Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/George William Burleigh

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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 keep. JohnCD (talk) 19:06, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

George William Burleigh[edit]

George William Burleigh (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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No indication that this person is notable. He fails WP:SOLDIER IMO, as he is only a colonel and I doubt that Ninth Coast Defense would qualify as a large body of troops. There is no evidence in the article that his achievements as a lawyer or civic leader make him notable Gbawden (talk) 07:20, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep A rank doesn't determine whether someone is notable or not. It is determined by reliable sources. An obituary in the New York Times, for instance, denotes notability. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 13:38, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I don't have access, and won't pay $4 per article to find out if significant coverage is provided in each article, but a search of the google news archive shows the New York Times has dozens of articles where he is mentioned, most heavily in the early 1930s. Evidently he and his wife were real socialites. 78.26 (I'm no IP, talk to me!) 14:35, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep There are indications that this person is notable. WP:SOLDIER is an essay and so carries little weight. In any case, this person was not just a soldier but a person of substance acquainted with heads of state. Warden (talk) 16:14, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:07, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:07, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:07, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment please see WP:NOTINHERITED, subject isn't notable themselves just because they are an acquaintance to multiple heads of state. For instance, a long-serving janitor at the White House maybe an acquaintance to numerous Presidents but that doesn't make the person automatically notable.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:07, 4 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There are different grades of Légion d'honneur, what grade is it? Please see the note regarding this at WP:SOLDIER. Also, is there a reliable source that verifies this awarding?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:56, 4 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep There is multiple coverage in reliable sources, and he was an important business leader.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:16, 4 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Delete, subject has received passing mention in multiple non-primary reliable sources, that being I cannot properly evaluate whether some of those mentions give significant coverage of the subject and/or have the subject as the primary subject of the source due to many of these sources being behind a WP:PAYWALL. Therefore, failing having accessible significant coverage of the subject, I cannot say the individual passes WP:GNG or WP:ANYBIO. Furthermore, being a COL does not denote notability as defined in WP:SOLDIER. Moreover, he only received the lowest grade (Chevalier) of Légion d'honneur, which does not provide automatic notability (additional reference).--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:32, 4 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Per WP:SOURCEACCESS, sources are not required to be online because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a search engine. If someone writes articles from a book in a library or a newspaper archive then that's fine. If you are unable to evaluate the sources then your opinion is of little value because it is not informed. In any case, specific sources are only required for exceptional claims or direct quotations. Nothing here seems so controversial as to warrant such concern. Warden (talk) 14:21, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I understand that references are not required to be available online, but we are also required to verify that the sources exist; moreover, we are suppose to determine whether the subject is notable as defined by WP:GNG, WP:ANYBIO, and WP:SOLDIER, and whether the subject has received significant coverage in reliable sources. As I said, the subject has been mentioned, but it is my opinion based on what I can verify that the subject has not received significant coverage from reliable sources.
If this coverage does exists, please let me know and provide examples. I can be wrong, I am not infallible.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:45, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • KEEP Sure, Burleigh is not Justin Bieber, but he's far more accomplished, far more notable and substantially more worthy of inclusion here. I consider it bad judgment that someone proposed this for deletion.--ColonelHenry (talk) 15:07, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The NY Times saw fit to write about his life and death. The article does need a rewrite. SalHamton (talk) 18:37, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
IMHO, having an obit in the NYT isn't sufficient to denote notability by itself as it falls under WP:NOTMEMORIAL. Otherwise all the service members who received lengthy obits in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and other major reliable source news organizations would automatically be considered notable per that reasoning. This would create over six thousand biography articles for U.S. and coalition services members who died during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
I would completely support that, but then let us then automatically begin a deletion review for all those biographies that were deleted under NOTMEMORIAL.
If the only significant coverage of the subject was the NYT Obit. then NOTMEMORAL clearly applies.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:51, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Please read this from the NY Times public editor about the criteria used to select who the NY Times write obituaries about. The editor writes:

We choose to write an obituary when it’s clear that the person in question had made a significant impact in a particular field, on the larger society or some segment of it, on the country, or even on the world. If the individual meets that test, then his or her death is news that we feel our national readership should know about.

The NY Times' obituaries aren't comparable to a local or regional paper's obituaries. They have strict guidelines because it's an international paper with limited space. The most significant paper in the country wrote about his death because of his "significant impact." You seem to think the NY Times writes an obituary for every US soldier. If you do think that then you are incorrect. Thus, I fail to see what this has to do with WP:NOTMEMORIAL. SalHamton (talk) 22:45, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
And did any other major newspaper of the period write an obit regarding the individual? If not, than the subject may not be that notable, and since the NYT also serves as a local paper for the NYC area, it could be viewed as only about a locally notable.
If the individual was notable outside of their own death than more significant coverage should be easy to find. Rather what we find is a bunch of brief mentions here and there but nothing that I can see that amounts to significant coverage outside of an obit.
Take the late Lady Thatcher, she has received multiple obits from multiple major news organizations, but before her death she had already received multiple significant coverage sources where she was the primary subject. I do not see that in regards to Burleigh.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 15:19, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:NOTMEMORIAL does not say or mean that obituaries are not evidence of notability. That's because an obituary such as we have here is prima facie evidence of notability. Such obituaries are the best kind of source for our purpose because, by their nature, they give a good summary of the person's complete life, including vital statistics which can be otherwise hard to find, such as the dates of birth and death. Warden (talk) 15:39, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So the individual is notable for a single event, their death. Don't know but that argument has been used for the reason to delete article, not a reason to denote notability. If the individual was notable during their lifetime, they would have received significant coverage while alive. If the person who is the subject of this AfD is notable, where is the significant coverage of the subject in the years after he died? Why only the obit?
Furthermore, the NYT states of its obits XYZ, but how do we know that was its policy in the early-mid 20th century when the subject died? Just because the NYT states XYZ doesn't mean that what they write automatically denotes notability.
Even if I were to concede that the obit constitutes significant coverage, where is the other significant coverage of the subject to show that the person was clearly notable outside of the local area which the NYT serves as a local paper for? Otherwise, all we can verify is a bunch of passing mentions, which if added up into a single source would not be make up a single significant coverage article where the subject of this AfD is the primary subject.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:28, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
An obituary of this sort doesn't just cover the immediate cause of death so we have more than one event. We also have other sources. Warden (talk) 07:14, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
And what are those other sources where the subject is the primary subject of the source, where the subject has received significant coverage?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 22:38, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
WP:SIGCOV does not require sources of that sort, saying that the subject "need not be the main topic of the source material. Warden (talk) 14:34, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It does require that the subject have received significant coverage, which I have not seen presented.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:50, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The New York Times does do a supplement to honor the war dead, and also did it for 9/11 and other mass killings. This is clearly not one of those special supplements or web only special page. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 20:43, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: If you search google books or news for "George W Burleigh" or "George Burleigh" instead of George William Burleigh you can find more on him. For example, his connection to Charles Lindbergh in The Big Jump: Lindbergh and the Great Atlantic Air Race by Richard Bak or an entire section on him in The Minute men of '17 (pages 176-192). You can also see the Princeton Alumni Weekly discussing him being one of four given the Legion on Honor. There are also endless government reports about his successful business there too. SalHamton (talk) 23:04, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep based on extensive coverage about him in multiple reliable and verifiable sources, with many more available and not yet included. Alansohn (talk) 18:41, 10 April 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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