Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Frank Gross


 * 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, default to keep. Stifle (talk) 15:40, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Frank Gross

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

"Well-known life insurance underwriter" from small town in Canada. Declined speedy. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 19:42, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * That's not the content of the article. I was only trying to add human interest information by stating that. Frank Gross has special recognition as a widely known philanthropist and only Chatham-Kent citizen in history to be honored with a provincial medal (for good citizenship).--Paul144 (talk) 19:45, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm assuming this is your family member, so please don't take this personally, but being the only person in his district awarded a Canadian provincial medal for citizenship probably doesn't meet the standards of WP:NOTE, which is why I nominated the article for deletion. Sorry. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 19:59, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete Article contains a lot of original research - how many miles he rode on his bike, for instance. I haven't found any newspaper/magazine/etc. articles written about Frank Gross.  The community service awards are borderline notable - many don't even have their own article on Wikipedia.  That this seems to be a vanity piece (why is the number of miles he rode on his bike important?) tips it for me. --Mr. Vernon (talk) 20:52, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I had researched other past and present citizens of Chatham-Kent before making the entry. Although one feature -- such as being an athlete or an architect -- is usually the apparent reason for the person being notable among those listed as Chatham-Kent "famous people", other personal interest elements about Frank Gross were added to give depth to the man. The details about the bike logs were well-known in the community by friends, business people he knew, police and service organizations. They also reflect Frank's meticulous character, further giving color to the historical description.


 * Details about awards other than the OMC were obtained from a collection of letters, newspaper articles and plaques. There appear to be no online announcements of these awards, but neither do these organizations typically post such information on their websites. The Chatham-Kent Museum has on current display Frank's bike, OMC plaque and a historical summary.


 * In comparison to other entries for the small community of Chatham-Kent -- for which there are some 36 people listed -- Frank Gross had more public recognition (national, provincial and district awards) for a longer period of time (over some 11 years) than most. Unfortunately, archives that would report with relatively frequency his cycling and service activities can be retrieved only under a fee from the publisher of the Chatham Daily News. I made one minor edit about an online report of the Cancer Society's banquet for him, October 2006. --Paul144 (talk) 21:46, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Even if the sources are not online, you can note the source. Can you add any more Reliable sources for the information in the article? Double Blue  (Talk) 23:49, 20 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I added links to the two local newspapers where his awards had been announced over the years. Thanks. I also added a sentence to the Freemasonry section, describing an annual award named after Frank given by the Masons to a graduating high school student from Chatham-Kent having humanitarian activity combined with high academic standing. --Paul144 (talk) 01:47, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete An excellent man, but unfortunately he doesn't pass the notability test. A  ni  Mate  23:56, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * All due respect, AniMate, but isn't it relative to the locale of the candidate Wiki person, region and article content? In this case, WP:PEOPLE explains criteria that are easily met by this person (see under Additional Criteria, Any biography, perhaps moreso than several others listed as "famous" on the Chatham-Kent Wiki site. There would seem to be a double-standard where a person gaining a professional sports contract, by example, is notable, whereas a humanitarian recognized by federal, provincial and local governments is not. The motivation for writing this article was to provide a historical benchmark for charitable work in Chatham-Kent, highlighting a rare Ontario award for citizenship. Plain vanilla and boring to some, but equal in historical significance to the city and county as any athlete. --Paul144 (talk) 00:31, 18 August 2008 (UTC)


 * From the link, Wikipedia:Notability (people), '''Additional criteria

'''
 * A person is generally notable if they meet any of the following standards.


 * Any biography


 * The person has received a notable award or honor, or has been often nominated for them.
 * The person has made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in his or her specific field.


 * Frank Gross meets both of these criteria.


 * Lower on the Additional criteria page, defining criteria for athletes, a category for which there are 13 people listed out of the 30 not counting Frank Gross, i.e., the predominant class of "famous" for people listed from Chatham-Kent.


 * Athletes


 * Competitors who have competed in a fully professional league, or a competition of equivalent standing in a non-league sport such as swimming, golf or tennis.
 * Competitors who have competed at the highest level in amateur sports.


