Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mark Lindquist

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. The consensus of the discussion is that the subject meets WP:NAUTHOR; the delete !votes did not either did not address this issue directly or vague waved past it. The BLP concerns are very real, and have semi-protected the page for 30 days as a result with the hope that this will give some leeway to clean it up. Xymmax So let it be written So let it be done 17:11, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Mark Lindquist[edit]

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Mark Lindquist (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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I deleted this article but was challenged on the deletion so I restored the article and am sending it to AfD. The original argument by the CSD tagger was "This has become an attack page. It violates BLP rules, violates NPOV rules, relies on tabloid sourcing, assertions don't match citations, and is libelous."

I agreed with this rationale that this article has become a hit job and deleted it but other editors disagreed so I'm opening this up for a larger discussion to see what AfD regulars think. If we removed all of the negative content, all that would be left is a list of the novels this prosecutor has written and even they have negative reviews. I should add that this individual went through a political campaign and much of the editing this year probably reflects people's strong feelings about the candidate. Liz Read! Talk! 00:56, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Kpgjhpjm 01:17, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. Kpgjhpjm 01:17, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 19:04, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep the article also reflects the editing by his campaign to whitewash this person. He has clearly generated some controversy so more eyes on the page would be good. Legacypac (talk) 03:34, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Provisional - the negative comments are justified. The issue is that positive and neutral comments have not been added (or potentially have been removed - I'd have to have a more extensive look back through the versions). The addition (and crucially, maintenance) of these would lead to a more balanced (though likely still "negative") article that is no longer NPOV. Nosebagbear (talk) 17:12, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
a good example of that is his book, Never Mind Nirvana. This article gives 1 negative review only, the article on the book has one positive and one equivocal. DGG ( talk ) 17:22, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I actually forgot to use the article's and hunted down another, which was somewhere between positive and equivocal. I also checked his second book, on which the review was actually mixed, not wholly negative as indicated by the cherry-picked review quote. His first book does indeed appear to be agreed as terrible. Nosebagbear (talk) 20:49, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Keep - As someone who was elected to political office and got some press coverage for his performance in that job (however bad it was), he should satisfy the basic requirements at WP:POLITICIAN, and his books have gotten some notable reviews (again, however bad) which helps with WP:AUTHOR. He has some legitimate coverage about his alleged misdeeds in his region's news media, but also a bunch of critics' sites like this: [1]. If the page is being vandalized by critics, some sort of protection may be in order. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 18:59, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - this "hit job" is bad for wikipedia. Liz was right to delete it. I don't edit, but I read a lot about writers and wikipedia used to be really interesting, but some pages are just trolling and this is like the worst. Don't we have enough trolling everywhere without wikipedia too? The negative attacks on "legal career" are totally misleading, like a lot of political attacks, and don't even make sense to me. Same with attacks on books. There are dozens and dozens of articles with positive stuff about him as a lawyer and and a writer, but someone cherry-picked the worst trollish opinions for here. Never Mind Nirvana has dozens of great reviews, but never mind that. Yeah, I'm biased because I'm a fan and because I hate trolling and politics, but I really think wikipedia shouldn't be a place for "hit jobs" like this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Litrules (talk • contribs) 19:25, 12 December 2018 (UTC) — Litrules (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
  • Draftify This is someone who is clearly notable under a SNG for WP:AUTHOR, but this is a BLP hit piece. He fails WP:NPOL, for what it's worth. It needs to be draftified and cleaned up per NPOV. SportingFlyer talk 01:04, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or Draftify Keep; attack content removed: If the article cannot be restructured to conform to policies and guidelines that include WP:5P1 (not a newspaper), WP:5P2 (NPOV), and WP:BLP it should not exist. Unless consensus has changed the subject does not qualify for inclusion under WP:POLITICIAN. The controversy surrounding the position (newspaper drama) does not rise to nationalized or internationalized recognition. This means that WP:AUTHOR is the only claim for WP:notability and the article relegates that notability to mention in the lead (...and author) and an embedded list only that is written with a slanted view. My issue is that other than allowing everything in the world an article on Wikipedia the criterion under Creative professionals (AUTHOR) includes: #1 - important figure or is widely cited by peers or successors, #2- known for originating a significant new concept, theory, or