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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/MondayMEDIA

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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. There is a clear consensus, the author alone dissenting, that this company does not meet Wikipedia's notability guideline. The author's lengthy defence argues mainly (a) that products the company has produced and distributed are notable, and (b) that similar companies have articles; but (a) notability of the products is not inherited by the producer/distributor, and (b) What about article x? is not a valid defence - each case is considered on its own merits. JohnCD (talk) 17:30, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

MondayMEDIA

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MondayMEDIA (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
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Non-notable company. Unable to find any significant coverage of the company in reliable third-party sources. Bongomatic 01:47, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep This is a credible organization, with unique and notable CD and DVD products of notable authors and leading figures in their fields, backed by reliable and verifiable sources. The article could use more references and expansion, but not deletion. Last month this article was brought up for speedy deletion, was examined, and the request for speedy deletion was removed by Beeblebrox (talk) 19:54, 27 January 2010 (UTC), with the suggestions of adding references and keeping neutral point of view. Ellis408 (talk) 04:33, 4 February 2010 (UTC) — Ellis408 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
Long defense (and responses) of article based on notability of the products and clients of the company
COMMENT: If someone is not familiar with the subject material, they are probably not qualified to judge the notability of this article. To include in the article why the company and each of the products are notable, it would take on the character of non-neutral POV and promotional problems. Here are some of the issues brought up last month, which were resolved by adding more references and in-line notations:
mondayMEDIA, and its affiliated label, GemsTone, produce and distribute notable products on CD and DVD which are distributed worldwide through bookstores, record stores, and online catalogs. The subjects of the CDs and DVDs are notable authors - leaders in their fields, such as Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, Charles Bukowski, and Chalmers Johnson.
While an article about any company that produces and sells commercial products could be claimed to be "promotional", I can find no distinction between this article and other record labels and production companies - see Rounder Records, Fantasy Records, Alligator Records, or hundreds of other independent record labels and production companies who have long-standing articles on Wikipedia.
mondayMEDIA's products are unique and are thought to be very valuable to people who know of the subject material. Here are some reference links to just one of the products, The Last Straw by Charles Bukowski:
The title is distributed to hundreds of book and record stores, libraries, and online catalogs - it is a significant title of a significant author, and is unique. It was the very last public reading Bukowski gave (he hated doing them), as he only did them for the money, but when his book royalties and movie rights advances made him a living, he stopped doing them, even though he lived and wrote for another 14 years.
A major documentary of Bukowski's life was released in 2003 with major stars paying tribute to the poet including Bono, Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Harry Dean Stanton and more and included footage from mondayMEDIA's other Bukowski DVD.
This kind of detail could be written about each of the products in the mondayMEDIA and GemsTone credit listing - showing its notable worth.
Further response regarding who should judge notability, let's use the example of the small blues record label Yazoo Records, which has had a Wikipedia article since 2004. If you're unfamiliar with with the artists on the label, you may question why they have an article, but if you recognize names like Charlie Patton, Bo Carter, and Ma Rainey, whose recordings were extremely rare until Yazoo re-issued them, you'd be very interested in the label - and would like to know what other recordings the company had to offer.
It seems to me that questions of notability should only be judged by editors who are at least somewhat familiar with the subject at hand. I'll give another example:
Music of Tibet - released by GemsTone - a subsidiary label of mondayMEDIA
This was the very first recording of the Gyuto Tibetan monks using what has since become known as "multi-phonic" chanting (the ability of each monk to produce three tones simultaneously). It was recorded in 1967 in Tibet by Huston Smith, who was an MIT professor at the time. It was originally issued on a vinyl LP - but through a license with Huston Smith, mondayMEDIA digitized and re-mastered it for release on CD. Now here's what makes this notable:
The order of monks that did the chanting is where the Dalai Lama comes from, and in fact, it was through Huston Smith that the Dalai Lama was introduced to the West.
This recording was just featured on NPR last March, see NPR story on Music of Tibet
The monks have toured extensively around the world; in the US under the support of members of the Grateful Dead - particularly Mickey Hart.
