Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Barnett


 * 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 defaulting to keep. Tyrenius 23:04, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

James Barnett
del vanity. A creator of a nonnotable nonfunctioning website, which is under deletion as well. `'mikka (t) 05:31, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete Merge into Trinity Christian Academy per Pascal.Tesson's argumentation. --Haakon 05:44, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Or merge into Trinity Christian Academy, but not keep. &rArr;    SWAT Jester    Ready    Aim    Fire!  10:09, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Danny Lilithborne 16:43, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete Google news hits are about a pol of the same name who might be notable. :) Dlohcierekim 23:31, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * very strong keep Dlohcierekim yes thats the same guy! hes notable for being expelled from his school for being gay, it made national headlines that makes him notable.!Qrc2006 09:52, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Not so:
 * This article is not
 * This article is not
 * This article is not.
 * None of the ones I found were. Cheers, Dlohcierekim 02:15, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
 * comment check this out
 * Houston Voice article and see also Trinity Christian Academy its often vandalised and referances to barnett removed, ive reported it, if its not there look it up in the historyQrc2006 09:57, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
 * comment also see:
 * James Barnett's blog: Life...Power...Pride... /
 * Gay.com article: Group gives grant to expelled gay student /
 * DailyKos article: Gay Teen Expelled From High School /
 * Towerload article: Gay High School Teen Outed and Expelled /
 * Towerload article: James Barnett Update /
 * NotGeniuses.comarticle: Gay Teen Expelled From High School /
 * opednews.com article: Expulsion Wasn’t End for Gay Student in Texas /
 * The Point Foundation article: High School Honor Student Expelled from Trinity Christian Academy in Addison, TX, for Being Gay /
 * gaymonkey.com article: Gay Texas Teen Receives Scholarship After Being Expelled /
 * DissentVoice article: Expulsion Wasn’t End for Gay Student in Texas /
 * Gay.com/PlanetOut network article: Group gives grant to expelled gay student /
 * OutletRadio article: Point Foundation Grant Aides Student /
 * PlanetOut article: Group gives grant to expelled gay student / YubaNet article: Expulsion Wasn't End for Gay Student in Texas I believe this satisfies "Persons achieving renown or notoriety for their involvement in newsworthy events" which is a WP:BIO requirement
 * These look a lot like the links on the article. I'm sorry, I do not think these serve as non-trivial news coverage. Dlohcierekim 02:25, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
 * In response to this message on my talk inviting me to reconsider my "vote". I already said I don't consider those links non-trivial. In my opinion fails WP:BIO. But thanks for the note.Dlohcierekim 17:29, 19 September 2006 (UTC)


 * These look like a gay pride parade in nonnotable publications a buddy-buddy thing, rather than national attention in reputable media. Mukadderat 16:47, 15 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Merge into "My-boi" if that survives deletion, makes sense for both articles to be together. Yank  sox  11:35, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment merging in the other direction would make more sense. It is the person who is notable, not the website. Fiddle Faddle 11:38, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
 * To be honest, the site in an overall perspective is more notable than the person, since it is the reason for the whole incident. Yank  sox  11:43, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I have no strong views on the matter. Imagine Babe Ruth being declared non notable after baseball somehow failed to remain notable after he became famous.  My argument is that the perosn tends to be the more notable because the person created the work.  Fiddle Faddle 11:52, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Eh, don't worry about me, I was too tired when I wrote that out. Yank  sox  20:10, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Strong keep. While the article itself is poor quality, the person is notable within our guidelines.  The external links in the article are significant and prove that notability beyond doubt.  That he has a currently non-functioning website is not relevant, nor is it relevant that the article on that website is likely not to survive the AfD process. Fiddle Faddle 11:38, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete: per WP:BIO criterion. --Ragib 20:46, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep Per fiddle faddle, he meets BIO and is being discussed. Yank  sox  22:13, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete: the person was nonnotably deleted on reasonable grounds: violation of college policies. Otherwise he would have contested it in court. Some persons got expelled for failing to report to dormitory on time. Why don't we shout about violastion of human rights? I find this to be a campaign to promote his nonnotable website. Mukadderat 23:51, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
 * If you wish to talk about the campaign of a non-notable website, then place this argument on the website's page. However, this and this give me reason to believe that word of mouth is enough for something that is currently being wildly spread across everywhere. We have alot of things that become big for a few days and then die down. We don't delete those things since they were moments and strainds that existed within our minds that we clearly remember but not to the extent of an extremely significant military battle. Yank  sox  23:59, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


