Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lewis Francis Byington

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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. Notwithstanding other potential issues with this article re: COI, I am satisfied that consensus supports this article meeting the notability threshold. Daniel (talk) 14:08, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Lewis Francis Byington[edit]

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Lewis Francis Byington (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Maybe slightly more notable than common citizen of the time, but not notable enough to surpass GNG threshold. Every elected district attorney tends to get some coverage. The The National Cyclopædia of American Biography entry does not cover anything about the article's subject beyond the name appearing in the list of children. Graywalls (talk) 23:12, 21 February 2021 (UTC) -clarify: have a closer look in the birth year in Cyclopædia. That entry is for the article subject's father. The article subject does appear in that Cyclopædia entry in the listing of his father's children, a truly trivial coverage. Graywalls (talk) 10:55, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note, this reference is only there to provide a citation for the relationship to Byington as the son of Lewis Byington, an early pioneer of Sierra County, and Catherine (Freehill) Byington. Please see secondary sources listed below that meet WP:GNG. --Greg Henderson (talk) 16:43, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Graywalls (talk) 23:12, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. Graywalls (talk) 23:12, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. CommanderWaterford (talk) 23:14, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. Greg Henderson (talk) 21:20, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The essence of notability is someone who is set apart from his peers. This is a great article and it is the reason we are building this encyclopedia. The subject is therefore notable per WP:BASIC and WP:GNG:
  • He is the author of several books including the two-volumes: Byington, Lewis Francis (1931). The History of San Francisco. S. J. Clarke. OCLC 9592779. OL 6768917M.
  • He was elected president of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which provides water and electric power services to the city. He held this position until his death in 1943.
  • He was elected San Francisco District Attorney, serving from 1900–1905, which is noted in the biographies from the book: History of the Bench and Bar of California.
  • He is listed at the Library of Congress at Byington, Lewis Francis, 1867-
  • He was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, which is noted in a secondary source, the book:San Francisco Its Builders, Past and Present : Pictorial and Biographical · Volume 2, 1913, S.J. Clarke, p. 249 COI editor: --Greg Henderson (talk) 00:30, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: A newspapers.com search for "Lewis Byington" turns up 3,427 hits from 1868 to 1942, and a search for "Lewis F. Byington" turns up 2,734. Examples from just the first page of results: 1 ("civic leader ... whose hand helped shape the government of San Francisco for nearly half a century"); 2 ("for many years prominent in public affairs in the Bay area"); 3 ("eminent author on history of San Francisco"); 4; 5. Surely, Graywalls, that counts as "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject"? --Usernameunique (talk) 01:09, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Usernameunique:, His FATHER is also named Lewis Byington and the father is in National Cyclopædia of American Biography. Is your search result specific to the article's subject and not his father? The hits attributed to his father that do not involve the son do not count. I searched before nominating and I had Netherzone look over a well it didn't seem like the son met GNG. Graywalls (talk) 01:57, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Graywalls, his father is named Robert Lewis Byington—those 2,734 hits for "Lewis F. Byington" would not refer to the father (and clearly don't, as the examples above demonstrate). By the way, I didn't get your ping, and Netherzone probably didn't either—you need to sign your comment with the ping to make make the ping work. Repinging Netherzone to be sure. --Usernameunique (talk) 02:47, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Possibly: - Take a closer look at the entry in the The National Cyclopædia of American Biography, it is for his father, also named Lewis Byington, not for this Lewis Francis Byington, the son. The entry simply lists LFB as one of his father's children. It's smoke and mirrors and puffery, similar to many of the Henderson family and extended family articles. Netherzone (talk) 19:07, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Netherzone: you are correct! I have struck my k !vote, and since that source was the one that tipped my opinion, I will go d. Possibly (talk) 19:51, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly, your initial reason for keeping the article mentioned the dictionary of national biography "as well as numerous other sources". He might not be in a dictionary of national biography after all, but what about those other sources (some 3,000, it appears)? --Usernameunique (talk) 