Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Theresa Obermeyer

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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 redirect to United States Senate election in Alaska, 1996. --BDD (talk) 16:24, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

While many editors have advanced solid arguments for deletion, generally based on her failure of WP:POLITICIAN, per WP:POLOUTCOMES her name remains a likely search term, so redirecting to the election she participated in is sensible. I'm not convinced by the sources presented in favor of a WP:GNG argument. It's natural that the Anchorage press would give coverage to an Anchorage school board member, but keeping on this basis would, frankly, set a terrible precedent. As for the 39 Google Books results (discounting books from Wikipedia), they're mostly political almanacs where she's no more than a list mention. There are also mentions of other people by the same name, such as a figure associated with Beethoven.

When notability of a local politician isn't conclusively demonstrated, WP:POLOUTCOMES offers the best guidance. --BDD (talk) 18:28, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Theresa Obermeyer[edit]

Theresa Obermeyer (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Marginal notability (though perhaps enough to pass), but subject has requested deletion. IMO, given the notability thing, there's no reason not to grant this request, though others may disagree. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 20:25, 9 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Candidate for senate (not actually winning anything) one time. Not notable enough to override their wishes imo. Delete or leave as stub. ~Charmlet -talk- 20:29, 9 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note I removed a substantial portion of the article shortly before the nomination. Her primary claim to notability is still included, and while I think the content removed should stay removed, it may bear on this discussion. Monty845 20:30, 9 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I restored the content, as your removal was an a priori judgment that the subject was not notable. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:24, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Nothing inherently notable in the article. Kumioko (talk) 20:32, 9 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Falls short of WP:POLITICIAN as an unelected candidate lacking significant coverage. January (talk) 20:42, 9 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete No notability or even assertion of notability - could even have been speedied. Only claim to fame is getting 10% of the vote inspite of having been imprisoned for 10 days during the campaign. Seems likely to be simply written to disparage a living person.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:01, 9 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete No claim of notability Shii (tock) 21:04, 9 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Not eligible for speedy, since a major party candidate for US Senate is always important, but no evidence of importance or substantial coverage aside from an unsuccessful campaign. Nyttend (talk) 21:50, 9 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per courtesy (nominal notability)NE Ent 22:38, 9 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as non-notable. I agree with the nom; she is of marginal notability, and if she wants the article deleted, then that's enough to push me in favor of deletion. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 23:33, 9 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Not because someone doesn't like their own article, which isn't policy and would set a poor precedent if we allowed it here, but simply because the subject fails the general notability guidelines set out in WP:BIO.JOJ Hutton 01:57, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Fails WP:BIO by wholly lacking biographical sources addressing the totality of her life, and any event that she might have been involved in appears to fail WP:BIO1E. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 02:08, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 03:42, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Alaska-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 03:42, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - don't care about somebody claiming to be her requesting deletion; but long-standing precedent here is that failed candidates are not inherently notable, since most of the coverage is not really about them but rather incidental to their candidacies and thus really more about the elections than about them. --Orange Mike | Talk 04:10, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - this discussion should be closed early. It's snowing in Alaska. StAnselm (talk) 04:25, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - This is not a failed candidate for the for Mayor of Littleville or the Rumplestiltskin County Board of Supervisors. The U.S. Senate has been called "the most exclusive club in the world". There are only 100 U.S. Senators, and only two major American parties, so any major party candidate for a U.S. Senate seat passes the notability bar by definition, imo, even if they never do anything else important in their lives. However, they do not get the privilege of determining the fate of Wikipedia's articles about them. