Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lee Behnken

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. Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 23:27, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lee Behnken

Lee Behnken (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

• Delete. Fails WP:MUSIC - only claim to notability is "success on contemporary Christian radio charts", and even this claim is not backed up by any reliable sources. Even if kept, the article needs to have the hagiography (and I use the word advisedly) toned down a lot. Tevildo 05:03, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I understand that WP only wants to see "verifiable proof" that an artist has been successful all over the place...which really confuses me. Obviously in ths case we have a person that has accomplished MUCH in his career (read "Accomplishments") and yet because he has not had songs on the top 40 charts, WP wants to see him deleted. Very, very sad and unfortunate indeed...but typical. If a person hasn't made millions, nobody cares.

This person travelled with one of the most well-known Christian music artists, Rich Mullins, yet should I assume that the article would need some sort of proof of this? Too bad it was in the early 80's, and now that Mr. Mullins has passed away, we can't get a quote from him.

Anyway, I am willing to "tone down alot" the "hagiography" as requested, if you'll allow this well written, well laid out, and interesting article to remain on WP. Either way, I had fun spending my ENTIRE DAY putting this article together, only to have it nominated for deletion before the ink was dry.

Cheers. Kutlessfan777 05:28, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid that it is our policy (see WP:V) that all our information has to be verifiable by independent third-party sources, and that all our articles have to establish the notability of their subject matter. As a musician, Mr Behnken is subject to WP:MUSIC to establish his notability - if you can prove that he satisfies any one of the conditions on that page, the article can stay. You may also want to look at the general WP:BIO guidelines; it's quite possible that he may be notable as an evangelist rather than a musician, but we'll still need independent proof of this. Tevildo 05:38, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. Much of this may be a copyvio, since large passages of it appear more or less verbatim at the CD Baby website. It is not impossible that the same publicist caused the same text to be cut and pasted there and here. Album charts for contemporary Christian music do exist. Plug in the name Lee Behnken in them, and you come up with nothing. - Smerdis of Tlön 05:36, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I can tell you that I personally communicated with the folks at CD Baby and YES, they in fact DID copy/paste the information from the article I WROTE which has appeared throughout the Internet at various times. And, I might mention here that the reference to the charts was made in regard to the earliest release (1988), and I would like you to point me to any records of the 1988 CHRISTIAN charts (Not "Billboard") online so I can use them as my source. Kutlessfan777 05:45, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, I put the only magazine articles from the late 80's I could find on the article, which falls in line with WP:MUSIC MAIN CRITERION: "It has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent from the musician/ensemble itself and reliable. - This criterion includes published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, books, magazine articles, and television documentaries" Kutlessfan777 06:04, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Weak Delete - Doesnt seem to completely satisfy WP:MUSIC. Not listed at all on Discogs.com, one gospel album is listed on allmusic.com. If the authors cannot satisfy the notability requirements of WP:MUSIC by the end of the AfD would argue for a strong delete. MidgleyDJ 06:07, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I have now added information in the article about Mr. Behnken's long-time producer and keyboardist, Jason Webb, who fits in with the WP:MUSIC criterion #5: "Contains at least one member who was once a part of or later joined a band that is otherwise notable"Kutlessfan777 06:51, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Doesnt this last addition apply to bands, as opposed to solo singers? MidgleyDJ 06:55, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

No, it states on the Notability page: "A musician or ensemble (note that this includes a band, singer, rapper, orchestra, hip hop crew, DJ, musical theatre group, etc.) is notable if it meets any one of the following criteria"

According to this statement, Mr. Behnken is, in fact, notable. He has met 2 of the notability requirements, including the main criterion. Kutlessfan777 07:12, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

• Delete non-notable artist. Montco 06:55, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

With all due respect, Mr. Montco, Mr. Behnken has in fact met the notability requirements of WP:MUSIC (see above). Kutlessfan777 07:13, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

