Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lauren Grandcolas (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 (default keep). Valid arguments and concerns on both sides. No clear consensus could be determined fro m the discussion, and there was no indication that a relist period would resolve this. Defaulting to keep per guidance in the deletion policy. Jerry talk ¤ count/logs 01:56, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lauren Grandcolas[edit]

Lauren Grandcolas is notable only for making a call from United Airlines Flight 93, which is something many passengers did. Her actions are documented on that article. That she contributed to charities and roller-bladed around the neighborhood does not add to the fact that that was all she was notable for. Her book was published posthumously by her sisters and does not have its own article of notability. As quoted in WP:ONEEVENT: If reliable sources only cover the person in the context of a particular event, then a separate biography is unlikely to be warranted. VegitaU (talk) 19:31, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, no indication of notability outside of a minor role in a major tragedy. --Dhartung | Talk 01:20, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep It’s obvious that she’s notable in the real world by the number of references on her page. Wikipedia will never follow its WP:ONEEVENT policy. There are separate biographies for terrorists, assassins, and school shooters. All of those people are not notable outside one event. But wikipedia will always have biography pages for them. I don't think WP:ONEEVENT applies because wikipedia will never follow that policy. Steve8675309 (talk) 09:24, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: That Wiki will not enforce its own policy is not an acceptable rebuttal. This person has not received any notable award or honor or made any widely-recognized contribution to the historical record. Jarrah, Sirhan, and the Columbine shooters have all made their mark in history—albeit in a cruel and murderous way. -- VegitaU (talk) 14:40, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reply Stopping a terrorist attack is obviously a “widely-recognized contribution to the historical record”. Jarrah will only be remembered for botching a hijacking. That’s less significant than Grandcolas’s contribution, but Jarrah has a wikipedia page. As for awards, what “notable award or honor” did Jarrah, Sirhan, or the Columbine shooters receive? Steve8675309 (talk) 01:24, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is nothing in the record that suggests that she stopped anything. She made a phone call where she said goodbye to her family, like all the other twelve passengers and crew who got through. Read the Flight 93 article so I don't have to explain these things to you. -- VegitaU (talk) 18:05, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The crew and passengers, Grandcolas included, stopped the attack. Exact roles will never be known. Nobody knows which terrorists were in the cockpit and which were beaten to a pulp in the cabin before the crash. But all Flight 93 hijackers have wiki pages. Do you think that it is more notable to commit a terrorist attack than to stop one? I don’t.

