Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marcus Bachmann

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.

Delete.

The result was complex, and clearly from the debate below will be polarising.

Starting first from the nomination:

• Tarc's first sentence does not provide a clear policy-based reason for deletion.
• However, he then raises the issue of general notability, and in expanding on that...
• Finally refers to the biography of living person's policy.

The debate was marred by a large number of comments that did not address these issues, or made statements that called on facts not in evidence. This is really unfortunate. All deletion debates should be run as rational polite discussions where competing facts are presented collegially, those of living person's even more so.

Finally, to the content of this debate. (Please note that I'm totally ignoring any argument not based in policy, such as "we have these other articles.")

Speaking broadly, the keep argument was that there existed sufficient independent coverage of the article's subject to satisfy the general notability guidelines. Many of these arguments, however, fail to address any of the rebuttal points raised. Working up from the bottom to give a small sample:

• "The guy has been all over the news lately."
• "media outlets have covered him as a significant factor in her not unrealistic bid for president"
• "it seems beyond question that he has [become notable]"

That these later comments failed to address the problems raised with these sources is sub-optimal. If you come late in the debate, make some effort to make it clear that you've absorbed previous arguments and respond to them. Otherwise the closing adminstrator may take less from your comment than you intended.

Speaking broadly again, the delete arguments focused much more specifically on the sources provided, and in doing so demonstrated that significant coverage on the article's subject independent of his wife did not appear to exist.

Finally, the Foundation:Resolution:Biographies of living people instructs us to pay "special attention to the principles of neutrality." This is also important when considering Wikipedia:Notability (people)#People notable for only one event. Given the dearth of independent material on this article's subject I am deleting this article.

Aaron Brenneman (talk) 05:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Marcus Bachmann

Marcus Bachmann (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

I've never been accused of beating around the bush, so let me say that what we have here is crystal-clearly following in the footsteps of Campaign for "santorum" neologism; editors are creating WP:BLP articles on marginally-notable people that they don't like, so that said article will become a platform from which to criticize the subject. Not a single thing this man has done on his own meets our general notability guideline. He is the spouse of a current presidential candidate. He is the head of a religious clinic that attracted some press for offering conversion therapy. If the only things you can say about a person is that a) they have a famous spouse, and b) there are ideological outcries over a service that his organization offers, then that doesn't comes within a mile of the WP:GNG. Notability is WP:NOTINHERITED. BLPs cannot be allowed to serve as a coatrack for perceived anti-gay religious groups. Tarc (talk) 23:14, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

• Keep - I disagree with Tarc's analysis. COI: I wrote this stub. The article is heavily sourced to Marcus Bachmann-specific mainstream media stories, for which there are many, meeting WP:V. The lack of a Marcus article causes WP:WEIGHT issues on wp:Michele Bachmann, particularly in regards to his Christian counseling clinic, and his family's farm. Michele's long article has enough Michele-related controversy that lumping in Marcus-related issues is not optimal. Michele Bachmann's strong campaign has made him the focus of attention as a possible First Gentleman--only increasing--which is why in the spirit of Wikipedia:Wikipedia is comprehensive we have a strong interest to explain to our readers this subject neutrally, without speculation. On the article's first day of creation it had 2,000 views, showing this need exists; I imagine today's hits will be much higher. --David Shankbone 00:23, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
• Delete Per Tarc. Yes, Tarc, you may frame this. :-) Jclemens (talk) 00:30, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
  • To augment my argument, let me quote the article itself: "During the early days of his wife's campaign for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination, Bachmann stayed out of the spotlight." Hmm... WP:WIALPI? Check. WP:BLP1E? Probably. Jclemens (talk) 14:29, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
• Keep per David Shankbone. Articles on spouses of presidential candidates are pretty standard here. We've even got one on the wife of novelty candidate Dennis Kucinich, and Bachmann's gotten a lot more support and attention than he. Gamaliel (talk) 00:44, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
• Comment - These may be useful links for those who wonder where this article is headed: Dan Savage July 12 2011 podcast, Dan Savage blog post entitled "Marcus Bachmann's Big Gay Problem", Slate article entitled "Dan Savage:Bully", and Slate article entitled "Read My Lisp". Delicious carbuncle (talk) 00:45, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

DC, I think it's good that you found more mainstream media sources that address the subject in his own right, but I think that it's important that we avoid WP:SPECULATION and stick to verifiable facts for a BLP. --David Shankbone 01:14, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree. I'm glad we have this opportunity to work together again. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 03:02, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

So 'where this article is heading' is an attack on the subject's personal mannerisms and a series of evidence-free sneers that he's lying about his sexual orientation? Wonderful. Hope everyone who is voting 'keep' realizes what it is they are assisting. →StaniStani  06:23, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

• Speedy Keep: Flawed nomination. The subject has received mainstream media coverage, which means that he surpasses the Notability criteria. Spouses of major presidential candidates do normally get their own wikipedia articles in cases where they are extensively covered by the media: See Hadassah Lieberman, Kitty Dukakis, Todd Palin, Cindy McCain, etc. Victor Victoria (talk) 00:49, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

• All these people listed actually won their parties nomination for president or vice-president. But we don't have an article on, say, Conrad Chisholm, just because his wife ran for her party's nomination. Rlendog (talk) 19:08, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Good observation. Add Elizabeth Kucinich to the above list. Dennis did not win the nomination in either 2004 or 2008, yet she has a Wikipedia page because she has received media attention. Her article survived 3 AfD's. Victor Victoria (talk) 22:07, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

How could I forget Callista Gingrich? Shame on me!! Victor Victoria (talk) 22:24, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

In fairness, Gingrich's page contains no unflattering information and was probably written by her publicist. It is not fair to compare it with the Marcus Bachmann article. / edg ☺ ☭ 02:02, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

In fairness, Callista's page was indeed likely created by somebody who is close to her, as it was created by an SPA account who has done no other edits -- but that's irrelevant. The community has accepted the page and to date has edited it 219 times. Positive or negative is also irrelevant. The only thing that is relevant is whether the information is properly sourced and if the subject meets the notability criteria. Since both have been met, that's why I !voted for a speedy keep because the nomination is so flawed. The nomination is essentially an WP:IDONTLIKEIT because there is negative information on the page. Victor Victoria (talk) 04:02, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• Keep Notablity might not be inherited, but Bachmann certainly has been the subject of significant coverage in reliable sourcesSt8fan (talk) 00:55, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
• Comment. The subject will continue to be in the public spotlight so long as his wife is running for US president. I'm inclined to think that there hasn't been sufficient coverage yet to make meet the notability standard, but I strongly suspect that there will be more coverage in the near future and that it would put the article over the threshold. We could delete it now and recreate it in a week or a month, but I don't see how anyone benefits from exercise. So I suggest keeping the article now and thinking about deletion again in a couple of months.   Will Beback  talk  01:00, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm inclined to think the other way. Why should we keep an article on someone without adequate source material? Kevin (talk) 01:04, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
    • There are a dozen sources, so it's not exactly inadequately sourced. No material in the article is unsourced. In many respects this is article is significantly superior to a huge number of BLPs and other articles. But this discussions isn't purely about sources, just about notability.   Will Beback  talk  06:50, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
• Delete. Yes there is some mainstream media coverage, but nothing where he is covered in his own right. Kevin (talk) 01:00, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

"Nothing where he is covered in his own right," eh? I guess you missed this 4-page Washington Post profile, and this Associated Press piece, and this from the Minnesota Post, as well as the numerous articles about his clinic and his alleged "barbarians" remark. --MelanieN (talk) 02:11, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

• Keep- His notability is demonstrably his own, not his wife's. Umbralcorax (talk) 01:10, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

• Keep. Subject is covered in plenty of reliable sources, and (contrary to what Tarc says) not in merely a WP:INHERITED fashion. Deleting the article means we run the risk of coatracking the Michele Bachmann article as more and more of these stories about Marcus hit the national and international news. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:15, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

