Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Donald Cresitello


 * 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 no consensus. Spartaz Humbug! 07:05, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Donald Cresitello

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

small town mayor, does not meet WP:NPOL Rusf10 (talk) 15:02, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Rusf10 (talk) 15:02, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of New Jersey-related deletion discussions. Rusf10 (talk) 15:02, 9 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep. Whether town is small should not be a barrier for inclusion. Small towns are part of a country, every bit as much as large cities. Additionally, this is a bedroom community, a suburb of New York City. If the mayor made an impact on the politics of this town, which it appears he did, then he is worthy to keep.Dogru144 (talk) 15:28, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete. Strictly speaking, the notability test for mayors has nothing to do with the size of the town or city per se — it has to do with the ability to write a substantive article about his political impact, and is not passed just because it's technically possible to verify election results. But reviewing the sources, "substantive article about his political impact" isn't what's being offered here: three of the footnotes are just offering technical verification of election results, and three of them are just supporting purely tangential (and POV) content about Section 287(g) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 while completely failing to mention Cresitello's name at all in conjunction with them. So there's only one source here that's about Cresitello in any way relevant to actually getting him over the notability bar, and one source is not enough. Bearcat (talk) 17:13, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * it appears that you reviewed only sources provided in article and other not RS, some of which are listed below, two at least of which are about CresitelloDjflem (talk) 01:49, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Firstly, I don't have any responsibility to keep coming back to this discussion daily to see if people have provided new evidence of notability that was not already apparent as of the time of my original comment — once i've commented, I'm allowed to walk away and never come back to this discussion again if I don't choose to. Secondly, even if there are "two at least" sources about Cresitello, passing our notability standards for mayors still requires a lot more than just two sources about him: there's not a single mayor in the entire history of mayoring who couldn't show two sources about him or her. Bearcat (talk) 01:53, 13 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete - The only thing in the article that would suggest some notability is the attention he's received for his stance and actions pertaining to undocumented immigrants, which doesn't appear to have garnered much coverage. The rest of the information present in the article basically amounts to election statistics, and participation in an election is not a guarantee for notability. Tpdwkouaa (talk) 18:45, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * There are other sources other than those in article. Please review them for "attention garnered"Djflem (talk) 01:49, 13 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep Bad Before Passes GNG per
 * https://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/28/nyregion/the-region-cresitello-quits-jersey-senate-race.html?searchResultPosition=1
 * https://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/08/nyregion/new-jersey-daily-briefing-live-man-outlasts-dead-man.html?searchResultPosition=2
 * https://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/08/nyregion/new-jersey-daily-briefing-live-man-outlasts-dead-man.html?searchResultPosition=2
 * https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/08/opinion/nyregionopinions/NJmorristown.html?searchResultPosition=5
 * https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/01NJweek.html?searchResultPosition=8
 * https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/nyregion/29rally.html?searchResultPosition=4
 * https://www.nj.com/news/2009/06/cresitello_loses_democratic_pr.html
 * https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/nyregion/new-jersey/29colnj.html?searchResultPosition=9
 * https://www.nj.com/news/2009/12/morristown_hearing_to_discuss.html
