Deletion of Caftan (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Comment: lack of independence does not cause this article to violate our key policies, , , and , in my opinion. The completeness and tone of the article shows that the subject can be encyclopedic without OR. Also, the MET Museum Journal is an http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/met/about edited journal with a http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/met/instruct review process standard to academic journals. The http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/met/board editorial board is all(?) MET department members, none of which are the authors of the articles on the Caftan. Two of the three authors are, however, connected to the MET. Harper is Curator Emerita in the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Kajitani is conservator in chief of the Department of Textile Conservation. Knauer was not at the Met and was a leader at the Penn museum (her husband was Georg Nicolaus Knauer
Stance: keep
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Verifiability (WP:V||WP:NPOV||WP:NOR)

Comment: There's not a standardized, catchy, one-word answer to how I think this needs to be handled. The current article is problematic. It approaches this topic from its perspective as a museum exhibit. Accordingly, the academic journal sponsored by the museum to publish research about its exhibits strains the definition of sources "independent" of the subject. But of course, what is important and notable about this object is not that it is a museum exhibit ''per se'', but that it represents an archaeologically significant textile discovery from an archaeologically significant Silk Road burial site. The information here (absent some of the backgrounder on the definition of a caftan) is best served in an article at a different title. Moshchevaja Balka burial is my preferred choice, which also allows us to include other information about the site, its history, its discover, and so forth... Moshchevaja Balka textiles is a narrower topic that also seems plausible if there are other sources that specifically address the textiles at length. I'd rather we start with the former and |spin out the latter if that proves necessary. Something like Silk Road archaeology is a broader alternative if Moshchevaja Balka lacks supporting sources. This approach solves the independence problem; the subject is no longer a specific item ''qua'' museum exhibit, and so the non-independence of the current sourcing evaporates. It also avoids the uncomfortable suggestion that articles on every individual museum holding might in and of themselves be plausible. This isn't strictly a redirect, and since the target article doesn't exist yet, can't in good faith by called a merge. Fundamentally though, our goal should be to keep the encyclopedic content, but not ''here'' and not precisely ''like this
Stance: keep
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Article size (WP:SPINOUT)

Comment: The fact that this artefact has been the sole subject of multiple scholarly papers is a strong indicator of notability (and I'd certainly expect a perfectly preserved garment from the 8th century to be notable!). I appreciate the concerns about the independence of these sources—I can't find any indication that the ''Metropolitan Museum Journal'' is peer reviewed and its editorial board all work at the Met—but let's be pragmatic here. We require independent sources to protect the encyclopaedia from promotionalism and misinformation disseminated by people with an axe to grind. The Met, one of the world's foremost museums, has nothing to gain from misrepresenting objects in its collection in its in-house journal. And I highly doubt it gets any promotional value from specialist articles in a scholarly journal with small circulation. The journal may not be ''technically'' independent, but it |fits the spirit of the independence criteria in the . &ndash;&#8239
Stance: keep
Cited policy: Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means (WP:COMMON||WP:GNG)

Comment: to Kaftan, the existing article on the garment. Those who advocated for "keep" above have not addressed the "independent of the subject" clause of the |general notability guideline. This is a common problem among the many articles recently created for objects in the Met's collection following the Met's open access image release. No one is questioning the garment's importance, but how should it be covered? If the Met-specific garment is only covered in Met-specific sources, it would show that the object is only of importance to the Met. If it was of wider importance to other scholars, we would have more sources about the garment from other publications—that is the intent of the "independent" clause. (Please ping me if you find more of those sources!) As it stands, most of the article is about the general use of the caftan, as {{ping|Peterkingiron|p=}} noted, and as such, can be reasonably covered in the general article on caftans. (The Met journals are also fine sources for the general article, with no issues of independence because the article's subject isn't the Met-specific caftan.) If and when the garment, in specific, becomes separately notable from the general history of the garment, as shown in reliable sources independent of the subject, it can always split out Wikipedia:Summary style|summary style. File:Eye close font awesome.svg|14px|link=user:czar/watching|I am no longer watching this page—ping if you'd like a response&nbsp
Stance: merge
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Notability (WP:GNG)

Comment: Because the article is entirely PRIMARY sourced ''(correction: lacks  sourcing)'' (with the exception of 2 sources that describe this category of garment, not the garment itself).  I ''love'' articles on individual museum objects such as the Arles Rhône 3 or the Magdala stone, but objects require secondary sourcing.  Here we have only the Museum's own curators and journals.  I think we need to '''Redirect and merge''' to an article on something like Ancient textiles of the silk road
Stance: delete
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Reliable sources (WP:INDEPENDENT)