Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dave Norris (Louisiana politician)


 * 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. bd2412 T 22:46, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Dave Norris (Louisiana politician)

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Fails WP:NPOL. Not notalbe local politician. ...William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 13:40, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. ...William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 13:40, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Louisiana-related deletion discussions. ...William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 13:40, 29 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep - Unsurprisingly for someone who was the mayor of a town for 40 years and is Louisiana's longest serving mayor, this guy has received significant coverage in reliable sources, including those cited on the page. See here 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9. Meets WP:BASIC. Nb., WP:BASIC has no geographic scope/audience requirements, but even if it did one of the references is a USA Today reference, another appears to be state-wide media, whilst another is a published book. The 6th reference is a public relations journal to which I don't have access and can only see the snippet, but it appears it might be significant coverage. FOARP (talk) 14:13, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Actually, for some classes of topic we do require considerably more than just exclusively local hometown coverage, and don't just keep everything that happens to surpass an arbitrary number of footnotes. Mayors are an example of this: every mayor of everywhere will always receive at least local press coverage, so every mayor of everywhere would always pass GNG, and thus be exempted from actually having to pass NPOL, if all they had to do was show a handful of local press coverage in their own media market. So precisely because of the mismatch between "every mayor of everywhere can always show some local sourcing" and "every mayor of everywhere is not always automatically notable enough for a Wikipedia article", getting a mayor over the bar does require considerably more than just showing that some sources exist: major cities, nationalizing press coverage, and on and so forth.
 * Of those sources you offered, there's no actual USA Today source at all. There is one reference to a local newspaper which is part of the USA Today network, but that does not make USA Today the originator of the content for the purposes of the "nationalizing coverage" test — the originator of the content is Monroe's The News-Star, not USA Today. Several of the other sources you've offered (e.g. "Documentary Editing") are glancing namechecks of his existence in coverage of other things or people, not sources that support his notability. The book that actually contains substantive content about Norris is from a print-on-demand house that allows practically any political or civic entity in the United States to self-publish its own local history book, "sponsored by city mayors, county officials, trade associations, chambers of commerce, libraries, educational and healthcare institutions, with the participation of local businesses and institutions which purchase profile pages in these books to prominently feature and/or advertise their organizations" — so it falls considerably short of meeting reliable source standards, because its publisher applies no independent editorial or notability standards of its own beyond "we've been paid to print this". And on and so forth.
 * Again, a mayor does have to show considerably more than just "some sources exist", because again, no mayor in the history of human politics ever couldn't show that some sources have existed. Bearcat (talk) 15:47, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Snow Keep per FOARP above. 40 years as mayor might not be an official NPol count, but even if FOARP hadn't produced enough above to satisfy the GNG this should be fairly obvious that he's picked up enough media in that time. WP:BEFORE? Neonchameleon (talk) 15:05, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment The articles are about him retiring, running for office, or his getting hospitalized. All WP:routine, all local. A book mention of his donating something....William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 15:53, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Aw come on. The articles also cover the thing that makes him highly notable: being mayor for 40 years, Louisiana's longest serving, a member of La's political hall of fame. No, simply defining everything that makes him notable as "routine" (they aren't: 40 years as a mayor does not fall under any of the headings in WP:ROUTINE) won't cover the massive hole in your delete rationale. This is without even discussing at all the fact that he was an economics professor. FOARP (talk) 08:01, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Snowball keep being mayor for 40 years may be a historical feat in and of itself. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:08, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Neutral, defaulting to a weak keep. I'm torn on this one. It's a Billy Hathorn article, meaning every source in existence is on the page, and we don't typically keep mayors of cities this size. But he does have an amount of longevity, and there are articles like the Nola.com article which appear to get him over WP:GNG. That being said, I have WP:BLP1E issues with parts of the article, especially the overly detailed personal life section. SportingFlyer  T · C  08:02, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Weak keep The problem is the lack of adequate sourcing to establish general notability, not that he couldn’t have been a notable politician. Trillfendi (talk) 02:54, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete. As I explained above, there are actual reasons why a smalltown mayor does have to show that his coverage has expanded beyond the local media, where coverage of local mayors is simply expected to exist, before he's actually notable enough for a Wikipedia article — but the sources offered as evidence of nationalizing coverage here aren't really any such thing. His local newspaper being "part of the USA Today network" does not mean that the coverage was produced by or published in USA Today, for example — that designation just means that some USA Today content about national news stories gets reprinted in The News-Star in lieu of The News-Star actually having its own national reporters, not that any of The News-Star's local-interest journalism travels the other way. The book is a self-published one published by a print-on-demand house, meaning all its author had to do to get it published was come up with enough sponsors to pay the cost of getting it printed, not that anybody at HPN Books editorially deemed Norris to be of nationalized interest. Some of the other sources are glancing namechecks of Norris' existence in coverage of other things, not coverage that is substantively about Norris for the purposes of establishing his notability. Take all of that out, and all that's left is the exact same volume of purely localized coverage that every mayor of everywhere can always show, thus not constituting strong evidence that Norris is special. And no, the longevity of a person's mayoral term is not a notability freebie in and of itself either: whether he was mayor for 40 years or just 40 days, the notability test he would actually have to pass is still the same either way. Bearcat (talk) 16:04, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Randykitty (talk) 17:00, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete I wouldn't mind seeing this article recreated with more substantiative sourcing but right now its a WP:TNT situation at best. GPL93 (talk) 13:42, 12 May 2019 (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.