In the last month there has been a wave of articles and reviews about Huston Smith, as he is one of the title subjects of a new book, The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America. Huston Smith is considered a leading figure in the study of the world's religions and wrote the best selling book on the subject, selling over 2 million copies. Also see another mondayMEDIA title featuring Huston Smith (released on the GemsTone label) titled Roots of Fundamentalism.
If you Google "music of tibet huston smith" you will find hundreds (if not thousands) of articles about the recording, its history, and significance.
A similar summary on each of the mondayMEDIA titles. Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, Swami Prabhavananda, Charles Bukowski, and Huston Smith are all authors of historic significance, and the mondayMEDIA CD and DVD releases of their works are of great interest to those scholars, students, and fans seeking these rare recordings. Ellis408 (talk) 03:50, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The contention of this screed boils down to:
This company is notable because it has produced and/or distributed notable recordings by notable artists.
Unfortunately, this argument is contradicted by the guidelines in WP:N, WP:CORP (the most relevant), or WP:MUSIC.
  • WP:N and the WP:GNG require (a) significant coverage in (b) independent (c) reliable sources about the topic of the article. As stated in the nomination, I have been unable to find any such coverage.
  • WP:CORP points out (at No inherited notability that notability is not inherited. While the example given there is with respect to a different sort of connection, the logic is the same. Producing notable recordings is evidence of notability only if it is noted in significant third-party coverage.
  • WP:MUSIC does not suggest any standards for music publishers different from other corporations. Note that this is consistent with other topic-specific guidelines. For example, while people who might otherwise fail WP:N can qualify for inclusion under WP:BIO, book publishers, film production houses, etc. do not qualify because of (non-noted) association with notable books or films.
The suggestion that an editor needs to be a subject-matter expert to evaluate notability goes against the grain of all the notability guidelines, which all point out in various ways that notability is not inherent, and is based on verifiable standards. Bongomatic 05:36, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • COMMENT - I am not that experienced with Wikipedia, and should have provided more references and citations for each of the products - which do exist. I will go through and collect the references, and add them to the article, which probably I should have done earlier. For instance, The Music of Tibet title should have the following listed - as it has considerable coverage, independent sources, and it has been the subject of many reviews, articles, and scholarly research. With just a few minutes work, I found these entries:
Reply. None of the above seem to be coverage of mondayMEDIA. Rather, they appear to be about recordings published by or artists whose recordings are published by mondayMEDIA. This does not satisfy any notability criteria with respect to the company. Bongomatic 09:00, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Reply. Let me ask a question. I will build a substantial list articles, citations, and references for each of the company's products, which have been been released on the mondayMEDIA label and its subsiderary label GemsTone (the difference being secular material is released on mondayMEDIA and religious material is released on GemsTone). Once complete, it should show the notability (fullfilling all the requrements of WP:N) of each of the products - which I believe then demonstrates the notability of the overall company - not through inheritance, but due to the fact that the company created the product. In other words, the notable products would not exist without mondayMEDIA/GemsTone creating, producing, and distributing them.
Let me request a two week delay in deletion, so that I can integrate the information into the main article - and then it can be judged for notability. OK? Thanks Ellis408 (talk) 16:24, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Answer. No, that's not how the guidelines work here. However, you may well have done sufficient research to write articles that meed the guidelines on the individual recordings. You will see there are tons of articles on recordings in the encyclopedia. This is how it should be, as the item that is notable is presumably what readers of the encyclopedia will be likely to search for. See WP:SOAP. Bongomatic 23:59, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Tim Song (talk) 01:05, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
COMMENT In looking through the list of independent movie production companies on Wikipedia, I can find dozens of credible, minor and main stream entries who have long-standing Wikipedia articles, with far fewer references or citations than mondayMEDIA. A production company's notability is the sum of the parts it creates. In other words, when a film is released, the publicity and reviews are about the film, not about the production company behind it (although it is often mentioned and credited - as are mondayMEDIA's productions). See the following examples:
C2 Pictures - this article dates back to 2007 and lists four films they produced, with only one reference (an IMDB link) and two external links (one of which is also IMDB and the other is to the founder's website).
