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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 redirect to United States House of Representatives elections in Kansas, 2018. Having read the arguments, it seems this is the option most people will be comfortable with. No prejudice against restoring to a full article if he wins the mid-terms. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:24, 12 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Steven Charles Watkins (politician)[edit]

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Steve Watkins (Kansas politician) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · politician) Stats)
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This is a candidate for election to the U.S. House this November with no coverage independent of the campaign; articles such as this are often redirected to an article on the campaign for a combination of WP:BLP1E and WP:NOTPROMO (both material supporting and opposing him can be promotional, and a combination of both is still promotional). There are several content problems with this article, but those are not reasons for deletion. power~enwiki (π, ν) 16:56, 4 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. power~enwiki (π, ν) 16:56, 4 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Kansas-related deletion discussions. power~enwiki (π, ν) 16:56, 4 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Issues with this candidate have made this become an extremely high profile election, with extensive coverage in Kansas and Alaska. If there are content problems with any part of the article they should be addressed specifically. Thanks! Activist (talk) 17:45, 4 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The article includes seven references from six different reputable sources including the Topeka Capital Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Anchorage Daily News, WIBW, and Project Vote Smart. DavidMCEddy (talk) 19:37, 4 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Neither PROMO or BLP1E imply that we should not have articles on unelected candidates in general. WP:NOTPROMO rejects political advocacy, propaganda, or recruitment of any kind but explicitly says that 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 just went through and fixed some minor NPOV issues, so that's satisfied. Secondly, a congressional political campaign is not an "event", but a sustained engagement with the public sphere and a process of great public interest—and Watkins has clearly lost any WP:LOWPROFILE status.
Given that there is no policy or guideline telling us to ignore coverage generated in the context of a political campaign for the purposes of notability, the sources in the article—especially the Anchorage Daily News, Washington Post, and Topeka Capital-Journal stories—are sufficient to satisfy WP:BASIC and therefore confer notability. FourViolas (talk) 20:04, 4 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Local consensus or precedent does not overrule the standards set in WP:PAG; see WP:CONLIMITED. Changing the notability guidelines is done through community consensus, not jury nullification. Is there a policy- or guideline-based justification for the "automatically redirect unelected House candidates" standard? FourViolas (talk) 12:52, 5 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think I can do any better than Bearcat's explanation on User talk:Editorofthewiki#Candidates. Keeping unelected house candidates is also U.S.-centric. SportingFlyer talk 20:45, 5 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That argument is based on the claim that NPOL should set a higher standard than WP:BASIC, to make it easier to exclude low-quality promotional material from Wikipedia. But this directly contradicts the language of BASIC: People who meet the basic criteria may be considered notable without meeting the additional criteria below. If we want to make an exception for politicians, we hold a centralized discussion and rewrite the guideline, but we don't just start ignoring it in practice: consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale..
Instituting a policy of automatically keeping all U.S. House candidates would be U.S.-centric; maintaining the principle that notability is determined by depth of coverage, regardless of whether one is a U.S. House candidate or not, is not. FourViolas (talk) 21:03, 5 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The trouble isn't with WP:NPOL or what's below WP:BASIC - one can be a notable politician without passing WP:NPOL. The problem is what Wikipedia is not: WP:NOTPROMO, WP:NOTNEWS, WP:10YR and WP:BLP1E all come into play here, and we have a reasonable alternative of a redirect to the election - especially since the article is basically a giant negative hit piece. SportingFlyer talk 23:34, 5 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect and merge per Enos733, the controversy can be outlined there, especially since it's all self-generated coverage/WP:BLP1E fail, and seems to fail the ten-year test. SportingFlyer talk 20:45, 5 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • CommentI've been reading Wikipedia for years, but only started commenting in August, so I'm not sure if I'm doing this right. I was directed here by the notice on the article. I think the article should be retained because this is a high profile person and situation which has drawn local and distant publicity and even the surprising negative comments from the 2020 Trump campaign's manager about the party's Kansas candidate. However I had a hard time finding the article in order to