• Keep I think you've kinda jumped the gun here. This should have been discussed first before going straight to an AfD. There is pretty much only a single sentence in the article actually about the campaign. and the info in it not about the campaign can definitely be expanded with the sources out there. Silverseren^C 01:18, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
• Keep, bordering on strong. He's becoming the John Zaccaro of the 2012 campaign. There's a major piece on him and his business in today's New York Times, "Bachmann Husband's Counseling Center Raises Questions".[1] And that;s hardly the only coverage he's received, as a straightforward GNews search shows. There was a moderately lengthy profile in the Washington Post not two weeks ago.Michele Bachmann’s husband shares her strong conservative values. There's more than enough source material to write a solid article, and more than enough coverage to justify one -- in fact, it demands one. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 01:21, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
• Comment - Predictably, the Dan Savage standard-bearers are out in early force. We all know exactly what is going on here; this article was created by Shankbone for the same reasons that Cirt created the one on the faux santorum neologism. Not one of these insipid keeps has addressed a single issue of why this was nominated; there is nothing notable about "Marcus Bachmann" the man. What mentions there are in reliable sources are either in connection to his famous wife (WP:NOTINHERITED or to his clinic that (quite obviously and understandably) has earned enmity from the gay rights crowd. I'm quite aware that 2012 is shaping up to be one of the nastiest, most bitter years in American politics. But try...please, try...just once to not make the Wikipedia another front in your personal crusades. Tarc (talk) 01:27, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

This is not how NOTINHERITED works. No one's making the argument that the subject is notable because his wife is notable. The subject is notable because he has received significant coverage in reliable sources. The coverage probably would not have come if his wife were not notable, but it is coverage all the same. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:38, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Tarc, I don't think it does your argument any favors to Wikipedia:Assume bad faith. There's no evidence anyone has any interest in using this article to attack the subject. As it is written, it is neutral, informative and reliably sourced, and I have no more to add to it. We are all committed to WP:ENC and it's a shame you disparage. --David Shankbone 01:50, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Well said, David. Tarc has let his emotions get the better of him here. For the record, I disagree with Roscelese's statement that Marcus Bachmann has "received significant coverage" in RS. The majority of the source coverage is about his relationship with his wife and the controversy over his business practices. This has less to do with Marcus and more to do with his wife and business. Viriditas (talk) 03:41, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Roscelese can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what she's trying to say is that: yes, Marcus is getting all this attention because he's married to Michelle, but the attention is now on him nonetheless. Victor Victoria (talk) 03:56, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

That's a pretty good explanation of my position. Not every shady counselor gets national news coverage - this one happens to have got it because he has a notable wife whose campaign his shady counseling will affect, but it's still coverage of him, not of his wife. We don't decide that people are notable because of their relatives (ie. NOTINHERITED), but if reliable sources do so and consequently give them significant coverage, we go along with them. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:34, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

My emotions are just fine, sport, so kindly take your armchair psychoanalysis to someone who cares. AGF is not a suicide pact, and I will not give it where there is clear evidence of bad-faith editing. This article was created in bad faith. Those who are calling to keep it are acting in bad faith. Period. The "OMG RELIABLY SOURCED" argument is not the be all and end all of determining who gets a wikipedia article and who does not. When we have a case here where the man is only being talked about because of a famous relative, then we should consider not having an article. How many dozens or hundreds of conservative christians run these sorts of therapy clinics in the country? How many of them are married to a political candidate? Tarc (talk) 14:13, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

If there's evidence that David Shankbone or anyone else is acting in bad faith, then present it in an RFC or to Arbcom, please don't sidetrack this discussion with irrelevant personal accusations. Gamaliel (talk) 14:52, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

The "OMG RELIABLY SOURCED" argument is not the be all and end all of determining who gets a wikipedia article and who does not.. You are absolutely wrong, Tarc. See Jimbo's statement "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." Wikipedia is therefore supposed to have an article on anything and everything that is notable. Victor Victoria (talk) 20:00, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

My dear Vic, argumentam ad Jimboem doesn't carry a shred of credibility, so please don't waste my time with such nonsense. Your "you are absolutely wrong" pontification is demonstrably false, and I can point to many, many articles that I have had a hand in deleting as proof. Do we have an article about the woman fired from her job for having large breasts? No. Do we have an article on the reporter who suffered a mild aphasia episode live last year? No. Do we have an article on the JetBlue attendant who went on a tirade? No. Do we have an article on Daniel Brandt? No. Do we have an article on the time Barack Obama swatted a fly during an interview? No. This is an encyclopedia, not a vacuum cleaner. We choose what to chronicle and what to discard. every day. Tarc (talk) 22:28, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Tarc, would you please take a step back or tone it down? You're the only one in this discussion on either side who is gnashing teeth, making the questioning of others' motivations your central argument and being uncivil. The rest of us are discussing it calmly. I also ask you to please do the same on Talk:Marcus Bachmann. Comments like these[2][3] aren't helpful. --David Shankbone 23:04, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Silence, Shankbone. I will discuss the topic as I see fit. Your use of the Wikipedia to denigrate living people is far, far worse than me puncturing some thin-skinned egos. Stop wasting AfD space discussing me; discuss the topic. Tarc (talk) 23:12, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Heh--you're right and I apologize that your wild-eyed frothing distracted me. --David Shankbone 23:23, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I believe that characterizing intense debate as 'wild-eyed frothing' is over the edge of civility, David. Care to strike? →StaniStani  01:23, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

This whole discussion jumped over that edge a long time ago. Gamaliel (talk) 14:55, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

• Plenty of reliable sources about this guy. Keep it. -- Y not? 02:37, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
• Delete. Per nominator and WP:BLP concerns. Ripberger (talk) 03:19, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
• Keep Significant coverage in reliable sources. Qrsdogg (talk) 04:17, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
• Keep per Qrsdogg. Clearly there is significant coverage in multiple reliable sources. Meets WP:GNG.--JayJasper (talk) 04:43, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
• Keep per WP:HOTTIE. Voyager640 (talk) 05:41, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
• Delete another coatrack article created in the heat of a political campaign. Another example of using Wikipedia's high Google ranking to knock your opponent. This article is #4 in a Google search for the subject's name, and its payload is the 'reparative therapy' allegation. Regardless of the subject's political orientation, sleazy practices, or deserved obloquy, Wikipedia should not be used as an attack dog. →StaniStani  06:16, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
• Redirect: to some section of Michele Bachmann. The search term is legitimate; this article is not. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:39, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
• Redirect to Michele Bachmann. Marcus has stayed out of the news for many years now. While I sincerely applaud the LGBT community for finally saying "we're sick and tired of this bullshit and we're not going to take it anymore", the collected sources on this subject say little to nothing about Marcus as a person, and are mostly about the reparative therapy controversy and the wacky political positions held by his wife. The potential for very serious BLP issues here outweighs any encyclopedic necessity, and until the time comes that we have good, comprehensive sources about Marcus and his life apart from his wife and her political positions, this article only serves to cause trouble. However, I can also envision a good article that talks about Marcus Bachmann and reparative therapy somewhere other than a BLP, for example in our articles on conversion therapy, the ex-gay movement, religion and homosexuality, or my personal favorite that has not yet been created, homophobia and the Republican Party. ("The Republican Party has engineered a strategy for winning close elections by attracting the votes of homophobes, in particular by attacking proposals to allow sexual minorities to serve openly in the armed forces and efforts to achieve marriage equality for same-sex couples."[4]) As it stands, our current article on Marcus Bachmann repeats what already appears in the family section of the Michele Bachmann article. With that said, there is simply no need for an article on her husband at this time. Viriditas (talk) 07:37, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Re: the duplication of what appears in the article on Michele Bachmann - I actually see this as a positive thing. It means that we will be able to simply link this article and trim the content in the Michele Bachmann article to a short summary. Otherwise, we run the risk of making the Michele Bachmann article a coatrack for information about Marcus's shady practices as more and more stories about him hit the national and international news, whereas if he has his own article, we can keep the Michele article about Michele. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:34, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

