Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Don Gerard

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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 no consensus. J04n(talk page) 19:02, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Don Gerard[edit]

Don Gerard (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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This article has very little notoriety. Looking at the history, the subject himself was actively involved in the creation and maintenance of this page. Page is full of puffery, such as describing his playing in a bunch of non-notable bar bands as "seminal". He's a small town mayor who has had little exposure and the people who maintain the page are personally known and involved with the subject. Jamminjimmy (talk) 02:42, 10 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep person suggesting deletion of the page is doing so as a vendetta due to personal and legal conflicts with the subject of this page that has nothing to do with of the notoriety or the accuracy of info. all info in this article is factual and verified with proper references. Jamminjimmy has no other wiki history other than trying to delete this article. Bob Andrews UTOW (talk) 05:43, 10 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. czar · · 04:04, 10 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Illinois-related deletion discussions. czar · · 04:04, 10 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Regardless of the alleged motives of the nominator, the mayor of a town of 81,000 people is not inherently notable by WP:POLITICIAN and I can't find any significant non-local coverage of his role as mayor (the Google News hits when you add "Champaign" to the search term are almost all from the Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette or the Daily Illini, the newspaper of the University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign). That leaves his musical activities, which I don't have the expertise to evaluate against WP:MUSBIO; however, I note that none of the bands he played in has a Wikipedia article and the article's editors (apparently including Gerard himself) seem to consider his music to be less important than being a facilities manager at UIUC, since that's mentioned in the lead and his music isn't. To me, this suggests that he's not notable as a musician. Dricherby (talk) 10:42, 10 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I feel I should explain my thinking on local vs. non-local sources. WP:POLITICIAN says that local elected politicians aren't inherently notable. Since the mayor of any town large enough to have its own newspaper is going to receive large amounts of WP:ROUTINE coverage in that newspaper, it seems to me that non-local coverage is required to demonstrate that a person is more notable than the average local politician (i.e., more notable than not notable at all). Even a substantial "Here's a profile of your new mayor"-type article in a local newspaper is the sort of thing you'd expect for any local politician so maybe even that wouldn't be enough. (And, in any case, notability requires multiple sources.) Dricherby (talk) 08:48, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. HAL may be shocked, but there is not substantive coverage on policy. Some minor and local personal scraps, perhaps spilling over on WP. Couldn't find something to meet WP:MUSICIAN.Truth or consequences-2 (talk) 16:25, 10 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I think the article is poor, but can be improved. I'm going to try to dig up some more reliable sources and improve the content some. I'll find it a picture, too. The self-editing and bickering has resulted in a low quality article, but I don't that it should be removed. WP:IL has ranked it as mid-importance, too. NegatedVoid (talk) 02:53, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks – that's a definite improvement but thereare still no non-local sources, other than the single paragraph article in the Chicago Reader. Dricherby (talk) 08:13, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Added some more environmental stuff. The plastic bag stuff was covered extensively in Chicago based sources. Still searching for more. NegatedVoid (talk) 15:25, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • There's some more coverage of Gerard's (non-environmental) policies at [1]; adding more local sources to that would probably provide more detail. Dricherby (talk) 15:45, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]