 * https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/nyregion/new-jersey/29colnj.html?searchResultPosition=9
 * https://www.nj.com/news/local/2009/06/morristown_mayor_donald_cresit.html
 * https://www.nj.com/morristown/2009/06/spinach_and_referees_morristow.html
 * https://www.nj.com/morristown/paulbangiola/2008/04/donald_cresitello_for_us_senat.html
 * https://www.nj.com/njv_editorial_page/2009/06/bad_time_for_a_mayoral_pay_rai.html
 * https://www.nj.com/news/2010/12/ex-morristown_mayor_donald_cre.html
 * https://www.nj.com/news/2010/01/former_morristown_mayor_looks.html
 * https://www.nj.com/opinion/2018/11/immigration_middlesex_case_shows_need_for_more_enf.html and other RS in article.Djflem (talk) 17:09, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete since Morristown is in the NYT distribution area, sources there and in New Jersey news do not demonstrate notability. The sourcing above can be found for virtually every mayor. We need non-local coverage to show notability for mayors.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:37, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Can you please back up your claim with some policy based argument. Otherwise your argument is invalid. Is there a specific place can you point to because it is not mentioned any where one might normally look such as GNG, NPOL, POLOUTCOMES. Incidentally NJ.com/Star-Ledger and NY Times are STATEWIDE and REGIONAL, not local. You want local? Here's local: Morristown Patch], Morristown Green Daily Record (Morristown), the other two are NOT local, so that doesn't fly. (Unless you're saying Morristown Patch and NY Times are the same, or saying for the sake of convenience they are) The coverage is far more than for elections or election results. So that's not a valid claim either, is it? So what, then, is the basis of your deletion argument?Djflem (talk) 01:36, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Morristown is a suburb of New York City, so having coverage in New York City's media does not singlehandedly make him more special than every other mayor of a town the size of Morristown. If a mayor of Morristown could show coverage coming from Chicago or Atlanta or Los Angeles, then he'd have a credible claim to being more significant than the norm for smalltown mayors — but if his only "more than local" coverage is coming from just 30 miles away, then that coverage doesn't automatically get him over the bar all by itself. This is for the same reason that a chip stand owner in Williamsburg is not automatically more notable than a chip stand owner in Wheeling WV, just because the Brooklyn guy's single local restaurant review happens to be in The New York Times while the West Virginia guy's single local restaurant review is "only" in the Wheeling News-Register]: even coverage from the New York Times can still be local-interest coverage in a not inherently notable context, and thus not count as anything special. Bearcat (talk) 02:08, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
 * CLAIM is clear. NOW back it up with policies and links to them that says STATEWIDE and REGIONAL coverage is local coverage. Address the coverage/subject matter in the articles.(And spare us bad analogies about chip shops) Djflem (talk) 02:25, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
 * When it comes to whether smalltown mayors get over the notability or not, "local vs. statewide and regional" is not the relevant question at all: a smalltown mayor needs nationalizing sources, not just "regionalizing" sources, before he gets over the notability bar. For the purposes of whether a source helps to demonstrate that he's special or not, the question of whether a source was published inside the town boundaries of Morristown itself, or has wider readership beyond just Morristown alone, is not definitive all by itself — it's not a question of the source's distribution range, but of its local coverage area. Any source published in any location where any regular coverage of Morristown would simply be expected to exist (including New York City and the entire state of New Jersey) is still "local" coverage for the purposes of whether a mayor has a credible claim to being more special than other mayors or not — a mayor of Morristown would need to show that he was getting non-trivial coverage in Illinois or Missouri or California before his sources were meeting the geographic range test, not just coverage in places where coverage of Morristown is expected.
