Talk:Glenn Mulcaire

Notability
Paul A tagged the article with concerns about WP:BLP1E. I don't agree or disagree about that. I was reading all the news this morning and started to wonder more about him as a person, and found literally hundreds of articles about him across a number of years. In a sense, he is famous for just one event (sort of) but it isn't as if he is a figure who did one thing one time and got famous for it.

However, what I'm looking for - and haven't yet found - are longer personality profiles of him, so that we might learn more about his background, career, etc. If we can't find those things within a few days, I think that AfD will be the right place to go.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:41, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't have created the article yet. Since it already exists I have added some additional links. The Independent piece refers to the involvement of other people at NI. If the public inquiry, which Cameron announced today, looks into this then Mulcaire may be responsible for providing the smoking gun which would bring down more than Rebekah Brooks. I think the article should remain until we see how this plays out, or it's likely to be deleted and recreated several times during the inquiry as various facts come to light. He may turn out to be the star of the show or he may be only a walk-on. It won't take long, but likely more than a few days. The Commons emergency debate isn't even over. 75.60.16.184 (talk) 15:29, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I think the real key to writing a good biography is to find facts about him that are not part of this 'one event'. Without those, a good biography is difficult, as we know nothing about him that isn't really just knowing about the event.  When I started the article, I was wondering: what is he like as a human being, how did he get where he is?  I learned that he's a former footballer, and has 5 kids.  Is (or perhaps I should say was) his firm a successful investigations firm, or a "one man band"?  Did he go to University?  Is he a church-going man?  If we can't answer even those kinds of basic questions, I doubt if we can have an article.  I was optimistic when I started (otherwise I wouldn't have) but began to have doubts pretty quickly.  Still, let's give it a go for a few days and see if we can find enough.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:11, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
 * That would make it more interesting, but surely most private investigators do all they can to be non-notable in their lives. My first thought was that football players need a better pension plan so they aren't reduced to these sorts of jobs. I wonder what fields of work other former footballers take up. Penny stocks? Ponzi schemes? 75.60.16.184 (talk) 17:15, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Clive Goodman, former NOTW royal editor, was also former AFC Wimbledon. And according to Mulcaire's father.... Although MI5 isn't the CIA when it comes to gold-standard conspiracy theories, it's something. Someone's paying Mulcaire's legal bills, and most people think it's NI. Perhaps not. I'm personally more shocked and disappointed on behalf of David McKie (aka Smallweed) on the Wimbledon AFC connection. It's the sort of thing one might expect of someone who played for that other team in Milton Keynes. You might want to add the first goal bit to that article though. 75.60.16.184 (talk) 18:08, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I believe I misread a story about Goodman and Mulcaire, and Goodman was NOT a player. I did add the first goal bit to the AFC Wimbledon article. I added the MI5 quote to this article. Perhaps Mulcaire was already a private investigator during his playing days. He did become a household name, but presumably not in the way Will Buckley meant. 76.192.40.247 (talk) 14:53, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I strongly disagree that BLP1E applies here. It makes a mockery of the notion of an "event".  He is clearly notable by Wikipedia standards, and frankly it's absurd to claim that he isn't.  Nomoskedasticity (talk) 18:54, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * As the person who started this article, of course a part of me is eager to agree. However, I think it is important to look beyond the meaning of "event" and look to the substance of why the concept of BLP1E is important to us, and to ask the question thoughtfully about Mulcaire.
 * The main point of the policy is to prevent us from writing articles about people about whom virtually nothing is known outside of some event. If nearly all we know about Mulcaire is stuff that is directly covered in our article on the event, it is hard to justify a biography.
 * What I'm looking for is more information about him as a person. The reader will be properly looking to know more about him.  In an AfD held today (and I don't think we should hold one today), I think I'd have to vote 'delete'.  There just isn't much here yet.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:40, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
 * There is a BBC News profile of Mulcaire that is not currently in the article. Some useful information in this piece.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 07:43, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Note that the redirect and revert of this article was raised at the BLP noticeboard here, although that discussion does not appear to be going anywhere. My view is that unless we find more information about Mulcaire not relating to the phone hacking, we should just mention him in the article about the hacking and leave a redirect here.--Michig (talk) 11:23, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
 * This article needs a top to bottom rewrite, but may satisfy WP:GNG if more media coverage occurs.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 12:51, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think he qualifies for a life story here, it has no chance than being anything but a duplicate of the crime content about him at the main article. The only thing that notable about him is the phone hacking. I would support a redirect and if there is anything not already there, merge. Off2riorob (talk) 13:48, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Mulcaire _is_ significant for more than the phone hacking, he scored the first goal for AFC Wimbledon. The formation of AFC Wimbledon is a significant event in English football history, AFC formed by the supporters of Wimbledon FC (a English Premier League side until 2000) which was contentiously allowed to relocate to Milton Keynes (over 50 miles away) and renamed MK Dons - against the rules of the time, and following an earlier attempt by the owner to relocate to Dublin - http://www.soccer-ireland.com/irish-football-history/dublin-dons.htm), in search of a new ground to play in . The fans were angered (no longer having a local club to support) and AFC Wimbledon was formed in the lower tiers of English football, taking 9 years and several promotions to get back into the English Football League.  Mulcaire as the first ever scorer for Wimbledon AFC _is_ notable.  The AFC Wimbledon saga is a somewhat of a David (supporters - left without a team) and Goliath (owners - selling their old ground to a supermarket and moving the club) story, AFC Wimbledon now only one tier below MK Dons, so being involved in the News of the World hacking scandal is not his only claim to fame. How many other footballers who have wikipedia entries are only noted for one thing (being footballers)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Affallen (talk • contribs) 13:41, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm about ready to give up
I'd rather us not doing this in a WP:BOLD way, nor in an AFD. Let's just have a quick poll here and see what we think.