• I advocate keeping this article because Mr Bachmann's business practices have received substantial third-party coverage. DS (talk) 18:23, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
• Redirect/Merge to Michele Bachmann presidential campaign, 2012. We might definitely want/need an article on Mr. Bachmann as time goes on, and I don't think it's a huge surprise (or necessarily evidence of malfeasance) that one was created. At the same time, Marcus Bachmann is in the news not only because of who he is married to, but because that person is running a seemingly credible campaign for the presidency—i.e., WP:BLP1E plays a partial role here. His past actions are causing controversy almost solely in one context relating to his wife's political career. As such, I think the general campaign article for Michele Bachmann is the appropriate place for information on Marcus, where we can discuss his impact on the campaign (merging to Michele Bachmann is also possible but I think much less desirable). I also agree with Veriditas that some of this story might be appropriate for discussion in articles like conversion therapy but I'm not sure about this. As others have pointed out, the possible BLP problems are very real and should be taken into account. More so than with other articles, I do not trust our ability to keep this article balanced and free from slander. Because I think avoiding harm is an important part of the spirit of our BLP policy and having a standalone article is significantly more problematic in that regard, because Mr. Bachmann remains a fairly marginal figure whose notability attaches almost exclusively to his wife's run for the presidency, and because we can give readers basically the exact same information by merging and leaving behind a redirect, I think it makes sense at this point to not have a full bio article. As I said that may change at some later date--or not--and obviously there is nothing permanent about a merge/redirect. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 18:24, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
• Delete: if it weren't for his wife running for president noone would care about this guy. Roscelese has no right to malign this BLP by calling him "shady." He provides a valuable service by helping homosexuals overcome unwanted same-sex urges. – Lionel ^(talk) 21:07, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter "if it weren't for his wife running for president". Fact is, she *is* running for president, which has drawn attention to him as well. Attention completely unconnected to her campaign. 01:28, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

The notion that the recent media attention Marcus Bachmann is receiving is "completely unconnected to her campaign" is, to my mind, just patently false. Bachmann announced her campaign officially, began rising in the polls, and then we had stories about things that Marcus Bachmann had been doing for years, but which had received very little attention prior to that. To me this fact goes to the heart of the matter when it comes to these kind of debates and our BLP policy in general.

I think it is a terrible idea to get in the habit of essentially saying "look, this one person is very notable, and now this other person associated with them is being covered in the context of the thing the actually notable person is doing, and there are clearly a number of news articles mentioning the not-really-notable associate, so we have to have a BLP." No, we don't. We can cover everything we need to about Marcus Bachmann in his wife's bio or her campaign article--easily--and that's exactly what we should do for now. For all we know, Michele Bachmann will drop out of the race and resign her seat in the House next week and all of this will be forgotten (to make an analogy that I hope gives some keep !voters pause, imagine if Christine O'Donnell had a husband who made it into the news repeatedly, for some relatively peripheral matter, during the month or so last year when Ms. O'Donnell dominated all news outlets and we then created a BLP on him, after which he retreated completely from the spotlight and we never heard from him again--would we be happy with the existence of that article today?). Alternatively, Bachmann will get the nomination in which case of course we will have an article on her husband. We don't know and the basic idea behind WP:CRYSTAL is also somewhat relevant here.

Mainly though, aspects of WP:BLP1E, WP:INHERITED, and WP:EVENT should be guiding our thinking, which to me means we should be cautious about having an article about a man whose name has only been known nationally for a matter of weeks, at best, almost solely because of one particular thing his wife is doing. To me one of the reasons BLP exists as a policy is to prevent creation of full-blown articles like this before that is warranted, which is to say at a point when we can cover all of the relevant information in articles that will not follow the person in question around for the rest of their lives. Also, since this is a threaded reply, I want to actively disassociate myself from the last sentence of Lionelt's comment, even though we are largely on the same side of this discussion. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 07:25, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

• Delete or Redirect/Merge: I favor either deleting this entry or merging it into a section of the entry on Michele Bachmann. I concur with the previous comment that, were it not for his wife running for president, he would not be the subject of a Wikipedia entry. While some of the spouses of other announced or prospective presidential candidates have entries, based on their former status as first ladies or (in the case of Todd Palin) first gentleman of a given state, Marcus Bachmann holds no such distinction. It seems that, factual or not, the only reason that an entry was created on him is to highlight his Christian counseling clinic and use the clinic's alleged practices and procedures regarding homosexuality as a round-about "gotcha"-type piece against his wife. SWMNPoliSciProject (talk) 21:28, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
• Amusing crap. "federally-subsidized[4][5] farm". Is there any farm in the US that's not federally subsidized? Or in the EU for that matter? FuFoFuEd (talk) 01:24, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
• Keep. Worthy of FA/GA/DYK/RFAR and all that. FuFoFuEd (talk) 01:41, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
• Keep. Is no-brainer. Calamitybrook (talk) 02:18, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
• Delete or Redirect/Merge: The article is very bad, and there is simply not enough information out there to make a substantive article. If there is controversy over this guy's job (which seems to be the only thing notable about him), it is relevant solely to how it affect Bachman. The source in this article can be used in her article.LedRush (talk) 14:21, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
• Weak keep I think this is a repairable, maintainable article, and people will want information on Marcus Bachmann. However, Rick Santorum's family members, some of whom have a tiny bit of independent notability, are tucked into Rick Santorum#Family. Everything about Marcus not related to his business's effect on the presidential campaign can similarly be merged into Michele Bachmann#Family.
  I know this Keep !vote is swimming against the tide, at least in BLP's about those who espouse politically conservative positions. I believe with very minor tweaks, the POV of this article will be neutral. Conversion therapists Joseph Nicolosi and Richard A. Cohen already freestanding Wikipedia articles; Bachmann's business may have been less notable, but his political connections and mainstream media attention certainly make up the difference. / edg ☺ ☭ 16:06, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Keep and expand. Presidential politics makes him notable. Billy Hathorn (talk) 17:07, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

• Keep Notable now. This is knee jerk deletionist barbarians at the gate and nothing more, and they should be disciplined per policy if applicable. Merrill Stubing (talk) 18:03, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
• Keep. "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" -  Done. The mere fact that the article is "headed in a direction" to include political facts that you don't like is a really poor excuse for deletion. Wnt (talk) 22:11, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
• Comment: Yeah, and if Mary were not the mother of Christ, nobody would care about her. I don't understand this argument. Sorry. This guy is the husband of a leading candidate for president. That's notable. It is long past the time to close this discussion. Calamitybrook (talk) 02:03, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

And yet we can find thousands of sources discussing Mary that don't even mention her son (although the vast majority do). That's not the case here, though.--Yaksar (let's chat) 04:39, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

How many sources about Pat Nixon, Betty Ford, or Barbara Bush don't mention their famous husbands? All that we requires is that subjects are notable, not that they are independently notable.   Will Beback  talk  07:47, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

We even have an article about Bill Clinton even though it was his wife who was President for 8 years (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 11:24, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• Delete - Agree with Stanistani. Negativecharge (talk) 10:27, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
• Delete - The nominator's argument sums it up well. Nothing this individual has done on his own meets our general notability guideline. He is newsworthy (and only so for those with a particular political agenda), but not encyclopedia-worthy. Peacock (talk) 11:44, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
• Delete or merge into Michele Bachmann per nom and many others. This is another sad example of political manipulation of the encyclopedia. People who are voting keep simply because of their own political preferences need to step back and take a good look at what they are doing. If I were to vote with my own political preferences I'd be right there with you, but I simply don't want to run all over our basic principles to get my way politically in an American election.Griswaldo (talk) 11:47, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
• Merge. Could be easily and briefly summarized in the Michelle Bachmann article. No way this guy would have his own article if not for his wife. Therefore, let them bask in the soft glow of notability together. Ocaasi ^{t | c} 12:37, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

If we follow your line of reasoning, all the first ladies of the United States (except for Hillary Clinton who became notable in her own right as a US Senator and then Secretary of State) should be merged into their husbands' articles. WP:NOTINHERITED applies to Wikipedia. If Marcus Bachmann inherited his notability outside Wikipedia, then he becomes notable in his own right within Wikipedia. Victor Victoria (talk) 16:48, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

