Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stephen Webber

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 delete. I would be happy to merge & redirect the article to one on the Missouri House of Reps election, but there does not seem to be one. If I've missed it, point it out to me, I'd be happy to undelete, merge & redirect. --Stormie (talk) 09:02, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Stephen Webber

Fails WP:NOTADVOCATE, WP:POLITICIAN and WP:CRYSTAL, may merit deletion per WP:RECENTISM; he doesn't appear to be particularly notable apart from election coverage. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 16:51, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete The subject of the article fails WP:POLITICIAN, the main criteria that would apply to him in terms of notability since he's nothing more than a nominee for the democratic primary for the Missouri House of Representatives. He appears to have quite a bit of independent coverage from reliable sources but all of those are related to a single event, failing WP:ONEVENT. The subject would merit inclusion into a possible article on the election to the Missouri House of Representatives if, and only if, he's chosen as the democratic nominee. Even then, barring other events that would make him notable, he does not deserve a stand-alone article unless he's elected to serve in the House. SWik78 (talk • contribs) 20:00, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Fails WP:POLITICIAN. Would need considerable coverage beyond being elected to acheive WP:N. LonelyBeacon (talk) 20:04, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Hi; I’m the original author of the article. I’ve never previously been involved in an Article for Deletion discussion, so I apologize if I make any style errors here.

The five standards that the article is alleged not to have met are WP:NOTADVOCATE, WP:POLITICIAN, WP:CRYSTAL, WP:RECENTISM, and WP:ONEVENT. I don’t agree that the article fails the tests of WP:NOTADVOCATE, WP:POLITICIAN, and WP:CRYSTAL, and I have added some information to the article to try to rectify WP:RECENTISM and WP:ONEVENT.

WP:NOTADVOCATE

WP:NOTADVOCATE prohibits, “Propaganda, advocacy, or recruitment of any kind, commercial, political, religious, or otherwise. Of course, an article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to describe the topic from a neutral point of view.”

I think the article has been written objectively and from a neutral point of view; would one of you be interested in fleshing out the argument that it hasn’t been?

WP:POLITICIAN

Swik78 writes that WP:POLITICIAN is “the main criteria that would apply to him in terms of notability since he's nothing more than a nominee for the democratic primary for the Missouri House of Representatives.”

While WP:POLITICIAN allows that being a nominee for elected office “does not guarantee notibility,” it adds that “such people can still be notable if they meet the primary notability criterion of ‘significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.’”

The article (in its original form; I’ve since added a couple citations mentioned below) cites ten articles from independent, reliable sources independent of the subjecct. Five of the ten are written by the same author, Jason Rosenbaum, of the Columbia Tribune. Rosenbaum is the primary political reporter for Columbia’s daily newspaper, and almost all the paper’s articles relating to poltics feature his byline. Three of the ten are from other Missouri news sources, and the remaining two are from Missouri organizations that endorsed the Webber campaign. I think this should constitute as significant coverage.

Lonely Beacon writes, “Would need considerable coverage beyond being elected to acheive WP:N.”

To my mind, ten independent articles should constitute considerable coverage; are there more specific standards that the Wikipedia community has agreed upon?

WP:CRYSTAL

I don’t think the article includes any “unverifiable speculation.”

WP:RECENTISM

and

WP:ONEVENT

These two strike me as the strongest arguments for deletion.

I’m not sure how to respond to WP:RECENTISM. Reading the entry on recentism, I’m inclined to say that I agree with the “inclusionist” philosophy that Wikipedia should serve as a documentation of all knowledge, and that most things are permissible if they are verifiable and have been deemed notable by independent news sources.

Regarding WP:ONEVENT, I added information from and cited an article about his service in Iraq published before the election, as well as information about Webber’s essays about the Iraq war that were published in two books, one of which was New York Times bestseller. I don’t know whether that satisfactorally addresses the one event issue, as I doubt either of those facts independently would warrant a Wikipedia entry.

Thoughts?Chrysanthememe (talk) 22:24, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings Chrysanthememe! Welcome!

I agree that you have brought up some good points. I hate to sound a bit like I am wikilawyering, but I want to bring up WP:NOT#NEWS (it reads essentially as WP:ONEVENT)and WP:POLITICIAN. This is what deals with significant coverage over a single event (in this case, an election). My statement Would need considerable coverage beyond being elected to acheive WP:N. would mean that, as I am seeing this, there would need to be coverage beyond the election. To wit: virtually any politician would get coverage around an election. That would mean virtually any politician around the world would be eligible for inclusion. The significant coverage would mean, essentially, beyond just the election. If (I'm pulling a number out of a hat) over the course of the next 2 years he is the subject of considerable coverage, then even as a non-national level legislator, then I think you've got an article. That's just where I'm coming from. LonelyBeacon (talk) 01:44, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, LonelyBeacon. Thanks for the welcome! It seems to me that you are saying that being an unelected candidate for office is a sufficient condition to prove non-notability. I think that, while it's true that merely being a candidate is not a sufficient condition for notability, being the subject of "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" is. See WP:POLITICIAN.

The issue, then, is WP:ONEVENT. I'm not sure what to say about this. I understand the position that a person associated with only one event may not need a separate article. It also seems to me that Wikipedia's goal of assembling knowledge is well-served by having individual pages for individual politicians. Too many times have I searched Wikipedia for information about a person running for public office, only to find nothing (the impetus for me to start my current project of creating pages for Missouri politicians). Do you think it'd be better to have a page for the election itself, but not for individual candidates? That strikes me as something that'd be better for Wikinews. Or maybe all of this information could be included on a page about the 23rd District of Missouri, including a history of previous elections? What do you think? To my mind, a page like that would be great, but individual pages for the people who would be discussed in such a page would be even greater. Chrysanthememe (talk) 19:43, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not a voter guide. It is a reference work of subjects of enduring interest. Elections themselves tend to have historic interest long after they happen. Unelected politicians generally don't have ongoing general interest after the election is over, especially not enough to justify their own articles. • Gene93k (talk) 17:30, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Missouri-related deletion discussions. —• Gene93k (talk) 16:58, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. —• Gene93k (talk) 16:58, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:CRYSTAL and WP:BIO1E. Notability will be established if and only if he is elected in November. The substantial WP:RS attention comes from 2008 run for office. Other coverage is passing. • Gene93k (talk) 17:12, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Merge into the appropriate page for this election, which is notable. As per WP:BIO1E: cover the event, not the person. RayAYang (talk) 21:28, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete until he at least wins the primary. DGG (talk) 03:28, 17 July 2008 (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.