Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lloyd Monserratt

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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, and thus keep. While the claims of not meeting WP:BIO are true enough on their face, WP:BIO itself is a only a guideline - even if it is to be used, a weak but real argument can be made for meeting it. The fact that this AFD was not closed after five days (indeed, it is now over ten) indicates that this is a tough decision, and I'm going to lean towards no consensus/keep. Keeping the page around does no harm, and while not as notable a person as Paris Hilton, it does seem likely that someone may come to Wikipedia one day looking for information about this person. The information is verifiable, it is not original research, and it adheres to a nuetral point of view. Were any of those three even remotely in doubt, a stronger case could be made for deletion, but the page as it exists seems to violate none of these. (P.S. The existence of suspicious sockpuppety "Keep" voters duly noted). Turnstep 05:35, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lloyd Monserratt

nn student politician and postgrad political operative. User:Zoe|(talk) 15:54, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

--evrik 16:12, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per the article: "At the time of his death, he was Chief of Staff to a member of the Los Angeles City Council." City councilpeople are borderline, and their staff aren't really notable. It's sad that he died fairly young, but Wikipedia is not a memorial. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 16:30, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep This is not a stub and deserves to be developed more. I don't think this is a memorial, but rather a tribute to a rising political leader. Rlevse 16:41, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
    • The telling word being "rising". He was not, a political leader, and as such, he fails WP:BIO. User:Zoe|(talk) 16:52, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
      • One could argue that until he became President, Bill Clinton could be described as rising. The article could use some tightening up, but he was notable in his lifetime. His funeral was broadcast on television in Los Angeles.--evrik 17:09, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
        • If one argued so, one would be wrong, since Bill Clinton was Governor of Arkansas. User:Zoe|(talk) 17:55, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per WP:BIO... he does not meet the criteria for a bio article now and based on his current whereabouts I don't see any potential for future notability.--Isotope23 16:59, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. Eagle Scout, UCLA student body president, political operative - all admirable, but not especially notable. MysteryDog 17:45, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete, per MysteryDog. — Rebelguys2 talk 19:29, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep, per his involvement with an election dirty trick as cited here.--SarekOfVulcan 19:38, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - Upon primary perusal, this entry seemed to be more appropriate for UCLAwiki (if such a thing exists). And after rereading the specifics of WP:BIO, he doesn't quite seem to fit any of the standards. However, the way the standards are written, activists would only fit into the "politics" category, which exclude local activists (many of whom already have Wikipedia articles) and others whose influence never extended beyond their own communities. For example, I'd hate to see my article on Michael Zinzun, who never held any office at all, deleted just because he was only active in Los Angeles. These types of figures seldom receive the media coverage they deserve, especially when they are more eminences grises, like Montserrat was, than politicians. The way the standards are written, they favor the "dominant history" and even worse, pop icons who have no lasting influence on society, just because they have a "cult following". Until we can get some standards for the inclusion of activists as political figures, Tentative Keep.--Rockero 20:03, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. Sad story, but not notable for an encyclopedia entry. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC).
  • Comment if this gets deleted, so should Michael Zinzun. Rlevse 20:40, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment I think that's what Rockero was afraid of ... --evrik 21:07, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
      • comment Michael Zinzun is definitely nn. Chris 00:51, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
        • Comment, actually Michael Zinzun is a bad comparison because from the number of non-trivial articles that have been written about him, he would appear to meet WP:BIO under the "Persons achieving renown or notoriety for their involvement in newsworthy events" stipulation. No reason for "activists as political figures" standards, the current critera cover this just fine.--Isotope23 15:40, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete Not noteable. --MECU≈talk 00:35, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete, NN. Fine, upstanding young man, accomplished much, died young. But not encyclopedic. There are two paragraphs dealing with a GPA dispute. Puh-lease. --Dhartung | Talk 05:52, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. Wikipedia is not a collection of sad stories. -- GWO
  • Delete. To quote Rlevse, "rising political leader"? That's not a very strong claim to notability even for living persons (per WP:NOT a crystal ball), and in this case, we know for certain he's not going to rise any further. --Sam Blanning(talk) 11:12, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep I was asked to look at this article by another user and render judgement. The first thing I did was make a google search. I was surprised by the number of hits that came up, and that wikipedia ws number one, a couple are referenced in the article. The New York Times has an article about him. He was also quoted by Time Magazine in a Texas election. His impact was also referenced by his boss. I think that it is appropriate to leave the article. More importantly, I think that articles like this, and the process that admins use to get rid of articles is shortsighted and unfair. This article may be short and limited in scope, but after reviewing the notability standards, I think it just squeaks by. Let me ask a question, "How many buildings do you need named after you to become notable?" Lloyd Monserratt has two. --South Philly 11:30, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment both of the articles you've mentioned would constitute a "trivial mention" per WP:BIO, the other source was a blog by the mayor he worked for, which isn't a reliable source in my estimation and is also trivial. Also, he does not have 2 buildings named after him. He has one building named after him and one "dedicated" to him. Regardless, having a building named after you does not satisfy any of the WP:BIO criteria. He seems like a credit to his community, but he just falls well below WP:BIO and thus should not be included here.--Isotope23 12:36, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
  • I think the following test are passed, from Wikipedia:Notability (people):
    • Persons achieving renown or notoriety for their involvement in newsworthy events
