Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kevin Zeese

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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 discussion was Redirect to Maryland United States Senate election, 2006, after discounting invalid !votes from new users and socks. Deathphoenix ʕ 17:49, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kevin Zeese

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Minor party senate candidate casting about for support. Delete. BlueValour 00:16, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

  • Comment - the key point is that notability has not been established and a reference in the Maryland Senate article should suffice. BlueValour 21:44, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Redirect to Maryland United States Senate election, 2006, just in case he is searched for here. youngamerican (ahoy-hoy) 01:37, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete unless elected. Running for office does not necessarily make somebody notable unless it is a very important office (even US Senate isn't enough for me, although US President probably would be). You must have something else to establish notability. SM247My Talk 02:47, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Redirect as above. — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib Reverts 02:50, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: New commentary shows that edits may have been made by the subject and his family. We may want to consider some edits suspect re: WP:AUTO and WP:OR - 69.3.x.x match 141.156.x.x match — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib Reverts 20:52, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - I am changing my vote to keep on the WP:NN criteria, since it is not only election related data in the article. However, I am still against the influx of meatpuppets that are making a mess of this vote, and question the edits I list above. — RevRagnarok Talk ContribReverts 00:50, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Comment (that was in the middle of RevRagnarok's signature for some reason) One: this is not a vote as noted above. Two: I ain't no meat puppet. Ad hominums are no substitute for a reasoned argument. Tim Willard Karma432 12:34, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.251.234.83 (talk • contribs)

Comment the meat puppet reference is that it is obvious that the subject of this article has asked his family, friends, and coworkers, who have never contributed to WP before, to come and vote, with little to no understanding of the policies that WP is run under, most notably WP:AUTO and WP:OR. Now, if I didn't want to follow the rules that are in place myself, I would vote to delete just out of spite to all the people who came here and post, despite the warning block at the top. I'm sure it hasn't been fully read, or I wouldn't be putting all these 'unsigned' flags in there for all of you. But regardless, this vote is not about personal feelings towards the raw data but how the data fits into WP as a whole. — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib Reverts 02:31, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Comment I'm not a sock. I've only contributed to a Wikipedia article once before, so I am not an expert. I apologize for my lack of knowledge. But I am a fast learner. Tim WillardKarma432
Pretty fast... Tim WillardKarma432 12:38, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Redirect just to be nice. KWH 20:52, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Leave It Alone - I was just watching him on C-SPAN and came to Wikipedia specifically to find out more about him. From the article, it looks like this guy is a very prominent activist totally apart from his perfectly legitimate Senate run. Jessesamuel 17:24, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
  • On what grounds does BlueValour propose to delete the article? I'm looking at the criteria at Wikipedia:Notability (people). I don't know how anyone can claim that Zeese doesn't qualify based on those criteria. Here's a brief rundown of his multiple qualifications for notability: 1)He is a "[m]ajor local political figure who receive[s] significant press coverage." 2)He is a published author who has received multiple independent reviews of his work (32 hits on Amazon.com). He also qualifies under several "alternative" criteria. To wit: the professor test, verifiability, expandability, and, as mentioned by previous posters, the Google test (205,000 hits for "Kevin Zeese" and 38 hits for "Kevin Zeese" in the "News" search). I think it's a mistake to only use the criteria at Wikipedia:Candidates and elections for a person who is well known outside of their candidacy. Jessesamuel 15:58, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep it as its own article - For the same reason as listed immediately above: from what I know of Zeese, he's significant enough for his own article, and not just for the sake of being nice SCGC
  • Keep, its not just about his running for office, he has been a leading advocate for civil rights issues and ending the war on drugs for 30 years. His run for senate is unusial as he unites parties at opposite ends of the political spectrum (G's and L's), this is the first time in History that has happened in the state of MD if not the US.
  • It states that the article lacks sources, I am unclear as to what it is refering too. I have known him my whole life and I will testify that all of its background history is accurate, -Alex Zeese (his son). PS- I personally think this is a partisan Democratic attack to get rid of this page, I don't see any threats on any of the Democratic Senate Candidates, or Republicans pages to get rid of them, and most of them are less significant then my father is.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.3.87.4 (talk • contribs) No previous contributions from this user. BlueValour 21:44, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

  • Keep (assumed): I send the wiki link to reporters covering my campaign so I hope you leave it up. I was amazed to see it updated almost as soon as I received the Libertarian nomination and then again after I received the Green and Populist nominations. So someone is watching it.

Thanks. Kevin —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.156.20.108 (talk • contribs) This is the only contribution from this user. BlueValour 21:44, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

  • Keep: I have known and worked with Kevin Zeese for years and can testify to the accuracy of the article (as does his own son! SEE BELOW). I have run into people throughout the DC metro area, Maryland and across the country who know and value Kevin Zeese's long history as an adocate for human rights and an end to the so-called "Drug War" which has become a war on American communities, turning them into combat zones! The advocates of Deleting or Redirecting are obviously partisan corporate liberals who favor continuing this costly policy making drug-related free-fire zones out of our inner cities. I wonder if they also advocate Deletion or Redirection of the Corporate Democrat and Republican candidates for U.S. Senator from Maryland?