If you actually did follow the line of reasoning, then you wouldn't have arrived at such a ridiculous "OMG all the first ladies lose their articles?!?" conclusion. The spouse of the President of the United States is notable in itself. Period. Full Stop. They take on a life of their own upon the spouse taking office, often taking on well-publicized causes and programs. If Michele somehow wins the presidency, Marcus qualifies for an article immediately, even if he never utters so much of a peep from now until inauguration day. At this time, however, his notability is derived completely and wholly from who he is married to. There is nothing more to this argument. Tarc (talk) 17:29, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Kitty Dukakis, Ann Romney, Sarah Hildreth Butler, Chuck Hunt, Susan Roosevelt Weld, John Zaccaro, Todd Palin, Eleanor "Sis" Daley, Richard C. Blum. There are many articles on people who are famous chiefly for being married to politicians.   Will Beback  talk  01:20, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

The spouses of governors are, like the spouses of presidents, inherently public figures. It's part of the job description. They do not suddenly become notable simply because their spouses run for president. Also, don't confuse gaining notability with piquing the interests of Wikipedia editors.Griswaldo (talk) 01:32, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

And spouses of mayors and senators? People are notable when they're noted. If a subject gets enough coverage then they're notable regardless of who they married.   Will Beback  talk  01:39, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Richard C. Blum is notable on his own because of his career. Eleanor "Sis" Daley is notable because she was the matriarch of an infamous political dynasty in Chicago, not simply because she was some mayors wife. That leaves John Zaccaro as the only other non-Governor's spouse, and frankly I don't know what makes him notable. Do you want to start the AfD Will because I'll be right behind you. Oh and btw, have you ever heard of something called WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. If you haven't I suggest that right now is the right time for you to read it.Griswaldo (talk) 01:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• Redirect to Michelle Bachmann. Although the "Background" section is sourced, there is nothing there of the sort that couldn't be sourced for most Americans - no real sign of notbaility there. "Views" is similar, stating his religion and a dispute with a blogger. "Bachmann & Associates" gets close to notability, but seems to be discussing his clinic, not him. I would not particularly object if a sourced sentence or two from that section was merged into a subsection about him within the Michelle Bachmann article, however. So for now, basically we are left with him being the husband of a candidate for a party's presidential nomination, which could and of course should be stated in his wife's article. If Michelle Bachmann gets nominated, of course he will become notable enough for his own article. Or if he stops "stay[ing] out of the spotlight." But until then, a redirect seems most appropriate. Rlendog (talk) 19:05, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
• Keep. The subject has become, perhaps just barely, sufficiently notable. So if you want to consider this a "weak keep," by all means. And we really could do without statements like "Those who are calling to keep it are acting in bad faith. Period." I'm not acting in bad faith and I think everybody is just expressing their opinion, whether any given editor agrees with it or not. Neutron (talk) 20:40, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
• Keep -- puzzling that one could take the view that the sources available on Bachmann do not add up to WP:GNG. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 20:55, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
• Redirect for a year and see if anyone still cares about the guy once Bachmann is no longer running for the nomination. Either (a) she will win the GOP nomination in which case he will obviously be notable and nobody whatsoever will object to an article existing or (b) she will not win the GOP nomination and nobody whatsoever will care about this drummed up media frenzy. --B (talk) 00:58, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
• Keep: If a subject has significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed notable, with only narrow exceptions. It doesn't matter why the coverage exists, only that it does. And it certainly does in this case, as the extensive list of references, many good sized articles from major newspapers, shows. Buddy432 (talk) 01:34, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

  While it is debatable that he correctly meets our notability guidelines, it should be also be pointed out that WP:GNG is merely a guideline for the bare minimum requirements of inclusion. As such it does not create an imperative for inclusion, though unfortunately there seem to be editors here who treat it that way. As such it also does not trump policies like WP:BLP.Griswaldo (talk) 01:40, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

  You beat me to that point. Additionally, it is argued (and I think persuasively) that these sources aren't independent of the subject (Ms. Bachman).LedRush (talk) 01:43, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• How is this source, as an example, not entirely about Marcus? It has a very brief half sentence at the beginning that clarifies who he's married to and the entire rest is about Marcus and just Marcus. It's titled "The Education of Marcus Bachmann", for goodness sake. Silverseren^C 01:54, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• In how many reliable sources can you find coverage of Stephen Slater, Al Gore III, or Debrahlee Lorenzana? Where are their articles? Oh. Nowhere? I don't know how many times it needs to be said, but the article rescue squad's Holy Grail of article retention, WP:RS is not the sole arbiter of article-worthiness. Tarc (talk) 01:59, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• Stephen Slater's article was made into an article about the event, because it was the event that was important, he was just the one that created it. Al Gore the III was largely just a BLP1E about his criminal activities and the sources showed that. Debrahlee as well. Marcus Bachmann, on the other hand, has a number of sources discussing him and specifically him, not in the context of an event (unless you consider owning the therapy place as an event). He has sources discussing him for a variety of reasons and various things. So he's not an event like those other people were. Silverseren^C 02:08, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

To me this is one of the biggest problems when it comes to interpreting BLP1E as a guideline. The "event" in question need not, and in this case should not, be thought of in terms of very specific, discreet occurrences (Marcus Bachmann started a clinic, Marcus Bachmann said something controversial, Marcus Bachmann commented on his wife's political career). Rather the "event" in question can be a bit broader as I think it is here: Michele Bachmann is running for the presidency and is drawing a lot of attention, i.e. this is the event. Were that not occurring, something close to none of the coverage of her husband would ever have existed. "Events" don't just last for a few hours, they can go on for quite some time--imagine a horrible crime and ensuing trial, media coverage, etc. as an obvious example--and thus the part of BLP1E that says "If reliable sources cover the person only in the context of a single event, and if that person otherwise remains, and is likely to remain, a low-profile individual, we should generally avoid having an article on them" absolutely applies here.

Marcus Bachmann is someone who has stayed out of the spotlight, as others have pointed out and the article text acknowledges. I actually hail from Minnesota originally (the following is obviously just anecdotal) and a number of my politico nerd (that's a compliment!) type friends from there are very familiar with Michele but knew basically nothing about Marcus until the last couple weeks or so. Neither did I and I've known about the congresswoman since a bit before she was first elected to the House. Now that he has attained some "notoriety," so to speak, of course more stories are coming out. But little to none of it is outside the context of his wife's campaign. I think a major point of our BLP policy, which some people admittedly do not like, is to avoid having these kind of articles, and if we redirect for now and merge any relevant information it will be very easy to recreate this if and when that's warranted, which it very well might be.

I just don't understand the objection to that option when we think in terms of balancing our desire to inform readers with our desire to hold to our core BLP policies which, it should be clear, are not negotiable—both of them are served by retaining information but not a full article, again just for now. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 03:42, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

