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 - Despite vote stacking, this article appears to be notable. -Djsasso (talk) 21:55, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Michael Shane Neal[edit]

CLOSING ADMIN-SEE VOTE STACKING CONCERNS Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Nealstudio — Rlevse • Talk • 01:45, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Michael Shane Neal (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Notability questionable -- may or may not be notable enough, but I think this particular article should be deleted at the moment due to WP:COI issues. (See contributions; it appears that subject of the article wrote the article himself and is sole editor, which creates WP:OR problems as well.) --Nlu (talk) 16:31, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak keep The U.S. Senate website confirms his commissioned portrait of Vandenburg. There was a bit of puffery in the introThe puffery in the intro needs to be removed, but that is an editing issue and not a notability issue.(added) I have removed it, so now the article has more than one editor in its history. The sole authorship by the subject is easily remedied: edit it. The refs make it puzzling that the nominator calls it an original research problem. The "Keep" is a "weak" one because I did not find much else about him in Google News or Google Scholar searches. Perhaps there are databases of publications from the arts that would yield more coverage. His web site [1] shows ceremonies of unveilings of numerous portraits of national leaders in the U.S to be permanently exhibited in prominent venues such as the U.S. Senate, and there is undoubteldy independent coverage of this somewhere which could be added. I present this not as an independent or reliable source per se, but as an indicant of the likelihood of such sources. Edison (talk) 16:40, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The reason why I think there is a WP:OR problem is that, for example, the independent sources linked do not show him as the artist for O'Connor's portrait. --Nlu (talk) 17:35, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Weak Keep Artist seems rather prolific. I got many google hits when I entered his name. Also, I went to the U.S. Senate website and found confirmation of the claims to various portraits. These have now been referenced and cited in the article. Also, the Arthur Vandenburg article here has a portrait by Neal which I added to the article as well. Hopefully this helps. Lazulilasher (talk) 19:54, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Still not sure if it meets WP:BIO, which says that the work must be a substantial part of a significant exhibition....considering the U.S. Capitol may/may not be a substantial exhibition and that his works may/may not be substantial, I'm going to note that I only think weakly that this should be kept. Lazulilasher (talk) 19:57, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. Presidential portrait would be enough for WP:BIO (there have only been 40-odd of these), but Senators are a ... well, a dollar a dozen, and may have more than one portrait done in their possibly long careers. While it's certainly an honor, I don't think it's automatically notable. --Dhartung | Talk 21:49, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - The Senate portraits are the official portraits for the permanent collection of the U.S. Capitol, certainly noteable by any measure, as there are very few portraits commissioned by the Senate. In the field of fine art portraiture, the artist is very accomplished. I think the page should be kept. Entrekinep (talk) 23:38, 13 February 2008 (UTC)Entrekinep[reply]

— Entrekinep (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

• Keep -the artist, Neal is very well known in the profession of painting portraits and it is rare for any artist to be selected to paint portraits for the Capitol.Crestview (talk) 13 February 2008 (UTC)Crestview

— Crestview (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

• Weak delete May or may not be notable, COI issues. JetLover (talk) (Report a mistake) 04:53, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Ya, wow...I noticed that earlier (that some of the accounts seemed to only have contributions to this AFD and the article), but I wasn't sure how to proceed because I didn't want to scare off new editors. Hmm. Lazulilasher (talk) 05:06, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• "Keep" How silly to even consider deleting an article about a portrait artist who, at the early stage of his career is already painting Washington Big Shots! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wyattdog (talk • contribs) 21:31, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • — WyattDog (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. Corvus cornix_talk 21:38, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment. Not a vote exactly (I suppose I'm leaning towards a weak delete) but I do think this article has some quite serious sourcing problems. Here's the entire body text of the page linked to at footnote 1:

Michael Shane Neal received his art degree in 1991 from David Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee. The Portrait Society of America awarded him its prestigious grand prize for the 2001 International Portrait Competition. Neal has painted over 400 portraits of United States senators, ambassadors, federal judges, and corporate and civic leaders. Neal has also painted the portrait of Arthur H. Vandenberg, which adorns the wall of the Senate Reception Room, along with other notable senators. In 2007 Neal completed the portrait of Robert C. Byrd. Neal resides in Tennessee near his Nashville studio.

...and it is used to source the following five sentences:

• • Michael Shane Neal (born November 23, 1968) is an American portrait artist notable for creating official portraits for the United States Capitol of U.S. Senator Arthur Vandenburg, former Majority Leader and U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd, 10th Architect of the Capitol Alan Hantman, and for the creation of over 400 works of art depicting various public figures.
  • Recent current commissions include: Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor for the Sandra Day O'Connor School of Law, Arizona State University; former Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham for the Department of Energy; and U.S. Senator Arlen Specter for Yale University Law School.
  • A professional artist since the age of 22. Counted among his honors was the commission to paint Senator Arthur Vandenberg for the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., the first portrait of its kind to be added to the Senate Reception Room in nearly 50 years, Neal received the commission at age 32, making him among the youngest artists ever commissioned by the United States Senate.
  • His work has been featured in publications such as American Artist, International Artist, Artist's Sketchbook, and The Artist’s Magazine, Art News, Fine Art Connoisseur, Roll Call, The Hill, and AskMen.com
  • [Awarded] 2001 Grand Prize Portrait Society of America International Portrait Competition.

I suppose it unambiguously sources the fifth one OK. But I think we need to see reliable sources, honestly applied rather than just scattered about like this, in order to say that someone is notable enough to have a page. AndyJones (talk) 13:43, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• • Comment: Ya, the addition of source #1 was me. I was just trying to help the article out a bit (and footnotes are supposed to go after punctuation). I had intended it to source only the Senator portraits and the brief bio bits--I wasn't attempting to mislead. Really, I don't see a problem with the article being deleted, my main intention was to just see if it could be rescued. No worries if it gets deleted. Lazulilasher (talk) 16:24, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak Delete. Although perhaps prolific, the subject appears to not meet the criteria for WP:NOTE for creative professionals. The subject is not "widely cited by their peers or successors," is not "originating a significant new concept, theory or technique," is not the subject of a book/major motion picture, and does not seem to be "represented within the permanent collections of several notable galleries, museums or internationally significant libraries".BWH76 (talk) 12:39, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

---

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Maximillion Pegasus (talk) 21:36, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep sufficiently important commissions, and enough of them. DGG (talk) 02:25, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• keep The sockpuppeting is unfortunate because this is someone who would be kept anyways and I hope that the closing admin will keep a good track of the arguments from normal users. There are a variety of non-trivial sources about Michael Shane Neal including the the Artist's Magazine and Art News. That together with his work makes him pass WP:BIO. JoshuaZ (talk) 00:36, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• keep I added various organizations that Neal has been elected to by his peers. These can be found on his website and were verified through the websites of the organizations. Maybe this helps.barnesab

• Weak Keep- His commissions and portraits are of note. Especially the portrait of Robert Byrd who was a former Majority Leader and is the current President Pro Tempore (which makes him third in line for presidential succession). The sources are a bit weak, but I think that the page should be kept. Hopefully more sources can be found to strengthen the article. Rigby27 Talk 20:13, 24 February 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.