Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Donna Upson (4th 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   Keep - Not only from the debate below but from the previous full-length AfD debates there is no consensus that the material should be deleted. Merge discussions should take place on the articles talk page as for all other articles. - Peripitus (Talk) 07:03, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Donna Upson
AfDs for this article: 
 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

This is a procedural renomination. I had closed a previous debate (Afd2) as a merge, but was then approached by an editor regarding the expansion of this article. Details of that discussion are here. Enough time has now been given for the article to be expanded/referenced and a decision on this version should be made by the community. Please note the existence of a 3rd nomination which was closed early as out of process. Shereth 20:03, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


 * delete I saw no reason for this article to exist last time and I see no reason for it to exist now. failed election candidate who was convicted of a minor crime - I just don't see the sort of notability that we are looking for. A line on the election article - yes, a seperate article - no. --Allemandtando (talk) 20:10, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Please see User:Abd/Donna Upson for a partial compilation of sources on Upson, there are many, many newspapers and other reliable sources referring to her arrest in Canada and her candidacy, the events during the candidacy, and the outcome, plus there is a mention of her case in 2007, again in a Canadian newspaper. It is clear that these events, both in 2000 or 2001, I forget, and in 2003, made a big splash in Canada that is still remembered. The merge decision wasn't correct because there are plenty of RS for events relating to Upson that is utterly inappropriate for the election article, specifically what happened with the early charges, the later assault and failure to appear charges, all of it before the election. I also consider the time given too short. I am not the Lone Ranger.--Abd (talk) 20:17, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. Failed municipal candidate (a fringe one at that) with a couple of news brief related to her arrest on hate crimes and subsequent release. Having followed Canadian news for years, I never heard of her until I stumbled upon the 2nd nomination for deletion of this article. I wouldn't call her case a "big splash" in any way. She may have had her 15 minutes of local fame in Ottawa and Halifax, but I cannot see any evidence of long term notability, and nothing that amounts to its own Wikipedia article. She's at most one line in the 2003 Ottawa election article.--Boffob (talk) 21:19, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ontario-related deletion discussions.   --  Fabrictramp  |  talk to me  00:26, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep No reason to delete is provided. Colonel Warden (talk) 00:47, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment you could read the delete votes, the previous nominations (especially the second one) and the discussion provided in this nomination before saying "no reason to delete is provided".--Boffob (talk) 01:24, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * If a nominator can't be bothered to articulate some reason to delete the article then the nomination should be dismissed immediately. Starting a guessing game or fishing expedition is abuse of process.  The topic clearly has some merit or it wouldn't have survived 3 previous nominations.  AFD is not if at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again.. Colonel Warden (talk) 01:38, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Furthermore, it seems that the nominator doesn't actually want to delete the article - he wants to unmerge it. This discussion has no business here - it should be conducted on the talk page(s) for the article(s) in question. AFD is for proposals to delete articles, not for other matters. Colonel Warden (talk) 01:46, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * If you would have been bothered to read what I said more thoroughly, you'd know that the nominator doesn't want anything except to generate more discussion on this matter as per an agreement with a certain editor who wanted to un-merge the material. Shereth 04:04, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Also - contrary to your statement this article has not "survived" 3 previous nominations. One was speedily closed without regards to the article itself, and one was closed as a merge, not keep.  For you to characterize this as an attempt to game the system by repeatedly renominating the article demonstrates that you really aren't up to speed with what is going on here.  I'd suggest you read the previous discussions prior to further attempting to draw conclusions as to the intentions of the nominator or other involved editors. Shereth 04:08, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * You should not start a process of this sort just to "generate more discussion" - that's what talk pages are for. Colonel Warden (talk) 16:03, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment. The first AfD for this article was in 2005, and the result was a clear Keep, 8 Keep /2 Delete+nom /2 abstain. One of the Delete voters commented about his Google search with few hits. What I found last month is that the bulk of RS for Upson is in newspaper archives that are not Googleable. I was able to find these where the content could be purchased. I didn't pay for content, so I only saw headlines and lead sentences, but there is plenty of source. When someone can get access to the articles, there is ample detail that hasn't been shown in the article, I'm sure. There are a couple of holes, mysteries, that would doubtless be explained in the full sources. For example, her arrest prior to the Ottawa election was quite likely from fallout from the 2000-2001 events. She was convicted of the original crimes and sentenced to, as I recall, two years. But after a year, an appeals court threw out some of the charges against her and her time was reduced and she was released. However, she was promptly rearrested on two assault charges from incidents while she was incarcerated, plus a failure to appear charge. She was released and I speculate that she never returned for trial, which then explains what she was arrested for in 2003 ("assault and failure to appear"). But I have found no source explicitly connecting the dots. It is probably in the detail I have been unable to see. I had been thinking of asking for assistance from Canadian editors who might have library access to the newspapers.
