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. lifebaka++ 16:09, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Jess Cates[edit]

Jess hates written a handful of notable songs, and won an ASCAP award which is a dime a dozen or worse ("among the most performed" usually means "it charted for more than an eyeblink"). I can't find a single source that gives any form of biographical information. Every single hit on Google/Books/News/etc. is only "This song was written by Jess Cates and [insert writer here]". Simply writing notable songs DOES NOT make you inherently notable if nobody has even mentioned you more than trivially, not even if ASCAP did give you an award, don't try to tell me otherwise. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 15:26, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

~~Keep~~. [Delete. See comment below] WP:COMPOSER provides notability if she "[h]as credit for writing or co-writing either lyrics or music for a notable composition" or "[h]as written a song or composition which has won (or in some cases been given a second or other place) in a major music competition not established expressly for newcomers." I'm not so sure as you that her ASCAP Award isn't "a major music competition," but we needn't resolve that question to decide this nomination because the other prong provides notability. Several of the songs that (the article claims) she was "credit[ed] for writing or co-writing either lyrics or music for" are notable enough to presently have an article at Wikipedia, including Crush (David Archuleta song) and What's Left of Me (song). There may be more, but it's too nauseating an experience to slog through this material unnecessarily, and, given WP:COMPOSER's use of the singular article ("a notable composition"), two should suffice. What we're left with, it seems to me, is notability, and some content issues to be resolved by WP:SOFIXIT.- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 20:34, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fix it with what? I said five times that I can't find a scrap of info on the guy. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 10:11, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bands and musicians-related deletion discussions. -- TexasAndroid (talk) 02:38, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see the problem. Well, this is a pickle. Most of the notability guidelines premise notability on secondary sources, so, in the mine run of cases, if an article's subject is notable then there will inherently be reliable sources on which to drill for content. Some notability guidelines, however, afford notability on primary sources alone. WP:COMPOSER is one of them. That presents a content problem: a subject may be notable, yet there may be little that can be said about them that is verifiable beyond a recitation of the primary sources that make them notable within the limits of WP:PRIMARY. And that, in turn, may transgress WP:NOTDIRECTORY, among other things.

WP:DEL#REASON doesn't restrict the office of AFD to notability problems, so merely establishing notability doesn't save the article; content problems are within our remit here. Candidates for deletion include "[a]rticles that cannot possibly be attributed to reliable sources" and those "for which all attempts to find reliable sources to verify them have failed." WP:RS says that "articles should be based on reliable secondary sources ... [and] while primary or tertiary sources can be used to support specific statements, the bulk of the article should rely on secondary sources." Cf. WP:PSTS ("articles should rely mainly on published reliable secondary sources"). These policies don't rule out the use of primary sources, and the Cates article can "be attributed to reliable [primary] sources." But they do suggest that an article cannot only rest on primary sources, as Cates' does. With that in mind, we could read WP:DEL#REASON to slip the noose around any article for which all attempts to find at least some reliable secondary sources have failed.