  • Delete I agree with the consensus here. This subject fulfills none of the notability criteria and seems to be frequented by campaign supports to burnish the image. Specifically noteworthy is subject himself was heavily involved in creating and maintaining page. Hackwayinteresting (talk) 02:27, 14 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • weak keep Semi notable for two unrelated reasons (music and mayor), lots of passing references collectively lead to barely passing WP:GNG imo. Gaijin42 (talk) 18:37, 14 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • WP:GNG explicitly requires significant coverage and not just passing references. Dricherby (talk) 19:31, 14 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and possible bad faith nomination. A person with the same name as Jamminjimmy has been in a public legal battle with the subject of the article [3]. Gerard is the subject of multiple press articles. The subject of PCBs in the Clinton landfill [4] brings back dozens of different articles, alone. This seems to meet criteria 2 of WP:POLITICIAN. eaolson (talk) 03:05, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • OK, the first ten hits for that search are:
  1. The Don Gerard Wikipedia page
  2. The Warren County PCB Landfill Wikipedia page (not a reliable source)
  3. A petition (not reliable)
  4. An article in the local newspaper that makes three trivial passing mentions of Gerard (he says it's "crucial" to have Senators involved and makes two comments, the longest of which is twelve words).
  5. An article in a student newspaper (not usually considered reliable) that mentions Gerard only in passing.
  6. Another article in the student newspaper that spends a few sentences talking about Gerard's opinions on the landfill: that might be enough for "substantial" coverage but it's not in a reliable source.
  7. An article in a newspaper from a town 50 miles away, which is verging on non-local but which only gives passing mention to Gerard.
  8. An article on the City of Champaign website: not an independent source.
  9. A different newspaper's word-for-word reprint of 7.
  10. A presentation of the front page of the student newspaper that includes 6.
Some of those are fine for using as sources in the article but none of them is the "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" required to establish notability under WP:GNG. Dricherby (talk) 08:01, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, per eaolson's rationale. This smacks of bad-faith nomination, especially with the nominator having submitted for, and subsequently denied, an order of protection against the mayor. The subject of the article barely meets criteria 2 of WP:POLITICIAN, but barely is good enough. Justinm1978 (talk) 18:55, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Eaolson's rationalle has been refuted, therefore by WP:PERNOM your !vote has been nullified as well. Assuming (with an open mind) that the nominator has a personally motivated reason, by bringing it to AfD a wide range of editors can evaluate if it makes sense for the article to be deleted or annother action to take. Leveling the "bad-faith nomination" allegation, however is bad faith and a violation of WP:AGF and further weakens the collective position of the "keep" collective. Hasteur (talk) 12:54, 20 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge. This could easily be in the City of Champaign page and be done with it. It seems only people in Champaign have a vested interest in this page staying around. 64.134.175.178 (talk) 22:48, 16 May 2013 (UTC) — 64.134.175.178 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
  • Comment I am not sure why WP:LOCAL is appropriate as a guideline to support a merge or redirect, especially for local politicians. I generally support lists of mayors or lists of councilmembers of small cities or towns (especially since the alternative can be an incomplete list of local elected officials that pass WP:GNG or WP:POLITICIAN. A redirect to the locality would not provide a reader with any information about the individual they search for and a merge only makes sense if the individuals is the current officeholder, but that would open a new can of worms. Me sense on this AFD is a weak delete per Dricherby. Enos733 (talk) 00:08, 19 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete / merge. Article reeks of vanity autobiography, and most of the sources are just namechecks. Guy (Help!) 23:27, 19 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, bad faith on the part of the nominator aside, I don't see how this person is just more than another small town mayor. Coverage is pretty much all local, doesn't meet WP:POLITICIAN as far as I can tell. Lankiveil (speak to me) 11:05, 21 May 2013 (UTC).[reply]
    • WP:POLITICIAN says that a Wikipedia article is appropriate for a politician at any level of government if such people "meet the primary notability criterion of 'significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject of the article'. So, no, just being a mayor isn't enough to qualify for an article, but just being a mayor doesn't disqualify someone from having an article.
  • Keep. I've done some cleanup of the article, including adding a new section with three sources. The city (Champaign) is large enough (80,000 people) to not just be a small town (and thus having small-town coverage), and Gerard is interesting enough (as shown by the number of newspaper stories about him) that I think the article meets the criteria for notability. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:10, 21 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • On the other hand, Champaign is small enough that nobody can find significant coverage outside the city's newspaper, and the notability guidelines include nothing about being "interesting enough". Dricherby (talk) 20:02, 21 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Also, the material you added is the epitome of small-town coverage: his ex-girlfriend and some guy he had an argument with have applied for protection orders against him. The ex's additional application for an emergency anti-stalking order was rejected and the other guy's application was also turned down. I removed the latter from the article as it gave undue weight to what was, essentially, a non-event. The three sources were all local: two from the city newspaper and one from a newspaper in a town 50 miles away. Dricherby (talk) 21:17, 21 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - we have almost always kept the articles of mayors of middling-to-large cities. Bearian (talk) 18:16, 22 May 2013 (UTC) To quote WP:OUTCOMES, "Mayors of cities of at least regional prominence have usually survived AFD, although the article should say more than just "Jane Doe is the mayor of Cityville"." Bearian (talk) 18:18, 22 May 2013 (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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