The claim that Kevin Zeese -- with his three-decades-plus career of public service on the national political scene, acting as an avocate of basic human rights and representing the majority position on national drug policy on network television shows like ABC Nightline and in numerous other national media -- does not deserve an article in Wikipedia is so far beyond reasonable that I would think the request would be thrown out immediately!

Sincerely, Chris Driscoll—Preceding unsigned comment added by Cdriscol (talk • contribs) This is the only contribution from this user. BlueValour 21:44, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

  • Strong keep. BlueValour - why didn't you mention the 217,000 hits when one does a google search on "Kevin Zeese"? This isn't just a minor party senate candidate casting about for support - that statement seriously mischaracterizes who Kevin Zeese is. Also, I have cleaned up the article by moving much of the campaign detail to the main article about the election, which still leaves a significant amount of text about him. I invite those who have voted against keeping this article to take a second look, and to keep in mind the google search results. John Broughton 21:59, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep Kevin Zeese's biography is easily verifiable, as he has been a public figure and political activist and has been participating in electoral politics for 30 years. There are many people, myself included, who have worked with Kevin Zeese on activist and electoral political issues [my personal issue being voting system integrity] and who can vouch for the details and the relevance of his work. I can see no reason to delete the Kevin Zeese article other than that someone here in Maryland, likely a Democratic Party official, might be trying to keep Kevin Zeese's activist light under the proverbial bushel because of his third-party U.S. Senate campaign. But if one looks at the whole of Kevin Zeese's resume, and tallies the number of activitst organizations he has founded, headed, or worked for, and tallies the broad array of political issues that he has been involved with in his 30 plus-year career, one should be able to recognize that the relevance of the Kevin Zeese article goes far beyond his current U.S. Senate campaign. However Kevin Zeese fares in the 2006 U.S. Senate Campaign, the relevance of the whole of his work should be recognized, and the Wikipedia article should be retained.

Sincerely,

Robert Lanza Takoma Park, Maryland --Rlanza 00:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Account activated today. This is the only contribution from this user. BlueValour 01:04, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

  • Comment

It would be nice to know who "BlueValour" is. A basic American core-value is to know the identity of the accusser! In this case, the slander against a nationally known leader of the movements for sane drug policies, varifiable voting, and peace should be ignored when it comes from one who hides behind a fake name!

Sincerely, Chris Driscoll—Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.164.51.189 (talk • contribs)

  • Comment There is no accusation here, nor accusers to face. Please read the big block at the top of the page again. As for a lib conspiracy, feel free to click my name right here and read a little, you'll see this is strictly WP policy we're working with. — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib Reverts 11:00, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment In five minutes of searching I found pages for two other minor party candidates who are running for office this year and one who ran for office two years ago. None of them had the resume that Kevin Zeese has. None of them has a delete notice. Why did this page get singled out?

Tim Willard —Preceding unsigned comment added by Karma432 (talk • contribs)

Indeed, more of this article is about Mr. Zeese's prior career than about the Senate race. It is not substantially different from Michael Steele and Ben Cardin's pages; the major party candidates in the same race. The candidates and elections criteria state that there should be one page for each race. If you apply that criteria to one candidate in the race, you should apply it to all. Tim Willard
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Karma432 (talk • contribs) These are the only contributions from this user. BlueValour 21:44, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Tim - in response to your first paragraph - Wikipedia has over a million articles in it. It's pointless to point to articles that are WORSE than the one under discussion and ask why they have not been deleted, UNLESS they were proposed for deletion and such proposals failed (THEN they ARE precedent). The existence of other articles that should be removed, but have not yet been, does nothing to prove whether the article under discussion (Kevin Zeese) should or should not be removed. Please focus on the criteria in wikipedia policy regarding whether the subject of THIS article is newsworthy or not. John Broughton 12:55, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
John - At this point it's not clear what criteria is being used to judge this article. The first criticism "notability" has been repeatedly refuted with no counter from the critics. The second, that this is a "Minor party senate candidate casting about for support" seems to imply that it is being judged under the candidates and elections criteria. But the article is primarily about the man and not the campaign. You need to be careful about deleting this article if that is the criteria used because there are undoubtably hundreds of other articles written in the same format that could be challanged on the same grounds. You are opening a can of worms. Could you specificly state under what criteria this article should be deleted? -Tim Willard
Tim - please check your scorecard - as you can see from above, I voted to keep the article. And may I suggest that it's about time for you to stop posting to the discussion, and to trust the process? All the relevant points have been made, I think. John Broughton 12:03, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - Please let me know what is not verified and I'll see if I can verify my own biography! I'd prefer to be contacted directly about this as I do not check this page -- kzeese@##BADIDEA##.

Kevin Zeese —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.3.87.4 (talk • contribs) These are the only contributions from this user. BlueValour 20:56, 11 July 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.