Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kristi Yamaoka (fourth nomination)

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. — Ocatecir^T 08:11, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kristi Yamaoka

Kristi Yamaoka (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

This article has been nominated for deletion several times, and been no consensus or kept on the basis of what was seen to be "borderline notability". However, I feel that she has in fact become less notable, and was only notable in the first place for her involvement in an accident, which is not a factor in notability. I think enough time has passed since the initial media furor to see that articles from that furor are the only material available on her. To elucidate, while there were independent sources, they were not in-depth - every story was about her falling on her head, not how she accomplished some other feat. She meets none of the other criteria under the general heading, and nothing for athletes. The lack of any new or different material indicates to me that she has in fact become less notable. This article is the #1 hit for her, and that's usually a good indicator of nn. MSJapan 21:42, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. Violates WP:BLP1E - a person notable only for a single incident does not merit an article. She's had her 15 minutes. Clarityfiend 00:30, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
• Keep While several months have passed by since the previous attempt to delete this article, which ended in a fairly resounding vote to keep the article. It seems hard to see that another nomination from the same person is not a violation of WP:CONSENSUS. As notability does not fade away, a statement about "lack of any new or different material" is ludicrous on its face. Given the multiple reliable and verifiable sources, this article should be retained. Alansohn 05:10, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

  Comment - Actually, it wasn't "resounding" at all; most of the keeps were qualified in one way or another. My issue here is that, in the end, the person is irrelevant - it is the event that is notable (if that), and I think this is a textbook case of "people are not notable for accidents they are involved in". She got a few days of media coverage, and that was (and has been) it, and WP does not do "flash in the pan" stuff, which is really what this all boils down to. MSJapan 09:28, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Reply This is your third attempt at deleting this article. Your previous two attempts ended in a clear consensus of Keep. As stated at WP:CONSENSUS, This does not mean that Wikipedia ignores precedent; for example, editors should not continuously nominate an article to WP:AFD until it reaches their preferred outcome. This Wikipedia official policy is to attempt editors from taking a second stab (or third or fourth as you already have) at deleting an article after a consensus has been reached to keep it as is. I have yet to see a clearer and more well-defined effort by one individual to undermine established consensus. It's time to move on to other articles. Alansohn 13:42, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Reply Thanks for the compliment, I guess. This article should never have been created, and in kind, I've never seen a clearer case of nn being ignored by a short-term popular reaction. This is clearly a "15 minutes of fame" problem. I nominated it initially, and a lot of the "keep" had to do with leaving room for future improvement. That simply hasn't happened, and again, policy states people are not notable for accidents they are in. Thus was ignored at least twice. I have left plenty of time for improvement, or some indication of notability, and none has occurred. Biographically, we know nothing about the subject except for her name and birth year. So how is this a biographical article of a notable person? My point is that it is not, and it never has been. The reasons stated for keeping never materialized, so what's the point? This is a lousy article that's never going to get any better, about a person who had some short-lived notoriety and has since faded back into obscurity. The Salukis even placed well in the NCAA Tournament, and she was never mentioned although she was ostensibly onm the squad and at the games. We have a clear policy here, and it's not being adhered to. MSJapan 17:48, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
      • Reply: No compliment was intended or justified. The problem is that "We have a clear policy here, and it's not being adhered to." The problem is that the policy in question is WP:CONSENSUS and you refuse to abide by it. WP:CONSENSUS requires you to obey precedent, and lays out a procedure for those too stubborn to accept it: "An editor who thinks that a consensual decision is outdated may ask about it on the relevant talk page, at the Village Pump, or through a Request for Comment to see whether other editors agree. No one editor can unilaterally declare that consensus has changed." Yet you have refused to follow this part of the policy, as well. You have ignored consensus not once, but a second time. You have shown that you refuse to respect precedent as part of your ignore all rules crusade, firmly sticking your thumb in the eye of two clear agreements that this article stays as is. If this is a lousy article improve it. If you can't come up with a clear explanation for why WP:CONSENSUS should be ignored, it's time to walk away from this article. Alansohn 18:14, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
