Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paul Selig: Difference between revisions

Paul Selig (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Subject does not pass WP:GNG, either as a playwright or as a psychic. The Nightline source is the only one approaching WP:SIGCOV. The remaining sources are not about the subject and do not contribute to notability. David Palmer//cloventt ^(talk) 03:22, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Subject is notable and has a number of reliable sources. Eric Carpenter (talk) 03:23, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  1. New York Magazine article is not SIGCOV.
  2. NY Times review is about the subject’s work, and notability is WP:NOTINHERITED, and even then the play is not notable.
  3. Forbes source is WP:FORBESCON.

  David Palmer//cloventt ^(talk) 03:35, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Academics and educators, Authors, Theatre, Paranormal, Connecticut, and New York. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 04:15, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Has a check been done for if he passes WP:NAUTHOR? PARAKANYAA (talk) 04:33, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I’m comfortable that he does not meet WP:NAUTHOR. David Palmer//cloventt ^(talk) 06:30, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at newspapers.com and proquest I am pretty sure he does based on having multiple works that themself received reviews. PARAKANYAA (talk) 18:35, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per WP:CREATIVE, for them notability is inherited. His notable works include Terminal Bar and Mystery School[1][2] Kelob2678 (talk) 10:28, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  The guideline is not as straight forward as “notability is inherited,” requiring a significant or well-known work. I agree that the two plays are notable themselves but it’s not obvious that these two plays are significant enough for him to pass NCREATIVE. —BrechtBro (talk) 19:02, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. He passes NAUTHOR-3 for creating the notable play Terminal Bar (play). 5Q5|^✉ 17:52, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge and redirect to Terminal Bar (play). I think keeping the article encourages weighting problems, since he appears to be notable only for the two plays mentioned by @Kelob2678. As there’s no article on Mystery School (the less-notable of the two), merging to an author section to the article on Terminal Bar is adequate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BrechtBro (talk • contribs) 08:09, 27 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I was considering withdrawing this because a deeper search into old newspapers (should have done that in my WP:BEFORE, though I didn’t have newspapers.com access) found more sources related to some of his plays. However I am still not convinced the plays are particularly notable, at least enough for inheritance. The test for WP:NAUTHOR inheritance is that the work is itself significant, and that it has itself had multiple independent reviews. I’m not convinced these plays are significant. David Palmer//cloventt ^(talk) 19:19, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  Significant here means notable for WP:NAUTHOR. A book or play can be notable without ever receiving reviews, which would not translate to author notability, that is why it says and (so you don’t get technical author notability from cases where the book got no coverage, like if it won an award or is a very prominent textbook) How else are we going to determine significance? Are you suggesting that if one review (the only review a book ever got) calls a work “significant”, this is better evidence of it being “significant” than the book receiving dozens of reviews (Not this case but I am giving an example)? PARAKANYAA (talk) 18:42, 27 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  I think you’ve misunderstood me. My reading of the guideline is that for an author to inherit notability from a work, their work needs to be significant, which is to say more than merely notable. The term the guideline uses is “significant or well-known work”. A play with a brief tour and some reviews might be notable, but it is not significant. To me significance implies the play should have been very widely acclaimed, or it otherwise can be verified that it is of particularly high quality.

  It seems wrong to me that the author of a play that itself only barely meets WP:GNG would be automatically notable enough for their own article, just because their play got a couple of routine reviews. David Palmer//cloventt ^(talk) 20:23, 27 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  Judging “significance” in this manner is wholly arbitrary, the only usage of it onwiki is in the context of notability. We do not judge notability based on how good or bad we think something is, at all. And reviews are inherently not WP:ROUTINE, they are not any of the things listed there. PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:11, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@PARAKANYAA: and @Cloventt: Generally we interpret criteria 3 and 4C of WP:NCREATIVE as having multiple independent critical reviews of substance in by-lined publications of multiple works (ie more than one work created by a subject). Sometimes people will discount local coverage, but in this case we have national magazines and newspapers covering productions, so that isn’t an issue. I found a Los Angeles Times piece verifying Solig won a Drama League Award in 1988 for The Pompeii Traveling Show, and added a Playbill article on him. That award win clearly demonstrates criteria 4c is met, and also shows that Terminal Bar is not his only notable play. Best.4meter4 (talk) 07:26, 3 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• I was going to close this as weak keep but the more I looked at both articles, I think the correct move here is to merge to Terminal Bar (play). Both articles are in a sad state and if ever the notability of the author or there’s more information, it can be split off; as it stands now, I don’t think there’s sufficient notability or information to warrant a standalone article for the author. I think this would be a fair compromise. Mkdw ^talk 04:49, 3 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Has lots of critical reviews for multiple stage works in both regional and national publications. Winner of a Drama League Award in 1988 (I added a Los Angeles Times source for the award win, and several more critical reviews). Passes WP:NCREATIVE 4c.4meter4 (talk) 06:55, 3 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think the arguments presented above should result in this being resolved as a keep. David Palmer//cloventt ^(talk) 08:10, 3 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]