Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Charles William Floyd Coffin


 * 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   keep. Consensus is that the article is notable. Davewild (talk) 07:51, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Charles William Floyd Coffin

 * – ( View AfD View log )

fails WP:BIO and WP:POLITICIAN. being a mayor of a small town does not guarantee notability. both gnews and gbooks have very little coverage of him. . . LibStar (talk) 05:51, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep a classic strawman argument, he has an obituary in the New York Times as a mayor and a businessman and a full biography in "Prominent Families of New Jersey" which are the references already in use in the article. And of course by searching under a single variation of his name you can guarantee that you will only find a fraction of his references. This search finds variations of his name and listings as "Mayor Floyd Coffin" and "C.W. Floyd Coffin". --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 12:18, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * most of those WP:GOOGLEHITS are merely small passing mentions. Not enough indepth coverage to satisfy WP:BIO. LibStar (talk) 12:44, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Only two are needed to satisfy Wikipedia rules. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 12:46, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * nice try Richard, I've seen many an article deleted with 2 even 5 sources. 49 ghits don't mean anything. LibStar (talk) 12:50, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of New Jersey-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 14:22, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Anecdotes are fun, but as you know they have no bearing on this debate. I have seen articles kept with not a single reference in the article. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 00:24, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

nice try again Richard, I can strongly dispute your claim and refer to several AfDs where articles were deleted with more than one source:, ,. LibStar (talk) 00:51, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Your argument seems to be akin to saying that since some past presidents of the United States have been impeached the current president should be impeached. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 22:37, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

no, that is not my argument. LibStar (talk) 23:45, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 14:22, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 14:22, 20 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete An obituary and a bio book listing  (Prominent families of X" books are often basically vanity press) do not satisfy WP:BIO. Edison (talk) 20:00, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * What point specifically does it fail in the WP:GNG? It reads "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article or stand-alone list." --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 20:15, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The vanity "prominent families" compilation is neither reliable nor independent. It is like the Goodspeed bio compendia. People submitted their autobiographies, and were then likely to buy a copy of the book. Edison (talk) 04:01, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps... but the evidence of this assertion is? Looking at that book's editor, I find a published author who appears to be an historian with an interest in geneological publications and who, among other things, has multiple publications about New Jersey and its history. Of course, if someone wishes to feel that this historian/editor is offering unvetted or false information, such feeling does not discount the coverage of Charles William Floyd Coffin found widely in reliable media sources.  Schmidt,  MICHAEL Q. 04:31, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Have you heard "do not judge a book by its cover"? The same can be said of judging by title. I see no evidence that this book is unreliable or was a "pay to play" publication. The editor was a Princeton University professor of history, who succeeded Woodrow Wilson to that position. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 22:35, 23 October 2011 (UTC)




 * Weak Keep We look to GNG to see if WP:N is met, as the GNG determines if SIGCOV suports notability. If a topic were to fail SIGCOV, we'd then look to see if one of the SNGs might be used to determine a verifiable notability in the absence of SIGCOV.  As parts of WP:N, SNG and GNG work in concert and are not mutually exclusive, and one does not "trump" the other.  But as we do have a meeting of SIGCOV, we do not need to decide if an SNG is failed in default.  In any proper article contaning details of a person's life, such information is required for depth and in context to that life. He was more than just "a" Mayor. He was also chairman of the board of Franklin Balmar of Baltimore, Maryland. And despite editors (including myself) initialy feeling "so what?", what we have through the GNG is THE major east coast newspaper deciding that aspects of his life were worthy of discussion and commentary... and not "just" in obits, as he had ongoing coverage over many years, and for many different things.  And so while any one item night not itself jump up as being earth-shattering, we look at a person's entire life, see how and why it has been coverered in reliable sources, and read the instructions of the GNG to see if a lifetime of achivements has been found in enough reliable sources and over a long reliable sources to be "worthy enough of notice" in news and book sources.  Seperating ourselves from a wish to have articles only on film stars and athlete who proclivities splash across headlines, we can consider that Prominent Families of New Jersey decided that he was notable enough to include in great deatail, and decide if his being considered notable to the 8 million of New Jesey for his contributions to that state and its's history, is good enough for a small article on Wikipedia.  Rather than toss a small decent article because he is not "the most notable"... we need look to depth of coverage to determine that he is perhaps "just notable enough". I live in a small town in California, but still somewhat bigger than Englewood, New Jersey. And if there were an article about any of my town's past Mayors, I'd be disposed to say non-notable as a mater of course.  But if that mayor had years of coverage in multiple reliable sources and multiple books, I'd have to re-think my automatic reaction, and consider that he might be "just" notable enough.  Schmidt,  MICHAEL Q. 01:50, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep – this is not even slightly controversial. Occuli (talk) 18:24, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep The reliable and verifiable sources about the individual, including a lengthy obituary in The New York Times, are all strong indicators of notability. Alansohn (talk) 23:28, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep We have always accepted an editorial NY Times obituary as definitive evidence of notability, at least for 20th and 21st century. I can't recall in the last 4 or 5 years that we have ever deleted an article with such an obit. And its reasonable that we should: their selectivity is a better judge of notability than we can do ourselves.   DGG ( talk ) 12:58, 25 October 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.