Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bob Long (municipal councilor)


 * 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. postdlf (talk) 18:25, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Bob Long (municipal councilor)

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Disputed speedy. This is an article which asserts the basic existence of its topic, but fails to demonstrate any actual notability — he's a local councillor in a municipality which isn't large enough for its mayors to pass WP:POLITICIAN just because they exist (and as per WP:OUTCOMES, we have much lower and more flexible standards for mayors than we do for aldermen.) And the only sources here are a generic election results table and a photo on the municipality's website; although the disputing editor asserted that Mr. Long meets WP:GNG on those grounds, both of those sources still fail to provide any evidence of significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. So no matter how you slice it, I still don't see how this is anything but a delete. Bearcat (talk) 19:05, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of British Columbia-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 19:17, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 19:17, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. Contrary to the nomination, I disputed the speedy deletion on the basis that a credible WP:GNG argument could be made, given the local press coverage that the subject has gained. There is nothing in WP:POLITICIAN (or WP:OUTCOMES) that makes a local politician non-notable even when they pass the GNG, and of course, it is not necessary to demonstrate notability at all to survive speedy deletion, only credible significance, which any elected politician with press coverage certain has. At the end of the day though, the question remains; is the GNG met? The subject has certainly been quoted, mentioned and discussed in a large number of local newspaper articles about council business. Generally though, none of these articles are about Mr Long specifically. So in the end, my considered opinion is that the article should not exist at present. Thparkth (talk) 01:00, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * WP:OUTCOMES is a summary of established AFD precedent, as established by past discussions on similar topics — and it's already a standing principle of AFD that with extremely rare exceptions, a city councillor normally only qualifies for a Wikipedia article if the city whose council they serve on is a major metropolitan city which is internationally famous in its own right — and even the rare smaller-city exceptions typically require the ability to point to reams of coverage spilling out well beyond the bounds of their own hometown media. That is, a city councillor in Vancouver or Toronto or San Francisco or New York City or London is likely to qualify just for being a city councillor — but a city councillor in a municipality the size of Langley has exceedingly little chance of clearing the bar unless they somehow get tied up in a story of national or international scope. (Outside of Canada's seven or eight largest cities, frex, the only municipal councillor who's even come close to being notable just for being a city councillor, at any point in the entire past decade, is Dar Heatherington.) Our established precedents are useful things to be aware of — because if something doesn't constitute a valid notability claim in the first place, then by definition its presence as the only notability claim in the article doesn't fulfill the criterion that the article contain a valid notability claim. Bearcat (talk) 06:00, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * This is a mis-statement of the notability guidelines. Meeting WP:GNG is sufficient to demonstrate notability. Thparkth (talk) 11:17, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Except that this article, as written, fails to demonstrate any evidence that he meets WP:GNG. The criterion isn't whether it's possible to find sources; if that were all it took, WP:OUTCOMES would have to permit every city councillor in any city that has a newspaper. But it doesn't — it requires city councillors either to serve in major metropolitan cities or to have pre-existing notability on other grounds independent of their councillorship. And even WP:GNG requires the sources to be present in the article — at its core, notability is about the quality of the article, not a judgment on the topic. Bearcat (talk) 01:39, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom. --MelanieN (talk) 03:57, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete fails WP:POLITICIAN and I couldn't find anything other than passing mentions on Google News. Qrsdogg (talk) 18:04, 5 April 2011 (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.