 * And chip shops aren't a "bad" analogy, either: it doesn't matter whether a person was a mayor, a musician, a chip shop owner, a baker, a butcher, a candlestick maker, or whatever other occupation, because the same principle still applies no matter what. If two people do the exact same not inherently notable things and garner the same amount of purely local interest coverage within their own local area, but one did it in inside the New York City metropolitan area and the other did it in Wheeling WV, then the New York City guy is not automatically more special than the West Virginia guy just because the New York guy's article has the words "New York Times" in it and the West Virgina guy's article doesn't. We still evaluate sources for their geographic range and the context of what they're covering the person for, and New York Times coverage can still fall below the bar if it's fundamentally local interest coverage of a person doing not-inherently notable things. Bearcat (talk) 02:44, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
 * That is a very verbose way to avoid providing any back up way for what you are CLAIMING. And you seem to be absolutely so certain about it I'm sure you'll have not problem providing links that say STATEWIDE and REGIONAL coverage is "not relevant", with words like "for those purposes", "special", "expected". And yes, chip shops is analogy is bad because it's based on the assumption made in the first non-policy based claim.Djflem (talk) 03:18, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
 * We most certainly do have an established consensus that a smalltown mayor has to show nationalized sources, not just local or regional sources, before he clears the notability bar. The fact that it hasn't been formally codified in a policy statement does not make it any less true — if local and regional sources were all it took to make a smalltown mayor notable enough for inclusion, then we would always have to keep an article about every single person who was ever mayor of anywhere, because every mayor can always show some evidence of localized media coverage in his or her own media market. From the new links you've added below, it's also clear that you don't understand several other things about what kind of sources it takes to make a person notable: for example, to support notability a source has to represent other people speaking, in the third person, about Cresitello as a subject — sources in which Cresitello himself is doing the speaking, whether about himself or about something else, are not support for notability. For another, there's a difference between sources that are about Cresitello, and sources that merely mention Cresitello in the process of being fundamentally about something or someone else. For three, you are never allowed to source anything to YouTube, and that applies regardless of whether the YouTube video in question is original content self-created by a YouTuber or recorded media content reposted to YouTube after the fact. Bearcat (talk) 17:36, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

If by "we" you mean Wikipedia, "we" acknowledge, as you likely know, AfD outcomes have been varied, (when subject has other coverage other than campaign & election results, as is the case here. By the way, when one the mayors of the close to/more than 1000 municipalities in the region have an editorial & called incendiary by the NY Times, it is "special", one of your criteria.) As you also know, elected office-holders (as opposed chip shop owners and cnadlestickmakers), are notable for their policies, decisions, actions, statements as public officials: political impact (as you phrase it) is part of being about them. You will also note, that links here have not been added to the article (so your "lesson" in fundamental understanding is a waste). What they do do is undeniably demonstrate the LOCAL, STATEWIDE, REGIONAL, NATIONAL media attention garnered by the subject in the "real world". It's easy to comment on the technical reasons to invalidate them in "wikipedia world", but that doesn't that does change that fact. Is there goal-post? (one was not enough, then two was not enough, how many is your arbitrary enough? There are more than 20 significant supportive RS which are useful and the list of state-wide, regional, and national links certainly can be used to improve the article either as references or external links but deletion is not cleanup). Your cherry-picking you appears to overlook, ignore, (?) certainly not mention the ACADEMIC links (written after the mayor had left office), which represent a discussion of the subject in his role as politician, which "we" accept as RS for passing GNG.Djflem (talk) 18:07, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

NOTE Significant coverage exists about Cresitello controversy regarding Immigration reduction in the United States and use of Immigration and Nationality Act Section 287(g):
 * Elizabeth Llorente, "Newark killings become immigration flash point," North Jersey Media Group, August 14, 2007
 * Djflem (talk) 03:21, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
 * SUSTAINED:
 * Djflem (talk) 05:42, 14 May 2020 (UTC)Djflem (talk) 08:08, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Elizabeth Llorente, "Newark killings become immigration flash point," North Jersey Media Group, August 14, 2007
 * Djflem (talk) 03:21, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
 * SUSTAINED:
 * Djflem (talk) 05:42, 14 May 2020 (UTC)Djflem (talk) 08:08, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Djflem (talk) 03:21, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
 * SUSTAINED:
 * Djflem (talk) 05:42, 14 May 2020 (UTC)Djflem (talk) 08:08, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Djflem (talk) 03:21, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
 * SUSTAINED:
