Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lisa Head

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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. Although subject is only notable for one event - her death and its aftermath - the event itself satisfies WP:GNG and a separate article on her seems to be the best place on Wikipedia to document the information. "Death of X", on the other hand, isn't common as an article name unless "X" itself is an article. I'd like to add that my decision was in part affected by the fact that Cpt Head's funeral, held on the day before the closing date of this debate, also received significant news coverage. --Deryck C. 22:35, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lisa Head[edit]

Lisa Head (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Tragic, undoubtedly, but fails WP:1E and WP:NNEWS. BigDom (talk) 07:01, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep. She was the first woman bomb disposal operator to be killed on active service, and the first woman officer to be killed in Afghanistan. In terms of WP:1E, well, okay, you could rename it to Death of Lisa Head to make it fit Wikipedia's bizarre one-event rules, but I've always been of the opinion that articles should be called what encyclopaedia users would search for.

    In terms of WP:PERSISTENCE there's a tension with WP:NTEMP to resolve; what we have here is very significant coverage in reliable sources, in that the death made the front pages of most British newspapers and sites. Per the WP:GNG, this establishes a presumption of notability. This places the onus is on the nominator to prove that she isn't notable.

    And finally, notability isn't for this. Our notability rules are basically a tool for detecting and removing marketing spam. They weren't intended to be used to remove verifiable and non-promotional content from good faith users.—S Marshall T/C 09:00, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep Biographical details are well sourced and entry well written. As S Marshall notes above about rules and perspectives on notablity, this entry is a keeper. Validays (talk) 10:54, 30 April 2011(UTC)
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 17:10, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 17:10, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - well sourced, well written.--BabbaQ (talk) 17:13, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep-notable for being a female employed in an unusual and dangerous occupation. WP:1E means that we should not cover random events which happen one day, but should not be used to delete articles which have additional subtext and significance, such as this one. Similarly, WP:NOTNEWS is usually used as an argument to delete very generic repetitive events (non-notable murder, disappearance or death sentence). When we reach the point when female bomb disposal experts are everywhere, those arguments will pertain to this kind of article. Jonathanwallace (talk) 17:40, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Tentative Keep. S Marshall and I have discussed the notability of this article already at the article's talk page, and s/he convinced me that there is currently a media circus surrounding Head's death, as shown at the external links I posted in our discussion at the talk page. The above editors make good arguments as well, but I worry that we will have to decide when there are enough women in a dangerous line of work to make the death of one (KIA) not inherently notable. Fifty percent would be too high, but....? Please note that that discussion will have to take place if this article is kept. Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:18, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment For what it's worth, a Google search for '"Lisa Head" death' brings back a couple of news hits, such as this one. This shows that her death (and related events) is still considered newsworthy over a week after it happened. Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:24, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, being second isn't inherently notable and all of the sources are derived from the same MOD press release, so I'd suggest that it's not in compliance with the GNG anyway. There is no other assertion of notability and nothing referenced to anything of substance. We've essentially got a WP:NOTNEWS situation as all of the sources are on the same date and nothing subsequent in anything except the local paper. ALR (talk) 04:01, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per ALR - WP:BIO isn't met here Nick-D (talk) 11:08, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom and ALR. This is a tragic story and, absolutely, no question, it should tear at most readers' hearts. But the various guidelines, WP:BIO, WP:NOTNEWS and WP:1E, all support deletion. Sorry. (But given the nature of the story, I'm betting the consensus will be to keep, and that's cool. I believe in consensus, even when I'm on the wrong side of it.) Msnicki (talk) 19:25, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak keep: I think there is enough notability to satisfy WP:GNG, WP:BIO, and WP:MILPEOPLE. Though I have to note, she's probably at the bottom of what I would consider the "notable first" threshold; any further and we can start to come up with "notable first"s for anyone (i.e. the first left-handed blonde Rhode Islander to die in Iraq, the first field cook from Wales to become a double amputee, and so on down the slippery slope). I don't think this falls under WP:NOTNEWS or WP:1E because her death is being treated with a significance all it's own, and it is persisting well after the typical duration of buzz (not to mention more intense coverage than is typical of what I've seen for the UK) for a soldier killed in the current war. bahamut0013wordsdeeds 13:24, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sometimes a death gets a bit more media coverage, depending on what else is going on. Cynically this one hits the "female" buttong for most of the tabloid media. In practice the only coverage was the same story in several papers, all derived from a single source. None of them added anything substantive beyond the press release. The current approach to sourcing is a little "never mind the quality, feel the width" as it uses multiple instances of similar content to give the illusion of substance. The other references were the use in a commentary piece concentrating on the now Duchess of Cambridge and a syndicated local news follow up. If one runs a search now there is no continued follow up, there is no debate around "women on the front line", there is no salacious gossip.
ALR (talk) 03:52, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I do think it's a bit of a stretch to describe the BBC or the Daily Telegraph as "tabloid media", ALR. Yes, it's all ultimately derived from a single press release by the Ministry of Defence, but the Ministry of Defence is the ultimate source for most things related to the UK military. You can't call something with lots of editorially independent secondary sources "non-notable" on the basis that there's only one primary source. When assessing notability, it's the editorially independent secondary sources that count.

