Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Frances Street Squats (2nd 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 no consensus. Sandstein 12:27, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Frances Street Squats

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Previously ended up being soft deleted due to lack of participation. Someone WP:REFUND however no compelling sources have been offered. The article from the very beginning was sourced almost entirely from the The Ubyssey which is like a local paper. Another from a different college paper by the same author. I find that this former squat house of the local interest doesn't pass WP:ORGDEPTH, WP:NORG and in determining/WP:SIRS, series of coverage by the same publisher or journalist is considered one source. The student paper as well as local centric sources fail the audience base, because it is a intended for Vancouver area coverage. It also appears that the article's creator was an involved party of the article. Graywalls (talk) 01:40, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. Graywalls (talk) 01:40, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. Graywalls (talk) 01:40, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of British Columbia-related deletion discussions. Graywalls (talk) 01:40, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Nothing suggests this is notable.John Pack Lambert (talk) 12:39, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ~ Aseleste (t, e | c, l) 14:58, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The user who requested WP:REFUND added contents and sources, but it still doesn't amount to significant coverage in media not tailored to local cverage. Graywalls (talk) 20:52, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - appears to be extensive coverage in the Vancouver Sun, The Province, The Ubyssey, and it's the subject of a chapter of Under the Viaduct: Homeless in Beautiful B.C.. Some of the sources I don't have access to (like the text of that chapter), but considering the amount of pre-web coverage that's accessible or at least visible, I'd imagine there would be even more from contemporary sources. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:14, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- comment which The Province coverage? I didn't see it cited. Care to explain which source you mean? Local Vancouver matters (local affairs) covered in Vancouver press is hardly a surprise. The Ubyssey is exceedingly local. The Ubyssey would be reliable coverage for that those things happened near the UBC campus, but meaningless for notability. Have you looked at AUD in WP:ORGDEPTH? Also articles that extensively quote long quotes of "the subject organization said..." for the lack of intellectual independence should be properly discounted. That book you talk about is very much locally focused. A chapter in a locally focused isn't much in terms of audience. It's also over reaching to speculate on the coverage significance based on a chapter in a book you don't have access to. Graywalls (talk) 17:51, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - I found the Province sources when browsing newspapers.com. I'll have to get back to you with links as I'm now on a computer which doesn't have that login saved. As for the book, according to Worldcat it is held by 66 libraries, only 7 of which are in BC. It may have a local focus, but isn't "local coverage". — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:34, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - WP:AUD doesn't just concern geographical coverage, but field of interest too. If one tries, they could find books held by a number of libraries that talks about farms in North Plains, OR... or churches on Forest Grove, perhaps in some depth. Those have limited meaning in WP:NORG notability for those places named in the book. Graywalls (talk) 21:56, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:39, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 01:08, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Question Was this such a notable case that it resulted in any laws being changed, anything changed at all? Is it taught in any textbooks? A search through old newspapers shows its mention along with other squats, they quite common. Dream Focus 01:22, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment this is a valid point. There are locally themed books focused on Oregon Willamette Valley/Wine Country that has a list of vineyards that may have a many pages dedicated to each vineyard going into the vineyard's history, the family, then there are probably local papers that talk about those thing in depth, because they're of importance in the locality. I would say that's still not enough to satisfy creating an article here for that vineyard, unless you say, that vineyard is more greater significance than simply being talked about for a chapter in a local themed, topic specific book. I see no real indication that these group of houses that have become squatted are more than relatively common, run of the mill squatter occupations that happened to get picked up and covered fairly extensively in one source (per SIGCOV, series of coverage by one publication counts as one) Graywalls (talk) 05:20, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - That is not correct at all. We do not consider audience size or personal judgements, as that leaves us open to losing a lot of proper content, and this was a point made early on in Wikipedia history with the failed "Wikipedia:fame and importance" idea. Most subjects have limited audiences in one way or another, from species of beetle to 1970s music groups. It is writing not reading that counts. A vineyard that has its history, geography, economics, and whatnot independently documented in depth by multiple people with good reputations for fact checking and accuracy is as valid a subject as a city that has history, geography, economics, and whatnot so documented.
    Indeed, to the contrary: local history books are often very good sources, especially compared to the alternative such as robot-creating articles from GNIS database entries. I have found, for example, the Arcadia Publishing ones invaluable for rewriting things such as Robert, California (AfD discussion) or Escalle, Larkspur, California, and equally for filtering out truly non-notable things like The Arboretum, Charlotte (AfD discussion). Local history books point the way, and newspapers and other stuff flesh thing out, correct errors, and suchlike.
    This subject is another case in point. The only major coverage that I could find, stating how important the author thought it was, turned out to be authored by one of the squatters. And the article started out sourced to squatter press releases. There's a lot more independent coverage of "Woodsquat" at Woodward's department store in Vancouver than there is of this. It's that that has actually escaped its authors/creators and been independently documented in depth, with background and analysis. A geography professor has discussed it, for example, in Blomley 2004, pp. 39–50, as has another professor, in a university press book (Robertson 2011). (There is nothing similar for this squat that I can find.) The erstwhile photograph manager of the Vancouver Sun includes it, per xyr talk on these sorts of things and presumably in the connected book Bird & Demers 2017. That is definitely multiple people.
    And once again Special:Whatlinkshere/Woodsquat tells us that we did not even know that we did not have this.
    - Blomley, Nicholas (2004). Unsettling the City: Urban Land and the Politics of Property. Routledge. ISBN 9781135954192.
    - Robertson, Kirsty (2019). Tear Gas Epiphanies: Protest, Culture, Museums. McGill-Queen's/Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation Studies in Art History. Vol. 27. McGill-Queen's Press. ISBN 9780773558298.
    - Bird, Kate; Demers, Charles (2017). City on Edge: A Rebellious Century of Vancouver Protests, Riots, and Strikes. Greystone Books. ISBN 9781771643139.
    Uncle G (talk) 09:45, 3 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - The examples you provided are not organizations or companies.WP:NORG is a SNG with emphasis on sourcing to prevent promotional articles that organizations/companies articles are susceptible to. In notability, under WP:SIRS, media of limited interest (which local coverage would be) are specifically discounted for notability building purposes. But, with regard to this article, it seems like you're suggesting it fails to meet notability requirements. Graywalls (talk) 10:25, 3 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      - No, that is wrong. Excluding limited interest sources loses the beetles and the like, as their sources are limited interest too. It is sources that are not independent or trivial that are discounted, which includes press releases, even recycled ones masquerading as newspaper reporting, and stuff authored by the subject or its inventors/founders/creators/whatnot such as Bruce Gongola writing in that volume of West Coast Line. Few people seem to have noticed that Wulwick in West Coast Line is a press release by the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty written in the first person. I know why Rhododendrites thinks that there's "an entire chapter" in a book about this, because I found the same book review. However, I've actually looked at that book. This "entire chapter" is first-person interviews with the squatters (all in quotation marks), followed by Squatters Alliance of Vancouver Press Statement (which is clear on its face), followed by Chu 1991 which is another first-person analysis by one of the squatters.
        Chu, Keith (1991). "The Frances Steet Squats" (PDF). In Baxter, Sheila (ed.). Under the Viaduct: Homeless in Beautiful BC. Vancouver: New Star Books. pp. 80–88.
        The existence of multiple sources independent of the subject is the step that this subject fails on, as only the Vancouver Sun has independently published anything about this. (I haven't turned up the other newspaper sources waved at above.) There's lots of autobiographical stuff from the actual squatters themselves, but the subject hasn't escaped just them to be independently documented in depth by multiple other people as Woodsquat has.
        And if the squat that I hyperlinked isn't an organization or a company, then this also a squat isn't either; not that that matters because these principles apply well to everything, from beetles to squats.
        Uncle G (talk) 15:39, 3 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        
        , then do you have a !vote? Graywalls (talk) 02:00, 4 April 2021 (UTC) Forgot to ping. @Uncle G: Graywalls (talk) 21:32, 4 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Graywalls, throughout this discussion you keep arguing based on WP:CORP (WP:AUD, etc.). This isn't a corporation or organization. It's a set of six houses. We're looking for GNG, not NCORP. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:18, 3 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I see it differently. They're a group of houses, organized by squatter occupants who have collectively organized them into "Frances Street Squats", a collective action of two of more people, thus I believe that NORG is appropriate Graywalls (talk) 17:38, 3 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

