Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/5th AVN Awards

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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. Although the opinion of participating editors is divided, it bears repeating that AfD is not a vote. The role of the closing administrator is not to count heads, but to weigh arguments in light of policy. In this case, no amount of support for the article can overcome the absence of reliable sources independent of the subject. I would propose as an alternative redirecting all AVN Awards by year articles that are not supported by independent sources to

T
04:46, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

5th AVN Awards

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Pornography industry awards of 1988. Sourced only to the organizers. Fails

WP:RS. I stumbled across this when deleting a porn actor's article at AfD. I'm nominating the 1988 article at random, but most articles in Template:AVN should probably be similarly deleted. A bundled nomination of the other articles may be needed if consensus forms to delete this one. Sandstein 20:05, 21 January 2020 (UTC)[reply
]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Nevada-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 20:23, 21 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Film-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 20:23, 21 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 20:23, 21 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

OPPOSE/KEEP: I think a better solution would be to mark the article as a stub that needs people to improve upon it (note that, excluding the list of nominees and winners, it is a very short article). Yes, this particular article is sourced only to the organizers, however, that certainly isn't the case for most of the articles in Template:AVN. And two or three of the other articles at one time or another have been nominated for deletion, but they've always survived the process.

In the case of this article, however, I am certain other sources of information are available; it's just that I don't have them and, as the originator of this article, I thought it appropriate to start the article and hope that others come along to improve it. For example, I did once see on eBay a Cinema Blue magazine (August 1988, Volume 5 No. 6) that seemed to have an article on the awards, according to the description, and I took note of it but wasn't able to buy it, since I don't live in a country the seller ships to. Hopefully someone else has a copy and can update this article. And I'm sure there are other sources that people have.

I agree the source of the list of nominees and winners is the organizer, however, I'm OK with that, because while the list of winners of the 91st Academy Awards, for example, is sourced from the New York Times, certainly the Times got their list of nominees directly from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences by press release and the list of winners by watching the ceremony, then fact checking it later against the press release list of winners. Any other Times coverage certainly is original reporting that is very useful for Wikipedia, however, the list of winners and nominees itself is really just a list from the organizer, albeit attributed to an intermediary.

And just now I had a look at the 5th Academy Award winners article and I see the list of winners there is attributed to the Academy's website. In fact, that Wikipedia page has only seven sources; two of which are the Academy while one is IMDb (which I thought wasn't supposed to be an acceptable source for Wikipedia, though perhaps I'm mistaken). But it was obviously difficult to find sources and information on the 5th Oscars because the material probably doesn't exist anymore and similarly with the 5th AVN Awards, it may be more difficult because porn was still a taboo topic for most mainstream media at the time. In reading the 5th Academy Awards article, I think it is better for the use of the Academy as a source than it could be without, and I would argue the same for this AVN Awards article even if I had been able to add material from Cinema Blue.

But since the AVN Awards are considered to be the "Oscars of Porn" (as noted by numerous sources throughout other AVN Awards articles on Wikipedia), I think they are notable enough to have the lists of winners and major category nominees included in Wikipedia. So I think it's worth keeping all of the yearly award winner articles. But if the decision is to delete one like this because someone hasn't come along yet with more information and sources to add, then I guess my other suggestion would be to at least keep the list of winners/nominees as a "List of 5th AVN Award winners" article. Certainly the list is a helpful reference when checking other porn actors/actresses for notability, because I do agree with Sandstein that too many porn actors/actresses get pages created in Wikipedia without first having achieved notability.

And finally, I would again suggest keeping a separate article for each year's awards because to list what now is 37 years' worth of winners on the main AVN Awards page would simply make that web page completely unwieldy.

