Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fidel Vargas (2nd 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 no consensus‎__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__. given the divided opinion on the quality of sources available. Liz Read! Talk! 03:46, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Fidel Vargas
AfDs for this article:


 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Previously nominated in a 48-article bundle which was closed as a procedural keep due to the bundle's size. This person has received some coverage in the LA Times, among other sources, but most of it is WP:ROTM election coverage. The only good thing I could find was this from the LA Times, this from Al Día News and maybe this from Hispanic Executive. The latter two are not major sources. The rest of the coverage that I could find is non-independent. He has held many positions within presidential administrations but none of them confer notability, and I don't think being named in a Time magazine makes you notable either. AllTheUsernamesAreInUse (talk) 05:39, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Businesspeople, Politicians, Finance, California,  and New York.  WC  Quidditch   ☎   ✎  11:49, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Keep a relevant local mayor with sufficent news coverage. Jg10101 (talk) 22:21, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * This isn’t even a mayor. Are you confusing him with the others listed at the bundle? AllTheUsernamesAreInUse (talk) 23:03, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * The article says he was a mayor. Bearcat (talk) 16:05, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Oops, I somehow missed that. AllTheUsernamesAreInUse (talk) 17:23, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 06:48, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Delete per nomination. BottleOfChocolateMilk (talk) 05:17, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Delete. Baldwin Park CA is in no sense large enough that its mayors would get an automatic notability freebie just for existing as mayors, but this article isn't what it would need to be. At the mayoral level, notability is not established by minimally verifying that the person existed, it's established by writing and sourcing substantial content about his political impact: specific things he did, specific projects he spearheaded, specific effects his mayoralty had on the development of the city, and on and so forth. But this isn't doing that. Bearcat (talk) 16:05, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Relisting comment: Relisting. It would be helpful if those editors arguing to Keep this article could state which sources demonstrate GNG instead of stating "looks notable". Specificity helps everyone here. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 01:57, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Keep. Looks notable to me.  Mevoelo (talk) 20:13, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I can see that on the surface but the only seemingly decent non-WP:ROTM, independent sources I could find are the LA Times article linked in the nom statement (which is still about his political career, which definitely does not meet notability guidelines alone), the Time and Hispanic magazine mentions and I guess the Al Dia and Hispanic Executive articles; however, Al Dia is local Philadelphia newspaper and I'm not quite sure what Hispanic Executive is but it seems to be rather obscure. The article about his being appointed to the White House Fellowships Commission and Al Dia article about his being awarded the Manuel Torres Award don't really contribute to notability in my opinion, as those positions/awards don't confer notability, and the White House one is not independent. It's a possibility there could be more sources, but all in all, I just don't think there's enough here. AllTheUsernamesAreInUse (talk) 06:41, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Delete mayors are not notable under WP:NPOL and there is no sourcing which suggests he's notable for any other reason. SportingFlyer  T · C  01:14, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
 * SportingFlyer, I would think that mayors are covered by WP:NPOL #2, though I don't think he meets it. AllTheUsernamesAreInUse (talk) 17:05, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
 * That does cover them, but they aren't "inherently" notable. SportingFlyer  T · C  17:11, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Relisting comment: Final relist to consider sources just found (see above this post) Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 03:31, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Keep: normally I would agree being mayor of a mid-sized town does not meet WP:NPOL but in addition to the other sources, he was covered by the Wall Street Journal (small bio, described Baldwin Park as a "major town"), this retrospective by the LA Times when he decided not to run for mayor again (continued here), and a 2015 piece about his work with the Hispanic Scholarship Fund by The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education .  