If this article were of more recent coinage, I would suggest that it could be left a while to see what happens. Cf. my remarks at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Juliet Davis. But a year is more than enough time for sources to be added if they are out there to be found. Given that, and given all the concerns noted above, and given my subscription to m:Deletionism, I am changing my vote to delete. But other editors - those who aren't deletionists - should think carefully about whether they are willing to delete an article about a notable subject on the grounds that it rests only on primary sources, which appear to be the only grounds for deletion.- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 15:58, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm hoping other editors read this response carefully. It makes a very, VERY good point about WP:MUSIC and WP:COMPOSER not being set in stone. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 20:55, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a number of sources just now, so the article no longer rests on primary sources alone. When there are multiple brief mentions of him having written notable songs, that's sufficiently significant coverage for an article. Also, I don't buy the "notability is not inherited" argument in cases like these (as has been made at similar AfDs in the past)—I would if the only notability was that the composer had written songs for one and only one artist, in which case any verifiable info could be merged into the article about the other artist. But here, this songwriter is prolific and has written for dozens of notable artists. WP:COMPOSER says we ought to have an article about such a songwriter. If that means the article is mostly a list of their compositions, that's fine for the time being; it's better than deletion in these cases, in my view. Keep. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 05:04, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. (Circle gets the square. Now I'll take Wally Cox for the win.) The sources give us no biographical information beyond telling us that Jess wrote these songs. There are thousands of songwriters who get hundreds of cuts yet still get no non-trivial mentions at all. All this article does is say "Jess Cates wrote hundreds of songs, including X which was a hit for Y, Z which was a hit for A, ad nauseam." Do you really think that's enough? Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 16:44, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I did not mean to sound as if I was dismissing your point of view, as I do see the validity of your argument, though we might disagree. That Mr. Cates is mentioned by name in Billboard and in multiple newspapers when those publications discuss his songs and collaborations is an indicator of his notability. (Those publications don't routinely mention songwriters by name in such articles, so my best guess is that it is because of how prolific he is.) It's an indicator, from third-party editorial decisions, that readers may be interested in a short stub with a list of his songs, even if there is not enough sourcing for an FA-quality article. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 14:59, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, notability isn't the issue. WP:COMPOSER clearly supplies Cates with notability based on verifiable primary sources. The problem is one of content: whether there is sufficient information available about Cates in secondary sources on which to rest the content of an encyclopædic article about him (an article that merely lists the songwriting contributions that provide his notability gets us into WP:NOTDIRECTORY problems). - Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 15:13, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, let me put this another way. Any system of rules - Wikipedia policy, antitrust law, the U.S. Constitution, etc. - has gaps and holes through which particular issues can fall. In this instance, Cates falls into a gap between various policies: applicable Wikipedia policies (WP:COMPOSER, WP:RS, WP:PSTS, WP:PRIMARY, WP:NOTDIRECTORY, and WP:DEL#REASON) pull in different directions leaving a hole. That's where user discretion comes in, and with it philosophies about construction (as distinct from interpretation). Virtually all wikipedians, I think, would say that when a situation reveals a gap between WP policies, policy ought to be construed in a way resolving the situation in a manner consistent with the five pillars. But that doesn't supply a rule of decision, because the five pillars are underdeterminate in application, see Lawrence Solum, On the Indeterminacy Crisis: Critiquing Critical Dogma, 54 U. Chi. L. Rev. 462, 473-4 (1987) (distinguishing determinacy, indeterminacy, and underdeterminacy), and users understand them in different ways (deletionists, exclusionists, etc.). Because we can't find usable secondary sources, we're left with a question of user discretion as to how to understand applicable policy and thus what to do with the article. I took the deletionist position above. The thrust of the applicable policies suggests deletion in these circumstances, and deletion of dubious content also serves the five pillars, bringing that construction of policy into harmony with the five pillars). Paul takes the inclusionist position: "If that means the article is mostly a list of their compositions, that's fine for the time being; it's better than deletion in these cases...." Either is justifiable. I offer these observations, as before, to try to help guide other users, because I think these thought processes happen whether expressed or not. - Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 15:42, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that very helpful elaboration, Simon. One of the suggestions I would have for editing the article, to help reduce the problem of WP:NOTDIRECTORY, is to dig into the many reviews of Cates's many songs and look for those that comment on the actual writing. Here's a start of what I have in mind. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 16:19, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, I'^mperator 19:28, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The discussion (particularly Simon Dodd's, which is well-thought-out but off target) boils down to whether an article about a notable person should be deleted because it has proven difficult to write more than a stub article about the subject based on commonly available sources. I don't know of any Wikipedia policy or guideline calling for deletion of such articles. If the laundry list of songs is deleted, the article is still more informational and better sourced than the great majority of the porn performer articles that I've suffered my way through doing BLP cleanups, and the ASCAP award much more substantial than the awards used to demonstrate notability for such performers. And there are other things out there that can be used to further expand the article. [1] Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 23:26, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I note that there is plenty of pseudophilosophical discussion above, but I don't see what any of it has to do with writing an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia article about a songwriter doesn't need to do any more than write about the subject's songwriting. That's the most important information about the subject and the information that encyclopedias since time immemorial have written about people with a particular speciality. Any information about the subject's favourite colour or pet dog's name or inside leg measurement is a bonus - the lack of those facts doesn't mean that we shouldn't have an article. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:09, 20 July 2009 (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.