 * Djflem (talk) 05:42, 14 May 2020 (UTC)Djflem (talk) 08:08, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Djflem (talk) 05:42, 14 May 2020 (UTC)Djflem (talk) 08:08, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Djflem (talk) 05:42, 14 May 2020 (UTC)Djflem (talk) 08:08, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Djflem (talk) 05:42, 14 May 2020 (UTC)Djflem (talk) 08:08, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: While there has been a lot of discussion it's only been among a few participants who've said at length what their position is. It would help if we could hear from new editors about the issues raised and discussed at length.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:47, 18 May 2020 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz Humbug! 22:42, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete per Bearcat and our guidelines for notability of local officeholders. His small town is within the NY Times metro area. The article currently has potential WP:NPOV issues as well as a side note. The mass wave of local links actually further moves him away from our WP:NPOL rules on notability and local coverage. SportingFlyer  T · C  07:29, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately Bearcat's analysis is not grounded in policy. BASIC clearly states: "People who meet the basic criteria may be considered notable without meeting the additional criteria" and has not addressed the RS below. Why are you both IGNORING reliable published sources? That contravenes both policy and guidelines. Which guidelines are you referring to and can you link to it, please, so that other editors can identify what you are talking about. (Don't believe there is a guideline which says editors can ignore "significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject." and require additional criteria.)Djflem (talk) 07:18, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
 * We don't normally keep run of the mill mayors/politicians, and there's plenty of archives showing this. I can't access that first book, but the second book only has a brief mention of him. Instead of spamming the AfD, you'd be better off presenting the WP:THREE which clearly demonstrate his notability. All of the links spammed here is just local news coverage, even that book is from a local university. SportingFlyer  T · C  07:32, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I've read the essay: there are way more than 3 RS that demonstrate SIGCOV and SUSTAINED coverage. That you cannot access book would disqualifies you from making a fair evaluation of it (thus this AFD). Rutgers is a colonial college and with respected press. The subject received more than a passing mention in its publication, so that claim is not valid. Can you please provide at least 3 samples of the New York Times writing an editorial about a regional mayor as it did here: to demonstrate the claim that coverage was run-of the-mill and not special? Thanks.Djflem (talk) 09:26, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
 * (By the way, "we" evaluate articles individually and delete some and keep some, and there's plenty of archives showing this. Other stuff exists works both ways.Djflem (talk) 09:44, 29 May 2020 (UTC))
 * By the way, GNG is not, and has never been, "automatically keep anybody who can show three footnotes". GNG most certainly does test the sources for their depth, their geographic range and the context of what they're covering the person for, and not just their number alone — and our inclusion rules most certainly do state that some classes of topic have to surpass a much higher burden of sourceability than others do before they warrant inclusion. And whether you like it or not, smalltown mayors are not an "inherently notable" context — which means they do have to show a much more impressive range and depth of sourcing than just the exclusively local coverage that every mayor of everywhere can always show. If the existence of three local sources was all it took to hand a municipal councillor a GNG-based exemption from having to satisfy NPOL, then we would always have to keep an article about every single mayor who ever existed, every single city councillor who ever existed, every single school board trustee who ever existed, every single candidate who ever ran in any election and lost, everybody who ever served on a municipal parks or library or planning board, and on and so forth — because every last man jack one of them can always show three sources. So getting such a person over GNG, as an exemption from NPOL, does require evidence that they're somehow much more special than the norm, not just evidence that they existed. Bearcat (talk) 17:52, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
 * (By the way, "we" evaluate articles individually and delete some and keep some, and there's plenty of archives showing this. Other stuff exists works both ways.Djflem (talk) 09:44, 29 May 2020 (UTC))
 * By the way, GNG is not, and has never been, "automatically keep anybody who can show three footnotes". GNG most certainly does test the sources for their depth, their geographic range and the context of what they're covering the person for, and not just their number alone — and our inclusion rules most certainly do state that some classes of topic have to surpass a much higher burden of sourceability than others do before they warrant inclusion. And whether you like it or not, smalltown mayors are not an "inherently notable" context — which means they do have to show a much more impressive range and depth of sourcing than just the exclusively local coverage that every mayor of everywhere can always show. If the existence of three local sources was all it took to hand a municipal councillor a GNG-based exemption from having to satisfy NPOL, then we would always have to keep an article about every single mayor who ever existed, every single city councillor who ever existed, every single school board trustee who ever existed, every single