Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daniel Koh (2nd nomination)

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 no consensus‎. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 12:42, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Daniel Koh[edit]

AfDs for this article:

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Subject fails WP:GNG and WP:NPOL. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:00, 20 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Politicians and Massachusetts. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:00, 20 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Mr. Koh has received enough press coverage and holds noteworthy office when compared to similar people. Koh is similar to Gina Ortiz Jones. A failed congressional candidate appointed to the Biden administration. MarblePolitics (talk) 22:34, 20 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: Without looking any further than the article, I see feature articles from the Boston Herald and the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune giving significant coverage to the subject, and it's disquieting to see that those sources were in place when the nomination was made. Given that the nomination was made in a flurry of other edits, if WP:BEFORE was done at all, it was done hastily and sloppily. Just on the basis of those two sources I'd give this a GNG pass -- leaving aside what other sources are out there -- that the subject doesn't meet NPOL is irrelevant. Ravenswing 12:18, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Never mind that just simply typing "Daniel Koh" + "Boston" into a Google News search also turned up significant coverage in the Boston Globe [1] and shorter pieces in the Boston Business Journal [2], the New York Times [3], Bloomberg Law News [4] and the Andover Townsman [5]. It took me a good bit longer to type all this out than it did to find those sources, and I hope we can trust in the nom's good sense to withdraw this nomination promptly, and to exercise more care with the next AfD. Ravenswing 12:30, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Is Deputy Cabinet Secretary a notable role for NPOL? I don't think WP:GNG is met based on those sources, since one's a 40 under 40, another is directly on him but is more about finding someone who has ADHD than his own notability (but is clearly the best one), the Bloomberg is what we would describe in the sports world as "routine transactional", the NY Times simply quotes him for an entirely different story, and the Andover Townsman isn't GDPR friendly. SportingFlyer T·C 12:35, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You're tossing out the Herald and Eagle-Tribune sources as well? Ravenswing 19:38, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The Herald coverage is speculation he'll run for lieutenant governor, which we typically classify as routine political coverage. The Eagle-Tribune also isn't GDPR friendly (not accessible here). SportingFlyer T·C 00:20, 22 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
GDPR is the European privacy regulation; the editor is likely in Europe, and rather than comply with the directive, they block access to the site in Europe to avoid issues. Oaktree b (talk) 14:44, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Deputy Cabinet Secretary does not meet NPOL, though obviously this would not preclude him from being notable through GNG. Can you clarify what you mean by GDPR friendly; I'm not sure what this means? Curbon7 (talk) 21:20, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Wondering that myself, and whatever it is, what notability guideline explicitly debars it. I also admit this is the first time I've ever seen reference to "routine political coverage" as disqualifying an otherwise valid source from notability; wouldn't that apply to ANY article about ANY politician? Ravenswing 05:07, 22 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We typically delete political candidates who may even pass GNG on the grounds that anyone running for office gets a certain level of coverage and typically redirect them to the page of the election they ran for. That's even a step below that - this person might run. Same with low-level elected officials. I'm also not arguing GDPR is disqualifying, just that they're local websites which don't follow GDPR guidelines and so aren't accessible to me. SportingFlyer T·C 09:07, 22 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Let's try again: to what are you referring when you say "GDPR?" What notability guideline cites it as a valid reason to disqualify a GNG pass? (The only definition of the acronym I can find refers to the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, which can't possibly refer to a United States citizen, and it would be flat out absurd to think it had any connection with a newspaper putting its articles online.) What do you mean by "not accessible here?" I can access those sources just fine, and in any event you're well aware that even being behind a paywall or being offline doesn't disqualify a source.
With that, you can't have it both ways. You can't claim that otherwise reliable, valid sources are disqualified from the GNG (and again, what guideline says so?) if they're concerning a candidate running for public office, and in the next breath concede that they're not concerning a candidacy for public office, but for some reason they're disqualified anyway. Ravenswing 02:30, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am saying I cannot access these sources because American websites do not comply with the GDPR and as such are not accessible in my location. I am not trying to disqualify those specific sources, though they appear to be from very local news publications. One appears to be a "local guy makes good" article from the headline, though. SportingFlyer T·C 07:55, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
See my above comment about the GDPR. Privacy regulation that most American sites choose not to comply with. We have PIPEDA in Canada that's the same idea; the US doesn't seem to have privacy laws as robust as other areas. Oaktree b (talk) 14:45, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per sources identified by Ravenswing. @SportingFlyer: a comment in good faith as you appear unaware: it's not at all hard to get around GDPR restrictions - free VPN services are readily available and more than adequate to check US news sites. FWIW, I don't feel there's community consensus on the application of "routine coverage" here ... there's a lot of devil in that detail and nothing explicit in WP:ROUTINE that includes elections. Coversely, elections almost by definition are routine so it's somewhat contradictory to claim that local election coverage is routine but say, US Presidential election coverage is not...what's significant in determining notability here is scale, not recurrance. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 13:06, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's fine - I was just noting I hadn't seen those articles. But I still stand that he's not notable - what exactly is he notable for? He lost an election where the winner had 18,000 votes, he won a very local election with 2,700 votes, he opted not to run for lieutenant governor. Is he notable because he works in the White House? Is he notable because someone wrote an article discussing his ADHD? Because those are the other two options, unless notability is simply "the local paper wrote one feature article on him."

