Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert J. Hurst

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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 Delete. Redirect optional. Criterion of significant independent coverage is invoked but not established (even after looking at WilyD's links, which contains only two items about this Bob Hurst) and the article itself is borderline A1/A7. ~ trialsanderrors 11:09, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Robert J. Hurst

Robert J. Hurst (discussion|history|protect|delete|undelete|logs|links)

Mayor of a town of 8,000, WP:BIO - crz crztalk 13:03, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Keep WP:BIO, aside from being merely a guideline rather than policy, is not all inclusive. Really, the real question when discussing whether or not an article should be deleted is: Does its presence actually hurt anything? Kurt Weber 13:07, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
    • No, that is not the question, because "Keep my article. It's not hurting Wikipedia to have articles on me, my friends, and the things that we just made up in school today!" is the perennial argument of people who want to keep bad articles. Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion of biographies is, in contrast, the simple elaboration of our Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not policy that Wikipedia doesn't have biographical articles for every person that exists or ever existed, and has been consistently employed for several years, now. So I suggest that rather than making the same bad arguments that the defenders of bad articles make, you make good arguments, citing sources, to demonstrate that the WP:BIO criteria are satisfied by thiIt is interesting to wonder whethers person. Uncle G 13:38, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
      • I don't need to, because those criteria are wrong and excessively megalomaniacal. Kurt Weber 14:12, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
        • You do need to. You're wrong, not the criteria. Perpetual stubs without scope for expansion have always been deletable, per our Wikipedia:Deletion policy all the way back to 2003, and as I said, the WP:BIO criteria are simple elaborations of what WP:NOT has said for several years, too. Citing substantial non-autobiographical sources to demonstrate that there is scope for expansion will satisfy the primary WP:BIO criterion as well as the Deletion policy and What Wikipedia is not. But a lack of sources yields a 2 sentence perpetual stub, with no scope for expansion, whose information is already contained in the article on the town, and which is deletable per all three of WP:DP, WP:NOT, and WP:BIO.

          Only people can suffer from megalomania, by the way, not sets of criteria. Uncle G 16:07, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