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:29, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We do actually give a request from the subject some weight per WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE. In your opinion is the subject sufficiently notable that that section is inapplicable? Monty845 04:35, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:48, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Normally I would find the "major party candidate for U.S. Senate" argument persuasive, but I looked at the link to the election results, and she did not even place second in the election. She got 11 percent of the vote and placed third behind the Green Party candidate, who got 13 percent. So although she did get the nomination of a major party, she was really kind of in "fringe candidate" territory. (At this point I am "neutral" on the deletion.) Neutron (talk) 15:07, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect (as outlined below) Delete - but with due deference to BMK who makes a good point about the numbers. I will say, though, that while it might be "the most exclusive club in the world", the subject is not a member of that club. In fact, she's no more a member than you or I (unless you happen to be a US Senator editing WP between sessions). I'm not strictly against an arbitrary major party Senate candidates are automatically notable rule but I can't really see the value for readers in a stub that simply says someone with that name ran as a Senate candidate this one time. There's probably a reason why half of the entries in the {{Democratic Alaska Senatorial nominees}} template are redlinks. Stalwart111 07:23, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, clearly notable, not only for her Senate Run, but also for her judicial problems, as witnessed by countless newspaper articles and also e.g. this article from the American Journalism Review. Fram (talk) 08:01, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment; above there was a delete !vote for the lack of biographical detail, but this can be easily fixed. I have added info on her education and marriage, the same SPS has her professional career as well. I know that such a personal website doesn't add any notability, but it does complete the article and reduces the stubbiness and too tight focus of the article. Fram (talk) 10:04, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Note that Obermeyer requested that the article be deleted or rewritten to her specifications, it wasn't a straight deletion request. The request has been rev/deleted from the page history because it contained all of her personal contact info, but part of what she was objecting to was that there was some very poorly sourced information about her husband. The current version of the article isn't the text she put forward - we tend to avoid letting people write their own articles, obviously - but it is well-sourced and not overly focused on her husband. Being a major party candidate for the US senate means she passes notability, and given that she didn't actually demand deletion as the only option, I think it the article should stay. Cheers, Dawn Bard (talk) 12:58, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, if someone could be bothered books references would suggest notability, and a general search would too. Murry1975 (talk) 14:14, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per sources indicated above by Fram and Murry1975. Passes WP:GNG. Wishes of the subject irrelevant. --cyclopiaspeak! 15:41, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • They are irrelevant in this case. This is a clearly public, known figure, both because of sources and because she run for an election, thus begging for public exposure. --cyclopiaspeak! 16:12, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Only if you hold that "Meets WP:BIO" == "is a public figure", because it'd be near impossible to be more obscure than the subject and still meet the notability requirements. In which case WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE has no meaning or use and should not exist. I don't believe that. Herostratus (talk) 00:46, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Redirect to United States Senate election in Alaska, 1996] per spirit and letter of WP:BLP which trumps most all other considerations. WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE requires a Delete close, absent a very clear consensus to keep, which I don't see here, and the person closing should take note of that. Unless the argument can be made that the subject is not "relatively unknown" (or is not not a public figure, the wikidefinition at WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE of which is "People who are relatively unknown", so that's circular). But that argument can't be made. On a scale of being well known, from zero to ten, where ten is Barack Obama and zero is your Uncle Dwight, where does she fit? Somewhere between zero and one. If you wish to define "relatively well-known" or "public figure" as "a person who has been noted somewhere in some publication" that's totally idiosyncratic, and you'd have to explain exactly who WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE is intended to cover. Nobody, I guess, since your Uncle Dwight has never appeared in the newspapers anyway and fails WP:BIO. So why does WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE exist? To line birdcages? I don't think so. Herostratus (talk) 15:53, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Unlike any of my uncles, however, this person has run for the U.S. Senate, and received the endorsement of a major party (though as I mention above, she came in third in the election.) By running for public office, especially such a high-profile office, hasn't she intentionally made herself a "public figure"? Neutron (talk) 19:56, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as meeting GNG per book and media sources cited above by Fram and Murry1975. 