Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Artur Balder (4th nomination)

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. Sandstein 09:44, 6 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Artur Balder

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Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Artur Balder (2nd nomination) (Closed due to lack of participation, with no prejudice against speedy renomination) for the full details.

This article lacks a neutral point of view and probably also lacks notability. If anything, he should be notable for insulting a journalist who doubted his relevance. The mention to this is nuanced by the statement "The sentence is not final and can be subject to appeal", even though - if I'm not mistaken - the appeal was equally rejected and it is also interesting to note that he has since then stopped tweeting.

Many of the sources used either are not as reliable as they seem, or simply do not prove the stated facts: Allegedly, he has "collaborated" with the MoMA twice:

In May 2013 the film directed by Balder Ciria pronounced thiria was premiered at the MoMA[48] in New York City, a documentary film about contemporary art sponsored by Spanish company Telefónica.[49][50] The film was premiered by the Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin in November 2013.[51] [52] In 2015 a second collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art took place with the premiere of a documentary about Spanish artist Joan Castejón.[53][54]

Despite the seven sources, these affirmations are, to say the least, exaggerated: I contacted the Museum of Modern Art, and they confirmed that no formal collaboration with Artur Balder had taken place; the screenings took place during private theatre rentals.

Another quite surprising fact is the mention of two awards given by the "Spanish Wagner Society":

Total Art work Prize 2013 from the Spanish Wagner Society to the Saga of Teutoburg.[59]

Bicentenary Richard Wagner Prize 2013 from the Spanish Wagner Society.[60]

These mentions ommit that this quite irrelevant local Alicante-based club had been founded by Artur Balder himself.

The deleted Spanish Wikipedia article and the still existing en.wikinews article which was part of the harassing campaign that led to the above mentioned ruling had also been completed with information sourced to a supposed local news site, alicantecultura.org, which seemed to be registered by the same person who had registered Artur Balder and seemingly was mainly used to promote 'independently' Artur Balder and his interests. See for more details the previous RfD.

I believe all articles related to Artur Balder are biased, and have been written while in conflict of interest - while doing a great effort to make them look encyclopedic and neutral or are based on manipulation & deceit. A whole bunch of socks have abused Wikipedia (and related projects) over the years, using constructed or biased sources, to increase his notability. Savh ^{tell me} 08:14, 28 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Actors and filmmakers-related deletion discussions. TMG^talk 10:37, 28 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. TMG^talk 10:37, 28 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Spain-related deletion discussions. TMG^talk 10:37, 28 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete nothing shows this individual is notable.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:07, 28 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, though there may be trace of notability to his career, he and his friends also has a very long history of 1) IW spamming, and 2) false arguments used to enlarge his reputation. --Orland (talk) 11:39, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Article is notable and passes WP:GNG. I don't know why the editors have filed so many AfD nominations to this article? Is there a COI against the individual? Accesscrawl (talk)
@Accesscrawl: I personally believe I do not have a conflict of interest, though I do have a bias against abuse of Wikipedia and due to previous discussions (see further on) but have tried to keep it factual. I have however no other interest (or any hate whatsoever) with regard to this subject than the accuracy and legitimacy of the content on Wikipedia. I have spent quite some effort in collecting all the evidence to support this and the previous RfD's, which to my disappointment lacked any community input and were closed with no prejudice against speedy renomination. On hindsight, now might be a better point to evaluate his real relevance since - after the court ruling - he has seemingly stopped his self-promotion campaign. I do believe, however, that the main contributors to the article are all single-purpose accounts with some sort of conflict of interest (cf. c:File_talk:Artur_Balder_Directs.jpg). All but one of the users who added content (added bytes according to [1]: Lolox76 (talk · contribs), Kim.looser (talk · contribs), Starwar25 (talk · contribs), Ficxitalf (talk · contribs), W58hj (talk · contribs), W56J (talk · contribs) and Ficxitalf2 (talk · contribs), the last one being the only exception) have only contributed to this article.

The latter also posted this reply to my last Request for Deletion which might be interesting, though in my opinion consists mostly of ad hominems and other totally unbased statements, such as the involvement of the Spanish Royal Family. Even though I intended to re-file an RfD as a response to the arguments he provided, I later never did. I believe discussing this now, on hindsight, is also better suited, as the passing of time learns us that no criminal prosecution took place as claimed, and the earlier mentioned civil procedure ruled against him.

Amongst many different accusations, insinuations and fallacies, the user there remarks, with regard to my conclusion about the bias of the Asociación Wagneriana de Alicante, the following:
Regarding the ‘Asociación Wagneriana de Alicante’, we are tired to see how institutions can honor members if they had a prominent carrier. Savh jumps into conclusions and furthermore all his statements hide a clear disdain to freedom of speech. If a number of people, or an institution, decide to concede an award or mention, this is something that has to be respected. He can have a personal opinion about this, but not build a conspiracy theory in order to damage a subject, constantly acting as if the references to a carrier as a writer, and the as a filmmaker, do not exist.
The prizes granted by this "Asociación Wagneriana de Alicante" has been reported by many other sources. It mentions the culture section of Europa Press as ‘regional’ with reckless intention to deceit non-well informed readers from the English speaking area, because Europa Press is a news agency that serves its contents to hundreds of media across Spain. Clearly deceitful and biased statement written with the sole intention to distort the real facts, besides not mentioning many others that could work against its un-understandable ‘crusade’.

While I have no idea what the freedom of speech has to do with this, I simply believe that - even if reported in media, an award given by an association he founded himself is irrelevant, and it leads me to believe the 'sources' have simply taken over supposed press releases from that association (thereby lacking independence. For instance, this Europa Press article explicitly mentions that the information has been provided by the press office of Joan Castejón. In a facebook post, the same artist refers to another article spread by Europa Press and included by La Vanguardia as the "official statement"). Europa Press is indeed a national press agency with regional departments which produce 'local' news, but isn't that thorough in checking press releases.

With regard to the religious aspects he mentions in response to the previous RfD – the article states that "All four episodes of the Saga of Teutoburg were distinguished as lifetime sacred text of Ásatrú religion[25] by Odinist Community of Spain — Ásatrú, Spain, 2014.[26][27] – it is worth noting their response to the alleged "growing corruption in the Spanish Wikipedia".

Further on:

I am not in any way related to the journalist, nor do I have contact with the Spanish Royal Family. My edit to the journalist article consisted in reverting vandalism. I tried to contact both the journalist and Artur Balder through Twitter, the latter blocked me and the former did reply, giving her point of view. Nothing I have provided is however based on that conversation, though.
I did not add the paragraph regarding the legal controversies, nor do I know who did.
I have no idea what the Spanish Wikipedia articles on porn actors have to do with this.
My account is only accessed by me, and I am not paid for doing this. I don't know why the mentioned board member is brought up, nor what her relation with this case is.
I do care about the reliability of content on Wikipedia, and I believe this article, has served as a basis for his faked notability, spiralling his notability through fake news websites and press releases of irrelevant organisations (see for instance this addition of an alleged website of the Spanish Benevolent Society which is only a promotional website for the film. It was later changed to a new site, which has no mention of the "Spanish-American International Award" allegedly given to Balder in 2012).

I hope I have made clear my purpose is none other but to guarantee the reliability of this project. Sincerely, Savh ^{tell me} 16:09, 30 June 2018 (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.