 * comment He was not deleted i think you mean expelled on reasonable grounds being expelled for being gay is not reasonable its ignorant and prejudiced, he was expelled from a high school not a college and whether people get expelled for not being home on time is irrelevant, he meets the requirements for notability and the fact that his webpage's article may likely be deleted is irrelevant, it may not be notable, but he is.
 * As I se in the article he was expelled not for being gay, which is his private life, but for "immoral behavior and supporting an immoral cause [through his website]", i.e., for making it public it a private schhol which has all rights to set and execute their policies as they wish. The whole fuss is biased representation of the case. The guy violated rules or traditions or whatever. Period. Not big deal. Not national tragedy as some want to represent. Not nearly close to French forbidding Muslim girls wearing headscarf in public schools.  Mukadderat 16:42, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment I don't know what country you live in, but in America private schools do NOT have the right to set any polycy they wish. Whether or not its a national tragedy is irrelevant, so is the veil issue, which is a good thing in my view, the matter of fact is that he is notable per WP:BIO:


 * "Persons achieving renown or notoriety for their involvement in newsworthy events,"


 * and FYI immoral behavior was used as a euphanism for being gay, furthermore read the articles, he never made it public, the school made it public after a nosey student informed them without his consent, and then to top it off the school told his conservative parents, which then put the poor boy on lockdown and nearly kicked him out since he lives in an oppressive conservative town.Cholga 17:31, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment Account created same day as this edit.Dlohcierekim 17:39, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 *  AFD relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.  Please add new discussions below this notice. Thanks, —Centrx→talk &bull; 22:41, 16 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete: While I sympathize with this student I don't feel he is noteable enough to warrant his own article. The event should be (and is) covered in the school's article.  --ElKevbo 22:47, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete I sympathize with the student, but this is one incident of which there must be hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions in recent history. If this incident led to a new law, or a new encyclopedically notable organization, or became iconic in the history of gay rights struggles or had some other wider lasting substantive societal effect, that would be encyclopedically notable. There is not indication of this happening so far, as far as I can tell. And for the umpteenth time, media coverage - yes, even if it's Larry King Live or the New York Times - is not in itself an sufficient condition for article retention. Examples given above of media coverage seem to be mainly from blogs and local newspapers in any case Bwithh 23:31, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Weak keep per WP:BIO; specifically "Persons achieving renown or notoriety for their involvement in newsworthy events" - google for "James Barnett" gay produces nearly 700 matches, some of which are news sites, and thus "newsworthy" Guinness 00:06, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment There are a lot of false hits in that search, and the few news sites that can be seen are local. Bwithh 00:18, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment true enough (hence the weak), but having this here does improve wikipedia (if only slightly - I don't believe it degrades wikipedia), and therefore WP:IAR could apply. Guinness 00:28, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Factiva search I ran a multi-decade Factiva newspaper and magazine database search and got only 2 hits for a search phrase "James Barnette AND Trinity Christian Academy". One was a 2005 article about the incident in Advocate, a national LBGT newspaper. The other was a half-line 15 word mention in an 419 word 2005 article about a gay actor on Law & Order:SVU the tv show (they were both getting awards at a gay rights event) in the "second" section of the Dallas Morning News. Bwithh 00:25, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm going to go with keep on this one. Allowing pages that can be used as references for debate on the important issues of the day is a minor crusade of mine - Richfife 01:54, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Don't delete per newsworthiness. However my prefered solution would be a merge or a move that would put this content in the proper context. In particular I'd argue that while the individual is himself of little interest, his case is. What do we expect a biography entry to become ideally? Certainly not a 10 line text like this one is doomed to remain. Who cares when this guy was born, who cares where he works. The article is not about the individual, it's about the incident. Why not merge, for instance, as a section of Trinity Christian Academy? I think this would make Wikipedia better as a whole since the content would not be lost, you'd still have a redirect if anyone looks for or links to James Barnett and the whole thing would be in proper context. Pascal.Tesson 02:17, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
 * There seems to have been quite a lot of coverage on the individual. However, I'm inclined to vote weak delete for the following reasons:
 * It seems to be picked up purely by the gay media as an example of anti-gay discrimination/victimisation.
 * There is a lack of serious mainstream coverage elsewhere (by notable journals). For example, No relevant hits in the New York Times, Boston Globe, LA Times or USA Today.
 * The above external links can be grouped into 3 different categories:
 * syndicated articles concerning the explusion (eg Matthew Cardinale article, Christopher Curtis article) which undoubtedly count as one coverage per WP:BIO
