Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chris Rothfuss


 * 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 Gnangarra 12:51, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Chris Rothfuss

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University teacher and political candidate with no claim to notability either by WP:PROF or WP:POLITICIAN. Ros0709 (talk) 05:32, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete - Wikipedia is not an election billboard. Per WP:BIO, just being an unelected candidate for office does not confer notability, and no other notability is demonstrated. JohnCD (talk) 08:59, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep: Google supplies plenty of notability. Not only does his local paper report on his candidacy, here he is in a national newspaper and in a Pakistani newspaper. He satisfies the basic criteria of WP:BIO: the subject of published secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject.  Plasticup  T / C  13:02, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * But these are all about his candidacy; unless he is elected, he doesn't qualify for an article unless some other notability is demonstrated. JohnCD (talk) 14:05, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think that matters. He is notable as a political candidate - he doesn't have to be a notable author, chemist, and novelist as well.  Plasticup  T / C  15:33, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Read WP:BIO - candidates, as candidates, aren't notable . There are good reasons for that line - (a) otherwise we would end up with an article for everyone who had ever stood in an election, and (b) we need to discourage the use of WP for self-promotion. JohnCD (talk) 16:29, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * What WP:POLITICIAN says is that candidates aren't notable just because they are candidates. They can still be notable under WP:BIO, and Chris Rothfuss meets the criteria 100%.  Plasticup  T / C  17:21, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * You say below that WP:BIO supersedes WP:POLITICIAN - it doesn't, if you scroll up from WP:POLITICIAN you'll see it is actually a subsection of WP:BIO, clarifying how the rules apply to politicians. Any election candidate can point to coverage of his candidacy in local papers and claim to meet WP:BIO; the point of WP:POLITICIAN is to say that that's not enough. JohnCD (talk) 17:44, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I am not being very clear. WP:POLITICIAN provides sufficient but not necessary criteria for notability. It actually says, of people who do not satisfy WP:POLITICIAN, that "such people can still be notable if they meet the primary notability criterion". I believe that he does just that.  Plasticup  T / C  17:57, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm evidently not being clear either. (Do I detect the unspoken words " ... to the meanest intelligence" floating in the air?). You say, he's got all these press cuttings and that satisfies WP:BIO. I say, if that were good enough WP:POLITICIAN would be meaningless and unnecessary, because every candidate will have a sheaf of press cuttings because of his candidacy. The point of WP:POLITICIAN, as a clarifying section within WP:BIO, is to say that for political candidates some notability, i.e. references, apart from their candidacy is required.


