Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fran Florez

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 keep. As noted, failing NPOL is not in and of itself a reason to justify deletion; while satisfying NPOL indicates notability, the opposite, failing NPOL, does not by itself indicate a lack of notability. The keep arguments provided policy-based interventions regarding sourcing and refuted arguments on the status of that sourcing, the delete arguments were less grounded in policy and failed to address the counterpoints regarding notability. (non-admin closure) Goldsztajn (talk) 13:34, 6 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Fran Florez

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Unsuccessful candidate for California State Assembly over 10 years ago fails WP:NPOL. KidAd • SPEAK 01:32, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Politicians, Women, and California. Shellwood (talk) 01:37, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - based on the sources I have added to the article, WP:BASIC notability appears supported with sustained, in-depth coverage focused on her and her career. Beccaynr (talk) 03:33, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Sounds like a full-time second place candidate. Nothing of substance here. Oaktree b (talk) 16:13, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 02:42, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The comment "Sounds like a full-time second place candidate" is both false and a violation of WP:BLP policy. She won three city council elections, and served 12 years including time as mayor. She also served as the chairperson of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, an agency managing a gigantic multibillion dollar project. Focusing only on her unsuccessful Assembly campaigns is the wrong approach. 21:59, 27 February 2022 (UTC)Cullen328 (talk)

Serving as a member of the city council of Shafter, California (population 13,000) does not satisfy WP:NPOL. Neither does managing an obscure, state-level government program. And I don't see how "full-time second place candidate" is any harsher than labeling someone a "perennial candidate," especially if it's true. KidAd • SPEAK 22:47, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Obscure"? 6.6 million Californians voted to fund the agency. She meets GNG which is just fine as an alternative to NPOL. The problem with "a full-time second place candidate" is that it is demonstrably false. She had a full time job for at least 26 years working for Bank of America. Wikipedia editors are simply not allowed to promulgate falsehoods about living people. Cullen328 (talk) 23:26, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm really struggling to understand the points here. Working as a bank officer ~~contributes to WP:GNG?~~ means she is not a perennial candidate? A significant number of voters supporting a measure to fund a state agency means that its employee is notable? KidAd • SPEAK 18:38, 28 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Let me do my best to be clear. KidAd. Her decades of service with the second largest bank in the country means that she is not "a full-time second place candidate", as does the fact that she won three elections and served for 12 years in elected office. As for your "perennial candidate" accusation, Perennial candidates in the United States says that A perennial candidate is a political candidate who frequently runs for public office without a reasonable chance of winning. The term is the opposite of an incumbent politician who repeatedly defends their seat successfully. In the U.S., perennial candidates are usually affiliated with third party politics. Again, she won three general elections for local office and one major party primary for a state legislative office. When she lost to Danny Gilmore in the 2008 general election, he got 43,925 votes while she got 42,615 votes. Pretty close. She is not involved in third party politics. Do any reliable sources describe her candidacies as having no reasonable chance of winning? Instead, she was an incumbent who successfully defended her seat in two elections. You and the other editors are welcome to argue that she is not notable, but you are not entitled to make completely false statements about her life and career in doing so. Cullen328 (talk) 00:22, 1 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I get the *keep* arguments, but in fact other than some local offices this person has mainly failed to get elected. The one that pushed me over the edge was that "The outgoing incumbent, Democrat Nicole Parra, endorsed Fran Florez's Republican opponent" - so this is someone who is not even supported by her own party. She has been mayor, but I don't think that's enough for NPOL - every city has a mayor. She tried and failed to succeed for state office. Note that the California High-Speed Rail position is an appointed position and always for four years. We don't know who appointed her, although we do know that at some point she chaired the organization. However, there isn't much that I can find about what she accomplished in that time, which is what would be needed for notability. Lamona (talk) 16:33, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I think a review of the sources, including those added to the article since this discussion started, help show Florez is part of an extended political competition, and multiple independent and reliable sources have objectively found her role 'worthy of notice', which includes the Parra endorsement of her rivals. This article can be expanded with the available sources to more clearly add context about why the coverage of the Parra endorsement helps objectively support the WP:BASIC/WP:GNG notability of Florez. Beccaynr (talk) 16:56, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I did review the sources. They seem like usual sources relating to local politicians and elections. Although she is mentioned in them, it is only as a candidate. I don't see anything about her as an "accomplished" or influential politician, just news about campaigns. We need some sources that say what is important about her, and I don't see that in these sources nor in searches I have done. Lamona (talk) 20:49, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I linked to the Subjective importance essay in my previous comment because it states, A common misconception about notability is that importance or uniqueness equals notability. Her WP:BASIC notability appears supported by multiple independent and reliable sources finding her 'worthy of notice' over time with WP:SECONDARY context and synthesis related to her career; a subjective determination of importance is not a factor in WP:GNG, WP:BASIC, or WP:NPOL. Beccaynr (talk) 21:25, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Granted, Florez is not inherently notable under WP:NPOL crit. 1 since she hasn't held elective office. But as NPOL itself notes, candidates and local officials "can still be notable if they meet the general notability guideline", even if they don't meet NPOL. In other words, NPOL is an inclusionary SNG, not an exclusionary one, meaning that while people who pass it are generally notable, people who don't pass it are not necessarily not notable: they just have to go the GNG route instead. From a GNG perspective, I agree with Cullen328 and Beccaynr that Florez is indeed notable: sources like [1], [2], and [3] are independent and reliable, and they provide Florez with significant coverage. While these are local papers, there's no policy or guideline prohibiting the use of such sources in this context as long as the sources are reliable, which these ones seem to be. (After all, Wikipedia:Notability (local interests) was unsuccessful.) Finally, some of the delete !votes seem to focus more on whether Florez is an effective politician than whether the sources here are adequate to pass the relevant notability guidelines. Wikipedia has many articles on unsuccessful individuals, and that's because we rightly follow objective standards like the GNG rather than our personal views on who is sufficiently significant to merit an article. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 05:03, 6 March 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.