Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bernie Hansen

 This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was KEEP. dbenbenn | talk 18:19, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Bernie Hansen
Substub on a Chicago Alderman. Sure, mayors of major cities are encyclopedic, but I have to draw the line at Aldermen. Article says nothing, and most google hits seem to be a different Bernie Hanson. -R. fiend 01:52, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep and expand. Elected local government representaives of major cities are notable and encyclopedic.--Centauri 02:27, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. I'm not even a resident of Chicago and I've heard of Bernie Hanson. &mdash;Kelly Martin 02:48, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. I agree with R. fiend. I would change my mind if it is proven that he has done something else besides being an alderman in Chicago. JoaoRicardo 06:35, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * What, like driving taxis?--Centauri 11:32, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep. His notability has been established to me. Kudos to Samaritan. JoaoRicardo 05:15, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. A sub-sub-sub...-stub should bring something. Even just anything would be nice. Gtabary 15:33, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Article expended. Arguably over-linkified and maybe lacking a bit of structure but much better. Hold vote for now. Gtabary 19:03, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Strong keep. He has also served since 1994 as one of four U.S. commissioners on the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, a Presidential appointment to a bilateral treaty organization of the Canadian and U.S. governments. He has been Chair of the Commission. His bio there. And I've greatly expanded. Samaritan 18:19, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Entire text nominated was "'Bernie Hansen is a former Chicago Alderman for the 44th ward." Now it's five paragraphs and an external link and there's more that could be said. Samaritan 18:26, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep The first thing they teach you about chicago politics is that the aldermen have a lot of power, often more easily more than the mayor. Chicago has an unconventional city goverment, but then again, it's a huge and very unique city. In this case, aldermen should be allowed in. --InShaneee 20:38, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Noteworthy and encyclopedic.  GRider\talk 00:04, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Regardless of the notability (or lack thereof) of Chicago aldermen, commissioners to international environmental agencies are always notable. As currently written, it's a definite keep. Bearcat 03:57, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete --Spinboy 05:40, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Speedy keep. Seems notable enough, and now has significant content. Alai 20:35, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. It's a good start for an article --Neigel von Teighen 20:37, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Obvious keep - David Gerard 22:43, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment. At any one time, Chicago has fifty aldermen.  Multiply that by the last 150 years, and multiply that by, say, a hundred large US cities.  Then add many hundreds of large and important cities around the world, most of whom have alderman, councillors, or the equivalent, and where do we stop?  Surely there has to be a limit on this.  I haven't thought though what the parameters should be, but I would think this is going to become a growing issue. HowardB 12:09, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. I sympathize with HowardB here.   How many biographies can the Wikipedia have? if we have have one per million people, that is 6,000 just for people currently alive.  That sounds too few; there are a lot more important people than that in the history of the world.  One biography per 100,000 livers gives you 60,000 biographies, which is starting to sound like too many, but could still be managable.  One per 10,000 people gives you 600,000 biographies, which is more than the total number of articles currently in the Wikipedia.    So settle for now on one biography for every 100,000 people who have lived.   Chicago, being a huge city, gets a few dozen biographies.   All this as a kind of rough guideline.  Is this guy one of the few dozen most notable people to be associated with Chicago?   Alderman for twenty years and Chairman of the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission makes him one in thousand, maybe one in 10,000, but nor more.   So: delete.   Sorry, Bernie.   If this was the Chicagopedia, you'd be in.   --BM 18:38, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * No, actually, "Chairman of the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission" makes him one of about twenty or so. "Chicago alderman" may not make him notable, but "Chairman of the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission" does. Bearcat 10:20, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Having read BM's expansion on my original comment, I now vote to delete.  This, and (I assume) many others like it, does raise a policy/guideline issue that at some point does need to be resolved. HowardB 03:05, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.