Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sandra Seacat

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. Mark Arsten (talk) 18:14, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sandra Seacat

Sandra Seacat (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • Stats)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

I've watched this article develop, hoping that it would improve from being nothing more than a puff piece/homage to an acting coach, but that hasn't happened. As an actress, even the article admits most of her parts are very minor and often cut during the editing process. She simply doesn't pass WP:NACTORS. Her single attempt at directing involved a largely ignored film (limited release, grossing under $300K) and doesn't apprear to get her past WP:FILMMAKER. Her main claim to "fame" seems to be as an acting coach and the article extensively name-drops a bunch of notable people. The editor painstakingly lists the mentions of her name in the sources, however that is the problem, they are mentions. Admittedly I have not reviewed every single one of the sources, but every one I have reviewed is a mere mention. I'm not seeing the significant coverage required to get her past WP:N. While not a reason for deletion, this article, if kept, would need a complete overhaul to get rid of all the fawning and the overly promotional tone of the article. Niteshift36 (talk) 11:35, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Actors and filmmakers-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:38, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I've been overhauling the article, getting rid of POV and working my way down the article. I've reviewed most of the articles cited, and have found new ones, and she appears to be more than a passing mention. Even the film she directed got mixed reviews and not just negative reviews; there was a fair amount of media hype with her directorial debut. She appears, as an acting coach, to have made a significant contribution to the field of entertainment and meets WP:NACTORS. Article still needs work. AuthorAuthor (talk) 16:24, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Each time I edit the article, removing chunks of POV and unnecessary quotes within refs, the author of the article follows behind me and adds POV statements and adds more quotes within the refs. I wrote a note early this morning on his talk page. It's still happening. I just left him a message about edit wars. A bit frustrating. AuthorAuthor (talk) 23:52, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • My sentiment as well about a possible COI. Re: significant coverage, an example is The Washington Post's review (mostly positive) in 1990 of Seacat's film and referring to her in the article as a "renowned acting coach." AuthorAuthor (talk) 03:49, 23 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • sorry, simply being complimentary doesn't make coverage significant. The movie review may lend to the movies notability, but it does little for her.
  • I don't see how that can be negated when actor after actor refer to her as their mentor or having played an integral part in their careers, and articles over the years call her a top acting coach. It's consistent in multiple, reliable independent sources spread over several decades. She seems notable. AuthorAuthor (talk) 11:58, 23 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, we differ. Having notable people mention someone, even if calling them important, doesn't constitute significant coverage by a reliable third party source. Many people make sigificant impacts on many things........but until a reliable third party actually gives it significant coverage, well, they have a tough time passing notability. If I thought th ridiculous amount of name-dropping mentions wikilinked in the article added up to significant coverage, I wouldn't have nominated this. However, it can't be added up. 40 mentions of 10 words don't equal a 400 word article. Niteshift36 (talk) 00:28, 24 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's more than 10 words in the stories. In several articles she's interviewed and quoted at length, not to mention the books she's referenced in. She's a well-known acting coach and appears to pass. That's what I felt after I read the coverage, which is why I'm improving the article; I think it belongs on Wikipedia. But I'd love to see others chime in here. AuthorAuthor (talk) 01:15, 24 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Article has been rewritten and her body of work is there, with sources. I've recently added that she's currently on the faculty of the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute Film Forum. IMHO, she passes. AuthorAuthor (talk) 16:38, 25 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Probably delete - Very hard to verify notability given the substantial link-spamming that has been undertaken in an effort, from what I can see, to justify Keeping the article. Some refs are duplicated with different titles and it looks like that has been done to make it look like there are more refs than there actually are. Some are broken links or link to google searches or the like. Having checked quite a number of them, I've not managed to find more than a passing reference to the subject in any of them. Happy to be proven wrong. Stalwart111 (talk) 06:58, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I should be clear - the duplication of references does not seem to be the only issue. I am still unable to find a single reference / citation that mentions the subject other than in passing. Certainly none of the ones I have checked are focussed on her - most are about