Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brian Clark

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. There were not many people commenting here, and I considered relisting. But thsoe who did commetn dis so at soem length, and the different positions were reasonably well explored. I doubt that relistign would significantly cahnge the result. DES ^(talk) 13:26, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Brian Clark

Brian Clark (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Yet another non-notable survivor of 9/11 who has a page and shouldn't. Titanium Dragon 01:55, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Clark was involved with the escape of Stanley Praimnath, and allegedly helped rescue him from his office. This makes Clark a little more notable than just someone who survived the attack. The Praimnath story received international coverage and continues to receive some coverage largely because of Praimnath's faith. So the notability of this particular story should be considered. --Dhartung | Talk 02:01, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment. Saving someone else's life definetly doesn't make you notable. This only recieved basic coverage because of the event it happened during. I can cite examples of hundred's of times lives have been saved, none would even be concidered for inclusion on wikipedia. -- Jimmi Hugh 03:08, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Though involved in honourable actions during event, still non-notable, can find nothing about him unrelated to event anywhere. -- Jimmi Hugh 03:08, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
• keep Why are we ignoring the multiple independent and reliable sources at the bottom of the page? It seems to me that this meets our policies just fine. — brighterorange (talk) 03:44, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

• The nominator explained his motives here:

  "Just surviving a terrorist attack does NOT make you notable, nor does suriviving a school shooting or anything else. Or dying in one, for that matter. Pages of such people have been deleted time and again. There are appaently a whole group of such pages, and I'm going through and nominating all such pages which need to be deleted."

• I know we are supposed to assume good faith, but the nominator sounds like he or she has one big POV to push.
• In other cases, when a nominator who felt there was a class of articles which should all be deleted would nominate one representative article for deletion, while stating that they wanted it to be considered a test case. Geo Swan 04:49, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think it's okay for us to have POVs about what Wikipedia's policies and standards and to express those on project pages; NPOV applies to articles. But the existence of reliable sources remains our best yardstick for measuring notability. This guy has at least two very extensive articles in major reliable sources written about his ordeal. If we are going to be objective about our notability standards this should be plenty. — brighterorange (talk) 12:23, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

• Actually, you have put your finger on what I think is one of the wikipedia's biggest weaknesses.
• I agree that it is natural -- desirable -- for wikipedians to have opinions on the wikipedia's policies and how they should evolve. But, it seems to me that the {{afd}} and other deletion fora have proven disastrously ineffective places to look for any real discussion of these issues. In my experience it is extremely rare for anyone to change their mind, or even show any appearance that they considered changing their minds.
• What we really need are fora where people arrive with an open mind, and can openly read and consider weaknesses. in their favoured view of the wikipedia's policies and future growth.
• In this particular case, I think it would be far better for our nominator to compose a reasoned essay explaining the reasoning behind their strongly held view that survivors don't merit coverage in the wikipedia, even if they are at the center of a notable event, and there are extensive reliable authoritative sources to support an article that complies with WP:NPOV. Nominator hasn't even tried to offer a reasoned argument -- merely implied that it is obvious Clark and Prainmath don't merit coverage. Geo Swan 16:36, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

People who survive attacks are not notable for any number of reasons, but the real reason is that, really, they just aren't notable. Or, rather, surviving a terrorist attack or a shooting does not in and of itself make you any more notable than dying in it; this is well-established Wikipedia policy. Survivors and the dead of shootings, "tragedies", natural disasters, ect. do not get articles and do not warrant articles for dying or living in such ways. They get coverage after the disaster, but within a couple of years completely fade from existance and never are mentioned again. This is not notability; it is temporary sensationalism that is not meaningful in the long term, and simply leads to junk articles that look stupid. If all an article really has to say is "this guy survived X", then the article shouldn't exist at all as the -event-, not the person, is what is notable, and needless to say there are a bunch of articles about 9/11 on Wikipedia which already cover the meaningful information in this and many other "survivor of" articles.

