Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/J. D. Batton


 * 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. (non-admin closure) ansh 666 23:38, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

J. D. Batton

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Prod tag was disputed. Lots of sources from Minden, Louisiana news as one would expect regarding a local official, many of them simple election-related coverage, but no evidence of wider and deeper coverage necessary for WP:POLITICIAN notability criteria. OhNo itsJamie Talk 16:37, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete non-notable local law enforcement official. This is not Louisianapedia.John Pack Lambert (talk) 07:48, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 06:32, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Louisiana-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 06:32, 23 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete. Local sheriffs are not automatically eligible for Wikipedia articles just because they can be locally sourced as having existed — all sheriffs who exist at all could always be locally sourced as having local prominence. To qualify for a Wikipedia article, rather, a sheriff has to be extralocally sourced as having notability that approaches national in its scope. If coverage in The New York Times or the Washington Post could be shown, there would certainly be a case for inclusion — but if Shreveport, just 28 miles away from Minden, is the most "extralocal" coverage you can come up with, then that's just not enough. Bearcat (talk)
 * Keep From Politicians notability rules: Major local political figures who have received significant press coverage. ... Meets notability criterion of "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject of the article.2605:6000:FB03:1F00:20B3:B764:E2DE:9A6D (talk) 20:31, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * — 2605:6000:FB03:1F00:20B3:B764:E2DE:9A6D (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Every single sheriff or police chief on the entire planet could always claim to be "major local political figures who have received significant press coverage" if the expected range and scope of local coverage were all it took. Which is why local coverage is not all it takes: the coverage is not "significant" enough to pass GNG or NPOL unless and until it snowballs far beyond the purely local. Bearcat (talk) 16:03, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * "Significant coverage" addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content." It doesn't require that the coverage be national or international. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:21, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
 * For a person who does not have an automatic claim of notability under any subject-specific inclusion test, but must rely solely on the existence of media coverage as their notability claim, purely local coverage most certainly is not sufficient to pass GNG. Smalltown mayors do not get Wikipedia articles just because local coverage exists in their local paper. Outside of the extremely narrow range of internationally famous global cities, city councillors do not get Wikipedia articles just because local coverage exists in their local paper. Local neighborhood committees do not get Wikipedia articles just because local coverage exists in their local paper. Local law enforcement officials do not get Wikipedia articles just because local coverage exists in their local paper. Unelected candidates for political office do not get Wikipedia articles just because local coverage exists in their local paper. And on and so forth: local-interest topics which cannot claim passage of an SNG by virtue of a specific accomplishment, but are relying solely on the existence of media coverage as the basis of their notability claim, do require that coverage to expand beyond the exclusively local. Bearcat (talk) 16:07, 28 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep This is not your standard 3 line article for a local politician. The referencing is solid. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 03:17, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep Well sourced article. John Jaffar Janardan (talk) 16:55, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Confirmed sock. -- The Voidwalker  Discuss 21:51, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, &mdash; Music1201  talk  15:28, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep Local official with some 50 sources cited. Rules do not say sources have to be non-local. The type of local official is not specified in the rules. No mention of size of city or county either. Local sources perfectly acceptable.64.134.51.41 (talk) 16:37, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep per my DEPROD. Wikipedia does indeed cover subjects with local notability meeting WP:GNG because locals are clearly interested in this stuff and there is no limit on the size of the encylopedia. As far as I know WP:AUD applies only to institutions, is somewhat controversial and should not be applied to other topics. ~Kvng (talk) 14:10, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
 * The standard for demonstrating that a person of purely smalltown local notability should be covered in an encyclopedia or not is not whether locals in his own town might care — it's whether non-locals, such as people who live 15 states away or in other countries entirely, might have any substantive reason to care. Bearcat (talk) 16:54, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not reading any of that in WP:GNG or WP:NPOL. Both appear to be met in this case because there is significant coverage in reliable sources. There is nothing that says a local source can't be reliable. Is there somewhere else I should be looking? ~Kvng (talk) 21:55, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Nobody said local sources are inherently unreliable — but what local sources can't necessarily do is confer notability by themselves on a topic that would be expected to garner local coverage. Every mayor who has ever existed at all in any place on earth that has ever had a mayor would always be eligible for a Wikipedia article if purely local coverage were enough, because all mayors always generate local media coverage. What's necessary to get a mayor into Wikipedia, however, is evidence that they're more notable than the norm for some substantive reason, such as (a) serving in a city large enough that there's some broad reader interest in its mayors, or (b) being sourceable as having garnered more than just local coverage. It's for the same reasons that we can't necessarily keep an article about every municipal fire chief or police sheriff or city councillor or non-winning candidate for political office or pub rock band or restaurant or comic book store that exists at all, even though local coverage of such topics exists — if the topic doesn't have any objective claim to passing any of our subject-specific notability criteria, but instead you're shooting for "notable because coverage exists", then that coverage does still have to demonstrate a credible context for considering the topic more notable than the norm (i.e. the coverage expands beyond the purely local, or it demonstrates something unique and distinctive about the topic.)
 * Not all possible types of sourcing automatically cover off both "reliable" and "notability-conferring". There are some types of sourcing which are reliable enough to be valid support for content, but cannot in and of themselves be the GNG — and the purely expected level of local coverage of a topic is one of those types. Bearcat (talk) 18:18, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, the bar is sometimes lower for WP:V purposes than it is for WP:N purposes. My contention here is that WP:GNG is met here because there is significant multiple reliable sources independent of the subject cited. To convince me otherwise you need to make an argument that the coverage is not significant or the sources are not reliable, not independent or not abundant enough (and you should try to use fewer words too, if possible, to avoid TL;DR problems). ~Kvng (talk) 15:24, 8 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep Meets Local Politician notability with independent sources of the subject. Has multiple sources at that. There is no requirement for "beyond purely local" in the Wikipedia rules. There is nothing about "notability-conferring" in the rules. 24.153.207.70 (talk) 15:35, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * If a person's basic notability claim does not exceed purely local interest, then yes, there is a requirement that the sourcing go beyond purely local. If local coverage were all it took, for example, then we would have to keep an article about every single person who ever served on any town or city council in existence — yet we restrict the notability of city councillors to those who can be shown as having more than just purely local notability, and we restrict the notability of mayors to those who can be shown as having more than just purely local notability, in both cases on the basis of either (a) the city surpassing a certain minimum size, or (b) the sourceability expanding beyond the purely local. And yes, there is a difference between sources that can count toward the conferral of notability and sources which can merely verify stray facts after notability has already been demonstrated by stronger ones — for example, an unsigned local garage band does not get over WP:NMUSIC just because the local alt-weekly printed a concert review of their show at the local Elephant and Castle, but once they've signed to a label and released a hit single and won a Grammy Award and passed WP:GNG for those achievements, then that same concert review can be cited in the new article as supplementary verification that their first ever show took place at the Elephant and Castle. Bearcat (talk) 18:27, 7 September 2016 (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.