Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kerlin Gallery

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. Editor conflict aside, most participants believe there is enough coverage for basic notability, and examples of coverage were provided in the discussion. RL0919 (talk) 15:10, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Kerlin Gallery

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Kerlin Gallery (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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GNG Fail. The one good source, the New York Times, mentions it for about three sentences. Of the other sources, two are the gallery itself and one is the Abu Dhabi Art Fair, which is presumably copy provided by the gallery. I did search and could not discover anything of substance about the gallery itself, just many, many mentions of the gallery name "Kerlin Gallery" in reviews of artist's works or Google books; notability is not inherited by reviews of famous artists who showed at the gallery. I did try to improve the article but there is no SIGCOV to speak of. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 03:52, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Visual arts-related deletion discussions. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 03:52, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Ireland-related deletion discussions. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 03:52, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• Weak keep. I am (spoiler alert) not an art expert, and would generally weigh COI and PROMO concerns (as there rightly have been with this article/subject) quite heavily in any AfD discussion. However, there would seem to be at least a few reliable mainstream refs which deal with the subject as a primary topic. Like this one (The Times, London). And a handful of other (granted less convincing) examples that I came across as part of a BEFORE exercise. While far from overwhelming, there seem to be enough to make me lean into a neutral or "weak keep" position on this one. It's not cut-and-dried in either direction. IMO. And hence I'm largely on the fence. But leaning slightly towards a "keep". Guliolopez (talk) 11:31, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Guliolopez: thank you for adding sources to the article. I am pretty close to your position but a bit more on the delete side. For example the sourcing in the "artists represented" section is largely reviews of the artists who show there, which does not help any to establish the gallery's notability. but you did move the needle some.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 04:10, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

• Hard Keep. I am an art expert and am also highly knowledgable about Irish art. In fact, I am making a point on improving articles on this topic. The point of all of this at the end of the day is to educate people. Kerlin is a bonefide significant contemporary gallery with decades of history and represents some of the most important and successful Irish contemporary artists. This is of course not important in the sense that the artists's aura wears off on the gallery, but more so that they have given these artists an international platform and numerous exhibition opportunities. Anyone interested in contemporary art in Ireland should know about the Kerlin Gallery and I believe the sources provide enough basis for that. The previous advertisement like writing and COI is clear, but it reads neutrally now.

There are ongoing problems on the criteria of galleries in general and how they obtain noteworthy-ness. I am happy to contribute to this discussion in a meaningful way (a little nudge in the right direction always helps, as I am not against learning and improving my presence on Wikipedia). However, this needs to be understood as a flaw or lack currently present in Wikipedia that needs more expertise and improvement. I believe further that there are numerous built in biases that Wikipedia English has in that it heavily favours US mainstream media sources, something that does not inspire confidence in me.

I would also like to note that the editor ThatMontrealIP has been extremely aggressive towards my edits since I first encountered them a week ago and I would like to flag this to more senior members of the community as it appears to be growing into unprincipled bullying at this stage. The very fact that they are on this Kerlin page is that I used it as an example to explain the issues I mentioned above about galleries. Let's try and keep the big picture here in providing useful information here about legitimate subjects. Wikipedia is not the place for petty ego matches; overly bureaucratic behaviour; or discouraging newer editors. Hesperian Nguyen (talk) 20:58, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

collapse off-topic editor dispute

A general note: comment on content and avoid making things personal. I made a good faith attempt to improve this page, as I have done for many hundreds of other pages. I nominated it for deletion when I decided it did not meet GNG, and after doing WP:BEFORE. Don't take it personally, as it has zero to do with you. This AfD is exclusively about whether the org is notable, and I still think it is not based on the coverage. My edits are reflective of the routine business of the wiki, and nothing else. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 03:45, 8 January 2020 (UTC) Well lets nip this in the bud then and not make a habit of you following my edits around and supporting pages I'm trying to improve for deletion! On the topic of your edits... You seem to be willing to strip things down, add templates, citation requests, etc... and that isn't IMO an effort to improve a page. Only a part of it. Further your commentaries here and elsewhere read to me that you have other motivations or in some cases don't understand the issues, e.g. comparing a contemporary art galleries appearance in art fairs – which are high stakes, curated events, only accepted through application and not at all easy get access to – to McDonalds corp speculatively going to trade shows. That is neither helpful nor realistic. I would have summarised the fairs in a sentence or two and kept the references. Just one example. I will certainly be watching some of your edits just like I watch the 2000 or more other pages on my watchlist. It's nothing personal and it's a good thing for editors to look at each other's edits. Anyway, I won't respond to any more of this silliness, other than to say you might also read WP:DROPTHESTICK.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 19:37, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Moving this because it relates directly to the relevance of the article:

I will reiterate: I have an interest in contemporary Irish art, a very recent and diverse phenomenon, and see a gap in the coverage on wikipedia and am actively trying to improve that for educational and encyclopedic reasons.

Finally, I would like to highlight a bias I detect in commercial vs. public galleries... It is frequently mentioned that the artists showing in a commercial gallery don't add to the noteworthy-ness of the commercial gallery, yet in public galleries or museums it is understood that they have created the exhibition or curated it or made an opportunity for the artist. To reel that back into the Kerlin Gallery, they aren't only a high end shop, they are part of the contemporary culture of the city; their exhibitions are reviewed, seen, discussed, etc. by the art world in Dublin and beyond. I have zero at stake in this article, but give the capacity for Wikipedia to shed light on things we don't already know about and not stuff it into the bin as meaningless, it seems an absurd pursuit to delete this page at this stage. Hesperian Nguyen (talk) 14:28, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Hesperian Nguyen (talk) 20:32, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

• Keep - Kerlin Gallery is one of the most prominent and respected galleries in Ireland. The subject of this article is notable. Netherzone (talk) 21:37, 11 January 2020 (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.