candidate who ever ran in any election and lost, everybody who ever served on a municipal parks or library or planning board, and on and so forth — because every last man jack one of them can always show three sources. So getting such a person over GNG, as an exemption from NPOL, does require evidence that they're somehow much more special than the norm, not just evidence that they existed. Bearcat (talk) 17:52, 9 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete per nomination and Bearcat's arguments. [[File:Morris County New Jersey incorporated and unincorporated areas Morristown highlighted.svg|thumb|upright]] We get an avalanche of articles from the mayor's state and the Jersey column in the NYT but this persistent defense of the notability of a politician of a small town still cannot overcome the subject's clear lack of national importance per WP:NPOLITICIAN. Wikipedia demands that the subject be a politician who has held international, national, or -for countries with federal or similar systems of government- state/province–wide office, or has been a member of legislative bodies at those levels. And he's the mayor of Morristown. -The Gnome (talk) 20:04, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment: It's completely, utterly, hopelessly wrong to say that Wikipedia "demands" that politicians hold state-level office or higher to merit coverage. We have thousands and thousands of articles about American mayors -- well over 500 about New Jersey mayors alone. If you actually believe this, The Gnome, I await your opening of Articles for deletion/Pete Buttigieg. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by many administrators since 2006.  Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong! (talk) 20:32, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep. First, the subject clearly satisfies basic GNG requirements. Second, as someone who lived for decades in two different cities in the NYTimes coverage area, both more than five times the size of Morristown, it's very clear that that the NYT was not giving "run of the mill" coverage to this mayor; he has received more substantive coverage than any mayor of these much larger cities. It's also important to note that much of the coverage is in the context of prominent national political issues. Third, rigid adherence to the binary "local/national" classification would be an almost supernaturally stupid practice: it has nothing to do with our basic encyclopedic purpose, ignores the many intermediate levels of coverage, and is far more of a pretext to delete articles on a flimsy rationale than any sort of reasoned examination. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo).  Treated like dirt by many administrators since 2006.  Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong! (talk) 20:16, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep, as he passes GNG. Even if the city is in the New York Times coverage area, its still The New York Times. Its a major internationally read news publication, not The Nowhereville Gazette, and according to above editors the coverage given was by no means run-of-the-mill. Devonian Wombat (talk) 05:26, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz Humbug! 07:10, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep Meets GNG with substantial coverage in reliable sources. ~ EDDY  ( talk / contribs )~ 21:04, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep: I reject the argument put forth by Bearcat and Johnpacklambert that there is an "established consensus" that regional coverage is inadequate to support politicians' notability, and that consensus has the force of policy behind it, without actually being written down in a policy. If that consensus has actually been established, then it should be written down somewhere. If people are concerned about having too many articles about mayors, then I think they should go establish that consensus formally, and write it down as policy. For this particular case, I think that overly narrow "regional vs national" distinction has a consequence that I believe is contrary to common sense: that The New York Times is considered a notability-conferring source for articles about mayors outside of the metropolitan area, but not considered a notability-conferring source for articles about mayors of towns within a 32-mile radius. Is everything that The New York Times publishes about New York City and its suburbs considered "local coverage"? If The New York Times writes about an artist who happens to work in New York City, I'm pretty sure we consider that a reliable source that confers notability; we don't call it "local coverage". — Toughpigs (talk) 22:01, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment- I reject the argument that local coverage is sufficient to establish notability for a politician. All politicians receive local coverage, no matter how small their town is or where it is located. Furthermore, I reject the argument that the New York Times equals auto-notability. Why this one source is constantly put on a pedestal above all others is incomprehensible to me. If the New York Times wrote an article about some small town mayor in Iowa (far outside of its coverage area), sure it would be notable, but when it writes an article about a mayor in New Jersey in its Jersey section, it amounts to nothing more than local coverage within its distribution area.--Rusf10 (talk) 22:25, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep The scope and breadth of reliable, verifiable and independent sources about the subject in regional and national newspapers demonstrates that the notability standard has been satisfied. Given the 20 million people and more than a thousand municipalities in the New York metropolitan area, the extent of coverage that Cresitello has received provides evidence of notability. Alansohn (talk) 02:30, 11 June 2020 (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.