Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lisa Helps

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 Helps, no consensus on Williams and Atwell without prejudice to a speedy nomination, Delete the rest. Next time don't do mass nominations as it gets really messy and confusing quickly, especially if one of them, like Helps, meets relevant guidelines.Secret ^account 23:16, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Lisa Helps[edit]

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Mayors of small towns aren't normally notable - see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes#Politicians. No indication that this person would be notable Also nominating the following for the same reason

Gbawden (talk) 11:22, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Everymorning talk to me 12:53, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of British Columbia-related deletion discussions. Everymorning talk to me 12:53, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

With respect to Helps: Weak keep I'm inclined to believe she meets GNG based on sources like [1] [2] [3] Also, with a population of 80,000 I'm not entirely sure Victoria is best described as a "small town". Everymorning talk to me 12:58, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Helps and Atwell. Delete the rest. Victoria is the provincial capital and Saanich has a population of 100K, which I believe is the informal cutoff. The rest are mayors-elect for much smaller places. Clarityfiend (talk) 15:03, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete the lot per nom - Fails WP:POLITICIANS. –Davey2010 • (talk) 15:56, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, including Helps and Atwell as not notable enough and most are not notable at all. Kierzek (talk) 17:15, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Victoria is not a "small town", but is one of the 100 largest cities, and the core city of one of the 15 largest metropolitan areas, in all of Canada — and it's also a provincial capital. So it fully satisfies the "cities of regional prominence" consideration in WP:POLOUTCOMES. Consensus has already established that Victoria's mayors are sufficiently notable: every single mayor that the city has ever had before Helps does already have a Wikipedia article — yes, really, every single one without exception, see List of mayors of Victoria, British Columbia and Category:Mayors of Victoria, British Columbia if you doubt me — and there's no valid reason for Helps to be the first mayor in the city's history to be treated differently from every single one who came before her. And the city's local politics does get substantial enough coverage in reliable sources that even if not all that much of substance can really be written about her now, much more will be able to be added within the month when she actually takes office and starts trying to push through an agenda. In fact, the case for her is so inherently different from any of the others that she shouldn't be bundled with this nomination at all.

There's no hard and fast population cutoff for determining whether a city is large enough to have articles about its mayors or not — the unofficial figure that enters into the calculations is 50K rather than 100K, but that's an operand in the equation, not the overriding factor in and of itself. Larger cities can still have their mayors fail to qualify in some circumstances (e.g. poor sourcing, non-prominent "suburban" status, ceremonial/rotating mayoralty, etc.), and smaller ones can get over the bar if they can be disproportionately well-sourced. So Saanich is teetering on the edge, because it's a suburban municipality which isn't particularly prominent outside of its own local area — unlike Victoria, most of Saanich's mayors prior to Atwell don't have Wikipedia articles — and all of the others fall off the cliff because the cities aren't large or prominent enough to confer automatic notability on a mayor at all.

So keep Helps (I'll personally contribute to improving it), leaning delete on Atwell (I could be convinced to change my vote on him if significant sourcing improvements are forthcoming, but he doesn't get a free NPOL pass just because of Saanich's population if the article doesn't get any better than this), and delete the others. Update: keep Williams as well, as sufficient reliable sourcing has now been added to cover his preexisting notability as a composer — however, since the composing work, not the mayoralty, is the substance of why he qualifies for an article, he should be disambiguated as Ken Williams (composer) rather than as a politician. Bearcat (talk) 22:00, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Helps. Victoria is the capital of BC, being the mayor is therefore quite notable. Atwell is notable as well, as Saanich is the largest municipality on Vancouver Island, but it needs expanding. -- Earl Andrew - talk 02:22, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Two questions: Why even have a category for British Columbia mayors if only mayoralty in the largest city is notable? Why is Helps not notable when every other mayor in Victoria's 160 year history is? Delete Helps and you must delete dozens more articles with her. DoItForTheLulz (talk) 06:22, 21 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Ken Williams because he is also a world class composer for films such as Sundance and Cannes winner In the Company of Men, and international Emmy Winner and BAFTA winner, The Magician's House. As well as Disney's series So Weird produced by Henry Winkler and starring McKenzie Phillips. imdb.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.69.45.19 (talk • contribs)

Being a composer isn't a free notability pass either. A composer does not automatically get to keep an article on Wikipedia just because he exists, any more than a politician does — rather, he has to pass WP:MUSICIAN to qualify for an article on that basis, and simply listing his composing credits and sourcing them to IMDb doesn't get him over that bar. You need reliable source coverage of his composing work to get him over MUSICIAN for his composing work. Bearcat (talk) 21:02, 21 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Ken Williams. Mayallamawiki (talk) 16:04, 22 November 2014 (UTC) I will be working on links, citations and proper format to improve article. There are hundreds of references. I will also be adding Ken Williams to the Canadian composers category where he should be.[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 10:42, 25 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Helps is the Mayor of the capital of British Columbia. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 06:59, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The mayor of Victoria seems a priori notable to me; it's a provincial capital, after all. The rest I have not the time to go into, but they need to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Vanamonde93 (talk) 11:09, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Helps Close the others as no consensus and may be relisted without prejudice. Helps is clearly notable by the consensus above. Atwell's an interesting one - borderline. Ken Williams is apparently notable but under wp:NCOMPOSER. And the others haven't been discussed much - a separate discussion would be necessary as there are too many issues flying about here. Neonchameleon (talk) 11:23, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - it's been well established that mayors of larger state and provincial capitals are usually notable. Victoria, BC, Albany, NY, and the like would probably be notable, although probably not Montpelier, Vermont. Bearian (talk) 21:03, 3 December 2014 (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.