24.151.116.25 (talk) 15:57, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The book sources that are actually about her and not Beethoven's girlfriend of the same name only mention her as a candidate because they list candidates and do not describe her as a person in any degree of detail. They do not satisfy general notability imo.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:11, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Subject is borderline notable at best and fails WP:POLITICIAN on a good day. One of those "lulz" biographies intended to disparage the subject. §FreeRangeFrogcroak 16:26, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I would have sppedied it myself, to avoid the whole game of AFD. non-notable BLP. -- Aunva6talk - contribs 16:42, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Which speedy criterion would you have used? Whether this ends as delete or No consensus keep, I don't see how it would fit either G10 or A7, and other speedy reasons are even less applicable. Incorrectly using speedy deletion to avoid the "game" of AFD is a rather serious misuse of the admin tools. Fram (talk) 17:20, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In its original form it made no claim of notability whatsoever. In its current form I would say that G10 arguably applies, but that is of course more of a judgment call.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:45, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Its "original form" from 2005? How is that still relevant for this AfD? And G10 now? That's a very wide interpretation of that criterion. I doubt such a deletion would survive DRV. Fram (talk) 07:06, 11 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. The most 'notable' thing in the biography appears to be about her husband; early versions of the article seem to be interested mostly in advertising this. Failed Senate candidate with some weird ideas. Nothing to see here. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:56, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Failed major party (you know, the ones who actually run things) US Senate candidate. Plenty of notability there. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:37, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi, Beyond My Ken. This may surprise you, but yes—I am aware of what the U.S. Senate is, and what the Democratic Party is. I also know that Alaska is the 47th-largest state in the Union, with a population on par with, say, Charlotte, North Carolina. Senators from small states tend to be important only due to their disproportionate influence (to the size of population represented) in the Senate. Losing candidates from small states are much less important, broadly speaking. Except in unusual circumstances, candidates who run against long-term Senate incumbents are widely seen and understood to be pro forma bordering-on-disposable placeholders. Sure, they'll run a campaign for the sake of the show, but no one expects them to win. Ted Stevens, the then-28-year incumbent, won handily and unsurprisingly against Obermeyer in 1996, with 76% of the vote. (Granted, Stevens was dislodged in a squeaker of a vote in 2008 – 46.5% to his opponent's 47.8% – but only because even Alaska was unprepared (just barely) to return their senior senator after a felony conviction reached just a few days before the election.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:03, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi, TenOfAllTrades. My sincere apologies for the insinuation that you weren't aware of the facts here, please chalk it up to my desire to put across my firm belief that all major party candidates for US Senate, even those from states with small populations like Alaska, are ipso facto notable. I mean, yes, there are probably more people living in my neighborhood of Manhattan than in the 49th State, but, for better or worse, the founders of the United States made all states equal with regards to representation in the Senate. (As far as I know, it's the only electoral body in the U.S. which is allowed to break the "one man, one vote" rule.) I see this as a bright line circumstance. I totally agree that failed candidates in almost every other circumstance start with a presumption of being non-notable, but with US Senate candidates and those for state Governor, my feeling is that notability is part and parcel of the candidacy.

    Again, my apologies. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:26, 11 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: A Google search indicates that she has run for the U.S. Senate at least twice and probably three times. According to this, she ran again for the Senate in 2002 and 2004, and Mayor of Anchorage in 2000 (losing in the primary each time). I would feel more comfortable with a second source, and here is one for her run in 2004: http://peninsulaclarion.com/stories/060204/leg_060204leg001001.shtml (in which she is called a "perennial candidate.") She is also mentioned in United States Senate election in Alaska, 2004. I have not yet added any of this to the article because it would be good to have a second source for the 2002 run. But I think this sheds a different light on things. Neutron (talk) 21:18, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, she was the actual party candidate only once, and tried unsuccessfully to be the candidate a few more times. Those further unsuccesful attempts should be added to her article of course, but don't really add any considerable notability in themselves. What does indicate her notability is that she was the major topic of multiple articles in the Anchorage newspapers over many years:
  1. 19 July 1992: Called a loose cannon, she sticks to her guns: Theresa Obermeyer refuses to be silenced (a 2000+ word article)
  2. 17 December 1992: Obermeyer raises ruckus at Rotary
  3. 22 April 1993: Obermeyer, colleagues scuffle to the bitter end
