Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Erin Stewart

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 defaulting to Keep and without prejudice to a future renomination. However given the heavy level of participation in this discussion, I would suggest a brief respite before renominating Ad Orientem (talk) 01:23, 20 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Erin Stewart[edit]

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This article has had numerous problems since its inception. WP:ADVOCACY, original article written by topic. Fails to meet WP:POLITICIAN. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 08:44, 28 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Happy holidays! ^{Babymissfortune} 09:41, 28 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. Happy holidays! ^{Babymissfortune} 09:41, 28 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Happy holidays! ^{Babymissfortune} 09:42, 28 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Connecticut-related deletion discussions. Happy holidays! ^{Babymissfortune} 09:42, 28 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete -- Mayor of a city less than 100,000 population. Of course there will be lots of press coverage, but many of the references are sourced to the subject. Article appears to me to be an extension of subject's campaign. Rhadow (talk) 10:26, 28 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per WP:GNG. Sources include the New York Times, NewsMax, and other publications from outside of New Britain. Whatever problems there are with the content itself, the subject is very clearly notable per our guidelines.--TM 12:58, 28 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
TM, I read the NewsMax article, and it mostly quotes her (she is the only person quoted unless you count the New Britain Herald which is the local paper). WP:GNG states, "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list." I haven't read the New York Times article or the "Bondbuyer" one, but I really can't say that NewsMax in this instance was "independent".–MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 18:54, 28 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete the coveerage is all routine.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:41, 28 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What is routine about a profile in the New York Times. Where are the profiles of the other 500 metropolitan mayors that served during this period? --RAN (talk) 16:17, 12 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comment As per recent discussion at DRV, mayors can be (rebuttably) presumed notable somewhere above the 50000 range, which applies here for a city of 73,000. For mayors ATD prevails over DEL8, since mayors always have a redirect/merge target. But the nomination here has cited WP:ADVOCACY. Unscintillating (talk) 02:44, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 09:32, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete- at 72,00 people, I see a slightly better claim to notability than some of the mayors I've nominated for deletion. However, I can't see anything here that would make here pass WP:POLITICIAN. All mayors (even of the smallest towns) get at least some newspaper coverage, but it is routine and should not be used to establish notability.--Rusf10 (talk) 22:08, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The references meet the GNG, WP:routine says "Wedding announcements, sports scores, crime logs, and other items ... tend to get an exemption from newsworthiness discussions [and] should be considered routine." I am not seeing that. The GNG has no such magic population number for determining notability. --RAN (talk) 22:02, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Cited references satisfy WP:BASIC with substantial independent coverage from local, regional, statewide and nationally recognized sources. See, e.g. New Britain City Journal, New York Times/Region, Connecticut Magazine and Newsmax. 24.151.116.12 (talk) 17:29, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I did a ce to improve tone. Unscintillating (talk) 21:11, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep or merge to Mayor of New Britain, Connecticut NPOV tone has been improved, and the presumption of notability has been confirmed. Unscintillating (talk) 21:11, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Unscintillating, while I appreciate your work as an editor and you have been made clear improvements with the article's tone, I would not say that NPOV problem is no longer a problem. Thank you for your edits regardless, however. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:47, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

On the one hand, when Florida based Newsmax says, "Considerable state and national press attention is focused on Stewart, whose upset win at age 26 over Democratic Mayor Tim O’Brien in 2013 made her an overnight Republican superstar in the Nutmeg State.", this is pretty strong evidence of GNG. On the other hand, User:MJL has opened me to the view that this is a case in which the encyclopedia is currently only interested in the topic from the viewpoint of the city, which makes this a case in which a GNG pass is a WP:N failure. The editing task is easier said than done, though, so a "Merge" result from this AfD should not mean that editors can't change their mind. Unscintillating (talk) 02:41, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I one hundred percent agree with you. I really appreciate your openness through this process, Unscintillating. I will be voting to merge as well, (and future editors can have the option open for them, as always). I look forward to other editors reviewing and making their own comments. Some content has been added I honestly really did not want to see get deleted (and could not have thought when I originally nominated this article). I really am happy how this has went, no matter what. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 04:47, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Many editors seem to have argued the topic meets WP:GNG. I would disagree. GNG states: "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list."

The problem with this is that the New York Times and Newsmax can both contribute to significant coverage, a fact that this article happily points out, yet this only creates the presumption of notability. I would argue because WP:NRV (Notability requires verifiable evidence). This is where I point to WP:SPIP. I mentioned previously that Newsmax in its publishing was not independent of the source. That is quite certain as the Mayor was the only quoted source. You may also be referred to Wikipedia:Secondary does not mean independent.

Now, on to another problem, does this article meet WP:SUSTAINED? Kinda? Sorta? Not really? The New York Times article has remained the only one of its class to cover the topic. This is not saying much, however. As mentioned before, the article was posted in NYT/Region. Further to add, it was written by Kristin Hussey, a freelance reporter for various publications that almost exclusively covers Connecticut. Further, this may not meet WP:BASIC as has been suggested. BASIC requires that "[the topic] received significant coverage in multiple published[4] secondary sources..." With only one instance of sorta-national, sorta-regional, coverage, it can be hard to call it sustained for someone that may well just remain a local mayor.

Maybe if you disagree with me about the Newsmax thing, then I could see your point. But, to do that, you have to look past we call NewsMax an influential conservative publication and in this instance only quotes the topic in the article (and say it is independent). You also would have to say that this article should be presumed notable for coverage that does not go beyond the state. You would have to be able to verify that notability, which I have not seen that done.

