Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jack Berman

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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 of the debate was delete. SushiGeek 08:45, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jack Berman

I hate to seem nitpicky, but unless Wikipedia is planning to remove the articles on a bunch of other unknown/who cares? relatives of famous people who have not done anything "significant" in their lives, then I don't see any need to delete the Jack Berman article.

Otherwise, more information about Jack Berman should be included -- such as the fact he was Dianne Feinstein's first husband (they were divorced) and the father of San Francisco Superior Court Judge Katherine Feinstein, born Katherine Berman (she adopted the name Feinstein - after her father's murder, I think - so that people would make the connexion between her and her mother, and be more likely to vote for her.

In short, the problem is not necessarily that Jack Berman was a "nobody," but there's so little information about him in the article that it isn't possible to tell whether he was or was not a "somebody." For all we know, he may have been involved in arguing an important court case.

Or, he may just be a worthless nobody as one of the writers below suggests -- like *all* the rest of us, ultimately.

22 April 2006 23h50 PDT


  • First of all, I don't appreciate anybody being called a worthless nobody. You were the first user to use those offensive words. They were not used in any of the commentary below. You need to do some better research before posting on Wikipedia. My father was never married to Dianne Feinstein, and never had a daughter. I am his only child. I understand that this is an easy mistake to make, but there are many people running around with the same full names of other people. i.e. There is a Zack Berman who lives in San Francisco whom I went to school with. What I (and many others in the community) consider notable about my father is not the cases he argued, but his generosity with his time. Because of this, he had an award named after him. Lastly, I believe your logic is faulty and you were wrong in your opening sentence. There are thousands of users, such as the ones who wrote commentary below, of Wikipedia who spend enormously generous amounts of time removing articles about less notable people (outside of special interest groups and small communities). My father was a mentor to many lawyers and was known throughout the community as a mensch, but outside our community, is only known because of his death. This is why I support the deletion of this article, because I have created the stub 101 California Street Shootings. Users of wikipedia do the best that they can to govern whether an article has followed Wikipedia guidlines such as WP:NOT. --Cocopuffberman 18:01, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I hate to seem heartless, but Wikipedia is not a memorial, and I don't see any indication that either Mr. Berman's death or the award named after him is notable. Even if they were, notability does not attach automatically. Daniel Case 21:29, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Speedy Delete. Article author, Cocopuffberman is "Zack Berman," [1] the son of the deceased. Notability not established in any case... -- Scientizzle 21:54, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment I think has been handled well. The 101 California Street Shootings page is a great start and I hope other users can fill in the blanks. I fully support the Merge & Delete. -- Scientizzle 05:13, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia is not a memorial. Like all encyclopedias, it is a documentation of great people and great happenings. My father was a great man. If you request that I further develop that thought I will. In the article proposed for deletion, I mentioned the many accomplishments that he had achieved, and did my best at not going on and on about what a wonderful person he was. The 101 California Street Shootings was a historical event remembered by many San Franciscans who didn't know the people involved. It made big news. I can and will cite newspaper articles on that one. If notability of that event is put into question, than I will go into further detail. As noticed by Scientizzle, I am the son of the deceased. Because it may have made my article appear to be a memorial, I have removed the line in which I mention his survivors. I will be happy to expand on any of the points if necessary. I have documentation including police reports and countless newspaper articles that I can email to you if you think you can do a better job on the article. I am in the eigth grade and am not a professional writer. As for the award named after him, this is no small deal. If you have not clicked on the link below, I recommend it. That is the primary award of achievment that has been awarded annually by the State Bar of California. Cocopuffberman 02:06, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I just added a few more links from reliable news sources to prove that this massacre that ended my fathers life is newsworthy and notable. Cocopuffberman 02:21, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I've just done a rewrite on this article to see if I could bring it up to notability. As folks might note, the incident did brush up against a lot of changes to gun control and other issues, and I've expanded on some of the memorial stuff as well. I leave it up to the other purveyors of articles from here, and give this a Keep from my neutral perspective.Tony Fox 04:49, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Struck my vote, change to Merge & Delete as discussed.Tony Fox 19:10, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I have left a message on the creator's talk page suggesting that the article be renamed to 101 California Street shootings or something in line with our naming conventions if that isn't the consensus term for it, with something on all the victims. It seems to me the event is notable in and of itself and proof has been provided of that. I think this is the best way to handle it. Daniel Case 05:05, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment (and support for move) Daniel Case, supra, has made the suggestion that I was going to make, viz., that Berman is likely non-notable himself (or even as a shooting victim) but that the shootings are likely notable in view, inter al., of the sundry pieces of legislation one can verifiably tie to the shootings, so I'd definitely support a move to 101 California Street shootings, with the proviso that much of the Berman information won't be relevant there (I did rewrite the article a moment ago in order that it would conform to MoS, etc., in case it should be kept). I do appreciate that the article's creator is new to Wikipedia, but I do think his imputation of bad faith on Daniel Case's talk page was was inappropriate; I certainly don't infer any malign motive from this nomination. Joe 05:24, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
    • I personally felt the presidency of the AJC was a fairly notable thing, but if folks feel it's a better idea to shift the article to one about the shootings, I'll switch my Keep vote. (Interesting tidy job, by the way; I had to find a definition of "eleemosynary," though.) Tony Fox 05:29, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Move Complete I appreciate your comments and have created the 101 California Street Shootings page. It is a work in progress, and I would appreciate it if you would help me develop it. There is a brief synopsis of what happened, and an entry for each of the victims. I know the familys of the victims, and they may act as direct sources. I also have a large collection of newspaper articles and other documents. I would like to please ask though, that it not be nominated for deletion until it is completed. It is very hard to make progress on something while having to defend its very existance. Cocopuffberman 21:10, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Speedy Delete Cocopuffberman 01:38, 23 April 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.