Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jamie Bishop

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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 keep. east.718 at 17:52, November 29, 2007

[edit] Jamie Bishop

Jamie Bishop (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Redirect to list of victims of the Virginia Tech massacre- per WP:PROF, this teacher is not known as an expert in his field, is not known for publishing anything significant in his field, and is not known for advancing anything new in his field, and has not received a notable award in his field. Per WP:BIO, the reliable sources only cover the person in the context of his death in the Virginia Tech massacre. HokieRNB (talk) 02:36, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

  • Argument by the author for keep: Before writing the article, I did check the Wikipedia definition of notability. The key definition is: "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. "Presumed" means objective evidence meets the criteria, without regard for the subjective personal judgments of editors." (The text at Wikipedia:Notability (people) has similar wording, "The person must have been the subject of published secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject.")
My quick google search gives me 51,300 hits. [1]. Yes, I'm aware that merely having a lot of google hits does not define notability; but I will submit that fifty thousand articles, primarily in print sources that are reprinted on the web, including New York Times, and many other "reliable" sources-- should qualify as "significant coverage" by Wikipedia's standards.
HokieRNB seems to be arguing that coverage in reliable sources is not sufficient if the primary reason for the coverage is that the subject of the article article died in a massacre. However, I don't see any such exception in the actual definition of notability. This seems to be "subjective personal judgement of editors."
I could argue that Jamie is, in fact, notable regardless of the manner of his death, in that he was attracting attention in the science fiction art field, had done several book covers, and has left behind a portfolio of work including both art and software that is still in use. I could argue that he is the only one of the professors shot at the VT massacre who does not, in fact, have a Wikipedia article. However, such arguments are unnecessary, since as far as I can tell, the statement "Jamie Bishop is notable because he meets the explicit Wikipedia definition of notability" should be the end of the discussion. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 04:24, 21 November 2007 (UTC)


  • Weak Keep: Appears to be notable, given some of the sources present. Also, there are more sources (via a google search) that could be added to the article, to further affirm his notability. - Rjd0060 (talk) 04:50, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge to Virginia Tech massacre or merge per nom: Doesn't look like Bishop is notable in his own right, just as the victim of a shooting. This article is basically a brief bio, then a mention that he was killed in the shooting. If he was still alive, I'd say he wasn't notable enough for the article and I don't think that should change because he's dead, even though he died in an unusual way. eaolson (talk) 05:45, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
  • merge/delete Per WP:NOT#NEWS Someone or something that has been in the news for a brief period is not necessarily a suitable subject for an article in their own right. While Wikipedia strives to be comprehensive, the policies on biographies of living persons and neutral point of view should lead us to contextualize events appropriately, which may preclude a biography about someone who is not an encyclopedic subject, despite a brief appearance in the news Balloonman (talk) 07:41, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete and include name in list of victims as per nom. --Crusio (talk) 10:32, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete and redirect to list of victims. It should be noted that among the 50,000 hits are other individuals with the same name. The only sources in the article not related to the event are self-published, and therefore the criteria for notability is not met. Maher-shalal-hashbaz (talk) 14:30, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
You write: "The only sources not related to the event are self-published". I'd be interested in your methodology for determining that. I searched Jamie on google subtracting all the terms I could think of that seem unambiguously referrring to the "event" (specifically, massacre, "was shot", died, "april 16," cho, "4/16/07) and still got 22,500 hits. Did you examine all 22,000 hits? Or do you have another search methodology? I see a number of links, for example, to artwork, that don't seem to be self-published; how did you exclude these?Geoffrey.landis (talk) 16:19, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
comment - of course I didn't examine thousands of pages, I only examined the sources that were listed in the article itself, and found that at the time I looked the only ones that were not in the context of his death in the massacre were of the "self-published" variety (not necessarily by the subject himself, but the kind that does not require the editorial scrutiny of something like a scholarly journal or a major news outlet). Even the book cover that you linked to smacks of that. Having one's artwork on the cover of a non-notable book does not make one notable. Maher-shalal-hashbaz (talk) 20:26, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
now that you have edited your comment to add the qualifying phrase "in the article", your comment is much clearer.Geoffrey.landis (talk) 02:13, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Redirect to the list of victims. He does not satisfy WP:PROF. Being a victom of a mass killing, and thus mentioned in the flurry of resulting news articles, does not satisfy WP:N or WP:BIO per WP:NOT#NEWS. Edison (talk) 18:18, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete/Redirect. The only notable issue here is that he was indeed killed, yet the article presents a great deal of extraneous information not pertaining to that sole tragedy. There is nothing offered that would differentiate his death from those of the others who died. Epthorn (talk) 07:35, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep I'm a little confused by some of the comments-- he was individually covered in news stories not just included in a list with no information but his name, extending over a period of time. What more is possibly needed. This is how we define notability. Or should we change it to "notability requires uniqueness. if other people were also involved in the same way, none of them is individually notable"--thats what the delete comments here amount to. DGG (talk) 04:04, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak keep Its close, but I guess "just" Victuallers (talk) 14:26, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep I was a friend of Jamie's so I understand if I shouldn't have a vote here (and that his or anyone's importance is not dependent on having a Wikipedia entry). Are the pages of the other professors marked for deletion? He was a published writer and artist in paying (not self-published) venues. A bunch of predatory, national news outlets tried to get in touch with me merely because his website linked to mine, and, though I largely stayed away from it, I gather there was a lot said about him on TV and in print without my participation. Seung-Hui Cho has an entry. FWIW I'm not disappointed/upset that the article is being considered for deletion, but I am suprised. alexotica (talk 15:12, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong keep. I see no good reason why we should delete this. There are many reliable fact-checked sources that talk about his life, not just his death. He is notable because of the way he died, yes - that's why those sources exist - but the sources exist which means that many people have been interested to know and research the details of his life. Therefore, it's fine for Wikipedia to do so, WP:NOT#PAPER after all. Mangojuicetalk 15:05, 29 November 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.