We also consistently delete unelected candidates for office for a number of different reasons. We even consistently delete articles on elected mayors who have only received local coverage. The fact any candidate will receive some level of ROUTINE coverage being only one of them. And if this particular article is scale over recurrence, there's no scale here. SportingFlyer T·C 13:17, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would emphasise the distinction between demonstrating notability through the existence of in depth reliable sourcing and demanding what a subject is notable for. The GNG/BASIC requires the former, not the latter. Asking questions such as "Is he notable because he works in the White House?" is misleading to the extent that the *sources* determine the answer to this, not our opinion of work in the White House. There are plenty of people working in the White House who lack indepth RS coverage, ipso facto, no article. On the other hand, people working in the White House with in depth coverage in multiple RS are notable by our guidelines. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 10:58, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Goldsztajn that the reason why someone garners enough coverage to meet the GNG does not matter -- the community has consistently declined to limit GNG passes to only those purportedly "worthy" of receiving media coverage.
With that, c'mon. Yes, articles are deleted all the time of local politicians getting passing mentions in local weekly papers. I strongly disagree that we routinely delete subjects for whom feature articles can be found in Pulitzer Prize-winning publications with continental scope. Ravenswing 11:32, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Upgrading my comment to a delete. Koh fails WP:NPOL as someone who has only won very hyper-local election, so isn't de facto notable as a politician. The sources identified all have some problem with them.

In the article:

Boston Herald article is routine election night coverage for a primary recount;
Local election results aren't SIGCOV;
Boston Herald article talking about how he might run for lieutenant governor, which he ultimately didn't;
His biography from an organisation where he's a member, not secondary or SIGCOV;
An ADD blog where he talks about his struggle with ADHD;

In the AfD so far:

A Boston Globe article where he talks about his struggle with ADHD;
A Bloomberg Law article which is a short biography about how he moved to the White House;
A New York Times article where he's simply quoted;
His listing in a 40 under 40, which generally isn't considered for notability;

I cannot access sources about how he started marathon running.

On the whole, this looks like SIGCOV, but for what? In order to get him over the GNG line for being a politician you have to combine a feature article about how he has ADHD with an article about he might run for an office he didn't ultimately wind up running for, neither of which are related to the thing he's most wiki-notable for: losing a primary election. He's simply a failed candidate who hasn't made any sort of impact outside of being a failed candidate. SportingFlyer T·C 12:57, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"One the whole this looks like SIGCOV" - so that's a pass of the GNG. NPOL is a positive test for inclusion; a subject does not fail NPOL the result of which provides justification for deletion, it simply means the criteria of NPOL are not satisfied for presumption of notability. Not satisfying NPOL does not mean all other criteria we use for assessing notability cannot apply. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 20:31, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's significant coverage of ...the fact he has ADHD? SportingFlyer T·C 20:55, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Where does the GNG require us to assess what the significant coverage is for? That's a content discussion, not a notability discussion. We have a subject with significant coverage, just because he's a minor political functionary/representative does not exclude him when he meets our notability criteria. NPOL contains presumptive inclusionary criteria, not exclusionary criteria. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 22:19, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well, failed candidates getting deleted fall under WP:NOT, where someone can still receive coverage but not being notable enough for the encyclopedia. He's notable for being a failed political candidate. The wrinkle here is that there are two pieces of coverage outside the election which look okay, one talking about how me might run for a race he never ran in, the other profiling him for having ADHD, which wasn't about politics. I simply am applying common sense here and think that those two pieces of coverage aren't enough to make him a "notable" failed candidate. SportingFlyer T·C 14:00, 26 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think this discussion shows the challenge of relying on GNG to determine which subjects should receive a stand-alone page. I agree with SportingFlyer that the sources are not that significant - the Boston Herald article about a possible run really doesn't contain much information about the subject (despite the headline) - but if we add the ADDitude piece, I can see how we get to a technical GNG pass. That said, just because a subject may be notable, our guidelines do not require a stand-alone article be created. So, we have a subject that may just pass GNG, but may fail ten-year test of an international encyclopedia. - Enos733 (talk) 17:08, 26 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Leaving aside that is neither policy nor guideline, the consequence is nevertheless that deletion is not answer. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 10:13, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No, WP:NOT is clearly a guideline we use, and there's several prongs of NOT this satisfies. SportingFlyer T·C 14:30, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, I was referring to the ten year test. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 09:52, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz ^Humbug! 02:44, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Weakest keep. I agree that WP:GNG is probably not a good guideline to apply here. I also don't think WP:NOT applies here to the failed candidacy, because the application of NOT would be NOTNEWS or NOTWHOSWHO, but if this person is notable, it's for multiple things, so these would not apply. For similar reasons BIO1E and BLP1E do not apply.

So the remaining question, I think, is: is this person notable, under WP:BIO as a moderately successful politician who is ADHD?. The politics and ADHD are linked in this only-partially-secondary source[6]. Because of the fact that we would have to rely on this type of source to connect the notable aspects, I'm just not quite sure. I slightly lean keep because WP:BASIC is explicitly flexible in pulling bits of notability from multiple sources, and we have no BLP or V issues, and no other NOT issues either. —siro χ o 07:52, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Moderately successful is a huge stretch, the only election he's won he won with 3,000 votes. SportingFlyer T·C 18:01, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, CycloneYoris ^talk! 05:54, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. BLP of a politician whose political accomplishments are near zero, now on staff of another politician. We don't need articles like these.—S Marshall T/C 09:39, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, deputy cabinet secretary isn't notable from what I can see. I don't really care what the mental health issue the person has, it really has no bearing on notability. Oaktree b (talk) 14:39, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Chief of staff to the mayor of Boston isn't notable, the person that held his Federal deputy cabinet secretary post doesn't have an article, these combined don't equal notability. High level assistant staffer perhaps in both cases. Oaktree b (talk) 14:42, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I see at least three sources meeting GNG: the cited Herald article, the cited ADHD article, and the Globe article linked by Siroxo. GNG is the controlling policy here regardless of if NPOL is met. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 15:02, 6 September 2023 (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.