Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Melissa Malzkuhn

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. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:57, 9 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Melissa Malzkuhn

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Sent to Draft, banged right back into mainspace. Fails WP:GNG, sources presented are interview or non-RS such as Obama Foundation website, Forbes Sites. Alexandermcnabb (talk) 08:07, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Disability and United States of America. Alexandermcnabb (talk) 08:07, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep She has been covered by reliable sources, including NPR, the Washington Post and PBS NewsHour. Vexations (talk) 15:26, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Delete These are either brief or tangential mentions. I also find coverage in Forbes and the PBS clip, but they're interviews. She's got some coverage, not enough for our purposes here. Oaktree b (talk) 21:08, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 20:07, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep There is coverage of her work in multiple news articles. The article linked above for The Washington Post includes multiple paragraphs on Malzkuhn. The NPR story is also extensive coverage on Malzkuhn. Finally, her work The Baobab, a bilingual book was reviewed by an academic journal. DaffodilOcean (talk) 03:13, 23 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. She is notable in the general sense, but the mutiple review of her book that I saw on ProQuest give her a pass at WP:AUTHOR. I've added one more in, so the article passes as it stands. CT55555 (talk) 02:46, 23 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as meets WP:GNG. -Kj cheetham (talk) 17:37, 23 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment As per User:Oaktree b above, the mentions presented are ALL passing - and the book review quoted by User:CT55555 above is a review of an app, to which Malzkuhn is one of several contributors of short stories for children, it is not a review of HER book and there is no case for WP:NAUTHOR. While she is clearly an active advocate, there is no in-depth or significant coverage of her to indicate notability. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 05:21, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've looked again. Quoting from the Journal of Education article "The Baobab and the VL2 storybook app series are designed and managed by Melissa Malzkukn" she's the only one mentioned in that sentence. Indeed, it's a book delivered digitally with American sign language. My reading is that someone signs the words. Obviously that can't be done in paper, it's done via a tablet or phone. The article refers to it as a book, because in many ways it is. In other ways, it is more than a book. I think this is not a reason to discount it, in fact it's quite spectacular in my opinion and should give her bonus points. WP:AUTHOR = WP:CREATIVE so I see no need discount an electronic book/app over a paper one. I don't agree that this is a passing mention. It's a proper review, 5 long paragraphs, and as per the WP:AUTHOR it's the subject of her work (the book/app) that needs to get significant coverage, not her. We're getting this here. So sorry, User:Alexandermcnabb, I just completely disagree with your characterisation of this and understanding of the guidelines.

The review I'm talking about is:

JIMÉNEZ, LAURA M. Review of BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS, by MELISSA MALZKUHN, KRISTEN HARMON, BENJAMIN BAHAN, WANDA RIDDLE, YIQIAO WANG, APRIL JACKSON-WOODARD, JACQUELINE WOODSON, et al. The Journal of Education 196, no. 1 (2016): 53–57. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26612608.

Another review of The Baobab (although it doesn't mention MM):

MURRAY, J. J. The Baobab: Translanguaging in a multimodal sign language translation project. Applied Linguistics Review, [s. l.], v. 9, n. 1, p. 135–156, 2018. DOI 10.1515/applirev-2017-0085. Disponível em: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edb&AN=128384820&site=eds-live&scope=site. Acesso em: 29 jun. 2022.

Another review that I cannot open, but mentions MM her in the abstract:

Nolan, E., & Indrisano, R. (2016). The baobab, A storybook app. Journal of Education, 196(1), 53. Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/baobab-storybook-app/docview/1776673905/se-2?accountid=196403

A news piece, that does quote her, so not 100% secondary:

Larimer, S. (2017, Jun 05). How one university is trying to reach young, deaf readers. Telegraph-Journal Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/how-one-university-is-trying-reach-young-deaf/docview/1905625974/se-2?accountid=196403