20:41, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Usernameunique: Just as I did, I think you may have confused the two Byingtons. Also, there aren't 3000 sources: that is a number generated by the search engine that reflects the number of results, whether they are related or not. For example, I just googled my real name and got "About 361,000 results". Similarly, "purple rabbit doorknob" returns "About 3,290,000 results"; "purple rabbit door knob cheesecake party live video stream" returns about 2.9 million results. Those numbers mean very little other than the number of "possibly" related results.Possibly (talk) 20:46, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly, they don't share the same middle name (or initial), so the 2,734 newspaper.com hits for "Lewis F. Byington" could only mean the subject of this article. That's a lot to comb through, but the five I pointed to above were all on point. --Usernameunique (talk) 20:55, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I was talking about Google. You cannot take the "3000 results" to mean anything relevant for notability purposes as a name check will give you a result. I just tried "Lewis F. Byington" as a quoted phrase in Google and it says "3020 results, but then only gives 88 results over eight pages. The very large majority of the results are namechecks. The longer ones are wiki pages copied from here. Possibly (talk) 21:02, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Got it, Possibly. I would expect the reason the Google hits are so low is because they predominantly reflect sources created in the last 20 years or so. For someone by Byington, who died half a century before he could benefit from the internet, a newspapers.com search will generally give far more results. (And other than false positives, it doesn't have the same issue Google has, where '300,000 results' all of a sudden becomes 100 without any explanation.) --Usernameunique (talk) 21:11, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
FYI, I never knew Lewis F. Byington and he is not part of my immediate family. If you search for "Lewis F. Byington" on Newspaper.com you get 2,607 matches. California itself has 2,435 matches. When you open each match there is information about Byington from 1887 to 2000. --Greg Henderson (talk) 16:13, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
He is part of a semi-walled garden of articles you created on your family and extended family geneaology per: [1] and [2] and others that all lead to Greg Henderson. But aside from that I'm not entirely convinced of his notability esp. given the exaggeration that exists/existed in many of these articles. I'm willing to change my !vote if there is enough convincing evidence to prove that he was truly exceptional in relation to the thousands of other minor politians of his time. Right now there is not. Netherzone (talk) 16:58, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the feedback. I have written over 100 articles and now have moved on to write about the Northeastern U. S. Pilot Boats. I really enjoy Wikipedia! With the Lewis F. Byington article, written back in 2007, I was attempting to highlight the fact that he was elected District Attorney and Supervisor of San Francisco, California, and to show notability based on the fact that he had received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject. --Greg Henderson (talk) 17:31, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep based on the extensive research of Usernameunique Delete - These ancestry/geneaological articles on this extended family are WP:COI and considerably puffed up per WP:PUFF. This individual was a minor local politician, and does not meet the criteria for WP:POLITICIAN; local district attorneys do not get a free pass. Not even state or national DA's get a free pass. I'm even a bit skeptical about the obits, as prominant families often submit them to newspapers to keep the family name in the public eye. Does not meet WP:BASIC nor WP:GNG. He was born into a prominant family, held some jobs, had some hobbies, joined some clubs, he died. WP:MILL. None of his positions were notable, it's puffery. Regarding being in the library of congress, that's puffery.....even I'm in the freaking LOC! It's no big deal. Netherzone (talk) 21:32, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If you look at WP:POLITICIAN (bullet #1) Byington was a members of the California legislative body; (bullet #2) He was a major local political figures who have received significant press coverage as seen is list of primary sources. --Greg Henderson (talk) 17:31, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please keep in mind the following sources that prove WP:BASIC and WP:RS:
  1. Encyclopedia of American biography, page 240: Lewis F. Byington's six years as district attorney marked him as a leader among his fellow-citizens.
  2. History of the bench and bar of Nevada, page 247 During his office he prosecuted and secured conviction of many of the most important criminal cases in the history of San Francisco.
  3. San Francisco; a brief biographical sketch of some of the most Prominent Men, page 46 Mr. Byington's brilliant record, on the Board of Supervisors, which lead to his being tendered the nomination for District Attorney in 1899.
  4. Byington wrote several books about history and gave speeches to California Historical Society, e.g. quarterly. v.3-4 1924-25. Early Mining Days in Sierra County.
