Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alix Rosenthal (second nomination)

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 Delete. kingboyk 16:30, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alix Rosenthal

This person is a candidate for the San Francisco board of supervisors in the upcoming November election (not an incumbent.) A previous AfD was closed as no consensus. A DRV consensus overturned, given concerns about "advertising" and the closer's expressed doubt. This is resubmitted for new consideration. This is a procedural nomination, so I abstain. Xoloz 15:01, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

• (The entry by "Steve -- San Francisco" was placed at the bottom of this discussion page to conform with the chronological order of the entries.--Waterthedog 04:56, 26 October 2006 (UTC))
• Delete. City council candidates are not notable, period. They're not notable even if they win. --Aaron 20:31, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

  I'd rather phrase that as "they're not notable by default even if they win". Certainly Harvey Milk became notable as a city councilman, and Alvin Brooks probably qualifies as well. -- nae'blis 16:26, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

• Delete for the same reason I gave in the first AfD. Fails established guideline WP:BIO. Pan Dan 21:41, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep I find it quite interesting to see who the historical candidates for office in my area were. The SF Bay Area is huge, and surely I'm not alone in that. Seems of sufficient note to me, because the position for which she is running and the political dynamics of that are interesting. I wouldn't object to this being merged into a general article on the 2006 SF Board of Supervisors elections though. But, there's no reason to delete this until that exists. Derex 22:46, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. I have been editing the article. I think I agree that the Ms. Rosenthal is non-notable. My intent in editing the article is not necessarily to make the article suitable to keep, but to decide if, in my opinion, whether it should be deleted or kept. --Iamunknown 01:35, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Doesn't quite have the notability needed for an article.Edison 03:34, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. I added some references to establish notability. --TruthbringerToronto (Talk | contribs) 04:58, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

• Two local newspaper articles and a local blog's posting do NOT come close to establishing notability. The phrase "grasping at straws" comes to mind. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Calton (talk • contribs) 22:09, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. Obvious campaign ad disguised as an article (Look! It even has a list of endorsements!) for a local non-notable candidate for a not-inherently notable post, someone who doesn't appear to be well-known even locally. If and when she gets elected and does something notorious (and being on the SF Board of Supervisors gives plenty of scope for that), she can get an article, but she's not even close to rating one now. --Calton | Talk 05:09, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

• Please point out the words that appear biased. Simply because the article is about a candidate running for public office does not mean that it is biased. Endorsements are verifiable facts and should not be deemed promotional content. Endorsements are typically found in voter guides and their inclusion also conforms with the WP:C&E proposition. --Waterthedog 02:19, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

• It's not my responsibility to back up anything I never actually said. --Calton |

• It's fair to say that an "[o]bvious campaign ad disguised as an article" implies that it's biased, and "[l]ook! It even has a list of endorsements!" implies that endorsements are a part of that bias.--Waterthedog 10:02, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Talk 07:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

• It's not my responsibility to back up what you imagine I said, only what I actually said. --Calton | Talk 05:02, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• Keep, notable. Everyking 07:52, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

• Based on what, exactly? --Calton | Talk 07:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per nom Moneyballing 14:49, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep multiple verifiable sources. Catchpole 15:09, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Anyone who claims that this article is an ad in disguise or is in any way biased, please point out the words or phrases that give that appearance. Endorsements are verifiable facts and should not be deemed promotional content. Endorsements typically appear in nonpartisan voter guides, and they can further or hinder a candidate's success. An endorsement from an organization with which a voter disagrees, for example, is a reason for that voter not to vote for a candidate. Inclusion of endorsements conforms with the WP:C&E proposition. Although running for local public office does not confer notability by itself, when combined with a growing body of independent, verifiable information -- and yes, endorsements are a part of that -- notability emerges. And that's consistent with the WP:C&E proposition. Further, a Google search of this candidate yields about 15,800 results, and given that this particular name combination is not all that common, it's likely that most of these results refer to her. To say that a local political candidate can only attain notability after winning the election is just as inaccurate as saying that simply running for local public office confers notability.--Waterthedog 01:29, 23 October 2006 (UTC) — Note to closing admin: Waterthedog (talk • contribs) is the creator of the article that is the subject of this AfD.

