Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ken McDonald (politician)

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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. No meeting of the minds occurred here, and there were reasonable policy arguments advanced by each side. The article has been made more neutral, and I encourage editors to aggressively ensure that it remains so prior to the election. No prejudice to renomination should the subject not prevail. Xymmax So let it be written So let it be done 23:48, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ken McDonald (politician)[edit]

Ken McDonald (politician) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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WP:BLP of a person notable as the mayor of a town of 25K — which is not large enough to confer automatic inclusion rights on a mayor under WP:NPOL — and as an as yet unelected candidate in a future election — which is not a claim of notability that gets a person into Wikipedia if they haven't already passed an inclusion rule for some other reason. The sourcing here fails to adequately demonstrate that he's more notable than the norm for a small-town mayor (e.g. by virtue of having become well-known outside of his local area), so there's no strong basis for an exemption from the 50K-minimum test for mayors, and candidates do not get articles just for being candidates — so he'll absolutely be eligible for an article if he wins his seat on October 19, but nothing here adequately demonstrates that he's earned an article today. Delete, without prejudice against recreation in October if he wins. Bearcat (talk) 16:28, 29 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Toffanin (talk) 17:35, 29 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. Toffanin (talk) 17:36, 29 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment (changed from Delete) non-notable local politician with WP:ROUTINE coverage, Wikipedia is not a free host for election campaign adverts Kraxler (talk) 00:10, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:ROUTINE wouldn't cover this because that only covers the truly routine: press releases, individual sport games, etc. While some of the stuff in the article is local, the NALCOR dispute is with a provincial crown corporation and over a major provincial energy infrastructure project, and is definitely not "routine" as defined by WP:ROUTINE..-- -- Patar knight - chat/contributions 08:06, 11 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The Nalcor controversy would qualify as WP:BLP1E if it was a major controversy, since it is the only thing that got him a little extra attention. If it was a minor controversy it's still part of WP:ROUTINE, minor controversies happen everywhere, even in the smallest populated places. Did any national neswpaper report on the Nalcor controversy? Kraxler (talk) 13:07, 11 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This article doesn't meet the criteria for WP:BLP1E. McDonald is not just notable for one thing, since he derives coverage and notability from his elected office as well as events he did in that office (e.g. Nalcor). As mayor of a major provincial municipality, and now a federal candidate, he's not a low profile individual, but a very public one, which BLP1E explicitly does not apply to ("WP:BLP1E should be applied only to biographies of living people and to biographies of low-profile individuals."). Yahoo New Canada saw fit to mirror the CBC articles on Nalcor [1], [2]. Though lack of national coverage (especially where there's significant amounts of provincial and local coverage) doesn't make it routine as defined in WP:ROUTINE. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 19:02, 12 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest you read again WP:NPOL # 2 "Major local political figures who have received significant press coverage". And WP:NPOL # 3 "Just being an elected local official, or an unelected candidate for political office, does not guarantee notability, although such people can still be notable if they meet the primary notability criterion of 'significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject of the article." The refs in the article are not in-depth on McDonald, and a few stories in local newspapers/TV can not be considered "significant coverage". Kraxler (talk) 19:19, 12 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As I've noted throughout this AfD, my position (backed by a reading of POLOUTCOMES) is that as regionally important mayor, McDonald counts as an major local political figure. The article clearly goes beyond his electoral record and cites instances where's he's made provincial and regional new (e.g. Nova Scotian news and Atlantic Canada news for his construction projects), which I think constitutes significant and independent coverage. The NALCOR articles are entirely about McDonald's role in the dispute, and of the other sources, one is an interview with the leading provincial paper and another is with a 1v1 interview with NTV, a leading provincial television network. These are IMHO in-depth sources. Even if there is no national level coverage, the depth and frequency of provincial sources (yes by accident of geography, CBS is on the Avalon Peninsula along with St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, so all major provincial news outlets are technically local), combined with his position as a regionally important mayor are enough to justify keeping the article. Since we fundamentally disagree on the definition of the terms, it'll be up to the closing admin to decide. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 02:12, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Interviews with the subject in media don't count toward satisfying WP:GNG, because they involve the subject talking about himself. To count toward GNG, a source has to involve other people talking about him. Bearcat (talk) 17:02, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I brought up the interviews to show that there were clearly in-depth, non-cursory coverage of McDonald among the refs. All the other sources in the article are independent, non-interviews and are mostly similarly in-depth. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 21:20, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Probably the most ridiculous nomination I've ever seen; the man is clearly notable, has received substantial coverage in the media during his mayoralty, and is the political candidate for a major position. The sources "adequately demonstrate" that he deserves an article. And, by the way, your link, WP:NPOL mentions nothing about a mayor needing 50,000 residents to be notable. SuperCarnivore591 (talk) 18:32, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
NPOL # 2 says notable are "Major local political figures who have received significant press coverage. This is a minor local politician, major local politicians hold office in a capital city or in a city with a million inhabitants, or in cities known all over the world. I've never heard about Conception Bay South before, and I'm a geography buff. Sorry, but guidelines should guide us, not be treated with contempt. Kraxler (talk) 23:54, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
We have lots of articles on minor politicians who don't hold office in a capital city or in a city with a million inhabitants or cities that are known all over the world, see Rhode Island House of Representatives and scroll down to the list of members, nearly all of them are blue links. SuperCarnivore591 (talk) 00:26, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Those are state-level politicians, not local ones — a state legislature is an entirely different level of office, with an entirely different set of applicable notability standards, than a city council is. Kraxler is mostly correct about what our standards for local politicians are — to be fair, our standard for mayors isn't actually as restrictive as our standard for city councillors is, but CBS still isn't large or prominent enough to pass our standard for mayors and it's in no way equivalent to a state or provincial legislature. And you can't just read WP:NPOL and think you fully understand our notability standards for politicians — you also need to read WP:POLOUTCOMES. Bearcat (talk) 03:36, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"is the political candidate for a major position" carries no weight under Wikipedia's inclusion standards. As already explained, being an unelected candidate for a seat in the House of Commons is not a notability claim that gets a person into Wikipedia in and of itself — if you cannot adequately show that he was already notable enough for a Wikipedia article before he became a candidate for a seat in the HoC, then he has to win the seat, not just run for it, to become notable enough for a Wikipedia article. And no, you haven't adequately shown that he garnered sufficient notability from the mayoralty either. Bearcat (talk) 03:52, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Talk about deletionism, those are essays, not policies. SuperCarnivore591 (talk) 04:08, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Read WP:ONLYESSAY if you think that assertion carries any weight whatsoever. Bearcat (talk) 04:11, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The point is I don't agree with the essay. Notability of McDonald is established by his references in reliable sources. SuperCarnivore591 (talk) 04:28, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Not if those reliable sources are covering him in the context of a role that doesn't qualify him for an encyclopedia article, it isn't. Local media have an obligation to cover local politics, so coverage of his candidacy for an office that he hasn't been elected to yet falls under WP:ROUTINE, not WP:GNG — and once you discount those sources, what's left isn't even approaching the lower edges of the volume of coverage of his mayoralty that it would take to grant him NPOL #3 or a GNG-based exemption from our minimum population standards for mayors. Bearcat (talk) 04:38, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
User:SuperCarnivore591, NPOL is a guideline, not an essay. POLOUTCOMES is a mirror of the past (aka "precedent"), not somebody's personal opinion (as most essays may be). ROUTINE and GNG are guidelines too. Accusing people of trying to delete an article for no other reason than being "deletionists" violates WP:AGF which is a fundamental principle (two steps above guideline). Kraxler (talk) 15:10, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The fact of the matter is that too many people have strict standards for article inclusion, such as a mayor needing 50,000 residents for an article. SuperCarnivore591 (talk) 15:13, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Standards follow consensus, established by the community. If the subject fails the standards, there's not much we can do about it. We have actually (currently at AfD) articles on city councillors who got less than 300 votes in a Chilean city, and the author thinks that these are extremely important people. So, some editors use their own standards when it comes to include their favorite subjects here, but everybody is supposed to bow to the community standards. That's why we have guidelines. Kraxler (talk) 15:33, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
