Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tobias Broeker

Tobias Broeker

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Tobias Broeker (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Classical music researcher. This article was speedily deleted as WP:G11 (promotional) and WP:A7 (no claim to notability). Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2021 April 11 decided to send it to AfD. This is a procedural nomination, I am neutral. Sandstein 11:44, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Sandstein 11:44, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Music-related deletion discussions. Sandstein 11:44, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Germany-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 11:57, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 15:39, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

(Just a note that there was a related discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Single-purpose IP 82.173.133.70 [I'll update the link when that discussion is archived, which may be soon]). – Athaenara ✉ 13:31, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

• A) the article is overly promotional. B) I'm not seeing sources that meet the GNG other than maybe one review of one of his books. The sources in the article don't appear independent of the topic. So I'm leaning toward delete but hoping someone can find GNG-compliant sources. Hobit (talk) 14:05, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
• Keep, for the reasons given here. When I've time I'll review the article. The link provided by Athaenara (report of a single-purpose-IP) btw. is completely irrelevant here! Uwe Martens (talk) 14:57, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
• After investigation, sources: [1] (duplicate link: [2]) Review in an academic journal of a publication by the author. Seems to be mentioned here. This and this, although an interview and a small mention, seems to indicate that he has a notable impact within his discipline (the niche of contemporary music, but then again...). Given that the article subject appears to have a significant impact within their discipline, and that one of their published works/collections seems to be a significant one (being included in what seems a significant collection by the RILM certainly doesn't appear to be a mean feat), I'd think they pass WP:NACADEMIC; and there's enough information to write something encyclopedic. WP:DINC, and while some parts could be trimmed or maybe checked for tone, it does not read like anything exceptionally promotional to me which would have warranted the original speedy deletion. So that's a Lean keep from me, of course, with a big admonishment to the original creator for writing an article about themselves. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:49, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
• Delete, albeit weakly. The Iwazumi review is an excellent source, but it's the only reliable, independent treatment of Broeker and/or his work that I could find. If we're going by WP:NACADEMIC #1, a single journal review doesn't suffice. Neither is a single review sufficient for WP:NAUTHOR #3 (needs multiple independent periodical articles or reviews). If additional sources could be presented that demonstrated significant coverage of Broeker, that would probably convince me, but none outside of passing mentions and interviews turned up in my search, and the other ones listed in the dewiki and enwiki articles are not independent or don't really go towards establishing notability. DanCherek (talk) 16:32, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
• Delete as original nominator. This is an article that Tobias Broeker, who claims to be a notable musicologist and publisher, wrote about himself. His work is fully self-published and self-promoted and there are simply not the secondary resources to demonstrate notability. The article is supported predominantly with links to Broeker’s personal website and small handful of small pages where his name is mentioned in passing.

• The main claim is through an e-book Broeker has posted to his website. This has only had one serious review, which also raised concerns about its scholarly value ('has several areas that could be improved from the standpoint of a scholar or serious performer').
• Other than this single review, there is very little to no coverage other than what Broeker has written himself. He has ‘deposited’ the e-book in local libraries, but there is a fundamental difference between a source saying 'this work exists' and ‘this work is notable and here are secondary sources explaining why and how’. We do not post every PhD student’s thesis after it goes to their university library. Also, note the non-existence of journal articles or biographies about Broeker, whether about the man or his work. Except the articles he wrote about himself.
• The ‘this is a niche area argument’ is misleading. Genuinely notable musicologists and catalogues get plenty of recognition in secondary sources. For specialist musicologists, think (only really quick examples but there are lots more) of Peter Wollny, Robert Levin (musicologist), Eva Badura-Skoda Roger Nichols (musical scholar), Christoph Wolff and simply search for their publications and secondary coverage. Then compare this to Broeker. For catalogues, do the same for Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, Schubert Thematic Catalogue, Ryom-Verzeichnis and then compare to Broeker’s e-book. Broeker is far away from having a ‘significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources’, which is Wikipedia’s requirement. Arguably, the impact is close to zero or else there would be the secondary sources to prove it.
• Broeker also claims to be an important ‘publisher’ of music scores. Broeker claims these to have been made ‘in cooperation with national libraries’, but it is significant that this is not supported anywhere other than an article he wrote himself. An analogous example is the following: I get a scan of a Mozart manuscript from a library website, type it up again and put it as a digital download on my personal website. This does automatically mean I am also notable, even though Mozart is notable. People do this every day for the International Music Score Library Project and do not write Wikipedia articles about themselves. For specialist publishers that do get secondary coverage, see for example Bärenreiter, G. Henle Verlag, Universal Edition and Boosey & Hawkes and compare to Broeker.

