Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of photographs by John Thomas

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. -- RoySmith (talk) 03:54, 28 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

List of photographs by John Thomas

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A WP:NOT violation; this should be a category on Wikimedia Commons and not an encyclopedia article. None of the photographs appear to be independently notable. power~enwiki (π, ν) 05:40, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep I ping the following users, as they have contributed to the article: @Martinevans123, Rodw, and Verbcatcher:

Nothing in either WP:NOT or WP:STANDALONE is violated.

Indeed, Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists mentions that lists of works are quite acceptable: Chronological lists, including all timelines and lists of works, should be in earliest-to-latest chronological order. and When these elements are titles of works, they retain the original capitalization of the titles.. This list of works is in a sortable table, complies with the above, and it contains valuable text, it should remain on Wikipedia. As for notability, the images do support the reader's understanding of a notable topic, namely early photography, and ordinary life c. 19c, (clothes, facial hair, state of buildings etc). I would defend to the hilt the fact that every photograph in the list is notable, and the collection is also seen as notable by many external sources.

This list also complies with Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists of works, and in fact encouraged. This MoS states: The individual items in the list do not have to be sufficiently notable to merit their own separate articles. Complete lists of works, appropriately sourced to reliable scholarship (WP:V), are encouraged, particularly when such lists are not already freely available on the internet. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 07:22, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Sheldybett (talk) 08:03, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Photography-related deletion discussions. Sheldybett (talk) 08:03, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Wales-related deletion discussions. Sheldybett (talk) 08:03, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Bakazaka (talk) 08:27, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep A very useful article. A fitting complement to the article on John Thomas (photographer). Martinevans123 (talk) 10:07, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. This appears to be just a random gallery of photographs with nothing noteworthy accompanying them conveying their importance to the subject. Fails WP:NOTGALLERY. Ajf773 (talk) 10:41, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, though these aren't exactly random photos, but are photos in the collection of the National Library of Wales uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. They certainly seem to fail WP:NOTGALLERY, reproducing a collection in a specific library. Neither is the list particularly useful repeating, as it does, the external links and further reading from John Thomas (photographer). Anyone wanting to see the shared photos in the National Library of Wales collection can see [Category:Photographs by John Thomas]. Sionk (talk) 17:58, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Not quite so easy to order any of the table subject columns with just a bare list. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:02, 22 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per NOTGALLERY. That isn't to say that a list of his photographs could never be encyclopedic, we would just have to be more selective and include independently sourced material indicating the importance of each photograph. TNT is needed here. Catrìona (talk) 13:48, 21 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Although a significant Welsh photographer, I'm afraid NOTGALLERY applies. Llwyld (talk) 06:56, 22 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per delete votes above Spiderone 09:43, 22 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Question. I read: "The photographs listed here are from a selection of negatives that Thomas sold to Sir Owen Morgan Edwards that are now in the collection of the National Library of Wales." With this in mind, "List" puzzles me. Would it be unfair to retitle this article "Arbitrary collection of photographs by John Thomas"; and if so, why? -- Hoary (talk) 03:19, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The original donation by Edwards was of over 3,000 glass negatives. In 1928 it was intended that a complete catalogue would be published. But at the time of Woollen and Crawfords's 1977 book, that had still not been completed. There is a complete card index. There may be other negatives, of course, or even prints, not in the collection, but probably not very many. I believe this list is based on what was available at the time from the 2001 work to digitise the whole collection and make it available online. I think the current list has 2,554 entries? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:26, 24 December 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.