Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Glenn Spears


 * 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, with valid points brought up on both sides of the divide. This has been reopened once, and has been open just shy of a month. I do not see a clear consensus emerging with another week of discussion. Star  Mississippi  23:37, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Glenn Spears

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

Fails GNG, no evidence of significant coverage. –dlthewave ☎ 04:29, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. –dlthewave ☎ 04:29, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 12:37, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete Unremarkable career with the usual "I was there" awards and decorations (the bronze star without V device is pretty mundane, especially in the Air Force). I don't happen to buy the "generals are automatically notable" argument, especially in an officer-heavy branch. Intothatdarkness 15:51, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete. I agree: no automatic notability, nothing that suggests he passes the GNG. Drmies (talk) 15:57, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete nothing to suggest this person is notable. It seems a good thing that we scapped the old military notability guidelines.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:55, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete - Agreed that the article provides no evidence of notability for encyclopedic standards.Polyglot Researcher (talk) 09:31, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete fails WP:BASIC, just being a General isn't a pass on notability. Mztourist (talk) 13:20, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. A lieutenant general and commander of the Twelfth Air Force and he's not notable? Utter madness, as usual. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:43, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Makes you wonder, doesn't it. Drmies (talk) 16:28, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * How is it utter madness? He doesn't have the coverage to meet WP:GNG and there is no applicable WP:SNG. Mztourist (talk) 08:06, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Clearly does meet GNG. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:46, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep. What said. Notable as lieutenant general and commander of the Twelfth Air Force. Deleting someone that notable hurts the encyclopedia. Eastmain (talk • contribs) 21:47, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Please identify the policy or SNG that makes him notable. He doesn't meet WP:BASIC therefore he is not notable. Mztourist (talk) 08:06, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Mztourist (talk) 11:57, 31 December 2021 (UTC) Source assessment table 2 follows: Mztourist (talk) 11:57, 31 December 2021 (UTC) Relisting comment: After initially closing the discussion, I was asked by one of the participants on my User talk page to allow more time, which I have agreed to do. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, RL0919 (talk) 04:07, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep per Necrothesp. Former commander of a numbered air force, which carries significant responsibility. At the time, the 12th Air force had about 6 wings and several reserve units, with about 630 aircraft and more than 42,000 personnel. Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 01:18, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Please read WP:GNG it states: "A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". If he doesn't have the coverage and there's no WP:SNG (which there isn't) then he's not notable, notwithstanding his commands. Mztourist (talk) 08:06, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
 * WP:NEXIST applies. As a former commander of a numbered Air Force with the intrinsic responsibility of that high level position, which contains broad command and control with that many forces and subordinate commands, the possibility of existing sources to support notability is strong. This is a general that commands other generals, which gets to his level of responsibility. A search on Newspapers.com of "Glenn Spear" and "Air Force" between 1980-2021 gets 191 matches. Semper fi! FieldMarine (talk) 12:40, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Most of the sources added are not independent and so don't count towards notability. Just saying there are 191 matches doesn't show that he has significant coverage, if you want to keep this page you'll have to add RS. Mztourist (talk) 08:42, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep It looks like a lot of sources and content have been added recently. While I don't think there is the best third-party coverage for LtGen Spears and many of the sources are Air Force publications, I think commanding a Numbered Air Force makes the subject is sufficiently notable to merit a page. Balon Greyjoy (talk) 07:22, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Commanders in these positions are rotated roughly every two years. If his notability stems from commanding the numbered Air Force, he's perhaps best dealt with in a list of commanders (which exists in the article and where he's included). As far what's in the article...I thought LinkedIn existed for this kind of information. Generals in the military aren't especially unique these days, especially in the Air Force given its structure and culture. Intothatdarkness 16:27, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * While its true that this article doesn't have much information not contained in an official Air Force bio or short article about LtGen Spears, the commander of a numbered Air Force is overseeing tens of thousands of people and billions of dollars of infrastructure and machinery. While I don't disagree with the statement that generals aren't inherently notable for the sake of being generals, I would argue that a NAF commander has sufficient notability to merit an article; the lack of extraordinary coverage about them (more often than not negative attention) does not diminish their notability. Balon Greyjoy (talk) 08:15, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment Source assessment table 1 follows:
 * Question who made this table an how was it made? Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 09:47, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I did, I have added my signature. Mztourist (talk) 11:57, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks, looks like a lot of effort went into it. Please provide some details on the methodology used to make the entries on this table. Did you make all these evaluations, and what criteria did you use? Semper fi! FieldMarine (talk) 12:35, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The methodology is me looking at the source to see if its independent, which many aren't, deciding if they're reliable, which almost all are and then taking a view on whether or not coverage is significant, which is generally yes for the USAF sources and no or unable to be determined for the non-USAF sources. Mztourist (talk) 07:41, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment It is possible to view the articles in some cases as OCR text without an account. The first newspaper source in the table is a namecheck reporting a change of command. The second is also a namecheck, saying he accompanied President Bush in his capacity as commander of the 89th Airlift Wing. The article also identifies his wife as Gwenn, as she seems to have been present as well. The Hill AFB article contains a two sentence quote from Spears in his capacity as director of force management policy and deals with Force Shaping Boards (in other words, personnel cuts). I'm not sure I'd call a single quote significant coverage. The article doesn't credit him with shaping the policy or doing anything over than overseeing elements of its execution in 2005. Intothatdarkness 16:37, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I will take a closer look later, but I did add another source to flesh out the command at 89th Airlift Wing. Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 19:35, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Pinging previous participants to make them aware that the discussion was re-opened: User:Dlthewave, User:Intothatdarkness, User:Drmies, User:Johnpacklambert, User:Polyglot Researcher, User:Mztourist, User:Necrothesp, User:Eastmain, User:Balon Greyjoy, User:FieldMarine. If I accidentally missed anyone, feel free to ping them separately. --RL0919 (talk) 04:13, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep as currently written, per WP:HEY. BD2412  T 06:28, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment despite the recent refbombing, I still don't see that BASIC is satisfied. I don't have time to go through the entire source assessment table exercise again particularly as one User will keep adding more refs. Mztourist (talk) 06:53, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment you have added a large amount of references, but it's still not clear to me whether they are enough to establish WP:SIGCOV. Based on the publishers, many appear to be non-independent (i.e. published by USAF or another employer of his) or likely passing mentions (i.e. the headline is not about the article subject). To make it easier for the rest of us to assess this, would you kindly state what you believe to be the WP:THREE best sources that most establish that he is notable? These sources should be both independent (i.e. not USAF/US military, his employer, etc.) and discuss him in as much detail as possible. If the sources you highlight are not freely accessible, please also describe them briefly: what is being said, in how much detail, how long is the section wherein the article subject is discussed, etc. -Ljleppan (talk) 07:45, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi, can you access 5, 9, 13, 14 and 26, or at least get the gist of them? Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 14:28, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Also, for ref 27, you can see it was used here as a ref, as well as some of the actions taken by Spears during the Earthquake. Semper fi! FieldMarine (talk) 14:55, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm still waiting for access to newspaperarchive.com from the WP:Library, could you please give a quick summary of the coverage in #5, #13 and #26? Based on the Google books previews, #9 seems like very passing mentions while ref #14 looks very short and doesn't really have any meat on the bones. -Ljleppan (talk) 16:39, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * There are 10 mentions of Spears in the Air Force One book, two in the beginning as acknowledgements, and the rest about him, his responsibilities before and while at the 89th, about the wing he commands, about the Air Force One airplane itself, and about increase security in the aftermath of 911. In sum, the coverage is not a trivial mention as he is being specifically discussed. Also, can you access the web version on ref 26, the link is included in the ref. Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 18:11, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I did not see the second link for #26. That seems like an extremely run-of-the-mill article with a literal 2-sentence "bio" of Spears. Can you provide the summary of the two other refs I couldn't access? -Ljleppan (talk) 18:14, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * It is short, but not a trivial mention, and important because the aricle also includes details about the magnitude of his command. Ref 5 is short, about 3 sentences, and incudes details about his command at Andrews not included anywhere else. Ref 13 is several sentences about his command at the 89th, and his responsibilities as Wing Commander. Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 19:02, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the summary. -Ljleppan (talk) 19:05, 5 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Comment I'm seeing a lot of name checks and non-independent sources being added, but not much in the way of content that actually demonstrates notability independent of his last command position (which in my view is inherited notability in any case...major commands turn over about every two years). I looked at some of these, and to give one example the Silver Wings piece is from a base newspaper and is essentially a restatement of his official biography with no new information added. Intothatdarkness 13:39, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Weak keep I think the sourcing at present is just barely enough to show notability.