In terms of the hypothetical trial that you mentioned, that would fall under WP:PERP and the perpetrator of the crime could be notable, depending on whether they meet the guidelines. Furthermore, one of the main reasons that help in supporting a separate article is information about the subject that is not information about the crime. For Marcus Bachmann, we have that, for example the link I gave above. We have a significant amount of information about him outside of his wife's campaign. The fact that the campaign instigated this information being published is irrelevant, all that matters is the information itself and the fact that he is covered in detail by highly reliable sources. To continue the hypothetical example, this would be the same for the perpetrator. The action of committing the crime would instigate press about it. If the press included extensive information about his life outside of the crime, then he would quality for notability in a separate article under the guidelines for such a subject. Marcus Bachmann has information about him in sources that is not about his actions in the campaign, which is what we need for notability. And we have that. Silverseren^C 04:20, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I wrote a pretty long comment about how to think about WP:EVENT in a general sense. I'm not really interested in your reply to my parenthetical and explicitly "imagined" point--which, I know, is covered by the guideline WP:PERP--because it is a pretty textbook example of cherry picking on your part. I'd be far more interested in a response from you that speaks directly to the last paragraph I wrote, i.e. being real about the heart of the matter. Why do we need/want an article about this fellow when we can redirect and merge for now, and then figure it all out later? Why is that not a good point to reach in terms of consensus, which is of course our objective in this discussion? --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:00, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• ecYou mean the article that has a picture of them together, with the caption which starts "Representative Michele Bachmann and her husband", showing them at a campaign stop, and which implicitly explains in the first sentence why anyone cares about all this stuff? Hmmm...let me think...LedRush (talk) 02:01, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• You mean how it specifically states in the first sentence his relationship that you would know about? Yes. News articles do that all the time. Even if they're discussing a person for their own notable actions, they will still mention their relation to other notable people so that you understand who they are. That's a press thing, it has nothing to do with the coverage. Silverseren^C 02:08, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• Keep, the guy seems to be notable as the husband and an adviser to a prominent politician. The article is an obvious magnet for PR manipulations but I think strict enforcement of the WP:BLP is enough, no need for the nuclear option here Alex Bakharev (talk) 04:36, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• Note: A link to a thread on Free Republic was recently posted on Wikipedia Review here asking for people on Free Republic to come and influence the article. Please be on the lookout for possible single purpose accounts and IP addresses commenting in this AfD. I just wanted to let everyone know about that. Thanks. Silverseren^C 04:39, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• Delete or redirect to the article on his wife, per nominator's rationale. Cla68 (talk) 04:40, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• Keep Dr. Bachmann gets coverage on his own, they quoting him about his clinic. [5] Dream Focus 08:45, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Anyone who gets quoted in a newspaper article meets notability guidelines? Rlendog (talk) 18:29, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
    • If you bother to read the article you'll see they give him ample coverage. They don't just passively mention him, but talk to him, and have what he said. Dream Focus 00:23, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
• Delete this smacks as being part of a smear campaign. In particular, the views section is terribly biased and appears designed just to discredit him. This article is an embarrassment to our credibility and shows that we have no class in how we present contentious political subjects. Perhaps he should get a passing mention in his wife's article, with the deleted article redirecting to that one, but being the wife of a presidential candidate doesn't evidence notability in itself. And being the butt of jokes on the blogosphere isn't evidence of notability either. "Just barely notable" isn't good enough for a contentious BLP. If this is kept it would need a wholesale rewrite, top to bottom. ThemFromSpace 10:16, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
• Delete per nom, and WPSHOULDNOTBEACAMPAINTOOL — Ched :  ?  12:11, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
• Delete per nom - redirect to the article about his wife - this type of article creation is exactly what the upcoming arbitration is hopefully going to lay out guidelines to stop. Off2riorob (talk) 15:31, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
• Keep per WP:GNG (significant coverage in reliable sources). If you don't like the current balance, improve the article, don't delete it. And if you don't like the balance in reliable sources, that's too bad. I don't like a lot of things, but that does not mean I get to delete the corresponding articles. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:54, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
• Delete as per WP:BLP1E. If he wasn't married to MB (the 1E), he would not be in the news at all. Smatprt (talk) 16:24, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
• Merge into the the article on Michele Bachmann, as we often do for barely notable family members of a subject. Jonathunder (talk) 16:44, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• Weak keep The sources are about him, there is no doubt about that. On the other hand, the sources most likely would not have written about him if his wife wasn't trying to become President. It's not our job, however, to judge why reliable sources cover a subject and even if we can assume why they do so, we still cannot let the reason for the coverage influence the fact that there is sufficient coverage. If it turns out later that his notability was strictly temporary, we can still delete it then but currently the article meets the relevant notability guideline, so there is no reason to delete it. If some editors want to use it for personal agendas, then it's our job to stop them and strive for a NPOV article but such (perceived) agendas are not a reason to delete an article. Regards SoWhy 17:15, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Well first I would say that, per the BLP policy and particularly BLP1E, it can very much be our job to judge why reliable sources cover a subject. If they do so largely or exclusively in the context of a single event, as I think is the case here, we generally do not have an article about them. But let's kind of leave that to the side. Given your thinking on this and that you are a bit "weak" in your keep position, I'm wondering if you would object to a redirect/merge. This is basically your "we can delete it later" point inverted, which is to say that we can merge relevant info and redirect for now and then recreate a full article later if and when that is warranted. To me it makes far more sense to hold off on creating a BLP that, I think everyone agrees, is going to be a magnet for defamation until we are sure the person is notable beyond what many of us think is a single-event context. To me such an approach makes sense as a sort of compromise position, not just for this article but for similar BLPs as well. The reader will still get most or all of the relevant information if they type "Marcus Bachmann" into the search box, so there's little or nothing of value that is lost content wise and we basically get to sit back and see whether his notability becomes stronger over time, or whether he quickly fades into obscurity because his wife drops out of the race in three months. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 22:40, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, we know that the media covers him mostly because he is the husband of a presidential hopeful but the coverage is not related to his wife's presidential ambitions, so redirecting/merging it to the article about her campaign is not correct and would only make it more confusing. As such, I'm uncomfortable to apply BLP1E/ONEEVENT to this case. He is not notable for one event (i.e. his wife's presidential campaign) but instead is notable because of what he did and the aforementioned event only served as a catalyst to trigger the coverage. So yes, why sources cover him might be relevant but only when the coverage is related to the reason of the coverage. In this case, it's not, so our guideline to determine his notability and thus whether his article should be deleted is WP:BIO and I think the amount of coverage does indeed satisfy those requirements. The prefix "weak" in this case was meant to indicate that I think the coverage, while sufficient, is (as previously pointed out) possibly temporary. Since we cannot see into the future though, we have to judge it by today's facts and those facts say he meets the relevant guideline. The same context applies to my "we can still delete it then" comment, since Wikipedia is based on the principle of being able to fix things as the facts change and if they change, then deletion might be warranted. As such, I don't think redirecting/merging is the correct way to handle this at this point in time, although it might be the correct solution iff facts change. In that case though, there still is no valid target to redirect/merge to, since the target would have to be coverage on the reasons that make him notable, not the reasons that make his wife notable. Regards SoWhy 10:15, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• keep The arguments that "if he weren't married to Michele, and she weren't running for president, etc, nobody would know who he was" are not valid. The fact is he is married to Michele Bachmann, and so he's made his way in to the news. After that, history has run his course, an the end result is that he has become notable in his own right, is discussed in his own right, has garnered attention from the public through his own actions, and at this point is noteworthy enough for his own article. The "If such-and-such hadn't happened, then so-and-so wouldn't be notable" argument simply isn't valid. If the Big Bang hadn't happened (or God hadn't created the world, whatever; not trying to step on toes, just make a point), then nothing on Wikipedia would be notable. We base our decisions on notability on what did happen, not what could have happened. TDiNardo (talk) 17:34, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
• Speedy Keep: there is significant coverage in multiple reliable sources, As stated above. --В и к и в и н д T a L k 18:16, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
• Delete He is only notable for Wikipedia purposes because of his wife. I fear that keeping it will serve only as a WP:COATRACK for Bachmann-bashing. NYyankees51 (talk) 21:21, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
• Keep As has been pointed out many times now, Marcus Bachmann has been the subject of significant coverage by reliable sources which are independent of the subject. There's not much more to say beyond that. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:44, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
• Comment - I made this point over on Jimbo's talk page and I'd like to repeat it here: I think it's important we have a Marcus article because, for the first time in our country's history, we have a contender for the Presidency who has stated she is Biblically commanded to be submissive to her husband.[6][7][8] The role he would play in her administration is not insignificant, so IMHO neither are his views, his work and his background. We owe it to our readers to explain him neutrally. Marcus's article is receiving over 3,000 hits a day; by comparison, Jimmy Wales receives about 1000 and Elizabeth Kucinich, wife of Dennis, who has done nothing notable, receives around 100. --David Shankbone 00:00, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

