Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Deanna Cremin


 * 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. The consensus below is that sufficient sources have been found to establish the notability of the event. Eluchil404 (talk) 03:04, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Deanna Cremin

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This article presents more as a tribute page than an encyclopedic entry. JeffJ (talk) 19:20, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Article moved to Murder of Deanna Cremin, to focus more on the event than the person.


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Massachusetts-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 22:35, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 22:35, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep and possibly rename to focus on the death, rather than the person. I added some references and moved others inline. She has a square dedicated to her, a song by a notable artist, and you can see a fairly continuous stream of press, with articles from multiple reliable papers, 10, 11, 13 years later. Notable. --GRuban (talk) 14:25, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * To be fair, I went looking for Deanna Cremin Square and although I have no reason to doubt its existence, I suspect that it's quite a small piece of land. I looked for it using Google Earth and Google Street View and couldn't find it. And the scholarship is but $500.00 at her former high school. It's nice that a song was written about her, but it's not all that uncommon. You seem to have access to print articles that aren't available online; Why not use them to build on the article? --JeffJ (talk) 02:41, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Per WP:HEY, you mean? This is what you need to make you change your opinion that the article should be kept? If so, sounds like a deal. --GRuban (talk) 13:35, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that even an expanded article would increase its notability. I'm just surprised that, considering your strong feelings about the subject and your apparent access to printed matter, you haven't tried to expand the article. I'll keep an open mind, but my previous arguments for deletion still stand. --JeffJ (talk) 17:07, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:NOTMEMORIAL and WP:VICTIM. The notability of Deanna Cremin is based solely on her having been murdered, which, while tragic, is a fairly common occurrence. That aside, the article only offers two sentences, with very scant detail, on the murder. Instead the article focuses on Ms. Cremin and the peripheral, creating more of a tribute to the victim, than an encyclopedic entry. There are current newspaper articles, but only in local newspapers, which is a common occurrence when family members continue to publicize the crime. I wouldn't call it a "continuous stream of press" and the "multiple reliable newspapers" is a small local paper (without a wiki-entry) and the Boston Herald. Most of the references you've added don't actually link to anything. It would be easier to verify notability if the references linked to the articles. The one article in the Herald (2005) indicates new information may have become available, but does not elevate the crime to notable any more than any other cold case.--JeffJ (talk) 15:23, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The notability is based on her being regularly written about since, getting a square and a song and a scholarship fund, which is not a fairly common occurrence. The articles are from the Boston Herald and Boston Globe in addition to two local papers (Somerville News and Somerville Journal), and don't link to anything because they are print articles, on paper. If you're interested in a count, there have been 30 articles from the Herald, 19 from the Globe. That more than meets the General Notability Guideline.--GRuban (talk) 15:54, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Many unsolved murders receive reoccurring coverage particularly when the family continues to promote publication. But we're still only seeing relatively local coverage of what began as a news event, but has since devolved into what could be described better as "human interest" coverage with the main subject of the articles being more about Deanna's family and how they've dealt with the murder, than the crime itself. In other words, the articles may mention Deanna, but she is not the focus of the article. Neither the Somerville News or the Somerville Journal have Wikipedia articles, which speaks to the notability of those newspapers. Somerville itself is a relatively small town, so it's easy to see why the local papers would cover any unsolved murder, but we're still only seeing 30 articles for a 15 year period, and again, Deanna is not the focus of most of the articles. I searched the Somerville News database from Jan 2005 to present and no results were returned for "Deanna Cremin". A search of the Somerville Journal found 11 articles that mention Deanna's name, but one result appears to be an editorial submitted by Deanna's mother, and another is about an unrelated murder but mentions Deanna. A third article is about a scholarship fund. So a simple occurrence of a person's name in an article does not count.


