Talk:Spencer Hawken

Notability

I'm mildly concerned about the sourcing and notability for Hawken. I was able to create an article for his unreleased film Death Walks and while it looked like it would pass WP:NFF at that point in time, I'm not entirely sure about this at this point in time 1-2 years later. I think that the best option here might be to merge some of the information from the film article and redirect that to here, since we could likely justify a page for one but not for both. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 05:36, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

• @Glowflare: I've reverted back to my version. The problem is that the version you're using relies heavily on sources that do not establish notability on Wikipedia and are also considered to be largely unreliable. IMDb is not usable as a reliable source on Wikipedia per WP:IMDB/RS and there's really not anything to be gained by linking to it on here, as there's already a link to Hawken's IMDb page in the external link section - people can easily go to the individual film pages via that link. I'd also like to ask that you not create any new pages for any of his films until they have received more notice. The problem is that while he's created films, a large majority of them have received only a brief amount of coverage. For example, here's a rundown of the sourcing at the page for No Reasons:

1. Phoenix FM. This is a local radio station. Local sources tend to be greatly depreciated on Wikipedia and while I don't always agree with that, it's not really the strongest thing to build an article on.
2. Famous Monsters. While the site could be considered a RS, the problem is that this mostly reprints a press release. It's something I had a lot of trouble with back when I was trying to write and source the article for Death Walks, and I was pretty much told that articles that were predominantly or solely based on press releases (or just reprints the PR verbatim) would be considered WP:TRIVIAL sourcing. This looks like it'd be the case here.
3. Blog. Blogs are not considered to be reliable sources per WP:RS, as they are self-published sources (SPS) and as such undergo little to no editorial oversight. Sometimes, rarely, blogs can be considered reliable sources, but it's fairly rare and they'd need to be routinely and repeatedly cited in reliable sources as a RS. It's extremely difficult for SPS to accomplish this, as few RS will give them coverage where they cite them as an authority on a topic.
4. MoviePilot. This is an extremely short article about a cast list. This would be trivial at best and at worst it could be seen as a reprint of a press release. It also doesn't help that the site also accepts user submitted content, so you'd have to show that something was written by a staff member for it to really be considered usable. This appears to have been written by a random user, so it would be considered a SPS.
5. YouTube. This looks to be an interview published via a SPS. Like the blog, you'd need to show that this media group is routinely cited as a reliable, authoritative source.
6. Vicki Michelle. This is a web page of one of the actresses. At best this would be a WP:PRIMARY source and while it could be used to back up basic details, it can't give notability.
7. Express. This very, very briefly mentions the film No Reasons. This is at best a trivial source and would not be able to show notability. The thing to take into consideration is that notability is not inherited by a notable person acting in a film, (WP:NOTINHERITED) so the film will not become notable for having a notable performer in the movie - although it does make it far easier.

The problem with the film is that we really only have one source that could be usable, which is the radio interview. The Famous Monsters source is mostly reprints of press releases, so it's unlikely that it'd be seen as anything other than a press release or a trivial source. That's really not enough to establish notability per WP:NFF, which is what you'd need here. Heck, I have to admit that I'm not entirely sure that Death Walks could really pass notability guidelines either at this point in time. The page was moved because I was fairly sure that it'd release soon and there would be reviews or other coverage to bolster notability. The film has gone unreleased and there's really not been much coverage, so I'm not entirely sure that it'd survive if it went to AfD, which is why I'm leaning towards merging information into this article.

The sourcing on Hawken's article isn't really all that strong either and that's a big problem, considering that the page has been deleted in the past via AfD. Articles that are deleted via that outlet are very, very likely to get deleted again - and far easier than before. So far he's made a lot of films, but very few of them have actually had any sort of release. I think that for right now it'd be a good idea to focus on having one article for Hawken and just redirect the films here, since it's far easier to justify the existence of one article rather than many.

I also have to warn you about tone and sourcing. The tone here was fairly casual, to the point where was actually mildly promotional at times. Since this was previously deleted at AfD you need to be very, very careful about writing everything neutrally and ensuring that content is backed up as much as possible with reliable, independent sourcing. I also have to ask: do you have a conflict of interest here? If so, you need to be transparent about this and I'd also heavily recommend that you not make direct edits to the article. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:31, 13 February 2016 (UTC)