Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lorca Cohen

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. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 10:06, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Lorca Cohen

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

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The content reads as a biography with nothing in it that suggests notability. The lead lacks a statement that supports notability, nor is any noteworthy event or accomplishment to be found elsewhere in the article. The citations that mention Cohen are primarily about events surrounding her father or the fact that she chose to have a child with Rufus Wainwright. Some content appears to have been written by Cohen, herself. See History: 23:21, December 16, 2016‎ 2605:e000:905b:ed00:299d:2192:e4c4:d507 (talk)‎ . . (8,234 bytes) (+55)‎ . . (Fixed some mistakes and added my second child.) User:HopsonRoad 13:47, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

• Comment: this is the autobiographical edit Fixed some mistakes and added my second child. However I don't think one edit condemns the article. - Bri (talk) 14:01, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
• Slightly weak keep. Leonard Cohen contains "She shot the music video for Cohen's song "Because Of" (2004), and worked as a photographer and videographer for his 2008–10 world tour.", which could be added here. There are enough independent refs for sure, and I think her life, though mainly of note in relation to others, is weakly notable. A mother adding a child we missed off is surely no argument for deletion. If not kept, merge to the men's bios. Johnbod (talk) 14:49, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
• Comment I concur that the four closely timed edits, apparently by the subject herself, do not condemn the article. They add to a sense of misunderstanding by the contributors, regarding WP:Notability. Being the videographer of an artist's world tour or shooting a music video does not by itself create notability. Critical discussion of that body of work in WP:Reliable sources would be an indication of notability. Leaving mention of Cohen in other articles is fine. User:HopsonRoad 14:59, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Point of order -- @HopsonRoad:, when we have an article on an individual who measures up to our inclusion standards, and we learn the subject of that article, or someone else in a COI position, has added content that genuinely lapsed from our COI policy, that never "condemns" the article, because it is trivial to simply cut truly lapsing COI material. Geo Swan (talk) 17:46, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Actors and filmmakers-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:21, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:21, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Photography-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:21, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:21, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

• Comment -- The nomination is based on an assertion which I think is simply not supported by policy -- namely "content reads as a biography with nothing in it that suggests notability". I think nominator is trying to say Cohen is not notable because she has no huge genuine accomplishments.

  We should not regard accomplishments, in and of themselves, as what makes individuals measure up to our wikipedia inclusion criteria. The most important factor, when calculating whether an individual measures up to our wikipedia inclusion criteria -- is whether reliable sources talk about them.

  When we have conformed to policy, we routinely have articles about individuals who don't have a genuine record of accomplishments, because they have been covered in sufficient detail about RS. The flip side is true, as well. Lots of us know individuals, or know of individuals, who have daunting, impressive accomplishments, who, nevertheless, do not measure up to the wikipedia inclusion standards, because reliable sources haven't written about them. Geo Swan (talk) 00:54, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

• Comment Note: blp1e definitively does not apply. Lorca Cohen is the individual who played a key role in detecting the crime that robbed her father of his fortune. That is clearly one event -- a significant one. Lorca Cohen agreed to bear a child with her friend Rufus Wainwright -- a birth with highly unusual circumstances. That is clearly a second event. When there are two or more events the blp1e doesn't apply. Geo Swan (talk) 00:59, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
• Comment I appreciate Geo Swan's good-faith contributions to the article and comments here. The main source of guidance for this discussion should be Wikipedia:Notability (people), which states, in brief, "People are presumed notable if they have received significant coverage [my emphasis] in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable.... People who meet the basic criteria may be considered notable without meeting the additional criteria below. Articles may still not be created for such people if they fall under exclusionary criteria, such as being notable only for a single event, or such as those listed in What Wikipedia is not."

I appreciate that the additional criteria that engender notability for most WP:BLPs are not mandatory. So, let's look at the two events for which notability is claimed, the discovery of the misappropriation of her father's funds and her conceiving of a child with a notable musician. In the first case, the father is the subject of the reports, the daughter a supporting figure. In the second case there is coverage with the subject in the headline in two cited articles, one from the Guardian and the other from the Daily Record, so this has more strength as a claim. In another instance, she is mentioned as a curator of an exhibition about her father. Note that the Leonard Cohen connection was covered primarily in North America, whereas the Wainwright one was covered primarily in the UK (with a parenthetic mention of a visit to the subject's shop in the NYT). Therefore, the Venn diagram of any notability doesn't appear to span the Atlantic.

