Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Horace B. Griffen


 * 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. A fair discussion here. It was identified that the individual does not seem to meet any one specific notability guideline. Those guidelines however expressly permit notability to be established via other means and there seems to be a consensus around the fact that the person maintained a local sustained notability and likely meets the General notability guideline. Seddon talk 08:10, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Horace B. Griffen

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Unelected political candidate: fails WP:NPOL. WP:BEFORE shows a long career in journalism newspapers (see below), but not enough to pass WP:GNG. Ingratis (talk) 16:03, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Update, from further refs added to the article: apparently not a journalist but involved in newspaper advertising and circulation. Ingratis (talk) 17:57, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Ingratis (talk) 16:03, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Journalism-related deletion discussions. Ingratis (talk) 16:03, 21 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Leaning keep. This is an interesting case. According to his obituary, he played professional baseball with the Chicago White Sox for two months while in college (presumably in the 1910s or early 1920s, since his education was interrupted by three years of service in World War I). As it happens, he played for Arizona State University. Guess who shows up in Template:Arizona State Sun Devils baseball coach navbox the year before the war? BD2412  T 17:42, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment: Oh great, a fleeting baseball career. Is there any way to link to the actual articles from the Arizona Republic? Also, what is the source for HBG's inclusion in the coaches navbox, since the navbox itself is not a source? If you can come up with that I'll withdraw the nomination.Ingratis (talk) 19:28, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I have already posed that very question to User:Jweiss11, who added the names including Griffen to the navbox. I'm not so concerned about the fleeting baseball career as I am about the prospect that the collection of activities (sports, military, journalism, politics) leads to aggregate notability. As for the article, you can sign up for access to resources like this at Library. BD2412  T 19:43, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't see anything notable beyond the pro baseball career, I'm afraid, if that can be adequately sourced. He served in WWI - like millions. He was a respected provincial newspaper editor and a failed candidate for office. A (very) local museum has a page about him on their website. Adding them all together doesn't = notability. Ingratis (talk) 19:50, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
 * BD2412, I likely populated Template:Arizona State Sun Devils baseball coach navbox using the Arizona State baseball media guide (2019 edition: https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/asu.sidearmsports.com/documents/2019/2/15/19BSBMediaGuide1.pdf) or the NCAA records database (https://web1.ncaa.org/stats/StatsSrv/careersearch). Jweiss11 (talk) 00:50, 22 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep seems that Griffen never played Major League Baseball, but given that he won the Republican nomination for a state governor election and given the abundance of converge on the subject including an obituary picked up by the AP, subject passes GNG. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jweiss11 (talk • contribs) 01.12, 22 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment - it now appears (above) that HBG never played Major League baseball, and when he was coach of what is now the Arizona Sun Devils team it was not a college or university team, but only a school side for the Tempe Normal School, which did not become a college until the 1920s, so he fails WP:BASEBALL/N, and I'll not after all withdraw the nomination. He also fails WP:NPOL as an unelected candidate. As for the coverage, most of it is from the Arizona Republic, which is not surprising since he worked for it, and the rest relate either to his short, modest and non-notable baseball career or to his failed candidacy. So my view remains that he's not notable. Ingratis (talk) 01:55, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Curbon7 (talk) 03:33, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Baseball-related deletion discussions. Curbon7 (talk) 03:33, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Arizona-related deletion discussions. Curbon7 (talk) 03:33, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete. I have been trying to source his playing career... according to ASU sources he signed with the White Sox organization in late 1914 and played briefly in their farm systems at the start of 1915 before joining the army.. however this is before farm systems were really a thing and baseball reference has no stats listed for him with the 1914 or 1915 Milwaukee minor league clubs and there was no "Green Bay" team in the American Association in either year... they had a team in  the Wisconsin-Illinois League in 1914 but he's not listed there either... so if he was on a roster he never played. Spanneraol (talk) 17:23, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete. People do not get Wikipedia articles just for standing as candidates in elections they did not win — the notability test for politicians is holding a notable office, not just running for one, and to make an unelected candidate notable enough for