technique, #3- created or played a major role in co-creating a significant or well-known work or collective body of work -- such work must have been the primary subject of an independent and notable work or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews., #4- The person's work (or works) has: (a) become a significant monument, (b) been a substantial part of a significant exhibition, (c) won significant critical attention, or (d) represented within the permanent collections of several notable galleries or museums.. This seems to indicate that "just" being published does not meet the requirements". Otr500 (talk) 10:09, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Otr500: - to resolve WP:NAUTHOR first, he must pass #3 since several of his books have "multiple independent reviews". Nosebagbear (talk) 12:21, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Otr500: - WP:POL includes "local political figures who have received significant press coverage." A politician who has received "significant press coverage" has been written about, in depth, independently in multiple news feature articles, by journalists. Tacoma News Tribune won the Ted Natt First Amendment award for coverage of the subject in 2016. More feature articles exist that aren't cited here. Mcfnord (talk) 14 December 2018 (UTC)— Mcfnord (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
Reply: I totally disagree on politician: Just because there is sourcing does not mean we should have an article that could allow say a mundane yet crooked subject (not my sourcing) to have an article "JUST" because there was a lot of negative press. This would be great examples of how to create and accept junk wanna-a-be bios. If I believed that I could start a hundred articles on crooked politicians in Louisiana, --sourced through local New Orleans and Baton Rouge newspapers, with some local TV news coverage. ---Probably not because other editors apparently already think that way so we can just wait on more of these.
Just a good review of a book (acceptable source) does not inherently offer notability to support a biographical article. There are four references concerning the books, that are about the books, and 10 concerning the junk (just news) on the politician side --and all negative. Take them out of the equation and there is ZERO sources to support a biography on the subject which defines WP:PSEUDO. That is facts and I can take the hit on AFD statistic if consensus deems Wikipedia should allow this. I still am not convinced that 4 reviews on four books, that only provide passing mention of the subject, ---and a lot of negative publicity making the subject appear locally as a corrupt politician (no charges or convictions), as noteworthy for a NPOV and unbiased BLP on Wikipedia. We are still suppose to hold BLP's to a higher standard of sourcing right? When I searched for sources (to support a BLP) I could only find local stuff on the subject (negative) as a politician and places to buy the ebooks and paperback books on Amazon. IF all the crap is finally deleted there will be four books with reviews on the four books and that just does not pass any form of notability for a sustainable article. We can keep it and hope someone one day does a biography on him to give us something to actually cover. By-the-way: If there is assertions that AFD is not cleanup then we should all stop now and accept all articles (do away with AFD) because deleting those not acceptable is actually cleanup. That is why we allow for WP:HEY and other venues that might allow an article to remain. He wrote some books that did not make any lists so lets make a BLP on his corrupt (perceived by the sources) political life and throw in a mention of the books as a "by-the-way" (embedded list): He is also an author. I am sorry but I just don't get it. Read the Wikipedia article. It portrays an unethical local, possibly corrupt politician, that happens to have written four books. Otr500 (talk) 12:46, 15 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Otr500: - you're disagreement with author notability as the sources are on the books seems to conflict with NAUTHOR #3 fairly significantly, as it fairly clearly indicates that it's the books and their reviews that are needed to generate the notability. It's fairly rare to get sources covering authors themselves, especially discounting interviews.
However, it is important to say that while "AfD is not cleanup" is an important one, a complete failure for an article to be NPOV is a specific CSD (and thus also grounds for an AfD when that is disputed). The !voters saying that notability may be satisfied but it is an attack page are fully entitled to say delete. Though I am concerned in 1 or 2 cases about potential COI/SPA. Nosebagbear (talk)
  • Delete The article is comprised WP:NPOV content, and sources are from questionable sites. Rocktober2018 (talk) 18:24, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep AFD is not cleanup. It is correct that the subject would not normally meet WP:POLITICIAN (because of his position as a county prosecutor) and but is is hard to say that the subject fails WP:AUTHOR with a review from the New York Times. In combination, the subject easily passes WP:GNG. --Enos733 (talk) 06:11, 15 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Keep - a slightly odd reason for the weak here. I think notability is clearly established by WP:NAUTHOR criterion 3. The legitimate potential grounds for deletion/redirect are attack page/completely non-NPOV. I do not feel those are clearly satisfied now, thus moving us into the realms of clean-up rather than removal. However we are also not clearly out of that area - hence the weak keep. Nosebagbear (talk)
  • Comment - A query to the Deletes - why are you saying delete rather than "Redirect to Never Mind Nirvana? Nosebagbear (talk) 16:33, 15 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

