Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alex Torpey


 * 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. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  20:35, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Alex Torpey

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

This person is of dubious notability. I read the guidelines for politicians and all he is was a smaller town Mayor that received local coverage and the occasional story on the statewide newspaper site. I think it hardly qualifies as "significant." I doubt that fact that he was young when he was elected makes it automatic criteria. Tehe most recent addition appears to be that he got a local town administrator's job. There might be some coverage of him but it is no more routine than any other person holding his position. Few small town mayors and town employees would warrant a wiki page. This reads more like a personal bio. I am eager for thoughts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nj829103 (talk • contribs) 17:38, August 1, 2018 (UTC)
 * Formatted by Eastmain after created the nomination in the wrong format. Eastmain (talk • contribs) 17:49, 1 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of New Jersey-related deletion discussions. Eastmain (talk • contribs) 17:43, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Eastmain (talk • contribs) 17:43, 1 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2018 August 1.  —cyberbot I   Talk to my owner :Online 17:53, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep. This is one of the uncommon cases where a small-town mayor passes WP:GNG, with coverage in The New York Times and NextCity, as well as routine coverage from his immediate area. Some of the coverage is because of his age; some is because of his expertise in social media. Eastmain (talk • contribs) 17:54, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment eesh, this seems to me to be a quality borderline AfD. He fails any WP:NPOL presumption and the only good sources which may meet the NPOL "significant coverage" prong in the article are the New York Times biography and the NextCity article but they probably satisfy that. There's a lot sourced to his own website, many sources only contain trivial mentions of him, it reads very promotionally and needs significant cleanup. SportingFlyer  talk  21:06, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
 *  Weak Delete Although he has received coverage in the NY Times it seems to be more of a human interest story about such a young mayor and his "new" way of doing things. Had he not been in New Jersey and been in say New Mexico would this article have been run at all. No real substance that I saw.  Whether we keep the article or not, it needs a lot of work as it is very promotional and looks more like what would be on his campaign page on not an encyclopedia. VViking Talk Edits 23:34, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
 *  Delete  I am the one who tagged this for deletion so I will add my comment here. I agree that the NYT story was simply a human interest type story based on one small event that wouldn't have been printed in that publication if it were in most other states. There is significant local coverage of him but that is no different from any local coverage of a small town local elected official or tiny town administrator. Most small town local officials who served for a few years could produce a ton of local media coverage and even some from a statewide newspaper. They don't get Wikipedia pages.  NextCity, though a large (and good) website, is a site where anyone who writes something or offers an idea can get "coverage".  Most of the links seem to be his own web site or youtube channel or just random local stories about the normal course of his small town mayor gig.  The reason I raised this was  because i came across  his name in another story I was reading and then stumbled across this page which to me seemed kinda silly and read more like a promotional bio)
 * Your nomination already counts as a "delete" recommendation, so you should not add a second one and I have struck it. You're welcome to continue to comment though. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:47, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the info. I was unawareNj829103 (talk) 17:28, 2 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep To leave my comment in the right place: Several local and state records were set with this election (mostly due to age, still historically relevant), this individual performed the first same-sex marriage in the state of New Jersey (fairly historically relevant), and there's a handful of in-depth regional/national (tech or government) press and websites, including Politico, Mashable, Huffington Post, Upworthy, Next City, GovFresh, Inc Magazine, and a number of smaller (but legitimate) blogs/podcasts almost all of which of which were written by real journalists, not community submissions.  The promotional tone could be because of the back and forth in the history between someone who kept vandalizing the page and it kept getting reverted back and forth, it looks like he/others added more content to try and push back on that before it was protected. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nj098987 (talk • contribs) 16:20, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The mere fact that there is coverage does not mean something meets the notability guidelines for a politician. There are 15,000 Mayor in the United States and many of them have significant coverage.  It doesn't make them notable for Wikipedia pages.  This guys successes are nice but the page appears to be primarily self promotion of trivial articles.  Nj829103 (talk) 17:27, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * This comment does confuse me... You suggest my entire position is invalid based on disagreeing with one small part of my justification. There are thousands of mayors in the US, yes, but there is only one who was the youngest in this town's history, somewhat historical, but one who also set a similar record in the county of one million people, as well as a state-wide record among eight million people, especially for someone not belonging to one of the major political parties and for a town that size. To me, that alone seems like it meets Wikipedia's Notability guidelines, which seems like an opinion which is perfectly reasonable to hold. If you disagreed with the way the content was written on the page or what was included, specifically, a promotional tone, that would seem to be the more appropriate course of action, to correct or suggest corrections to that, which probably all would agree is worth doing (and probably make sense based on the page's history of obvious and ongoing vandalism). Nj098987 (talk) 19:02, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The town you were mayor in is 16k people. The population of the state and county are irrelevant considering that none of them cast a vote for you. The fact that you didn't belong to a major political party is irrelvent since by law the elections in the town are nonpartisan, don't have primaries, and occur in May.  The content, while self promotional, is only one issue.  The fact that there is dubious notability is the primary issue which renders the content issue mootNj829103 (talk) 19:26, 2 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Comment I have separated out comments made by and  based on the edit history  of this page. They were mashed together because Nj829103's response was made on the same line after the unsigned comment by Nj098987. Both: please be careful with your comments, since the similarity of your user names makes it difficult to distinguish between you and you have said that you are not the same person, so I doubt that's what you want. Marianna251TALK 18:24, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete I've just reviewed the sources again. The political stories are trivial, as you would expect them of any mayor of any age - he didn't get any particular notability bonus because of his age at election, apart from the New York Times article, and I'm influenced by the fact this is only a feature article because of local coverage. Several sources he wrote himself or are sourced to his website or are otherwise primary. The other sources he only gets a trivial mention in. He gets no WP:NPOL presumption, and NPOL requires significant coverage in multiple feature stories - given the NextCity source isn't necessarily reliable, that leaves the Times article. Notability is not met because someone sets records when they get elected - it's set when the media gives significant coverage to those records being set. Furthermore, the keep vote from a very similar username created after this AfD was launched, and calling an AfD an "unconstructive edit" - something strange is going on here. SportingFlyer  talk  21:17, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete. South Orange is part of New York City's metropolitan area, so the existence of some citations to New York City media is not an instant pass to national notability all by itself — it still represents local coverage in the local media, not "nationalized" coverage for the purposes of making a smalltown mayor special. Apart from that, however, the rest of the sourcing here is a mix of Essex County's local pennysavers, primary sources that cannot support notability at all, and glancing namechecks of his existence in sources which aren't about him, which is not good enough either. Bearcat (talk) 13:55, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete village presidents are almost never notable, and nothing about Torpey suggests he is an exception to this rule.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:31, 7 August 2018 (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.