• That first sentence was sarcasm. As for why consensus should be ignored, no one has really ever made a strong case for keep based on actual notability, rather her "doing her job under adversity" or other moral/visceral judgments, which are not supposed ot figure into encyclopedic value. Additionally, no one has really said "hell yeah, she's notable" and cited evidence. As a matter of fact, in the second nom, the only solid keep votes were based solely on the fact that Wikipedia isn't paper, or that she was a victim, or that she was notewothy because the accident made the news. Meanwhile, Wikipedia policy clearly states that people are not notable solely for being involved in disasters and accidents. I think there's cause for concern, therefore, when the justification of an bio article is based only on the fact that WP's not paper - usually one can Google and come up with a pretty good idea of notability that way. Furthermore, based on the fact that others suggested renom in the future, I waited a few months, saw no change or interest in the article, and renominated. The third AfD was more of the same - many of the keep votes (that weren't cast simply due to renom) stated that it was likely the article would not pass the various year tests, which are one vague criteria of notability. Again, no one really directly addressed or rebutted the central point of the nom, which was the NN of the subject, instead contesting renom or basically saying, "Well, we'll keep it for now and maybe get rid of it later because WP is not paper". Thus, to my mind, consensus was reached by looking at other things besides direct rebuttal of the reasoning behind the AfD. My basic contention is that Yamaoka got 15 minutes of fame, and that was it. The article was based off of the same media coverage of the same event, and her notability was asserted based on "widespread coverage", which was quite literally down to zero not three days later. There is not one RS about Yamaoka that is not about her accident, nor is there a single story about her recovery or anything else afterwards. Therefore, I think that for some reason, the basic rules that WP follows with regards to article criteria were either sidestepped or ignored in building the supposed consensus for the AfDs, as shown by the responses, which is why I think consensus can be ignored in this case. MSJapan 22:04, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
  • You tried to delete this article two previous times. Each time the closing administrator evaluated the arguments made by all parties and decided that the consensus was to keep the article. The previous AfDs were months apart and still resulted in a clear consensus to keep the article, as is. While I appreciate your zeal in trying to get rid of an article that you personally don't like, you are persisting in spitting in the face of the WP:CONSENSUS official policy, which states that This does not mean that Wikipedia ignores precedent; for example, editors should not continuously nominate an article to WP:AFD until it reaches their preferred outcome. I have never seen a clearer violation of this basic, bedrock Wikipedia official policy. I couldn't care less what you think of the reasons why your previous AfDs failed. The plain and simple reality is that your views on the subject were rejected by consensus on two occasions, and you have made it clear that you will refuse to abide by consensus if your third (or fourth, or fifth...) attempt fail. I'm not quite sure why you reject consensus, but this is starting to seem to be some WP:POINT violation that you have with this article. How many more times will we have to put up with your disruption on this subject? Alansohn 04:46, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Reply - Why did you ask me why I felt I could ignore consensus if you weren't interested in the answer? I clearly stated why, and yet all you did was restate your earlier argument and belittle my reasoning. Moreover, I don't think admins make value judgments in closing AfDs (which is your assumption - you seem to state that if the value of the keep arguments outweights the value of the delete arguments, it gets kept, when in fact, unless blatant sockpuppetry is involved, it's a simple majority vote regardless of basis). Why else do you think that many people have had to remind AfD participants to cite a valid reason when voting, if not for the reason that people don't do that? There's no point in belaboring reasoning at this point, because now what I assumed was GF interest is simply just baiting to undermine what I have to say by portraying me as argumentative. MSJapan 14:31, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Reply: AfD2 ended with 21 editors specifying keep, 6 deletes and 1 merge; the result was keep. AfD3 ended with 12 keeps and 4 deletes; the result was keep. WP:CONSENSUS requires you to obey precedent, stating that ...editors should