  Thank you for, finally, after much prodding, clearly stating that you created this article because of your personally-held views rather than for any reason of simple Wikipedia notability. As agenda-driven BLP-editing is becoming more and more problematic in the project, this sort of frank admission will be useful if this matter ever goes to RfC or ArtbCom. Tarc (talk) 00:05, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Do you ever stop being a jerk, Tarc? I mean, really. Silverseren^C 00:11, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• A jerk? I think he's calling a spade a spade after the spade said, "Hey look at me I'm a spade." There already is an arbcom case in the works, in the wake of the Cirt RfC which is aiming to deal with these issues broadly speaking. It looks like this example is fair game, with the exception that editorial misconduct wont be looked at. In other words Shankbone wont get dragged into it, but this article will.Griswaldo (talk) 00:19, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• That doesn't excuse Tarc from attacking multiple editors throughout this entire AfD. As I said on Jimbo's talk page, "See here for one example and here for accusations of "personal crusades". And i'm surprised you don't remember him being condescending toward you, Viriditas, right here. If you consider "raising legitimate concerns" to be insulting and denigrating other users, then sure, he was raising legitimate concerns, he was raising them all over that AfD." Silverseren^C 00:25, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• I agree. His behavior is rather rude. [9] Dream Focus 00:36, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
• I regularly invite people to follow the appropriate avenues such as WP:WQA if they truly have a beef with something I have said, yet many decline to do so. They...or in this case, you...choose instead to load up the buckshot and fire random blasts in the course of discussions such as this. At some point I usually call them out on this...a "put up or shut up" moment...where they invariably choose the latter. As for this specific tangent, our esteemed Mr. Shankbone baldly stated that he feels the article's is important because of the extreme conservative positions of the subject; I quote "it's important we have a Marcus article because...we have a contender for the Presidency who has stated she is Biblically commanded to be submissive to her husband." Call me crazy, but I don't think we have a notability guideline along the lines of WP:BIBLICALLYSUBMISSIVE. Shankbone has created this article because he thinks it is important that the public knows The Truth(tm) about the Bachmanns. That is not honest or good-faith editing, and I happily call out an "I told ya so", because that is precisely what I said in my nomination. Tarc (talk) 00:38, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• I think what Shankbone meant was that, much like people originally thought about Hillary Clinton (but which is clearly not true with her strong personality), because Michele has stated that she will be deferring to her husband, if she achieves the presidency, then it will actually be Marcus running everything from behind the scenes. Thus, this means that he is just as important to her nomination as she is to it herself. Silverseren^C 00:41, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Tarc: What does any of that have to do with the fact that this topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject (i.e. notability)? Can we please stay focused on the issue? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:50, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Tarc, you have assumed bad faith about my motivations from the get-go, so it's not a surprise that you take the worst possible interpretation of what I wrote. Marcus Bachmann has received enough coverage in his own right for multiple issues (farm, clinic, and views on homosexuality). I have made no judgment on his views and background, but those views and his background are pertinent to Republican primary voters now and our readers in general. This is our purpose, to educate. Outside of your head, these aren't controversial statements, nor do they hint at a nefarious effort to tar Mr. Bachmann. You have failed to provide, after multiple requests, one slur, one biased edit or one factual inaccuracy with what I wrote. --David Shankbone 01:04, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• I don't agree with Tarc's approach here, so I'm leaving that to the side and responding to David's comment above. There he said "The role he would play in her administration is not insignificant..." (emphasis added). Yes, you are almost certainly right that Marcus would play a key role in her administration, perhaps much more so than other First Spouses. But here's the thing: Michele Bachmann doesn't have an administration. She isn't close to having one, she isn't even close to having the nomination, and any astute political observer knows that the odds of Bachmann becoming the GOP nominee, much less president, are pretty small, because frankly she is pretty far outside the political mainstream and tons of Republicans who might like her perceive her as unelectable and therefore won't vote for her. What you are doing is the worst kind of crystal-balling David because it involves a BLP. You are basically saying "if Michele Bachmann became president this guy will be important, so we need an article." That isn't how it works. Marcus Bachmann will likely never be anything more notable than the husband of a well-known member of congress. That's it. So, for now, we can have a redirect for his name and include a good amount of information on him in his wife's article, and a pretty detailed section on his controversial views in her campaign article. I've put this question to a couple of others in the keep camp without reply so far but I'll ask again--what is wrong with merging and redirecting for now and then seeing what happens later? How is that a disservice to the 3,000 readers who come to the article? It clearly helps us in terms of holding to our BLP policies and keeps our options open for the future, so why not just do that?--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 01:19, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
• Shankbone, you have passed judgement on Bachmann just by creating the article in the first place. The slur lies in its very existence, And your purpose is not to educate but to proselytize. In a way, you're quite alike. Perhaps we should encourage Mr. Bachmann to become a Wikipedia article, perhaps he could write an article about you. Oh. Wait. Tarc (talk) 02:34, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Jesus effing christ Tarc. What in god's name does the endless and very crappy discussion surrounding David's article have to do with what we are talking about here? Nothing, and you damn well know it. You're just taking pot shots now, I have to assume just because you feel like it. It's stupid and is probably actively hurting the cause of getting this article dealt with because people are going to be turned off by childish jabs. I don't really care that you can be a bit irascible and sometimes like to swear and shit like that, but you're pretty far over the line at this point in terms of maintaining at least a pretense of basic civility. You might want to step back from this for a bit. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 02:46, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Delete or Merge per nom. Even if this article were to be cleaned up Marcus falls pretty shy of GNG, I would be very surprised if any editor could find me news coverage of Marcus that did not also write about Michelle. - Haymaker (talk) 00:43, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Here. Other than the first line where it mentions who he is married to, it is entirely about Marcus. Silverseren^C 01:34, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• You basically made Haymaker's point there Silver. It is laughable, or rather it should be laughable, to say that, except for the opening sentence describing him as Michele Bachmann's husband, and the huge picture of Michele Bachmann at the top of the article, the article does not write about Michele Bachmann. Additionally, the whole blog post--that's what it actually is--is expressly a sort of addendum to this article, which is linked in the second paragraph of the blog post, an article which is framed in terms of Michele's run for the presidency. So, again, basically all of the coverage of Marcus is in the context of the "event" that is wife's attempt to become president. Not one keep comment here has refuted that, which is kind of the whole point since we are talking about a BLP. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 01:51, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• BTP, I wrote the article because Mr. Bachmann peeked my interest, and I wanted to learn about him and try to write about him neutrally. I've been on Wikipedia for a long time, and I've given a lot to it, believe in it, and believe in its goals. By my own experience on here, I felt I wrote the article neutrally, and that it was self-evident that he met our guidelines for notability on its face. People have argued I had an agenda, but can't point to evidence of it. People have argued that this will become a COATRACK or an attack article, which is crystal balling that we will fail to prevent it on this high-profile article. Even saying she won't win the Presidency, as you did, is crystal balling. We have readers hitting his article 3,000 times a day, some of whom are undoubtedly primary voters, who are curious about this man. There were more than enough reliable sources to write about him. I would find the idea of including "He acts gay" offensive not only to him, but to gays, and I would oppose such speculation. But on its face this subject meets ever conceivable criterion we have for inclusion, and I felt I did a decent job writing it. I was grateful for the editors who came in with different perspectives and re-wrote parts. That's how the Wiki works, and it's working here, even on in this AfD. I understand your arguments, and I think they are reasonable; I just disagree. --David Shankbone 02:43, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Okay, well that's all well and good but doesn't actually speak to the arguments against retaining an article. I asked you above, I think, if/why you think merging/redirecting for now is a bad idea. I think it's pretty clear that this discussion isn't going to end, "clear consensus to keep," right? A number of us don't think he yet warrants a standalone article. Why not temporarily merge for now, and then revisit this down the road when we know more about what is happening? I would say most everything in your first two paragraphs, less the intro, could be merged to Michele Bachmann and the last three paragraphs would basically all go well in Michele Bachmann presidential campaign, 2012 (I actually that's an ideal place for them). We then redirect to one of those two, in fact I'd say you can go ahead and pick it as far as I'm concerned. The 3,000 readers in question would still get the info, but we better hold to our BLP policies. Are you open to that option, and if not why not? Note that if Marcus Bachmann's notability at some point becomes less attached to his wife's run for the president, or if she wins the nomination, I'll be right there with you arguing for a full article, and at that point recreation of a full BLP would be extremely easy. A merge seems like a pretty ideal solution in the meantime. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 03:00, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• I didn't mean to be evasive. I think people are looking for information about Marcus Bachmann, and not solely about him in the context of Michele Bachmann's campaign. He has become a subject of interest in his own right and the 3,000 hits a day confirms that to me. I think we can't do our readers justice by explaining him parsed out among several articles. I believe there are undue weight problems by including him on Michele's article. If the result is "redirect" or "delete" I won't file a DRV, but I still feel an article does no harm and is the optimal solution. Reasonable minds could differ. My position is well-documented on here, Talk:Jimbo Wales and Talk:Marcus Bachmann, and I feel I'm becoming repetitive so I will let this AfD play out without my further involvement. I'm happy to discuss it further on my talk page. --David Shankbone 03:27, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Wait, so you're saying that whenever a news article links to another news article, it serves as an addendum to it? So, when the New York Times links to a Los Angeles Times article, it's not serving as an independent article, since it made a single link to another news article? Clearly, this isn't true. It linked to the other page because it has information about the controversy regarding the center. That's all. And, as has been explained above numerous times, it doesn't matter if the coverage came about as a result of Michele nomination, if the coverage is extensive and covers numerous events in Marcus' life, then he is notable. Silverseren^C 02:01, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