 * In the second AfD the nomination reason, by GreenJoe, was "Fails WP:BIO. She's a failed mayoral candidate. Not at all notable." Failed mayoral candidates don't usually have anything remotely like the national coverage she received, and it was not the first time she was covered. WP:POLITICIAN would indicate she's notable, because of that wide notice. The !vote was 4 for Merge, 9 Keep, and 9 Delete + nom. The closing admin, Shereth, decided on Merge as a compromise, but nobody had consulted the editors of the Ottawa election article! I'd say that most of the detail from the Upson article, reliably sourced, has no place in the Ottawa election article, specifically nearly all the information about the events of 2000-2001, which did receive national attention. After the AfD closed, the closing administrator agreed to reverse the Merge decision and allowed the article to be unblanked and developed, it now has far more source than it did previously, and there is plenty that hasn't been used yet.
 * The third AfD, a rapid renom (1 day after closure) by GreenJoe, was speedy closed by Shereth as premature. It had attracted 3 Keeps and one Merge/Conditional Keep before being closed, and one Keep added after. The nominator attempted to revert the closure, but then retired from Wikipedia with a comment showing that a strong issue for him was the "woman.", "At least I can say with a clear conscience that I don't support this woman." I mention this because we should be careful with AfDs based on a dislike of what the subject of the article stands for or believes, and the 2nd and 3rd AfDs seem to have proceeded from this.
 * So now we have the 4th AfD, which appears to be Shereth keeping his promise to renominate. Admirable, though I think a bit premature. But the information in the article is reliably sourced, and the fact that an abundance of reliable source exists indicates that she was notable at the time, and notability does not expire.--Abd (talk) 03:23, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Fame and notability are two separate things. She was mildly (in)famous for a little while, but never notable in the encyclopedic sense. Read the entirety of WP:NOTE instead of taking the "Notability doesn't expire" part out of context. Notability doesn't expired "if a subject has met the general notability guideline". She doesn't meet the guideline. She was a small, local news event once for hate crimes, and once for a fringe candidacy. As a "politician" (in quote because anyone with a couple hundred bucks can be a mayoral candidate, she never actually actively did any politics), she fails to meet the guidelines. As a criminal, she fails to meet the guidelines. All you have is some coverage by reliable sources, mostly local media. But this falls under WP:BIO1E: "Coverage in Reliable sources may at times be extensive..." is right there. The message is still cover the event, not the person. We have an article on the 2003 Ottawa elections. The only reason she was in the news at the time, as a fringe candidate, is because of her prior conviction. Altogether, it's still WP:BIO1E, so it doesn't amount to something worthy of its own article. --Boffob (talk) 04:07, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * What Boffob has written is substantially false. It was not "a small, local news event." It was national news in Canada. Not just once. Yes, with a couple of hundred bucks you can be a candidate. Does this give you substantial CBC coverage? She got it. Are there six letters to the editor published in a major newspaper about the candidacy? There were. (I haven't seen the letters, but a lot of people were outraged.) Look at the sources page I mentioned above, User:Abd/Donna Upson (which, by the way, does not start with RS, it was compiled as I searched, and starts with a blog, but finds RS). "mostly local media" is major Canadian mainstream newspapers and CBC. She had CBC coverage in 2000 and in 2003. There are over thirty newspaper articles, I think, from major newspapers. Not all of them are independent, i.e., the same news source was sometimes used in various newspapers, and I haven't done a detailed analysis of how many truly independent articles there are, and I can't really tell from the summaries I have, since each newspaper edited the news differently, presenting different leads. By the way, I reread WP:NOTE following Boffob's suggestion, and it convinced me of her notability. I don't know where he gets the idea that this was a "small, local news event." Maybe it deserved to be, but it wasn't. (And there is more than one event here, there are several in 2000-2001 and several in 2003. There is also a mention of her in 2006, just an example (apparently considered notable by a newspaper) of a rare charge: hate crime. See the Sources page I reference.