Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eva Moskowitz


 * 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 Bushranger One ping only 02:34, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Eva Moskowitz

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

This person is not notable. The article relies on primary sources and has original research. It reads like an advertisement and does not meet Wikipedia's quality standards. --☥NEO (talk) 08:58, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2013 February 12.  Snotbot   t &bull; c &raquo;  09:21, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm probably the most frequent editor of the article and recommend we keep it. I just counted 20 secondary sources and I didn't finish counting. There are primary sources, but they are allowed if used with care (mainly not using them for more than they say), and they are carefully used, with a preference for secondary sources where available. She was elected a member of the City Council, where she chaired the committee on education and conducted hearings, now runs over a dozen charter schools, publicly has personal views on education, wrote a book, coauthored another book, and wrote a scholarly article, all of which are the subjects of secondary sources cited in the article, and she did more. I don't think there's any original research. Controversies are covered. I doubt anyone writing an advertisement for her would have written it like this article. The additional statement in the AfD that the article "does not meet Wikipedia's quality standards" is not specific enough for an answer. None of the complaints in the AfD nomination were pending on the article's Talk page when I read the nomination and started drafting this reply; one has appeared there in the last half-hour or so and I will respond to it shortly. Please post specifics on the talk page so they can be accommodated or responded to, such as where you believe there is any item of original research, any wrongful sourcing, any advertisement-like style, or any failure to "meet Wikipedia's quality standards". I try to check my watchlist 2-3 times a week and have kept up with past Talk page discussions. Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 17:26, 13 February 2013 (UTC) (Corrected to include new Talk page item: 17:34, 13 February 2013 (UTC)) (Corrected tense: 17:39, 13 February 2013 (UTC))