 * We're not going to convince each other - let's agree to differ and leave it to the closing admin to decide whose argument he prefers. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 19:22, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed, and thanks for being civil throughout.  Plasticup  T / C  19:34, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * keep could use some cleanup, but I see enough for notability.--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:53, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  -- Pete.Hurd (talk) 15:33, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * delete per JohnCD unelected candidate, not notable for anything other than being one of several canidates. If he remains unelected, in ten, 50, 100, years time, how will this biography be encyclopedic knowledge?  Note also the article has coatrack overtones --5 of 9 sources, and 2 or the 5 sentences that comprise the lead-- are devoted to rubbishing one of the other candidates.  Pete.Hurd (talk) 15:41, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Your argument is that he is not notable except for that one thing that makes him notable. Neal Armstrong isn't notable except that he was a notable astronaught. Tom Brady isn't notable except that he is a notable (American) football player. Chris Rothfuss isn't notable except that he is a notable political candidate. Some political candidates are not notable, but Chris Rothfuss is.  Plasticup  T / C  16:13, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * He's not a notable policician, he's a candidate to become a politician, maybe he'll become a notable politician. Right now he's just another American of transient news interest, that's not notability. (WP:NOT) Pete.Hurd (talk) 16:39, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * He meets WP:BIO. He "has been the subject of published secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject". Everything else is irrelevant. It doesn't matter whether he withdraws from the race tomorrow and leads a life of total obscurity - he has established his notability under WP:BIO, which superceeds WP:POLITICIAN. Are you arguing that he does not satisfy WP:BIO? If you could state your argument in terms of existing wikipedia policies we might be able to find some common ground.  Plasticup  T / C  17:19, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * No, I'm arguing that (IMHO) coverage in news sources, such as he has received, is not the sort of secondary sources meant in the nutshell summary of WP:N; "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources" (emph. mine). What I'm suggesting is along the lines of WP:NOT when it says "Even when an event is notable, individuals involved in it may not be." that this individual is not of eternal encyclopedic notability, even though the election as a whole may be. Pete.Hurd (talk) 17:34, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Also note WP:ONEVENT. If all that he is notable for is this election that doesn't justify the existence of the biography, rather he could be mentioned in the article for the election itself (assuming it is notable; right now I would guess it would probably fall foul of WP:NOT but mught be considered notable in retrospect).
 * Americans love their little governmental elections. Just a couple months ago a friend of mine presented his senior thesis on some obscure dinky little election in West Virginia the 1920s. I have no doubt that 50 years from now someone will write something about this election. If you want to get into WP:NOT we can, but governmental elections tend to persist in the local consciousness for a very long time. WP:ONEVENT is very similar in that it does not necessitate deletion. It says "consideration needs to be given to the need to create a standalone article on the person". I think that between my chat with you and the one above with JohnCD we have quoted just about every Wikipedia policy related to deletion, and they all seem to say "at some point it just becomes subjective"... so I refer you to Bearian's succinct comment below: "He's the leading majority party candidate for a US Senate seat".  Plasticup  T / C  18:11, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * "Americans love their little governmental elections", yeah, I suspect that if this were a candidate (or is it the leading candidate to become the nominee for the candidate?) in an analogous election in say France or Canada, that we wouldn't be having this debate, it would be a speedy. 18:29, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I hope not. That phrase was meant to be a light-hearted way to ease into an anecdote. It was totally superfulous to my argument.  Plasticup  T / C  19:16, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. He's the leading majority party candidate for a US Senate seat.  Even if he loses, he's an historic person.  Plenty of secondary, independent sources, as noted in the article, attest to his notability as a politician, but not as a professor (non-tenure-track). Bearian (talk) 16:20, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I can see the other side's argument ... you folks decide. Bearian (talk) 00:54, 9 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete. As outlined by JohnCD and Pete Hurd above, does not meet WP:POLITICIAN (one of the clearer Wikipedia policies in my eyes). If this guy would be notable, I'll create a couple hundred articles next week on similar French candidates for Senate. Those people are actually pretty "historical" over here, too. --Crusio (talk) 21:54, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. There is little newscoverage of him, at least thus far. GoogleNews gives only two hits. Not enough to pass WP:BIO. Nsk92 (talk) 21:58, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Wyoming-related deletion discussions.   --  Fabrictramp  |  talk to me  19:25, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions.   --  Fabrictramp  |  talk to me  19:26, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep WP:POLITICIAN allows for the possibility that, due to press coverage, etc., a candidate may otherwise satisfy WP:BIO. The way I read it, it does not automatically rule out from notability considerations all coverage related to the election. That would be a pretty silly read -- it would have ruled out, say, Ned Lamont while he was challenging Joe Lieberman. The way I see it, the first policy prevents people running for local justice of the peace from getting their own articles. But a major party US Senate nominee will inevitably garner enough publicity to meet WP:BIO, particularly given how delicate the party balance in the US Senate is at the moment. Ray Yang (talk) 06:15, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * He may or may not get sufficient press coverage in the future, but he certainly has not gotten it so far. As I said, there are only 2 hits in GoogleNews. Nsk92 (talk) 11:03, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm going to invoke common sense here. A relative lack of press coverage during the doldrums of the election cycle doesn't mean that this election won't be of interest across an entire state of the union. A US Senator is not an unimportant post, and undoubtedly some people in Wyoming will want to know about their options. RayAYang (talk) 00:47, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Re: "people in Wyoming will want to know about their options" wikipedia is not a voter's guide. Pete.Hurd (talk) 05:27, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * On the contrary. Wikipedia is not for advocacy which is essentially what WP:SOAP says. Wikipedia is almost certainly a valued reference for straightforward information about large events of note (large elections that may determine the fate of the nation are of note, as are the candidates running in them) from a neutral point of view. RayAYang (talk) 05:55, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * If the election is notable, then the article ought to be on that. Having a "biography" which is a coatrack election pamphlet is advocacy.  He's not the Democratic candidate, there are others in the running, we (rightly) don't have articles on them, so WP is very far from an unbiased source of information for the voters of Wyoming.  If it's the election that's notable then that's what the article ought to be about.  That's the essence of WP:POLITICIAN (and WP:NOT).  If this election were in my country, this guy wouldn't be considered notable, but it's the USA, so... Pete.Hurd (talk) 20:02, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Re: "people in Wyoming will want to know about their options" - if Wikipedia is the only way the people of Wyoming can find out about this candidate, that's a startling admission of how non-notable he is! JohnCD (talk) 21:05, 14 July 2008 (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.