inclusion you must demonstrate either (a) credible evidence that they had preexisting notability for other reasons besides a non-winning candidacy per se (the Cynthia Nixon test), or (b) a much greater depth and range of coverage than normal, marking their candidacies out as much more special than other people's candidacies in some way that would pass the ten year test for enduring significance (the Christine O'Donnell test.) But being signed by a major league baseball team does not pass our notability criteria for baseball players if the person never actually played in a major league baseball game, which eliminates option A, and there's no strong evidence being shown here that his candidacy itself would satisfy option B. Bearcat (talk) 13:34, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete -- We have articles on failed presidential candidates, but not (I think) below that. A brief career in baseball is not enough to make him notable.  Peterkingiron (talk) 17:47, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
 * keep is where I'm ending up on this one. There's not really a specific "thing" that he's notable "for" in our guideline library, except that it seems he's gotten a whole lot of coverage for whatever he happened to be doing at most any given point in life. That, to me, points to a pass on WP:GNG.--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:55, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  MBisanz  talk 18:24, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment. I am inclined to treat a normal school (an older name for a teachers college - in this context, "normal" refers to norms or standards) like any other post-secondary institution, even though it awarded a certificate rather than a degree.From the Normal school article: A normal school is an institution created to train high school graduates to be teachers by educating them in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. Eastmain (talk • contribs) 18:44, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Arizona State University makes a point of treating Griffen as an alumni of the university. Their media guide touts him as a legend, being the first ASU student to sign with a major league baseball team. BD2412  T 20:41, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * For our purposes here, Arizona State should be considered a top-level college sports teams even in its early days when it was a normal school. Ingratis's comment above about a "school side" is an inapt transposition of a Britishism onto American college sports. I have no idea what a "school side" is (although I can guess), and I'm surely no novice when it comes to American college sports. Jweiss11 (talk) 22:07, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Agreed, the the NCAA was only a few years formed at the time. There were no "divisions" to speak of until 1956.--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:44, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment: UserJWeiss11's bland assertion of significance requires independent corroboration, i.e., to the effect that a teacher training establishment had the same sporting status as a university, regardless of whether it was later incorporated into one. (I note the anti-British sneer in passing). The article is accumulating references, but still as above: either published by the newspaper HBG worked for, and of local interest only (like his golden wedding), or about his NN baseball career or his equally NN political candidacy, now topped up by trivia like his support for the Arizona Decorating Co. Despite a disproportionate amount of effort it remains clear that he is not more than locally notable: your goose is not a swan. Ingratis (talk) 01:30, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
 * See above --Paul McDonald (talk) 13:47, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
 * The Arizona Republic is a national newspaper and a longstanding highly regarded source, and I see no argument that this should be discounted in its reporting on this subject - particularly during periods when he was not employed by them, such as during his war service, and his obituary. Of course, a majority of references in the article are to other sources. BD2412  T 01:52, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Ingratis, I'm not anti-British, but I am indeed against people wading authoritatively, and combatively, into matters of which they are ignorant. Here's exhibit A of hundreds that provide independent corroboration that athletics at normal schools were considered full-fledged college sports in the late 1800s and early 1900s: Template:1919 Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference football standings; see cited ref: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/55979342/the-wichita-beacon/. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:28, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't see that disagreeing with you is combative. As above, other people have also thought this man NN on baseball grounds. You could have made this point earlier when you dismissed him as a player: I assume that his notability rests on his period as coach. Thanks for the source. Ingratis (talk) 14:19, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. A focus on narrow topical guidelines misses the mark. Multiple news sources that discuss the person in depth meets WP:GNG. CNMall41 (talk) 17:45, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep. Seems there was nothing in itself that would be considered notable. However, the media coverage from his many ambitions would seem to pass WP:GNG. Weber1982 (talk) 22:09, 5 September 2021 (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.