not continuously nominate an article to WP:AFD until it reaches their preferred outcome. You've tried twice and failed twice, by overwhelming majority votes, your preferred definition. All you are doing now is spitting in the face of consensus and overwhelming precedent. By your logic, if some future AfD should finally end with your "preferred outcome", why should anyone respect the delete and not simply recreate this article, exactly as is? I'm not sure why you have developed this ignore all rules obsession with deleting this article, but your WP:POINT is disruptive of one of the most fundamental of Wikipedia's official policies. If consensus means nothing, why bother trying to reach it or change it. Alansohn 14:51, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Kind of a stupid article, but I don't really hold with any kind of eventualism, choosing to remain faithful to the idea that Wikipedia is not paper. Ford MF 09:13, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. No Reliable sources have done biographies or biographical articles on this person. All sources referenced are about a cheerleading incident/policy, not biographically about this person.Piperdown 14:30, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. One accident hyped by media should not be in an encyclopaedia (or the person involved for that matter).--Svetovid 22:08, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Whatever if picked up my national media is notable the way we do things, and that still remains the rule until we change it. I hope when we do change it we'll find an alternative better than I do/dont like it. DGG 02:26, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, sufficient media coverage as per DGG. IPSOS (talk) 17:29, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, media coverage connotes notability, which is not temporary. As for WP:BLP1E, nothing prevents an article for a one-event phenom: care to delete Monica Lewinsky, Mehmet Ali Ağca, Sirhan Sirhan, and many others who really are only famous for 1 incident? Carlossuarez46 20:39, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Wow, I had no idea a cheerleader falling on her head was as important as an assassination of a presidential candidate or a sex scandal leading to a presidential impeachment. Thanks for the enlightenment. Indrian 20:49, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Importance is subjective and irrelevant; notability is what matters. There are pleny of other people who are notable for 1 thing who perhaps even you would concede aren't important, but are still notable: let's see, we have Jessica McClure, Divine Brown (sex worker), or Kato Kaelin and the dozens of other who are only famous from OJ's trial, and all the participants in all the reality shows, none of which had much impact on world events but alas their notability endures. Carlossuarez46 21:37, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. It really does not matter how many people vote keep on this article. It clearly violates WP:BLP and needs to be removed for that reason. Indrian 20:49, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
  • In what way does it violate WP:BLP? What contentious claims are not supported by reliable sources? Carlossuarez46 21:39, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Reply - I think this is a reference to BLP1E again - not about sourcing, but "cover the event, not the person". MSJapan 22:08, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

• Reply If you have no issue with the content, why would you put this to AfD for your third time and not propose a move? Alansohn 22:14, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I do have an issue with the content - an article about an event masquerading as a BIO article is a content issue. I just don't think every event that gets a few days of coverage is noteworthy, and the comparison made with Sirhan Sirhan, for example, is apples and oranges considering the relative magnitudes of the event. Moving this article isn't an option, because there's nowhere to move it to - we don't have an article on "cheerleading accidents", and without anything else to add to the stub, it would just get moved back. MSJapan 23:28, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

• Reply: Content is not the only issue you have. The far bigger problem is that you refuse to respect precedent as required by WP:CONSENSUS which states that ...editors should not continuously nominate an article to WP:AFD until it reaches their preferred outcome. If consensus means nothing, why bother trying to reach it or change it if those who disagree with you are free to ignore it? Alansohn 00:02, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Why do you persist in asking questions, and then replying to my answers with this same consensus material? Fine, you win. I withdraw the AfD, and feel free to nominate for a permaban, if that will make you happy. MSJapan 00:54, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. For the love of God, her 15 minutes of fame were up LONG ago. This shouldn't have been kept in the first place, and all the harping on about precedent doesn't change that. --Calton | Talk 14:49, 13 June 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.