Certainly I'm interested in any suggestions/feedback on this article and any solutions other than deletion that people may have, though. Thank you.pumik9 • (talk) 03:41, 22 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been added to the WikiProject Pornography list of deletions. • Gene93k (talk) 11:23, 22 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 11:24, 22 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, for lack of significant coverage in secondary sources independent of the subject. I do not agree with the point that Certainly the list is a helpful reference when checking other porn actors/actresses for notability..., because adult industry awards are no longer counted toward notability. --K.e.coffman (talk) 02:05, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep What purpose could possibly be served by deleting this? It's sourced, it's documented, there's nothing to be gained by deleting this article. It certainly qualifies for
    WP:GNG. Go find something to add, stop trying to remove valuable content. XeroxKleenex (talk) 09:26, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • The article is sourced to AVN, the show's organizer and award issuer. GNG and
    WP:EVENTCRIT require coverage from reliable sources that are independent of the subject. Porn awards (and most mainstream commerce awards) are self-promotional fluff. That goes double for porn award nominations. WP:PORNBIO was taken down not only for that reason, but also the consensus that porn awards to not contribute to a porn performer's notability without independent RS acknowledgment of their significance. Without good evidence of notability, this content is more appropriate for RAME.net or IMDb. • Gene93k (talk) 11:58, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • While I can't see evidence of notability for the 30+ ceremony articles, I'm not keen on a mass nomination. May I suggest pacing this out, maybe a few editions at a time? As for the main AVN Awards, it gets some ongoing, but somewhat shallow, mainstream coverage as "The Oscars of Porn." That's a separate matter. • Gene93k (talk) 23:05, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. K.e.coffman (talk) 22:57, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, N0nsensical.system(err0r?)(.log) 09:20, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Multiyear hits for AVN Awards in the Los Angeles Times archive, in LA MAgazine, hits in the NY Times archive (I can't produce a search URL so some examples: [1] [2] [3] [4]), extensive multiyear coverage in Getty Images, 60+ hits in the Las Vegas Review-Journal between 2009-2019, discussed in academic journal Porn Studies. The ceremony is deemed regularly noteworthy and covered in
    newspapers of record. If one particular ceremony has less coverage it is not so surprising that the older ones have less immediately identifiable sources, but the later ones are clearly covered. Makes no sense to delete this and merge material into AVN Awards article since that would become far too unwieldy.--Goldsztajn (talk) 00:48, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Comment the framing of this AfD is to my mind a little strange. The nominator has indicated that if successful it will function to support an ambit claim for a class of articles. Another editor has indicated support for mass deletion of the class of articles. Contra to that, I've simply presented the results of a relatively simple (30 minutes) search on the AVN events. In a recent AfD, there was discussion around the meaning of the
    WP:LASTING guideline - in fact I think this article is a useful example of the last point of that guideline, that is, notability might be achieved at a later point in time due to subsequent events or actions. To reiterate my earlier point in a different way: it is not surprising that there is may be a lack of RS material on this *specific* event (the 5th, rather than the 12th or 17th etc), but given that the AVN Awards *are* notable, each of those events over the last 30 odd years *cumulatively* constitute that notability. It is not the case of the Awards lending notability to each event, but rather each event constituted in toto provides notability for the Awards in general (ie it was not the 5th or 12th or 17th specifically that made the AVN Awards notable, but rather all of them together). Finally, @Gene93k:, did you mean to write "prove", rather than "provide", with reference to Getty Images? If so, per se, I agree, coverage in Getty Images on its own would not indicate notability, but in the context of other sources it supports notability. --Goldsztajn (talk) 10:37, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    Goldsztajn, your argument that the AVN Awards are notable cumulatively, and not individually, is precisely the reason for this AfD. We should delete the individual articles, because each individual award has not been covered in depth by reliable sources, but we should probably keep the article AVN Awards to cover the awards as a whole. Sandstein 11:36, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • In my above comment, "provide" means yield, supply, etc. The AVN Awards may get ongoing coverage as a recurring event, but again notability is not inherited by every edition edition of the event. For an individual show, coverage is little beyond a brief mention that the show is coming or a brief report that the show happened, after which coverage ceases even from AVN. As for unwieldy content, porn award nominations tend to be industry-promoting fluff without the support of independent reliable sources. The level of detail in the annual articles is covered by 1. contemporaneous AVN reporting (
    WP:NOTNEWS, "for a full list of nominees, see the AVN Awards link here."), 2. possibly IMDb and 3. RAME.net/IAFD. Without RS support, it's trivia at best (WP:Too much detail). As for lack of coverage for the show, this is the general problem with porn in Wikipedia. If reputable media sources shun pornography, Wikipedia editors are left with porn promotion and the porn itself to source objective, verifiable articles. After 13 years of WP:PORNBIO, the new consensus is that excusing porn from the regular reliable source coverage is bad policy. • Gene93k (talk) 11:45, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Comment Sandstein: I'll just highlight the point raised by
    WP:LASTING and leave it there: "It may take weeks or months to determine whether or not an event has a lasting effect. This does not, however, mean recent events with unproven lasting effect are automatically non-notable." Gene93k: I'm not claiming inherited notability for this event, my point above is the opposite: the ongoing cumulative effect of 30+ years of this annual event has created notability for the Awards. FWIW, the deprecation of WP:PORNBIO is irrelevant to my points; I'm only using current guidelines and commonsense.--Goldsztajn (talk) 14:27, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Delete. A yearly pornography industry award is not anything notable. Articles like that do look to me as promoting pornography industry in WP. Agree with nominator that most articles in Template:AVN should be similarly deleted. My very best wishes (talk) 04:04, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • By that logic the article Pornography is promoting pornography. It would not be unreasonable to make an argument that this article could be perceived as promoting AVN, a commercial organisation. However, it's well established this this is the most significant and long-standing awards event in this particular entertainment industry. Goldsztajn (talk) 22:03, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Most significant awards in the industry as attested to by what independent reliable sources. The comparison to the
    WP:WAX. Just having a Wikipedia article about a porn subject is not promotion, especially when the example you point to has 100+ independent citations. The 5th AVN show only got coverage by AVN itself, an industry-promoting organization touting its own show. • Gene93k (talk) 23:15, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Whether independent sources exist to support an objective article is the issue here. None of that exists for the this and the vast majority of the yearly shows. Porn or mainstream, industry awards exist to promote their particular industry, and only a rare few get the independent RS interest required for notability. Porn nominations are promotional fluff, especially those from the AVN Awards. With up to 15 nominees per category, they tend to nominate everybody for something. Without a credible independent sources that show this is of general interest, it is cruft that does not belong in Wikipedia.
    WP:IINFO for the third time. • Gene93k (talk) 09:42, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply
    ]

