Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bill Saffo


 * 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 no consensus.  Sandstein  08:14, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Bill Saffo

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Mayor of a small city (pop ~100,000). No other notable factors about him. There are thousands of mayors of small towns. I don't think that merits an encyclopedia article. MartinezMD (talk) 00:41, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep 10 years in office there a lot of sources relating to the Saffo as mayor yes including bios at electionsmeets WP:GNG. Also a Cities population isnt relevant to a person notability only whether there are sufficient sources to establish notability. Gnangarra 01:52, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
 * FYI WP:POLOUTCOMES the size of the town is *precisely* the reason I added him to AFD consideration. "Mayors of smaller towns, however, are generally deemed not notable just for being mayors, although they may be notable for other reasons in addition to their mayoralty (e.g. having previously held a more notable office)." MartinezMD (talk) 04:16, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
 * small is a relative term and a subjective to the opinions, experiences, nuances of an individuals circumstances - 100,000 IMHO isnt anywhere near small. I also said there are enough sources/references to make Saffo notable according to WP:GNG making the cities population irrelevant. Gnangarra 08:13, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Then they should be added to the article. - The Bushranger One ping only 06:26, 11 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Just for the record, 100K isn't considered a "small town" for our purposes — it's entirely large enough that a properly sourced article about a mayor would be kept. This is still deletable in its current state, but the determining factor is its lack of quality sourcing, not the city's population. POLOUTCOMES should actually be written for added clarity, because the role of the population test has changed since it was written: it's not the marker between notable and non-notable mayors per se, but comes into play only in the question of evaluating whether the sourcing present in the article is enough or not. Bearcat (talk) 17:55, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk &bull;&#32;mail) 02:10, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of North Carolina-related deletion discussions. Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk &bull;&#32;mail) 02:10, 10 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Wilmington, North Carolina, unless the sources that are stated to exist are found. - The Bushranger One ping only 06:26, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Wilmington, North Carolina. I'm willing to reconsider this if the article sees improvement before closure, but the inclusion test for a mayor has nothing to do with the city's population — it's a factor of whether or not the mayor can be demonstrated as the subject of enough reliable source coverage about his mayoralty to clear WP:NPOL #2. Mayors of large cities can still be deleted if they aren't, and mayors of small towns can be kept if they are. But this contains no real evidence of notability at all: there's no real substance here besides a fairly boilerplate "he exists, here's his career background prior to becoming mayor, the end", and two of the three footnotes are primary sources that cannot support notability at all, while the third glancingly namechecks his existence in an article that isn't about him. And for an article that's already existed for almost a decade, it's not a good sign if this is all anybody could be arsed to do in that entire time. And it's not enough to just say that better sources exist — one has to show the evidence of that, because (a) anybody could simply say that better sources exist about anything, and (b) a lot of Wikipedia contributors have extremely wrong-headed ideas about what constitutes a good source for the purposes of demonstrating notability, frequently trying to stack it onto namechecks of the person's existence in coverage of other things and/or content in which the topic was the bylined author of the piece rather than its subject. So we don't keep an article just because somebody says that better sources are out there: we keep it if they show the evidence so that we can properly evaluate whether those other sources are good enough or not. Bearcat (talk) 17:51, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep Wilmington, North Carolina is a large enough jurisdiction where an independently elected mayor is a public figure in its own right, and can no longer be a "low-profile individual." A Google news search shows about 1,090 hits for "'Bill Saffo' Wilmington." Using a couple of the top hits, I updated the article to include his electoral victories and included a claim that the subject is now the longest serving mayor of Wilmington and his previous service on the Council. Primary sources, including government records, should not be discounted, as primary sources can be used to develop an article (see WP:Primary: "A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge"). --Enos733 (talk) 17:14, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Sure, primary sources can be used for supplementary verification of facts, but they can't be used to demonstrate notability per se. Bearcat (talk) 18:49, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   06:36, 17 November 2017 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 04:20, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep City is big enough to keep the mayor. WP:HEY, I have added some material to satisfy User:Bearcat's valid point that article needs sourced expansion. But the fact that he has been a popular and successful Mayor means that there is far more sourcing on a range of issues than I have time to wade through.   So I will leave this topic, with the hope that someone has the time to make further improvements.E.M.Gregory (talk) 13:55, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Weak keep as longest serving mayor in city's history, a fact I just added to the lede. TimTempleton (talk) (cont)


 * 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.