    • The person has been the primary subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the person. (Multiple similar stories describing a single day's news event only count as one coverage.)
    • Google Test -- Does the subject get lots of distinguishable hits on Google or another well known search mechanism?
    • Verifiability -- Can all information in the article be independently verified now? (some say) 10 years from now?
--evrik 16:01, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment I would disagree with you on the first and second point because I think from all the links provided here (and what I've found looking around) all the mentions of Mr. Monserratt would be clasified as trivial. The newpaper articles mention him in passing or are obituary in nature. I don't see anything that establishes that he has achieved renown for newsworthy events. As for the Google Test/Verifiability... these are so called "Alternate tests" that have not gained any community consensus. Personally I don't think they have any value at all (the Google Test in particular is a rather poor marker of "notability") and as such are not a good indicator of "notabilty" or lack thereof.--Isotope23 19:50, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment and I should add, there is currently an attempt to sway consensus by garnering numerical support for one side of the argument.--Isotope23 20:15, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Consensus... I think it's important to alert people who are more familiar with this topic to comment on it. Otherwise there it's left to a small group of users to make the decision on behalf of the larger community. --evrik 20:36, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - deserves further development. -Murcielago 18:25, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Please explain your keep, and why it "deserves" any such thing. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:02, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
      • Pretty much I agree with South Philly, above, but I think the article, while worthy of a wiki entry needs a bit of work to bring it to encyclopaedic standards, hence the "further development". --Murcielago 03:15, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Final Comment I am not going to be around for a few days - and the discussion on this will end before I come back. I just edited the article one last time. I feel like the article is worthy of keeping, and that Lloyd was notable. --evrik 18:54, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Parts of the story might only seem to some to be interesting only for those around southern Cal. Even though I'm not from there, I find the story interesting and worth keeping here. --JohnDBuell 23:36, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Wikipedia:Interesting. User:Zoe|(talk) 02:52, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
      • These are statements of everyone's opinions, not policy. I'm sure there are any number of people with biographies on Wikipedia I would NOT find interesting but I'd get shouted down quite loudly if I nominated them on AfD. --JohnDBuell 14:07, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
        • It should also be noted how far this page has evolved since the afd tag was applied: [2] --JohnDBuell 14:48, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
          • The problem is that while it has "evolved" it still has not evolved into an article that meets WP:BIO. Multiple press mentions about one incident just don't meet WP:BIO.--Isotope23 04:07, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep The WP:BIO list is preceded by the following disclaimer in bold text: "This is not intended to be an exclusionary list; just because someone doesn't fall into one of these categories doesn't mean an article on the person should automatically be deleted." The subject of this biographical entry certainly received press coverage during his lifetime, but would have received much more had his personal mission and style not been to work behind the scenes supporting and influencing others. It would be a shame to exclude him because he wasn't a publicity hound. Measured in terms of his impact on others and, through them, on politics and the quality of life in Los Angeles and elsewhere in California, Monserratt's impact was enormous. No doubt future Wikipedia entries relating to the people he worked with and inspired will mention Monserratt's role in their lives, and it would be helpful to be able to cross-reference those entries with this one.--—Preceding unsigned comment added by Cocreatordude (talk • contribs) 09:00, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment I have noticed a certain amount of bias and ignorance among wikipedia administrators. There are plenty of articles about middling white people, but an administrator who is ignorant about Latinos and their politics has free rein to try and get an article about a notable Latino deleted. If this article is deleted, it is a sad commentary on wikipedia.
Since there seems to be an anti-Latino bias going on here, we had better start to bulk up the bios of Nick Pacheco, Xavier Becerra and Ed Reyes, all of whom have bios shorter than Monserratt's.
--Zorro 17:16, 31 July 2006 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.167.151.236 (talk • contribs)
  • Comment I refer you to WP:CIVIL, and WP:AGF User:12.167.151.236, please read and follow those policies. An "Articles for Deletion" discussion is not the place for unfounded accusations (and I would add that if you spent a few weeks watching the AfD pages you would see there are just as many - if not more - deletions of articles about "middling white people" as you call them as there are about latinos, african americans, or any other ethnic group). Article length has nothing to do with it... Xavier Becerra in particular from your example above most definitely meets WP:BIO, no matter how short his article is. Lloyd Monserratt, for all the length of his article, does not meet WP:BIO that is the issue here.--Isotope23 17:54, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per Zoe, Isotope, MysteryDog, and GWO, each of whom cogently makes his/her point. Joe 19:36, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Since making my comments a few days ago, the article has grown. I don't believe there is a consensus here and I think that with a lack of consensus we should, "Do No Harm" and leave the article in place. --South Philly 21:29, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment, it has grown, but I still don't see anything that meets WP:BIO. That is the essence of the problem with this article. All of the links/sources provided are either about his passing, trivial mentions in other articles, or transcripts of remarks from government meetings... none of this qualifies him under WP:BIO--Isotope23 13:02, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep, as the size of the UCLA undergraduate electorate was 22,000 voters when he was elected. If he does not deserve to be listed on that basis, neither do the members of the first congress, whose districts contained not quite double that number of voters. There are also plenty of mayors whose electorate was smaller.--GaryCaliforniaetalk 13 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Borderline notablility, but unlimited space. Err on the side of do no harm. DrL 18:47, 3 August 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.