This policy has been long-established on Wikipedia, and after every major event a bunch of articles are made, then deleted for non-notable people; see, for instance, the slew of articles about non-notable people made then deleted after the Virginia Tech shootings. This article is very similar to those articles in being unimportant and not really meriting its own article; Clark is not notable, 9/11 is what was notable about it and the rest is just junk. If there have been multiple documentaries made about Stanley Praimnath, then I suggest that we take this information and move it into his article, as he seems to be much more notable, and Clark is just the guy who was there with him, and to source the article properly from -multiple sources-. Part of the reason I went through and nominated a bunch of these pages for deletion (and I shall nominate more after this batch is through) is because they simply don't have sources which establish notability; they're just basically memorial pages or interviews from within a year of the events. If you want to show that these people -are- important, more recent sources should also be used, as if no one has really done anything with them in years, it probably means that they weren't ever important to begin with.

These pages are worthless clutter, and Wikipedia is not a memorial. It is supposed to be about notable things, and random survivors of events are simply not notable. This guy does not seem important, ultimately, and many of the other random survivor pages much less so. This article reads like something from some 9/11 related memorial or propaganda site, not something that belongs in an encyclopedia. If you are not going to be an important part of the historical record in any meaningful way, then you don't warrant a Wikipedia article. These survivors aren't going to be, and while Stanley may because of all the attention paid to him by gullible Christians, he may not; however, I think I've been convinced of his notability for now. But this guy just seems to be "the guy with Stanley", rather than "Brian Clark", as far as notability is concerned, which indicates to me that he should, as someone else suggested, be put into his friends' article rather than having one of his own.

If anything, it seems to me that you've been a bit suckered into the 9/11 premise. 9/11 is a major source of propaganda, but a lot of it really isn't all that important, and this is one of those things. Titanium Dragon 12:19, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

You write above:

• "...this is well-established Wikipedia policy"
• "This policy has been long-established on Wikipedia,"
• Okay, fine, then cite that policy; cite the specific passage(s) you claim applies here.
• After spending a little time googling "Brian Clark" and 911 it seems clear that you either didn't bother checking what has been published about him yourself -- unless you were aware of how extensive his record was, and chose not to disclose it. His testimony before the 911 Commission is widely quoted. Surely that makes an article about him highly defensible?
• Nothing prevented you from doing your own search, prior to nominating articles for deletion. If you didn't do any research on your own, because you "don't have time" then let me ask you to consider that this means that you don't have time to nominate articles for {{afd}}.
• This doesn't mean you have to walk away with your ocncern unsatisfied. Nothing prevents you from leaving a civil note, registering your concern, on an article's talk page.
• I strongly urge you to reconsider your plan to nominate other articles for deletion, if you are not prepared to conduct your own research first.

I am going to close by reminding you that WP:BIO is not a wikipedia policy. The authors of WP:BIO clearly state this in the introductory paragraphs. WP:BIO is a guideline. Whatever authority it possesses it inherits from WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:VER. My contributions on articles that touch on controversial topics have made the very serious weaknesses of using notability as a benchmark for judging the merits of an article very plain to me. What a person considers "notable" is very highly dependent on the POV of the person making the judgement. I am not suggesting bad faith here. It just seems "natural", "obvious" to some wikipedians that some persons, events, or topics are NN, because they have accepted some questionable press release at face value, or they hold some unexamined misconceptions. For this reason, for controversial topics at least, I think the use of WP:BIO should be deprecated, and the merits of controversial articles should be judged on how well they comply with WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:VER. Geo Swan 16:09, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

• I think I'm leaning toward merging with Stanley Praimnath. The latter really has become notable as a survivor, whereas Clark really hasn't e.g. taking any survivors' organization leadership role. --Dhartung | Talk 17:10, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I believe Clark took time off to lead the survivor's group at his firm, Eurobrokers. Geo Swan 16:36, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep -- Clark is a Canadian citizen, and has been extensively interviewed on Canadian TV, both shortly after the attack, and on anniversaries of the attacks. As I said in the Stanley Prainmath {{afd}} these two aren't mere survivors. They discovered an emergency stairway that was damaged, but still usable. With better communication the hundreds of other victims who were trapped above the impact levels would have had a chance at survival. I think this makes the experiences of the two highly notable. Geo Swan 16:36, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
• Comment I don't think he deserves his own separate article, although his story (and that of Stanley Praimnath and many other survivors) is interesting. Given the public's fascination with 9/11 and the potential of Wikipedia, I think that there should probably be some discussion about the category and the extent of the articles. Mandsford 23:36, 3 August 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.