You also don't get to say "no continuing coverage = no article". That's not how it works. Notability is not temporary, which means that if something was ever notable, then it's notable forever. If something has only a brief burst of newspaper coverage, then there's a judgment to be made about how much impact it really had: was it covered only in local sources, or in national ones? If national ones, was the coverage therein prominent? (Front page news is more notable than page 37 news.)

Unfortunately, Wikipedia doesn't give us any help with judgment calls. WP:Editorial judgment and WP:Editorial judgement if you prefer are still redlinks. Editors are presumed to have it, so all I can do is urge you to apply it now.—S Marshall T/C 08:33, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A single source is a single source, regardless of how may times it's reproduced.
In the interests of advancing the debate, other than a literal compliance with the letter of the GNG is there anything else about this example that makes either Capt Head "significant enough" or makes her death in some way "significant enough" to justify an article. If there was clarity around what was specifically special then it would perhaps help you to change my position. At the moment this is firmly in WP:NOTNEWS territory.
ALR (talk) 12:31, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Compliance with the GNG is sufficient in this case. When something complies with the GNG, that establishes a presumption of notability, and the onus is then on the "delete" camp to make a convincing case that the article subject is non-notable despite all the coverage in reliable sources. I don't think that there is, at present, a consensus to support that view.

I suspect that you're confused about the difference between primary and secondary sources. The MOD's release is a primary source, which has little to do with notability. The subsequent front page newspaper coverage—in serious broadsheets, by the way, not tabloids—together with the coverage in other highly reliable media such as the BBC is what makes the case for notability.

I think you're saying that there's nothing objective about Lisa Head's death that makes it any different from the hundreds of other British soldiers killed in action in Afghanistan. If that's your position, then I don't disagree at all. I fully accept that there is no logical reason why the death of a female soldier should be notable when a male's death would not be.

But, Wikipedia's notability standards aren't based on that kind of logic. The fact is that a big enough media circus is what creates notability, and rational or not, Lisa Head's death created a media circus. Therefore her death is notable.—S Marshall T/C 14:27, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So essentially nothing more than a literal compliance with policy at a superficial level implies notability?
The point with respect to single sourcing is not the difference between primary and secondary, in fact the MoD press release in this instance being secondary anyway. It is an example of "provenance", can the multiple instances truly be said to be independent when they're all derived from the same source? In short, no.
ALR (talk) 15:22, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Literal compliance with the GNG implies notability, yes. As for sourcing... Wikipedia has millions of articles with only one ultimate source (whether it's the Bible, or the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, or Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, or whatever). For most things, there's one ultimate source, and then a bunch of secondary sources that comment on it. See?—S Marshall T/C 16:37, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • As I've already explained, if it failed 1E, that would be trivial to overcome by renaming the article Death of Lisa Head. And as others have already explained, you would be right to say that it fails WP:PERSISTENCE, if it wasn't for the continuing coverage in reliable sources that's linked above.—S Marshall T/C 23:53, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry but continual coverage less than a month out from the event is hardly evidence of persistence. This is just normal news cycle coverage. Further, renaming the article is exactly what should and must be done if the article is kept.4meter4 (talk) 07:45, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Persistence isn't necessary, and WP:PERSISTENCE (despite its name) doesn't say that it is. It's actually quite a subtly-worded guideline that can't be boiled down to simplistic opinion statements. Let's just say that people don't stop being notable just because nobody's written about them this week.