No. Everything you said is wrong. First of all, I clearly did not say the thing you suggest I did in the first and second sentence. It's good to not put people's words/thinking in other folks' mouths/brains. The original thing you linked to is not, I guess I need to say it again, a news article. It is a blog post in the NYT politics blog "The Caucus." It had 627 words in it. The fact that it is a quick blog post matters. It describes Bachmann as the husband of Michele, then immediately links to a longer article that appeared on page A14 of the Times, whose very title framed the whole matter in terms of Michele's run for the presidency. That's the point. And you are ignoring my main point. Haymaker asked about "news coverage of Marcus that did not also write about Michelle." You linked to something, I pointed out that Michele is in the first sentence and there is a picture of her at the top of the post. Apparently that doesn't count for some reason, but I think most would find that argument pretty ridiculous.

And, again, you seem to be pretending that BLP1E does not exist. It does, it's important, even if you do not like it. The statement "it doesn't matter if the coverage came about as a result of Michele nomination, if the coverage is extensive and covers numerous events in Marcus' life, then he is notable" is factually incorrect as a matter of Wikipedia policy, and you need to get your head around that. Were your argument correct, BLP1E would not be functional, because it would mean that we would have an article on, for example, Mayumi Heene simply because there were a lot of stories about her and her husband which talked about a number of things in her life after she became notorious for one particular thing. We can quibble with how to interpret "event," but our core BLP policies invalidate your claim that extensive coverage of numerous things in a person's life = we have an article on them. That isn't how we run the show around here. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 02:21, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

This. It's a source i've already been showing before. The problem with your interpretation of BLP1E is that you're saying that important people who are working for, say, the President aren't notable, since they're obtaining their notability from him. Except that's not how we work. If they get extensive news coverage about them, they get an article. This is an old source about Michele that also has an extensive amount to say about Marcus, the most important part I think is that "At the GOP endorsing convention in May, he worked the floor of delegates for his wife", which means that he is being politically active, he's not just a low-profile figure, no matter what people say, he's been out there politically for quite some time. As for more recent news, I believe that this is of a fair amount of importance. Silverseren^C 02:58, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure you are not doing it on purpose, but it really gets a bit annoying the way you have of responding to arguments I did not make. Where did I say "that important people who are working for, say, the President aren't notable, since they're obtaining their notability from him"? Nowhere, obviously, and I obviously don't think that—it's an absurd caricature of my argument. My argument, for the twelfth time, is that Marcus Bachmann should not have an article per BLP1E, because basically all of the coverage of him is in terms of one event, namely his wife's presidential campaign. Feel free to disagree, but at least respond to my actual argument.

As to the latest sources you are throwing out--funny stuff there. The first is an interview he did on an AM Christian radio network which happens to be based right by where I grew up. I ain't never heard of it before. I know you linked to this because you think it is all about Marcus. Obviously you didn't listen to it, because the first caller is...drum roll...Michele Bachmann! And they then proceed to talk about Michele going on to ANWR or something and how she will be on their show tomorrow. Again, thanks for making Haymaker's point! Maybe you could stop to think about the fact that you are struggling to find anything about Marcus that doesn't talk about his wife? Doesn't that maybe tell us something?

The City Pages article is a good one, not for you though, because it actually says "Marcus Bachmann has never played much of a public role in his wife's campaigns, and neither her allies nor her detractors seem to know much about him." It's nice that you can find things that say his name and such, but you might want to actually read them, because the source you say "has an extensive amount to say about Marcus" (that isn't true, but whatever) might as well be saying "this guy is not well known, definitely don't have a Wikipedia article about him."

Can you rethink your position here? Or can you at least answer my question about why a merge that retains basically all of the content is not a good idea? --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 03:26, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

My point about the staff is that their notability comes from a singular event, the President's...presidency. (Alliteration bad!) If you're going to say that Michele's entire campaign (which you are somehow including stuff from five years ago as also being a part of her campaign) counts as a singular event, then so does a number of other things, like a presidency, as I was saying, so Cabinet members shouldn't get articles, regardless of how much coverage they get. However, this is clearly untrue, they do get articles if they get the coverage.

Again, then talking to Michele has nothing to do with them talking to Marcus about his clinic. Since Michele was involved in the founding of the clinic, though Marcus was the main founder, why would there be a source that doesn't mention her? If you have two important people that are married, why would any source not mention who they're married to? The news points out connections like that.

The City Pages article is discussing how, before that, he wasn't politically public, but he has become as such afterward, for example, by speaking at the GOP convention and for "going on the political offensive", as it says. Silverseren^C 03:49, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Strong Keep I agree with the argument that we shouldn't have an article about a spouse for his own right, but now that he is noteworthy on his own for being an anti-gay therapist, his persona has its own importance independent of Michele. If Michele does become the nominee, too, then he'll get his own page anyways. But I do think he is noteworthy in his own right at this point, particularly in the LGBT community.cpsteiner | cpsteiner |

comment: Sourcing indicates he is of note. However, I agree with the delete comments that "not a single thing he is done is notable". If he is not notable for anything in his own right except being the spouse of a candidate is this acceptable? I would be inclined to Merge with a summary on him ni his spouse's article. After reading the article I see no indication of what he actually notable for which is a shame as the article is so well sourced.♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:30, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• ’’’Strong Keep’’’ I may be new to editing/commenting, but I've long used Wikipedia as my first resource for internet research. I was looking for information about Marcus Bachmann today and came across the piece here. The article was informative and the links and references provided further reading/information. I thought that was the purpose of Wikipedia? I was dismayed to see that the article is nominated for deletion. I had no idea Wikipedia editors have the opportunity to decide what information I can and cannot access. I understand cleaning up graffiti and attacks on people, but why keep information from those who are looking for it or wish to share with each other? — Preceding unsigned comment added by DeafScholar (talk • contribs) 20:01, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Admittedly Wikipedia content policies and practices can seem a bit odd to folks who don't edit here (or maybe they just are odd!). For example, your argument that the information is useful and helped you learn more might seem like the common sense approach to deciding what we write about, but for various reasons we explicitly do not think in those terms because Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. When it comes to articles about people who are alive, we tend to have a higher bar for inclusion because these articles are often used as sites for defamation, which is a serious problem. More about that is explained here if you are interested. So the intention, even for those arguing for deletion, is really not to keep information from people, but rather to follow the guidelines we have come up with over the years as to how to best write this encyclopedia (as you can see, we regularly disagree about how to apply those guidelines to particular cases). Of course, you yourself are more than welcome to contribute and offer your own views, as you are doing, as to what does and does not belong. Note that I'm only offering this comment to provide some info, not in an effort to convince you to change your mind. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:21, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but I very much not agree with your view that we "tend to have a higher bar for inclusion because these articles are often used as sites for defamation, which is a serious problem". We have a higher bar to protect the privacy of the person in general. However, Bachman easily passes that bar. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:09, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't disagree with your characterization, but I think it is also true that one component of the concern over "privacy," broadly defined, is that biography articles have regularly been used to attack people--surely you agree that has happened--which is why we say "the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered" in our BLP policy. It happens to be one of the things people are concerned about with this particular article, whether or not you agree with that(we also have a speedy criteria, G10, which, while obviously not applying here, expressly makes it easier for us to remove certain articles about living people). I was not attempting a full summary of these issues but just dashing off a quick reply--I'm sure I could have worded it better. And obviously we disagree about Bachmann's notability, but that has nothing to do with my comment. There's not really anything worth arguing about here and I'm not even sure we disagree about the general issue. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 22:23, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Keep looks good to me. Stuartyeates (talk) 00:32, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