--Abd (talk) 04:41, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * WP:NOT. She made the news twice, mostly in briefs. Would her arrest make her worthy of her own wiki article? No, it's not a historically notable event (people getting arrested make it to the news, even national news, all the time). Would her failed mayoral candidacy make her worthy of her own article? Again, no, she was a fringe candidate. We need "historical notability". She has none. She was in the news essentially twice: once for a small crime, and once a few votes because the media created attention to her candidacy (controversy sells papers). The only notable event she was a part of was the 2003 Ottawa election, which makes her case fall under WP:BIO1E. As an example, Julie Couillard is undoubtedly much more notable than Donna Upson (the case made international news), yet see where the link redirects.--Boffob (talk) 13:08, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Let's look at each of these claims: "made the news twice, mostly in briefs." What does "twice" mean? There are reports from when she was charged with the hate crime. There are reports from when she was convicted. There are reports from when she appealed. There are reports from when she was released and rearrested. There are reports from when she filed for candidacy, an event that would ordinarily cause no reports or few reports at all, if she weren't notable. There were six letters to the editor of the Ottawa Citizen (not "minor local news") over her candidacy, speeches given by other candidates referring to her. There were reports when she was again arrested, and there were reports about her vote count, called "startling." Why "startling"? Because it was considered unusual, unexpectedly high. She was actually successful in what she set out to do, which was to display some support in the voting population for her fringe views. So "failed candidacy" would imply that she failed. She didn't. She succeeded, not in becoming the mayor, which wasn't her goal nor the goal of her supporters. It was to gain publicity, and she got it. Lots of it. No. The fact that she ran, alone, would not make her notable. But that she ran accompanied by widespread national notice and that she had been so noticed before does make her notable.
 * I see that there is actually substantial argument, very recent, that Julie Couillard deserves her own article. I have not investigated it, but I'll say this: if there is source for Ms. Couillard like there is for Donna Upson, this would be correct. The argument made here is a variation on WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, i.e, "other stuff does not exist." Which is actually quite untrue, I'm sure. We have other entries with less source showing notability. One might note that I have not raised that argument!
 * WP:NOT contains this: "Unless news coverage of an individual goes beyond the context of a single event, our coverage of that individual should be limited to the article about that event, in proportion to their importance to the overall topic." Upson satisfies the requirements of this, clearly. (Besides the fact that there was more than one event, even if we take the criminal case and its fallout, which continued for around three years, is an election a "single event?" actually, there were at least three widely reported events in connection with the election: her candidacy and the response, her arrest before the election, and the election results. Most minor "failed candidacies" would see only coverage in lists, nothing like what Upson received. As to the criminal charge, "hate crime" is actually an unusual charge in Canada, apparently, so unusual that in newspaper report of another hate crime case in 2006, Upson's case was mentioned. This alone shows notability! I.e, a reliable source referred to the case as unusual, worthy of note.
 * If Boffob is as incautious about his editing of articles as he has been about his comments here, I'm worried! What he calls "a few votes" wasn't, in context. It was "startling." He impeaches reliable source because they, if I translate it, publish what they think will interest readers. I.e., what their readers will consider notable. He's got it backwards! We use newspapers, generally, as reliable source for notability, precisely because this is what they do. They don't publish material that they don't consider notable, and we use their editorial judgement as proof of notability. That is, a single incident becomes notable enough that we might use a single report on it to justify a sentence in an article. And multiple reports, widespread, with even less than exists for Upson, shows sufficient notability for an article. If all of that source relates to what is legitimately a single incident, then the information would still properly be placed in an article on that incident (here, the Ottawa election article). But it doesn't so fit, it is broader than that. Her arrest and conviction in 2001-2002 was independently notable (as shown by the 2006 reference to it as a notable hate crime).
