Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hung Cao (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 redirect‎__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__ to 2024 United States Senate election in Virginia. This is the typical outcome for unelected politicians who have not established notability aside from their candidacy. Content is retained so if circumstances change, like they win their election, the article can return. But for now, this page will be redirected. Liz Read! Talk! 22:42, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Hung Cao
AfDs for this article:


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

Page was previously deleted because the subject is non-notable and does not meet WP:NPOL or WP:GNG, this has not changed since and there has been no new coverage significant enough to make him notable. ser! (chat to me - see my edits) 21:47, 2 July 2024 (UTC) NathanBru (talk) Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 23:24, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. ser! (chat to me - see my edits) 21:47, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Virginia-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 21:50, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Delete: Was not notable a year ago; all that's changed since then is running for re-election. Frankly, the list of military medals isn't notable, but it makes up a good third of the article. The rest is a biography. Oaktree b (talk) 00:07, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Delete per previous discussion. The only thing that changed since then, winning a primary, does not confer notability (see Run-of-the-mill). Chaotic Enby   (talk · contribs) 00:17, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Redirect to 2024 United States Senate election in Virginia as he is not notable at this time. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:10, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Keep It makes sense to have an article for Cao because he vastly overperformed against Wexton in ‘22 and he is now the nominee for Senate. Joe Kent of Washington, who is not a horribly notable figure has his own page and they both have somewhat similar political backgrounds.
 * WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a good argument. Chaotic Enby   (talk · contribs) 02:19, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Keep. The subject seems to meet WP:GNG§WP:SIGCOV guidelines through his major political party nomination in two national elections and the coverage of him in the interim with a decent amount of coverage in foreign media. WP:POLITICIAN reads "being...an unelected candidate for political office...does not guarantee notability, although such people can still be notable if they meet the general notability guideline".  is an essay, not a policy or guideline, and even it does not preclude articles for non-incumbent candidates if GNG standards are met.  —  AjaxSmack  01:57, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * While ROTM is not a policy or guideline, it gives the condition that The person was already notable enough for a Wikipedia article for other reasons as it is. So, not just meeting GNG for the election coverage itself like you seem to imply. Chaotic Enby   (talk · contribs) 02:18, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Military and Vietnam.  WC  Quidditch   ☎   ✎  04:21, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Keep. He is a US Senator candidate, covered in a lot of articles. Thus, saying that he is not well-known is a weak view. People may need to search for more details about him to have a better decision in the election or for other reasons. I think content about him as a politician will increase significantly in the near future. Given that he has some possibility to be a senator in the near future, deletion of his page at the moment is not a good choice. Zenms (talk) 05:02, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Delete fails WP:GNG. Fails on WP:NPOL as he hasn't been elected. Creator can draftify and if he gets elected can update (removing articles he wrote used as sources) and reinstate it Mztourist (talk) 08:59, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * WP:NPOL reads any subject "can still be notable if they meet the general notability guideline". That's the argument here.  Falling back on a rote interpretation of WP:NPOL makes life easy (and I opposed this article in the previous AfD on that basis), but it is not a faithful interpretation of GNG which calls for "significant coverage".  On the one hand, all 100 of Virginia's state delegates have articles pro forma, but by and large fail GNG (e.g. Barry Knight, Alex Askew) and on the other hand we have a subject here who is a far more significant political figure, has been a serious major party candidate twice (with coverage of his sometimes unusual statements and questionable actions in the interim) and has been the sole subject of numerous articles in national publications. —  AjaxSmack  15:13, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I already said he doesn't meet WP:GNG. WP:Don't bludgeon the process as you are doing on this discussion. Mztourist (talk) 06:09, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Keep He has been very notable domestically, and I have seen a few sources internationally mentioning him as well. He made big headlines in 2022, and has been generating many large headlines from numerous large media corporations about his candidacy for US Senate. 1980RWR (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 13:00, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Comment This should be redirected to 2024 United States Senate election in Virginia as he is not notable at this time based on our understanding of GNG, current political candidates, and WP:POLOUTCOMES "Candidates who are running or unsuccessfully ran for a national legislature or other national office are not viewed as having presumptive notability and are often deleted or merged ... into articles detailing the specific race in question, such as 2010 United States Senate election in Nevada." That said, I have come to the conclusion that it is rarely worth the effort to debate US Senatorial candidates who have won their major party's primary during the period between the primary and the general election. There are editors who suggest that just being a nominee is sufficient for an article, despite there being no policy or guideline asserting this view. So, at this point, I think it is better to use the editing process from keeping these articles from becoming repositories of campaign brochures (or a series of political statements or positions) and refrain from bringing these cases to AFD until the election. --Enos733 (talk) 15:14, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm curious about your opinion on a couple of points. Firstly, though "candidate...are not viewed as having presumptive notability", do you think a candidate can be notable on WP:SIGCOV merits on a case-by-case basis?  Secondly, you say we should "refrain from bringing these cases to AFD until after the election", but I would argue that losing an election cannot remove notability; conversely if Hung Cao is going to be non-notable after losing, then he's not notable now either and the article should be deleted now per WP:NOTNEWS.  Should articles be permitted to exist only for a campaign period?  (I'm asking this seriously and not trying to be argumentative.)  —  AjaxSmack  15:42, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, I do think that a candidate (who is not already notable) can pass WP:SIGCOV as a candidate, but in my mind this is a very high bar, usually with substantial international coverage (see Christine O'Donnell), but could be demonstrated in other ways, such as academic writings, notable documentaries, or similar coverage after the campaign is completed. I think that many political candidates are low profile individuals and the coverage they receive is for their participation in WP:BIO1E one event. As to the second question, my position is that it grows increasingly difficult to hold a AFD (in the US) the closer we get to election day, especially with US Senate candidates who are nominated by either the Republican or Democratic parties. Because notability is not temporary, we should be careful with our assessment of notability, especially of political candidates who may not pass a ten-year test of significance and may quickly fade back to obscurity. All of this is why I think the pages about the campaign can be expanded to discuss the race, the candidates, and the issues. - Enos733 (talk) 16:09, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I would also say that it is possible that a candidate that has a weak claim to pass GNG prior to the campaign could meet our notability standards with coverage of the campaign. But in this scenario, we would be looking for at least one substantive source prior to the candidate filing for office. - Enos733 (talk) 16:24, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I like your idea that "the pages about the campaign can be expanded to discuss the race, the candidates, and the issues".  Many of those "articles" largely resemble machine-generated lists of figures.  I agree that many losing candidates in single elections are like WP:BIO1E cases, but in this case you have a major-party candidate performing well in two different elections.  There comes a point where something can render a candidate notable during or between campaigns, but I'm not quite sure where the line is.  (In an extreme case, if a candidate shot an irate debate watcher during a campaign, it would make the candidate notable even if the shooting without that political context wasn't notable.)  What bothers me is the lack of judgement that results in four-sentence (non-)articles for non-notable incumbents like this and this while suppressing articles on non-incumbents who have received widespread, sustained news coverage.  I support general rules to control the number of articles, but there should be leeway for exceptions that rests on the spirit and not just the letter of these rules. —  AjaxSmack  16:02, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Those incumbents are notable, though, though Will Davis is very hard to search for. They just have underdeveloped articles, and those articles may not ever be a featured article, but they don't fail GNG. Senate candidates face a massive recentism and a "you can't make yourself notable" problem, and at some point, we do keep failed perennial candidates. SportingFlyer  T · C  16:17, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * For the record, I was able to find several good sources about Rep. Davis. - Enos733 (talk) 14:35, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * He simply has a very common name. SportingFlyer  T · C  15:45, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * NPOL defers to the GNG in the case of unelected candidates. I'm just not sure how Hung Cao doesn't meet GNG with the number and quality of citations already in the article. It contrasts starkly with Davis et al who would fail GNG in most other situations but who gets an ex officio a free pass by NPOL. —  AjaxSmack  02:16, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * There are lots of material about elected federal and state legislators. And, there is an extensive public record of legislators votes and speeches. There is also some real-world considerations as well - as there is value to readers to know who is passing legislation. - Enos733 (talk) 14:38, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Redirect to 2024 United States Senate election in Virginia as a viable alternative to outright deletion. Per nom. and others, currently fails WP:NPOL and WP:GNG. No prejudice against restoring the full article if he wins the general election or eventually gains enough RS coverage to pass WP:GNG. Sal2100 (talk) 20:40, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Delete Does not meet GNG. I would support a redirect as mentioned. Intothatdarkness 14:48, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Nominator comment: I would also be fine with a redirect to 2024 United States Senate election in Virginia. ser! (chat to me - see my edits) 15:09, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Keep. Extensive reliable sources. It's been the practice of Wikipedia to have articles for first-time US Senate candidates with a lot of reliable sources ever since 2020 when the AfD for Theresa Greenfield was overturned. -LtNOWIS (talk) 18:31, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I wish I had seen that extensive AN discussion before. —  AjaxSmack 02:16, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Redirect I really disagree with the belief that U.S. Senate nominees in competitive states should be considered automatically notable. They seem notable at the time, but if/when they lose, it becomes evident that they are not. I mean really, is anyone searching for Theresa Greenfield anymore? I don't think Hung Cao is notable enough outside of this election. BottleOfChocolateMilk (talk) 23:36, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Redirect to the current election as a viable ATD or delete - being an unelected candidate anywhere does not guarantee notability, and keeping a page up in case an election is won violates our policy that once you're notable, you're always notable, as some !keep articles have mentioned. I also disagree there's any sort of an exception for American senate candidates as they can be adequately covered on the page for the election. SportingFlyer  T · C  16:13, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Redirect to 2024 United States Senate election in Virginia: Subject does not meet the WP:NPOL as a unelected candidate. Let&#39;srun (talk) 01:30, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Redirect to 2024 United States Senate election in Virginia as candidate. Djflem (talk) 15:21, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Redirect to 2024 United States Senate election in Virginiasubject has not become any more notable since previous discussion, and being senate candidate is still not enough. I don’t see the point in deletion of the page as there is the possibility that in future there would be enough coverage, depends on the result of the election mainly. Vorann Gencov (talk) 17:30, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Keep He has won the Republican primary and has recently gained prominence and is speaking at the Republican National Convention 7-16-24, so many people can be expected to be looking for this article after that. In addition to being a Senate candidate, he's also a genuine scholar and military hero.  Please note that John Fetterman has had a Wikipedia page since 2006, when his most significant accomplishment was becoming part-time mayor of a nearly dead town, Braddock PA, which then had a population of just 2722, and there was no opposing candidate.  He was paid $150 per month for the position and depended on his father for his support.  He didn't become a Senator until 17 years later.Sowatee (talk) 14:41, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Redirect to 2024 United States Senate election in Virginia, as Cao does not meet WP:GNG. He has not held prior public office or received widespread media coverage, unlike say Bernie Moreno of Ohio (widely considered one of the most competitive races). JohnAdams1800 (talk) 18:11, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Redirect to 2024 United States Senate election in Virginia per recommendations above; Cao fails WP:NPOL and is otherwise WP:BLP1E. A lot of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS arguments here but the policy-oriented !votes favor redirection. Dclemens1971 (talk) 19:11, 16 July 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.