Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Al Fox Carraway


 * 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.  Sandstein  20:38, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Al Fox Carraway

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Non notable. Trivial award  DGG ( talk ) 00:31, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep She has a major impact within the Mormon community. She has coverage from sources that are neither in Salt Lake City nor LDS Church owned.John Pack Lambert (talk) 05:20, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * and which sourceis that?  DGG ( talk ) 17:01, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of US-related deletion discussions. Arr4 (talk) 07:25, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Author-related deletion discussions. Arr4 (talk) 07:25, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Arr4 (talk) 07:25, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:55, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:55, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
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 * keep This article falls within 2 enduringly-problematic AFD categories: individuals chiefly notable for their social media presence & individuals notable within an bordered ideological, ethnic, or sectarian community. Carraway has palpable popularity on Facebook 61,000 followers.  This does not count towards WP Notability, but WP begins to look foolish when it deletes article on individual with that kind of celebrity.   She also has extensive coverage in Deseret News.  This is AFD problematic because Deseret is affiliated with the Mormon Church and, therefore, is not regarded as an independent source on coverage of Mormons.   On the other hand, having followed a number of Mormonism-related AFD discussions, I have begun to wonder about the basis of this argument.  The BBC, after all, is funded by the British government.  And I have seen no one argue that BBC articles whould therefore be discounted in AFD debates on Great Britain related topics.  Leaving that aside, I think she passes - albeit marginally -  because of coverage in RS other than Deseret, some of which are now cite in-line on page.E.M.Gregory (talk) 13:48, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Deseret News could be reliable for facts, but it is not an independent source when it promotes their LSD affiliates and employees. Cavarrone  14:42, 13 July 2015 (UTC)