I suggest that Geo Swan strengthen the WP:LEADPARAGRAPH, based on these claims and allow those looking in on this discussion to see what a strengthened article looks like. I don't concur that the citations meet the bar of significant coverage. User:HopsonRoad 11:28, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

• You write: "I don't concur that the citations meet the bar of significant coverage." If you are saying that you think the references currently in the article don't measure up to our inclusion criteria I think you may have a misunderstanding of our deletion policy.

  Weakly written articles are kept, when they are on notable topics. We don't delete articles on notable topics because the current version of the articles is weak. Sometimes the current version of the article is weak because some well-meaning person, who didn't know any better, incorporated a bunch of content plagiarized from elsewhere. Sometimes, some well-meaning person incorporated a bunch of original research. Sometimes, some well-meaning person, who doesn't realize they aren't a very good writer, or who didn't realize they don't really understand the topic, introduced "improvements" that left a formerly good article in a bad state. None of these are grounds for deletion.

  Similarly, if you think the Lorca Cohen article doesn't have enough references, that is not grounds for deletion. That is grounds for a tag suggesting reference improvement.

  If what you are really saying is that you think the Lorca Cohen article should be deleted, becaue you, personally, don't think she is a notable topic. Her notability is not based on whether I, personally, think she is notable. Her notability is not based on whether you, personally, think she is notable. Her notability is based on being written about, for years, in a variety of contexts, by reliable sources.

  Queen Elizabeth has a bunch of possible successors. She has seventeen children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. The UK lists these possible successors, in their order of precedence. If you add her neice, nephew, first cousins, and their children, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren, you get to 56 possible successors. Currently the wikipedia has articles on almost all those in the first half, and about half those in the second half. So, being an heir to the UK crown doesn't guarantee notability. If you look at her second cousin, third cousins, and their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, only a few seem to have established enough notability for someone to have written a standalone article about them.

  But if someone is notable, in their own right, it doesn't matter if they are related to someone who is more notable than they are. There is no advantage and many disadvantages to forcing a merge of an article on someone who is notable into a much larger article on a relative who is more notable than they are.

  I am going to point out that, while something like 67,000 people have read the article on Leonard Cohen, in the last 20 days, compared with only 3,300 for Lorca Cohen, 3,300 is still a lot of page reads. People are going, specifically, to her article, to read about her. How, exactly, is it going to improve the wikipedia if we delete and merge the perfectly adequate article on her, for reasons -- well, I still don't really understand the policy basis of your nomination.

• You write: "I suggest that Geo Swan strengthen the WP:LEADPARAGRAPH, based on these claims and allow those looking in on this discussion to see what a strengthened article looks like."

  WP:BEFORE lays out the obligations on a nominator to conduct their own web search. Nominators who comply with WP:BEFORE should already have reached an informed opinion on whether the topic of the article measures up to our notability standards, that is independent of the article in question, prior to the nomination.

  The passage I quoted seems to say you aren't actually sure whether she is notable, or not. Woah! Woah! Woah! That is so wrong!

  Maybe you have done this before, and no one has told you this, but AFD is not intended to be a stick to goad other people into improving articles on notable topics. We have tags for that. We have talk pages, for people to voice their concerns. If you have concerns over articles' notability, in the future, I suggest you use them, not AFD, to get your editorial concerns addressed.

  For what it is worth, I think "those looking in" on this, or any other article before AFD, should be basing their conclusion on the innate notability of the topic, not their opinion of the current state of the article. Geo Swan (talk) 16:21, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

• My sole concern is whether the subject meets the bar of having received significant coverage for notability. This is a judgment call, since there are no specific standards. I was suggesting that strengthening the lead could be a useful exercise to demonstrate whether the criterion has been met, since it does not currently explain why the subject is notable. In fact, it's difficult to discern an actual lead sentence and paragraph that conforms to the MoS. User:HopsonRoad 14:13, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
• The parallel, cited above of Elizabeth II#Issue, is a good example. Inspection of the articles for each of the issue of Elizabeth demonstrates significant coverage of each person. User:HopsonRoad 14:26, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

• Keep I essentially started this article, changing a redirect to a full article.

