Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dave Kaptain


 * 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. postdlf (talk) 19:51, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Dave Kaptain

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Unreferenced one line stub on individual who fails WP:GNG and WP:POLITICIAN. The latter says "Just being an elected local official, or an unelected candidate for political office, does not guarantee notability, although such people can still be notable if they meet the primary notability criterion of "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject of the article". Having searched for such sources, they don't seem to exist, with the only coverage being about his campaign for Mayor and routine local news coverage of his duties. WP:POLITICIAN also says: "Major local political figures who have received significant press coverage. Generally speaking, mayors of cities of at least regional importance are likely to meet this criterion, as are members of the main citywide government or council of a major metropolitan city." This is also not met and with a population of 107,000 Elgin is clearly not a major metropolitan city, nor does it appear to be of regional importance, being the eighth largest city in its state. Valenciano (talk) 22:14, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep As a publicly elected mayor of a reasonably significant city, we know he had to campaign and some biographical details are out there in the press. Likely even the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times  have some biographical content.  Regardless of whether it is easy to find any content from out of state or national sources, I think this bio should exist.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 20:19, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment: A "city" of 107,000 would be called a town in many countries so its signifigance is very questionable. It's the 241st (!) largest population centre in its country or the eighth largest population centre within one of the 50 sub-divisions of its country and certainly doesn't seem to be a notable regional centre, particularly since it's only 40 miles away from Chicago. Even the press that you suggest are from Chicago... surely the REAL city of regional importance no? As I said, I looked for sources before nominating, none came up.


 * Chicago Tribune? Only two mention him. Both articles are general articles about various Mayoral races and only mention him in passing in the context of a campaign. As I said that's covered by WP:POLITICIAN: "Just being an elected local official... does not guarantee notability."


 * Chicago Sun Times? Again 2 articles. A brief quote in an article about crime in Elgin and a quick mention in the news in brief section that he took part in a presentation for a Home and Community organisation. All four of those are as far as it gets from significant coverage.


 * You say: "Regardless of whether it is easy to find any content from out of state or national sources, I think this bio should exist." That's a blatant example of WP:ILIKEIT, an argument which carries no weight in deletion debates. We can't keep unreferenced articles, particularly WP:BLPs on the offchance that sources *might* exist. Either these are produced or it gets deleted is the way it usually works. Valenciano (talk) 21:04, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I did the article on his predecessor Ed Schock. I would expect that a somewhat similar article for this person might be crafted. You might have to rely on the Daily Herald (Arlington Heights) as I did for some details.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:41, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't believe the article on Ed Schock should exist either. While on first glance it looks impressively referenced, none of the refs seem to be about him. WP:GNG explains that: <"Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail, so no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material.> All that applies here as well. News stories which deal with the bog standard day to day functions of the Mayor or which cover the local election are routine and trivial. Give me an in depth bio in a regional newspaper and I'll be happy to reconsider. Also when the issue of what constituted a significant metropolitan area came up in the past for the purposes of WP:POLITICIAN there was disagreement over whether the metropolis should have a minimum population of 250,000 or 500,000. I doubt Elgin with 107,000 people is even the regional centre for many of its inhabitants (who probably work and use facilities in Chicago) let alone the surrounding area.


