Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Garth Steek (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 delete. Kurykh (talk) 01:13, 18 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Garth Steek[edit]

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Delete. WP:BLP of a person notable only as a city councillor, in a city not internationally prominent enough to hand its city councillors an WP:NPOL pass, and as a non-winning candidate for higher office. While consensus formerly accepted Winnipeg as a city that got its councillors into Wikipedia on the grounds that it was listed in the article on global city, that's more recently been deprecated because it was listed only in the "sufficiency" class of quasi-global cities and not as a true alpha, beta or gamma class world city. But what we have for sourcing here is not enough to get him over WP:GNG in lieu -- this is based on just two pieces of WP:ROUTINE local coverage of the election campaigns, with no evidence of sources that are substantively about him. This is not enough to demonstrate a city councillor as more notable than the norm, which is the standard that Winnipeg's city councillors now have to meet. Bearcat (talk) 20:21, 9 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Bearcat (talk) 20:21, 9 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Manitoba-related deletion discussions. Bearcat (talk) 20:21, 9 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete city council members at this level are not notable.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:09, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - As a local city councilor, fails to meet WP:NPOL. Article makes no claim to notability and subject has not received significant coverage in reliable independent sources to establish WP:GNG. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:22, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep- What leads editors to conclude that "subject has not received significant coverage"? Based on the most cursory of searches, I came across this recent article suggesting that the subject remains active and relevant. I think that an exhaustive search would yield a lot more results. If you delete all this work will need to be recreated if that search is conducted.

I would add that classifying tiers of cities seems imprecise at best and more likely unfair and predjudicial. Bangabandhu (talk) 23:36, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A city councillor has to receive more than purely local coverage to qualify for a Wikipedia article, so that article doesn't assist anything. The reason we make exceptions for the top tier of international global cities is that they do routinely receive much broader national and/or international coverage than city councillors in small cities do — I'm Canadian, and I can personally name more municipal councillors in New York City than I can in even the suburbs of my own city, because city councillors in NYC get nationalized coverage where city councillors in Pickering ON or Vaughan ON generally don't. And local coverage of local politics always exists, so we would always have to permit articles about every municipal councillor in every village of 50 people if local coverage alone were enough. So to make a city councillor in Winnipeg notable enough for a Wikipedia article, you would need to show coverage in the Vancouver Sun or the Toronto Star or The New York Times, not just in the Winnipeg Free Press or the local Metro. Bearcat (talk) 00:14, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I understand the point that you're making, though I think "every village of 50 people" is a bit of an exaggeration. My concern with these relatively indiscriminate nominations for deletion is that few editors are taking the time to really see if that broader coverage exists. Because its been nominated for deletion, the assumption is that additional coverage doesn't exist if it's not cited in the article, which leads to the conclusion that deletion is appropriate. In this instance, and I suspect many others, the subject has received national coverage and it is important that the entry remain. Why delete knowledge in this page and the work that went into it? Much better to err on the side of caution. Bangabandhu (talk) 01:36, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That link doesn't represent substantive national coverage that strengthens his WP:GNG claim at all. It's not a substantive article about him published by the CBC's national news division — it's a glancing namecheck of his existence in a blurb whose primary subject is Glen Murray, and which was published by the CBC's local news bureau in Winnipeg. Bearcat (talk) 16:02, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think this shows adequate sourcing beyond the basic citations of an officeholder in Winnipeg. At the risk of violating protocol by mixing threads, you commented elsewhere that "so those councillors can still get Wikipedia articles if the necessary depth and volume of sourcing can be shown, but are not guaranteed inclusion on the basis of just one or two sources." We're well beyond one or two sources for this entry. If he were in a different, larger city - say, Calgary? - then he wouldn't need any of these sources - but because he's in Winnipeg and has a bunch of other sources, many of which are quite interesting, he's a target for deletion. That seems mistaken. Bangabandhu (talk) 03:45, 14 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You're still misinterpreting what I'm saying. In a global city (and only in a global city), you can start the article on the basis of one or two sources which confirm that he exists, but the article does still have to get improved from there before it's actually on safe ground as a thing we're going to keep forever. Even in Toronto, there have been municipal councillors who got deleted because better sourcing never actually materialized. What it gets is "the benefit of the doubt", because in a global city it's perfectly reasonable to expect that the depth and volume of reliable sourcing needed to pass GNG does exist even if it hasn't been properly shown yet, but it does not get a permanent exemption from ever having to be sourced better than just one or two sources — it just gets a "grace period" during which it does still need to be improved, and can still be deleted if it doesn't. But in a non-global city, the necessary depth and volume of sourcing might still exist but is far less guaranteed to exist — so in that class of cities, the existence of the needed quality of sourcing has to be shown up front by the article as written.