I hope this clears some things up. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:47, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you. However, there is a group of people here who keep trying to argue that if the New York Times covers something then it must be notable. When I point out that the NYT has regional/local coverage and a particular article was included in that section, I get the response that I am dismissing the NYT as a local source and it is in fact an "international newspaper". Then the next argument they throw at you is, well all reliable sources count as significant coverage and categorize them as local anyways. The point is that every mayor everywhere gets some type of local press coverage. In some cases it just so happens that the NYT is that local newspaper. If we are to accept that all subjects of NYT articles are notable, it creates a bias towards inclusion of tri-state area mayors.--Rusf10 (talk) 04:11, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

When editors make notability assertions based on inclusion in the NYT, they often lose their minds. The front page is one thing, Travel and Leisure or the Connecticut section is another. The logical conclusion to the argument that NYT coverage is automatically notable is that we should build a bot to comb the NYT and generate new articles. Similar arguments are made by conflating National Geographic with National Geographic Traveler. Of course a mayor in a town of less than 100,000 population gets press coverage. It doesn't make them worthy of an encyclopedia article. Rhadow (talk) 10:13, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Rhadow, it leads one to consider whether or not the notability policy ofWP:NOTINHERITED should be considered for Mayors of towns of less than 100,000. Cromwell, Connecticut is a notable town, but the mayor is not. I could pull up similar coverage for that mayor, or I could pull up coverage of the ~~Mayor of Middletown, or~~ Mayor of Wallingford, or even my friend Bobby Berriault. It can get muddy pretty fast.–MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 01:36, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello MJL -- And we went through the same argument over lists of mayors from towns in New Jersey, many of whom are elected by the public as councilmen, and elected mayor by their fellow councilmen. I agree that the standards for mayors need to be reexamined. Rhadow (talk) 12:20, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

With respect, statewide coverage in the Hartford Courant such as In New Britain, A Rookie Mayor Makes Her Mark, published nine months after the New York Times article you cited represents sustained, significant, independent coverage in reliable sources, particularly in addition to the other references cited where independent editors have deemed the subject notable. Nothing in WP:N or WP:BASIC deprecates statewide or regional sources. 24.151.116.12 (talk) 19:26, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You make an excellent argument, 24.151.116.12. Nothing in those two policies says anything about regional sources. I also commend your addition of that source within the article. I will say, however, local-regional-state coverage (like how the article you included was written by Don Stacom, the "New Britain CT reporter for The Hartford Courant" for the Connecticut section) is something that should we should consider as something that puts into doubt the presumption granted by any sustain coverage. Thank you for your addition to the debate! –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 01:24, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The NOTINHERITED idea is at most shifting attention from the mayor of the town, to the town of the mayor. So the NOTINHERITED idea is related to BIO1E, where BIO1E is an argument to merge.
A mayor is always the mayor of a notable town, so any elected mayor always has a potential merge/redirect target...and ATD prevails over DEL8. Arguing that mayors don't immediately have sustained coverage, and/or stretching GNG to exclude local sources, argues to a failure of WP:N, but not WP:DEL8. As to the argument that local sources are a reason to claim that the coverage is not sustained, I find that illogical. Unscintillating (talk) 03:03, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I am certainly open to the possibility this article be merged to something akin to Mayor of New Britain, Connecticut. I have a high amount of respect for you editing, Unscintillating, and think that you have presented would could be a wonderful solution to the current problem. If I may clarify, my argument was that local coverage expresses doubt over the verifiability(WP:NRV) an article has for notability. This is consistent with Wikipedia policy, and I disdain the notion it may be considered illogical. Though I should admit, I contradict myself at times and muddle my own point; I am *not* above admitting my own shortcomings in this regard. So do please excuse me if I become unclear.–MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 14:51, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

...And I realized that I in fact ~~did not say that~~ said something else in my response to 24.151.116.12... so I see where I went wrong here. I really should have said what I just now, not what I said to 24.151.116.12 in reference to presumption granted by sustained coverage. I can't apologize enough for my slip up there. I really should have cited WP:NRVE. My apologies again, Unscintillating, what I wrote was illogical and faulty. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 14:59, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

And real quickly, noting the since I have posted this article to AfD, it is leagues above where it used to be in terms of tone. My choice of forum was based off my initial belief that it is beyond repair, but I am not so sure about that thanks to editors like yourself who have brought it to a halfway point of sorts.–MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 14:54, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've amended my !vote to support a Merge result. Unscintillating (talk) 02:41, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep While I'm not a fan of it, we seem to keep bios of everyone who ever got paid to kick a ball or play a drum outside of their own garage, so a serially-elected mayor of a sizable city ought to be a no-brainer by comparison. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:32, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Even if WP:ADVOCACY was a problem here, that's nothing a good editor couldn't fix. Also, there is no population limit for mayors, per GNG. She has the sources and citations for a keep.Scanlan (talk) 03:39, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Merge per extensive discussion with Unscintillating on this topic. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 04:47, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz ^Humbug! 14:14, 12 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Mayors do not inherently meet WP:NPOL. Her claim to being "the youngest serving female mayor in the United States for a city the size of New Britain" has too many qualifications attached (youngest and serving and female and for a city X size) to be inherently notable. Some sources, like newsmax.com, are of questionable reliability. Other coverage lacks biographical depth. Chetsford (talk) 07:34, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This !vote bolded the word "Delete" without making a single statement to explain how the evidence meets DEL8 and overcomes ATD. Why is "delete" bolded?
Further, I see no foundation for the attempt to undermine a WP:RS, and I read our newsmax.com article. Why is newsmax of "questionable reliability"? Unscintillating (talk) 15:49, 16 January 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.