Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bourque, Mark

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 of the debate was NO CONSENSUS. — JIP | Talk 06:05, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mark Bourque

Wikipedia is not a memorial MNewnham 20:32, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

• Keep and expand the story has made to several news sources, so it's fairly notable...depending on how things develop I suppose. --MisterHand 20:40, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

• Reluctant delete per nom. Military people who died in the line of action don't automatically get Wikipedia articles without having done something that set them apart from other military personnel before they died. B.Wind 21:02, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete Here's a case where something is totally verifiable but still unencyclopedic. howcheng {chat} 22:13, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Sounds like an important international incident - "Canada is demanding answers into the killing of a Canadian peacekeeper in Haiti." [1] -- Astrokey44|talk 23:42, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. -- JJay 02:41, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

• Comment: Big news coverage on developing story that may affect Canada's relationship with Haiti. Does that make Bourque less important than, oh say Peter Braunstein? -- JJay 12:01, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

• The Braunstein argument is a red herring; if this incident greatly affects the relationship between Canada and Haiti, it should be mentioned briefly in the appropriate article(s) involving one country (or both). Better yet, it could be distilled and added to either Peacekeeping or Royal Canadian Mounted Police... or both. B.Wind 17:36, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

• Delete. Wikipedia is not that kind of an encyclopedia. Flyboy Will 10:00, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, as per Howcheng. Please explain what encyclopedia lists the names of every killed soldier in the world. User:Zoe|^(talk) 05:19, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete or merge. Article does not support notability of this individual, if there is a wikipedia article about Canadian peacekeepers in Haiti, perhaps some content could be merged into it. — Eoghanacht ^talk 10:54, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep What do you mean that kind of encyclopedia? Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia and the insensitivity to this is of great concern. These pages were created out of respect for both living and fallen warriors and your wish to delete them concerns me. You have made this a political issue, which it is clearly not. A few rogue Vandalizer admins who are trying to shape Wikipedia in their own image should not be able to wield power in such a negative way. Who is watching the admins? Have their backgrounds been checked to ensure they aren't prone to disrupting the ongoing development of a true open-source encyclopedia. Seems some users and admins here have been abusing their power beyond reason. As you can clearly see by this category here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Canadian_law_enforcement_officers , there are others who are working to provide information on both living and deceased law enforcement officers. Please do not delete pages before you are aware of the full political implications of such an action.CelebritySecurity 17:56, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: A police officer doesn't deserve an article just because they exist(ed); out of the four articles filed directly in the category you note rather than subcategories, only one, David Gordon Cheverie, strikes me as a person clearly deserving of an article. And even then, he's notable because he was a recipient of the Cross of Valour. "Killed in the line of duty" does not make a police officer automatically notable -- that argument only holds water if the officer being killed in the line of duty somehow had lasting real world effects, such as inspiring a major new federal law that stiffened the penalties for killing a police officer. Valérie Gignac, for example, simply does not merit an article at this point. The RCMP officers killed in Mayercourt back in March don't merit individual articles (although the incident probably deserves one.) Wikipedia is not a memorial; it's an encyclopedia with specific standards for what belongs or doesn't belong here. Bearcat 05:51, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

• Keep To those that suggest these articles and infobox be deleted, Shouldn't you begin the process of deleting all similar law enforcement officers from this website? Also, please note that the infobox has been written with proper code designating whether or not the officer is deceased or not. It is not intended as a memorial, merely something written to acknowledge the contributions of law enforcement officers, much in the same way celebrities and politicians are listed on this same website. (this unmarked comment was made by CelebritySecurity. May I remind you that you only have one vote? --Tokle 01:26, 25 December 2005 (UTC))

• Keep, I don't see why we couldn't keep such articles as this, it's not like we've got a lack of space on Wikipedia. I think there's a bit too much apetite for deletion around here. It should be moved to Mark Bourque, though. --Tokle 01:26, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

• Whatever's done with this (and I frankly don't much care), fix the title if it's kept. Bearcat 05:40, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep for substantial national media coverage of this specific person. Also, this article shows there is some material about his life preceeding his activities in Haiti. Also, in googling for this person, if you exclude the word Haiti, you get a number of articles written in the 1990s about his work related to international drug trafficking, which writers found signficant long *before* his death (the article I linked to was written after his death, but others were written before). --Rob 18:03, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

• Keep I cannot understand why this article would be deleted. The death of this peacekeeper in Haiti was widely covered in all major Canadian media as a top story. To Canadian readers, the topic is quite relevant. If this is not relevant then most of Wikipedia would also need to be deleted. I thought the point of wikipedia was that it would be more broad than the typical bound encyclopedia. There are a great many people who would benefit from this entry. I am a little skeptical about the political motivation for deleting this. The article itself does not seem to take a position on Canadian peacekeepers in Haiti but it is plausible that someone opposed to such a mission would be unsympathetic to the death of this man. It is an important fact to note.Someguy963 01:51, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Comments. As a member of a family with people in uniform, I feel I should step up and explain a couple of things here. I have no political agenda to which Someguy963 referred. We need to start with the premise of my vote: Wikipedia is not a memorial. This rule is put into place so we don't have thousands of articles for people who were murdered, died of accidents, or died while in the service in a country's military. My vote is not a lack of sympathy on my part - far from it as several relatives of mine have died in the service of their/my country. So, let's put that argument aside once and for all.

While that premise holds, it doesn't mean that the deaths of specific military personnel cannot be mentioned in Wikipedia. It means that: A) if their activites prior to their death set them apart from other military personnel who died in service to make them sufficiently notable while alive, they should have an article; and B) if the activity that caused their deaths is itself sufficiently notable, then the person should be mentioned in the context of that activity and in the article discussing the activity, not necessarily in a new article for that person. When I look at these articles, I ask myself, "Which is the bigger story? Was this part of a bigger picture?" and go from there as to the proper location of the article in question.

In addition, references and mention of instances of A or B above must be made in the article itself, not here as the AfD reviews primarily the article, and many people participating in an AfD judge the article as written first, last, and foremost. Those who are saying there are additional references (and information) to further justify keeping the article should add them to the article NOW, before close of the AfD. B.Wind 12:12, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

• I'm sorry, but this isn't a biographical article, it's memorial, something that looks like it would show up in a weekend newspaper feature section. I'm sorry for his family's loss, but this isn't the place for it. Delete. --Calton | Talk 01:10, 30 December 2005 (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.