But neither type of city councillor gets a permanent keep on the basis of one or two sources, with no improvement ever required — a global city councillor gets a temporary benefit of the doubt if the article isn't well-sourced yet, but does not get a permanent exemption from ever having to be sourced as well as a non-global city councillor does. Both types of city councillors do have to clear GNG for an article to be kept permanently — the only difference is that a non-global city councillor has to be shown to clear GNG right up front, while a global city councillor gets a temporary grace period of "okay, you have X number of days or weeks to get this article over GNG", but even the global city councillor's article can still be deleted if that improvement doesn't happen. If the necessary depth and volume of sourcing fails to materialize for some reason, then the global city councillor does still fail NPOL #3 and does still get deleted.

And no, a 100-word blurb about Glen Murray reshuffling his executive committee positions is not "adequate sourcing beyond the basic citations of an officeholder in Winnipeg" — it's WP:ROUTINE local coverage of a routine local political announcement, which in no way demonstrates that Steek is somehow more notable than the norm for a city councillor. It is a basic citation for the fact that he exists, not a "beyond the basic" citation for his existence warranting Wikipedia's attention. Bearcat (talk) 14:54, 14 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That's helpful. It might make sense to make it explicit by exactly when those sources need to materialize to avoid deletion. I think the model used by the Deaths in 2017 could be something to go from as they have a standard 30 day requirement for entries. I think you (or editors with consensus) should state this grace period. Its troubling looking back and seeing that these are second nominations. There was not much reason to delete them when they were AFD'd before or support for deletion. I wonder if this is more of a herd mentality at play (and an quick interpretation of NPOL) rather than actually looking at the articles on their merits. As far as I can tell, the guidelines haven't changed, but editor's interpretation has.

Also I think more benefit of the doubt is warranted. You're saying that you've given them X days, but maybe at that point you should tag it for discussion. Have all of these pages have the "needs additional citations" tag applied before they were nominated for deletion? That seems fair if the initial goal is to help them achieve adquate references before they're nominated for deletion.Bangabandhu (talk) 18:11, 14 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Two things. 1) Consensus can and does change. In the case of "global cities," there was a presumption that the city councilmembers could be presumed notable (and the presumption of notability is that mere confirmation that the subject serves in a particular office is sufficient sourcing for an article is sufficient). That consensus is under going change. 2) WP:BLP states that "editors must take particular care when adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page." Thus, for the creation of biographies, there is a presumption of privacy. Additionally, for information on people "who are not well known," editors should "include only material relevant to the person's notability, focusing on high-quality secondary sources." --Enos733 (talk) 21:08, 14 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I understand that consensus can and does change, but I wonder how many editors outside of those who frequent AFD discussions are familiar with the shift. I certainly wasn't. I bet there are many others like me who have edited pages about local politicians and would be surprised. So I wonder how broad any emerging consensus really is. The other thing is that it seems like editors are interpreting consensus "under going change" as new, widely held consensus. There ought to be a lively, detailed discussion for each one of these entries. Instead, it seems like editors are citing "new consensus" and basing their decisions to delete based on that, without, at times, even reading the article. This is especially troubling for living subjects who are still active in government and likely to have more notability over time. If they're on the cusp of notability we ought to give them the benefit of the doubt because more coverage will come - as suggested in another thread, there should be a grace period that is consistently followed. Pages improve incrementally, so if you pull the plug on something while its still improving, you're losing all that work which, if recreated based on new articles, is likely going to take a while to reach is pre-deletion state.

As to your point about standards for bios, I agree with you about the importance of high quality sourcing. I only use reputable secondary sources and expect the same from other editors. But that's a dimension for these discussions that hasn't come into play, perhaps because many editors aren't even reading the sources and only looking at whether the subject and their title fits with consensus. Bangabandhu (talk) 14:12, 15 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There's no "emerging" new consensus that the standards for determining the notability or non-notability of local politicians is changing at all — the consensus that most local politicians don't qualify for an automatic presumption of notability has existed for about a decade, and really hasn't moved all that much beyond a bit of debate about whether a few particular cities happen to fall on the "presumed notable" or the "not presumed notable until shown to pass GNG" side of the line. The only thing that's changed recently is our depth of commitment to actually getting stuff cleaned up or deleted that isn't complying with the longstanding consensus, not the consensus itself. Bearcat (talk) 18:10, 16 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that clarification, I was using another editors words when I wrote emerging consensus. I think this is an important discussion and support the aim of cleaning up wikipedia, but I think the AFD debate is often counterproductive. It ought to focus more on how articles can be improved to meet standards (is that included in what you mean by "cleaned up"?) and only deleted if there is certainty that can't be achieved.

Also just to highlight an earlier point because I think my comments about consensus overshadowed something more important. It seems like the decision tree should be "Is there a presumption of notability? > Is there enough other content on page for notability? > Is there enough content elsewhere that is not on the page that can be added? > Is there other content that is likely to be added or become available very soon?" If the answer to all those questions is no, then deletion makes sense. Instead, the decision tree for many editors is more like "Is there a presumption of notability?" if the answer is no, it's my impression is that the other questions that should follow are biased towards no, if they're even asked at all. The upshot is that there's a jump towards deletion instead of the more tedious, but important task of searching for cites and improving content. Bangabandhu (talk) 20:10, 16 February 2017 (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.