  Yes, she is related to a more famous person -- several more famous people in fact. But before starting the article, I assured myself that she had her own notability.

  I find nominator's rationale for deletion a kind of a moving target. Sadly, it seems that evolving rationale is not firmly based in policy. As I said above, AFD is not supposed to be a stick to goad contributors to work on articles on topics that do measure up to our notability criteria. People wrote about her. RS wrote about her on an on-going basis. RS wrote about various facets of her life, for a long time. That is enough to establiish notability. The suggestion the article should be deleted, because her life doesn't have huge accomplishments -- if that is part of what nominator meant to say, is not based in policy. Geo Swan (talk) 17:38, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. Geo Swan (talk) 17:52, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

• Again, my sole concern is whether the subject meets the bar of having received significant coverage for notability. This is a judgment call, since there are no specific standards. That is why this is an opportunity to achieve a consensus on the matter. User:HopsonRoad 14:13, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

• weak delete I am put in mind of Alma Mahler, but Alma inspired great art: [1], whereas with Lorca, none of the sources is primarily about her, she appears only as a player in stories about someone else.E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:55, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

• Alma Mahler was the subject of significant coverage of which she was the subject. User:HopsonRoad 00:11, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

• Delete. This person has done nothing notable. All the references are either passing mentions or about her association with someone more famous. None of that amounts to in-depth coverage. SpinningSpark 13:34, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
• Delete every mention in the reliable sources listed wouldn't exist if not for her father's notability. And we know notability isn't inherited. Ask yourself this: if Leonard Cohen wasn't her father, and this article was exactly the same (other than that) would this be a notable bio? No chance. LAroboGuy (talk) 22:45, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
• Delete: Fails WP:GNG. Almost every source talks about someone OTHER than her, the fact that the source titles almost all have someone else's name in them is a big red flag. Even when a source talks about her, it's in relation to someone else, she is secondary to the article and usually mentioned only in passing. Notability just isn't inherited. Waggie (talk) 02:53, 18 May 2017 (UTC)
• LAroboGuy and Waggie both remind everyone that wiki guidelines say "notability isn't inherited". But are they trying to suggest having a more famous relative bars someone from measuring up to our notability criteria?

  LAroboGuy wrote: "every mention in the reliable sources listed wouldn't exist if not for her father's notability"

  I have several problems with this. As an experienced contributor you must know that topics are notable. A strongly notable topic should not be deleted due to weaknesses in the current article. It seems to me that those participating in an AFD who only look at the references listed in the article are letting down the project. The opinion they leave, at the AFD is not an informed opinion, reached through their own independent web search. But it should be.

  Further, are you saying her childhood friend, Wainwright only agreed to father her child because she had a famous father -- not because they had been very close friends, for decades?

  Finally, history, and the wikipedia are full of notable individuals who were associated with individuals more famous than they were.

  Should we shoehorn the article on Robin, into the article on Batman? Shoehorn the article on Buzz Aldrin into the article on Neil Armstrong? Geo Swan (talk) 04:26, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

