Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/April Griffin

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. MBisanz ^talk 01:25, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

April Griffin[edit]

This article appears to be autobiography, as it was written entirely by AprilGriffin (talk · contribs). While we do not delete articles concerning clearly notable people solely due to the author's conflict of interest, in cases such as this where an article's subject is only marginally notable at best, COI issues weigh heavily in favor of deletion. John254 03:39, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete appears to be self autobiography of member of School Board.Naraht (talk) 03:57, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is not an autobiography. April is an elected official in Hillsborough County, Florida. I am her aide. I created the wikipedia account in HER name so that April may retain control should there be staff turn over, etc. If April does not qualify for an article as a county wide elected official then I would submit that the Wikipedia Article Tampa Mayor Pam Ioro (Who is not a State of Florida Constitutional Officer as April is and thus even less "marginally notable") should also be have her article deleted under the same premise. If we want to play with semantics I could always create another account and post this article to side step the "conflict of interest". I don't think someone who won an election for a state constitutional office with 237,000 votes is marginally notable by any standard. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AprilGriffin (talk • contribs) 03:58, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

While mayors of large cities are inherently notable, the same presumption does not apply to local school board members. The fact that you are a paid employee under the direct supervision of April Griffin rather than actually being April Griffin herself hardly serves to mitigate the conflict of interest present here. Attempts to "create another account and post this article to side step the 'conflict of interest'"[1] are unlikely to prove successful, as we have effective means by which to detect abusive sockpuppetry. John254 04:11, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions. —TerriersFan (talk) 04:06, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as copyright violation. We cannot use material copied from another website, even if you allege on the talk page that there is no copyright -- you must have it clearly stated on the page from which the text is copied that the content is under a free license such as the WP:GFDL. If you rewrite the content in your own words -- using the web site as a source for content but not exact phrasing -- then we can reconsider. Thanks, Antandrus (talk) 04:36, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - there is certainly the makings of a case for notability but an OTRS ticket needs to be obtained first to resolve the copyvio issue - see talk. TerriersFan (talk) 04:40, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
State Constitutional Officer such as school board members have been legally determine to be Public Officials and Public Persons by Florida Statute as well as the Florida Supreme Court, the Federal Appellate Courts, and the United States Supreme Court. As a matter of fact, the very defamation scenarios that are discussed in the deletion policy apply to April and this was covered with her as part of her legal briefing when she was elected. Legally speaking, when a person is barred from the protection of anti-defamation statues, they are inherently notable. Additionally per the Wikipedia deletion policy in regards to biographies for living persons, the requirement is that the "great care" must be excercised to maintain neutrality in the post presenting relevant, truthful, verifiable facts. Everything in this article is truthful and verifiable and this article does not digress into opinions or positions. The deletion policy is very clear in that provided there is neutrality in the article, the existence of a biography or auto-biography of a Public Person should only be deleted as a last resort. Additionally an executive officer of a school board that manages the 8th largest school district in the United States is just as inherently notable as a Mayor of a city that is smaller than the county that is served by this school district. Copyright permissions were sent to [email protected] to allow use of the material on the Hillsborough County Public Schools website.AprilGriffin —Preceding undated comment was added at 04:46, 9 January 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Since this is an AFD discussion, not a libel lawsuit, the public person/private person distinction as it affects the standard of proof for defamation claims does not apply here. Wikipedia's gold standard of notability is the general notability guideline; a review of the third party, non-blog sources cited in the article indicates coverage of April Griffin that may not rise to the level of significance that we require. While we can often use person's status as a heuristic for determining that coverage in third-party reliable sources satisfying the general notability guideline can eventually be found, school board membership won't cut the mustard. Also, per [2], this article is an autobiography, and therefore presents a conflict of interest. John254 05:17, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia brought up the legal definition of Public Persons in their deletion policy. In your opinion school board won't cut the mustard, however when legal citations are used in Wikipedia's own delection policy that undermines your position and would seem to indicate that legal designation is indeed significant and sufficient. General notability is not the only condition cited in the deletion policy. Public persons are also a consideration. I also find it interesting that you have an award for reverting vandalism on to the Port Charlotte High School article. Port Charlotte is a pretty small town here in Flordia... not very notable. What is it's signifigance that warrants an article? {AprilGriffin (talk) 05:24, 9 January 2009 (UTC)}[reply]

