Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cappy Burnside

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. Malcolmxl5 (talk) 14:26, 15 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Cappy Burnside[edit]

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Medium-sized fish in a small pond fails WP:BIO and WP:GNG. Only significant coverage in a local paper. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:19, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Oof. I mean, he did have a bridge named after him. But, so far as I can tell, the only claim of significance in this morass is: he convinced some people to move a divisional office of the FBI from one place to another. That is not an encyclopedic topic. And Wikipedia is not a memorial. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 05:44, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Consider another recent article: Stephen Johnson (minister). Please can @AleatoryPonderings: explain why we should keep one but not the other, as I'm not seeing much objective difference in the subjects' importance. If anything, Cappy made more of an impact. Note that WP:OSE states that "these comparisons are important as the encyclopedia should be consistent in the content that it provides or excludes". Andrew🐉(talk) 07:50, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, I'm a touch confused. Didn't you state in this diff [1] that essays are worthless and therefore should be disregarded? Why are you quoting one now as a reason not to take an action, while we're talking about consistency? Ravenswing 11:03, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As Ravenswing is confused, here's a policy for their attention. When I posted at this AfD this morning, I mused how long it would take them to turn up and start making personal comments. I estimated 4 hours but but it only took 3. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:28, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

According to AfDstats, I've participated in over four thousand AfD discussions. I've nominated several dozen AfDs in the last few weeks ... which, as to that, you've participated in a number of them, so it really shouldn't come as a surprise that I'm currently active in deletion discussions. (Although I didn't file the one that closed this morning with "I disregard the opinion of Andrew Davidson because it contains personal attacks, which are not permitted (WP:NPA)" as part of the closing admin's argument.") But I still wouldn't mind a response: you are quoting an essay in defense of this article, while at the same time disparaging essays generally. Which should we take at face value? Ravenswing 12:03, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 05:58, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of West Virginia-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 05:58, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 05:59, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Draftify My head says delete, but my heart says Cappy might have a chance as a decent local history bio. It does have some decent sources, but he may very well be WP:1E. He's certainly more notable than all of the 250,000+ football stubs put together (which is more of a reason to revise WP:NFOOTBALL and perform a purge worthy of a Hollywood movie, than keeping this). It is written like an obituary, so it needs rewriting for mainspace. Someone certainly put a lot of work into it. Maybe I just don't have the heart to kill it directly, so I'm sending it off to die the slow death of a draft. // Timothy :: talk 07:14, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete (switched vote). Sorry for the interruption, my Old Yeller moment has past. Well Cappy, you may not have Wikipedia, but you'll always have your bridge... (until it falls into the river due to lack of infrastructure funding). // Timothy :: talk 11:43, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The resolution of the state Legislature seems quite adequate evidence of notability and there are plenty more sources. The current article is perhaps too effusive but that's a matter of ordinary editing not deletion. And it really does beggar belief that we routinely accept worse stubs on other people. Click random article to see other stuff like Jeremy Taylor (politician); Haroon Shukat; Robert Campbell (Canadian politician); Ed Morgan (baseball); Jean-Marc Gaillard and many more. None of these people have had a bridge named after them, have they? Cappy did good and, as this is not a BLP and the facts are well-verified, there's not a significant problem here. Andrew🐉(talk) 07:39, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ignoring WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS for the moment, all the examples you've cited satisfy well-established guidelines, either WP:POLITICIAN or WP:NSPORT. And WP:BRIDGENAME is not an indicator of notability. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:11, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete The resolution of the state Legislature is a primary source due to being a government document and therefore not usable for notability. He doesn't seem notable based on the other sources either and the rest of the keep reasons are basically hand-waving. So, I see no legitimate guideline based reason to keep this article. --Adamant1 (talk) 07:48, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Nonsense. The resolution is not a primary document. It contains numerous facts about the subject's life and so is a secondary summary and analysis. Primary documents are things like the subject's birth certificate. Andrew🐉(talk) 07:54, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: Far from nonsense, it is absolutely a primary source; if containing facts about a subject was enough to magically transform a document into a secondary source, birth certificates and court cases would suddenly be secondary, and this article would suddenly be flooded with "secondary" sources. As it happens, though, failure of WP:V forms no part of the nom's rationale. Failure of WP:BIO and the GNG does. For those keep proponents who claim that there is significant coverage in reliable sources, feel free to specify what those may be. For those who make OTHERSTUFFEXISTS arguments, if you believe that there are political stub articles that do not qualify for articles, feel free to propose them for deletion.
And I'll make one of those myself: good grief. In the county in which I live, there's a bridge named for a city councilor. There's a bridge named after a local (long, long defunct) United Spanish War Veterans post. There's a bridge named after a local Marine private who died in Vietnam. (And sure, there's a bridge named after a President.) Being the namesake for a bridge meets no notability criterion, nor should. Ravenswing 11:11, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

More nonsense. Per WP:SECONDARY, a secondary source is "at least one step removed from an event". The resolution was written in 2014 and details the events of the subject's life, starting with his birth in 1934, eighty years earlier. It is therefore at least one step removed from those events and so is secondary. Q.E.D. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:17, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That a secondary source is at least one step removed from an event does not thereby follow that everything that's one step removed from an event is a secondary source. Beyond that, I'm content to let consensus do the talking here. Ravenswing 12:07, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete impact is only local. Important to that community but not evidenced by broader sources. I encourage contributors to focus solely on the article rather than each other. Other Wikipedians seem to be getting more lines than the subject in this debate. PainProf (talk) 18:56, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Article is a classic WP:REFBOMB, with few sources discussing him and the main local Exponent-Telegram source by Murray reused five times. Nice resume with activism in his local community, but this doesn't reach Wikipedia notability. There's a lot of generic highway bridges and people do like handing out memorial namesakes. Thanks Andrew D for your OSE complaints: yes, we should delete articles on athletes sourced only to statistics websites too!! Reywas92^Talk 21:56, 8 August 2020 (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.