They did organize themselves into an organization, which is mentioned in this article. This article is not about that organization. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:50, 3 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I found a public-interest journalism source from 2016 that reports on the Frances Street Squats in the context of other squats, and mentions the documentary about the Frances Street Squats, which is linked in the External Links section of the article. This commentary, along with the documentary, appear to support WP:ORGDEPTH (the guideline specifically identifies a documentary film as an example of substantial coverage, and also states at least one regional, statewide, provincial, national, or international source is necessary, which the source linked above and the documentary appear to satisfy), and there is another source, albeit from a student writing on a Pacific Rim College website in 2018, that describes the Frances Street Squats as "one of the largest and most notable public squats in Canadian history," which suggests that additional sources may WP:NEXIST. The article also is already more than a stub, which is part of what the WP:ORGDEPTH guideline seems concerned with avoiding. Beccaynr (talk) 03:17, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

op-ed. Did you see that this is an OPINION piece? "Opinion by Jakub Markiewicz" ? Graywalls (talk) 03:37, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I did, and per WP:ORGDEPTH, Deep or significant coverage provides an overview, description, commentary, survey, study, discussion, analysis, or evaluation of the product, company, or organization (emphasis added), and it includes reporting on the Frances Street Squats and the reference to a screening of the documentary as part of the larger opinion article, which both seem to emphasize the enduring notability of the Frances Street Squats long past the initial burst of news coverage. Beccaynr (talk) 03:46, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Reading there, I see coverage, but not sigcov. FWIW Graywalls (talk) 03:57, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Per WP:GNG, Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material, and it does not appear to be a trivial mention per that guideline due to the commentary and context, nor within the list of examples of what constitutes trivial coverage in WP:ORGDEPTH, e.g. listings and mentions not accompanied by commentary. Beccaynr (talk) 04:03, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete The coverage highlighted above is not sufficient, it fails WP:GNG - the coverage in independent sources is not in-depth - I’m sure I could find a similar depth of coverage about my local grocery store. Additionally WP:ORG is the relevant policy and that requires a greater depth of non-local coverage than GNG. Those arguing it is not an organisation but a collection of buildings should consider that it obviously fails WP:NBUILD too. --Pontificalibus 11:23, 6 April 2021 (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.