Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Gallagher2

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 KEEP. — JIP | Talk 10:56, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] James Gallagher

Vanity page (includes information that only that person is likely to know) about some completely random county councillor. Dunc|☺ 15:11, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

This page was created as part of a thorough cycle of pages providing information to citizens regarding elected officials in the state of New Jersey as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject New Jersey. As part of expanding articles about New Jersey's 21 Counties, information regarding Freeholders has been added, including pages for individual members of the Board of Chosen Freeholders and the County Executive. Pages have been created for Bergen County, New Jersey Freeholders and have been created for five of seven of those in Passaic County, New Jersey. Pages for each municipality in each County will have information added regarding their local officials, including Freeholders (see Ringwood, New Jersey for an example). Pages have also been created for every one of the 40 members of the New Jersey Senate and are well underway for the 80 members of the New Jersey General Assembly. Freeholders are elected officials who serve in districts far larger than the 120 members of the New Jersey Legislature. This is NOT being done on a "completely random" basis and while it may be irrelevant to many, is of importance to every resident of New Jersey. Alansohn 15:41, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

• Keep, important to citizens of New Jersey, and a project with plenty of Depth. Kappa 15:45, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
• lol, how did I know - *know* - Kappa would vote to keep this ;) ? The Troll will be next. Anyway, to me this reads like a personal CV, complete with redolent hyperbole (vast public service, proud parent - as opposed to all those ashamed ones out there); I say Delete since this is a classic, straight up, textbook example of a vanity page and I highly doubt that such officials are important to every resident of New Jersey considering that barely a fifth of them bother to show up and vote in these elections (probably less). The remarks above from Alansohn are chilling insofar as it looks like waves of self-authored New-Jersey-Minor-Public-Officialdomcruft is coming down the pipeline. Draw the line here! Dottore So 16:01, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
  • You *knew* I would vote keep because I vote keep on everything I consider the users would hope to be able to look up, which is what they are paying for. Kappa 16:12, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
  • One of the reasons that "barely a fifth of them bother to show up and vote" for these "New-Jersey-Minor-Public-Officialdomcruft" is that residents don't know who they are. Every two-bit musician with a demo disk, every professional wrestler and bit-character on a TV show has a page. The bar ought to be set far higher in justifying deletion of a page for officials elected at this level. 31,940 registered voters in Passaic County -- more than any of the five other candidates -- voted in favor of Mr. Gallagher in the 2003 election. So far, one aggrieved Wikipedian has voted against. I'd say the people have spoken. Empower citizens instead of trying to keep them uninformed and then maybe they will show up at the next election. Alansohn 16:48, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete per nominator. Pilatus 16:19, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
• Weak Keep, Freeholder is just barely a notable enough position to merit an article. Andrew Levine 17:01, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. No less important than a city councillor. - SimonP 17:22, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep per contributor. Gallagher is Deputy Director, the second highest ranking elected official in a county of nearly 500,000 residents and served in the recent past as Director, the highest ranking official. This is not an isolated random page, but part of a coordinated and thorough effort to provide relevant information to New Jersey residents regarding their elected officials, with details already added to approximately 70 of the 566 pages of New Jersey's municipalities. Alansohn 18:17, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
  • You're not allowed to vote twice!Dunc|☺ 18:33, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Previous statements were arguments in favor of retention. This was a formal vote to Keep. Alansohn 18:35, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep You win or get appointed to muncipal position or higher, that's enough for me for at least a mention in a more general article. Just make this one sound a little less like a resume. What's this stuff about users having to pay for something, Kappa? Karmafist 20:10, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Well technically donors pay for wikipedia, for the most part they form a subset of users. Kappa 04:20, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
    • And most users donate zippo. Good to know the score, for a second there I thought it was recently decided at the recent Inclusionist's Secret Cabal Annual Meeting and Ice Cream Social that a push for user fees would be coming ;-) Karmafist 06:48, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep as per Kappa and Alansohn. Figure appears to be notable enough to warrant inclusion. Hall Monitor 22:03, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, this is an encyclopedia, not a who's who book. You should have to do something truly significant to be included. Wikipedia can cover less notable figures than other encyclopedias, but there's a limit. The number of similar people, when including the whole United States and those who have served in the past, is enormous. -- Kjkolb 05:52, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Who's Whos have criteria for inclusion of biographies just as Wikipedia does. Uncle G 16:37, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Has the person made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in the specific field? I'd say he fails that criteria. -- Kjkolb 19:36, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
      • He's not dead yet... Kappa 04:17, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
        • Let's wait until he's dead, then. -- Kjkolb 05:32, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. I wish we had more articles on elected officials, not fewer, since they have a substantial impact on people's daily lives. Also, I should note that the article is much improved after two rounds of cleanup. -Colin Kimbrell 04:09, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep I have no problem with this article. Alf ^melmac 10:59, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. per Kappa. Unfocused 02:47, 26 October 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.