That's not what I'm suggesting at all. Topics are notable, yes, but the topic here is Lorca Cohen, not her child with Rufus Wainwright, not her relationship to her father or brother. Her article can include those topics, certainly, but it must be about her primarily and there just isn't the WP:RS content to support that. Buzz Aldrin has extensive and comprehensive coverage discussing him independently of Neil Armstrong, his own achievements, his engineering background, his other missions to space, etc. A more accurate analogy to what you're driving at is probably Jakob Dylan and his father Bob Dylan, but still Jakob Dylan is clearly notable on his own, having produced six albums with The Wallflowers some with songs on the top charts and having significant comprehensive coverage about himself and his two solo albums, as well. It's clearly possible for someone to be notable themselves outside of their parents or spouses notability. The vast majority of discussion about Lorca Cohen says roughly "Rufus Wainwright is an incredible musician, and here's his history and accomplishments, here's a picture of his husband and this fancy gift he gave him, and Elton John helped him recover from drug addiction! Oh, and he had a daughter with Lorca Cohen who is Leonard Cohen's daughter." Or, "Leonard Cohen's daughter had a daughter with Rufus Wainwright! Here's some history about Leonard Cohen and Rufus Wainwright and that song 'Hallelujah'!" Or, "Adam Cohen gave this great interview about growing up with Leonard Cohen, and Lorca's mentioned too!" That's not comprehensive coverage about Lorca Cohen. Nevermind the fact that the numerous interviews and press releases do not confer notability in any case. In fact, the more I look at these sources, the more I believe my vote was the right one. Waggie (talk) 05:37, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm saying having Rufus Wainwright's baby doesn't make her notable. Being Leonard Cohen's daughter doesn't make her notable. She hasn't received any indepth coverage besides those things, so she's not notable. And you don't have to write a book in response to every delete vote as if your life depended on seeing this article survive. LAroboGuy (talk) 12:01, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisted to give more time to find sources.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Cunard (talk) 06:15, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• Weak delete. As someone said a long way above my comment, she's on the verge of notability, and not purely and only for being the daughter of her father. That said, the references in the article really only mention her in passing, which to my way of reading things suggests that she's just not "across the line" in notability terms. 07:55, 18 May 2017 (UTC)
• Delete. As others noted, there is a paucity of sources about her that go into detail. This AfD is a clear-cut case of too soon. Delta13C (talk) 10:52, 18 May 2017 (UTC)
• Delete Sourcing does not seem to be there to support a stand-alone article at this time, its worth a paragraph in her father's article at most. ValarianB (talk) 12:57, 18 May 2017 (UTC)
• Comment (revised User:HopsonRoad 01:51, 19 May 2017 (UTC)) As I've stated above, the subject does not meet the standard of significant coverage under Wikipedia:Notability (people). User:HopsonRoad 13:50, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• You're the nominator, I think that serves as a de facto vote or call to delete already. ValarianB (talk) 13:53, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• The nomination does count as his !vote and his argument here was stated already. I've striked-out the comment. freshacconci (✉) 14:48, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• Sorry, I thought that this was a place to summarize votes, after a re-listing. Also, my comment distilled the basis for my vote, having seen the discussion above. Sincerely, User:HopsonRoad 15:40, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• If you wish to expand on, or clarify, a previous recommendation, the convention here is that you precede your remarks with a bolded "comment". Never precede your remarks with a bolded "keep" or "delete" unless at the same time you strike-through your previous recommendation. SpinningSpark 17:24, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• Delete. per WP:NOTINHERITED and under WP:BLP as it contains a lot of spiteful gossip. Looks like an attack page. Xxanthippe (talk) 07:11, 22 May 2017 (UTC).
• Delete Have looked at most of the references, they are either focused on Leonard Cohen or Rufus Wainwright. The mentions of Lorca Cohen were all incidental. Notability requires significant media coverage. If a thousand newspaper articles mention me only as the son or partner of a celebrity, does that volume of coverage by itself make me notable?Rogermx (talk) 16:21, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

• Comment WP:BASIC states that, "If the depth of coverage in any given source is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability; trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may not be sufficient to establish notability.[7]" Footnote [7] speaks to what's trivial; it says "Non-triviality is a measure of the depth of content of a published work, and how far removed that content is from a simple directory entry or a mention in passing ("John Smith at Big Company said..." or "Mary Jones was hired by My University") that does not discuss the subject in detail". To answer your question about a thousand mentions, mere mention that you're a relative is trivial, if each said something substantive about you that many mentions would add up to notability. In this case, the mentions are too few to overcome the lack of substantive coverage, even though they are non-trivial. User:HopsonRoad 18:23, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

• Delete Nothing to support a standalone article. A WP:NOTINHERITED case here. All the sources discuss her in relation to other notable people. --Skr15081997 (talk) 11:48, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
• Delete Poor quality sources make it non notable. Fails WP:BLP. scope_creep (talk) 17:14, 29 May 2017 (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.