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:44, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Weak delete While a large amount of references have been added recently into the article, the bulk of them of them are non-independent. Based on the answers of FieldMarine above to a WP:THREE query, even the best independent sources appear to be very passing mentions of few sentences each in rather routine news coverage. As far as I can tell, Spears' main claim of notability is that he commanded the unit in charge of Air Force One at the time of 9/11. Yet, the potentially most convincing reference, a post-9/11 book about AF1, only mentions him by name a handful of time, with the bulk of the mentions boiling down to a few sentences on a single page. In my view, the references fail to establish that the subject has "received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" (emph. added) and as such the subject fails WP:GNG. While some other editors have indicated that his rank or position would make him inherently notable, I do not believe there exists any policy or guideline to that effect. As for why this is a weak delete, I'm not able to access all the references used in the article and am relying on FieldMarine's WP:THREE above. -Ljleppan (talk) 19:25, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment: the 5 sources above are not "trivial mentions", and each contains important details that address the topic so that no original research is required. I agree that command of 89th Wing and Andrews Air Force Base in the aftermath of 911, with increased public and governmental interest in security at that time, especially for government VIPs, adds to his notability. Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 20:17, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Please note my comment above is not claiming those add to his notability, but rather that they are the primary claim of notability. The distinction is important, especially when significant coverage of those primary claims in independent reliable sources is so light. In my view, this is a strike against the notability, not for it. Furthermore, the standard is not "more than trivial mentions", but rather significant coverage which several sentences is very far from. -Ljleppan (talk) 20:56, 5 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep This is a well written and well referenced article about a significant person. If the notability guidelines indicate the individual should not have an article then this is one of the occasional exceptions when the criteria are providing unsatisfactory guidance. Thincat (talk) 14:17, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep While some sources are not independent, there are an ample amount of articles that are, passes WP:GNG. Jamesallain85 (talk) 19:39, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment, more content with refs added. I believe his notability stems from both his command of the 89th in the aftermath of 9/11 as well as 12th Air force. I'm confident with more research and addition of content, his role as SOUTHCOM Deputy would also contribute to his notability considering the responsibilities involved with that position and the scope of that combatant command. Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 03:42, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * While you added a few more references, a quick spot check of these does not fill me with confidence: "Air Force One: A History of Presidential Air Travel" is a single-sentence mention; Patch.com is not reliable and the story is an advertisement for an event; the WaPo story, again, has literally a single sentence about Spears; "CHIPS" is a navy-sponsored publication; "New Horizons Panama 2010 comes to a close" is an Air Force press release; "Air Power in UN Operations" has first a two-sentence mention followed by a later one-sentence mention. Rather than having us look over all the references you added, please provide an updated WP:THREE (this time, please limit it to three rather than more sources) if you believe the sources you added are better than those you listed in your previous list of best sources. Before doing so, I suggest you revise e.g. WP:LOTSOFSOURCES. -Ljleppan (talk) 08:33, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment, all the sources provide details used for the article that go beyond "a trivial mention" per the general notability guideline. In sum, they "provide enough information for a reasonably detailed article on the subject." Many have pointed out the military related sources are not independent, so cannot be used for GNG, despite the overall size of the military (it seems unlikely, for example, that a Department of the Navy publication is not independent about a member of the Air Force (the Navy is not the employer nor the evaluator of the person)). Setting those aside, here's a summary of a few of the non-military sources:
 * Ref 9: I'm not sure what you can see from Google, but in the book on Air Force One, it mentions Spears by name a total of 11 times, with 1 as an acknowledgement in the beginning and one at the end in the Index. Of those, it first discusses Spears himself, and the size of 89th. Then it goes into the response of the command after 9/11, calling the traveling after that event as "unprecedented", with fighter escorts used for the first time while Air Force One carried Bush, and intel reports stating terrorist wanted to ram the plane while in flight, TTPs used to protect the President and the plane, and the new security measures are the tightest ever, stuff like that.
 * Ref 13: Contains 20 sentences and over 540 words about Spears with a focus on his command at the 89th and Andrews Air force Base.
 * Ref 30: Between pages 217-220, this ref highlights the actions of Spears did to add resources to free up bottle necks in the response to the earthquake in Haiti, particularly at the command and organizational level, and to hammer out the authorities. He is mentioned by name, as "he" and as AFSOUTH. This was one of the major events for AFSOUTH while he was commander.

Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 01:31, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment Still a weak delete from me. Of the WP:THREE above, ref 9 is very passing mentions (9/11, AF1 and the 89th are all notable, but notability is not inherited). For ref 30, references to Spears specifically are extremely passing and we cannot simply insert "Spears" for every instance of "AFSOUTH". And again, the fact that AFSOUTH is notable does not mean its commander is. I cannot access the full text of ref 13, but even if it's fine, a single good reference does not significant coverage make. I'd also be philosophically fine with a merger of the article to e.g. 89th Airlift Wing and Twelfth Air Force but I'm not seeing much that would be worth merging. -Ljleppan (talk) 09:56, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Have you reviewed ref 9, or are you going by the limited parts you can view in Google? In my opinion, viewing the copy in Google misses the context. In sum, ref 9, 13, 14 state that Spears kept the President and national leaders safe in the aftermath of 9/11, and provide details about that, essentially, he was thrown into an unprecedented situation as the commander of the unit with AF1 and Andrews during a critical time. These are not trivial mentions and nor is it inherited notability. They are specific to him. What are trivial mentions is that while commander of Andrews during this time, he was receiving the first casualties of the war overseas, such as Capt Spann, which was basically a one-line mention (but carried in numerous newspapers globally), and certainly an important aspect of his command. For ref 30, my point is that often in the U.S. military, commanders are called by the unit they command, so determining mentions is more than just how many times you count up the name "Spears" in determining coverage. This source provides specific actions he took as the commander during one significant event that occurred during his tenure with 12th AF. I agree that this alone would not make him notable, but the sum total of his actions through several significant commands does, and the sources, some GNG and some not, support that position. Semper fi! FieldMarine (talk) 21:14, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   20:04, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment, also Ref 14 is 13 sentences and over 300 words long, and says, Spears "played a vital part in keeping the president safe", and includes details about that. Semper fi! FieldMarine (talk) 03:00, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment for closing admin, please consider WP:NOTBURO when closing based on some of the comments above. There were comments about the use of military sources for purposes of determining GNG. Many say sources from the military cannot be used as a GNG source for a member of the military and perhaps this has become viewed as conventional wisdom. Personally, I believe there is enough separation in some cases between the source and the subject to qualify the military source as independent of the subject. For example, a Department of the Navy source covering a person in the Air Force. In this case, the DoN is not the "employer" as specified in WP:INDY as non-independent source. Semper fi! FieldMarine (talk) 04:15, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Keep. We have hundreds of similar articles, partly because of he ease of making them from PD-US sources. There is no special reason to delete this one. If we mean to change our practice we should discuss that, not try to establish precedent form a single article.  DGG ( talk ) 07:10, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * We have hundreds of similar articles because of the old military notability guidelines that were disbanded. So the comparison to other articles is flawed and ignores the fact that Wikipedia proactively changed its policies, but it takes a long time to implement new policies against a collection of hundreds of articles. John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:46, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
 * We have hundreds of similar articles because many editors believe that it is common sense that people in these positions are notable and have therefore created them. If you look at recent AfDs you will see that only a handful of editors continually claim that they are not notable. Unfortunately, AfDs are generally not at all well attended and this handful of editors often manages to successfully push their views. That certainly does not mean that they are suddenly right and are doing the best thing for Wikipedia and everyone who disagrees with them is wrong and is not. That is a complete fallacy. As is the claim that Wikipedia has in any way changed its policies. It has not. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:51, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
 * One could say the same of the handful of steady keep voters. Intothatdarkness 14:17, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
 * As I said, this is the problem with relying on AfDs that almost nobody attends. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:56, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia used to have a military notability guideline that said that people who held the military position this man held were default notable. We have scrapped that policy. So yes, we have changed our policy, and a large number of articles we have are legacy articles that pre-date that policy change. For the record my vote above was a weak keep, so I am actually persuaded we should keep this article. However editors need to stop villifying those who have other views on a matter. It is clearly not encouraging participation in Wikipedia for editors to violate the assume good faith guidelines, as the above comments do.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:44, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
 * You seem to be confusing policies with notability guidelines. No policy has been changed. Editors do indeed need to stop vilifying others with different views. As I'm sure you know (since you have taken part in many of the same AfDs), I have been attacked numerous times recently, usually by the same handful of editors, for asserting my views on notability. It's time editors accepted that a view posted on AfD is a valid view and should not be attacked, insulted, mocked, sneered at or used to attack the poster's integrity or good faith. This is not how Wikipedia should work and not how editors should behave. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:56, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep, for the reasons those who want to keep this article. Davidgoodheart (talk) 01:14, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep we have several reliable sources providing significant coverage per the source analysis tables above. I think this article is one occation where we should allow a pass even if the sources aren't independent as there clearly is no shortage of information here and Wikipedia is WP:NOTPAPER. NemesisAT (talk) 21:59, 20 January 2022 (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.