 * Overall I think in cases like these, Wikipedia would be much better served by a general article, Local Government in Elgin say, which would cover the council, its history, its powers, the elections there and then have a section on the Mayors in context. Valenciano (talk) 20:24, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions.  — frankie (talk) 19:23, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Illinois-related deletion discussions.  —Philosopher Let us reason together. 22:24, 18 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete unless this can be expanded, from my experience on wikipedia, single sentence articles do not meet the standards, however if you can provide more of a description, bump it up to a paragraph, and provide a few citations, I would certainly vote to keep. – Phoenix B 1of3 (talk) 17:50, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep This now meets the requirements for a stub-class article, and now has a few sufficient reliable references, good work by User:Northamerica1000 and his salvagebility skills, he deserves a barnstar. – Phoenix B 1of3 (talk) 21:34, 25 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment This article should be expanded with biographical details and reliable sources, and then I also would vote to keep. --DThomsen8 (talk) 02:04, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete The question is not the current state of the article, which can always be expanded if the article is kept. (Usually a politician's biographical information can be filled in based on his bio on the city's website, even though such bios are a non-independent source. But in fact that bio is a campaign statement rather than a biography. It reads as if he is still running; it doesn't even mention that he is the mayor.). The question here is whether he should have an article at all. IMO he should not. Being mayor (and prior to that, city councilman) of the eighth largest city in his state does not grant him presumed notability under WP:POLITICIAN, especially since he has been mayor for only a few months. He has to be judged by whether he has received significant coverage in multiple reliable sources, and he hasn't. He has received MINOR coverage in reliable sources. Google News finds only routine coverage of the things that mayors say and do. There is nothing that amounts to significant coverage about HIM. --MelanieN (talk) 01:12, 23 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete completely unreferenced. Stuartyeates (talk) 02:06, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment - AfD is about topic notability per the availability of reliable sources, not a lack of them in articles. This type of vote doesn't really have any gravitas. See section WP:ATD in the deletion policy regarding alternatives to deletion. Northamerica1000 (talk) 06:14, 23 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep - I've expanded the article and added the following sources:
 * Jenco, Melissa (April 5, 2011.) "Kaptain ousts Schock as mayor." ''Trib Local
 * (April 12, 2011.) "Knocking on doors a winning strategy." ''Trib Local
 * Danahey, Mike (April 27, 2011.) "Kaptain sworn in as Elgin mayor." The Courier News
 * Northamerica1000 (talk) 05:21, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for adding sources. My !vote is still to delete, for two reasons. One is that the new sources are from small hyper-local papers. The other is that they are about the election, not about him - in other words they are routine coverage that would be provided even for a small town mayoral election. (I am not saying that Elgin is a small town, but it's not a big city either.) I was actually more impressed by the coverage I pointed to above, from the Chicago papers, because that coverage is regional rather than just local. However, that coverage again was routine and was just about him doing the things you expect any mayor to do. I don't find notability there. --MelanieN (talk) 18:46, 23 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment - Note to AfD closer: Users Phoenix B 1of3 stated that he or she would change their !vote to keep, and user DThomsen8 stated that he or she would vote keep (both above) per additions of information and references to the article, which I have performed. Northamerica1000 (talk) 05:30, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep A city of 100,000 in the US is consider sufficiently large for mayors to be notable, as shown in many AfDs . The bottom cutoff is not quite as clear: Since I'm somewhat of a deletionist in local subjects, I have sometimes argued for keeping it at 100,000, but often anything more than   50 thousand has been accepted.   DGG ( talk ) 06:34, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Really? I certainly wouldn't go along with that and it hasn't been my experience at AfD discussions. I'm pretty sure there no such policy in writing anywhere. (See WP:Common outcomes which just says "Mayors of cities of at least regional prominence have usually survived AFD".) According to List of United States cities by population there are 275 American cities with a population over 100,000. Every present and former mayor of every one of those cities deserves an automatic article here? I don't accept that as consensus. Maybe a discussion could be started elsewhere to reach a consensus, but in the meantime I submit that this is merely your opinion and that the criterion here has to be WP:GNG. If people accept the sources found so far as "significant coverage by multiple independent reliable sources," then the article should be kept. If not - not. --MelanieN (talk) 15:31, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't remember such AFDs either. A comparable case is this AFD on a Mayor of a town of 136,000 where the result was redirect and delete history. There was even a case on a Mayor of a city of 433,000 here which was redirected on the grounds that: "The notability rules for mayors also state that the article has to be more substantial than just "Person is the current mayor of city. Stub notice, categories." A mayor of a major city is likely to be notable, but doesn't get to claim inherent notability just because they're a mayor" an argument which still holds true. Valenciano (talk) 20:20, 24 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   18:19, 25 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. Kaptain has regional and local coverage. I can't call this report routine nor trivial. Kaptain has been noticed in the news because: 1. He's an underdog who won the election. 2. Elgin's crime rate went down and yet it still has an image problem. These are not trivial, routine topics. These are newsworthy topics. PolicarpioM (talk) 09:53, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
 * From WP:GNG:"Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail. The ref you cite doesn't do that, it's a general article about crime reductions in the North Chicago suburbs, not only Elgin but also Aurora. You cite 2 things for his notability: that he's an underdog that won an election... this counts for nothing in notability terms, there are literally thousands of people every year who win unexpected election victories. Secondly "Elgin's crime rate went down" ... based on the source you supply this counts for nada asthe reduction has absolutely nothing to do with him. As Kaptain himself says in that source: “If you look at the statistics, Elgin has one of the lowest crime rates in the state — comparable to Naperville... it’s gone down consecutively the last 10 years.” Now if Kaptain had been Mayor for that entire decade I'd concede that you might have an argument, but as he assumed the office this year, any reductions in crime in Elgin are certainly not down to his policies or actions. With that debunked, we're still left with the fact that he fails both WP:GNG and WP:POLITICIAN. Valenciano (talk) 23:21, 26 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep Mayor of a city with over a hundred thousand people. Coverage has been found.  Look around for more at    D r e a m Focus  02:45, 27 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.