 * Given that the respective qualifications for being notable due to "Biography" or as an "Athlete" are subjectively the same, it does not seem rational that Frank Gross would be excluded for being any less the philanthropist than most of these people would be for their participation in sports. --Paul144 (talk) 18:30, 18 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Merge and Redirect either to Ontario Medal for Good Citizenship or to Chatham-Kent. I agree, your father was a good man (my father was a good man too); and it does seem unfair that athletes from Chatham-Kent are entitled to an article and that someone who worked on making positive contributions to society get overlooked.  Perhaps you can mention him in an article about the medal. Mandsford (talk) 01:48, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete - a charming and really rather engaging article but Wikipedia does not include on the basis of charm and engagement. Whilst it is a lovingly written bio on an interesting and clearly worthy life, I do not see evidence that the subject passes WP:BIO - it all seems to hang on the Ontario Citizenship medal & an OBE it ain't. nancy  talk 20:10, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions.   --  Fabrictramp  |  talk to me  21:49, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. Several references to independent, secondary sources have now been added meeting WP:BIO. He may be a minor person on an international level but there exists enough local reliable sources for a Verifiable, NPOV, No original research article. Any content that cannot be sourced can be removed. Double Blue  (Talk) 17:27, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep: this man is notable because: he is a recipient of the OMC award, which Wikipedia has recognised its notability by having an article on it (Ontario Medal for Good Citizenship); he is the only resident of Chatham-Kent to have received the OMC award; he is also notable as a freemason and humanitarian who through the application of his philosophy gained recognition with the OMC award; the government of Ontario (Canada) considers this man important and notable and pays full respect to him, why shouldn't we also recognise his notability? Are we somehow more important than the government of Ontario in deciding who is notable and who isn't? The government employs people whose job is about deciding whether a person is important and notable, and they recognised the importance and notability of this man by granting him the high honour of the OMC.  There are many references in the article now and it is of high quality.  We also have so many articles on minor music groups, hardly-known athletes, obscure singers, local beauty peagant award recipients, and other personalities that when compared to this man they seem obscure and hardly notable, so to say that we ought to delete an article about an OMC recipient is totally unreasonable.  I am not saying that we shouldn't have articles on small music bands, athletes, etc if they are somehow notable in their fields.  What I am saying is that we should not allow our encyclopedia to become a pop 'pedia, where obscure pop personalities who hardly even had any TV time are considered more notable than scientists, humanitarians, and people who gained the highest respect of their governments through their excellent citizenship. We should grant equal Wikipedia coverage to all people who are notable in their fields, and not discriminate against some fields (eg humanitarianism) while giving more coverage to fields that are liked by the masses (eg entertainment, sports, etc).  Wikipedia's own guidelines clearly say that people who have received or nominated for important awards (and OMC is important) are notable, and this man clearly qualifies.  NerdyNSK (talk) 11:44, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It does not follow that just because we have an article on Ontario Medal for Good Citizenship then all recipients are automatically notable - a twist on "notability is not inherited". I have a Blue Peter badge, we have an article Blue Peter badge, I remain non-notable nancy  talk 06:46, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Locobot (talk) 01:27, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.