 * However, Carraway does not appear to be an LDS employee. I do not read policy to preclude regarding Deseret coverage of Mormons as an indication of notability.  Indeed, I do not recall seeing it regarded this way in previous AFDs of Mormons.E.M.Gregory (talk) 18:53, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, she is an LDS' Mormon Channel employee according the first ref in the article. And she is a regular speaker at LDS-organizated events according several other sources. Cavarrone  19:04, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
 * BBC is NOT funded by the UK Govt., it is funded by licence fees which the Govt collects and passes on. While no media could ever be considered 100% independent of the country in which it is based, it would be difficult to imagine any organisation which had more frequently proved its independence from Govt. than the BBC. A wholly invalid analogy.Pincrete (talk) 10:48, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Cavarrone has either displayed true ignorance of the subject at hand, or extreme bigotry by saying LSD. Also, has ignored the fact that the Ogden Standard-Examiner is neither LDS owned nor in any way LDS related. The fact that Carraway is a vocal advocate for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its truth claims cannot be used to class her as unnotable.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:25, 13 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete, plain and simple the coverage does not justify a claim of notability, she is just non-notable outside a few regional, LDS-biased sources. Lacks independent reliable sourcing. SUre, she has extensive coverage in Deseret News, but that's unsurprising considering she is a regular speaker at LDS Church events and works for the Mormon Channel (owned by the same Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). And let alone that articles like this one just read more as blatant proselytism than as genuine, independent journalism. 61,000 FB followers is not an impressive number, we deleted dozens of articles about youtubers who had 300,000 or 600,000 followers. More eligible for Mormonpedia or some other wikias, not for an encyclopedia.  Cavarrone  14:42, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
 * User:Cavarrone, Your argument is basically Other stuff exists, or, otherstuffdoesn'texist.  But even there you are inaccurate.  Bloggers, Youtube celebrities have articles - or don't - depending on whether  reliable news media write their blogs up.    Multiple RS profiles of Carraway are on the page.  Moreover, in her case, the argument that Deseret is not an independent source doesn't apply, since she is not an employee of the Mormon church.  At least, I don't find that she is. It appears to be  more a case of she converted; started a blog; the blog went viral among Mormons; and Deseret wrote a profile, then another, and another, then gave her lots more coverage, and reprinted at least one blog post. Probably because she's popular and sells papers in Utah.  All papers behave this way.  The Miami Herald covers Cuba and Latin America intensely; the LA Times covers Hollywood intensely; The New York Times covers Jewish issues and Israel because NYC has a large Jewsis population, the Boston globe gives more space to Irish culture and Ireland than other American papers, the Detroit Free Press covers Arabs in America more intensely than other American papers because the Detroit area has a large population of Middle Eastern descent,  the Atlanta Journal-Constitution covers race and black culture better than other America papers.  In Utah papers cover Mormons.  Of course Utah papers are "regional" and "LDS-biased" - all news is local.  But we are not here to judge the news focus of media, only to gauge the extent of reliably sourced coverage.  So, yes, Deseret knows that upbeat stories about Mormoms sell papers.  That doesn't mean that we dismiss profiles in Deseret because it is owned by a holding company of the Church.   As for your other assertion - that she works for the Mormon channel, I only met her today, and I assume that people on blogspot.com are independent bloggers.  If you have evidence that she is employed by the MommonChannel it would affect the use of Mormon Channel as evidence of notability.  Do you have evidence that she works for them?E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:44, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
 * First, your reference to Other stuff exists is a nonsense, as long as I never used such an argument, it was you who argued that 61,000 followers on FB were a sign of notability. Second, the point is that DN is not INDEPENDENT reliable sourcing. Being profiled, and promoted, and used for laudatory articles like the one I linked above by a newspaper owned by an organization (religious in this case, but it could be political, or economic, or something else) for which you are connected and even works for is hardly a sign of notability. Apparently, you have problem to understand what an independent source means, but that's not the place to discuss that, the closer will review the sources and will weight the arguments. Cavarrone 19:15, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
 * In other words, you have no evidence that she works for the LDS Church, as you asserted.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:24, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
 * In other words, I think you missed my response here. Cavarrone 19:29, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Being a regular speaker in churches of any denomination would not make you non-indeoendant of a church newspaper. Working for a Mormon Church publication does.  My reassessment below.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:38, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Being a regular speaker in LDS-events which are regularly promoted by the LDS-newspaper owned by the LDS organization which organizes such events.... I see some connections, frankly. Cavarrone 19:56, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
 * just fyi, Religion News Service is neither LDS-biased nor Utah-based.E.M.Gregory (talk) 18:03, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions.E.M.Gregory (talk) 16:03, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Comment I think Cavarrone's whole argument is flawed by not accepting how much Kellerism (see here for a good explanation of what Kellerism is) has distorted and misdirected the focus on most "main-stream" journalism in the United States. For Wikipedia to maintain a truly neutral point-of-view it has to stop treating anti-institutionalism as somehow a "neutral" point of view, and stop assuming that publications that engage in blatant and heavy Kellerism, to the point of willingly hiding the identity of some people to save their jobs for their deception, are somehow neutral. If Wikipedia wants to be a truly useful, representative source that is not limited to just usefulness to those who live in the Bos-Wash corridor and California, it has to stop biasing its analysis of sources in a way that presumes the correctness of anti-institutionalism. The sources demonstrate that Carraway is impactful within a large community, and her creations and actions get notice. The doctrines of Kellerism that dominate so many newsrooms in the United States work against any possiblity of certain publications ever taking note of her. Kellerism predisposes publications to take note only of things that reinforce their stereotypes, and a tatooed person simultaneously proclaiming love for all and the truth claims of a conservative religious institution does not fit the sight lines of Kellerism.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:38, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Still thinking its a keeper. I now see that she is employed by a LDS Church organ, the Mormon Channel.  This makes Church publications non-independent sources in her case, useful on facts, but not to be counted as evidence of notability. The entirely independent sources that support notability are Religion News Service, the Standard Examiner and the Daily Herald. Deseret is in an odd position.   It is a genuine big city daily.  As has been hashed out in previous AFDs, like this one  on Kent F. Richards Deseret (which has run several profiles and many articles on Carraway) carries less weight in an AFD than an independent, for-profit paper like the Standard-Examiner, but more weight than a purely Church publication, like LDS Living.  The Standard-Examiner profile here: is sufficient, together with Deseret, Religion News Service and the mentions in the Daily Herald to justify an article.  I will add a few other extensive Standard Examiner articles on Carraday to the articleE.M.Gregory (talk) 19:57, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Missvain (talk) 15:28, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete - fails GNG. She appears to be a novelty as a "tattooed" convert who is merely getting local attention. Even Standard profile does not seem truly independent of the church, for example the non-neutral statement that "Her co-workers even made her watch terrible videos of the LDS church." (Whose definition of "terrible" is being applied here?)  —Мандичка YO 😜 22:53, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
 * independent just to be clear, the Standard-Examiner, the 3rd largest newspaper by circulation in Utah, is owned by Sandusky Newspapers and is not church affiliated.  Several other sources are equally independent of the Church. E.M.Gregory (talk) 13:02, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete - for reasons given by Cavarrone and Мандичка, no evidence of notability in independent sources.Pincrete (talk) 10:59, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete for now with no obvious target for moving elsewhere - My searches which only found this and this being the best results. SwisterTwister   talk  16:55, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Obvious redirect target would be Mormon Channel. E.M.Gregory (talk) 18:11, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I saw that earlier and I suppose it would be the best target even though it only mentions her under "contributor". SwisterTwister   talk  20:27, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Neither "contributor" nor "associate producer" is sufficient justification for a redirect. In fact, she should be removed from the "contributors" section there--she;'s the only person listed,as if she were the sole contributor. If it was intended to list her as she was the only one with a WP article, it won;'t be appropriate to incldue her once the article here gets deleted.  DGG ( talk ) 14:31, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree. SwisterTwister   talk  16:42, 26 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment LDS Living should be counted as an independent source, unless we are engaging in bigotry. The argument in the past has been the Church News cannot be used because it is owned by the LDS Church. LDS living is not owned by the LDS Church, thus it meets our standard definition of independent. Excluding all publications aimed at the LDS market would be unprecedented. What next, will we delete all articles on African-Americans only heavily covered by Jet and Ebony?John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:14, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Stop accusing everyone of bigotry, when it is just a question of lack of notability and independent sourcing. About your source, LSD Living is just a content aggregator, the LDS living "article" is nothing more than a brief sneak peek of this KSL article (it also ends with "Read the rest of this story at ksl.com") and KSL is is owned by the LDS Church. Definitely not an independent source. I would also point that it is sufficent to actually READ such sources to see their lack of neutrality and independence, eg. this one is blatantly promotional and just reads like a press release.   Cavarrone  15:40, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, alot of what happens in Utah about Mormonism is only going to be (or at least a majority) by Mormon-led sources such as the The Deseret News. I agree that this can be acceptable but better sources is good also. At best, this could've been selectively merged and redirected elsewhere but, as shown, there's no other good target so it's probably still best to delete for now (as I mentioned above). SwisterTwister   talk  16:42, 26 July 2015 (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.