Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Obama family (2nd nomination)

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

The result was no consensus to delete, default to keep.

I discounted some opinions from either side who did not address the problem at issue here (notability) or who gave no substantial reasons at all for their opinion (yes, Grsz11, you do need to bother explaining why). This leaves the community still about evenly divided about the notability of this family, with a slight tilt towards "keep."

As far as I can tell, neither side has obviously stronger policy-based arguments. The "delete" side argues that the family as such has not received the level of coverage required per WP:N and that notability is not inherited. Meanwhile, the "keep" side points to the media attention given to the individual members as evidence for the public interest in this family, and they argue that the article is really a summary style spinout of the article about the very notable politician. I'm not sure whether I can agree with these arguments for keeping the article, but they are at least defensible under the applicable guidelines, and this means I can't discount them. So it's a no consensus outcome for today. (Note: I have removed the fair use soundclip previously inserted at the end of this discussion, per WP:NFCC.)  Sandstein  22:05, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Obama family

AfDs for this article:

• Articles for deletion/Obama family
• Articles for deletion/Obama family (2nd nomination)

Obama family (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

This is a collection of non-notable individuals, many of whom have previously had articles about them deleted or merged into Barack Obama for notability reasons after extensive discussion. All of the same arguments apply here. The only notable people in this article (such as Barack Obama and Michelle Obama) already have extensive articles written about them. For the others, notability is not inherited. Their only notability is their connection to someone notable. Further, notability is not cumulative. If they are not individually notable, how can they be considered notable as a group?

Note that this article was previously deleted after an AfD discussion. This version is not substantially identical to that version so it is not eligible for speedy deletion. However, the title and subject matter are identical, so all of the arguments from that AfD discussion are applicable here. Loonymonkey (talk) 13:47, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm having difficulty here assuming Looney's good faith in desiring open discussion of this matter. Eg (more precisely than his statements) commenters in the Malik Abongo Obama AfD----and a subsequent discussion on the article's talkpage----did not determine where exactly to merge its contents and moreso suggest merging it to a new Obama family article than into Barack Sr.'s, in fact that's what ended up being done, by that article's principal writer, Wikidemo; furthermore, some commenters in the previous AfD said their recommendation would be different if this former version had had more than two family members covered----their arguments, as one major example, cannot be part of any offhand suggestion that all arguments there are applicable here. And lastly!--------Looney simply deleted not only my interspersed interjection but also one comment I made after his, both in violation of WP etiquette and protocols, harrumpf!  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 17:32, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Please try to remain civil in this discussion. It's a little early to revert to personal attacks. I did not delete anything. What I did was move your comments to the discussion section after you altered my AfD rationale, splitting it into two separate comments with your comments inserted. This is completely non-standard, against protocols and frankly very rude. Please discuss the deletion rationally in the discussion section without altering others' comments. Also, both etiquette and protocol dictate that new comments should be placed at the bottom of the discussion. I'm not sure why you feel that your comments belong at the top (or even within the rationale itself) regardless of when they were made. --Loonymonkey (talk) 17:46, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Please don't label me as attacking you personally, Looney. I'd described my impression I'd received only of your actions after seeing my comments had been removed. Only after I'd typed and submitted it did I notice that you'd moved my clarification of your statements to the bottom of the page, so I withdraw that particular part of my allegation regarding your problematic behavior.  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 17:58, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

If that's the case, you may want to strike your comments above. Anyway, this isn't the place to discuss it. Feel free to comment on my talk page if you still have issues. --Loonymonkey (talk) 18:08, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

• Strong keep Much (if not most) of this material is new, and many of the members of the family don't have and may never have Wiki-articles (though I think some should--as discussed elsewhere). I never saw the previously deleted version, but understand this version is entirely new and it looks well done and deserves inclusion. I strongly oppose full merges of other existing articles into this article (we can just add wiki links to them), but see this article as a good overview of the very notable family of Barack Obama.--Utahredrock (talk) 13:55, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. I'm ignoring the previous version because it was deleted, so my opinion is based on the current version. Although individual relatives of presidents are not necessarily notable enough for viable articles, there is established notability for interest in the family trees of presidents. In lieu of individual articles being created on these people, an examination of the family tree of a presidential candidate is viable. I would also support a similar article on John McCain's family and if one doesn't exist I strongly advise one be created in order to maintain non-partisanship here. No prejudice against revisiting this article in AFD should Obama not be elected, however. 23skidoo (talk) 14:04, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