 * blog entries
 * articles concerning the update of case and grant by Point Foundation from the same journals as above.
 * the controversy is already described in sufficient detail on the Trinity Christian Academy page.
 * there is no legal challenge, for first amendment violation or anything else for that matter. Except private implications between JB and his family, it does not appear sufficiently noteworthy for a wiki article. The subject's notability is, at best, borderline per WP:BIO. Ohconfucius 06:51, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment I think the fact that it was picked up by the media is relevant, and it is not relevant that it was or was not the gay press - a term which appears to me to be pejorative in this context. It was a news item about a homosexual young man and thus likely to be picked up more by gay than str8 press. (If he were a yachtsman doing boaty things he would only have been picked up by the yachting press).  I think we have to look very much at the principle, here, not the individual.  I don't care about the individual or the story, except to feel sorry for him.  I'd never heard of him before thsi AfD, and I never expect to hear of him again.  But I interpret WP:BIO to say that he is notable.  This means that, whether any of us have actually heard of the kid, or the incident, his 15 minutes of fame qualify him for a place here.  We have the space, and he qualifies for it. Fiddle Faddle 07:22, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
 * keepper newsworthiness WP:BIO147.144.66.203 20:26, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Note, user's second edit. --Haakon 20:33, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
 * very strong keep we dont know whether this individual will or will not reappear in the media, My guess is some specialiized media, or Amnesty International, the ACLU or other human rights organizations might continue following the proceedings of thow this situation works out and whether what we presume to be young Mr. Barnett's rights have been violated. I say we stick with this article, and follow the events to their conclusion, and re-evaluate at that time. But at this stage I would not feel comfortable deleting an article dealing with such a timely issue. --Komunysta 21:36, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment we cannot base notability on possible future events. If he becomes notable in the future, an article can be written about him. --Haakon 17:12, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * KEEPhe is very notable Guaguis 22:12, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Note: Users's 2nd edit. --Ragib 23:03, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment keep (not trying to vote twice, even if i was its a bit obvious anyways)
 * Delete or merge into a controversy section of the school's page. Unfortunately, being expelled from a school for being homosexual does not make for how WP defines notability. Nor does getting murdered, for that matter -- although I hope we can agree that the latter is far worse. WP:BIO is what we go by here, and in my humble opinion, he falls short. --Storkk 14:52, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep he is notable since he is newsworthy, he's all over the press, look at the links for goodness sake.Cholga 17:00, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment User's first edit. --Haakon 17:08, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment He's not "all over the press"; he's been talked about in blogs and some special-interest websites. This is not sufficient by Notability (people). --Haakon 17:08, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment yes it is! And its not special interest websites dude, thats homophobic at best. With your logic ESPN has a special interest too, Gay.com and the PlanetOut network are mainstream press as much as Reuters and the Associated Press are, its what YahooNews! uses for all their gay stories. He has also been brough up by the Point Foundation and Human Rights Campaign. And no it wasn't my first edit, but I decided to sign up finally so I could vote on the issue.Cholga 17:34, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Please, Cholga, let us not turn this into a homophobia argument/discussion, and please reflect that your message borders on infringing WP:Civility and WP:NPA because of its directness. Correcting Haakon's (or anyone's) statements where you think they are incorrect with care and  restrained depersonalised words is important here.  We need to look at the article and the notability within Wikipedia's guidelines.  Certainly the websites you mention are themselves notable media, and naturallythe story's media appeal is in the gay media rather than global media.  And I agree with you that notable media stories about Barnett make him notable.  He is of limited interest, and he may never rais ehis head above any parapet again, but his 15 minutes of fame merits a freestanding, albeit brief, article.  Fiddle Faddle 17:54, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Don't play the homophobia card. It's a cheap trick, and it works poorly on me, since I'm gay. --Haakon 18:06, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. While the situation is certainly sad, it's not exactly enough to bestow notability on the individual involved. The press coverage is about the incident, not the person--and the incident is covered adequately enough in the Trinity Christian Academy article.  -- Merope Talk 19:15, 19 September 2006 (UTC)


 * "... widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in their specific field."


 * "... other professionals whose work is widely recognized (for better or worse) and who are likely to become a part of the enduring historical record of that field.."


 * "... achieving renown or notoriety for their involvement in newsworthy events..."


 * "...the primary subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the person.." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Qrc2006 (talk • contribs)


 * 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.