In conclusion: Broeker is far away from having any reasonable notability as a ‘musicologist’ or ‘publisher’ and his self-written article should therefore be deleted. 82.173.133.70 (talk) 17:15, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

You're not seriously comparing musicology about Baroque music (a very well known topic) and musicology about the rather unpopular and very niche contemporary music scene, are you? Same thing for the publishers. The review in an academic journal is not simply "this work exists", despite your mischaracterisation of it (and well, reviews of scholarly works usually include which elements could have been done better, so that is nothing surprising). Also note the entry at RILM: [3] (at the very bottom); which seems to indicate this is "the only comprehensive repertoire compendium of compositions written in and around the twentieth century for violin". The journal review and this make this very different from a "PhD student's thesis". Stuff such as this (Du côté des écrits, le fonds s’est enrichi de la troisième édition du répertoire des œuvres pour violon concertant réalisé par Tobias Broeker, [..] - this, like the RILM, is a reputable collection, not just a place where any stranger on the street can deposit an e-book. If the author's notability is questionable, his work certainly seems to be significant within his discipline; so I'd argue that another possibility would be to move and refocus on the work itself. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:54, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi RandomCanadian, thank you for the reply. I wasn't comparing Broeker to Baroque music only (Nichols is famous for Belle Époque French piano music, Boosey/Universal both publish huge amounts of important contemporary music, ...). Let me know if more sources would be useful.

Broeker's remit is actually very wide: 'violin music since the 1890s', so we're talking household names like Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Bernstein, Prokofiev, Copland, Schoenberg etc., 130 years of music for one of the most popular instruments. However, look up one of the many well-known 20th century violin concertos and see how many writers cite or reference Broeker in this context: none.

I agree that the academic journal review is a good source: my point was actually that we are very limited beyond this. For genuinely notable musicologists and publishers, no matter the exact speciality, sources are really plentiful and easy to find. For Broeker we are scraping the barrel, especially given that he had to write his own Wikipedia article. The different between him and established musicologists and publishers with Wikipedia articles is staggering. But I accept your opinion leans a different way right now and I don't mean this personally against you at all, the whole tone here has unfortunately been too heated. :) 82.173.133.70 (talk) 19:06, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

The community has to thank the anonnymous IP user for confirming that he still didn't get the subject of the article. The article didn't claim with any word that Tobias Broeker would represent/publish well-known composers and compositions. On the contrary, a large part of his work consists in unearthing unknown, already deceased composers and works, besides representing living contemporary composers. The name-dropping of well-known "classical" composers fails completely here and has to be seen as nothing more than a failed attempt to manipulate this discussion! Also the reference to contributors on IMSLP digitalising scores from Mozart is missleading as those hobby contributions are not listed anywhere in national libraries or universities as referenced in the Gernem article Tobias Bröker sufficently, which will be implemented in this article. <SCNR> -- Uwe Martens (talk) 19:31, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Europe-related deletion discussions. EpicPupper 18:26, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

• Delete Not only was WP:G11 a valid speedy deletion (and therefore the article's overly promotional), he distinctively fails WP:GNG, per my discussion at the DRV (which also found the article cited above.) SportingFlyer T·C 18:58, 19 April 2021 (UTC)