Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shayan Italia (3rd nomination)


 * 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. Tone 18:37, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Shayan Italia
AfDs for this article: 
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At this point, I feel like a detective. What a con job this article has been for more than a decade now! Please bear with me as I enumerate all the evidence gathered and the problems with this fluff-fest. Why 3rd nomination, you ask? Well, in the first one in 2009, the subject's self-published music albums were mistakenly believed to be independent, and from what i see "significant coverage" was misapplied to the one event of him auctioning his future earnings on ebay to raise funds. The 2nd nom in 2017 was by a drive-by user, so was a procedural speedy keep. Now. I've dug around enough. Here's the problem with this article: it wholly fails WP:GNG and WP:MUSICBIO!

Then there's the fact that the article has only ever been edited by the subject, sockpuppets, and Single Purpose Accounts, and most recently, another SPA ( and as it appears a self-confessed associate to boot!), who has been at it since 2010 and has only added promotional junk like this, this and this about startups/philanthropy/awards; uploaded the subject's images or created articles about his song/album (now deleted).

Every single link I can find on Shayan Italia is promotional and PR-fed (yes, including that The Hindu entertainment section link). Most are about his millions of views of Youtube video of the Indian National Anthem, which are all promos/campaigns/interviews copied from this press release. It was a well-orchestrated, publicity campaign by the digital agency BC Web Wise (see PR) coinciding with India's i-Day. All of it fails MUSICBIO 1#ii (Any reprints of press releases, other publications where the musician or ensemble talks about themselves, and all advertising that mentions the musician or ensemble, including manufacturers' advertising). The other 'notable' bit about the eBay auction was back in 2009, as mentioned in the Guardian. It is trivial fluff - a whacky story about a crazy-sounding online event in pre-social media world. Both these are instances of WP:ONEEVENT. There have been no albums released since the article was created, no major songs, no music of any note for someone whose alleged notability is of a singer. The ones cited in first nom were self-published by the company FM Publishing (now shut), whose directors are Italia (yes, he) and family. See liquidation report. The subject fails every criterion under WP:MUSICBIO.

I'm taking the liberty of notifying all who were involved in the previous noms (barring sockpuppets) to re-examine the new evidence and sources (if they are keen, that is):, , , , , , , ,. Have done so because this is a serious and a very long (unadressed?) case of possible Paid Editing and heavy COI, and such an article makes a travesty of Wikipedia!

Concluding request: If anyone is voting Keep, could you please not just say "many articles exist about him" and, instead, provide exact links to stories you found to be independent, in-depth, non-PR. Also, if anyone thinks I've misstepped anywhere, I'd be glad to be corrected. Thanks! Best regards, MaysinFourty (talk) 18:30, 27 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Music-related deletion discussions. MaysinFourty (talk) 18:42, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Bands and musicians-related deletion discussions. MaysinFourty (talk) 18:44, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions. MaysinFourty (talk) 18:44, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Arts-related deletion discussions. MaysinFourty (talk) 18:46, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. MaysinFourty (talk) 18:47, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Comment FWIW re: the Universal label. Many self-promoting music acts claim an impressive sounding affiliation with Universal for simply being a customer of their distribution services. It's not the same as being signed and paid by a major label to be part of their galaxy of recording artists; it's just the opposite--a service available from a major Music conglomerate to any music label that is willing to let Universal distribute their product for a percent of sales, and dutifully entered in their database as "available" from Universal (which duped an earlier AfD editor into thinking this artist was releasing on a major label.) The reason why you can't find Shayan Italia among lists of Universal recording artists is because the actual label is FM Publishing, which is his own company. It is not a major label. ShelbyMarion (talk) 15:22, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Those people that were pinged--I'm in good company, but User:EdJohnston was there as well (and Bongo...I miss you). I voted "delete" a long time ago, and I had reasons for it--lack of sourcing, or lack of proper sourcing to generate notability. I see no reason to change my mind, but my old friend Hekerui probably sees no reason to change theirs. That Musiceditor might well be a sock, but it's kind of a useless question given how old the other account is; for our purposes, though, this edit alone was enough to block them as a "SPAM ONLY" account, and that's what I placed. Drmies (talk) 20:02, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete: I have revisited my 'delete' vote in the original 2009 AfD and have the same opinion now. It seems there was a rumor that he had released 'Deliverance' on Universal, a major label. Further study gives no evidence that Universal made such a release. A check for 'Shayan Italia' on discogs.com suggests he has one album, 'Deliverance', released by FM Publishing Limited in 2006 and a few singles and EPs. That firm only ever released records by him, and was liquidated in 2015, as pointed out above by the nominator. Two of the stockholders were surnamed 'Italia'. So we would probably conclude that his records were self-published. EdJohnston (talk) 13:42, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete does not fulfil WP:MUSICBIO, despite attempts at improvement. I share the concerns about promotion. Hekerui (talk) 08:03, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete per Johnston. I admit my earlier "keep" !vote was probably based, asymmetrically, on the WP:OBVIOUSSOCK rather than the article itself. I have lived; but more importantly, I have learned. ——  Serial  08:29, 29 August 2020 (UTC)  ——  Serial  08:29, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete As per Nominator. Priyanjali singh (talk) 16:34, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete. I sniffed around again and continue not to find any evidence of meeting the applicable guidelines. In the search, was disappointed that his version of Power of Love was the super-cheezeball song rather than the medium-cheezeball one from Back to the Future. Bongomatic 08:37, 30 August 2020 (UTC) p.s.


 * 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.