And I prefer reliable references to things that appear to be written by teenagers off their meds, so I read Among the Heroes instead of the wiki article you mentioned. Cheers! Steve8675309 (talk) 16:49, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is no evidence Grandcolas participated in the revolt. None. There is evidence for others, but not her. You're speculating about her role. And obviously it's more notable to commit a terrorist act, because, without the commission, there can't be any counteractions. Congratulations on reading a book. -- VegitaU (talk) 17:01, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Readers want to know about these people, especially those who, like Grandcolas, were more discernibly active in response to the hijacking. And it is perverse to argue that this article should be deleted because other passengers do not have articles, in-so-far as it is demonstrable that some of those articles (such as that for Edward P. Felt) were given the bum's rush. (Felt's article was deleted, on its second nomination, with the pretense that three votes constituted a consensus.) —SlamDiego_←T 10:11, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: My main argument isn't that other people don't have articles, it's that Grandcolas does not meet the proper requirements seen in WP:BIO. Readers may want to know about Honor Elizabeth Wainio too, but Wikipedia is not about everything. -- VegitaU (talk) 14:40, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Whether it is your main argument or not, that awful argument should not be allowed to stand. And if readers want to know about Honor Elizabeth Wainio and an argument of properly sourced assertions canbe assembled about Honor Elizabeth Wainio, then there should be an article about Honor Elizabeth Wainio. Wikipedia is, first-and-foremost, an information resource in service of its readers, not some sort of guide as to what editors think should interest readers. Any reasonabl e“notability” guidelines are informed by that principle. —SlamDiego_←T 22:50, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong. Wikipedia is not a democracy. People don't determine what is acceptable by vote or popularity, the policies and guidelines in place do. And you especially need to read WP:BIO and WP:ONEVENT -- VegitaU (talk) 16:54, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What's wrong here, very wrong, is your willingness to pretend that WP:DEMOCRACY — a policy about editorial decisions not being decided by a democratic vote amongst editors — is to-the-point here. I was speaking about serving readers. And I wasn't speaking about popular belief determining content, but about popular interest being sufficient to justify having an article. —SlamDiego_←T 17:28, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Popular interest doesn't trump policy. -- VegitaU (talk) 19:17, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Depending upon what you mean by “policy”, that claim is either empty or false. It is empty if it refers to policy as a whole, which includes WP:IGNORE; response to popular interest informs policy. Your claim is false if it refers to each specific policy taken in turn, because some of those policies conflict one with another; hence WP:IGNORE. —SlamDiego_←T 20:04, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Read the intro for what I mean about "policy". -- VegitaU (talk) 20:51, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, so a specific policy then, and the claim is false (rather than true but empty). Worse, in this case, you patently misinterpret the policy that you wish to invoke. WP:ONEEVENT doesn't say that being associated with only one notable event precludes “notability”, so nothing is even attempting to trump the actual policy in any case. The policy cautions against an article about someone who was involved in ”a larger subject, but essentially remains a low-profile individual”; however, interest is exactly the determinant of profile. —SlamDiego_←T 21:24, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How is interest the determining factor? You decided that on your own. And how is she a subject of interest? We've all heard of Beamer, Glick, and Burnett, but I've never heard of this woman. The three I mentioned have won significant awards. I don't see anything particularly interesting about her. I say (once again) this isn't a democracy; Wikipedia works on consensus and there obviously is none here. And the argument that "she is interesting so she meets the criteria" is so flimsy it underscores why we have clear guidelines and policies. -- VegitaU (talk) 18:03, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, I didn't decide that on my own; it's basically a tautology: Whether an individual is high profile or low profile is a function of the interest that he or she manages to attract. Whether you like it or not, the people who placed phone calls from Flight 93 have attracted more interest than the ~3K other victims of the 9/11 attacks; we can see that by googling their names, as opposed to the names of other persons selected at random from comprehensive lists. I've already noted that WP:DEMOCRACY is a policy about weighing the opinions of editors, not a perverse policy of rejecting the interests of the readers. I suggest that you take a breath, look back, and see how far off the rails you have managed to run. —SlamDiego_←T 20:05, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would also add that the nominator has explicitly declared “Wikipedia works on consensus and there obviously is none here.” (Underscore mine.) In the absence of consensus, policy is that the article is retained. —SlamDiego_←T 17:09, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was referring to the comment above that one, asserting that "interest was the deciding factor", not about the deletion discussion. That's why we're discussing it! -- VegitaU (talk) 17:25, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The point that interest determines how high a profile were is ex definitione. Are we now to believe that you think that Wikipedia is in the habit of testing simple logic with consensus? No matter what plausible interpretation we place on things, we are still discussing things because you disregard or misrepresent actual policy. —SlamDiego_←T 17:42, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Notability guidelines are intended to prevent Wikipedia becoming awash with articles which are of no interest to anyone. 9/11 was one of those really exceptional events, like the sinking of the Titanic, where individuals like her who played only a minor part have become widely known and are described in many secondary sources. If Lauren Grandcolas had made a telephone call from, say, the 1997 hijacked Air Malta flight KM 830, then I would agree that she would not be sufficiently notable to deserve an article. In analogy, the Titanic's crew and passengers category contains dozens of people whose sole claim to notability is that survived the sinking. Jll (talk) 17:05, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Notability is not inherited. There were 37 calls made from Flight 93. Does each caller need an article? No. Her contributions are sufficiently covered in the Flight 93 article. -- VegitaU (talk) 17:10, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment It isn't a question of what she did, it is about how interested people are in her. If people are interested in a subject, then Wikipedia should have an article on it. Jll (talk) 17:17, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment That is exactly what article notability is not based on. -- VegitaU (talk) 17:21, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I disagree — the second sentence of WP:BIO has The topic of an article should be notable, or "worthy of notice"; that is "significant, interesting, or unusual enough to deserve attention or to be recorded." I think "interesting" here means that many people are interested in the person. Whether the person has done sufficient to "deserve" this interest is irrelevent. Jll (talk) 18:20, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