          • Just because something is written as policy does not make it ipso facto correct. But, anyway, the article is not destined to be a perpetual stub. I have several non-autobiographical sources of information; my plan was (and still is) to keep fleshing it out over the next week or so. Would everyone involved be amenable to closing this discussion until I (and others) get it written, and revisiting the matter later if some deem it necessary? Kurt Weber 17:25, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - yea, this article isent hurting anybody. It isent the bio of some 13 year old, or spam. Chris Kreider 13:29, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete - it's not a question of whether it's hurting anybody, is it? WP:BIO states that the following are worthy of inclusion: "Major local political figures who receive (or received) significant press coverage. Just being an elected local official does not guarantee notability". I did the dreaded Google test, came up with 104 hits for "robert j hurst"+mayor+princeton. Doesn't seem particularly notorious or particularly noteworthy. riana_dzasta 13:39, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
    • WP:BIO, aside from not being policy, also does not purport to be an exhaustive list. He exists, verifiable information exists about him, so any article on him that's not blatant slander should be kept. Kurt Weber 14:12, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Is he notable, though? I'm not from the US, but there must be many towns with around the same population, and many mayors of said towns. Has he set himself apart from the pack? riana_dzasta 14:19, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
      • People deserve an article based solely on verifiable information now? Then I guess I need an article, despite the fact that nobody has any idea who I am outside of San Jose. -Amarkov babble 14:26, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Um, WP:BIO is policy. It's an accepted notabality guideline. That's why it's got the big checkmark. -- Kicking222 14:31, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
        • I'm going to put my inclusionist cap on and go: "This guideline is not Wikipedia policy (and indeed the whole concept of notability is contentious)". That said, WP:NOT is a policy. WP:BIO is just a corollary of that, as Uncle G points out. riana_dzasta 14:34, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom as failing WP:BIO. -- Kicking222 14:31, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete as per nom. Fails WP:BIO. No ex offico encyclopedic notability for small town mayors. Bwithh 15:07, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep while WP:BIO is fairly vague on politicians (and yes, every alderman in a town of 150 is probably not notable) ~ mayors are fairly important offices. I can find verifiable information about the guy here: [1] [2] and gnews turns up about a dozen articles in which he's mentioned [3]. Seems like he's unlikely to reach F.A. status anytime soon, but makes for a decent and worthwhile stub. WilyD 15:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak Delete I'm usually in favor of keeping elected officials, but a small-town mayor seems a bit too obscure. It seems a close call to me, but I think it fails WP:Bio. (I could see it merged into an article on the town, though.) I totally disagree with the "it's not hurting anything" argument. If WP was turned into a pile of non-notable articles, I'd consider that a harm. On WilyD's point, if we think this will never be anything more than a stub, I would argue that it may as well be deleted. --TheOtherBob 16:12, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Just curious--WHY would you consider that harm? Some argue that it will bring disrepute to the encyclopedia; I fail to see how having more information than other encyclopedias can be a bad thing. The only reasonable argument I've heard is namespace pollution--and even that is easily resolved. Kurt Weber 17:25, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Sure - just briefly, I see two harms. One is technological / financial (i.e. it must cost something to store extraneous data without slowing down access to the non-extraneous stuff). If there aren't some limits, then the infrastructure does eventually break down. The second is that an encyclopedia clogged with anything and everything is less useful and harder to manage. I'll stop there, though - because I think this is a debate better suited to the discussion pages of WP:Notability. --TheOtherBob 17:32, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Stub is most emphatically not a criterion for deletion. That said, if you look at the references in my original post, you can see there's enough there already to go beyond "stub" to "start class" or whatever you prefer to call it. WilyD 18:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete While he was elected Mayor, I cannot find any reference to him in independent media. A mayor of a small town who has never been in a media article is not notable. If someone can find more information refering to his notability then I may change my vote. Keep Mentioned in numerous media sources. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 23:59, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Regarding the allgedged harmlessness of letting non-notable people be in wikipedia, my response is that we are an encyclopedia, and if we let anyone in the we would no longer be an encyclopedia, just a directory. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 18:21, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Then you must not be looking very hard - this very page already contained [4] ;) WilyD 18:35, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
I searched under Robert, not Bob. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 23:59, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Oh, yeah, that'd do it. Which probably means if the article survives AfD that it should be moved. WilyD 14:40, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Redirect to the town and mention him as the current mayor. It might make sense to mention the mayor of a town in an article. There is no need for a separate article on the man. JoshuaZ 22:48, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
    • The article does mention him as mayor, but why is there no need for an article on him? Kurt Weber 23:27, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Because he's not notable in the least. He exists, but he's not notable. --Charlene 00:19, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
        • Aside from the fact that notability is not policy, anything that exists and for which verifiable information can be found is indeed worthy of an article. Kurt Weber 12:47, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Redirect per JoshuaZ, not enough information for an independent article. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:56, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
    • There is indeed plenty of information for a decent start-class article; in addition to the links posted by WilyD, I have several newspaper articles in front of me that provide biographical information about the man. No, they're not in the article yet--my time to edit the article is limited during the day. Kurt Weber 23:27, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete outright, since info is already in city article. Small-city mayor, otherwise of no importance. I'd chide the creator for mistaking Wikipedia for a telephone directory, but his -- well, let's call it "alternate view of reality" -- goes much deeper than that. --Calton | Talk 00:19, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment As I have stated several times before: just because the article as it currently stands only consists of information in the city article, that does not mean that that is the only verifiable information available on the guy. And I fully understand what Wikipedia is; you simply don't appear to understand what userspace is for. Kurt Weber 12:45, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. I normally lean towards keeping elected officials. But unless this mayor has done something pretty notable (which the aritcle doesn't assert) then I would argue that there is not inherent notability attached to the person.Montco 21:09, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
    • I remind you that notability is not policy and that, therefore, perceived non-notability is not a valid reason for deletion. Furthermore, I am reluctant to expand the article if it's likely to just get deleted. Perhaps people should give an article a chance before listing it on AfD. If it's not a blatant speedy, leave it alone for a bit and see what happens with it. Kurt Weber 21:34, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
While notability is not a policy, it certainly is a valid reason for deletion if consensus finds it to be so. What's more, improving an article cannot increase notibility of the subject. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 22:08, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
The consensus on one particular debate does NOT trump policy. Furthermore, while improving an article does not increase the notability of a subject, it can add a claim to such (although it is not needed, as notability is not a valid reason for deletion) if it does not yet exist. Kurt Weber 22:35, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
While I know that consensus cannot trump policy, I am not aware that any policy exists saying notability is an invalid reason for deletion. And yes, you are correct in that providing proof can help demonstrate the notability of the person. The duration of the AfD should make that feasible. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 22:39, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Not really...I only have a limited amount of time to spend on Wikipedia each day, and that time comes in small chunks (2-3 minutes). Furthermore, most people don't revisit these, so changing the article will do absolutely nothing to affect their suggestion in this discussion. All I can do is try to convince future participants that this should be left alone, and the time spent doing that is time I cannot spend working on the article itself. And if I can't keep the article from being deleted because certain individuals (including, quite possibly, whoever the closing admin is) choose to ignore policy or are too lazy to see if the arguments being posted are actually valid with regards to this particular article (admins have quite a bit of leeway when closing AfDs, but most of them choose not to use it and instead just lazily tally up the "Keeps" and "Deletes" rather than weighing the strength of the arguments and their relevance to the article as it actually is), then there's no point in working on the article any further, is there? See my essay, Wikipedia: Give an article a chance. Kurt Weber 23:57, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
I think your confusion is in thinking that this is a vote. If a person voiced an opinion to delete on the basis of a claim, then that claim is later disproven, and that person never comes back, then the following should happen:
  1. An admin will see that the AfD is old enough to close
  2. This admin will look at all the claims
  3. This admin will weigh the claim based on if arguement is valid or not(considering available evidence)
  4. If the closing admin sees that an opinion is based on an idea that has been proven to be inaccurate then that opinion will be given little or no weight.
What I am saying in a rather longwinded sort of manner is that these sorts of discussions are dealth with using common sense, and beyond common sense a sense of fairness and objectivity limited only by the personality of the closing admin. There is no simple vote count at the end, but a consideration of the ideas and opinions brought forth aswell as their justification.
Mistakes that are not corrected in time are accounted for. While this system fails once in a while, it generally succeeds in being fair. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 00:38, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
No, I'm quite aware that it is not a vote. If you had bothered to read what I had actually written above, you would have seen that my point is that, while admins are supposed to do what you said, they generally are too lazy to bother. So an article that clearly shouldn't get deleted gets deleted.
  • Delete per above. I'd have just made it into a redirect instead of Afd'ing, personally, but that's just me. The only justification for this article is that this person exists. Anyone who understands the goals of the project knows that this doesn't cut it. Friday (talk) 00:33, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment Actually, that is sufficient reason to keep it. Seriously, what's the harm done? The purpose of an encyclopedia, after all, is to provide information.
  • Redirect to List of non-notable municipal politicians. No—on second thought, delete. —Psychonaut 02:57, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Redirect to Princeton, Indiana. --Ixfd64 23:37, 13 November 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.