  4. 30 April 1993: Obermeyer blasts board ethics panelists
  5. 29 September 1994: Obermeyer fined $50 for outburst
  6. 17 August 1995: Theresa Obermeyer arrested after federal building scuffle
  7. 12 June 1996: Judge jails Obermeyer for 30 days
  8. 4 July 1996: Obermeyer went on a fast track U.S. Marshal denies special handling
  9. 31 October 1996: police wait in wings as Stevens, Obermeyer debate
  10. 22 February 1998: Obermeyer charged with assault
  11. 21 August 1998: Obermeyer hurt in scuffle
  12. 11 November 1998: Jury clears Obermeyer
  13. 30 June 1999: School board vote muzzles Obermeyer
  14. 8 February 2000: District pays for Christal to sue critic Obermeyer
  15. 22 February 2000: Newspaper opinion piece about Obermeyer
  16. 9 March 2000: Obermeyer snubs foes, makes own way
  17. 3 July 2001: Obermeyer loses suit by Christal

And these are only the ones where she is actually in the title of the article... 17 articles, spanning 10 years, but not notable? Strange... Fram (talk) 07:06, 11 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete Marginally notable and I don't think we should ignore the wishes of the subject. Why not leave a redirect to an article about the election, in which I believe she finished third after the Republican and Green Party candidate? AniMate 16:06, 11 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Marginal notability, coverage is mostly routine coverage of local politics, and as the subject requests deletion, WP:BLPDELETE takes effect. Tarc (talk) 17:12, 11 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - The user who has claimed to be the article subject made several edits to the article today [1] (mostly an unsourced copy of their preferred version, and again stating their request to either use that version or to delete the page). I've reverted the page back, but wanted to mention it here for consideration during the discussion. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 01:19, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Obviously, confining the page to her preferred version is not going to be acceptable, but I personally don't think that that invalidates her request for deletion. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 04:45, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Interesting that she is so vehement about not being called a "politician". Where I come from, someone who has run in eight different elections should be prepared to be called a "politician". But I have finally decided how to "vote" in this thing, and it is not how people would expect based on my comments here and above. Neutron (talk) 00:20, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect to United States Senate election in Alaska, 1996. This is her most prominent race, and a redirect to an election page is a common outcome for a losing candidate for a national office. Many of the information in the article can be added to the election page. Enos733 (talk) 20:48, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect with an asterisk. (Probably to the 1996 election article, though she also is mentioned in the 2004 election article.) My impression from her preferred version of the article is that she has ceased her very public "campaign", and I am not talking about a campaign for office, but the combination of election campaigns and other public efforts to gain redress for her husband's difficulties in being admitted to the Alaska bar. (Which may have finally been resolved one way or the other; that's not clear.) I do not view this as a direct candidate for WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE because she is not a "non-public figure" -- as I note above, it's tough to be a non-public figure when you've run in eight elections -- but more like sort of a version of Wikipedia's "right to vanish" (which directly applies to editors, not articles). In other words, ok, fine, redirect the article so it's not "live" (but remains preserved in the history), and if she doesn't run for office again and doesn't otherwise intentionally put herself in the newspapers again, it stays that way. But if she "comes back", then someone can bring back the article too, simply by reverting the redirect and adding the "latest" to the article. Is there already a three-letter acronym for that, or did I just make it up? Neutron (talk) 00:20, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think the closest thing we have is WP:COMMONSENSE. I'm comfortable supporting a redirect on that basis. Stalwart111 00:55, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Works for me. The one thing I think we should not do is set a "precedent" that under these circumstances, policy requires that the article be deleted, or even redirected. I don't think it does. I think the "message" should be, ok, you probably made it "above the line" to public-figure-hood, but if you want to go back under the line and you plan to stay there, there doesn't need to be a "live" article about you on Wikipedia. Just don't take advantage of the courtesy, or it will be withdrawn. (See, by analogy, WP:GAMING and WP:RTV. Neutron (talk) 01:15, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This "solution" flies in the face of WP:NTEMP. She was public and notable once, she is public and notable forever -at least about the stuff she did when she was a public figure. I oppose the redirect. --cyclopiaspeak! 