- You are almost perfectly wrong. “Notability” guidelines do not trump the priorities of interest of the reader. They are founded in an approximation of thoss priorities. (If resources were unbounded, then Wikipedia would be about everything. As it is, it must prioritize.) —SlamDiego_←T 22:52, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea what "the priorities of interest of the reader" means. What I am saying is, the assertion that an article should be kept because a reader may find it interesting on its own is a weak argument. -- VegitaU (talk) 00:14, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm not sure how I should respond to your admission that you can't understand that simple descriptive term. Meanwhile no one merely asserted that a reader would be interested in the article. —SlamDiego_←T 01:09, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can start by actually explaining it instead of making a snide remark. -- VegitaU (talk) 01:14, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, but you didn't ask a question for me to answer, because the function of your remark wasn't to seek an answer. Instead, you made an assertion, whose purpose was to discount an argument as unintelligible. —SlamDiego_←T 02:03, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent)It's your argument. I've rebutted it. -- VegitaU (talk) 02:31, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Ah, but now you've admitted that you weren't presenting a query, just discounting an argument as unintelligible. Well, your choir will perhaps cheer, but you'll not make converts that way. As I've already noted, the descriptive term in question was simple. —SlamDiego_←T 02:37, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't a political race. I'm not trying to "convert" anyone. This is a page for discussion. -- VegitaU (talk) 02:40, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If there were no attempt to covert anyone, then there would be no need for rebuttals (effectual or otherwise), nor for anything but a simple expression of one's opinion. The reason that you are responding is because you have a hope of converting someone (not me, as I suspect, but certainly in the audience) to your view. —SlamDiego_←T 02:44, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The people here don't make the final decision. The sysop reviews the discussion at the end and determines the outcome. Call it what you want—actually it seems you like to argue over pithiness—but, a discussion is a discussion. Now I'm done blathering on about the meaning of this discussion. If you have anything to say about Lauren Grandcolas, I'm all ears. -- VegitaU (talk) 02:54, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, actually, the closer is supposed to do no more than ascertain were consensus lies. But, even still (misunderstanding protocol or hoping for the closer to violate it), you would be attempting to convert the closer. I'm simply going to call it what it is. Again: You are trying to convert, but you're using methods that please only those who already agree with you, and not even all of them. —SlamDiego_←T 03:02, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete --I think the question should be asked whether Lauren Grandcolas would be regarded as notable apart from 9/11. I think we would say that she was just a NN journalist, who decided to write a book (as many journalists do). 9/11 was a notable event, and so were the events on the flight UA93, but we cannot have an article on all the victims of 9/11 WP:MEMORIAL. Peterkingiron (talk) 22:37, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. This is exactly the type of article WP:BLP1E was meant to address. The subject did not lead a notable life, did not materially participate in the single incident with which she was connected and was more along the lines of an involved bystander, and the resulting article is not a meaningful biography but is instead, essentially, an obituary. (Wikipedia is not a memorial.) The comments above citing wide public "interest" in her life are unsupported. --MCB (talk) 07:16, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Some Google results:

‘"Lauren Grandcolas" -wikipedia’ — about 3,640 hits

‘"Mohand al-Shehri" -wikipedia’ (one of the hijackers of Flight 175) — about 2,920 hits

‘"Fayez Banihammad" -wikipedia’ (one of the hijackers of Flight 175) — about 2,760 hits

‘"Douglas E. Oelschlager" -wikipedia’ (victim drawn at random from a large list of 9/11 victims) — about 39 hits

—SlamDiego_←T 08:39, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:GOOGLE: "A raw hit count should never be relied upon to prove notability." And notability is what we're discussing here. -- VegitaU (talk) 12:49, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- And, of course, it wasn't offered a proof, but as an illustration of relative interest. —SlamDiego_←T 19:33, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - notable because of her book --T-rex 14:54, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Writing a book does not make one notable... even if it's published posthumously. -- VegitaU (talk) 18:00, 19 July 2008 (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.