Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/WOW! Children's Museum

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

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WOW! Children's Museum

WOW! Children's Museum (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Local museum which appears to fail GNG. I see a lot of coverage in "Colorado Hometown Weekly" but I'm not seeing anything aside from these local stories and inclusion on tourism websites. I fail to see any notability in this local children's museum. ‡ El cid, el campeador ^talk 14:35, 30 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Museums and libraries-related deletion discussions. ‡ El cid, el campeador ^talk 14:35, 30 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Colorado-related deletion discussions. ‡ El cid, el campeador ^talk 14:35, 30 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep there is sourcing, some of which I added. I think there's enough to meet WP:ORG. Star Mississippi 16:43, 30 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Inclusion in a directory of museums opened by women does not establish notability. Neither does inclusion in a regional (Denver) business journal list of "2015 Cultural Attractions" which is literally just a list of things to do in the area. The third source is just the same regional journal noting in a blurb that the museum and another local attraction were included in a non-notable list of 25 children's museums created by The Early Childhood Education Zone (an unreliable blog). I maintain this is just routine regional coverage and I don't see it passing ORG or GNG. I appreciate your search for sources, however. ‡ El cid, el campeador ^talk 17:12, 30 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There's more sourcing beyond Denver, which I'll try to add during the course of this discussion. I think together they might get it to WP:ORG. List of attractions was just to cite attendance, not notability on my end. Sorry to confuse. Star Mississippi 19:08, 30 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment having dug a little further (and for the purposes of this, disregarding the local source element) and the info is inconsistent which is an issue raised above. A museum drawing 300K/year was one thing, but it seemed on further digging that 70K was their peak (as of 2015) and now I'm not sure. It's a small children's museum, and community fixture, which unfortunately doesn't mean anything for WP:ORG. I'm still saying keep for the moment, but maybe closer to a weak keep. Going to keep looking to see what else I can find. Star Mississippi 15:03, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Some comments on the reliability of existing sources:

• bizjournals was discussed on RSN less than a year ago and is generally considered reliable when the content is not flagged as an advertisement. See wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_288#Business_Journals_/_bizjournals.com
• bizjournals has a reliability score of 46.22 by Ad Fontes Media (well above the 32 point threshold). https://www.adfontesmedia.com/the-business-journals-bias-and-reliability/
• Colorado Hometown Weekly hasn’t been discussed at RSN yet, but we can use the
  WP:RS uses Colorado Hometown Weekly, it's an indicator of it's reliability. If you search the links out of these articles you'll see The Denver Post does [1], 5280 does [2], Vice Media does [3], Colorado Public Radio does [4], Yahoo! News does [5] and The Colorado Sun does [6]. The Denver Public Library also links to it as a resource
  . We could have RSN review Colorado Hometown Weekly as a source, but I'm pretty sure they'll say something like "reliable for topics in their purview." But would happily abide by whatever consensus emerges there.

• • Comment I'm still leaning keep, so I'm not sure what you're saying about deletionism in response to my comment Scarpy? My concern with respect to attendance is the museum's broader significance, but we can agree to not really disagree I guess? Star Mississippi 17:04, 3 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

AfD discussions are not a vote. The closing admin should look at the quality of the arguments for an against. I say this to point out when you’re talking about WP:ORG and then talking about your own criteria for “broader significance” of museums, you’re talking about two different things. There are some caveats in WP:ORG (like WP:AUD) but the primary criteria is A company, corporation, organization, group, product, or service is notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject.

If one follows the guidelines, WP:AUD is the best way I’m aware of to Steelman the guideline-agnostic cases made for deletion so far. My point there is that the best case for deletion in the guidelines is it not even particularly good or applicable here.

This is where the “let’s agree to disagree” breakdowns down. Yes, the two of us can agree to disagree, but guidelines are guidelines. Ultimately we can disagree on interpretations of them to some extent. But of the things that are clear as day in the guidelines, it’s not about disagreeing with me, it’s about applying criteria not in the guidelines to decisions made on Wikipedia. Otherwise we’re engaging in something like AfD judicial activism. That creates a lot of problems because it means that Wikipedia doesn’t even follow its own rules. In the longterm, if this occurs a lot, it’s bad for Wikipedia’s future because it obfuscates the expectations contributors will have for their work being included. Consider scenarios where someone reads the guidelines, writes content according to the guidelines and then it’s deleted because some editors decided to ignore the guidelines in an AfD. That contributor would be justifiably upset.

Perhaps there should be a section in

WP:ORG specially about museums and their attendance that the supersedes the primary criteria. The place to have that would be the WP:ORG talk page, and if found consensus and this museum was below the threshold, then it should be deleted. AfD is the wrong forum for it. - Scarpy (talk) 18:53, 3 July 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

I think that's where

WP:ITSAMUSEUM came in. Pinging Doncram who can speak to the history of it better than I can and whether it speaks to your point. Guidelines are that--guidelines not rules, so it's very possible decisions can counter them. I've had articles deleted. It's art, not science. I'm well aware AFD isn't a vote and as I'm not arguing for deletion, so I'm still confused. I've actually been accused of being biased toward museums, so I guess we'll see where it lands. Star Mississippi 02:34, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

It’s true in English that guidelines and rules are somewhat different, but polices like ignore all rules use them more or less synonymously.

