Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sophia Danenberg

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. Borderline notability, but probably just enough. Some more (offline) sources from local editors would be good. Black Kite 22:21, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sophia Danenberg[edit]

First person of a certain ethnicity and gender to climb a certain mountain. And that's about it, really. WP:BLP1E applies, I think. No sources included for anything outside of this one achievement. Guy (Help!) 18:04, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom. Ho and hum. Clarityfiend (talk) 18:37, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This is both a notable mountain, a first (whether race, ethnicity, gender) which is also notable, and also a rarity in the sport (race and gender in high altitude climbing). rkmlai (talk) 18:53, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Keep – There seems to be enough coverage to pass WP:Notability based on my Google search as listed here [1]. They all state the claim, to notability, is that she is the first Black-American female to climb Mount Everest. Shoessss | Chat 18:56, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Passes WP:N, though not by much. Sethie (talk) 19:09, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak delete. The article notes that the local media didn't cover this so why is it notable enough for Wikipedia. Capitalistroadster (talk) 19:15, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article as written: "But then she kept a low profile before, during, and after her climb. She wasn’t sponsored and didn’t send satellite photos or dispatches to news organizations, as many climbers do. The only people she kept in touch with, by e-mail, were her sister, her husband, and a colleague at work." so it is not that she, is not notable but that she didnt have publicity about herself before or after the event. I say it is Notable for wikipedia and the world.
--rkmlai (talk) 19:26, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is a new and surprising criterion if it is more than a compact way of saying "It's relatively easy to get publicity from your local paper, so what has kept the Hartford Courant from covering her?" That is far from a mere rhetorical question, and i can offer two quite specific and compelling possible answers:

The Courant presumably invested substantially in the "on assignment" expedition expenses of its reporter Michael Kodas, author of High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed (releasing this month). I don't think we need to become authorities on the conflict-of-interest standards or financial realities of modern journalism to say that it's plausible that the paper might weigh the hazards of either being stereotyped as obsessed with Everest, or simply undermining its readers' appetites for Kodas's Everest tales, if it covered Dannenberg's story.
Dannenberg is a professional working in an engineering-dominated mega-corp, in an area that some engineers may consider significant mostly as an impediment to their work. I can imagine such a professional fearing that local publicity could evoke hostility in co-workers, based on theories that publicity enhanced her influence in decisions that should be based only on technical considerations, and therefore requesting that there be no local coverage.

--Jerzy•t 08:34, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Keep - does meet WP:N. - Milk's Favorite Cookie 20:29, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The Chicago Reader is pretty much a local (metro) paper (she's from Homewood, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago). The Chicago Tribune has also covered her.[2] Biggest problem here is not notability but cadging too much from the Reader article. --Dhartung | Talk 20:31, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
She also spoke of the event as guest of honor 200 miles (of dense urban corridor) away.
--Jerzy•t 08:34, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep:
Perhaps i've not read far enough in WP:BLP1E, but the tone of its first 'graph certainly doesn't support deletion in this case: minor crimes and running for office, AFIC see, are massively less notable than climbing Everest, even without the firsts, and IMO the article will be sought by student essayists and identity-pride speakers/educators (which most WP'ians aren't), and found by them if it is the target of suitable lks, so our individual interest in it, or the general public's, is a poor gauge of its notability.

As to "First person of a certain ethnicity and gender ...":
I grant that what we have here, a first for a combination of ethnicity and gender, is somewhat less notable than "first of an ethnicity" or "first of a gender". But the nom says "certain ethnicity and gender" as if any choice of them has the same significance. (Wrong: Suppose by a statistical anomaly something comparable had happened to be done by black men and Euro women, before the first Euro man. I don't think (even if some might) that either a black woman's Everest ascent or the hypothetical first Euro man's accomplishment is per se better than the others. But i don't think the Euro man's accomplishment would have the same significance and notability as Sophia Danenberg's.)

And even if someone has achieved complete "race blindness" and "gender blindness" and is thus free of prejudice, i can't see how they could be so unaware of the role in modern thought of concepts like internalized racism and "multiple handicaps" operating synergistically, as to dismiss the significance of the concepts, and such talismans as Sophia Danenberg, in the lives of more typical humans.

Please note that you don't have to even believe that internalized racism or synergism of handicaps is real, to know that the ideas matter. This is not a question of our taking the corresponding PoV, but of recognizing that holding the PoV is a real phenomenon, and that people doing so makes a difference in society and social psychology.

I started the article without a clear thought about what makes it notable, but more the thought "far from run-of-the-mill, and others are better equipped than i to judge whether it rises to notability or not." And my first thot on the AfD was to argue a "weak keep" -- but i see the topic as more notable as i consider it. (I admit to being disappointed in how it's developed in abt 6 months, since i created the 2-sentence stub, but a lot of that is tone -- uh, dare i say, WP articles shouldn't sound like identity-pride speeches? -- but always remember that AfD is always about notability of the topic, and never about the current content of the article.)
--Jerzy•t 08:34, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

week keep' notable but more sources needed Logastellus (talk) 11:15, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Wikipedia coverage of athletes is quite comprehensive and consensus standards for notability are rather generous. Significant press coverage is likely, though mostly offline media. Minos P. Dautrieve (talk) 03:18, 10 February 2008 (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.