  Can you elaborate, please? This is a discussion, not a poll.--JayJasper (talk) 00:55, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

  I'll start by saying that as an outsider, most US political figures seem self-caricaturing to me. Having said that, the article seems to be well sourced from mainstream (as I understand the US mainstream) sources. While the article focuses on a single aspect of the subjects life, it appears to be both what makes him notable and an aspect of his life that he has chosen to present to the public. Sure the article could be much more complete and well-rounded, but it there are only partisan sources for these facts, I'm not sure that's a trade-off we should make. Stuartyeates (talk) 03:18, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• Keep The reason why he has become notable is irrelevant--it seems beyond question that he has. The spouses of serious presidential candidates generally are--the public not unreasonably takes interest in their views and their life in general. DGG ( talk ) 00:51, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Keep media outlets have covered him as a significant factor in her not unrealistic bid for president, the most powerful person in the history of the world. the fact that he will be a target for bad editing is not a rationale for deletion, only a rationale for protection and monitoring. Its too easy to carry "not inherited" and "blp" arguments too far. deleting the bio of a living person for fear of blp violations only works for extremely marginal subjects, esp. when the subject themselves requests it. he is of course notable for being married to his wife, but in this case thats pretty important.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 06:35, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• My vote is to keep, because the future first ever first gentlemen of these United States is inherently notable in addition to inheriting notability from his spouse. Now, here's my deal. I have long used Wikipedia to look up information and hoped to do so again this morning. Well, you see, last night I am watching this show on HBO starring Bill Maher in which Mr. Bachmann comes up, right? Maher pokes some fun at this man and so, you know what? I figure, why not learn about himself from Wikipedia. So, as usual, I search for him here and what's the first thing I see on his article? Yeah, that's right, some drivel dravel about the article being nominated for deltion?! WTF?! An article concerning a real man with not just coverage on news networks, but who is also discussed on comedy shows is going to be deleted?! Okay, so, well, as more of a reader than an editor on this site thus far, maybe I am unfamiliar with how it works, so let's read this discussion to see if a sensible justification for starting this discussion in the first place can be made. The closest thing to a legitimate concern seems to be use of this article to smear a man who has cared for dozens of children with his wife. But even then, anyone who inserts libel could be dealt with by whoever moderates this site, right? Or can't some articles be protected or watched from libelers? After all, it looks like some articles have "Edit" while others have "View Source" on them. So, not every article can really be altered by every Tom, Dick, and Harry, yes? People posting nonsense in articles is par for the course for a site like this. You'll get your idiots who rename the first Emperor of the French as Napoleon Bonerpart or who think potatorship should replace dictatorship, but do you delete Napoleon or dictatorship altogether? In those same articles, you will probably get your share of bias and agenda based content, but again, that should not stand in the way of what this site covers. Any intelligent person would read this article with a mind to the footnotes to see what is and is not coming from a neutral or reliable source. But once you get past the easily challenged attempt at a reasonable concern, those calling to delete the article wade into nonsense territory. From what I gather, something to be covered on this site must be notable (you really use a subjective criteria for inclusion?) as defined apparently and arbitrarily by multiple references in whatever some of you declare to be reliable sources. Well, that's a given in this case. No one can dispute that he is discussed at length by valid media outlets. Plus, the man is a PhD in addition to being a candidate's husband. Next, the calls for deletion devolve into just having name calling and mud slinging, much of which seems to come from the nominator herself who carries herself in a totally unhelpful, unladylike, and unprofessional manner that suggests if anything her mother should give her a good spanking for the way in which she treats her fellow discussers here. Why do any of you tolerate such an editor who cannot possibly even be an adult anyway? I thought Wikipedia is supposed to be an attempt at a valid encyclopedia, not a place of unacademic and immature attacking of everyone who disagrees with you? But yeah, after years of making the occasional minor edit on whatever computer I happened to be on, this was the first WTF I noticed on this site that called out for creating an actual account so that I could comment in what I see as a theater of the absurd. I am not sure I want to be a part of it much further, but I hope the reasoned among you will see something so ridiculous for what it is and not humor nonsenical time waste discussions as this one in the first place. On a final note, my heart goes out to the victims of that madman in Norway. What a disgraceful act of violence. Yeah, I am miffed to see this article being discussed here, but I am outright sickened about what happened to our Norwegian brothers and sisters. Out! --The Bachmann Editor Overdrive (talk) 14:23, 23 July 2011 (UTC) — The Bachmann Editor Overdrive (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• Weak keep, prefer Merge into Michelle Bachmann. On the one hand, this article was clearly created for bad-faith reasons (the creator admits as much above), and still reads like an attack page - it's essentially just a List of Marcus Bachmann controversies. On the other hand, he does technically meet our standards for inclusion. I think the best thing to do would be to merge this article into his wife's, as there's just not all that much to say about him, and that would address some of the BLP issues. But if it's between keeping and deletion, I would reluctantly say 'keep, but clean up so it reads less like a partisan hit job'. Robofish (talk) 16:27, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't see anything that I wrote above indicting a bad faith reason. Aside from the consistent press coverage of Marcus Bachmann in his own right, he repeatedly describes himself as her strategist and she has stated that she is biblically commanded to obey him (choosing a career she didn't want because he wanted her to). None of that is bad faith; I've made no judgment on whether those things are good or bad; you can't point to an opinion I hold on the Bachmanns (outside of taking flattering photos) but all of it points to his notability, period. I also like that for everyone who says it's an attack article, or a hit piece, they don't raise any examples. Not once. Sure, it might need some re-writing, but with all the editing that has been done to it so far it has remained more-or-less the same as what I wrote. --David Shankbone 16:49, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• Keep The guy has been all over the news lately. It's true that he and his practice and his opinions would not have become so prominent if he were not married to Michelle Bachman, but WHY he became so notable is irrelevant. He IS notable and that's what determines his inclusion (or not). The article could do a better job of showing how extensive the news coverage on him has been. --MelanieN (talk) 01:16, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
• Delete As per the Wikipedia policy of WP:NOTINHERITED. The information box on the article clearly states that Mr. Bachmann is Known for: husband of Michele Bachmann - his "fame" for running some fringe/freakish therapy center would never be notable on its own terms if he was not married to a leading American politician. I like what Tarc says: "This is an encyclopedia, not a vacuum cleaner." This dust bunny of an article can be thrown out without disrupting the character of the web site. And Adoil Descended (talk) 00:55, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

WP:NOTINHERITED doees not apply to people who gain notability IN THEIR OWN RIGHT. See Amy Carter, Betty Ford, and Elizabeth Edwards for examples. Bachmann has attracted the media attention HIMSELF, and the media is writing stories about him and him alone. That he first entered the spotlight as someone else's spouse is not relevant to his own notability. Umbralcorax (talk) 01:16, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

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.