Media 8 Entertainment - the article dates back to 2007 and lists more than a dozen films it produced or distributes, and its only link or citation is its own website.
My point is that production company entries are valid, and their notability is established by the products they produce and the publicity about those products. This is not the equivalent of inherited notability, as it is the production company that creates and is responsible for the notability of the films. Without the production company, there would be no film.
Since this AfD discussion started I have added many links, citations, and references - and will continue to add them as I have time, but if all other record labels and film production companies were held to the same standards as are being argued for the deletion of the mondayMEDIA article, I think it would be a great loss to Wikipedia and its goals. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ellis408 (talk • contribs) 04:35, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies for being highly repetitious, but here is an evaluation of the references as of this revision by number:
  1. Company website. Not independent.
  2. KLSD website. Not reliable source, not significant coverage of the company.
  3. NYT article. No mention of company (or GemsTone) at all.
  4. Company website. Not independent.
  5. Website of individual whose works are published by company. No mention of company, link to GemsTone for ordering (without further comment about GemsTone). Not independent, no significant coverage.
  6. NPR article on monk chants. No reference to subject, link to GemsTone for ordering (without further comment about GemsTone). No significant coverage.
  7. Company website. Not independent.
  8. YouTube clip published by subject. Not independent.
  9. Company website. Not independent.
  10. Company website. Not independent.
  11. Company website. Not independent.
  12. Company website. Not independent.
  13. Company website. Not independent.
  14. Company website. Not independent.
  15. Company website. Not independent.
  16. Company website. Not independent.
  17. Company website. Not independent.
  18. Company website. Not independent.
  19. Website of individual whose works are published by company. No mention of company, link to GemsTone for ordering (without further comment about GemsTone). Not independent, no significant coverage.
  20. Company website. Not independent.
  21. Allmovie.com. No mention of subject or GemsTone.
  22. Website of individual whose works are published by company. No mention of company or GemsTone.
  23. Allmovie.com. No mention of subject or GemsTone (but passing mention of company's founder). Not significant coverage.
  24. Website of individual whose works are published by company. No mention of company or GemsTone.
  25. Company website. Not independent.
  26. Bill Moyers Book Picks at PBS. No mention of subject or GemsTone.
  27. Allmusic.com. No mention of subject or GemsTone.
Again, I hate to bludgeon the process, but the editor defending the article has erroneously suggested that additions to the article have somehow moved it closer to meeting inclusion guidelines. As can be seen from the above, there is no basis for that assertion. Bongomatic 09:14, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as references have not satisfied any of the notability guidelines mentioned.   ArcAngel   (talk) (review) 02:53, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • COMMENT No one has responded to the point about record labels and film production companies are rarely mentioned in reviews of the records and films they produce. For instance, in the example I gave of C2 Pictures, which lists only four films has only one reference (and that points to the bio of its founder, Mario Kassar). There are plenty of reviews that could be found for the films produced by C2, but the reviews of those films almost never mention C2. I think we all would agree that the company is nevertheless notable, having produced I Spy, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Basic Instinct 2, and the TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. C2 has had a Wikipedia article since 2007.
Even the Wikipedia article for the biggest film production company in the world, James Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment has a very sparse listing, with just three references. My point being that it is rare that the record label or film production company is mentioned in reviews, but that does not mean that the company is not notable.
I could list hundreds of record labels and film production companies that have long-standing Wikipedia articles, who list fewer references than this article, but that doesn't mean, in my opinion, that they are not notable. Their films and records are notable.
And finally, I added the text and links to many of the products, while keeping a neutral point of view, to answer the complaint from Andrew Lenahan - Starblind that "the present article is mostly a catalog / item list..."
I strongly urge that editors refer to the lists of Independent Movie Production Companies and Record Labels to see if this article is being singled out for deletion. Ellis408 (talk) 18:18, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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