Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Telly Awards (3rd 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. While there are plenty of media mentions of the Telly Awards from those that have won the award, there is a dearth of independent, secondary, reliable sources about the awards themselves, not enough in depth organizational coverage to establish notability for the award that warrant its own article. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:53, 2 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Telly Awards

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

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The Telly Awards are a non-notable award. Previously deleted, a new article has reappeared with dreadful sourcing that does nothing to establish notability. The first source is the Telly Awards' own about page which is hardly an independent source. The second source is a press release even though it has a byline. If you don't believe me, the third source is the same press release posted by "Shot News" on their web site. If you still don't believe me, this same press release is also here complete with the usual press release "About" at the bottom. The fourth source is Al Jazeera congratulating themselves in winning an award that is given awaysold like candy. I can find many more puff-pieces where a Telly Award is "won" but there is no significant coverage in independent reliable sources that I found that establishes this award as notable. Whpq (talk) 02:52, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete The award appears to have been around since 1979 and there are a ton of mentions of it, but all are promotional or PR pieces. Even in news sources, they only list nominees and winners. CGTN won an award recently and they covered it, but we don't consider them a RS. What's given for sourcing in the article is useless as above. This seems to be a long-established award, but I can't find much of anything we can use for sources. Oaktree b (talk) 03:32, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There are even mentions in scholarly journals; one was about a series of videos documenting the first 10 yrs of development milestones in children in a medical journal. The documentary was widely used in the field, so I'd have to imagine the Telly Awards carry some sort of notability, but I just can't find anything about them. Oaktree b (talk) 03:35, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The first AfD from way back in 2008 uses pretty much the same argument (but has very weird sourcing that we don't see in AfD). The point being that people like to brag about winning one, and there are lots of mentions of wins. That discussion was to keep the article, but they also point out that there are few if any (what we now call) RS. Damn, this is a tough one, feels like it should be notable but I can't find anything to support that. Oaktree b (talk) 03:39, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It feels like it should be notable because you can find lots of press releases from organisaitons touting their Telly Awards. The thing is, it's just a paid for award. To be clear, this is going to be my opinion backed up with unreliable sources because reliable sources haven't bothered to cover this scam. If we have reliable sources covering this scam, then we would be able to establish notability. Anyhow, I think this reddit post does a good job summing up what the Telly Awards is about. -- Whpq (talk) 14:04, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Awards and Advertising. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 09:10, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do Not Delete I created the page. The Telly Awards are definitely notable, as you can see by googling it - hundreds to thousands of organizations put out a press release in the news once they win a Telly Award, including many governmental organizations and non-profits. I did see a previous Telly Award wiki page was deleted in 2008 but it did indeed have weird syntax and references. I struggled when I put it up to find RS and it remains a mystery why so hard to find. An Indian Telly Awards page was created in 2009 for Hindi-language television, and it is a spinoff of the much older Telly Awards. I am working on adding more RS now and just pinged their Executive Director on LinkedIn to learn if there are any quality news or journal articles that are citeable. Hope you can bear with me.Schmiebel (talk) 02:37, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I've added a half dozen citations from newspapers and/or magazines, External link to Telly Award podcasts, new subsection on 44th Tellys, expanded subsection on 43rd Tellys, and quote from Executive Director. Still hope to hear from her to see if I can get additional RS.Schmiebel (talk) 03:38, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    None of what is added establishes notability. Provideocoaltion is just a warmed over press release from Telly. Creativepool is dubious as a reliable source and this is an interview. Note that creative pool also run their own award. Advance Media is a press release congratulating themselves. I guess it is there to confirm the 3% gold claim but a press release does nothing for notability. Post magazine is just publishing a different excerpt from the same press release as provideocolation mentioned earlier. Shootonline is just a copy of the Telly press release. Nothing that has been added represents coverage in a reliable source. -- Whpq (talk) 00:37, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Oops. Missed Oz Magazine in the above analysis. That one just copied material from this Telly press release. -- Whpq (talk) 13:39, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:26, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. This has also previously been deleted as Telly Award which I have now added to the previous AFDs box. I might be more convinced for an IAR case (which was the 2008 rationale) if winning one of these awards meant some kind of achievement. But it doesn't, you just have to look at the winners lists to see that. Even the gold trophy is given out indiscriminately to literally thousands of recipients each year. Basically, you just have to submit an entry and pay the fee to win something. SpinningSpark 14:38, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Only 3% of applicants win gold according to this PR. https://www.advancemediany.com/the-telly-awards-2022/

  7%-10% win silver awards, and 18%-25% win bronze according to the Telly Awards fact sheet https://www.tellyawards.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2017/06/38th_Telly_Fact_Sheet.pdf

