Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Saryn Hooks (second 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 of the debate was Keep. Bear in mind that it isn't simply this young lady's finish that makes her notable, but also the controversy regarding her reinstatement. This latter point is largely unrebutted in the debate by those who favor deletion, and influences my reading of the consensus AfDs have next-to-no precedential value anyway, but this consensus emphatically says nothing about the general notability of non-controversial high-place spelling bee finishers. Xoloz 19:45, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Saryn Hooks

This article was speedy deleted during an earlier AfD. A DRV consensus judged this deletion premature, and instructed that the article be relisted at AfD for a full debate. This is a procedural relisting, so I abstain. Xoloz 17:15, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Keep. The spelling bee is major notable and nationally televised sport. My understanding is that this year a U.S. network carried it live in primetime. Placing third in such a competition must be at least as notable as being a minor MLB, NHL, NBA, NFL player - and we know that players with even one at-bat etc. on the top level are entitled to WP articles! There are precedents, of course. We had a few AfD's (can't find off hand) for people who've participate in one career NASCAR race decades ago, placing nowhere near the top, and were kept. Surely, this participation is worthy of an article. As to its staying a stub forever, that is not necessarily true, but it's no more true about Hooks than about the NASCAR people. (If anyone can point me to those AfD's, I would appreciate it.) - CrazyRussian talk/email 17:19, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Keep I was considering voting this for deletion but I feel that notability must be there and she does satify a bit of WP:BIO[1]. So, I believe that does in fact merit an article. Yanksox ^(talk) 17:30, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep if expanded. -- getcrunk ? 17:30, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• keep since it meets WP:BIO. Scripps National Spelling Bee is a major "sporting" event, televised on ESPN and other networks. — brighterorange (talk) 17:59, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• Extremely strong delete. She's not notable, winning a spelling bee does not meet WP:BIO. Ardenn 18:02, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• Weak keep as per CrazyRussian and Yanksox; this spelling bee is notable enough to be broadcast nationally, and thus should be considered alongside other sporting events. I'm going with 'weak' here, though, as she is the third-place finisher, and that might be sliding just out of notability. (First place in the national spelling bee is an easy keep; second, in this case, involved the two-time Canadian national champion, which made her worthy of keeping. Third? Perhaps; I lean towards yes.) Tony Fox (speak) 18:11, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I gave this some thought, kicked it around, and realized that a Merge with the 2006 article is probably a better idea. We already have issues with defining notability, and this does teeter very much on that line. Tony Fox (speak) 22:23, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• Weak delete. Not notable, although I could be convinced otherwise. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:13, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep She is notable. Thankyoubaby 18:14, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per WP:BIO "The person has been the primary subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the person." --Rob 18:17, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• Weakish keep (As in, weaker than a keep, but stronger than a weak keep.) I'm completely with Tony Fox. Unlike the winner and the runner-up (who, as stated, is also the back-to-back Canadian nat'l champ), Saryn Hooks' third place finish is just a third place finish. But third place is the bronze medal, and nobody would try to delete an article on a bronze medalist (nor would the article on John Barch, the third place finisher at the World Series of Poker get deleted). Plus, this was third place in an event televised in primetime on a broadcast network. CrazyRussian and Yanksox also provided good reasons to keep the article on Hooks. -- Kicking222 18:22, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Keep It is a televised event, and as Kicking said, bronze medalists' articles would not be up for AfD. However, I'd be more comfortable keeping the article if there was some further point of notability, per Finola Hackett for example. -Fsotrain09 18:31, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• Weak delete - A third-place finisher, which I don't consider to be inherently notable in the case of spelling bees. I wouldn't have considered Finola notable had she not won the Canadian bees as well. The "hechsher" incident is the only thing that might cause me to think otherwise, but since it was caught before it had any impact on the results, it doesn't really enhance her notability. — stickguy (:^›)— home - talk - 19:10, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, she was a major part of a major competition. --*kate 19:14, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• Merge and then Delete; she's a third place finisher in a spelling bee, not the Olympics. She's not even mentioned on the Scripps National Spelling Bee article in the 2006 summary, which is where any controversy (the only thing that makes her even remotely notable) should be mentioned. -- nae'blis _(talk) 19:24, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep when we run out of paper, I'm sure spelling bee (I managed to spell that wrong!) competitors will be the first to go, but that's not a problem now. --Eivind^t@c 19:36, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Delete She didn't win any major spelling, unlike Kerry Close and Finny Hackett. She came in third and if you think about it, its not that great. Kerry won first place in the Scripps Howard, the Finola won CanSpell twice and came in second in the Scripps Howard. They both have an actual win. Saryn does not. End of story. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.12.116.69 (talk • contribs) 20:13, 19 June 2006 (UTC).