 * If you brush aside the Somerville News and Journal as minor newspapers from a small town, why are you bothering to search their sites? Look to the Globe and Herald coverage. They're major, respected papers (4 Pulitzers for the Herald, 18 for the Globe), from a large city, and, as mentioned, quite a bit of coverage of Deanna Cremin. Not the focus of the articles? Surely not, all the articles only cover the family in relation to Cremin's murder. The Deanna Cremin scholarship fund is certainly an important part of Deanna Cremin's notability, the same way, oh ... the Pulitzer Prize is an important part of the notability of Joseph Pulitzer. --GRuban (talk) 21:25, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * If you are going to start comparing Deanna Cremin, whom I presume was a wonderful person in her own right, to Joseph Pulitzer, then I suspect that you are a bit too emotionally attached to the subject to discuss it objectively. --JeffJ (talk) 00:06, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * That aside, the Wikipedia entry sums up Deanna's murder in all of 2 sentences: "Deanna Cremin was found behind a senior housing complex only four days after her seventeenth birthday. An autopsy revealed she had been strangled, and her murder remains unsolved." The rest of the article offers a 2 sentence biography, then goes on to discuss the aftermath. There's no details on the crime, the investigation, etc. This article would be better labelled What the Cremins did after Deanna died. Compare this article with some other unsolved murders: JonBenét Ramsey or Louise Teuber. What it comes down to is: What is the encyclopedic value of this article? --JeffJ (talk) 19:10, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree the article should be about the event, and its aftermath, not the person, and there is room for expanding the article contents about the event, but changing the title or content of the article is outside the deletion decision. This nomination is only to decide whether the subject is deserving of an article, and we have a guideline about that,Notability, which it clearly meets. That guideline says nothing about "the article must spend X sentences describing the murder, or it should be deleted." If you can find a similar guideline defining "encyclopedic value" I suspect it would meet that too, but until then, I don't know what your criteria for it are. --GRuban (talk) 21:15, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * We also have guidelines WP:NOTMEMORIAL and WP:VICTIM, the latter of which specifically addresses the notability of victims within Notability (criminal acts). To simply refer to Notability is insufficient and indicates to me that you either did not adequately educate yourself on Notability or that you are being deliberately obtuse. What you have to consider is whether Deanna Cremin herself is notable. Would she have merited an entry had she not been murdered? Then you have to consider if the crime merits an entry. In my opinion, this was a rather mundane murder, no different than scores of other murders that occur daily, that received only local coverage. And Deanna herself was just an ordinary person with an ordinary life (her biography is 2 sentences!). If we pare down the article to the crime and the victim, we have 4 sentences. That alone indicates to me that there was nothing more of note to write, hence not notable. --JeffJ (talk) 00:06, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 23:06, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.


 * Delete - Wikipedia is not a memorial. (GregJackP (talk) 01:30, 10 March 2010 (UTC))
 * Delete classic instance of not memorial, and one event. No encyclopedic suitability.   DGG ( talk ) 07:27, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * If you look at WP:NOTMEMORIAL it specifically says that the subject should meet the Notability guideline. She clearly does, with the nearly 50 articles from the Boston Globe and Boston Herald that I link to above (hidden in the tl;dr wall of text, perhaps, but they're there). I'm working on adding them to the article. --GRuban (talk) 14:12, 10 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Merge to Somerville, Massachusetts per WP:LOCAL. There is plenty of local interest. The local newspapers have covered the story extensively over the years.  SilkTork  *YES! 18:23, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Merge to Somerville, Massachusetts, per User: Silktork. A fine idea.-- Pink Bull  18:30, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * A great idea! I support Merge to Somerville, Massachusetts. --JeffJ (talk) 20:32, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Er ... and if the same thing happened in New York City, you'd be supporting a merge there? Note that the papers in question are Boston papers. --GRuban (talk) 22:31, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep and recategorize this and other similar cases into a new category called "Unsolved US Homicides by State". Cases like this one have a distinction in that they meet WP:GNG and exceptions noted in WP:VICTIM, yet disagreement on notability persists, especially when comparisons are made to extremely high profile or famous historic cases. The extent and persistence of effort and media coverage in cases like these are not common among the estimated 200,000+ unsolved murder cases in the US since 1960. These sort of cases deserve a place in Wikipedia. Msdny (talk) 02:23, 11 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Are we really talking about creating articles in order to describe 200,000+ unsolved murders? Are any of them less Notable than what really amounts to "Average person gets stabbed, police baffled"? Cremin's story is a tragic one, but the article really just boils down to:


 * '''On March 29, 1995, Cremin's body was found at 8 a.m. on March 30, behind an elderly housing complex, less than a block from her home, lying on her back, and mostly undressed. An autopsy revealed she had been strangled, and her murder remains unsolved.

'''


 * That's it as far as Cremin or the crime are concerned. The rest of the article is not much more than filler (see also WP:MASK). And Cremin has websites out there keeping her memory alive, so other than acting as a memorial, what is the global value of the information contained? Again we must refer to WP:VICTIM and the broader WP:N/CA. Or else, start writing articles for the other 200,000+ tragic, unsolved murders. --JeffJ (talk) 04:03, 11 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment WP really needs to work out which murder victims/murders/murderers get articles, and which don't. How to work that out, I don't know. Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 05:21, 11 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment: This article also fails the Notability challenge with regards to Independent Sources. While there are a number of references listed there are only 2 mainstream sources, and 2 local sources (serving a population of about 77,000). The Teen Ink reference is a poem. A Google search found no mainstream media coverage outside the Somerville/Boston area.