And POLOUTCOMES says "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". In this case, the mayor of the second largest municipality in Newfoundland and Labrador would in fact be a major local figure in the province, whereas the same would not necessarily be true for a mayor of a similarly sized municipality in a more populous province like Ontario or Quebec. Since coverage of McDonald in the article goes beyond the fact that he's CBS's mayor, I don't think POLOUTCOMES applies here.-- -- Patar knight - chat/contributions 08:06, 11 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia grants no weight to where a municipality ranks in any given list of municipalities. The only automatic "exemption" that's granted for a city below 50K is if it's the capital of a state, province or country. And the only way the coverage goes anywhere beyond the fact of being a mayor is into his as yet unelected candidacy for a more notable office. He'll be eligible for an article if he wins the federal seat, but nothing here gets him over any of our inclusion rules now. Bearcat (talk) 04:01, 12 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me that POLOUTCOMES disagrees with you, because it specifically mentions "regional prominence" as a factor in evaluating AfD candidates. A municipality of 25k in a province where it's the second largest of its kind has regional prominence. A similarly sized one in a province where it would't break the top 50 municipalities (e.g. Ontario) would have considerably less regional prominence. The article goes into some detail about events during his term as mayor as expected of an article on a mayor. My position is that based on his current elected position and the available sources, he's notable enough for his own article. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 19:51, 12 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"Regional prominence" is not defined as subjective to the relative size of other municipalities in the same area; it's defined by longstanding AFD consensus as either (a) a minimum population of 50K, or (b) special allowance for a few cities (e.g. Charlottetown) which fall below that figure but are a state, provincial or federal capital. Absent one of those two conditions, it's either "more notable than the norm for cities of its size, for some substantively nationalized and well-sourced reason", or bust. Bearcat (talk) 17:08, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If "regional prominence" is not defined as prominence in the region, than the phrase should be removed from POLOUTCOMES and explicitly replaced with the requirements that you and Kraxler have repeated throughout this AfD. No more of this, "these have always been the unwritten rules", when essays like POLOUTCOMES are the places for such matters of longstanding AfD consensus. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 21:20, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You're the one concocting your own self-serving definition of "regional prominence", not me. The problem with your interpretation is that even a village of less than 100 people can be argued as "regionally prominent", if one defines "region" narrowly enough — which is why AFD has a longstanding standard, fully established by thousands of prior AFDs, for what size of community is or isn't accepted as satisfying "regional prominence". And accordingly, it's not within your right to dictate what the people who are familiar with the established precedent are or aren't allowed to say "more of this" or not — consensus makes the rules here, not you. Bearcat (talk) 23:15, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That's a strawman; no one is advocating that broad of an interpretation of "regionally prominent." I've said that CBS is regionally prominent because it's the second largest municipality in a top-level sub-national polity (in this case, a Canadian province). I don't think this is an unreasonable exception to the 50k population or capital consensus on a case by case basis where reliable sources exist. I also don't think it's unreasonable that if the 50k population/capital is the precedent set by most past cases, that it should be stated as such in POLOUTCOMES, which is meant to be a repository of common AfD outcomes. I was not trying to dictate what others can and cannot say, I was just expressing my unfavourable opinion of arguments that are essentially "this is the longstanding precedent" without linking to a policy/guideline/essay to back those specific claims about precedent. I apologize if I came off as trying to silence other participants.