competition." of WP:MUSICBIO, I've researched and created National Old-Time Fiddlers Contest. She and Alex Depue together placed first in the category "2010 Twin Fiddling Judge's Choice".  Sharing first place is a "win", I'd say.  Should this contest be considered "major"?  Perhaps still a reasonable question.  With hundreds of contestants in 8 categories, and thousands of attendees, sponsored by an organization that claims to certify fiddling contests in 29 states, it's certainly pretty big. Yakushima (talk) 14:31, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Blush My ineptitude in searching (and anal-retentiveness in punctuating) ... there's already an article, National Oldtime Fiddlers' Contest. OTOH, that article offers relatively little to establish the independent notability of its subject. Mine relies almost entirely on third-party sources.  So maybe a merge of my work into that one is in order. For now, you might consider the version I wrote more relevant for determining whether this contest was major enough. Yakushima (talk) 15:11, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Overwhelming Keep. It seems many more sources were added subsequent to this nom, plus I checked the many references in the Google news link in this nom's template .  In reviewing this article in its current state, my opinion is that she meets WP:Music #1 with multiple nontrivial independent reliable sources; #9 with placing in multiple major music competitions; #10 performing for a notable television show, A Prairie Home Companion; and I would venture to say she passes #7 as well with being a prominent representative of a notable style of a local scene. Cheers.  ♫ Cricket02  (talk) 10:16, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Correction. "notable television show" should be "notable radio show." Yakushima (talk) 15:32, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Withdraw vote. Agreed with some points, disagreed with some points and was sorely misunderstood on others.  Don't know when I'll get a chance to address this again, so I'm just withdrawing my vote.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 14:11, 31 January 2011 (UTC) Delete.  She seems like wonderful artist and state treasure, but she is not a notable musician in the world of fiddling.  She just isn't.  there are only two major sources listed in the article, and one is the New York Times article, which only mentions her in passing.  The article itself is about fiddling festivals. Her appearance as a studio performer one time on a radio show doesn't even remotely make her notable.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 00:19, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment Shorter version: your comment makes two false claims, one of them patently so.  Nothing in it budged me from Weak Keep.  Longer version: Did you really scrutinize the evidence presented?  It seems not.  You say the New York Times article "mentions her in passing", when in fact it doesn't mention her at all -- I added that article as a reference in part to provide evidence to help us evaluate whether the Weiser event qualifies as a "major" music competition under WP:MUSICBIO.  You say "The article itself is about fiddling festivals."  No, the article goes into detail to identify fiddling competitions, but only those in which Ms Bistodeau has performed notably or actually won an event -- the grammatical subject of each such sentence being Ms Bistodeau, not the competitions themselves.  I'm still at Weak Keep, because I'm not sure how WP:MUSICBIO applies in admittedly borderline cases like these.  (See my notes on my vote above.)  Is a 5.5-minute segment in a partly state-funded documentary shown on a metropolitan educational/arts-and-culture TV program a second "published work", meeting (together with the Star-Tribune article about her) the requirement of "multiple" independent RS sources in WP:MUSICBIO?  I don't know, but if so, I think this BLP is within that guideline.  Is the Weiser event a "major" music competition?  I don't know (everything I know about oldtime fiddling as a country music genre, I learned in researching this article.)  But if so, I think this BLP is within the guideline.  Those seem to be the key issues to be resolved here -- and only one of them needs to be resolved in her favor to meet WP:MUSICBIO, as I read it.  Making false derogatory statements about the article and its sources does nothing to provide any clearer focus on either of those issues, for this discussion.  If anything, it fits a pattern of understating accomplishments and recognition that started with the how the AfD was initially listed: "15 year old fiddler and student that won a local state fair contest" -- period, as if there were no more to her musical accomplishments (and how they were notedin the media) than that.  After all, even at the point of AfD listing, the article had references in External Links to national titles won, and a link to the documentary segment. Yakushima (talk) 04:35, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Possible correction. See . Yakushima (talk) 03:14, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment: Seriously, Esprit15d, did you read the article? Miss Bistodeau wasn't a studio performer on a radio show; she was a live performer a radio show and a studio performer (and had a song named for her) on a Peter Ostroushko album.  You seem to be conflating the two.  Supplemental: Miss Bistodeau has been invited to perform a second time on A Prairie Home Companion in February.  I'll add a reference to substantiate that once it's happened, assuming there's still an article then. Brain Rodeo (talk) 04:45, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment I can cut some slack for Esprit15 on the live-radio vs. recording studio distinction. But I take exception to Esprit15's "doesn't even remotely".  Here's the relevant part of WP:MUSICBIO: "10. Has performed music for a work of media that is notable, e.g. a theme for a network television show, performance in a television show or notable film, inclusion on a notable compilation album, etc. (But if this is the only claim, it is probably more appropriate to have a mention in the main article and redirect to that article. Read WP:BLP1E and WP:BIO1E for further clarifications)".  So how might she qualify? We've got an appearance on not just "a radio show" but a highly notable, nationally broadcast radio show (Prairie Home Companion), and with more than just a credit like "violin - Sedra Bistodeau".  We've got her recording studio work on what appears to be a notable album (moreover one with a track title having her name in it).  Now, I doubt these satisfy the above guideline clause.  But to say she "doesn't even remotely" satisfy it sounds a lot like proof by assertion to me.  Besides which, neither is the "only claim", or even a central claim, to notability.  I suggest (for, what is it now, the third time?) that we stick with the core issues: how "major" the competitions were, and/or whether the Minnesota Original video segment counts as a significant RS "published work." Yakushima (talk) 09:10, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions.  -- -- Cirt (talk) 22:26, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep meets general notabilityThisbites (talk) 10:36, 1 February 2011 (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.