Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gerald Rudolff Ford

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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. ELIMINATORJR 22:03, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gerald Rudolff Ford

Gerald Rudolff Ford (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)
  • Delete - step-father of Gerald Ford but is not independently notable. Notability of the step-son is not inherited by the step-father. Otto4711 04:15, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete, for reasons given. Unschool 04:34, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
  • KEEP - The man who raised a United States President is notable enough. The fact the PRESIDENT FORD VOLUNTARILY LEGALLY CHANGED HIS OWN NAME FROM HIS BIRTH NAME TO THIS MAN'S NAME is notable. Those two items trump everything.Americasroof 04:57, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment What part of WP:BIO supports your argument? --Dhartung | Talk 09:08, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete: Being the step-father of a notable person is not notable. DCEdwards1966 05:02, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge and redirect to Gerald Ford#Early life; the citations will certainly be useful there as some of the information about his family is unreferenced. Merge and redirect is pretty much standard practise for the relatives of the notable. cab 06:28, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm fine with a merge and redirect. I tried redirecting (the pertinent facts look to be in Ford's article already) but it was reverted without coment. Otto4711 07:54, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
  • The original merger by otto4711 was done without any discussion or even discussion on the article's page or advance warning or even a comment why it should be merged. I merged it back because people sometime mistake the spelling and I thought it was just a mistaken good faith merge. If this fellow had died after Ford became President, he would have warranted obituaries in all national media. This is not a simple case of a "step father." This is a step father who for all intents raised Ford as a parent and rescued him from a bad situation. He is the reason that Ford stayed in Grand Rapids. Ford says he received his values from the man. All biographies of Ford discuss the man and his contributions. Ford himself had to make the conscientious decision to formally and legally call himself by the man's name. There are no other Presidents that have such a name change background. Only on Wikipedia could this be considered not notable. If anything, the article should be kept and expanded.Americasroof 14:13, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
And for good measure there are 865 Google references for "Gerald Rudolff Ford". There's a lot of wikipedia articles out there that don't come close to that number. As long as Wikipedia finds video game characters and obscure bit part actors "notable" then you would have to think the defacto father of a President of the United States is notable. Americasroof 14:35, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
The number of Google references is not a measure of notability; see WP:GHITS. The presence of other articles you dislike is not a measure of whether another should be kept; see what about X?. These are both considered "arguments to avoid" at AFD, as they have little bearing on the guideline in question, which is WP:BIO. --Dhartung | Talk 21:18, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge to Gerald Ford#Early life; but only if the facts in the article can be referenced. At this time, the two references in the article appear to be broken. I tried to find archived copies of the sites, but unfortunately the The Wayback Machine Internet Archive is also not working for me at this time. I suggest that other and perhaps better refs be found to support the info about President Ford's stepfather. Notability does not spread automatically to ancestors or stepparents who are otherwise not notable. Edison 06:44, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom. Connections to notable people do not confer notability. wikipediatrix 06:45, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep per Americasroof. — xDanielx T/C 08:08, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge and redirect as above. Name is possibly a plausible misspelling of the President, anyway. Individual has not independent claim to notability per our guidelines, and even being the stepfather and namesake of a President isn't important enough to rate an article. Some of the living relatives of a President have become notable through their own activities during a presidency, but the elder Ford was deceased long before his stepson entered the White House. --Dhartung | Talk 09:08, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge and redirect as above. BeckyAnne(talk) 13:56, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Point of Order - If the nominator says this should be merged and mistakenly put a delete on it. Then this debate should be closed and a merge template should be applied to the article (which should have been done earlier). Americasroof 16:58, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