---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 23:46, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Close call. Elected mayor of the second largest town in a province — still small, so borderline under the Special Notability Guideline for politicians. I am satisfied that this is a GNG pass based on footnotes showing on the page, however — he's a public figure. Carrite (talk) 04:28, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, —☮JAaron95 Talk 06:08, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Mainly per above. The subject has received significant coverage in reliable sources per GNG, so it should be kept. Winner 42 Talk to me! 22:17, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak delete He's getting CBC coverage (which I assume is national) but I agree with Bearcat that as only a candidate for a country-wide election he is on tenuous grounds for a WP article. As a winner of that election, he could well be notable. But if he loses, will this article be revised? Deleted? Or will it just linger here? That to me is the main reason to wait until after the election. LaMona (talk) 04:20, 6 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify, while the CBC as a whole is certainly a national entity, the coverage in question isn't coming from the national news division — it's from their local news bureau in St. John's, so it doesn't prove that he's actually getting coverage anywhere outside of his own local area yet. Bearcat (talk) 16:07, 6 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The "local" news bureau in St. John's serves the entire province of Newfoundland and Labrador. While it's not the national bureau, it's also not as local as the Shoreline News source, which is a CBS local paper. Regional CBC bureaus combine a mix of local journalism and serious journalism that could be used to show notability. -- -- Patar knight - chat/contributions 08:06, 11 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There's a difference between "getting provincewide coverage because he's actually a figure of genuinely provincewide notability" and "getting provincewide coverage only because the media outlet in question only has one bureau in the province, and thus every single story they cover automatically goes provincewide whether it's actually of any meaningful provincewide interest or not". McDonald is in the latter camp, not the former. The CBC is obviously a reliable source in principle — but by virtue of the way the CBC is structured, all CBC local bureau coverage, not just in St. John's but everywhere else in Canada too, automatically gets redistributed to at least half of its entire province, so the local bureaux can't in and of themselves prove that a person of local notability has passed the "covered outside his own local area" hump. Bearcat (talk) 17:00, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, regional CBC bureaus produce banal local news, but they also produce quality journalism. Doing a rudimentary google search of the CBC.ca site also shows that McDonald gets about twice as much coverage as other Newfoundland mayors except for the mayor of St. Johns. This argument also ignores the coverage from non-CBC sources like the St. John's Telegram, Atlantic Construction News, Newfoundland Television, the Nova Scotia Business Journal. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 21:20, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The quality of the journalism that the CBC does isn't the issue (go ahead and just try to find where I said anything even slightly disparaging of the CBC's journalism as a matter of principle.) The issue is the scope of notability that the journalism in question demonstrates — the fact that NTV and the CBC's station in St. John's have repeater transmitters outside of St. John's as well does not automatically nationalize their local coverage of local personalities and issues in and of itself. Bearcat (talk) 23:00, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
My point is that because the output of the regional bureaus is a mix of local journalism and issues of provincial importance, judging scope isn't as well-defined as you make it out to be. As you said you can't prove that a person covered by those bureaus is covered outside the local area. However you also can't just dismiss all coverage from the regional bureau as not showing that the mayor of CBS gets coverage from more than the local area. Actions taken by McDonald as mayor have been published in non-Newfoundland journals like the Nova Scotia Business Journal and Atlantic Construction News. McDonald also gets widespread coverage at the provincial level, including more CBC coverage than any other non-St. John's mayor. I think these demonstrate his regional importance and that national coverage isn't necessary in this case. The case of Christine O'Donnell is irrelevant because O'Donnell was just a candidate and never held any elected office of the mayoral level of higher, whereas McDonald has. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 00:24, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. He's the mayor of the second largest municipality in a Canadian province and has sufficient independent sourcing to meet the WP:GNG as well as to merit inclusion under WP:NPOL. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 08:06, 11 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
All candidates in all elections always generate local coverage, so that type of coverage does not contribute to getting a person over WP:GNG — an as-yet-unelected candidate for office gets over GNG only if the coverage nationalizes in a Christine O'Donnell sort of way. And there isn't enough coverage of him specifically in the context of his mayoralty to grant him an exemption from the fact that our inclusion standards for mayors require a minimum population of 50K — they are not based on where the municipality ranks in a list of the province's municipalities arrayed by population, but are based solely on the raw population figure itself. Bearcat (talk) 03:57, 12 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You keep saying a mayor needs at least 50,000 residents in his town/city to be eligible enough for inclusion, yet haven't provided a link to a Wikipedia policy that says so. That's because it is not true. Nowhere in our policies does it say that. Please provide a link to this so-called "inclusion standard." A