Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Whip Jones (second nomination)

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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 keep, as consensus seems to show that after revamp of article, notability is now asserted. -Patstuarttalk|edits 19:41, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Whip Jones

Whip Jones (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Relisting from long and unusually confusing previous nomination for deletion. Participants in the previous one are welcome to participate here, but please, be more brief. Procedural renomination, no opinion from me. AnonEMouse (squeak) 17:26, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Keep - meets WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:BIO. -- Whpq 18:41, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - I agree, there are assertions of notability, sources, etc. Kudos to the editor who cleaned it up. --Dmz5 18:44, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep No reason is given for wanting to delete it. Its verifiable and a very notable subject. A Supreme Court case; two skiing Halls of Fame; and an endowed chair at Harvard. Whats the reason given for deletion? Bad faith nomination or the nominator never bothered to do a Google search. If the article needed improvement, this is not the venue for that. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 22:57, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
    • No real comment on your reasoning, Richard, but please remember to assume good faith. I don't see any evidence (i.e. edit warring or the like) to make me believe that this was a bad faith nomination, or that it was listed on AfD for an improper purpose. A Google search of "'Whip Jones' Highland" gets only 98 hits. I'm neutral, but there is definitely an argument that the article fails WP:Bio. --TheOtherBob 00:32, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
A list of google hit counts and alternate source BIOs can be found at: Talk:Whip Jones -BMcCJ
  • Comment Its never my intention to be rude or impolite, but I am sometimes critical. And people should be critical of me. I have made many spelling errors before Firefox 2.0, and many, many typos that have been caught. Editing is fun, I enjoy it immensely, but has consequences if you make an error or typo. Just look at his Hall of Fame biography. His death is listed for the wrong year. Very sloppy. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 02:21, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
      • A procedural nomination (which this was) cannot be bad faith. Don't throw that around where it isn't warranted. We have enough incivility as it is.--Dhartung | Talk 01:43, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment three high quality sources should be sufficient. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 01:22, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
    • They may well be, don't panic, most of the other people here seem to agree with you so far. The first nomination was when the article was in much worse shape than now. The fact that it was improved part way was just one of the reasons for relisting the nomination afresh. (If you really want to see the others, follow the link above to the previous discussion, but keep a tight grip on your sanity, as it may try to escape.) AnonEMouse (squeak) 14:32, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
      • With no offense to the contributer (he's a newbie, and admitted that he was confused and made a mistake), several editions along the line of [1] made the AFD horribly convoluded. Patstuarttalk|edits 14:54, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep as the Supreme Court case makes him notable, if the founding of the ski area or its donation to Harvard doesn't. --Dhartung | Talk 01:43, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Speedy Keep - Ditto, above. BMcCJ
  • Comment. If the article was then as it is now, I wouldn't have nominated it. Under the circumstances, I need to make it clear that I am not !voting delete at this time. But, as a renomination, it is not suitable for a speedy keep unless all the delete voters there agree.Arthur Rubin | (talk)
  • Speedy Keep What nonsense to bother authors with having to defend meaningful articles. There should be a stiff penalty for unsupportable deletion nominations. Why don't the critics spend time improving articles rather than nominating for deletion. If they are not familiar enough with the topic to propose improvements, then how can they be qualified to judge the merits of notability. Kevin Murray 00:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Four things, I guess (sorry, I'm going to be long-winded):
      1. It's generally bad form to solicit votes, as BMcCJ did on Mr. Murray's talk page[2]. Some people refer to it as "canvassing" or vote stacking. Please don't do it - it harms this process (though I know BMcCJ is a new editor, and I'm sure he had no idea about that).
      2. Please try to assume more good faith. AfD isn't nonsense just because an article you like shows up here. Those who participate here generally spend time improving articles as well. But they also improve Wikipedia when they eliminate the junk that shouldn't be here. There should emphatically not be a "stiff penalty" for being bold and trying to protect and improve Wikipedia, even if the person gets it wrong. You disagree about the notability of this article and want to keep it - great. Vote to keep. But the idea that we should "penalize" people because they disagree with you - I disagree with that strongly.
      3. If people had to be previously familiar with the subject in order to vote to delete an article, nothing would ever be deleted. Those things notable enough for people to become familiar with them are...probably notable enough for Wikipedia. Stuff no one is familiar with (some 13 year old's Pokemon collection, somebody's friend's band) is probably non-notable. Would you really suggest that we couldn't delete that stuff because there aren't any experts who can comment on it?
      4. And, finally - did you have any reason why you think this person was notable? Please don't take this the wrong way, but I don't see anything about the article in your comment - only a call for "stiff penalties" for the nominator. So why, in your mind, is this person notable? --TheOtherBob 03:39, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak keep This one seems close to me, and I initially voted delete when the article was in worse shape. I don't think the Supreme Court case matters. Remember that there's a difference between "notable" and "impressive." It's impressive that he pushed a case to the Supreme Court. But "a topic is notable if it has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works, whose sources are independent of the subject itself." The case received multiple non-trivial mentions in published works - but only because of what the Supreme Court did. (And, I might add, we haven't actually written an article about the case yet. When I have a little more time I may start that, but anyone else should feel free to as well.) I haven't seen anyone point out any similar media mentions of Whip Jones in relation to the case. I draw a distinction between someone like Brown, Roe, or Lochner (who became notable just by having their name in the title of a famous case), and those who were just involved in a notable case without themselves receiving any press. So I would discount the court case. However, he seems to have received multiple non-trivial mentions in published works in regards to his skiing business and his Harvard endowment - and that's enough for me. --TheOtherBob 03:53, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: Please keep this discussion to the merits of this article. I propose taking discussions of the process to whatever forums Wikipedia has for those discussions (feel free to add the links to those forums BELOW) so that this conversation can stay on track.
    • I think the positive case for this article (above), and the facts that have been in it, for quite a long time, have been listed and mentioned enough.
    • Thanks, Warm Wishes All, and Happy Holidays! -BMcCJ
  • Keep per nom - the rewrites have brought this 'up to par' quite well. SkierRMH 06:32, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep per nom Johnbod 09:01, 25 December 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.