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, -- Cheers, Ri l ey    00:14, 19 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:37, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:37, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:37, 20 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment. I have heavy concerns regarding WP:BOMBARDMENT and WP:PRIMARY. While the use of primary sources is allowed, the notability of a subject is determined from coverage in reliable secondary sources independent of that subject. If the primary source information is stripped, what is left to determine notability? Regarding the claims to notability, being a member of New York City Council is insufficient to pass WP:POLITICIAN. I would like to see more feedback from other editors, but I am inclined to recommend a redirect with limited merge to Success Academy Charter Schools (which has similar sourcing issues). Location (talk) 17:28, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Moskowitz is controversial and has been for years and so are the schools she runs, and posters on the Moskowitz talk page have raised her being controversial as an issue. As a result, I've made coverage of her work more extensive and sourced it to a greater degree than occurs in many other articles. Secondary sources cited include Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools by Steven Brill, Cheating Our Kids: How Politics and Greed Ruin Education by Joe Williams, Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild by Deborah Siegel, N.Y. Times, the Daily News, The Wall Street Journal (probably online ed.), Wall Street Journal Report on CNBC, N.Y. Observer, Talk of the Nation (National Public Radio), The Chief: Civil Service Leader: The Civil Employees' Weekly, Crain's New York Business, WABC-TV, The Village Voice, N.Y. Amsterdam News, The Culvert Chronicles, The N.Y. Jewish Week (Manhattan ed.), New York magazine, The Atlantic, West Side Spirit, Our Town, South Brooklyn Post, SchoolBook (produced by N.Y. Times & WNYC), Gothamist, National Review, Capital Tonight on YNN, Politicker, Capital New York, Education News Colorado, and Newsmax.TV; for some of these, multiple articles were cited, and this does not include any primary sources in the same publications. Some, such as the N.Y. Times, Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, The Atlantic, National Review, and 2 or 3 of the books, have national readerships. In no case did the same story appear in multiple publications that I then cited as multiple sources; I cited an underlying story only once unless different sources had different information. I've been selective with sources, as in not relying on the N.Y. Post because of its journalistic standards. While there are a lot of referents, that's because Moskowitz did a lot that was reported in secondary sources, but no statement is supported by more than 3 referents, Wikipedia's usual maximum, and, even so, only 2 statements are supported by 3 referents each. No citation is for a trivial statement. They are not used for synthesis of conclusions unsupported by sources. Thus, no bombardment is present, and generally the same is true of the Success Academy Charter Schools article. Primary sources generally are used where secondary sources were unavailable and not where secondary sources are available, also true of the schools article.
 * Her work in electoral political office on schools was described in the book Cheating Our Kids and she was criticized for her work in office in another book, The Scandal of Reform, albeit briefly in the latter, both cited in the article. There probably are more secondary sources that can be found on Moskowitz; for example, I think as a councilmember she arranged for a public noncharter high school to be opened in a neighborhood lacking one (I have to check that but it's probably true), but I mainly reworked the article from the state it was in. I now have some substantial N.Y. Times articles from her political time and plan to look for more, which I plan to incorporate into the article over the next week or so if they add new information (they probably do). That should meet the notability standard for politicians.
 * I've begun looking for a photo of her; apparently, only one free image exists (although I haven't found it at the domain credited by a newspaper) and, if I can't get that one, I may get one under the fair use doctrine. I have not rushed to add content because it already has more content than many similar articles on politicians, and she has done more than hold office, but when I find more I add it, both positive and negative. Merging into the Success Academy Charter Schools article would soon mean cutting content (to prevent coatracking) when both she and the schools are already controversial generators of content, risking that criticisms would become dominant (because editors have wanted more criticisms than are already in the personal article, some of which were moved to the schools article as relevant) while what gets criticized would then get short shrift, causing a nonneutral imbalance. Her schools attract applicants for teaching positions from, apparently, around the nation in large numbers, so it's likely Wikipedia's readers of the school and Moskowitz articles are spread around the U.S., albeit not evenly. On the talk page, I've invited edits and discussions, but not much has been forthcoming lately, so it appears that I have not missed any significant sources that any other editors know about.
 * I'm open to suggestions. Nick Levinson (talk) 16:34, 21 February 2013 (UTC) (Clarified a sentence: 16:44, 21 February 2013 (UTC))
 * A feature article in the N.Y. Times was about Moskowitz and is now included in support of new content in the Wikipedia article. Mayoral Ambitions and Sharp Elbows; Councilwoman Spars Way Into a Position of Influence, by Winnie Hu, April 29, 2004, was about Moskowitz throughout. Thus, the notability standard for politicians has been met. I have more Times articles to read and on which to decide whether to cite and should get to them within about a week. Nick Levinson (talk) 16:39, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep But oh goodness, clean it up. Any New York City councilmember is going to have coverage up to here. Just click on that Google News link and keep on raeding. Ray  Talk 01:50, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep, although being a member of the New York City Council does not automatically make the subject notable per WP:GNG, the subject has received significant coverage from multiple reliable sources including the New York Times and elsewhere where the source has the subject has the primary sumject of the source. Therefore, the subject clearly passes WP:GNG, and this might fall under WP:BEFORE. That being said, the article needs work, and relies to heavily upon primary sources; but AfD is not a substitute for cleanup.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:53, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep and cleanup. It turns out there is an acceptable non promotional version in the history from 2010, and i have improved the article by reverting to it. (It will need a certain amount of updating) The subject is certainly notable, and there are sufficient sources, but I see the revert as the only alternative to deleting and  starting over from scratch. AfD is in practice both an effective motivation for cleanup, and, as a last resort, a way of achieving it. It can also be used  for a poor article with content so unacceptable that it is better removed from the history.  But the manner of writing and sourcing this article is so hopelessly unacceptable that drastic action might be justified. If I had not already commented on the editor's work on a related article, i would even have considered G11.   DGG ( talk ) 02:50, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Weak delete. I'm not really sold on keeping councilmember articles, unless the guidelines entitle all such people to their own articles.  –BuickCenturyDriver 04:11, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not defending the article on that basis, but her work as an author and an educator.  DGG ( talk ) 17:22, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
 * She has indicated a probability (secondarily sourced) of running for Mayor in 2017, as was stated in the article, so her history in office is relevant. Nick Levinson (talk) 17:46, 25 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep (not a weak keep, but maybe a little bit quivering) per DGG's salvage suggestion and per RightCowLeftCoast. City council members may not be automatically notable, but that doesn't make them automatically non-notable either; she passes GNG on the basis of substantial coverage of her activities both as a political figure and as an educator/author.  While I understand the merge suggestion, ultimately I think that may be confusing, and her notability does seem to go well beyond the Success Academy. This article will require close watching from neutral editors to avoid a repeat of the WP:BOMBARDMENT problem correctly noted by Location; a prior draft of this article had one of the highest footnote-to-words-of-text ratios I've seen in a long article, but it was extremely difficult to separate the useful independent sources from the promotional chaff.  --Arxiloxos (talk) 17:49, 25 February 2013 (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.