person being a mayor just needs to generate sufficient, third-party independent coverage to be considered notable, not to have a minimum of 50,000 residents. SuperCarnivore591 (talk) 04:12, 12 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You're right. There's no requirement for 50k, it's more like a million inhabitants, except provincial/state/national capitals. And there's WP:GEOSCOPE, I asked up there, and will ask again, has any national or foreign newspaper reported on the Nalcor controversy? If not, it remains local ROUTINE coverage. On a side note, I find it odd, that an editor of one month of Wiki presence is trying to lecture experienced AfD participants on the guidelines. Kraxler (talk) 18:00, 12 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That's quite an arbitrarily high requirement. GEOSCOPE applies only to events, and in any case, McDonald has gotten repeated coverage in several reputable provincial news sources. An editor of one month who's made nearly 2k edits is more than welcome to participate in AFD discussions and argue for a side. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 20:15, 12 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Kraxler, you still haven't provided links to any policies that a mayor would need 50,000 inhabitants to have a Wikipedia article in provincial/state/national capitals, much less 1,000,000 (!) for mayors who serve every other kind of population. I know the 1,000,000 figure definitely can't be right; I can't imagine any such bogus requirement. Notability is not based on raw numbers. And another thing, please don't try to wikilawyer out of this by saying I can't criticize your AfD actions because I've only been here for a month (I've been here longer than that). SuperCarnivore591 (talk) 20:25, 12 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There is no absolute (or actually any) number written in the guideline, my comment was based on WP:POLOUTCOMES, precedent and experience in AfD discussions. That doesn't bar you from arguing for the contrary. Back to the main issue, this seeming to be a very borderline case, I'm giving the subject the benefit of the doubt, and strike my !vote. Kraxler (talk) 14:47, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
50K is an established consensus established by a wealth of past AFD discussions on mayors of similarly-sized municipalities; those past discussions have indeed established a long-standing precedent that in a city of this size, coverage of a mayor has to nationalize, demonstrating significance far beyond the purely local, before they can be granted an override of the population size criterion. It doesn't have to be explicitly written into policy to be relevant and true; one needs to also be familiar with the conventions and precedents that AFD has established, and a 50K minimum for a mayor to get "automatically in because mayor" rights, with exceptions granted only if you can properly source "way more notable than usual, because national coverage", is one of those established precedents. Bearcat (talk) 16:43, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Kraxler, 1,000,000+ is the approximate minimum standard for city councillors, not for mayors. The minimum standard for mayors is considerably lower than that. Bearcat (talk) 16:43, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm quite experienced in AfD matters, but I wasn't aware of the 50K consensus for mayors. Thanks for telling me about it. However, I think it is too low, and I expect future arguments about notability-by-size in future AfDs, considering the appearance of new users at these dabates who are likewise unaware of such consensus, and no written rule which specifies this number. We'll have to be patient, like Sisyphus. Kraxler (talk) 17:07, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Borderline keep Article passes WP:GNG (although borderline) even though it probably fails WP:NPOL. MrWooHoo (talk) 02:06, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. probably speedy delete as G11, if another admin agrees. I note the adjectives in the article, making OR claims about political matters. This is essentially a campaign biography. His previous position is not notable, and neither is his campaign, butthe real problem is promotionalism. DGG ( talk ) 04:01, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    I just made edits to make it more neutral. To be fair, the sources themselves used words like "controversial" and "upset", though I've removed the former. I've kept the use of the word "upset" because that's how the sources described the mayoral election result [3][4], though I have added an in-text attribution per the advice in WP:WORDS. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 06:45, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The blatant campaign advertising was my prime concern, as can be seen in my first post, way up there. Maybe the article should be trimmed down to half the current size. The elections will be held in a month, and we'll be older and wiser by then. If he wins the article stands anyway, if not... Kraxler (talk) 17:13, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've cut down the article text by about 40% and removed all material that I think could be seen as promotional. Although it's not a valid deletion argument, projections for the electoral district McDonald is running in gave him nearly a 90% chance of winning the riding. -- -- Patar knight - chat/contributions 21:20, 14 September 2015 (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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