Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mark E. Petersen

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 speedy keep per point A of WP:SK#1. Nomination withdrawn. Sources provided at this point indicate that the subject at least meets WP:BASIC. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 05:40, 18 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Mark E. Petersen[edit]

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Per a source review and WP:BEFORE source searches, this subject does not meet WP:BASIC. While the article has sources, none of them provide in-depth coverage of the subject. Sources in the article are a mixture of primary sources, (such as Deseret Book Company, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Deseret Management Corporation, the holding company for business firms owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), unreliable sources and passing mentions. Source searches are providing primary sources such as literature the subject has authored, but nothing significant and independent in reliable sources. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 19:21, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 19:21, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 19:21, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Utah-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 19:21, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The subject had an obituary written by Thomas S. Monson when he was a member of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles here; an official obit by the church in the Liahona magazine here; the New York Times stated he was next "in line to succeed Spencer W. Kimball as president of the Mormon Church" here; and his work is quoted and referenced countless times in Mormon/LDS-related apologetics and academia. One of those works is Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism by Taylor G. Petrey, who gives just over half a page to the subject's stance on segregation on page 24 and discusses his beliefs and teachings in at least six other instances in the book as well, as seen here. It also looks like he was the subject of a 1977 book called An Appeal to President Kimball: Interviews with Mark E. Petersen and Henry Richards, edited by Ron Johnson, Karen Johnson, and Dennis Michael Bingham (seen here). --Kbabej (talk) 21:02, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – Below is a summary of those sources:

[1] – This is a primary source published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Primary sources are not usable to establish notability on English Wikipedia.
[2] – Also a primary source published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Also, Liahona is a primary source published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
[3] – NYT coverage qualifies, in my view. There are about ten sentences here that are about the subject himself.
[4] – Has only a portion of one paragraph about the subject. Acceptable to some, unacceptable to others, in terms of the depth of coverage here.
[5] – This is titled "An Appeal to President Kimball: Interviews with Mark E. Petersen and Henry Richards". Interviews typically do not qualify notability, unless there is significant coverage about the subject in non-interview format, such as from a reporter or author. Furthermore, this source may not be reliable. No publisher is provided on the Google Books page other than the author names.

Thus far, only two usable sources are available, one of which is questionable in terms of the depth of coverage provided. As it is now, the article is essentially mostly a puff piece based mostly upon primary sources, and also has uncited content. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 07:09, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep While Mormon bishops are actually pastors, Quorum of Twelve members are actually probably somewhere between bishop and archbishop equivalents, and thus would be notable regardless of the online sources currently discoverable. Jclemens (talk) 00:33, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note that there is no presumed notability for religious figures on English Wikipedia. See WP:CLERGYOUTCOMES, which is not a guideline or policy page, and has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. There it states, "The bishops of major denominations, including Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran and Anglican Communion bishops, are typically found to be notable.". However, Latter Day Saint movement persons are not mentioned there. Even if they were, there is no presumed notability; it's not a guideline or policy. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 06:53, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Found a biography about him. Doing a newspapers.com search here, I've gotten references to this person in mostly Utah-based newspapers pretty regularly. Seems like they stretch back into the 1940s. While I am unable to see anything past the paywall, I did see that the first one is an obituary from the Salt Lake Tribune, probably similar to the NYT article. Also got this from the Boston Globe (sorry another paywall), looking to be another obituary. I agree with the nom's rationale that WP:BEFORE search didn't produce enough, but given that the subject lived before the advent of the internet, I can see why there not are easily findable sources online. Rollidan (talk) 09:20, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Below is a summary of the sources directly above:

The biography you found is a primary source, published by the Deseret Book Company, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Deseret Management Corporation, the holding company for business firms owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). It is not independent, and primary sources do not confer notability.
The Newspapers search you performed is a generic search using the subject's name, and is essentially a list of WP:GOOGLEHITS. The subject's name is rather generic, and thus, it states atop and left on the search page "There are 1,706,431 matches for Mark E Petersen". Despite all of these, almost all of which are going to be about different subjects rather than this subject. The number of hits a subject's name receives in a search engine does not confer notability.
The Boston Globe article just goes to a login page. Cannot access it.
Per the subject's lifespan, you state that "given that the subject lived before the advent of the internet, I can see why there not are easily findable sources online". However, the notion of WP:MUSTBESOURCES comes into play here.

As of yet, we still lack a simple two solid reliable, independent sources that provide objective significant coverage. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:47, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

When you define the newspapers.com search to "Elder Mark E. Petersen" during 1984, you get 1,952 matches, all of the top ones clearly being relevant. I've included some in my keep !vote below. ––FormalDude talk 21:47, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'd Support what @FormalDude has already said. The biography, while published by Deseret Book, is 100% not a primary source, as the author has nothing to do with the individual. As for independence, one can get into the "Jeff Bezos and Washington Post" argument, but no need to go down there. As far as the search goes, all of the top hits in both my generic search and a narrow search referred to the "Mark E Petersen," making it not an issue of WP:SOURCESEXIST, because they do exist. Rollidan (talk) 23:31, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Might the more than 40 books he wrote make him notable per WP:AUTHOR as a significant contribution to the Mormon mission? Ficaia (talk) 18:30, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Books authored by the subject were published by Bookcraft, a major publisher of books and products for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Deseret Book Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Deseret Management Corporation, the holding company for business firms owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Can you provide any evidence that the subject actually meets any of the points of WP:AUTHOR? Even is this is possible, WP:AUTHOR does not guarantee notability. Rather, it states upward on the page regarding the criteria that "meeting one or more does not guarantee that a subject should be included." North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:51, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. There is plenty of significant coverage in independent, reliable, secondary sources to meet WP:BASIC. Such as:
- His obituary in the Salt Lake Tribune.
- His eulogy in the Salt Lake Tribune.
- Report of his death in the Daily Herald.
- SIGCOV article in Washington County News.

This is honestly much more than is needed for a person born in 1900. But, seeing as none of it is included in the article, I can see how this nomination came about. I'll work on adding these and other good sources to the article. Anyone with a newspapers.com subscription is welcome to help (the subscription is free via request through WP:TWL). ––FormalDude talk 21:47, 17 March 2022 (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.