Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Axel Downard-Wilke


 * 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 ‎__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__  speedy keep, linked from Main Page, WP:SK #6. —Kusma (talk) 08:07, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Axel Downard-Wilke

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

After careful analysis of the seemingly extensive sources, my judgement is Downard-Wilke does not meet our notability guidelines for people. The article cites 51 sources, so please bear with me – a full explanation will necessarily take some time.

Some important context: Downard-Wilke is, who sits on Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand's management committee and is a Wikipedia administrator. The main contributors to the article have been the New Zealand Wikipedians and. Given Marshelec apparently sits on the same Wikimedia NZ management committee as Schwede66, there appears to be some problematic conflict-of-interest editing going on here. I am in the process of opening a COIN thread which I will link when finished.

Now let's get onto the sources. I uncontroversially rule out the following sources for independence concerns. By uncontroversial, I mean something like "Downard-Wilke wrote the source", "The source is Downard-Wilke's company", or "Downard-Wilke was on this organisation's committee at the time":


 * 1, 4, 5, 8, 11, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 22, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 33, 34, 37, 39, 51.

This knocks out 21 of the 51 sources. To put it another way, about 40% of this article’s sources are obviously and uncontroversially not independent.

I uncontroversially rule out the following sources as not mentioning Downward-Wilke at all:


 * 16, 20, 23, 24

I also uncontroversially rule out source 7 (raw election results, obviously not significant) and 45 (Wikipedia discussion, user-generated). That is all the sources I believe can be uncontroversially eliminated.

I rule out the following sources as cases where Downard-Wilke merely acts as a spokesperson providing brief comment and receives no significant coverage himself:


 * 9, 29, 38, 40, 42, 44, 48, 49, 50 plus 10, 32, 41 (on ProQuest, ask me for the full text)

I rule out sources 35 and 36 (ProQuest, ask me for full text) and sources 46 and 47 for the same reason, but I wanted to note these separately because they give slightly more extensive coverage.

I rule out source 2 as a "man-on-the-street" type of interview, where Downard-Wilke is interviewed by a German paper because he is someone with a German background who experienced the Christchurch earthquake. This sort of coverage does not indicate the interviewee is significant.

I rule out source 3 as the type of interview that is considered non-independent (see the essay Interviews). There is not enough independent content beyond Downard-Wilke’s answers to the questions.

I could only partially verify source 6, finding a NZ Library record. However, given the context of the source (a local paper covering Downard-Wilke running for a regional council election where even winning candidates don’t have articles unless they have some sort of national political career), it’s unlikely it contributes to notability.

I rule out source 12 (ProQuest, ask me for full text) as covering a case where Downard-Wilke received an award from an organisation while he was on their executive committee. Not sufficiently independent.

I rule out Boulter 2020 (cites 13 and 21) because the document notes itself to be a draft copy. I have other concerns, but drafts are at the very least unreliable.

I was unable to verify source 25, which provides extremely little bibliographical information. However, judging by the type and brevity of the information it is cited as supporting (the fact Downard-Wilke won a local German bike race), we have good reason to think this is not the sort of source that would deliver significant coverage.

Source 43, a Stuff article, initially looked promising to me, but judging by the link at the bottom, it appears to have been written to promote this edit-a-thon which was explicitly geared towards improving coverage on Stuff. Downard-Wilke seems to have played some part in organising the meet-up. Not sufficiently independent.

I could not find any promising sources that weren't already in the article, so I conclude the article fails NBIO. I appreciate you reading this through to the end and I hope you can appreciate it is difficult to strike a balance between comprehensive discussion and brevity when you are dealing with 51 sources. – Teratix ₵ 07:17, 24 May 2024 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Politicians, Cycling, Transportation, Germany,  and New Zealand. – Teratix ₵ 07:17, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Prob keep - I see that the OP has put a lot of work in the nom, but when it boils down to it, there is media coverage of the subject for at least two different reasons: cycling advocacy and wiki work. I appreciate that some think that interviews count for little, but in my opinion an interview shows that the subject is worth interviewing and is notable. For me, refs 2 and 8 are sufficient to meet the GNG and whilst there is some puffery, I'm not convinced this is a fight worth having. JMWt (talk) 07:37, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep - I agree with everything JMWt has stated above on this matter. Viatori (talk) 08:03, 24 May 2024 (UTC)