 * Finally -- yes, I hope it is finally, WP:BIO1E, as I read it and with a reasonable definition of "one event," suggests, not what Boffob claims, but that Upson have her own article. This is really just an expansion on WP:NOT, cited as if it were some independent argument. I would guess that Boffob is Canadian (haven't checked beyond a brief look at earliest contributions), and we must realize and factor for the fact that many Canadians reacted with horror to her candidacy and have a strong interest in making it clear that she doesn't represent the Canadian public; this seems to have been the case with the prior nominator, GreenJoe. While some suspected POV of Boffob isn't directly relevant, we should be aware of the possible distortion of arguments that can come from a strong POV. I have utterly no axe to grind here other than an interest in having Wikipedia be complete and balanced, within and satisfying the notability and verifiability policies and guidelines, but, I suppose, once you have researched a subject, looking for reliable sources, there can be some attachment to seeing that research used. --Abd (talk) 14:54, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but all the news related to her crimes do not make them a notable event. As I said, again, tons of people get arrested, undergo the standard legal procedures and all this gets reported in the news all the time. Altogether, even with "national coverage" (some news brief get widely reported) for Donna Upson, they do not make an "event" worthy of a Wikipedia article. Without her candidacy, you couldn't make an article, there's not doubt about that. After these non-Wiki worthy trials and tribulations, she was a candidate for a municipal election. That election has a Wiki article. All news coverage she received in that time is tied to the election. She ended up sixth (out of how many) with about 1300 votes (0.71%) which one journalist in Halifax called "startling", though it's just really visibility bias. It's still a pretty clear case of WP:BIO1E.--Boffob (talk) 15:22, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * No. There is newspaper notice of her hate crime conviction in 2006, not related to the election. Because, apparently, of the rarity of such, it was considered notable. By a newspaper. What standard is Boffob using? Personal opinion? The coverage of Upson is not normal for most criminal acts, nor for "failed candidacies." Now, let me ask, is the opinion of "one journalist" writing in an edited major newspaper, as a bylined article, not an editorial, to be discarded in favor of the opinion of Wikipedia Editor Boffob? There may be much more, I've only cited what was relatively easy (not "easy") to find on-line. This is a newspaper mention of the original event, totally unrelated to the election, as far as I can tell, in 2006. If that is not strong evidence of notability, I'm at a loss. There is more, too, outside of clear reliable source, particularly from Canada, international notice, but I haven't dealt with that, since the Canadian RS is so plentiful. Not one article picked up and repeated, not just one event, period.
 * This is what I have on that article, an excerpt from the newspaper archive:
 * Man faces hate crime charge
 * The Chronicle-Herald - 01-18-2006 - 340 words
 * Kristen Lipscombe Staff Reporter - [...] said Tuesday that hate crime charges are "not very common at all. In July 2000, Donna Marie Upson, dubbed Baby Hitler by fellow Ku Klux Klan members, was sentenced in Dartmouth provincial court [...]
 * Note that it was not her opinion. It was the opinion of someone she -- and her editors -- considered notable, I don't know who it was yet. This is one reason why we allow more time for articles to be better sourced! It might actually take months to fill in these details.
 * --Abd (talk) 16:00, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Let's agree to move the rest of these comments to the Donna Upson talk page, for now, shall we?--Boffob (talk) 17:05, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep. How many more AfDs will there be? -- Earl Andrew - talk 03:34, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. Had she just been a candidate for mayor, she's probably not notable. Had she just been a random hate-crime arrestee, she's not notable. It's the combination of the two that make it worth having an article about her—and she certainly deserves a stand-alone article and not merger into the article on the mayoral race. There are ample reliable sources, the article is neutral, and I don't see it as an unreasonable intrusion on her right to future privacy (especially since at least the existence of the news articles can be found with a Google search). (Meta-discussion: I think it was reasonable to have this 4th AfD given the lack of consensus on the 2nd AfD. There has been discussion on the talk page, and I think it was sufficient consideration there before, well, relisting the issue in AfD to see if we have consensus.) —C.Fred (talk) 20:44, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge to Ottawa municipal election, 2003, as of AfD2. As far as I can tell from the article she didn't gain any notability since AfD2, so I don't see any reason not to stick with that result - it's still just the two events, the crime and her candidacy. The many references all just point to those two events, and their subsequent fallout. Notable enough to be mentioned in the context of the municipal election, not notable enough for her own article. --Amalthea (talk) 13:56, 7 July 2008 (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.