Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Patricia Cloherty

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. Hopefully folks can continue to improve it. Probably best to remove her birth year which is uncited. SarahStierch (talk) 17:07, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Patricia Cloherty[edit]

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Subject requests deletion, via OTRS Ticket # 2012100210001588. They are concerned that there may be inaccuracies in the article. Additionally, the subject feels the article is not up to our notability guidelines for biographies. Opened this discussion per their request. Rjd0060 (talk) 15:07, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

~~Weak delete~~ Keep - inaccuracies are a WP:FIXTHEPROBLEM problem, not a reason to delete. But the subject cannot be expected to know that as a non-editor. We've had a few of these cases recently and I've made the same point a few times. Notability is based on coverage in sources, not coverage only in complimentary sources. We need to be conscious of the usual BLP stuff but coverage is coverage. We reflect the coverage. If you don't like the coverage, hire a PR person to get more "balance". But balance here is a matter of WP:NPOV. That said, though I think the sources might (just) allow the subject to meet WP:GNG, I'm not convinced the subject is so obviously notable that the article should be kept at all costs. Where it is a line-ball call but someone has asked for an article about them to be deleted, I would general be inclined to recognise that request. But a few more / substantial sources (regardless of tone) would likely put the question beyond doubt. Stalwart111 (talk) 04:05, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. — Frankie (talk) 19:36, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - this is a marginally notable person. I can't recall what we have done in such cases. Would you care to job my memory? Bearian (talk) 22:00, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, there's nothing specific at outcomes but there was a failed proposal at WP:OPTOUT. The recent ones I remember are Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Scott G. Stewart and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pamella Bordes - one was deleted and one was kept. I contributed to both. It seems the consensus has generally been that a request from the subject carries more weight than a general AFD started for clean-up or policy-based reasons, but only in the sense that editors are more inclined to cite WP:HARM. I think in general, a BLP subject is less likely to ask for their page to be deleted if the article is "complimentary". These tend to come up when reliable secondary sources support an article which might not be complimentary to the subject. The other point I have seen made a few times (and have made the same point myself) is that WP has WP:NPOV requirements which news media outlets do not. Thus, uncomplimentary coverage can often still result in a fairly neutrally worded WP article. Without the article, a google search (which seems to be the catalyst for many of these cases) would only bring up the news coverage, complimentary or not. In this particular case, the coverage seems neither particularly complimentary or uncomplimentary of the subject. I think the request may have been made because deletion might seem, to the subject, easier than asking WP to put some effort into fixing it. That is not necessarily the case. The article itself could do with some work - especially in relation to WP:MOS and WP:NPOV. If the information is not accurate, that's different - that can be fixed.

But like Scott G. Stewart, where notability is marginal and the article has marginal encyclopaedic value, few will "die in a ditch" to keep it. What's the point of keeping something with marginal encyclopaedic value where the subject would rather it doesn't exist? It's not a particularly good reason for deleting something but for a lack of good reasons for keeping it... Stalwart111 (talk) 01:26, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note - after citing WP:FIXTHEPROBLEM I decided to try and do exactly that. Have cleaned up all the references, some of the commentary not strictly supported by references and some of the other sections that needed work. Am now seeing more than enough "significant coverage" to justify keeping the article. Have also brought some sections back to more WP:NPOV language to (hopefully) address some of the concerns the subject had about the article (which, looking at it, were entirely justified). None of the coverage cited is in any way negative (in either general tone or specific assertion) so suggestions in the intro that gave WP:UNDUE weight to marginal commentary should not have been there - in essence, one paragraph was picked out from a pages-and-pages-long feature article, responsibility for that "issue" was arbitrarily attributed to the subject (without verification) and then given undue weight via inclusion in the intro. Really inappropriate. I have now changed my "vote" above to Keep and have struck some of my commentary now which is probably no longer relevant. Stalwart111 (talk) 02:19, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mark Arsten (talk) 18:01, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per WP:HEY, SOFIXIT, and GNG. She is cited by numerous reliable sources, such as Forbes, so I would err on keeping the article now, that she is more than marginally notable. Great job, Stalwart111. Bearian (talk) 22:15, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Sheesh, Forbes and The New York Times aren't good enough? There are also Bloomberg Businessweek, Business New Europe, and the Woodrow Wilson Award [1]. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:10, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. It's abundantly clear from the sources already cited in the article that this person meets the WP:GNG requirements, as well as other more specific ones. She's been covered in the New York Times, Forbes, Crain's New York Business and other reliable publications with depth and in a significant way. If the article needs work, that's a content issue, not a notability one. --Batard0 (talk) 11:31, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Although the original article had numerous problems, the article has been cleaned up significantly. The secondary sources demonstrate that the subject is notable and meets Wikipedia's notability guideline for biographies.--xanchester (t) 15:57, 24 October 2012 (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.