• Delete (vote changed, see below). First, I'll make something clear: I may be biased. I have some issues with the horn-tooting about somebody's evangelistic accomplishments - this is something you do for God, not something you do to boast about what you do for God! That said, I'll put aside my personal problems with this, since Wikipedia is definitely not the place to go on about this, and note that there are major POV issues with this article. Aside from that, it's clear he's notable within at least the Christian music realms, if not within Christianity as a whole, but there is the issue that intra-group notability is not notability as far as meets the Wikipedia standards (we've seen much of that with some of the furry deletia recently), and it's exceedingly rare that a Christian artist breaks out of the strongholds of CCM - those inside consider doing so harmful, and of the few who actually do, most seem to fail spectacularly. I'm also not seeing assertion within the article of meeting WP:MUSIC. Clean up the article or get rid of it. Note to Kutlessfan777, please note that this is not a slight at you, but I would strongly encourage you to change my mind. --Dennisthe2 09:00, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - As this is a fairly new editor, I'd like to give them a chance (in the spirit of Assume good faith and Don't bite the newbies) - it seems to me that this artist could well be notable. I have left a note on the user's talk page suggesting possible ways to improve the article. If this *cannot* be done, then I guess I will have to go with delete. Note that charting is not the only way to achieve independent notability (see WP:MUSIC) I'll withhold my vote for now. Orderinchaos78 12:05, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Update - found 2 cites from 2001 and 1994 which reference his trips to China and Uzbekistan, but both are from the local newspaper Dayton Daily News in Dayton, Ohio. I'm surprised that no Asian-region or US newspapers or religious journals reported on the China visit in particular. The reference to the "Samarakand city museum" seems suspect - I tried searching under "Samarkand", the correct spelling, and found no reference to Lee at all. If anyone can think of anywhere else to look, this article might be salvageable - but it's leaning towards a rather reluctant delete from me :( Orderinchaos78 12:47, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for youur comments, Dennisthe2. I must point out you are then in disagreement with articles on such people as Billy Graham, Franklin Graham, Bill Gaither, Michael W. Smith, and so on and so on. It just happens to be their career, and it is their American right to have a career as an evangelist. Anyway, these folks can have an article I suppose because they have won awards and sold millions of books and records in their careers as evengelists. You're right, WP is not the place to go on about this, since it is clear that WP allows articles on such people.And once again I repeat that the article now meets WP:MUSIC criterion #5: "Contains at least one member who was once a part of or later joined a band that is otherwise notable." I have inserted the criteria here exactly as it appears in WP"MUSIC, so I'm not sure why there's any question. As for China and Uzbekistan, we have plenty of photos. Is that sufficient? Or not because we took them? We have photos from several different concert venues in the Philippines, as well as appearances in Thailand. As for why there are no articles in Chinese newspapers about the TV event, might it be because China is a Communist country? They do not necessarily support an event that has an American singing a "Christian" song on their airwaves. I can understand why there might not be any press on this. However, we may have some things in print that are not online. Does every source have to be an online source? Still learning.Kutlessfan777 17:59, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - Don't get me wrong, I'm not harping about their careers - but thinking more about it, it's kind of a paradox. That aside, I'm looking closer at it, and you're right: it does meet WP:MUSIC (and maybe just so), but its references are a bit hidden. That leaves the issue of POV: it reads more like something for a church or for Harvest Crusade than an encyclopedia article, and many people who read this article are going to balk when they see that it's got a Christian evangelistic bent in its tone. As such, I'm changing my vote to Keep, but it needs cleanup due to the point of view problem. (Yes, I know, sanitizing it and all, but...well, know your audience.) --Dennisthe2 19:31, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

My opinion only, but the consensus lies between weak keep and weak delete, and work can be done on this article to improve it. I don't think there's any doubt that within the field or area this individual is notable, so it wouldn't fail notability - the main issue is verifiability and published reliable sources, which I would think to be more of a cleanup issue. Perhaps what we should do, and what I might propose as a compromise that could be acceptable to all here, is to close this AfD debate, whack a big cleanup tag on it, fix it up, find more sources (I've found two, Kutless may have a few more) and if within, say, 2 or 3 weeks we haven't got or can't get it to the stage where it's a decent article that cites sources, then revisit this debate. (In answer to a question you asked me, Kutless - a magazine that is out of print can be a reliable source as long as someone else can find it in a library somewhere. Much of my work is with geographical articles and most of the information can only be found in either the nearest local library or in the State Library.) What do others think? Orderinchaos78 20:37, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't think we've even established that he's notable within the CCM community. We have two album reviews from 15 years ago, and two articles in a local newspaper. As an absolute minimum, I think we need evidence that he's been in the CCM charts. We should, of course, let the AfD run to completion, but I still think that we should delete the article if more sources aren't forthcoming, with no predjudice against re-creation if such sources are found subsequently. I'm sorry to sound sceptical, but it's important for us not to rely on unsupported assertions of notability. Tevildo 21:18, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I will do my part. However, I want to point out to Tevildo that you continue to ignore the fact that the article DOES meet the requirements of WP:MUSIC criterion #5: "Contains at least one member who was once a part of or later joined a band that is otherwise notable." I have inserted the criteria here exactly as it appears in WP:MUSIC. Why does this continue to be overlooked? It is very clearly spelled out, and WP:MUSIC is very clear in the criteria. If the notable sources are weak, but nonetheless are THERE and may just need "cleaned up" as Orderinchaos suggests, AND criteria #5 is covered without question, then why do you still suggest keeping this debate open?Kutlessfan777 21:31, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

That would only apply if Mr Behnken and Mr Webb performed together as a group (rather than as soloist and accompanist) - and, indeed, if Mr Webb is notable. We have no article on him at present, and his involvement with the (undeniably notable) Bill Gaither doesn't appear to be major. I'm not saying that this applies to the current situation, but a session musician _might_ be notable for performing with a major artist; that doesn't automatically convey notability on anyone who's ever performed with that session musician. Tevildo 22:01, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Kutless, for what it is worth I agree with Tevildo (and I've commented on the band vs soloist issue previously). Notability has not been asserted (yet) and I dont think the subject (yet) meets the requirement of WP:MUSIC. MidgleyDJ 22:10, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

• Delete excessively flowery, uncritical, no evidence of substantial independent unpartisan sources which could be used to fix that. Guy (Help!) 22:33, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom unless, prior to end of discussion, someone cites good published sources, meeting the reliable source guidelines, for this being an important artist who meets WP:MUSIC criteria. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:56, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, no indication that subject passes WP:BIO, only sources cited are primary or trivial. If it's not a speedy candidate as spam, it's sure close. Seraphimblade 04:02, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Fails WP:MUSIC, nn. Davidpdx 11:31, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

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.