 * And since no one seems to be reading WP:VICTIM here is the criteria:


 * "A victim of a high-profile crime does not automatically qualify as being notable enough to have a stand-alone article solely based on his or her status as a victim. Notability with regards to this is normally defined as satisfying some other aspect of the notability of persons guideline that does not relate to the crime in question.


 * As such, a victim of a crime should normally only be the subject of an article where an article that satisfied notability criteria existed, or could have properly been created prior to the crime's commission. Thus, attempts at inclusion prompted by appearance in the press should not be excluded if notability can be otherwise asserted. Also, consistent with WP:BLP1E, articles on persons primarily known as victims may be appropriate for persons with a large role within well-documented historic events. The historic significance is indicated by persistent coverage of the event in reliable secondary sources that devote significant attention to the individual's role (for example, Matthew Shepard)." --JeffJ (talk) 07:35, 11 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I've agreed from the beginning, the article should be moved to coverage of the event. Deanna Cremin herself didn't have a very notable life before being murdered; the coverage is almost all coverage of the murder (it is quite persistent, 15 years, and we still have dedicated TV coverage of it). But that's not the same thing as deleting the article. Guide to deletion says I can move the article during the discussion, but should notify, as it may produce confusion. Notifying. --GRuban (talk) 14:12, 11 March 2010 (UTC)


 * So you agree that Cremin is not Notable. So now explain why the crime is. Coverage of the murder has not been persistent or "dedicated". You cite one local station with a piece almost a year old that presents as more local human-interest than news. --JeffJ (talk) 17:13, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * As above, almost 50 articles from the Globe and Herald, including large pieces over a decade later, plus the TV station and newspapers. Any event that has 50 articles about it is notable. The event was in 1995, the dates on the Herald articles are 2006, 2005, 2005, 2001, 2001, 1999, 1999, 1997, 1997, 1997 ... as you have properly noted, the Television piece is from 2009; that's persistent. In addition to that, a dedicated square, a song from a notable singer, a published poem, and a continuing scholarship, but they shouldn't be necessary. It meets Notability from the coverage. --GRuban (talk) 19:02, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * No. It fails. A poem on a private website is not a source, the square does not even show up on maps, the scholorship is $500 at her local high school, and don't confuse articles for sources. Numerous articles from one source is still just one source. And there is still only local coverage demonstrated. JeffJ (talk) 21:38, 12 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep per good work done by GRuban to salvage the article. I know there are people who think wikipedia shouldn't have articles covering significant criminal events, but I have never understood the alleged harm done by such articles when they are sourced; they become the primary source for the inevitable google searches done on the event.--Milowent (talk) 15:28, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep per Milowent. Also, since there is enough verifiable info to have this nice long argument, there's enough out there to create a WP:V article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Last1in (talk • contribs) 14:10, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep per the rewrite and rename, which have demonstrated that the event is notable. The newspaper articles span a wide range of years (1995, 2000, 2005, 2006, and 2009) and thus demonstrate WP:PERSISTENCE. Cunard (talk) 04:30, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * If you are going to cite WP:PERSISTENCE then you should also consider WP:DIVERSE. -- JeffJ (talk) 14:14, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * And WP:SENSATION -- JeffJ (talk) 14:18, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * For anyone who might be intimidated by the WP:EIEIO :-) - WP:DIVERSE recommends multiple sources be provided for an event, rather than just one. In this case we have substantial coverage from four newspapers and a television station. WP:SENSATION recommends avoiding tabloid journalism. None of the five sources are tabloids, and two have won multiple Pulitzer Prizes. Cunard explains WP:PERSISTENCE well. I think they're all more than met, though I respect that JeffJ disagrees. --GRuban (talk) 15:25, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't disagree, I just want those who are weighing in to make informed decisions. -- JeffJ (talk) 18:04, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep Click the Google news search link at the top of the AFD, and notice the date in which articles were published mentioning her. One reads: "It's been 2 1/2 years since Deanna Cremin scratched the surface of our awareness".  Another was written 10 years after it happened.  This is a notable event, continual coverage over the years.   D r e a m Focus  01:03, 18 March 2010 (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.