18:43, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I dont think is about notability. Wp:BLPREQUESTDELETE assumes that the subject is notable, but allows for a deletion or redirection anyway, if the subject is not a public figure and requests deletion. And while notability is not temporary (according to Wikipedia guidelines, anyway), I see no reason why a person cannot cease to be a public figure after some period of years. What I am saying is that, even though I think this subject has made herself a public figure, I am not objecting to treating her as if she is now a non-public figure, unless and until she does something to demonstrate that she is again acting like a public figure. It is really just an unwritten wrinkle of wp:BLPREQUESTDELETE that I think would be appropriate in this case. Neutron (talk) 01:13, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutron - I am not sure what precedent you are worried about setting. WP:POLOUTCOMES already mentions and discusses what the common outcomes are for failed candidates to a national legislature. While this is not policy, with regularity there are candidates running for the national legislature or failed candidates that come across as Articles for Deletion. If this were to survive as a keep, we would have to overcome WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE and WP:GNG, since the subject does not meet the automatic notibility standards of WP:Politician. Enos733 (talk) 04:07, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep This is another topic where I can offer a different perspective than what a filtered "Google glasses" view can provide. I've known Theresa for around 20–25 years and interacted with her for many years before that. Many of us who know her really do see her as a good-natured person who means well. However, in remaining neutral about this, many of us also realize that [removed as per WP:BLP] See diff , and has chosen an abrasive, in-your-face approach to being a politician. This, in turn, led to her becoming the Democratic Party's nominee in name only during the 1996 election. Almost the entirety of the state's Democratic political establishment lined up in support of Ted Stevens, and she was outpolled in the election by the Green Party nominee. That, unfortunately, is what she's notable for, even if that notability is really at the level of "local celebrity" (which she certainly is in Anchorage). I can certainly understand if she wants this article deleted, as there is no easy way to whitewash it to conform to the hagiographic standards which dominate biographies on Wikipedia.
  • Just some things to keep in mind here:
    • She served on the Anchorage School Board, which is elected municipality-wide like the mayor is. In other words, there are only five elected offices in the entire state (the governor, lieutenant governor, and the congressional delegation) which have a larger constituency than this office does. Of the current members, two are former state legislators and one is the husband of the former chair of the Alaska Democratic Party. Two other recent school board members are former legislators, and the office has been a springboard to other political fame on the state and municipal level. In other words, it's not a politically insignificant position, even if there is a black-and-white tendency to automatically regard school boards as such. BTW, the term of office for school board is three years, so the depiction of her serving two two-year terms doesn't really tell the whole story.
    • That someone would prefer to make this article a POV fork about her husband is being cited as a reason to delete. There are a lot of articles on Wikipedia which fall under such a category, so get busy. First, there are plenty of sources which discuss Theresa Obermeyer, even outside of the context of her husband's plight. Second, this is truly Don Quixote having to contend with lots and lots of windmills, but even the spectacle we've come to witness doesn't excuse the fact that Tom Obermeyer has had no problem remaining gainfully employed all these years. In fact, he was working as a legislative aide to Bettye Davis immediately prior to her reelection defeat.
    • The implication that Obermeyer is non-notable because she's grouped in a template with a bunch of redlinked entries is pretty bogus to me. Gene Guess, John Havelock and Glenn Olds aren't notable simply because no one has gotten around to writing those articles yet? Who are you shitting, anyway? RadioKAOS  – Talk to me, Billy 05:02, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Quick point - that's not really what I was suggesting with my comment about the template (I assume that was directed at me given I was the only one who raised it). My point was kind of the point you've now made. But anyway... Not sure what the "shitting" comment is about. Stalwart111 07:29, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, perennially unsuccessful politician. Perhaps slightly more colourful than others that you could describe that way, but still nothing here that helps her meet WP:POLITICIAN as far as I can see. Lankiveil (speak to me) 04:31, 15 September 2013 (UTC).[reply]
    • Wrong. She passes WP:POLITICIAN #2: Major local political figures who have received significant press coverage. There are more than a dozen articles about her, with her name in the title, along a decade, listed above by Fram. --cyclopiaspeak! 08:57, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Seems to be a faint excuse for a personal attack. Doesn't clear the Special Guidelines for politicians and that's actually the applicable metric here, in my opinion. Carrite (talk) 22:59, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The citations given above by Fram are sufficient for notability by the GNG. This will always be the case with major party candidates for the US Senate, so we could save a good deal of trouble by just accepting the principle. WP:Politician is not a restriction on the GNHG, the way some other guidelines are, but merely gives the presumption. DGG ( talk ) 04:46, 16 September 2013 (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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