(edit conflict)
Sources for the "Oscars of porn" and AVN as industry leader.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]

References

  1. ^ Smith, Nate "Igor" (2017-01-23). ""The Oscars of Porn" Struts Its Stuff at the Hard Rock". LA Weekly. Retrieved 2020-02-03.
  2. ^ Wingfield, Nick (2012-01-09). "Silicon and Silicone Split, as C.E.S. and Adult Entertainment Expo Part Ways". Gadgetwise Blog (New York Times). Retrieved 2020-02-03.
  3. ^ Blaustein, Michael (2018-01-25). "How the sausage gets made at the Oscars of porn". New York Post. Retrieved 2020-02-03.
  4. ^ Feinberg, Scott (2017-02-24). ""Oscars of Porn" vs. the Oscars: The Surprising Similarities". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2020-02-03.
  5. ^ Breslin, Susannah. "Actually, The 'Oscars Of Porn' And The Oscars Are A Little Different". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-02-03.
  6. ISBN 978-0-520-29171-3pp.84-116 cover the emergence of AVN and its dominance as an industry version of Variety and the Hollywood Reporter.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link
    )
  7. ISBN 978-0-88961-516-8"Oscars of porn" p.293{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link
    )
  8. ISBN 978-0-262-26076-3AVN "the primary independent conduit of information between adult film studios and video retailers" p.109{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link
    )

Goldsztajn (talk) 09:49, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • "As yet another indicator of how mainstream pornography has become, it is worth noting that the AVN Awards are shown on the non-specialist cable television channel Showtime in the US."[1]: 61–62 . 2019 Showtime Network (30 million US households access) Broadcast: [5].