  I am still trying to reach the Managing Director to get more RS.Schmiebel (talk) 19:58, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  So adding those together, according to their own figures, up to 38% of entries get one of the top awards. That's still pretty indiscriminate considering this says they typically get 12,000 entries (38% of 12,000 is >4,500). I also see in your link the online community views and rates videos to help decide People's Telly Award Winners. So even more get something to take away. SpinningSpark 17:49, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Delete Nearly all of the sources about this (and I went through 20 pages of Google results) are of people bragging about having won an award, including presumably dignified folks like Bloomberg and PBS. Even G-Scholar is a bunch of scholars bragging about their awards. I don't think we should delete this even though the award is essentially pay-to-win. Like the fad diets, this may be something we don't take seriously but it definitely is a THING. I added a section on the entry mechanism and the fees, although I could only link that to the Telly site. I looked for articles critical of the award, but couldn't find any. It's clear to me that the category structure is designed to create the largest number of winners by breaking down the categories into nearly 100 different sections. I think it's fine if people want to give themselves awards, but the article should be honest about the promotional nature of the award itself. There is too much promotional material about the winners in the sections by year which needs to be cleared out. A short list of top winners would suffice. I don't think that we would consider winning one of these awards to lend to notability. The award may be notable but the winners are not necessarily so. Lamona (talk) 18:14, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Makes sense. I trimmed out the quasi-promotional list of award winners as you suggested. It has dawned on me, after also looking through dozens of pages searching for RS on Telly Awards that google is just too full of press releases by the high volume of awardees. This is not to say that there are no RS on the Telly Awards. In fact, I found several RS by searching on the current managing director instead of searching on "Telly Awards". I'm still hoping to identify the founders/owners/past managing directors so that I can do focused searches on them instead of just "Telly Awards".Schmiebel (talk) 00:38, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Press releases counts zero towards establishing notability. 20 pages of zero equals zero. -- Whpq (talk) 00:39, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That was hyperbole Whpq! LOL! There are other sources. Here's a promising one from Screen Magazine. It is extensive and could provide new info for the article. I'll look into that. Lamona (talk) 04:22, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That is the exact same press release as the one used by Shootonline noted above. -- Whpq (talk) 12:10, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I see it now on the Telly Award web site. I still can't get over that reputable folks are vaunting this award yet no one has written about it as a "thing". I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't an NDA for entering. Few awards get given a critical treatment, but most of what I'm seeing is winners talking. If this is a non-notable award, why does it get major companies entering? That's what I can't figure out. I'll keep digging. Lamona (talk) 18:21, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, we all know that Press Releases aren't RS. Straw man arguments are not helpful Whpq. Given the volume of PR, I believe people need to be able to read up on what the Telly Awards are. This is why I created the page to start with - I couldn't easily find a good article describing the Tellys because the few articles are buried in press releases which are greater in number by 3 orders of magnitude. Rather than delete the page, I'd welcome adding to the page criticism of the award mechanism having a pay to win component, if we can locate RS to support that assertion. Meanwhile I will keep working to find and add RS as above.Schmiebel (talk) 17:57, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What strawman argument I am I using? The lack of any coverage in reliable sources is pretty much the standard argument at AFD. -- Whpq (talk) 18:03, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per Whpq. An assortment of press releases and routine announcements does not make WP:GNG met. E.g., this reference is promotionally written, linking to the award's URL along with the lines To enter your work in the 44th Annual Telly Awards, The Telly Awards continues to curate a diverse roster of well-established in conjunction with frequent quotes usage. This is another routine announcement- quoting and listing winners with little critical commentary is not SIGCOV. Per WP:GNG, not all coverage in reliable sources constitutes evidence of notability for the purposes of article creation; for example, directories and databases, advertisements, announcements columns, and minor news stories are all examples of coverage that may not actually support notability when examined, despite their existence as reliable sources. This is the case here. Additionally, the other refs not from the awards organisation, i.e., 1, 2, 3, all promotionally written press releases. Moreover, while it is not the intention, some of the keep votes have been unconvincingly going into WP:LOTSOFSOURCES, relying on that multiple subpar press releases demonstrate notability (?). Unfortunately, I did not find SIGCOV-meeting sources per WP:BEFORE, though if the keep voters could provide some high-quality WP:SIGCOV meeting sources instead of the usual press releases please ping me. Thanks. VickKiang (talk) 09:48, 2 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I changed my !vote to delete but I must say that there is something very odd about this - that no one talks about it except in the most glowing terms even though tens of thousands have participated. I'm stumped. Lamona (talk) 17:43, 2 December 2022 (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.