  • I did not place the delete tag on by mistake. Otto4711 17:21, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
What you attempted originally was a unilateral merge without following the proper wiki process of placing the merge template on the two articles so that consensus could be reached on whether articles on two entirely different people could be arrived at in an orderly fashion. When that was reverted in a good faith believe that it was merely an honest oversight, you applied the delete template. Earlier in this discussion you said that you were comfortable with a merge and that's what you intended originally saying "I'm fine with a merge and redirect" The merge process takes longer but is less antagonistic and is usually discussed by people who actually have an interest in the affected articles. The delete process takes less time and is not seen by all those with an interest in both article (and is usually decided by folks who focus on the delete logs). I think when you're dealing with a merge of information into a "Featured Article" about a President of the United States, it would be more appropriate to follow the go slow consensus approach. Americasroof 18:04, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
POINT OF ORDER QUESTION REMAINS: My point of order question remains. My question about whether this is even a valid debate remains. The nominator made no attempt whatsoever to express any concerns about notability of somebody who defacto is the father of a President of the United States. There were no edit summaries and no discussion. No effort was ever made to say there were problems with the article before dropping the deletion tag. No efforts were made to reach out to anybody who had edited the article. Policy says that a deletion is only as a last resort. Could this article exist if expanded to include information about how he affected his son's choices? That information is no doubt in Ford's autobiography. Again I want to repeat he was more than a simple stepfather. There are no other Presidents in the history of the United States who changed their names to that of their stepfather. That itself should seem inherently notable. I still have questions about whether this should be on the delete logs. If this is a merge then there is a different process for a merge. Americasroof 19:30, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Reply AFD is not under dispute resolution and may be initiated at any time in good faith. If there are content disputes other methods must be tried before, say, mediation. But there are no necessary precursors to AFD nominations. --Dhartung | Talk 10:01, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete per WP:BIO and then redirect to Gerald Ford. The only source provided is not primarily about the subject; it's a genealogy of his famous stepson. Some presidential relatives are notable, but notability is not inherited automatically. The fact that Gerald Rudolff Ford was the president's stepfather, rather than father, is not a significant issue in my recommendation. Note that Wikipedia doesn't have articles about the fathers of Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan either. --Metropolitan90 20:46, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Just for the record the WP:BIO says that a person is notable if they meet just one of its list which includes:
The person has made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in his or her specific field
A lot of people would think raising a son to become President of the United States is part of the enduring historical record . Americasroof 23:46, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps some would. Even so, I think the historical record is more than adequately covered by a redirect to a section on the president's article which covers this info. Unschool 00:56, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
"CommentIt is a stretch to say that WP:BIO is satisfied because Gerald Rudolff Ford's "specific field" was raising future presidents. Still, he deserves mention in the President Ford article, because if he had been a jerk instead of a good stepfather, the future President might have retained his birth name, and the U.S. might have found itself replaced President Nixon with a King in 1974. Edison 03:24, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep Isn't this the kind of information one would look up in an encyclopedia? It is IMHO. It's a short stub-sized article about the father of a famous person. While I know you can't use the "but what about _those_ articles over there?" argument as a defense, but surely this article is more likely to be in an encyclopedia than the hundreds over in [[Category:Harry Potter]] or [[Category:Dragonlance]]? — MrDolomite • Talk 04:58, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment It is in the encyclopedia -- in the Gerald Ford article, where it belongs. Do you know of any other encyclopedias that routinely have articles for the (step-)fathers of Presidents? --Dhartung | Talk 08:54, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Bill Clinton's stepfather Roger Clinton, Sr. has a wikipedia biography (which is more of stub than Ford). There's category waiting to happen out there for Parents of Presidents Merging the article would obliterate that option for Ford. The fact that there are no articles for Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagen's fathers is unfortunate. Americasroof 23:12, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge and redirect per above. --Tikiwont 13:20, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge per all the above - doesn't look to have been very notable.--JForget 23:14, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

UPDATE: I created the category of Parents of Presidents of the United States, There are currently 34 parent biographies on wikipedia and 3 of stepparents. Yes some are stubs - some even more than the Ford article. According to the policy of deletion this is supposed to be a discussion and not a vote. The point of this is to make the articles better. I have made a good faith effort to improve the notability of the article and would add additional info to the Rudolff article if it is maintained. Americasroof 00:40, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

  • Keep - Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's father, John Vernou Bouvier III, has his own article, as well as her mother, and the only thing they're famous for is being the parent's of a First Lady. This man was a president's father, and Ford was named after him, so I say keep it. It's not hurting Wikipedia. Happyme22 02:34, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge and redirect with anchor (#) as suggested by cab and Edison. Michiganotaku 23:45, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep The immediate family of heads of state have generally been considered notable, and for good reason, because there are abundant sources. and why are there sources?--because people thing they are notable and write about them. We just record that. When multiple other articles (in this case 34 of them) exist on other people in a group, and there is an attempt to delete one of them, the existence of the other articles is generally relevant in showing the consensus of the many WPedians who wrote them that it was notable. OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is appropriate when there's only a few scattered dubious articles--because that is not a precedent. DGG (talk) 07:55, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment The only problem I have with that is that he was deceased before his son's primary notability began. There are usually petty scandals and minor social notes regarding a politician's relatives at those times. I have also argued for the notability of Gustav Schwarzenegger due to the intense media interest in his military police service under Nazi Germany. In this case automatic notability neither exists per WP:BIO and only marginally through WP:N. --Dhartung | Talk 10:01, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
  • The notion that OTHERSTUFFEXISTS somehow doesn't address the keep arguments here is bizarre, since it is by and large the cornerstone of the keepers' arguments. How many Harry Potter-themed articles have been deleted despite the notability of Harry Potter, because the specific subject of the article wasn't notable? How many actors' articles or reality TV series participants' articles or song articles have been deleted despite the existence of hundreds of not thousands of other articles on actors or reality TV people or songs? Otto4711 12:55, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak keep But I'd like to see more book citations. If they come from his son's bios, that would be fine. Before anyone raises a slippery slope argument, I'd like to say that in general we can probably find more information on a president's father (or any other immediate relative) than on his great-grandfather, great-great-great-grand uncle twice removed, etc. I'd be amenable to a redirect only if care is taken to make sure it's not a confusing redirect (as a plain redirect to the top of his son's page would certainly be). Robert Happelberg 16:46, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletions. -- John Vandenberg 08:02, 9 September 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.