References

  1. ISBN 978-1-136-94209-9
    .
--Goldsztajn (talk) 14:45, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • One more time: "The Oscars of Porn" coverage yields superficial and contemporaneous coverage for some of the shows, coverage is mainly about the CES Adult (now AVN) Expo. If there is such a thing as "collective notability" as you call it, it applies to the main ceremony show article, not the annual editions. BTW, Showtime is a primary source. Final question, which of these sources is applicable to the 1988 5th edition of the show? Running down the sources listed: 1. LA Weekly (evaluated before): a one-paragraph show biz happenings blurb with a photo. Trivial current events coverage. 2. NYT (evaluated before): About CES vs CES/Adult Expo. 3. NY Post: no coverage the annual shows. Tabloid coverage based largely on what principal people say about the ceremony as a whole. 4. Hollywood Reporter: Brief and superficial comparisons between the the main AVN Awards show vs. the Oscars. Again, no significant coverage of annual events. 5. Forbes contributor article: Cites the reference #4 as its base. Again, about the ceremony, not its annual shows. 6. Alilunas (U. of California Oress): incidental mention of award show in context of Steve Hirsch's Visionary Award. It also confirm's AVN as an important organ of the the porn industry. 2. Kilty (Canadian Scholars): coverage of the ceremony in general with a brief mention of the first show. 8. Greenberg (MIT Press): passing mentions of Adult Video News. • Gene93k (talk) 19:44, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • The points in discussion here are three-fold: 1) whether this specific article should be deleted (2) whether a class of articles should be deleted (3) by what basis do we determine how notability and significance is relevant here. My contributions have been framed in response to denials that AVN and the AVN Awards are notable, are industry leaders, are covered in significant ways. However, the counter-arguments here seem to be shifting; first, AVN and the Awards are just run of the mill industry promotions, that being disqualified, we have moved to acknowledging the event is covered, but claiming that all that is reported is what happened at the event...and one would expect what, otherwise, from a source covering the event? It is clear from multiple sources (academic and journalistic) that AVN and the AVN awards are the leading industry publication and awards ceremony. Finally, two caveats: the LA Weekly piece has not been cited previously (LA Magazine was the earlier citation), Peter Alilunas' piece is a chapter length study on AVN's highly significant role in the transformation of the US pornography industry during the shift from film to video and the explosive growth of the mass marketing and consumption of pornogrpahy.--Goldsztajn (talk) 14:14, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • From the outset, the notability of the base AVN Awards article was brought up as a discussion for a future time. Even then, the sources brought into evidence cover the main awards show or more often the greater AVN Expo. 1) The article in question lacks support of independent reliable sources, the basis for WP:GNG and WP:NEVENT. 2) Most of this article's peers suffer from the same problem. 3) See response #1 again. Without objective sources, there is no objective notability. Adult Video News may be an eminently notable institution, but it is still an industry promotion machine. Subsidiary aspects about AVN don't inherit notability without independent RS support. All these attestations of porn as a phenomenon do not excuse stand-alone porn articles from the General Notability Guideline standard. • Gene93k (talk) 17:19, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I feel there is little I can add further to the discussions above - there are different opinions here and it is unlikely consensus will be reached. However, I wanted to at this point suggest an alternative approach: what if this was to be converted into a List of winners at the 5th AVN Awards? Personally, I can see merit in an argument that the article as it currently stands contains trivial items (eg all the nominations) that could be edited out. This could then potentially be a way to deal with the other single awards event articles, with the stand alone articles for the AVN Awards and AVN itself covering the notability and significance in toto.--Goldsztajn (talk) 14:14, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:LISTN would apply, and we'd still need to show that the topic of the list (i.e., the winners of the 1988 event, not the awards as a whole) is notable through coverage in reliable sources. And that's not been possible so far. Sandstein 15:40, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Such a list would be a reformatted subset of information already at
    List of AVN Award winners article existed until 2016, when it was redirected to AVN Awards for redundancy. • Gene93k (talk) 17:24, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Delete. Lack of sources, and the editing history looks like it's mostly
    WP:COI. -- Dorama285 17:55, 05 February 2020 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Dorama285 please be specific, what conflict of interest is evidenced in the editing history? --Goldsztajn (talk) 19:00, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Conflict of interest? Plausible but not proven.
    assume good faith, but maybe this editor can explain himself/herself. • Gene93k (talk) 23:51, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • I'd prefer to assume good faith and avoid pointing fingers. Maybe it would be safer to say: It seems like there is very limited interest in this topic from more than a few highly interested people.--Dorama285 00:21, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Even if this is the work of a good-faith enthusiast (and that's a lot of enthusiasm), it is fan content. Without independent RS interest, this is better hosted at RAME.net or Pornopedia rather than Wikipedia. • Gene93k (talk) 00:32, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I can assure you, as the originator of this article, I'm not a fanboy, have no connection with the adult film industry whatsoever and do not even live in the same country! I find that kind of amusing, actually. (Thankfully we're all passionate about Wikipedia though; that's why we're all here!) But regardless of all that, I agree with Gene93k's point that the article should have more sources, and as I mentioned in my first post at the top of the page, if an eBay vendor would've shipped to my country, I would have had one more source to add to the article. I'm sure other contributors must have information they could add. Meanwhile, RAME.net isn't an option as it hasn't been updated since 2005. I suppose Pornopedia might work, but I think AVN is notable enough to be hosted on Wikipedia. Certainly there are far too many adult movie awards though, and Pornopedia's probably a better solution than Wikipedia for most of the others. But that's just my opinion. And thank you, Dorama285, though I wouldn't agree there is "very limited" interest -- the last time I looked at Wikipedia stats files, AVN awards article page views were doing very well! pumik9 • (talk) 02:56, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

REMAIN OPPOSE/KEEP: I do appreciate this discussion and especially that the comments have been thoughtful and civilized; I'm glad to read all your opinions and have learned a lot. While I agree with much (probably most) of what Gene93k says throughout this discussion, I think Goldsztajn's suggestion may be the best one, to convert it to a List of winners at the 5th AVN Awards.