• Delete, where do we draw the line? Every contestant at every national spelling bee that has ever been held? I could weak keep the winners, but nobody else. User:Zoe|^(talk) 21:53, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• Weak keep as per Eivind, I think that when space becomes a problem on Wikipedia, the notablity bar will have to be raised above third place finishers in nationally televised athletic/academic events. Until that happens, the notability bar is below her. Interlingua ^talk 22:07, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• Merge clearly. There is absolutely nothing notable whatsoever about this person outside of the controversy over a single spelling bee; this content should be covered in the article which discusses this year's competition. It really doesn't matter a hill of beans how important the competition is, we don't have articles for a lot of unsuccessful runners in political races although those competitions are notable. WP:BIO requires more than a single appearance in one event, however controversial the outcome, because otherwise what you have is a notable event not a notable person. Just zis Guy you know? 22:20, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Actually, we accept articles on politicians who succeed at the state level, but fail federally. She won locally, and competed nationally three times. So, that's more than just one event. Most athletes in a recognized sport, competing at a comperable level would be kept, even if they didn't make it to third place. There seems to be this mistaken premise, that all this girl ever did was enter a single event at one time, at one place, and that's it. There's a little bit more to it, than that. --Rob 23:17, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Based on a single year's endeavours? I don't think so. And the heats were not telivised, and are not IMO independently notable; we don't keep mayors either. Just zis Guy you know? 23:21, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
      • What do you mean "a single year's endeavours"? She is a three-time national finalist (2004, 2005, and 2006). She tied for seventh in 2005. --Rob 23:35, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• Merge - non notables have no reason to be deleted as I've heard that wikipedia isn't paper (its a rumor going around). However, I think that all this information could easily be merged with another article. My opinion is that none of the information be deleted. Fresheneesz 23:29, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, vvery notable, easily reaches WP:BIO. --badlydrawnjeff talk 00:14, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. I agree that third in a national academic competition is notable performance for an encyclopedia that is not paper. And she is definitely the subject of multiple independent news articles. I don't particularly like this result because it means I am also eligible for an article, but as it was in the pre-web days, I don't expect any of you to go visit the morgue of the appropriate local papers to verify that claim, so I'm safe. I don't know if the reinstatement should be mentioned in the bee article, the editors of that article are the best judge of that. The best academic competitions have a procedure for challenging judgement, so that may or may not be worthy of inclusion. GRBerry 00:53, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. The National Spelling Bee is a well known contest, and a third place finish is sufficient for notability. Sjakkalle (Check!) 05:56, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
  • So, going forward, you are confident that this third-place finish will be sufficient to gain continuing coverage from reliable sources, yes? That in, say, five years, it will be easy to verify her latest achievements and where she is from the continued coverage that finishing third gains her? Or will she, like an unsuccessful political candidate, appear perhaps one day in a "where are they now" piece? My view is that these people should be merged to a single article until there is some additional claim to notability - otherwise we get the "last heard of selling used cars in Portland, OR" style of article, which is silly. Just zis Guy you know? 11:20, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Last I checked, qualifying under WP:BIO didn't require "continuing coverage." --badlydrawnjeff talk 11:43, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Yea, what are you talking about JzG? You should be well aware of wikipedia's policies - and in 5 years who knows whats going to happen anyway - certainly not you. Wikipedia is not a crystall ball JzG - and neither are you. Fresheneesz 17:58, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. She seems like a nice person but she does not reach my understanding of our recommended criteria for inclusion of biographies. Not everything on television is automatically appropriate for an encyclopedia article. This would, however, make a very nice human interest story on WikiNews. Rossami (talk) 14:17, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Third place just isn't good enough, expecially when that's her only finish of note. Drawing a comparison to the Olympics isn't really fair, since nearly all Olympians are notable in some way. Only the quirk about being returned to competition is interesting, but it belongs more in an article about the event itself than about the person it benefited. There's not even a mention in the Scripps National Spelling Bee article or a link from that page to help justify keeping this article. --UsaSatsui 20:37, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
• STRONG MERGE AND DELETE The only notable thing about Sayrn is that she was reinstated. Add the reinstatement to the Scripps Howard national spelling bee page and delete Sayrn's page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Clamster5 (talk • contribs) .
  • Note: The preceding vote (first of two) is from the user who vandalized the article with an attack and ironically, created the article (as User:Clamster4). I removed their second vote for being incivil. --Rob 23:09, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Are you allowed to do that? --UsaSatsui 01:46, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
      • Here's the original comment, indented since it won't count separately: -- nae'blis _(talk) 02:44, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
      • *DeleteIf you look at the guidelines, it doesn't seem like this matches up with any category. Also it definitley shouldn't be included because of this test: '100 year test (future speculation) -- In 100 years time will anyone without a direct connection to the individual find the article useful?' Will anyone care in 100 years, other than Sayrn herself and her family? Consider this. I'm sure that at this point, the only people actually looking for the article are her friends and family so they can say "OOOOOhhh! I know her!" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Clamster5 (talk • contribs) .
        • Going by the spirit (if not the letter) of WP:LIVING seems to give justification for removal of baseless negative statements about a living person, who's the subject of an article. We should have zero tolerance for this sort of sillyness. Note, in particular, this user (under two ids) has made attacks in article space. We're not talking about good faith AFD comments here. Note, my removal wasn't really related to vote-count concerns (as I know, that no admin would count such a vote). --Rob 03:31, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
          • Problematic AFDs are sometimes blanked after conclusion; however I think it's poor precedent to start removing comments in the middle of an AFD, it just makes for bigger headaches when factchecking at the end. Usual precedent is to indent them. No censure intended on your behavior, I just disagree on what should be done about it. -- nae'blis _(talk) 22:25, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. The winners of national spelling bees may be notable enough for Wikipedia articles, but that doesn't mean that the non-winners are too. Spelling bees have not attained enough popularity compared to athletic sports to warrant extensive coverage of their competitors. --Metropolitan90 04:16, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
• Delete no way is this notable or encyclopedic. Eusebeus 23:59, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Delete no evidence of notability for an encyclopedia Bwithh 06:33, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, this person satisfies WP:BIO for reasons given above. Yamaguchi先生 18:42, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep verifiable and newsworthy person. Remember, Wikipedia is not paper. An article about her points out, "Hooks also captured national attention while in Washington, D.C., this week. A camera crew from “Inside Edition” followed her around all day Thursday and equipped her with a microphone, according to Media Generals’ Bee Blog. The show will feature a piece about her today." [2] See also her coverage by the Media General "Bee Blog" --Leflyman^Talk 18:49, 26 June 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.