The point of WP:PERSISTENCE is to stop you from declaring that your local village fete or your local factory's manager are notable just because of mentions in a couple of local newspapers. As a guideline, it was never intended to kill off stories of genuine national interest. To use it in that way is to pervert its intent. And "normal news cycle coverage" is evidence of notability, provided the material appears in editorially independent secondary sources with a reputation for fact-checking.

I'm opposed to renaming the article because I think articles should have the title that an encyclopaedia user would search for, and I don't see consensus here that renaming is necessary or appropriate; but even if there were a consensus for a rename, that's hardly grounds for deletion.—S Marshall T/C 11:25, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The reason for the name change is important. The current title implies a biography, but based on our policies Lisa Head isn't notable. The other title is an article about an event. While the sources may prove that Lisa Head's death was notable, her life wasn't in terms of wikipedia's guidelines. This article would therefore have to be stripped of most biographical content about Lisa Head and focus itself upon the events of her death. Reguardless, I don't think this subject is notable enough to warrant an encyclopedia entry. I doubt that a specialized encyclopedia of British military history published 50 years from now would include such a minor person. This is the sort of article (ie. a Pseudo-biography) that draws interest now due to a current event, but in the grand scheme of things holds no lasting notability. It's articles like these that people editing wikipedia decades from now will be deleting en masse as non-notable.4meter4 (talk) 13:23, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To me, your position seems to be that the article won't be notable in the future and therefore it can't possibly be notable now. When you talk about "no lasting notability", or about how people in some future time will no longer think the subject notable, I can't help wondering if you're under the impression that notability somehow evaporates over time. Are you?—S Marshall T/C 14:27, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, I'm stating that it isn't notable now and won't be notable later. I was more speaking about the psychology of those voting keep, 'It's in the news so it must be notable.' That attitude leads to the creation of pseudo-biograpraphies like this one, which sadly seem to survive AFDs half of the time. I guarantee that if this article passes an AFD today it will fail an AFD 5 years from now when a bit more distance from the event gives editors better perspective. Wikipedia is not the news.4meter4 (talk) 16:18, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Bah. Wikipedia isn't the news. In other news, Wikipedia isn't a cookbook but we have an article about Chicken Tikka Massala. Wikipedia isn't a how-to guide but we have an article about home wiring. Wikipedia isn't a Star Trek studies forum but to my eternal despair we have an article about sexuality in Star Trek. There are a whole lot of things that Wikipedia isn't. The fact that Wikipedia isn't the news doesn't stop me using news as sources for articles.—S Marshall T/C 16:37, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with 4meter4. I totally get why S Marshall and others believe (and quite honestly and reasonably so) that this is notable. It pushes all the right emotional buttons and there is a seeming compliance with the need for multiple independent secondary sources, so of course I understand why this seems like a keep to many here. But the sources, though multiple and respected, are weak and repetitious. I think the real test of whether this individual is actually notable is what happens next. If someone writes an actual biography or portrays her character in a movie or something like that (which I regard as totally possible), then it's settled. At that point, there's no question about the notability. But we don't have that yet and for now, I don't think the article clears the bar for notability. Just my opinion. Msnicki (talk) 16:39, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It would be helpful if you could cite the provisions in the guidelines you're relying on that these "firsts" are sufficient to establish notability. Msnicki (talk) 14:37, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. The two sad firsts mentioned by Kernel above constitute "a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in his or her specific field" per our policy WP:ANYBIO. Per WP:SOLDIER, an essay of very persuasive value, she "[p]layed an important role in a significant military event", for the same reasons. Jonathanwallace (talk) 17:23, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't read those sections the way you do. I think they ask for more than just minimal compliance with being first or contributing to an action. But I concede this may be just a matter of opinion on which reasonable people disagree. Cheers, Msnicki (talk) 17:42, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: Has enough reliable sources to meet the GNG. Any other notability guidelines are irrelevant if the General Notability Guideline is met. Buddy431 (talk) 00:27, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - although there are references to a few news articles IMO this only appears to be passing coverage and does not constitute "significant independent coverage". As such the subject would appear not to be notable under both WP:GNG and WP:MILMOS/N. Anotherclown (talk) 08:18, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is obviously some strange usage of the phrase "passing coverage" with which I wasn't previously familiar. :-)—S Marshall T/C 11:34, 7 May 2011 (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.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Lisa_Head&oldid=1078429068"