  5. San Francisco County Biographies History of the San Francisco Bay Region, volume= 3, page 332.
  6. California Review by Henry F. Pernau, page 5 Lewis F. Byington, Grand President of the Native Sons of the Golden West.
  7. Men who made San Francisco, page 124 He has secured the greatest number of convictions of any district attorney in the history of SF.
  8. I encourage other editors to work on the article too, standardizing the format or copy-editing or adding content. --Greg Henderson (talk) 06:09, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Having again read through this and looked at sources on Lewis F. Byington, I think his case for notability can be summarized as follows. Likewise, I've summarized the arguments against notability made thus far, and added my thoughts on them.

  • The case for notability:
  1. He meets the third notability criterion for any biography, as he "has an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography or similar publication" (link)
  2. Being district attorney of San Francisco, in and of itself, likely meets the notability standards for politicians, where "precedent has tended to favor keeping members of the main citywide government of internationally famous metropolitan areas such as Toronto, Chicago, Tokyo, or London." No surprise, then, that 12 of the 14 San Francisco district attorneys since 1900 have Wikipedia articles. Ditto for Philadelphia; Los Angeles; Boston; Denver; Seattle; and Pittsburgh. (Undoubtedly others too, but these were the easiest to find lists of on Wikipedia.)
  3. He has "received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject", meeting the basic criteria for notability of a person.
  4. He has "received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject", meeting the general notability guideline.
The sources referred to in #3 and #4 are not mere mentions stitched together into a narrative; they are thousands of articles, frequently in the headlines and on the front pages of newspapers, that span decades, and every aspect of Byington's life and career. The following selection does not even scratch the surface of the nearly 3,000 articles that appear on newspapers.com for a search of "Lewis F. Byington": 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9; 10; 11; 12; 13; 14; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22; 23; 24; 25; 26; 27; 28; 29; 30; 31.
  • The case against notability:
  1. Byington does not appear in The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (per Graywalls, Possibly, & Netherzone). But Byington has two pages to himself in the Encyclopedia of American Biography—the exact same thing, as far as the notability standards for biographies are concerned.
  2. Searches for "Lewis Byington" are turning up mishits for Lewis F. Byington's father, Robert Lewis Byington (per Netherzone). This simply isn't true. There are thousands of results for "Lewis F. Byington"—the "F." being a middle initial not shared with his father—and as the selection above shows, they are about Lewis Francis Byington, not his father.
  3. Byington is "Maybe slightly more notable than common citizen of the time", while "Every elected district attorney tends to get some coverage" (per Graywalls). That's like saying Cy Vance is "slightly more notable" than the average New Yorker—it just doesn't pass the straight-face test. Meanwhile, Byington appears in thousands of articles, hardly just "some coverage". And only 10% (274 of 2,769) newspaper.com hits for "Lewis F. Byington" are from 1900 to 1905—his tenure as DA—showing a prolonged period of relevance.
  4. "None of his positions were notable" (per Netherzone). But as discussed above, the DA position almost certainly is. And even if the others weren't (or so I assume without reading into them), Byington's notability rests primarily on the sources about him, not his positions.
  5. The article is a puffed-up COI piece (per Possibly and Netherzone). Sure, the COI is a reason to look critically at Greghenderson2006's takes. But it's not a reason to delete an article on an otherwise notable subject.

--Usernameunique (talk) 07:58, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I'll leave it to other editors more familiar with these sources to chime in on "similar" with regard to "has an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography or similar publication". I'm not familiar enough with the particular source in question but did notice there's over a 100 fold difference in page views of the page for Encyclopedia of American Biography vs Dictionary of National Biography. It's not just about view counts but keywords like national, international and American can be misleading as similar names don't have to mean similar. Graywalls (talk) 18:39, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep His death had a long write up they wouldn't do with just anyone. Other evidence found showing his notability. [3] and second page continued at [4]. Dream Focus 19:00, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep- easily passes both WP:NPOL and my standards for lawyers. He was on the governing body of a world-class city-county and DA of a huge, crime-filled city-county. Bearian (talk) 15:18, 26 February 2021 (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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