other people and mention her briefly - see WP:INHERIT. Your reference to her being a faculty member of the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute Film Forum does not automatically mean she passes WP:ACADEMIC. Again, happy to be proven wrong but the more I check, the more I think we should be moving toward Delete. Stalwart111 (talk) 23:22, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, we're on the same page re: duplication of refs. As for notability, if there's a national magazine or newspaper article written about acting and the craft, Seacat invariably is in it as a go-to person for comment. Several of those articles are not "passing mentions." Also, there are pings of older newspaper articles that aren't available without subscription. More articles can also be found using the spelling "Sondra Seacat." The citations show that she's a well-known veteran acting coach for the stars and justify keeping the article. AuthorAuthor (talk) 04:13, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Being well-respected (or an expert) isn't necessarily the same as being notable, but I understand what you are getting at. I think clearing out all of the citations that are simply passing mentions (and so leaving only the good quality / reliable ones) would help people to make an assessment of those that we actually should be considering. Again, having gone through quite a few, I couldn't find any that would ordinarily be considered usable. I don't think, at the moment, the current references show what you are suggesting they do or justify keeping it but I'd be happy to look at the specific references you are referring to (and I'm sure others would too) if you post them here. I'm more than happy to admit I can't seem to find them but am very willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Cheers, Stalwart111 (talk) 06:09, 28 August 2012 (UTC).[reply]
  • OK, I guess it's time for the 'inexperienced editor,' 'puff/fluff' artist,' 'name-dropper,' 'edit warrior,' etc. etc. to chime in. For the sake of brevity (never my strong suit), I'll refer to the parties present as NS, AA, & S1, respectively. By the way, re the article's most recent edit, I don't think 'Sondra' can really be classified as an AKA; tho u can indeed find a good number of articles under that spelling (I've included at least a couple here - e.g. the Rachel Ward / 'Thorn Birds' items), it's not one Ms. Seacat ever used, it's simply a misspelling; tho spelled with an 'a,' the name is pronounced Sondra; hence, the occasional misunderstanding. Obviously, Ms. Ward - & likely a number of other interviewees over the years - neglected to explain this fact to their interviewers. And how would I know this? Well, what a nifty segue into clearing the air re those troublesome COI rumors. As I've certainly made no attempt to conceal (e.g. the somewhat vague, understandably deleted 'Conversation with Sandra Seacat, October 1974' attribution for a Steve Railsback reference), I have indeed interacted with the subject of this notability inquiry. In the 1974/75 school year, I was one of Seacat's students in the freshman acting class at CCNY's Davis Center for the Performing Arts. My life would ultimately go in another direction, as I switched my major to music the following fall. Nonetheless, I did retain, & still do, fond memories of the experience. Certainly, I was pleased, if not particularly surprised, when, several years later, I ran into one of my classmates who informed me SS had become a big-time acting coach in Hollywood. Didn't give it much thought, though, till I saw the Jessica Lange film, Country, on video in the early nineties, & there she was, my old teacher, giving a very nice, if 'don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it performance. In the Spirit followed shortly thereafter. After that, via IMDb, I started to become familiar with the contour of her odd acting resume, an endless parade of bit roles at best, sometimes non-existent (e.g. Frances & Nobody's Child), only gradually beginning to put 2 & 2 together & realize that these 'acting' gigs were, in essence, acting coach gigs by another, more tactful name.
  • Anyway, enough of my reverie (& so much 4 brevity). S1, re your points, one unfortunate consequence of AA's commandeering of this article over the past week is the resulting decision to delete every one of a host of painstaking reproductions of the relevant article excerpts within the citations themselves (even for subscription-only links & a few that aren't online at all), all the more puzzling as they would almost certainly bolster AA's unwaveringly stated case for keeping. In any case, despite AA's assertion to the contrary ("Also, I'm not sure what guidelines you're looking at, but I haven't seen quotes included in references before, which is why they're being removed; they're unnecessary. Just the citation itself suffices."), it would appear that this practice is not unheard of in Wiki-land (e.g. Arthur Miller; Elia Kazan; Alfred Hitchcock; Howard Hawks; Albert Einstein; Fred Astaire #25, 37, 49 & 50; Gene Kelly #13, 17, & 23; Babe Ruth #70 & 82; W.C. Fields # 1, 8, & 15; G.B. Shaw # 81, 82 & 84). Ironically, in this context, the best case for including excerpts within citations is provided by that selfsame broken link cited by S1 - a Backstage West article, which seems to have expired since I inserted it. It sits now next to Treat Williams' name, but is actually a Laura Dern interview left behind when AA moved LD's name to another part of the article. As has been pointed out in this article's edit summaries, links come and links go, but fortunately for the purposes of this proceeding, this one lived just long enough.