That argument seems to be a variation of the Notability is inherited argument. You're essentially saying that this article should be kept because of its association with someone so notable, but that if Obama were not the presidential candidate (or were to lose the election) then the article wouldn't be as notable. Notability, however, isn't inherited, no matter how great the notability of the related article. --Loonymonkey (talk) 21:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

• Strong Delete - this family is not notable. This article is a WP:COATRACK at best; it exists as a place to showcase the fact that Barack Obama has a family, but does not assert or demonstrate notability of any member of that family. Those few who are actually notable (and some who probably aren't) already have articles. (The Kennedys, Rockefellers, Bushes, etc. are notable because they have many notable members who do or did notable things.)  Frank  |  talk  14:22, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
• Delete Anything I say will be what Frank said above, so per Frank.:)America69 (talk) 14:36, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
• Delete non-notable family whose few notable members have articles already Jasynnash2 (talk) 15:33, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. How exactly is the family not notable? I find that... shockingly unbelievable. coccyx bloccyx_(toccyx) 15:42, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Well in spite of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS I'd say the "Obama" family in this context doesn't meet our notability criteria for inclusion in the same way as the "Ford" and "Carter" families don't meet our criteria for inclusion. They have notable members but, are not notable as an entity in an of itself. Jasynnash2 (talk) 15:46, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

• Strong keep - first of all, clearly notable per WP:N and WP:BIO. There is significant coverage about this subject in hundreds, probably thousands, of reliable sources. In substance this is a subject serious people want to read about in order to improve their understanding of the world - they take note, here, via publications, and off Wiki. That meets the substantive criterion of notability. Second this nomination and other nomination discussions of Barack Obama's family member articles have an inescapable POV problem. Some people clearly do intend to either suppress information about Obama because they don't like the candidate, or because they do like the candidate and see the African ancestry and Muslim faith of some of his family as potentially embarrassing. They have said so directly, evidenced this via a pattern of edit histories, or said this in the negative, accusing the material of being a POV problem / coatrack they want to correct. But even discounting the motivations, systematic and persistent deletion of information about the candidate's family background has a POV effect whether intended or not. It suppresses information about Africa, race, and multiculturalism, and perpetuates the fact of Americans denying and hiding the less urbane side of their diverse identities. Third, the information here is the result of a "merge" result from other AfDs. There is no other logical place to put the material that would not result in a similar article so the outcome of a delete would best be to re-create the child articles, which would lead to a procedural Snafu. We really should get over this nonsense and stop attempting to delete important encyclopedic content from the project. Wikidemo (talk) 17:58, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
• Speedy Keep - Doing a Google on "Obama Family Tree" produces 9,540 entries for that exact phrase. The overriding rule WP:NOTE is If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be notable. The article as written provides a great and very useful family tree diagram. It will be a very useful dumping ground when lesser Obamas. Rarely do we see a topic up for deletion with that many Google pages. The debate is not whether we think the Obamas are notable but whether third parties consider them notable and it's clear thousands of people consider them notable. Americasroof (talk) 18:48, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Notability isn't conferred through google hits. I get thousands of hits on my own name, but that doesn't mean I can start an article about myself. As for the article being a useful dumping ground, well, yes. That's one of the problems. --Loonymonkey (talk) 19:14, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

What other dumping ground would you propose, or are you trying to eliminate information about Obama's family from the encyclopedia entirely? Notability is demonstrated by sources, which are often accessible via google. That search result (39,000 hits for me[1] and 8 news hits[2] shows some interesting results, although it is far underinclusive due to its precise wording. All appear related to the subject though as usual the reult contains lots (though less than usual) of stray results. Wikidemo (talk) 19:53, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I would propose that Wikipedia isn't the place for dumping grounds of non-notable information. And again, google hits are not a measure of notability. There are millions of hits for Barack Obama, many of which are going to discuss his family background in the context of providing biographical detail about him.--Loonymonkey (talk) 21:55, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Apparently editors interested in the well-known families of namesakes that aren't blue-blooded don't contribute to articles on the topic, only tack things on to them. We don't move a file elsewhere, only deposit it. We don't merge various members' of such families' biographies, only commingle them. What's to be learned from this? That such information as

Jean Ann Kennedy and Stephen Edward Smith had four children:
Stephen Edward Smith, Jr.
William Kennedy Smith - 1991 rape acquittal, physician, activist against land mines
Amanda Mary Smith, married Carter Hood, one child
Kym Maria Smith, married Alfie Tucker