There are also other possible sources in Spanish I did not assess. S0091 (talk) 17:34, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for finding more sources. I would probably consider the article on his retirement to be fairly WP:ROTM local political coverage, though the others aren't bad. Not sure if I'm sold yet, though. AllTheUsernamesAreInUse (talk) 21:25, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Keep per S0091, I added several articles found on newspapers.com. He has a difficult name to research since it is rather generic in California. Not only was he mayor but also a Hispanic leader as president of an important not-for profit scholarship fund catering to Latinos as well as appointed to various federal commission by 4 separate presidents, both Republican and Democrat. Patapsco913 (talk) 02:31, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Pinging @BottleOfChocolateMilk, @Bearcat and @SportingFlyer for their consideration given the improvements. S0091 (talk) 15:50, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The first two are local coverage, I have no idea if the last is reliable or not considering how interview-y it is. If he's notable, it's not as a mayor. SportingFlyer  T · C  16:37, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * What is the point about local coverage? There is no policy against using local sources. If that were the case, Wikipedia would have very few profiles of mayors most of which are developed using local sources. I simply went to newspapers.com, did a search and quickly found a couple of articles where Vargas is the subject of the article. "People are presumed notable if they have received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject." There are plenty of reliable secondary sources about Vargas that fit this definition amounting to significant coverage. A simple search also shows that he has appeared on Cspan numerous times not in relation to his mayor ship.  Considering that he is a figure from the 1990s and 2000s, how did your review of the newspaper archive sites go? I came up with a couple of articles upon a cursory review. Patapsco913 (talk) 12:34, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * We do have very few profiles of mayors, because simply having coverage is not a guarantee the subject is worthy of inclusion in the encyclopaedia - and almost every politician will have something about them written somewhere, even if they're a mayor of a small town. For mayors we will generally delete if they have only received coverage of being a mayor in local sources. SportingFlyer  T · C  14:39, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @SportingFlyer Vargas has received coverage in The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, Newsweek among other national or non-local sources. S0091 (talk) 14:55, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @SportingFlyer There are 1000s of profiles of mayors. The WP:BIO guideline does not exclude local coverage from consideration. There is WP:SECONDARY coverage as well as ongoing coverage of his career, and the coverage does not appear to be trivial per the objective WP:GNG and WP:BASIC standards. Did you look at the newspaper archives that are available via the Wikipedia library? 00:04, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Just commenting that every mayor is bound to have plenty of local coverage, so as Bearcat has said before, purely local coverage is generally unlikely to provide notability unless we want articles on every mayor in the country. In any case, I wouldn't be too worried about keeping it; it looks like this discussion will probably be closed as no consensus, given the final relist. At this point I'm kind of on the fence about notability. AllTheUsernamesAreInUse (talk) 03:40, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Comment. There is nothing in the guidelines about local coverage and it is completely false that a mayor solely with "local coverage" sources are unlikely to provide notability. Where did you get this?  So a mayor in California needs to have a newspaper in Cleveland write an article about him or her?  Pretty silly. And you seem to define everything as "local coverage".   I ask did you check the newspaper archives and research the subject considering he was a mayor in the 1990s and fund administrator in the 2000s?  Did you notify people who worked on the article? You seem to be on a mission to delete every mayor on Wikipedia with some made up rule about local sources or based on some modifiable essay about "Run of the Mill."   The notability of a mayor does not rest on the population of the city; rather it depends on the ability to write and source a substantive article about the mayor's political impact. If that can be done, then a mayor can keep an article regardless of the size of the city or the use of so-called "local sources".Patapsco913 (talk) 15:25, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * None of this is "made up" – it's how we typically review articles about people whose only claim to notability is being a local politician. Just because someone has something written about them somewhere does not mean they are necessarily eligible for an article. SportingFlyer  T · C  16:03, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Strawman much? Where did I say that if "someone has something written about them somewhere means they are eligible for an article?" Whether an article solely consists of so-called "local sourcing" does not mean that a mayor is usually non-notable. Did you check the newspaper archives or just do a google search on a pre-internet mayor from the 1990s? There is plenty of information already in the article to support a substantive article about the mayor's political impact not to mention his role as CEO of the Hispanic Scholarship Fund and his service on four separate