Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ahipene-Mercer, Ray

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 no consensus, defaulting to keep. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 18:03, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ahipene-Mercer, Ray

Ahipene-Mercer, Ray (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Does not assess notability, completely unreferenced. east.718 06:03, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - The article looks very well developed and sourced now, and WP:N is met in my opinion. east.718 21:31, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
• Delete - A city council member in a small town is hardly notable. -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 07:28, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - Wellington is the capital and second largest city in New Zealand, hardly a small town. Some research prior to !voting would lend your opinion more weight. -- Mattinbgn/ ^talk 08:15, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Alright, it's not a small town, but it's not a particularly large city either. 410,000 for the urban area and 179,000 for the actual city limits, over which the city council has jurisdiction. That's rather small, in my opinion. Medium-sized at best. The fact is that he hasn't done anything particularly notable. While he has been a musician, activist, and politician, he was/is prominent as none of those. He'd definitely fail WP:MUSIC, and he fails WP:BIO in regards to being a politician (and I quote):
      • Politicians who have held international, national or statewide/provincewide office, and members and former members of a national, state or provincial legislatures.
      • Major local political figures who have received significant press coverage.
      • Just being an elected local official does not guarantee notability.
    • A city council member is not a "major" local figure. If he was mayor, that'd be another story, but city council is hardly notable. He has to actually accomplish something. If he really has done something notable during his activist career, show a source, but it looks like it's still local stuff. -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 11:59, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
• Weak keep - While being a councillor, even for a capital city, does not automatically equal notability, the music career and activist career, should just, if sources can be found, get this article over the line. If kept, it needs to be renamed Ray Ahipene-Mercer. -- Mattinbgn/ ^talk 08:31, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of New Zealand-related deletions. -- Mattinbgn/ ^talk 10:44, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
• Delete — He seems to have some notability by being the leader of the Clean Water Campaign, but there aren't any sources to back the claims. *Cremepuff222* 18:51, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, article has been sourced since the nomination was made, and there are a number of claims to notability, as Mattinbgn points out.-gadfium 19:42, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
• Delete as city councillors are generally notable, even in large cities, unless they have independent major political influence and it can be demonstrated. This is campaign advertising, & I would have speedied this as a G11. However, if the music part is notable, which I can not judge, the article can be rewritten around him as a musician with some incidental involvement in politics. DGG 00:59, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
• delete. Politically, musically, geographically, not a very important man. Kripto 03:10, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Member of a group that had top 10 hit in New Zealand as Ray Mercer [1] and council member of the capital of New Zealand. Seems notable enough for mine. Capitalistroadster 03:44, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you to those who have commented about this entry. It is the first I have made. I would be disappointed to see it go. I am working on a history related to this entry. Some comments on points made so far: Ahipene-Mercer is one of less than a hundred Maori in local politics in New Zealand. he is I believe (have no source yet) the only Maori on a major council. He is only the second Maori ever to sit on the Wellington City Council. Clearly the importance of this is not obvious outside this country. Indigenous political progress is a major issue here. The Wikipedia guidelines talk about "state" and "provincial" level politicians. Well, New Zealand has neither states, or provinces. The social an leadership role in this country is taken by local politicians. This is particularly important against the background of our unicameral parliament and absence of a written constitution. Local politics are the only "other" politics going, except national-level politics. As for Wellington's size: something like 70 percent of homes in Wellington are connected to the internet, so that's a potential local-only audience for items about wellington of about 250,000 adults. I'd be perfectly happy if only one person read my entry, so the potential seems significant to me. I have attempted to add references and will continue to do so (though I'm sure I'm doing something wrong technically as well as upsetting those who think my home town and its leaders are not significant. Any way, nga mihi aroha ki a koutou katoa (warm regards to you all) Projectbob 12:29, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

• Strong keep. Numerous items on which to base a claim of notability, both those already in the article and those further explicated by Projectbob. The fact that a figure is not well-known outside his/her locality does not disqualify them under notability guidelines: see WP:IDONTKNOWIT which reads Some subjects' notability may be limited to a particular country, region, or culture. However, arguments that state that because a subject is unknown or not well known among English readers it should not have an article encourage a systemic bias on Wikipedia. To avoid this systemic bias, Wikipedia should include all notable topics, even if the subject is not notable within the English speaking population.. The real notability criteria for bios are at WP:Notability, and this article meets them. Article mainly needs better sourcing. As already noted, it also needs to be moved/renamed to Ray Ahipene-Mercer per Wikipedia article naming conventions. --Ace of Swords 17:55, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

• Strong keep. Some of the arguments for deletion here border on the absurd and appear to be made by people who would be challenged to find New Zealand on a map, let alone know anything of the context (outlined by Projectbob and Ace of Swords above) within which Ahipene-Mercer acts. As both a musician and a politician, he fulfills notability criteria and the article now has references to support this. I see absolutely no reason to delete. - Axver 22:42, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. The article now has fairly complete sourcing. A couple of days ago I added more references & a little bit more info, & marked places still in need of sourcing with the {{fact}} template, & the article's originator, Projectbob, has now added citations for most of those. So, the article has had significant changes and improvements since being proposed for deletion, which people might want to consider. --Ace of Swords 20:04, 20 June 2007 (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.