  • So, for a one-stop shop for all those links, complete w/ excerpts, here's my draft of almost exactly one week ago, just prior to AA's 1st edit. Pay as much or as little attention to the text as u wish; its shortcomings have been thoroughly enumerated. To access the source excerpts, u needn't click on the markers, simply pass the cursor over. BTW, aside from the already noted fawning and/or overly promotional tone (plus the un-Wiki-esque self-reflexive nature of the first three paragraphs, pondering the difficulty in demonstrating notability for one so seemingly dedicated to avoiding the spotlight), I must also plead guilty to employing redundant links (tho not the alternate versions, w/ the odd formatting, including the entire citation in the link; those would be AA's). I, however, as I believe was AA, was simply using different aspects of a source to support different assertions at different points in the article. Of course, had I but finally gotten around to learning the actually quite simple mechanism for routing several references to a single footnote, this all might have played out somewhat differently. In any case, here it is: Sandra Seacat: edited DavidESpeed (talk) 10:40, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • BTW, the one significant source for which I did not reproduce the entirety - or even a significant portion - of the relevant passage, was this key 1983 profile of Mickey Rourke in New York Magazine. And while it is included in the current edit of the article, that link is targeted to a slightly different portion of the text, possibly obscuring the actual start of the Seacat-related section. This version takes you directly to that point. DavidESpeed (talk) 11:25, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • If I were you, I'd avoid things like "commandeering" comments because AuthorAuthor has significantly improved the presentation aspect, eliminating the fawning puffery you wrote and if this article gets saved, it will be because of his efforts, not yours. That said, all your "painstaking" reproduction of the quotes where she is (merely) mentioned is a giant waste of time. Further, it might do you good to read WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. Just because some other article does things one way doesn't make it ok. And no place on Wikipedia is "a conversation" considered a reference. None of you have produced a reference yet that actually is significant coverage about her in a reliable third party source. Niteshift36 (talk) 11:54, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ouch! Well, then, how nice is it that you're not me... & vice versa, I'm sure. Actually, speaking of my fawning puffery, the most embarrassing thing from my end is that at the end of three edits and all my windy digressions, I didn't even send the correct FP-filled link, just one of the recent, excerpt-free ones - tho I did go back and correct that URL. Getting back on point, however, I did not dispute your deletion of my unverifiable source; I simply used it as an entry-point to address your (& AA's) COI innuendos. Nor, if u were paying attention, did I in any way suggest that my amorphous 8/21 edit was a viable encyclopedia entry; it's just what it always was - i.e. a big, messy, albeit heavily documented, stub expansion wondering out loud whether it could qualify for full Wiki membership, but containing enough evidence re Seacat's career-transforming influence to sway some, tho clearly not u, towards the 'keep' camp. And, not to belabor the obvious, but without my research, we wouldn't be having this discussion; there'd be no basis for an article. Just a thought. Regarding AA's efforts, I was thrilled to see somebody convinced by the evidence on display here, and more than happy to step back and let an experienced Wikipedian take the lead in shaping the article to Wiki standards. The 'edit war' charges, however, were puzzling and disappointing, and misleading at best - the 'war' amounting, on my end, to one edit inadvertently undoing one or more of AA's earliest edits and one other edit which quite intentionally corrected three consecutive sentences, each badly misrepresenting its source (both of these occurring before I was even aware of AA's existence, much less his work on the article). Nothing sinister on his part, of course, just a bit careless in reading the sources, I think (tho perhaps I'd have done better to let the worst of them stand, in which a one-or-two-sentence mention of Seacat's In the Spirit gig was characterized as the LA Times 'writing a story' about Seacat - hmmm, who's puffing who?) The three-correction edit drew the 'edit war' charge; AA immediately revised my revisions (as has proved to be his wont, going forward), tho, as I pointed out to him, I couldn't help notice that he didn't lose the corrections. Anyway, water under the bridge, let's hope. Aside from the aforementioned revisions, and the occasional lecture on what;s Wiki-appropriate, life goes on. I've tried to stay out of the way as much as possible, occasionally contributing content which, more often than not, survives, in some form or another. In any case, I, too, am interested in hearing more viewpoints.DavidESpeed (talk) 22:12, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Stalwart is correct.....you need to read the policies we've been referencing. I've suggested that before. You are arguing things that actually go against policy and you really don't seem to understand what we're talking about in some places. Addressing your specific rebuttals just doesn't seem to be a productive use of my time. Niteshift36 (talk) 11:30, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • With respect, I really think you need to familiarise yourself with Wikipedia's policies. Beneath every edit window, every time you edit, is a note which says (quite clearly), "Encyclopedic content must be verifiable", and the policy provided (link to Wikipedia:Verifiability) goes into verifiability requirements in significant detail. Simply adding content about a subject which is obviously original research and adding links to websites which mention that subject in passing is a very long way away from Wikipedia's guidelines and is substantially the reason we arrived at this AfD in the first place. It is now incredibly difficult to determine if the subject meets WP:GNG or not because most of the "references" provided are complete rubbish and don't meet requirements in any way, shape or form. While I'm happy to assume good faith, even your rebuttal/commentary here hinged on an article which really doesn't meet WP:GNG - it is a profile of Mickey Rourke which mentions his time with the subject (2-3 paragraphs) and is simply her account of her interactions with Rourke (even this is almost entirely focussed on him, not her). Remember, she doesn't inherit (see WP:INHERIT) notability from her students. The subject article has serious flaws, some of which I believe to be insurmountable problems (and that's from someone who is a regular proponent of WP:SURMOUNTABLE). Stalwart111 (talk) 01:35, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I have been watching this for about a week and was originally leaning toward deletion. The article as it stood at the time of nomination was bloated and almost painful to read. I'm still slightly on the fence about it, as that I feel her notability is very marginal... but I'm going to err on the side of caution here. I don't feel that she fulfills the qualifications of WP:FILMMAKER, but I think there is enough extenuating notability to warrant inclusion. I would also like to commend AuthorAuthor on taking a poorly written article that is on the deletion block and turning it into quality work. Trusilver 23:23, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Theopolisme 23:26, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Dori ☾Talk ☯ Contribs☽ 00:43, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I did read this whole discussion and I'm aware that the lack of substantial coverage was raised; my point is that a considerable number of such mentions in reliable sources makes a qualitative difference. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:15, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I appreciate that you took the time to read it, but I am unaware of any notability standard that says a bunch of mentions can be added together to equal significant coverage. If you are aware of one, I'd certainly appreciate you letting me know where I can find it. I don't dispute that the article has been improved, in fact I've said it myself. Unfortunately, "well written" isn't notability, just as "poorly written" doesn't mean a subject is not notable. In Metro's case, the reason he cites isn't a reason at all. Niteshift36 (talk) 13:34, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per meeting WP:Notability (people). The cummulative coverage deals with her directly and in enough detail so an encyclopedic article can be maintained.[1][2][3] The result of continued editing being that we have a now-decently-sourced BLP about an acting coach and instructor who was herself a theater, film, and television actress, before she turned to instructing others. Kudos to User:AuthorAuthor and User:DavidESpeed for their continued work in giving it the nominator-suggested "complete overhaul" since this article was first nominated. Sharing one's expertise and knowledge through teaching might indeed be reasonably expected to gain accolades from former students, and being influential to the work of others can show notability without such praise being referred to as WP:INHERITED. This article is a welcome addition to Wikipedia... alongside those of her acting instructor peers Lee Strasberg, Constantin Stanislavski, Stella Adler, Robert Lewis, and Sanford Meisner. Writing of her work as an actor and filmmaker is expected in a properly comprehensive BLP. Significant coverage means that sources address the subject directly in detail, so no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material. Praise from ones peers may be short but does not then become "trivial" simply because it is short. I do like that The New York Times called her "respected" and that CNN referred to her as "legendary". Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 06:31, 8 September 2012 (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.