I undid a non-admin closure but we need further discussion of the notability of the award to settle this one. Spartaz Humbug! 09:24, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * "Notability" is a matter of reference to the locale, as I first mentioned above on 18 Aug. The OMC designation is important enough to the government and people of Ontario that it is the highest award a member of Ontario's population of 13 million can receive for humanitarian work. Each award year recognizes about 13 people so the award rate is one in one million.
 * Motivation for writing the article, however, was mainly for the history of Chatham-Kent and to place a benchmark for humanitarianism in this small rural municipality with a population of just 109,000. The OMC is highly notable for Chatham-Kent, since no one else from the area has ever been provided the award, whereas -- in the larger scheme of national or international humanitarianism -- it would have little significance.
 * However, if taken in the context of what an encyclopedia provides its users, think of this article as if you were a high school student using Wikipedia for historical research on Chatham-Kent's citizens. Only one of Chatham-Kent's people in history has been recognized by the provincial government for altruism and philanthropy. That is what motivated creation of the article, and that is why it is notable.--Paul144 (talk) 12:46, 24 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment Several people here, myself included, have assumed that the subject of the article is a family member of the article's creator. WP:NOTMEMORIAL aside, this raises a conflict of interest question. While I don't want to out anyone here, it may be helpful if the article's creator were to address that question directly. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 15:34, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I am the son of the subject and trustee of his possessions, some of which are reference material for the article. However, a question of WP:NOTMEMORIAL or conflict of interest seems moot at this point after a week of review by many editors. Anything suggestive of conflict of interest could/would have been edited out if there was blatant overstatement. The article has been crafted to be well-sourced, truthful and showing notability, while hopefully using just enough personal information from records to make it interesting and personable.--Paul144 (talk) 16:08, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I brought the question up more in relation to your arguments at this AfD rather than regarding the content of the article, but the guidelines applies there as well, regardless of any discussion here. Thank you for that disclosure. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:17, 24 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Weak delete - not really all that notable, still there appears to be a significant amount of independent media coverage --T-rex 20:59, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * These two statements are contradictory. If there is significant, independent media coverage, it is notable. Double Blue  (Talk) 18:36, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete, many people who have been given the more prestigious Order of Ontario are redlinks, because getting either award doesn't make a person notable, at least not for Wikipedia. Who will ever be looking this man up, outside from people who knew him? Fee Fi Foe Fum (talk) 00:57, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * That other ones are redlinks is not overly meaningful (see WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, which is related to this idea). Perhaps they've yet to be created.
 * Keep. I would be the non-admin doing the previous closure, and as I can't well close it again when this is done with anyway, I might as well discuss it (intermingling this with the reason I saw consensus earlier).  I would agree wholeheartedly that the WP:COI is moot at the moment, as above.  Also, while notability is not assumed under the basic criteria at WP:BIO, this article doesn't abjectly fail it due to the first additional criterion: receipt of a notable award or honour.  I understand that this does not in any way assure notability, but what coverage in mainstream media there is seems to bolster the notability claim somewhat.  Nancy's comment directly above the relist is somewhat contradicted by the nature of the notability of the award (one being relatively insignificant in one's life and the other being one of the highest possible honours).  This may be a slightly tenuous claim to notability, but it is a valid one nonetheless, and so the letter of the law, as it were, is fulfilled.  Bearing in mind that Wikipedia is not paper, I don't think this article's presence really costs us anything, and besides this, the article doesn't really violate what I would see as the spirit of the notability policy anyway.  Even supposing this does have mild origins in some kind of vanity, what really matters is whether it is outside of deletion policy, and I think that it has been established above that this is not.  --Falcon Darkstar Kirtaran (talk) 10:31, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Further comment. There seems to be some confusion between Notability and Fame and importance. WP:N is a guideline for interpreting the policies of V, NPOV, and NOR when it is unclear whether an article will be able to meet those requirements. That's why the basic criterion of WP:N is simply, "A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has been the subject of published secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject." The additional criteria are used to judge articles that may be of note but are not well-enough sourced at this date to pass the basic criterion. This article passes the basic criterion of adequate independent sources. The fact that the initial author has a conflict of interest means we need to be more vigilant and stringent in ensuring a NPOV and I would recommend that he maintain a distance from the article and simply correct clear mistakes. Double Blue  (Talk) 18:45, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Your point about notability versus fame is well taken, but the guideline also contains a reminder that coverage in secondary sources only provides the presumption of notability. It is up to the community to reach consensus about individual articles. There was a tremendous amount of worldwide media attention given to Australian party-boy Corey Delaney, but he doesn't have his own article. Frank Gross sounds like a nice person who did good things and was beloved in his small community, but to be completely unsentimental about it, if this were an autobiography rather than a memorial, I don't think we'd even be having this discussion. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 21:15, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The issue with Corey Delaney, as I see it, is that there's very little media coverage about him — it's all about an event he was involved in, which isn't the same thing at all. Which is why we have WP:BLP1E. Bearcat (talk) 19:19, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * You're right - it was just the first example that came to mind. There are probably many better examples. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 19:49, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep The subject clearly exists (there's a picture of him). A list of over ten sources also say he exists. Well-written, too. Not every subject of a WP biography has to be famous to every person in the country. Erik the Red  2 ( AVE · CAESAR ) 14:14, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Existence does not equal notability, and a more careful reading of the article would show that the subject no longer exists, which seems to be relevant to this discussion. See my reply to DoubleBlue, just above. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:46, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The primary thing standing in the way of having articles on most recipients of the Ontario Medal for Good Citizenship isn't the notability of the award itself, but the relative paucity of media sources about many such individuals. In this case, however, sources are present, any potential WP:COI issues have been covered by outside contributions, and I don't see a convincing reason why we shouldn't have articles about recipients of this award if they can be properly referenced to verifiable sources. When you get right down to it, notability hinges on the quality of the sources, not the size of the geographic region in which the person can be said to be a household name. Keep. Bearcat (talk) 18:57, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - he's the recipient of a notable award, and has garnered sustained coverage over a period of years. -- Whpq (talk) 14:46, 27 August 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.