Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eboni Boykin

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 no consensus. Pax:Vobiscum (talk) 16:19, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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

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This is a WP:BLP1E for a student. Her claim to fame is that she was a student who overcame adversity and directed a non-notable short film. Sadly, this alone does not make her notable in the context of needing a Wikipedia article, as Wikipedia is not news. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 04:32, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Film-related deletion discussions. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 04:32, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 04:32, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment. This article was created during the Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women_in_Red/Meetup/155. With that being said however, I still don't believe that directing this short film qualifies the subject under WP:NDIRECTOR, as the film that was directed does not appear to be notable, and thereby the director is also not notable. I thought I should add this because my nominating rationale does not tell the complete story. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 04:56, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nom. userdude 04:52, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak Keep. In general I think it is WP:TOOSOON for this article to be anything but a stub, and I agree that the short film (for which she was added to the Women In Red redlist) is not notable. So I see the arguments for deletion. However, I think the multiple news articles fulfill WP:BASIC: "multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject." There are several more articles not cited in the entry, such as this one about helping her mother get her GED. I kept things short to stick to the encyclopedic details, but perhaps the article should say more about why her success was notable? (e.g., homeless during school, first in her family to graduate high school, but scored highest on the ACT in the school's history, almost average the double score, and got a full scholarship to an Ivy League university, from which she then successfully graduated.) And/or perhaps it should cite this 2018 article which takes her story as an example of cultural narratives about high-achieving disadvantaged Black students? I especially think the fact that multiple follow-up articles continued to be published between 2012 and 2016 indicates that this is not just WP:ONEEVENT, and that she meets the basic notability criteria. I acknowledge that the article isn't much right now, but I think there's no harm in having a simple stub for now that may grow over time. ~ oulfis 🌸(talk) 06:28, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Notability as a representative of a class of individually non notable individuals in a similar situation is no a concept which makes sense in an encyclopedia Nor does being worthy of becoming notable, nor does being chosen in an edition. DGG ( talk ) 09:45, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. In-depth reliably-published news stories from multiple sources, over multiple years, that are primarily about her give her a clear pass of WP:GNG. It doesn't matter whether we think she's not the sort of person who should be worthy of becoming notable. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:00, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• I think this is definitely a case whereby the individual is not notable enough for an article yet. I want to say though, it looks like she will get an article in the future. Sadly, delete for now. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 14:40, 29 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per David Eppstein. XOR'easter (talk) 21:26, 29 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nomination and WP:TOOSOON. There are so many articles that come out every year during college acceptance season about "so and so" student from "so and so" high school getting into "this many" Ivy League schools. It's a good human interest topic for local coverage but wouldn't say it's notable enough for an article. – BriefEdits (talk) 22:20, 29 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak keep Has multiple third-party articles focusing on the subject. Meets WP:THREE but I can understand the WP:TOOSOON claims. Snavehunter (talk) 16:12, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete when people are held up primarily as examples of meta analysis this is not a sign of notability. This is even more so when the person is living. This person is a non-notable filmmaker, and the coverage, which is more meta analysis of the coverage of her as opposed to being about her, does not justify an article. If she were dead I might think otherwise, but I think we should avoid reducing living people to examples of large scale phenomenon.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:53, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep: If her story was published in one source, or just in passing, I could see the delete arguments, but this has multiple articles that are specifically about her, from 2012 to 2018. -- Toughpigs (talk) 19:22, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment. Since there's been little consensus I wanted to comment further on my keep vote above. While I think this article will likely be better in the future (and acknowledge that for now, Boykin is only notable for attending Columbia), I think it already clearly meets WP:GNG. She is discussed as an individual, not as a representative of a group (per DGG), though in the article I attempted to contextualize her in a group. Hers is not just the typical admissions-season human-interest puff piece (per BriefEdits), since she received sustained coverage over several years and well beyond her hometown. She is not mostly notable for meta analysis (per John Pack Lambert) -- rather, in addition to the many articles about her personal story (which make her notable), she has been used as a possibly-familiar-to-others example in meta analyses of other topics (showing the impact of her notability). I think the best three sources to illustrate how she meets the GNG are these:

1. Crouch, Elisa (2016-05-30). "An Ivy League degree in hand, Eboni Boykin tackles the future". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Retrieved 2020-02-27.
2. Workneh, Lilly (2013-08-07). "Eboni Boykin: Once homeless, now thrives in Ivy League". TheGrio. Retrieved 2020-02-27.
3. Starr, Terrell Jermaine (2012-05-28). "GO SISTA! HS Senior Goes From Homeless Shelter To Ivy League". NewsOne. Retrieved 2020-02-27.

The best-written articles about her are the ones by Crouch, who followed Boykin's story with multiple articles from 2012 to 2016, but Crouch is not the only person doing reporting on Boykin. These three articles consist of extended original reporting exclusively about Boykin (and mention further TV coverage) by independent reliable sources. What they cover may not seem exciting, but I think David Eppstein is right: she clearly does pass the notability criteria, whether or not one thinks her story ought to be notable. ~ oulfis 🌸(talk) 07:33, 6 March 2020 (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.