'*reply': If I didn't feel there was notability I would have went with just delete. I would have no problem with a redirect to a book as an author.The political drama could then be trimmed. - .Otr500 (talk) 21:58, 15 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep and tag for improvement, sourcing. The coverage of this dude visible in a news archive search is is remarkable, stuff like "Legal and literary hunk Novelist and Pierce County deputy prosecutor Mark Lindquist is named one of People magazine's 100 most eligible bachelors" Reid, Cheryl. The News Tribune; Tacoma, Wash. [Tacoma, Wash]04 Aug 2000: SL1. His books got enough reviews to pass WP:NAUTHOR; many more than are now in the page. Can't see a justification to delete.E.M.Gregory (talk) 22:58, 15 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: There are too many concerns of the negative nature of the article giving completely appropriate grounds for User:Liz to delete. I removed the content on the politician part of the article per Wikipedia:Attack page and changed my !vote accordingly. This was reverted (very fast before I could provide rationale so I undid the reversion. Any added content, or restoration, on the prosecutor aspects (and controversy) must conform to WP:NPOV. Concerned editors "should" watch the page or at least be open to pinging to prevent this type of attack pages from being allowed on Wikipedia per policy. 13:45, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Cleaning up the page and protecting it would be a better approach.E.M.Gregory (talk) 13:53, 16 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I agree but we can not keep going in circular motions when there is clear policy concerning the attack aspects. The only valid rationale to keep an article amid concerns of policy violation would be WP:IGNORE and someone can approach that idea and see how it flies. Keep the page as an author (there are sources out there) --add some of the negative reviews I have seen, and add prosecutor related content according to strict BLP policies. Otr500 (talk) 14:05, 16 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: I do not like being a deletionist but we have a set of "rules" and I judge AFD's according to that. I would like to keep more articles but keep hitting brick walls. Per discussions above I removed the blatant policy violations, since this is not "cleanup", to try to justify keeping one. We can keep the article and continue discussions on the talk page for adding aspects of the actually non-notable prosecutor content. Either there is collaboration or not seems the only choice. If not I will change my !vote again and attempt to see if attack page and BLP policies are jokes or not. I would like to go about my proverbial rat killing (no actual harm to animals intended) and per my opinions and suggestions try to add material to Wikipedia and still disallow the chaos of circumventing these multitude of the policies and guidelines that are intended to produce a quality encyclopedia. That, I realize, is just my opinion but does not appear to be a Trojan Horse. An help here would be appreciated. Otr500 (talk) 14:23, 16 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note that I have added several reviews of his books in major daily papers to the page and to the page on his bluelinked novel. More exist and can be added, but he clearly passes WP:AUTHOR. In addition, there has been WP:SIGCOV of him over the years, by no means all negative. Note also that page is now a sourced stub, mostly just listing his books, and attack material has been deleted. I suggest hat we Keep and Wikipedia:Requests for page protection.E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:14, 16 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relist Request - it's roughly even in !votes anyway (actually slightly towards keep), but given requests for close I thought I'd note that given ongoing disputes on the content, here, and major disputes over the arguments, a relist seems in order. Nosebagbear (talk) 19:31, 16 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment to me, this is a familiar type of article. It is about an author and former public official whose books have been widely reviewed, but mostly negatively. And whose work as a public official was widely covered, but mostly negatively. The great problem with such articles is the tendency of partisans to try to bowdlerize or delete them. One I remember from early in my editing career is Matthew C. Whitaker, a professor man who lost his job because he was a plagiarist. Editors tried to do everything form blanking the page, to deleting the page, to removing criticism - one tried repeatedly to get me banned from editing. More recently Julia Salazar's page has been repeatedly bowdlerized (to remove her remarkable career as a fabulist). It might be easier to delete pages on folks who attract partisan defenders to whitewash their pages, but it is our usual practice to keep them. And hope for NPOV editing to happen.E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:04, 16 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect or Stub or Delete as noted the page became unreliable political drama and not NVOP nor informative as described in Five Pillars. Most reviews of his books are positive; see his website (warning: only quotes positive or neutral reviews naturally). And most coverage of him as a lawyer and public official is positive or neutral. But you would not know this from the page. I think attempts at NPOV and fair BLP have been quickly reverted by partisans, even very recently, and I think neutral people lose interest? I also think he is more notable as the author of Never Mind Nirvana, the book he is known for, at least by some, than as a former public official who is unknown outside of his former district. User:S&S1109 (talk) 16 December 2018 (UTC) — S&S1109 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Most of the discussion here is less than 24 hours old and a relist is fine. If this gains several keep !votes early on after the relist, I'll close as keep.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, wumbolo ^^^ 20:53, 16 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 01:14, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

*Delist The article has several problems. A major contributor has WP:COI. WP:PROMO material is continuously being included in the article. Rocktober2018 (talk) 17:25, 18 December 2018 (UTC) strike 2nd iVote.E.M.Gregory (talk) 18:16, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • note that I am replacing the following 2 comments that - somehow - went missing from this discussion.
  • Note that 2 SPAs have argued to delete, a 3rd SPA has engaged in discussion, and that new User:Rocktober2018 has a very brief editing record, coming here only after being warned about COI editing to promote a commercial product. Certainly, this page/discussion are strange. (I stand by my "keep" opinion above.)E.M.Gregory made this comment 14:31, 17 December 2018
  • I think it's definitely a keep too, just need to figure out how to write it neutrally given this is a rather strange case (and BLP.) User:SportingFlyer made this comment 17:47, 17 December 2018‎, and it somehow disappeared.
  • The 3 SPAs and the comments by new editor Rocktober2018 feels like someone attempting to game the system. I Note that if page's subject, Mark Lindquist, wants this page deleted, he can make a request. His books and his career got sufficient coverage to warrant a page, but I believe that a reasonable argument could be made by Lindquist that his notability is sufficiently moderate that we could decide to delete the page if he made such a request.E.M.Gregory (talk) 18:10, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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