Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David Pringle (activist) (3rd nomination)


 * 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. Seems like the argument that the sources are inadequate carries the day. I shall note that "notability is not temporary" does mean "temporary notability is still notability", not the opposite, per WP:NTEMP. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:12, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

David Pringle (activist)
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Bringing this to AFD a third time. The article was previously deleted in December, promptly recreated and brought to AfD again two months ago. The last AfD resulted in "no consensus". The arguments for keep in the last AfD were based on his coverage as a congressional candidate. He has since dropped out. Of course notability is not temporary which is why the article should not have been retained at that time. As a unsucessful congressional candidate, he does not pass WP:POLITICIAN and he does not otherwise meet notability requirement for his activism since it was barely covered before his congressional run. All the sources that are actually about him were published during his brief run for congress. Rusf10 (talk) 03:07, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. WeAreAll Here  talk  03:49, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of New Jersey-related deletion discussions. WeAreAll</b> Here  <sub style="color:blue">talk  03:49, 15 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Leaning keep . This search  on his name in the New York Times and this one  in the Philadelphia Inquirer show that he has been a player in New Jersey environment-related politics for decades.  This combines with coverage of his life and career during his recent run for a nomination for a congressional seat (he withdrew before the primary,) to enable the article to meet WP:BASIC.  This 2007 article in the Star-Ledger, Once best friends, N.J.'s top environmental leaders now fighting like bitter enemies,  shows that WP:SIGCOV of Pringle predates the candidacy, while many others like this  2017 article in the Courier-Post NJ environmentalists optimistic about 2017, (and a large volume of similar passing coverage over the decades including: Mapping Future Growth,  CENTRAL JERSEY FOCUS: No end in sight for water battle, Open space veto bill in limbo ; Environmentalists say they've blocked boost in towns' power,)   show his status as a notable voice in N.J. politics.  Article should probably be renamed  David Pringle (environmentalist).  Do we have an environmentalism-related AfD list?E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:56, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Those article just quote him, they are not significant coverage.--Rusf10 (talk) 16:26, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * You merely repeated what I wrote above, but failed to encounter the pre-campaign SIGVOV that I linked to, or my argument.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:04, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Is the nominator going to respond to points made and the questions raised?Djflem (talk) 16:06, 20 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete - He clearly fails WP:politician, and the most "well-cited" part of this page is about his political activity. In fact 90% of this page is about his failed political campaign. Since he already fails politician I'm treating those 2 sections as against our rules... I can't see the page standing on what's left. <b style="color:#000080">S EMMENDINGER </b> (<b style="color:#F80"> talk </b>) 19:45, 17 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The article has 17,840 bytes with more in-depth coverage of campaign and 16,186 bytes with the appropriate mention. What 90%, which two section?Djflem (talk) 16:02, 20 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep per WP:GNG, the references determine notability, not the position someone holds. WP:Politician is for people who fail the GNG guideline but their position provides inherent notability, despite minimal references. --RAN (talk) 23:33, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Nope, NPOL is not "for people who fail the GNG guideline but their position provides inherent notability despite minimal references" — every NPOL-passing politician always also passes GNG, because politicians who hold NPOL-passing roles are a thing the media regularly covers. The issue with NPOL-passing roles is not that a GNG-passing volume of coverage fails to exist for NPOL-passing politicians, but that (a) Wikipedia editors don't always put in the amount of work needed to actually find and cite it, thus causing some of their articles to appear less GNG-passing than they really are, and (b) before NPOL existed, people used to try to list even well-sourced federal legislators (sitting British and Canadian and Australian MPs, US congresscritters, etc.) for deletion on the questionable grounds that they were purportedly lacking evidence of being more remarkable and distinguished than their other colleagues in the same legislature (such as being internationally famous beyond the borders of their own country alone, or being an actual cabinet minister and not "just" a backbencher.) Bearcat (talk) 04:03, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Comment The nomination makes the false claim: The arguments for keep in the last AfD were based on his coverage as a congressional candidate.. The mischaracterisation and misrepresentation can be seen below by viewing the keep comments:


 * Keep While he is running for a public office, that is only part of the article. He has worked as an environmental activist for many years, as is well-documented.Djflem (talk) 10:07, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep The article was initially nominated for deletion in December because, while his activism was robust, his campaign was new and had limited coverage. Since then he's seen a lot of independent coverage, including in Politico, The Observer, and many NJ papers.  That combined with his large public record of activism should qualify this page as sufficiently noteworthy.  If his page is too promotional, it can be edited to remove that. Lebanonman19 (talk) 18:16, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep as indicated above by DJflem and Lebanonman19, and as seen in the article, there are plenty of reliable and verifiable sources with in-depth coverage about him to meet the general notability criteria. Kudos on the expanded article with ample sourcing; any claimed issues re promotional content are poor excuses for deletion and excellent arguments for discussing and editing the article. Alansohn (talk) 06:23, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep per Djflem. The subject is notable because it is not a 1E article about his congressional campaign but rather focuses more on his environmental activism. Also, articles should only be deleted if they're beyond any hope of improvement; this is very far from the case here. The delete !voters have very weak arguments as seen above. Davey2116 (talk) 04:38, 15 February 2018 (UTC)Djflem (talk) 01:18, 19 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep per WP:GNGDjflem (talk) 01:20, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete a no longer running congressional candidate with no other even remote claim to notability.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:44, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
 * As shown above and in article it is not based on his congressional run and there is significant coverage.Djflem (talk) 15:57, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

*Weak keep based on the sources, not the job title. You can be a homeless person and still have an article. --RAN (talk) 17:40, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry, you only get one vote--Rusf10 (talk) 17:54, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

<div class="xfd_relist" style="border-top: 1px solid #AAA; border-bottom: 1px solid #AAA; padding: 0px 25px;"> Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete. The referencing here is not demonstrating a strong case that he's notable for being a candidate per se, but neither is it adequately demonstrating that he has preexisting notability for other reasons. All of the content about anything outside of the candidacy itself is based on a mix of primary sources, interview clips in which he's the speaker and not the subject being spoken about, and glancing namechecks of his existence in articles that are not substantively about him, none of which help to get him over GNG for that work in lieu of not passing NPOL — and the campaign coverage itself is not enough, in either volume or geographic range, to make his candidacy a special case over and above everybody else's candidacy. Bearcat (talk) 04:14, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, 78.26  (spin me / revolutions) 20:44, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete I am not finding much of a case that he is notable removed from the context of a candidacy. Once again, the sources provided here to try to convince us otherwise are not actually instances of significant coverage, but rather namechecks, passing mentions, or sources that do not count toward establishing notability.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 19:47, 24 April 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> 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.