• I noticed that none of the generalized handwaving about notability made the slightest attempt to ACTUALLY establish any here, except the raw misleading Google count -- which turns out to be 199 unique hits. --Calton | Talk 07:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
• I use WP:C&E proposition to support my position because, although it is still a proposal, it is much more specific and on point than WP:BIO, and I think far superior to the vague notion of notability. But on that point, Rosenthal is a candidate for public office of a major city. True, any resident of the city can sign up to be a candidate, but those who run a serious campaign, win endorsements and gain the attention of the local news media become noteworthy candidates. There are all sorts of articles on Wikipedia on people who are only known to a particular locality. Candidates for important local public offices -- and city councils are important -- deserve attention. These politicians are poised to be the candidates of provincial/state and national offices of the future. Calton is right to point out the number of unique hits, which I neglected to check -- it was not an attempt to mislead.--Waterthedog 10:02, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Delete nn candidate, period. We have clear guidelines and established precedent for election candidates; keeping this would be a subversion of process and it is important to maintain consistency. Many of those voting keep seem to ignore the basic principles of WP:C&E, despite the grandstanding above. This should be deleted by WP:IAR, if consensus is not achieved since, in matters electoral, the stakes for consistency are somewhat higher than they are for tertiary Pokemon characters or risibly unimportant primary schools. Eusebeus 11:17, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

• Which "basic principles" of WP:C&E are you referring to? As I see it, the essence of that proposal is summed up in this quote: "As a compromise between those who would keep all candidate articles and those who would delete all articles on yet-unelected candidates, it would be preferable if articles on elections were written before articles on individual candidates. Only if and when there is enough independent, verifiable information to write a non-stub article on a candidate should one be written." Accordingly, an article was written on the election and the article itself contains "enough independent, verifiable information" to write a non-stub article on the candidate.--Waterthedog 16:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
• C&E is not policy & not guideline. It's a proposal exactly because people don't agree with it. Derex 07:34, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. No consensus has already been reached, and I object to deletionists repeatly bringing up articles until they get their way. I suggest you spend your time getting consensus on WP:C&E instead. This is not the proper place to decide notability for candidates. Royalbroil ^{Talk  Contrib} 13:09, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
  • This AfD is not by "deletionists repeatedly bringing up articles until they get their way." This is a procedural nomination because of the simple fact that a deletion review for the first AfD resulted in putting this article back up for deletion. The admins at deletion review seemed to be okay with it. Also, I agree that this is not the proper place to decide notability for candidates, but it is the proper place to decide notability for this candidate. You've ignored the topic in question. --Iamunknown 14:50, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I apologize. I just realized that I made a hasty and ignorant assumption. I don't know if you "ignored the topic in question;" it seemed that way to me, but I doubt you are. Sorry for the ignorant and hasty assumption. :\ --Iamunknown 14:53, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Delete. Thanks for pointing that out, for I didn't properly understand exactly what is happening with this nomination. I do not think that a candidate for a local board (even in a large world-class city) is notable. Winning the election is maybe only 3/4 of what is needed to be notable in my humble opinion (except if there is something else to add to notability). As an someone more on the inclusionist side, I get frustrated when I see what appears to me to be renominations until an article gets deleted. That is not the case in this nomination. Sorry! Royalbroil ^{Talk  Contrib} 12:37, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete I have serious doubts that Ms Rosenthal would be notable even if she were to win, but that would depend on what people wrote about her then; what they're writing now is not the sort of reporting that's needed to justify an article. Allowing any deviation from established precedent is a Bad Thing as Eusebeus notes. Waterthedog's lengthy comment misses that Wikipedia isn't a crystal ball. Angus McLellan (Talk) 14:26, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

• Delete As the nominator for the deletion review, I felt that the original AfD resulted in a decision of Delete although it appeared that the consensus was subverted by copious commentary about the C&E proposition (and the same is starting over again). This candidate is not notable, does not meet WP:BIO and the election has its own page to cover which candidates are running for office. ju66l3r 20:48, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Let's not lose sight of what is ostensibly one of our common goals: to maintain a repository of verifiable, objective information. I'm not seeing the harm in creating articles for local political candidates so long as they are not libelous and are written in an unbiased way with independent, verifiable information. Not having articles of mayoral candidates and candidates of the legislative bodies of major cities is a loss for Wikipedia. The notability of Rosenthal is borderline, I admit. But if that's the only flaw, I fail to see need for deletion. The integrity if information is what is really important. And, yes, if a candidate is so obscure that relevant facts about the candidacy cannot be verified then that's a problem; that's not the case with Rosenthal. The fuzzy concept of notability and broad construct of WP:BIO should not be used to suppress articles about local political candidates.--Waterthedog 22:26, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nomination. WP:NOT an electioneering platform. Ohconfucius 10:33, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• I did not see anything under WP:NOT that mentions "electioneering platforms" per se. It does say that Wikipedia is "not a soapbox," and clarifies that its articles are not "propaganda/advocacy, self-promotional or advertising." The Rosenthal article is not an electioneering platform and it complies with the soapbox guideline because it is written in an unbiased manner. Articles about candidates for public office are not inherently biased. Again, if anyone finds wording that is biased, the remedy is to change wording, not delete the article.--Waterthedog 17:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• Keep per Derex. I admit to Eusebeus that I do disagree with WP:C&E, which is only a proposed guideline. Application of that proposal, however, would call for merging this information into the San Francisco, California, election, 2006 article, which does not currently include such detail on any of the candidates. Giving Rosenthal such preferential treatment in the general election article would be biased, but having this separate article isn't. It's not a campaign ad -- yes, of course it lists endorsements, but it mentions her failed attempts to get other endorsements, and also notes criticisms of her. If there's more negative material that should be added, feel free to add it. JamesMLane t c 10:55, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: That's entirely illogical. We don't make exceptions to guidelines because another article would be only partially complete as a result. If this info were to go into the elections article, then it would only improve that article and perhaps even inspire someone to more fully define this particular election article beyond a simple listing of candidates and their campaign websites. Think it unbalances the article to do so? Put the NPOV tag at the top and say on the talk page that the other candidates need info added to better meet a neutral PoV. This article isn't submitted for deletion because of uncorrectable NPoV anyways; it fails WP:BIO and therefore more negative info isn't mandated (nor does that somehow neutralize an unbalanced sycophantic article). ju66l3r 17:12, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• I'm not arguing for an exception to a guideline -- as I pointed out, WP:C&E isn't a guideline. The simple issue is how we treat the verifiable information about Alix Rosenthal. Which approach best serves the readers:

