Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sideshow Cinema (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. If anyone would like to create a redirect, feel free. --Bongwarrior (talk) 07:37, 9 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sideshow Cinema

This has been nominated at least twice before, but remains a largely problematic article that needs to be addressed for real. Past debates have generally resulted in a majority for deletion, but falling short of consensus, with people advocating improvements for the article that never actually occur. As it stands, the article has multiple issues.

1. The very existence of this "company" must be seriously called into question. Michael Legge (filmmaker), is a guy who writes, directs, produces, acts in, etc. his own movies and sells them on the internet. As such, he probably barely qualifies for a WP article under the current guidelines, but not everything connected to him automatically does. His movies have basically no budget. $2000 for a full length movie is nothing. These are not financed or made by any company. "Sideshow Cinema" is merely a name his puts on his movies to give them some appearance of professionalism. When I was in high school, a bunch of people I knew were in bands and made demo tapes and 7" records, and had a "record company" that was much the same thing. This is not a company with actual employees, an EIN, tax returns, board members, etc. It is a name on some zero-budget movies, and the website that sells them. (The website would certainly not meet the website notability guidelines.)

2. That aside, this article is currently 95% mini biographies of non-notable people, not an article on a business. This is not how things are done at Wikipedia. Can anyone point out to me another article that alleges to be abut a company, but is actually a bunch of largely unverified information about all the company's employees? We have many articles on law firms, for instance (see Category:Law firms of the United States, for example), but do any consist of bios of the employees or partners? Or, more relevantly, of anyone vaguely connected to the company? Nor do we see a paragraph on Billy Boyd in the New Line Cinema article. That's not how Wikipedia articles are done. This is a showcase by some fans for a bunch of people who do not meet notability guidelines under current policy. Many of these people, and several of the movies, have been deleted, only to be recreated here. They are not "actors" in the sense that we generally consider. They are amateurs who appear for free in some project their friend does, basically as a hobby. By that sense, I am and actor, and I bet some people reading this is too.

3. Even ignoring that, the article uses circular reasoning for its inclusion of its "members". People are included because this article has decided that anyone who appears in at least two of Legge's videos is a member of Sideshow Cinema. There is no verification of them being members apart from WP's own invented criterion. While it has many footnotes, there is a dearth of reliable sources for this article. Most of them are imdb links that confirm only that a person is listed as cast in a movie (Examples: [1], [2], [3], etc.); Sideshow Cinema isn't even mentioned. Most other "sources" are human interest stories from local papers. Some deal with small local theater productions which do not meet notability guidelines any more than the thousands of other small repertory theaters throughout the country.

This article is a puff piece that is part fansite and part promotional material. Only the first few sentences even pretend to be about the entity in question. Arguments in the past in favor of keeping this have never gone beyond "it exists" (questionable), "i like it", or "it wasn't deleted the last time". All are irrelevant. Past noms have also been muddled by jumbled nominations, with Legge, his movies, and his actors all in the same AFD, leading to confusion; this time we are going to keep it clear. The notability of Legge, or even his movies, is not the issue, just this unverified institution. As even some of Legge's most "notable" movies ("film" is misleading; they're shot with a home video camera) have been deleted (see here, for example), it's pretty clear that any notability ends with Legge himself. He may have done enough to made a name for himself, but his alleged company has not. At the very least, this should be deleted and redirected to Legge. Dismissing the irrelevant actors who clearly don't belong on this page, there's really nothing here that isn't in his own article already. If any of the actors listed have done enough to warrant an article (and I see none that have), that is a separate issue. But it's time to put this monstrosity to bed once and for all. R. fiend (talk) 14:18, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete There may be a couple of decent refs among the chaff here, but this article is mostly a puff piece per the nom. The notability pretty much begins and ends with Legge. The films aren't notable, the actors aren't notable, and the "company" seems to be just a loose assocation if at all. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells•Otter chirps)} 16:04, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The article is worthy of inclusion. It has been referenced up the whazoo and is notable. Some of the actors are award winners, some have been in other movies apart from Legge's films even having worked with Steve Martin. Fiend has been vandalizing this article for a very long period of time, please look at the editing history where he lies to remove documented and pertinent information. Plank (talk) 16:34, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NPA, please. Calling the nominator, who clearly put a lot of thought and effort into the nomination, a vandal and a liar does not help your case. Jfire (talk) 19:06, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: The "article" is a bunch of biographies, which is not cricket, and the "company" is a label, not an actual production company. I too, have been a record label. There is zero indication that this company, inasmuch as it exists, has achieved note in its field. Utgard Loki (talk) 17:05, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per excellent and extensive nomination rationale. The article is essentially a WP:COATRACK for a bunch of non-notable biographies. Jfire (talk) 17:10, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak delete per nom. —TreasuryTag talkcontribs 17:31, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to Michael Legge (filmmaker) as a plausible search term; perhaps some of the material in the introduction could even be merged. I supported keeping in the previous AfD, thinking that there was enough source material about Sideshow Cinema (as opposed to people affiliated with it), but that belief seems to have been unfounded. The article has plenty of sources, but most provide only trivial coverage of the subject. The person seems to be notable, but the production company does not. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 19:16, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong delete this and all associated articles. Death to self-promotion. The existence of these has been a farce for years now. —Xezbeth (talk) 21:53, 3 March 2008 (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.