There is lots more on proquest, I hope I've convinced you. Sorry for not listing more here, but real life calls.... CT55555 (talk) 23:38, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. As noted, tangential mentions in passing do not establish notability regardless of the quality of the sources. Doczilla _{@SUPERHEROLOGIST} 19:35, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:05, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I commented above, since the relist, but did so above, to keep things in logical order. CT55555 (talk) 23:39, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment She also contributed an essay to In Our Own Hands: Essays in Deaf History 1780-1970, which was reviewed in Disability Studies Quarterly and Canadian Journal of Disability Studies. Beccaynr (talk) 00:43, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment According to a review in The Journal of Education Vol. 196, No. 1 (January 2016) (via JSTOR), she designed and manages the app, which won the DEVICE Design Award in 2014, and she is a co-author of the story. This is a substantial and positive review. The coverage in the May 28, 2017 Washington Post article How Gallaudet University is working to reach young, deaf readers is about her (including biographical information), her lab, her app, the series of stories, and positive reception from parents and children, so this seems to be SIGCOV about her and her work. Beccaynr (talk) 01:16, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment She was also featured in a "Brief But Spectacular" segment on PBS NewsHour in 2019, and I found two WaPo blog posts on ProQuest where she offers information on ASL slang. There are also many reprints of the 2017 WaPo article on ProQuest, and various press releases in the two pages of ProQuest results. She also co-founded the Cultivating Research and Equity in Sign-related Technology (CREST), a research network (Inside Higher Ed, 2020), but I have not found secondary coverage about that or the children's show "Here Comes Mavo!" she helped develop. However, the 2015 NPR coverage When It Comes To Learning For The Deaf, 'It's A 3-D Language' is also about her and her work, including the storybook apps. I think there is sufficient in-depth and secondary attention to her and her work over time, plus some coverage for her art, as a slang expert, tenant, etc to support WP:BASIC notability, and the sources identified in this discussion can help further develop the article, so I !vote keep. Beccaynr (talk) 01:54, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Please consider in light of new sources found.

*Keep. I can't see the cited Washington Post article, but an article of the same author/similar date on the Wikipedia Library is titled For deaf children, early access to ASL By: Sarah Larimer, Washington Post, The, 05/29/2017. Over half of that article is about Melissa Malzkuhn and her work. Another of the 68 results that appeared when I gave WL her name, is "Avodah Announces Four Distinguished Members to New Sign Language Projects Advisory Council.", June 14, 2022, Business Wire. It starts "Avodah, a transformative SaaS company powering artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, announced today the joining of four recognized leaders in the Deaf community to its new Sign Language Projects Advisory Council ". A summary is given for each of the four. MaryMO (AR) (talk) 19:37, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:39, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The additional sources found since this AFD started are sufficient to prove the subject clearly notable. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:51, 7 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep in light of new sources found and significant expansion since nomination, when this was a very short four-sentence stub.

WP:BASIC allows multiple independent sources to be combined to establish notability. On that basis, the strongest piece of coverage is the 2017 Washington Post feature by Sarah Lorimer. Although the article does include quotes (direct and indirect) from Malzkuhn, it also contains factual information and direct observations by Lorimer herself about Malzkuhn's work at the Motion Light Lab, as well as information she gathered by interviewing others. Similarly, the 2015 NPR story includes quotes from Malzkuhn, but also has some independent analysis and content related to her work, incorporated by NPR. A separate 2022 Washington Post article includes a one-paragraph independent review of Malzkuhn’s art installation.

The two larger pieces from Washington Post and NPR include quotes from other professionals serving the Deaf community and from a parent whose child uses the VL2 storybook apps, which help to validate the impact that Malzkuhn’s work with the Motion Light Lab is having, not just what Malzkuhn herself may claim. Nevertheless, it is important to have additional external perspectives from the broader educational and deaf community (that are “more independent”) regarding the significance of her achievements.

For this, criterion 3 of WP:CREATIVE / WP:AUTHOR is satisfied, because she has “played a major role in co-creating a significant or well-known work or collective body of work” (as evidenced by independent sources). The body of work is the VL2 Storybook Apps, starting with The Baobab, which was reviewed by the Journal of Education in 2016; the larger body of work is noted in the 2020 second edition of the book Deaf Culture: Deaf Communities in the United States. The 2018 article in Applied Linguistics Review is authored by a non-independent source (a Norwegian partner who worked on translating or “translanguaging” The Baobab), but nevertheless demonstrates the international reach of the collective body of work, within the field of applied linguistics.

In total, there is enough coverage across multiple sources to justify keeping this as a standalone bio of a creative professional who is also an academic and Deaf advocate. Cielquiparle (talk) 21:28, 7 July 2022 (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.