If we don’t follow the guidelines, we’re just fickle and capricious. We become a naked popularity contest—that’s not what encyclopedias are.

I like Museums too. I also want this article kept. but it’s not about us being on the same team of Museum inclusionists and getting museum articles kept if that means weakening the reasoning for all AfDs to some extent. There’s the primary criteria, there’s

WP:AUD, there’s the rest of the guidelines. Those are the concepts that we should be reasoning with in AfD. This isn’t some crazy edge case. You find the sources covering a topic, you see if they’re reliable and in-depth. You compare this the the criteria for the category. It meets the notability criteria for its category, or it doesn’t. If we stick to that, bias for or against Museums doesn’t matter, bias for or against cultural regions of the US doesn’t matter… In the nearly infinite number of things that could be argued on Wikipedia, cases like this should be as simple as what Leibniz envisioned when he said Gentlemen, let us calculate!’. (I’m sure he would have said Gentlepeople if he was alive in 2021) - Scarpy (talk) 07:24, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

• Keep Agree there is enough sourcing to pass GNG. Wikipedia is partially a gazetteer and museums are important in that capacity. - Scarpy (talk) 05:19, 1 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I’m reminded of this AfD discussion Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kitty Crimes (2nd nomination) where similar disparaging remarks were made to the above “Colorado Hometown Weekly.” @El cid, el campeador: I want to ask you to reconsider how you talk about other parts of America. You never hear people say “ohh, the Village Voice was just a ‘hometown weekly.’” But I see plenty of Wikipedians treating Denver publications that way because… they’re from Denver. The implication is clearly not about the merit or reliability of the specific periodical, but rather a sneer based on it’s geographic association. In other words, “it’s Denver therefore it’s not in the same rarefied class as (insert whatever metropolitan area the author is from).” If I’m miss reading you, I’m sorry. But please do tread carefully on this topic. I’m from Denver and have encountered the sentiment numerous times in my life that whatever art or culture we produce doesn’t count because our population isn’t large enough or the coordinates don’t fall in acceptable ranges of longitude. - Scarpy (talk)

I can assure you I have no anti-Denver bias, and I note I had nothing to do with that other discussion. Simply put, the coverage here is

WP:ROUTINE - and the fact that it is only local plays into that. Ultimately, though, the fact that the sourcing is from "bizjournals.com" is irrelevant - the stories cited to simply do not establish notability, as my analysis should show. The fact that a publication would run a story about a local museum being listed in a list by an unreliable blog does cause me to doubt the validity of the source, though. ‡ El cid, el campeador ^talk 12:48, 1 July 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

@El cid, el campeador: then you won’t mind striking out the “Colorado Hometown Weekly” prose from your opening AfD paragraph? - Scarpy (talk) 05:22, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment unless I'm missing something, I don't see bad faith on the part of el cid here. The paper (not using this article for notability, it's just a convenient link) is literally called the Colorado Hometown Weekly. Star Mississippi 13:09, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Star. There is certainly no bad faith at play. And thank you for your work on the article - if it is kept it will be due to your improvements. Best to both of you ‡ El cid, el campeador ^talk 13:48, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I still disagree. See

MOS:SCAREQUOTES Misused punctuation can also have similar effects. Quotation marks, when not marking an actual quotation, may be interpreted as "scare quotes", indicating that the writer is distancing themselves from the otherwise common interpretation of the quoted expression. The use of emphasis may turn an innocuous word into a loaded expression, so such occurrences should also be considered carefully. @El cid, el campeador: If you’re unwilling to strike it, will you at least properly italicize the name of the periodical? - Scarpy (talk) 00:41, 3 July 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

With all due respect, I will absolutely not be doing either of those things. You’re being unreasonable and I’m not going to humor you. We’ve both made our points so let’s leave this for now. Cheers ‡ El cid, el campeador ^talk 00:50, 3 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Italicizing the name of a periodical seems… normal—especially given the MOS. I’ll grant that this is not article space, but still. My constructive feedback here is to be more careful with the tone of things like this. I accept that you don’t intend it to sound condescending, but think about how it comes off to other readers. Alternative newspapers should be judged on their reliability and depth of coverage, their “localness” shouldn’t be an issue. I believe people from any area would bristle at seeing the term “local” used as a euphemism for as “irrelevant” when it comes to media produced in their area. Will leave it there. - Scarpy (talk) 05:32, 3 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep as appears to pass
  Talk: Contribs) 17:16, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Keep Seems to have enough coverage to barely pass GNG.Jackattack1597 (talk) 11:32, 23 July 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.