----when drawn from wide media coverage given the Romneys (and Rockerfellers and Vanderbuilts, per another comment below) is encyclopedic but when folks receiving wide media coverage are of less noble lineage, it's cruft.  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 01:36, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Or the McDucks (motto " FORTVNA · FAVET · FORTIBVS ," see Clan McDuck#Family tree), whose patriarch's worth was listed in 2007's "The Forbes 15" at $28.8 Billion.[3]

• NEUTRAL (however, if Loony's Anti- "Dumping" (ie merging) of Obama Family Members' Bios campaign should change individual members' article's AfD results from No consensus for deletion but consensus for merger to Deletion through stealth I change my "vote" to Keep).  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 19:45, 15 July 2008 (UTC) Sliding off the fence toward KEEP. Although whether Malik/Sarah/Madelyn Payne have indie articles or else biographical coverage in a composite article is shrugable, the present composite article is as good as any, for the time being.  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 03:45, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
• Delete. The family itself is not notable in the way that the Rockefellers or Kennedys or Roosevelts are. Individual notable family members should have their own articles, but the family is not notable. Madman (talk) 21:30, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
• Keep In cases of borderline individual notability like this the obvious course is to have a combination article, not try for articles on the individual people. Applies here just as with fictional characters.DGG (talk) 21:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. The current article has 19 references, and there are several independent articles that are proposed to merge in with dozens of additional references. Almost all of these references are from articles major news outlets covering Obama's family (CNN, ABC, Newsweek, and many others). So, based on WP:N we have 1) "significant coverage" in the form of several dozen articles 2) from "reliable sources," specifically a wide variety of respected news outlets 3) which are clearly "independent of the subject." It meets all the criteria. Now, there would be some justification for removing some of the individual entries which do not contain any detail (or perhaps condensing them into a few sentences by category). And the family tree image is too wide to fit in the browser, it doesn't seem that breaking the page layout is appropriate. Maracle (talk) 05:19, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

----I narrowed the family relationship chart. (Much less wide now than that at Bush family#Family tree.) ( ^Y )  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 06:10, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

• • Strong Keep:Obama's family on father;s side is black peoples, alot of purple flags for stubby articles to merge into it, Sarah obama still have to merge into this article. She is born in 1921.--Freewayguy ^{Call? Fish} 16:15, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
• Keep per DGG, as a collective it makes perfect sense to have this article. RFerreira (talk) 19:46, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Living people-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp | talk to me 00:10, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp | talk to me 00:10, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
• Weak keep. The mixed successes and failures of AfD's on various individual family members make this issue muddled. The somewhat hyperbolic and un-WP:CIVIL comments on both sides don't help either. However, it appears that the individual family members will be a mixture of notable and non-notable individually, but there is enough independent interest in Barack Obama's close-ish family as a whole to merit an article (using WP:SUMMARY style where appropriate for members with independent articles). LotLE×talk 19:03, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. I see no problem with this kind of an article, and it certainly has plenty of sources to back it up. It's basically an annotated list. As DGG says, this is much like a "list of characters" for a fictional topic. If this article was called, for instance, List of relatives of Barack Obama, we wouldn't be debating whether the family was notable enough. Mangojuice^talk 20:13, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, if it were simply a list of relatives of Barack Obama (and not biographies), it would have a much stronger rationale for being kept as an article. Then it would be in the context of biographical details about Barack Obama (which is the only reason any of these people are being mentioned) and not pretending that they are uniquely notable. But as it is, this article is simply a coatrack on which to hang a bunch of biographical articles that have previously failed notability after extensive deletion discussions. --Loonymonkey (talk) 01:36, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

...As is the case with lots of list on Wikipedia. If you think the article is getting too far away from its status as a subtopic of Barack Obama, fix it: we all know that's the main topic here. And the article does acknowledge that, in the lead. It is irrelevant if individual entries have been regarded as not notable enough, and if any of those entries are too expansive, they can be reduced. As a topic, this is just fine. Mangojuice^talk 03:36, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I see your point. If the result of this discussion ends up being "Keep" with the rationale that the inherent problems can be fixed through editing, it would be great to get some guidance from the closing admin as to what the apparent problems are and what the limits of the article's scope should be. --Loonymonkey (talk) 22:38, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