read it, first going to Steve Watkins, the baseball player's page. Can the title somehow be changed to make it more available? Sandnsea40 (talk) 03:25, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think User Sandnsea40 is correct: The title of the article needs changing. In my effort to avoid disambiguation problems, I created the article using Watkins' given name, rather than the one by which he is best known, "Steve Watkins." There is, of course, an article for the baseball player with that name. The links that should go to the candidate's article are instead self-referential, only leading to a different location on the 2018 elections page. If there are no objections, and unless there is an AfD rule about changing it while in progress, I'd like to move the name to Steve Watkins (politician)|Steve Watkins, and to make the appropriate referral link from the 2018 KS congressional elections article. In addition, I looked at the Conor Lamb article for some guidance, as it was a recent, similar situation. His career, though not low profile, had not in itself raised him to the level of unquestionable notability. That review was elucidative, however. Despite a few unsuccessful requests for AfD's, Lamb's campaign drew immense national attention, though he was just running in a special election to complete the ten-month remainder of a term. The many arguments made to Keep were persuasive. As the campaign went on, his article quickly saw over 150 edits made to it by dozens of editors, and by the day of the election, the total exceeded 250. Thanks to you all for your input. Activist (talk) 06:37, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • When I reviewed the 2018 KS Congressional Elections article, I noticed that Sharice Davids also lacks an article. President Trump went to Kansas yesterday to rally for both Kevin Yoder and Watkins, and gubernatorial candidate Kris Kobach. I don't know anything about Davids except that she is Ho-Chunk (Winnebago), an attorney, a lesbian single mom, and beat the Bernie Sanders-supported candidate in a crowded primary. She is leading in the polls above the margin of error over Yoder, the incumbent, who beat the wife of retiring congressman Dennis Moore for the seat, in 2010. Were she to win, she would be the first Native American woman elected to Congress, although the Laguna Pueblo's Deb Haaland (Navajo), a better known attorney, is also running a competitive race for NM's CD1 seat. I'll take a look to see if she might need an article as well and would appreciate any input as to that. Activist (talk) 06:37, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Candidates aren't handed a notability freebie just because of what historic firsts they will represent if they go on to win an election they haven't won yet. If and when they do win, meaning that the historic first has actually been attained rather than simply existing in the realm of future possibility, then it counts for something — but no, candidates aren't automatically special cases just because they can claim that if they win they'll become the first of something they aren't already the first of. Our job here is not to start an article about every single person we think people might be looking for information about today because they're momentarily newsy — our job is to figure out "who will people still be looking for an article about ten years from now", and the answer to that question is officeholders, not the vast majority of unelected candidates. Bearcat (talk) 16:24, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Per WP:BLP1E and the WP:NPOL consensus that candidates for office are not notable purely for their candidacy. Article is a mess with only thing of significance his candidacy. Rest of the article is filled with hilarious crap like "Watkins has said Kansas “was always home in my heart.”" AusLondonder (talk) 20:24, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
NPOL doesn't say that, though. It says that Just being an unelected candidate for political office, does not guarantee notability, although 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 of the article". It doesn't say anything about those sources having to relate to something other than their candidacy. FourViolas (talk) 22:47, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That's why WP:BLP1E is in play. If he loses, there'll be an article on him with a bunch of criticism of him during his campaign. SportingFlyer talk 22:50, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete unelected candidates to the US house are almost never notable, and Watkins is not an exception to this rule. If he wins in November then he will be notable, but not until then.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:07, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Per the above discussion, and the difficulty inherent in searches for this article and the confusion of the subject of this article with others of the same name (Steve/Stephen Douglas Watkins), (Steve/Stephen George Watkins), Steve Watkins, the professor author (who has no Wikipedia page), etc., I've changed the name of the article and its Talk page, plus the link at the 2018 congressional election page, to Steve Watkins. If the title of this AfD page should be changed as well, perhaps one of the editors on this AfD could address that. Thanks. Activist (talk) 03:46, 8 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • Redirect, without prejudice against recreation next month if he wins. As always, candidates are not automatically presumed notable just for being candidates per se, but 12 footnotes (of which one is VoteSmart, a primary source on which every candidate always gets a profile, and one is the raw results of a single public opinion poll, is not enough sourcing to mark him out as more notable than most other candidates. For candidates who haven't already won, the notability tests they have to pass are either "already has preexisting notability for other reasons that would have gotten them an article anyway" (i.e. the reason why Donald Trump was already notable long before he ever even tried to run for anything, let alone win), or "is receiving so much more coverage than most other candidates that they have a credible claim to being special" (c.f. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez). If he wins the seat, then he'll obviously clear WP:NPOL #1 on that basis and an article will be recreatable — but none of this is already notable enough to already earn him an article today, or to make him permanently notable even if he loses the seat next month. Bearcat (talk) 22:07, 8 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep there's a lot of dancing around with BLP1E, NPOL, NOTPROMO, and other arguments. All these are good arguments on their own, but they don't really apply here because the subject passes WP:GNG through the coverage in the news. I don't buy the "one-event" argument because it's not "one" event, there are a series of events. NOTPROMO is a great rule, but any promotional wording can be cleaned up as an editing issue rather than a deletion issue. NPOL is also a good argument, but it is "inclusive" and not "exclusive" (there is more than one path to notability). When it comes down to it, the subject has the coverage for a period of time in reliable third party articles. That's textbook notability. Any other issues can be handled in editing.--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:39, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
An election campaign is an event, not a series of discrete events, for the purposes of establishing whether WP:BLP1E applies or not. An event is not just a standalone thing that happens at one time on one day; a process, such as an election campaign, is still an event. A candidate does not escape BLP1E just because he's held more than one campaign rally over the course of the election season, for example — the separate rallies are still operating in the same context of helping to get him elected as each other, so they're still part of the same overarching event rather than separate standalone events that would turn 1E into 2E.
And no, notability is not automatically conferred on every single person who has a handful of media coverage — for example, every single candidate in every single district at either the federal or state levels anywhere in the entire United States could always show at least the same-sized handful of media coverage. So no, the key to making a candidate notable enough for a Wikipedia article is not "some media coverage exists" — because again, some media coverage never, ever doesn't exist — it's "so much more media coverage exists than most other candidates are getting that he's got a credible claim to being special." Which is, needless to say, not what the sourcing here is showing. Bearcat (talk) 21:48, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A process by definition is more than one event. Wiktionary definition states it is "A series of events which produce a result, especially as contrasted to product" (among other lesser definitions of course).--Paul McDonald (talk) 01:54, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The literal dictionary definition of a word (especially on Wiktionary, where people can phrase the definition badly) is not the mic drop on this, because a series of mini-events most certainly can still total up into a single maxi-event. For the purposes of whether a person is a WP:BLP1E or not on Wikipedia, the entire election campaign is a single event, no matter how many different rallies he happens to hold or statements of his positions on the issues he releases during the campaign — because each of those mini-events is not a independently notable event in its own right separately from the overall context of being a candidate, the whole pile of 'em adds up to a single maxi-event for the purposes of whether a person escapes BLP1E or not. The entire election campaign is one maxi-event, not 40 or 50 or 100 separate mini-events, for the purposes of determining whether a person is notable for one event or more than one. Bearcat (talk) 13:41, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but I don't buy that. The simplest and best definition should be used. WP:BLP1E is policy. WP:BLP2E is not.--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:33, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
And I don't care what you don't buy. There isn't, and shouldn't be, and isn't ever going to be, any Wikipedia consensus that an unelected candidate for office gets into Wikipedia just because each individual campaign rally or speech he makes over the course of a single campaign can technically be considered a separate "incident". All those incidents are part of the same basic notability "event", not five or six or ten distinct notability "events", for the purposes of establishing whether a person is notable enough to have an encyclopedia article or not. An uncontrolled forest fire doesn't become two or three or five separate events just because the fire seems to die down and then flares up again the next day, either — no matter how many distinct "incidents" take place during the overall event, the whole thing is still a single event. Bearcat (talk) 16:19, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think you misunderstand. I'm not claiming that because the subject is running for office they get an automatic pass to notability. My position is that sufficient third party articles in reliable sources exist to surpass the threshold of the general notability guideline. That can happen when running for office or playing tiddlywinks. Sufficient coverage is sufficient coverage.