Our deletion policy makes no mention of the defamation law public person/private person distinction. While our biographies of living persons policy does draw a contrast between "Well-known public figures" and "People who are relatively unknown (Non public figure = NPF), it should be clear that this is not the same thing as the defamation law principle, formost because the biographies of living persons policy deals with questions wholly outside the remit of defamation law -- e.g. a claim may not be libelous because one could later establish its truth, but only via reliance on sources or evidence that would constitute original research, an inappropriate use of primary sources, or otherwise run afoul of our content standards for material touching upon living persons. Also, unlike in the context of defamation law in which one can defend against a libel lawsuit by establishing a claim's truth only after the fact, our biographies of living persons policy requires that controversial assertions concerning living persons be reliably sourced ab initio. John254 05:49, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ordinarily, I believe that AFD nominations should be used sparingly, and only in the most obvious cases, to avoid destroying the work of editors who may have invested substantial effort in researching and writing articles. Such a rationale for temperance in deletionism is inapplicable here, since this article is simply a cut-and-paste reproduction of [3] with a few sources attached, involving essentially no original authorship at all. Even if we have permission to use the text under the GFDL, this reposted autobiography isn't the sort of content that I would regard as worthy of retention, being in violation of WP:COI and likely inconsistent with WP:NPOV. If uninvolved editors want to write an actual article on April Griffin (provided sufficient coverage in third-party reliable sources could be found), it would be far more efficient to start over. John254 05:33, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Regardless of copyright, school board members are not normally notable, and nothing particularly notable is shown here. But I disagree that the motive in keeping articles is to avoid hurting the feelings of contributors. Our obligation to their feelings is to treat them politely by giving serious and fair consideration here, explaining to them what does and does not belong in an encyclopedia. DGG (talk) 05:59, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"What does and does not belong in an encyclopedia" is not always clear-cut. Content which is obviously non-notable, according to the general consensus of editors, should be sent to AFD, of course. However, consideration should also be given to articles whose subjects are on the borderline of notability, which, if nominated, will produce controversial AFD discussions with no apparent consensus, resulting in deletion or retention of the articles as a function of the whims of the closing administrators (or, as it is more politely described, the closing administrators' weighing of the "strength of arguments"). It is in this latter situation that substantial restraint in AFD nominations is advisable, both to preserve what many editors regard as legitimate encyclopedic content, and to avoid insult and discouragement to editors who have invested substantial efforts in writing content that reasonably could have been regarded as acceptable for inclusion. The latter consideration supposes, of course, that the articles in question reflect actual research. John254 06:17, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete a non-notable person. JuJube (talk) 07:42, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, WP:N and WP:COI. Usrnme h8er (talk) 12:50, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: There is an OTRS ticket at OTRS:2333681 regarding the copyright and licensing issue (of the "we want to release the content" variety, rather than the "take this down before we have to DMCA you" variety). I have replied to it requesting further details. Stifle (talk) 13:41, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep subject to the OTRS ticket being satisfactorily clarified. In addition to the sources in the article, additional sources are available here that meet WP:BIO. Involved in sufficient controversies to become notable. TerriersFan (talk) 17:32, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: I've added the {{copyvio}} notice until the OTRS ticket is processed. The revision prior to mine is located here. – Toon ^(talk) 21:06, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Userfy. Based upon the pre-ticket version, doesn't appear to be notable beyond a small area, and the additional sources still only seem to suggest local notability. If this is an autobiographical article written by a Wikipedia editor, then it's appropriate for the person's user page (assuming the copyvio is addressed). The user AprilGriffin (I'm assuming good faith that the user is actually the subject of the article) asks above about why a school article exists but this one is causing an issue. Wikipedia uses different notability criteria for different subject matter. For example, geographic locations regardless of population are considered notable and eligible as long as they can be verified to exist. Some topics require coverage in academic media. Schools and other major buildings are considered inherently notable, though this is sometimes disputed. Articles on people require certain notability criteria to be met that, yes, often do make it more difficult for an article on a person to be eligible. And the WP:BLP makes things even more tighter at times. 23skidoo (talk) 22:49, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Autobio. When they become notable someone with no COI will write them up here. — RHaworth (Talk | contribs) 08:20, 11 January 2009 (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.