• Delete For the record, I think that currently the family itself is not notable. Obama has an article - that is more than enough. If his relatives become governors, CEOs, etc then great. But at the moment it's daft to have an entire family tree and all of this based purely on Obama's profile. Are we to delete all of this if he loses the election, or is it all justified just because he is a mere nominee? I don't see an article on the Dole or Kerry families. John Smith's (talk) 22:38, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually we do. Wikipedia was much smaller in 2004, and Bob Kerry's family is not a group of Africans and expatriates. Nevertheless, we do have Dudley–Winthrop family, Forbes family, Cameron Kerry, Julia Thorne, Teresa Heinz, Alexandra Kerry, Vanessa Kerry, Rosemary Forbes Kerry, Cameron Kerry, James Grant Forbes, Robert Charles Winthrop, and Francis Blackwell Forbes. Many of those articles have lists of family members in turn. Wikidemo (talk) 23:05, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

• Strong keep Obama is most certainly notable and being able to look up his family ties here is very useful indeed. Also, having this as a separate article, linked to the main one about the (now) candidate, avoids clutter. This is neat and tidy. I appreciate the work done on the part of the author(s) to put this together. --Achim (talk) 01:55, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
• Delete. Condense the two paragraphs of trivia about Malik (Roy) Obama and four paragraphs of trivia about Sarah Obama down to one encyclopedic sentence each and merge into the Children and Family background and early life in Kenya sections respectively, of the Barack Obama, Sr. article, where they are already mentioned.Newross (talk) 02:32, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
• Strong keep Obama is very popular and many people are interested in his family background. The article passes WP:N, and it is well sourced. It is important to have a separate article because it will help people who want to know specifically about his family background. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 03:35, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
• This material verifiable from reliable sources, and we have editors willing to maintain it. While there are reasonable arguments regarding "inheritance" of notability, the topic of "family of B.O." appears to have sufficient aggregate notability to merit an article. - brenneman 05:49, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
• Strong keep The family is obviously notable . . . and unique with many firsts in American history. The more notable of those included here should be linked to with their own article--and some wikifying. Outright merges of all family members into this article is strongly oppossed. Rely on links for more detail.--Canada1776 (talk) 09:47, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
• Delete - If any of these persons were actually notable, they would have their own articles. Also per Frank. Blackngold29 10:59, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
• Delete - do I even need to bother explaining why? Grsz^talk 19:53, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
• Delete - same as last time: these people are not notable; any useful information about them can go in Barack's page. This may have been created anew, in good faith, rather than being a G4 recreation; but the content and reason for deletion are substantially similar. --Orange Mike | Talk 19:58, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
• Keep Any thought of putting any details like these in Barack's page is ill-conceived. His page already has several subpages.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 22:12, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
• Comment Many editors have made the argument that notability for this article has been established because many of the subjects have been mentioned in multiple reliable sources. However, this returns to my original point that notability is not inherited. Yes, there are multiple reliable sources, but none of these involve anyone doing anything notable on their own, they are always in the context of how it relates to the notable Barack Obama. By way of example, there have been literally thousands of articles written in the last week about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's newborn twins, but there is a reason that we do not have an article about them on Wikipedia. They are not inherently notable and haven't done anything to make themselves notable other than be born in the same family as notable people. Likewise, most of the subjects of this article are not inherently notable and those that are already have extensive articles written about them. --Loonymonkey (talk) 22:55, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure of the applicability of celebrity children are to Presidential candidates' families but there is in fact extensive discussion of the children in the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie articles. Notability, obviously, is inherited in that way. There is no "on their own" standard on Wikipedia. The standard is worth noting, as evidenced by coverage in multiple reliable sources. There is no consensus for refusing to discuss Obama's family members in the encyclopedia. The result of the other two deletion discussions was to merge, not delete. So the information was merged into the most logical place. If that article is now attacked to get rid of the information, where else would it be merged? The main Obama article is not appropriate - it would be of undue weight there. The article about Obama's father isn't a terrible place but what's the point of moving the information from here to there? All this does is to create a procedural mess. Wikidemo (talk) 17:11, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

That's my point exactly. The children are discussed in Pitt and Jolie's articles because it a biographical detail of those notable people. But the newborn twins do not have their own article. The reason they don't is because they are not independently notable (and trust me, if such an article were allowed on Wikipedia it would not only exist but would have been edited furiously the past few weeks). I haven't bothered to check the deletion logs, but I'm willing to bet such an article was deleted in the last couple of weeks for notability reasons. This is the "on their own" standard (that really does exist on Wikipedia.)--Loonymonkey (talk) 19:38, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

• Strong keep Seems perfectly obvious that this is notable. --Sednar (talk) 21:11, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of actor families----as well as charts scrolling off way right in the browser, check out Barrymore family#Family tree, a problem contributors @ Coppola family (que music---& Cf. Corleone family#Family tree) solve this way: Coppola family tree.  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 20:01, 20 July 2008 (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.