commissions spanning 4 presidencies. He has even appeared on CSPAN four times.Patapsco913 (talk) 16:27, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * If he's notable, it would be because he's a CEO. I will say it again, we generally do not include articles on mayors of small towns. SportingFlyer  T · C  16:41, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Who is we? That is not in the guidelines at all. As I said before, the notability of a mayor does not rest on the population of the city; rather it depends on the ability to write and source a substantive article about the mayor's political impact. If that can be done, then a mayor can keep an article regardless of the size of the city or the use of so-called "local sources". I would not deem a city of 75,000 a small town. Notability does not have to rest on one element: Vargas' was mayor with a significant impact as well as a Hispanic leader both documented in the article. You seem to be hung up on the size of the city which has no role in notability. Heck there is even sourcing from the Boston Globe and Newsday in the article. I guess your search for sources was pretty minimal, eh?Patapsco913 (talk) 16:50, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * He doesn't need a Cleveland article written about him, no. And sometimes local coverage can provide notability, yes; I just said that most of the time it doesn't, as every mayor will have a certain amount of local coverage. Yes, this one has more coverage than most of the other pages in the batch, and I am aware that not all sources are local; that is why I said I am feeling more neutral about deletion. And anyway, as for my "mission to delete all the mayors on Wikipedia", it was mostly just the failed Fidel Vargas batch. Unless a bunch of people come in to comment in the next four days, this discussion will go towards no consensus. I don't really care very much at this point, battle it out as you wish, but vitriol gets us nowhere. Also, I don't really see any more major contributors to notify; I guess I'll ping SDPLPauline. AllTheUsernamesAreInUse (talk) 17:16, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Comment: I requested @SportingFlyer's and others reconsideration, especially given @Patapsco913's fantastic job improving the article, which Sporting has in WP:AGF provided. I disagree with their assessment in this instance but that's ok; it's why we have AfDs.  Like @AllTheUsernamesAreInUse says, there's no need for the discussion to be contentious.  S0091 (talk) 17:56, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, Patapsco did put a lot of good work in on the article. AllTheUsernamesAreInUse (talk) 17:59, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Vitriol seems like a strong word :-) I did not get snarky with anyone until they put words in my mouth which I do not appreciate. The ease with which I found sourcing on Newspapers.com indicates to me that a proper search was not done before nominating the article for deletion. The goal here is to improve Wikipedia and not to just blast through deletions. A mayor from the 1990s should be vetted before AFD via the newspaper archives (which often clears a paywall as well). If sources that establish notability are found, they should be added. The size of the city is not relevant. Local sourcing is sufficient (or else nearly every mayor on Wikipedia would be deleted...unless that is the goal). Personally, I would merge articles with mayors to their city rather than delete. Anyhow more people should learn how to maneuver in the Wikipedia Library. One might be able to save some articles from deletion and help to develop Wikipedia. Patapsco913 (talk) 18:27, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I understand your arguments. I agree that more people should join the Wikipedia Library; I will myself by the end of the month. If it's any consolation I nominated this before I nominated Paul Richards, so I knew less then. AllTheUsernamesAreInUse (talk) 05:27, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, Patapsco did put a lot of good work in on the article. AllTheUsernamesAreInUse (talk) 17:59, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Vitriol seems like a strong word :-) I did not get snarky with anyone until they put words in my mouth which I do not appreciate. The ease with which I found sourcing on Newspapers.com indicates to me that a proper search was not done before nominating the article for deletion. The goal here is to improve Wikipedia and not to just blast through deletions. A mayor from the 1990s should be vetted before AFD via the newspaper archives (which often clears a paywall as well). If sources that establish notability are found, they should be added. The size of the city is not relevant. Local sourcing is sufficient (or else nearly every mayor on Wikipedia would be deleted...unless that is the goal). Personally, I would merge articles with mayors to their city rather than delete. Anyhow more people should learn how to maneuver in the Wikipedia Library. One might be able to save some articles from deletion and help to develop Wikipedia. Patapsco913 (talk) 18:27, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I understand your arguments. I agree that more people should join the Wikipedia Library; I will myself by the end of the month. If it's any consolation I nominated this before I nominated Paul Richards, so I knew less then. AllTheUsernamesAreInUse (talk) 05:27, 25 March 2024 (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.