I propose that we leave this article here in the history but redirect to the main hacking scandal article. I propose that we do this until someone comes up with more information about his life story outside of just his role in this scandal. Absent that, this isn't a real biography.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:59, 11 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Merge and redirect --Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:59, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree. Not enough for a standalone article. This can all be covered in the hacking article which will give people much more context than they're going to get here.--Michig (talk) 16:04, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
 * - agree - perhaps later if more detail is reported/written about his life we can create it back. Off2riorob (talk) 16:13, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree with Off2riorob. When the sources appear they can be used here. (Say that in your best Johnnie Cochran voice.)  Until then it should be redirected to the scandal article as per BLP1E.  Gamaliel (talk) 16:20, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with the merge and redirect proposal. Without the NoW scandal, Mulcaire would not be interesting or notable and, although he was a key player in the scandal itself, he is barely part of the bigger story that is now unfolding.  I think he warrants inclusion in the hacking article, but the stand-alone biography is not necessary.  Wikipeterproject (talk) 22:53, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree, without a Glenn Mulcaire entry there is nowhere to cross reference his football career with NoW hacking scandal unless AFC Wimbledon entry is updated to include News of the World hacking - which isn't really relevant to AFC Wimbledon, and News International phone hacking scandal article is updated with references to AFC Wimbledon, again not relevant. Affallen (talk) 14:15, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Gutted
Gutted this article has been deleted. Really needed it. Pretty amazed too. Iain UK  talk  19:09, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I've now restored this and added to it. --Trevj (talk) 14:53, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you - I'm glad to see it back as I really think the article deserves to stay. Iain UK   talk  01:43, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

BLP1E
The article (now recreated) is still having WP:BLP1E issues and focusing unduly on Mulcaire's involvement with the phone hacking scandal. Without the hacking, he would clearly not qualify for a BLP.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 07:08, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Dubious
I have added a dubious tag to the claim that he was a professional footballer, none of the refs support this, and this Irish Independent ref contradicts it by saying that: "the players are paid expenses only". It's possible he was a professional player in other clubs or in later years of AFC Wimbledon, either way, this fact needs a citation. Quasi human  &#124;  Talk  23:53, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I have added a dubious tag to the claim that he was a private investigator, while all the media claim that he was, they do not back up their claims to support this. I would call him an information broker. Sasquatch 12:48, 5 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The "dubious" tag is not intended to introduce original research claims. Mulcaire has been described as a private investigator and professional footballer in reliable sources, eg here.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 12:57, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for that however it is not original research (see here http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmhaff/100/100.pdf) Sasquatch 14:53, 5 May 2013 (UTC)


 * This document does not describe Glenn Mulcaire as an information broker, which is not a phrase in standard use. Information broker looks like a PR jargon-led phrase, rather like describing a shelf stacker as an ambient replenishment controller.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 16:14, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Can we agree that he is not a private investigator? He only had one client, NOTW which makes him an in-house investigator at best. Sasquatch 17:04, 4 August 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by ChupacabraUK (talk • contribs)


 * AFC Wimbledon were non-league in 2002, so they were not quite the same as a league club. However, he is often described as a former professional footballer, eg here on the BBC website.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 16:39, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

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