Here's why: I think the Critics' Choice Movie Awards are notable and I hope you'd all agree with me. (Yes, I know they're about mainstream movies, and we're discussing adult movies, but bear with me a second.) The Critics' Choice movie awards are voted on by critics (as are the AVN Awards) and many people think they do a better job of picking winners than the Oscars and definitely the Golden Globes, which in my opinion have plenty of glitz, but can be a bit of a farce. So looking at Wikipedia's 1st Critics' Choice Awards page (these awards were first presented in 1996), we see a very short article with one source: The Broadcast Film Critics Association itself (just like this 5th AVN Awards article). So using the arguments presented on this page, shouldn't the 1st Critics' Choice Awards page also be deleted from Wikipedia? I say no, it shouldn't, but it sounds like some of you would recommend that it should be removed, since it does appear to go against some of Wikipedia's guidelines.

Something else I'm wondering: Is some of the argument against AVN awards actually because society itself looks down it's nose at porn, wants the industry to go away and pretend it doesn't exist, while the Hollywood movie scene is held in high esteem. Because why would the arguments being made against this page not also be used to remove the 1st, 2nd or 3rd Critics' Choice Awards pages, since those all have only the critics association as a source?

So please have a look and let me know what you think. Am I misunderstanding something? Thank you! pumik9 • (talk) 02:56, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Pumik9: Struck duplicate keep !vote. You already keep at the beginning of the discussion. • Gene93k (talk) 03:12, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you want to go after the Critic's Choice Awards, have at it. The 1st annual show came before Critic's Choice became big. Coverage for later annual shows is easy to find at GNews. It would not surprise me if more showbiz-knowledgeable editors can come around and rescue it. • Gene93k (talk) 03:24, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Absolutely not! As I said in the last comment, "I say no, it shouldn't be removed." And yes, perhaps other editors could rescue that page, just as I'm sure other editors could rescue this page. (And please don't feel that I'm singling you out because I'm not -- I respect your opinions and agree with most of them; they're all valid points. But we have both seen a lot of trolling and fights over adult movie pages between trolls and fanboys and I've thought that in many of those cases, both sides were wrong. It absolutely does seem like a lot of industry people are posting pages for promotional purposes, with no notability. And to me, it also does seem like a lot of their opposers are haters of the industry, who don't believe it has a place in Wikipedia at all. I don't think anybody on this page (at least not so far) falls into either camp. But I do wonder whether one's biases against the adult film industry do enter into this.) I certainly can find topics on Wikipedia that I don't agree with and wouldn't be upset if they disappeared, however, I have to remember that just because I don't agree with something doesn't mean it doesn't have the right to be here. In this page's discussion, both sides, I think, are making very valid points and I just wanted to see if anyone or everyone who posted on this page earlier felt the Critics Awards pages should be treated equally as the AVN Awards pages. pumik9 • (talk) 03:53, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yet another porn database. On their terms of service page, they identify themselves as Rileyshaven Inc,[6] a Riley Steele fan site partnered with AdultDVDEmpire. This is more like RAME.net/IAFD than a true media organization with an established record for fact checking. Even if reliable, such database entries are not significant coverage. • Gene93k (talk) 17:25, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • You (Google?) seem to have conflated Rileyshaven with Rileysheaven. I only indicated this was an independent source, not necessarily significant coverage, since the nominator is justifying the AfD, in part, on self-sourcing grounds.--Goldsztajn (talk) 20:04, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak keep It's already hard enough to find reliable sources about pornography (the most hated subject "on here"), on top of an event that took place pre-Internet. Sources shouldn't be self-referential but in this rare case I do believe it is sufficient as it offers the information required when no one else can. To me, it would be no different if it was any other award show from that time period. ⌚️ (talk) 19:30, 7 February 2020 (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.
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