(1) A general article about the election, with links to individual articles about the candidates (meaning that we keep the Rosenthal article);

(2) A general article about the election that includes information about each candidate in the level of detail of the article now proposed for deletion (meaning that we merge everything in this article into the general article, and provide comparable information about other candidates); or

(3) A general article about the election with little or no information about the candidates, so that most or all of the information in this article is expunged from Wikipedia (the consequence of deleting this article without merging).

I believe that alternative #1 is best. The general article will give people a quick idea of the parameters of the election. Those who want more detail about the race in a particular district can click through to the candidates' bios. Alternative #2 would drown the general article in an ocean of detail. Alternative #3 would excise from Wikipedia some verifiable information that many readers, in San Francisco and elsewhere, would like to have. JamesMLane t c 18:16, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• You argue under the false pretense that verifiable info about Alix Rosenthal belongs on Wikipedia. This discussion is foremost whether Alix Rosenthal meets the WP:BIO criteria for inclusion. That is the guideline you are ignoring (i.e., trying to find the exception to) in order to determine its appropriate context. Cart before the horse. ju66l3r 18:42, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• If by "false pretense" you mean that I'm making the assumption that the information belongs on Wikipedia, no, I'm expressly not making that as an assumption. I included my alternative #3 to accommodate the people who want the information expunged. I just think that people who want the information expunged should be clear about it. (Some people support deletion and merger of the article. If this article is deleted, the next step will be wrangling about whether to merge it into the general article about the election.) I reject alternative #3 because I believe that the public attention attendant upon a candidacy such as this one makes a person notable. JamesMLane t c 20:33, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment It should be noted that in this particular election Rosenthal's opponent and all the other incumbents (with one exception) have their own articles.--Waterthedog 18:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• Incorrect. Starchild does not have a page and is an opponent of Rosenthal. Also note that left unsaid by you is that none of the other candidates (who are not also incumbents) have articles. Putting this article in a very tiny minority of 1, in that regard. Your comment only serves to highlight the fact that the Rosenthal article is an exception, not the rule. ju66l3r 19:46, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• I didn't say that all of Rosenthal's opponents had articles, but I should have clarified that I meant her more prominent opponent, Bevan Dufty (the incumbent). Bevan, along with all the other incumbents in the race (with one exception), have their own articles. The fact that the office itself including most of its members have articles lends support to the notability of the candidates running for those seats. I'm not saying that all candidates running for local public offices should have their own articles, but I am saying that these candidates should not be categorically barred from having articles either. Candidates who run serious campaigns, gain the attention of the local media and win endorsements of prominent local political organizations do meet the notability threshold of WP:BIO.--Waterthedog 20:18, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Delete.If she wins an elected office, she can reapply at that time. This is an obvious campaign advertisement. Steve - San Francisco 18:39, 25 October 2006

• Rosenthal did not apply for or create the article, nor did anyone from her campaign. It's not an advertisement. Advertisements are promotional and contain biased language. The content of this article is neutral. If you disagree, point out the words you feel give the appearance of bias and suggest alternative verbiage.--Waterthedog 04:56, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per nom and fails WP:C&E. Morton devonshire 17:29, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Sufficient media coverage to warrant inclusion. Gamaliel 18:14, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - "Advertising" or not is irrelevant - there are endless numbers of candidates running in local elections worldwide, which does not make them candidates for WP articles, and there seems to be no other sufficient notability offered. - David Oberst 05:53, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, no assertion of notability that rises to the level I'd like to see in the encyclopedia. If she wins AND does something important/controversial, no prejudice against an article later, but right now this looks like campaign copy/apologetics. -- nae'blis 16:26, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Subject has received sufficient media coverage to warrant inclusion. Yamaguchi先生 20:26, 1 November 2006
• Delete. Very few sources, in my opinion not enough to be able to satisfy the stringent verifiability demands for an article on a living person. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:14, 2 November 2006 (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.