Talk:James Clark (Pennsylvania politician)

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There seems to be no significant coverage about Clark in reliable secondary sources; actually the article's only source did not even mention him. He thus fails the general notability guideline, and while WP:POLITICIAN includes "former members of a national, state or provincial legislature", it explicitly states that fulfilling that criterion does not guarantee that the subject shouold receive a stand-alone article, but that such members are very likely to have received enough coverage to be notable. For all I can tell, that is not the case with Clark. Therefore I have redirected the article to a list which already contained all information we have about him. Huon (talk) 12:39, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I seriously doubt that a full search of all the newspapers covering this region from the time he was active would yield nothing. If you still think he is not notable, take it to AfD. State legislators universally pass, because all the newspapers cover the elections. Here, you just have in essence WP:FUTON-bias due to the years he was active. I have changed the citation that was there to one that lists him. Aboutmovies (talk) 01:42, 14 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Let me put it this way: If the article was just three months younger, I'd have killed it per WP:PRODBLP. Unfortunately it's a little too old for that, but a BLP without a single reliable secondary source is an abomination. I have not checked "all the newspapers covering this region from the time he was active", and I seriously doubt I can do so without traveling a few hundred miles. If you can find some coverage, great. If not, a redirect seems a good compromise until we find something. It's not as if any information on him was lost in the process. I don't intend to take the article to AfD because I don't actually want it deleted, but if that's the only way to get an unsourced BLP turned into a redirect, I will have to reconsider. As an aside, I really like the repeated claims that WP:POLITICIAN declares all state legislators to be notable when in reality it doesn't do so. Huon (talk) 02:29, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Had it been three months younger and you had placed the BLPPROD, it would not have been deleted, as it was sourced (poorly, but sourced). And it still is sourced. So anything related to un-sourced is not relevant. And WP:POLITICIAN does say state legislators are notable, but then like every notability guideline I've seen, creates a caveat that in essence "topic is presumed to merit an article if it meets the general notability guideline below". As in, should an article meet one of the "auto-include" notability criteria (NBA player, president of a country, etc.) then that basically creates a rebuttable presumption of notability. To which, it is then up to the person who wants to delete an article to demonstrate why the topic is not notable or should not be included. Here, a quick search for two of that state's bigger papers |&p_product=PHNP&p_theme=phnp&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_trackval=PHNP&s_dispstring=down%20the%20shore&p_field_advanced-0=&p_text_advanced-0=%28%22James%20H.%20Clark%22%20montgomery%29&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no comes up with a few hits. I don't know what newspaper is the local one or if Pittsburgh's main paper would cover that area more, but 27 online hits ain't bad when it comes to state legislators from 1990ish. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:22, 14 February 2012 (UTC)