--Paul McDonald (talk) 20:23, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Whatever our favored interpretation of campaigns is in the abstract—sustained activity of central importance to the political life of a democracy, or fleeting lead-up to the main election event of actual significance?—we should consider the context of the actual BLP1E guideline. It's a section not of WP:N but of WP:BLP, and specifically the section §Presumption in favor of privacy. The point of that policy is not to police the number of articles Wikipedia has, but to avoid victimizing or libeling individuals with false or excessively personal information. There are very few cases where this consideration is relevant to writing an article about politicians, who are by definition in the business of seeking out public attention and are therefore not low-profile individuals. FourViolas (talk) 03:19, 11 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Long-standing consensus is candidates that lose campaigns and who are not otherwise notable fail WP:BLP1E. Notability is not temporary, and someone who chooses to run for office and loses will nearly certainly fall out of the public eye, even after the disclosure of some of their personal information. It doesn't matter if WP:GNG is passed - it's only a presumption, and WP:NOT overrides WP:GNG - and we have an alternative to deletion nevertheless. SportingFlyer talk 05:17, 11 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
What Wikipedia is not is certainly policy. What part of that applies here? There are 11 points for content... maybe NOTNEWS, but again the extensive coverage to me seems to well exceed that. Can you reference this "long-standing consensus" you write about? Are there other AFDs? And even then, consensus can change.--Paul McDonald (talk)
There's an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(people)#Centralized_discussion_on_the_notability_of_political_candidates about these issues, with lots of background on this issue. FourViolas (talk) 12:25, 11 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
One of the more notable things about candidate Watkins is his confabulation of his own history. He claims to an entrepreneur who started a large corporation from scratch and sacrificed by choosing to forego his own compensation so that he could keep others employed. In fact, he worked briefly as a consultant for the corporation he claimed he founded, many years after it had successfully operated and the owner had no idea who Watkins was. He claimed that his alleged experience there played an important part in his qualification for office. He repeated and embellished this tall tale at numerous Republican meetings in counties around the district. He claimed on his website (since removed) that he rescued people who had been injured in the 2015 Nepal earthquake, referring confirmation of his alleged heroism to the leader of a concurrent Mt. Everest climbing expedition as citing him for his bravery. When contacted, that leader said it would have been impossible, since they were way up the mountain at the time and not remotely near the carnage in that country or in any position to be of help. He claimed his experience in dog mushing as a credential, but in fact he was at the tail end of the 2018 competitors, days from the finish, when the highest placers had already completed the race. A fellow competitor said that he abandoned his dog team to the care of already overwhelmed strangers who didn't have the capacity to become responsible for them. She said he quit the race so that he could get on the phone to arrange speaking engagements in Kansas. He had been applying for Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend payouts, which require applicants to certify that they intend to remain permanent residents of the state, in order to qualify for the payments, though that information had been removed by an editor here, though it was the basis for his making the "heart in Kansas" remark which remains. So he's perhaps the perfect candidate in a "post truth" era, a 21st Century version of the 18-Century fictional sportsman, military hero and world traveler, Baron Munchausen, or even a Rosie Ruiz, the obese faker who brazenly invented herself as a runner and duped the officials of the Boston Marathon into thinking that she'd won in world record time, when she had only actually jogged half a mile. (She had qualified for Boston by taking the subway to the end of, and faking a high place finish in the New York Marathon. (She has a large Wikipedia article which documents her subsequent fiduciary larceny.) That behavior didn't prevent President Trump from enthusiastically introducing him at a rally in Topeka this past Saturday, and VP Pence for scheduling a followup rally appearance, an irony upon which the Kansas press has acerbically commented. He hasn't claimed any distinguished service awards, as yet, as far as I'm aware, so he isn't a likely candidate for a Stolen Valor prosecution, though he does say he was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Activist (talk) 20:45, 11 October 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.
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