Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Allegations of misconduct by George Santos


 * 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__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__. Liz Read! Talk! 00:50, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Allegations of misconduct by George Santos

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Article was created without consensus (as noted here, the discussion was nine !votes for the split to six against, which I agree does not quite establish a clear consensus by our usual standards), and probably against BLP even if it can be said to have had consensus ... as I said here, those advocating for a split purely because the Santos article has grown quite long err when they liken this to the separate articles about Trump's sex scandals (many of which are notable as the subject of individual lawsuits) and cheating in Formula 1 races (not a direct BLP issue). BLP as far as I understand it is not to be superseded by any other policy, certainly not WP:LENGTH. Nor do I know of any other situation where we've created a random, catch-all, grab-bag "Bad stuff about Living Person" article ... this is almost inherent POVFORK. Yes, all summer as this discussion smoldered I said I would open a BLPN thread about it; at the very least any serious discussion of creating this spinoff should have been deferred until we could have that discussion. I didn't create it because the talk page thread wasn't really getting much interest. I've had computer difficulties in the last couple of weeks that have limited my time online (and appear at present not likely to be resolved for another couple of weeks). So unfortunately someone decided to go ahead and do this, and force the issue here. Daniel Case (talk) 03:36, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Politicians and New York.  Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 11:46, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep. The allegations are pretty substantial, and because of Santos' position, notable. AFAICT, nothing was removed from the main George Santos article, so why would concensus be necessary to start a new article in parallel? -- Mikeblas (talk) 18:52, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
 * The issue is that Santos is a living person. As TulsaPoliticsFan notes below, we try to avoid this sort of dumping ground article, especially with BLPs. Daniel Case (talk) 05:57, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Is that a policy? All I know of is the referencing requirements policy, and this looks like it's decently referenced.-- Mikeblas (talk) 19:47, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
 * That's why I would have preferred taking this to the BLP noticeboard before creation. Since more than any other area of content we write about judgement is critical with BLP, and because of the diversity of situations that can't be readily anticipated yet can and have arisen policy there is deliberately written to allow for the exercise of judgement, ideally through community consensus, on a case-by-case basis. Just because BLP does not explicitly prohibit something does not mean the community necessarily intended to permit it. For instance, consider the BLPN discussion about whether we should name Santos's ex-wife. It was pointed out by the one editor very much in favor of doing so that BLPNAME, upon which most of us rested our arguments against doing this, does not explicitly say we shouldn't. The rest of us felt that BLPPRIVACY as well argued against inclusion given that while she has been named in the media, she has turned down interview requests through intermediaries and, barring some sort of investigative finding that it was purely a Green Card marriage, her name is so irrelevant to the discussion right now that it would add nothing for readers. Granted the same facets of BLP are not what is at play here, but IMO the same general caution should be applied. As noted in my nomination I think WP:POVFORK is relevant here, even if it is not a BLP policy, as it asks a similar leve of circumspection. Daniel Case (talk) 05:07, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge any relevant content and redirect to George Santos. Delete: Per nom, there is apparent pre-existing consensus against the creation of this spin-off article. Also, I agree with the nom's assessments of the BLP issues involved here, this is indeed a possible violation of WP:POVFORK. Sal2100 (talk) 19:09, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
 * !Vote amended per subsequent comments of Daniel Case and TulsaPoliticsFan. Sal2100 (talk) 18:36, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 04:07, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, it seems like nothing (so far) has been moved from the main article so it's really just a matter of gaining consensus to delete. Daniel Case (talk) 05:58, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I created the article by simply copy-pasting the relevant sections from George Santos' main article; I didn't delete anything from the main article. If necessary the article can be deleted, but I thought it seemed fine to create a new article, without deleting anything from the original, because the original was too long and there was support for it. JohnAdams1800 (talk) 15:54, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm not faulting you for that ... but there were nuances to the talk page discussion that aren't clear simply from a !vote count. Daniel Case (talk) 04:27, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete My main concerns are WP:BLP, WP:NPOV, and WP:POVFORK. For transparency, in the split discussion I advocated potentially splitting large notable sections (the false biography scandal, the charges/trials) into articles since they'd have defined topics to cover, and largely have a beginning and end. I'm pretty concerned having a dumping ground article that is "Alleged bad things done by person" is not encyclopedic, bad practice for a BLP, and hard to maintain. The Santos article needs a split, but not this one. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 19:12, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Comment: Is the article about the individual or about his "misconduct" allegations? It reads as a biographical article, but with an incorrect title. That's the first issue. Second, not sure BLP is met, this appears to be an attack article. Oaktree b (talk) 14:33, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete unless we can come up with some reason to keep. I can't see the value, it's too overly detailed for what it is supposed to be about. Oaktree b (talk) 17:22, 29 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Delete - WP:NOTNEWS - "Alleged" means these are not proven, and many are already in his bio article. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. It is not Wikipedia's place to compile a list of any politician's "alleged misconduct". That job falls to the news outlets, and ultimately to the United States Congress to do any investigation. And it's up to his New York constituents to decide his fate. — Maile  (talk) 00:57, 30 September 2023 (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.