Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James R. Crisfield


 * 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 to Legal Advisor (OARDEC).  MBisanz  talk 02:27, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

James R. Crisfield

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WP:BIO currently without any WP:RS; has had a notability tag for over a year without improvement. It would be possible to WP:PUFF up the article by stringing together the handful of places where news organizations have quoted a single memo he wrote, but there's not the significant independent coverage that confers notability. THF (talk) 02:34, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions.  —THF (talk) 02:36, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Living people-related deletion discussions.  —THF (talk) 02:36, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep, I think poking the creator to improve the article is a better route. Crisfield seems to (barely) squeak across as notable, [being interviewed by the New York Times for example, on the Guantanamo proceedings and such. He's not "just a legal figure", he's a "legal figure who goes to the press" -- and I'm always in favour of having WP biographies about anybody who's quoted in the press (within reason) -- because otherwise you see embarrassing gaffes like when FOX News labeled [[Paul Fromm (activist)|Paul Fromm]] as a "free speech advocate", when he's actually a very vocal White Supremacist. Simple googling of Fromm's name would have prevented that, and I like to think WP does its bit to make sure that when a reporter googles a source's name, we have an impartial record of who that person is. (Again, within reason...the Tallahassee dog catcher is probably not notable). The judges, lawyers and clerks who participated in the Nuremberg trials all have articles, I can't see that Guantanamo is any different. Sherurcij (speaker for the dead) 02:58, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. Doesn't meet wp:bio notability standards. The only "poking of the creator" that should be going is to tell him to quit creating articles that clearly do not meet WP:BIO in order to further his cause of making Wikipedia everything Guantanamo Bay. With respect, -- brew crewer  (yada, yada) 03:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Sigh -- I know I have requested you, dozens of times, to comply with policy, and confine your comments to the issues, not your perceptions of personalities. I am going to repeat that request here.  Geo Swan (talk) 12:22, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but I think your intentions are important here. You are a SPA account that only creates articles about everything and anything that is somehow related to GB. Most of the content you create are WP:BLP1E's, if that much. The amount of articles that you create that goes through afd's outnumbers by far the creations of other editors. You were advised by a multiple consensus of editors to stop creating these BLP1e's, yet you stubbornly continue to create these non-notable bios. Please stop turning WP into a battlefield for you war against GB and stop creating articles that do not meet WP:BIO. With respect,-- brew crewer  (yada, yada) 15:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * One of the very unfortunate features of the wikipedia is that although it has the goal of encouraging a civil discussion, collegial cooperation, and a culture of civility, a subculture has grown up within the wikipedia's deletion fora, where violations of the wikipedia's civility policies are so routine they sail past most participants without comment. I am not a "single purpose account".  Why just this year I have started William H. Latham, William H. Latham (icebreaker), Caterpillar 789 dump truck, Caterpillar 777 dump truck, Vidar Viking, Saint John’s University, Haji Yacoub (Uttar Pradesh), Saint John’s University School of Law,  CCGS Gordon Reid. None of these articles have anything to do with "GB", or the "war on terror".  I urge you, in the interests of the project to quit mounting personal attacks.  Geo Swan (talk) 18:07, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep -- I think it is very important to cover Crisfield because he is the author of several important rulings. Crisfield's memos document the controversial practice of OARDEC scheduling "do-overs", when the first Tribunals determined captives weren't combatants after all.  Crisfield's memos clarify the difference between the CSR Tribunals and the competent tribunals required by the Geneva Conventions.  Crisfield's memos clarify that the evidence against the captives is largely "hearsay evidence".  I know that it might seem appropriate to some readers to suggest, "so mention these memos in article X".  But that won't work because Crisfield's ruling should be referred to in multiple other articles.  Shoehorning the coverage of Crisfield's rulings into a single other article is, I believe, a mistake.  Some of these rulings may not belong in the suggested target article.  And shoehorning them into a single other article short-changes the readers of the other articles where Crisfield's rulings belong.  Since he merits mention in other places there should be a central place that discusses just him.  And the logical place for that coverage is an article about him.  Geo Swan (talk) 12:22, 9 March 2009 (UTC) This editor's revised opinion is below.  GRBerry 18:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment -- Yes, I am aware this article is missing info like where he was born, went to school, and career before and after Guantanamo. If I had found any of that information I would have included it.  But I don't think the absence of this kind of information means an article should be deleted.  Sometimes we know practically nothing about someone, who is still definitely worth covering.  There is an 8th Century scholar known as the "false Geber".  He wrote his books under the name of a famous Arab scholar.  Back in the days were every book had to be copied in longhand it was a well-known technique to get one's work republished by using the name of someone famous.  Most of the impostors didn't make worthwhile contributions.  But false Geber did.  He was the first to publish techniques for the purification and use of sulphuric acid.  Isaac Asimove listed both Geber and false Geber in his Biographical Encyclopedia of Science that listed the top 1000 scientists of all time.  A lack of info about individuals' birth, schooling, early career is not a bar to covering them here.  Geo Swan (talk) 12:22, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. The article has now been WP:PUFFed with the use of the adjective "notable" and a lengthy chart of the editor's picking and choosing from primary sources and then synthesizing it with third-party sources that don't mention Crisfield. Still doesn't establish notability for the person, as opposed to a subsection of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals article discussing memos by Crisfield and others. THF (talk) 13:32, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Geo Swan's points are compelling. 76.70.118.218 (talk) 14:22, 9 March 2009 (UTC) — 76.70.118.218 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Delete No sources of biographic data on this individual are used in the article, nor was I able to find any.  WP:BLP1E applies, the potential merge target is Combatant Status Review Tribunal, the information in this article would not enhance that article, so merging should not occur and deletion should occur.  GRBerry 15:20, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete I'm reluctant to invoke WP:BLP1E for an extended event, but it seems unlikely that this person will ever be known, or of note in the sense that we invoke notability -- that is to say, enough people care about his life to get nontrivial coverage in secondary sources. Ray  Talk 16:04, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect to Legal Advisor (OARDEC). Since I expressed my keep opinion I have slept on this.  And I have changed my choice.  Combatant Status Review Tribunal is already too long, and will grow even longer as it grows more complete.  "Legal advisor" was Crisfield's official title, and I will be happy with this material being merged with Legal Advisor (OARDEC).  And if significant biographical material about Crisfield's birth, or career before or after his Guantanamo hitch emerge, further changes can be discussed then.  Geo Swan (talk) 17:08, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * That seems a more plausible place. But what would go?  Source 6 is already (mis?)used there.  Sources 7, 5, and maybe 3 seem more reasonable for use there, but not the data or text here.  Better if you just used those sources there and we sent this page and its history to the dustbin.  GRBerry 18:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry. I frankly don't understand this comment.  What downside do you see to merge and redirection?  Geo Swan (talk) 21:15, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm only willing to do that for a BLP when there is some content to merge. I don't see any content here that I am willing to support merging.  A good article on the legal advisors would not be a quote mine from primary sources, it would be a summary of the descriptions given by multiple independent sources about the role and performance of legal advisors.  The content here does not meet that test.  Indeed, reviewing the article I just found one of the four quotes had to be removed as failing the test for verification, it clearly misattributed to Crisfield the advise of someone else.  (I'd previously fixed this in Legal Advisor (OARDEC).)  Merge and redirect means leaves the redirect exposed to vandalism without the new page patrol line of defense - I'll live with that for a Pokemon, but not for a living person's name in the absence of actual content to be merged with authorship attribution.  GRBerry 21:38, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - The subject is not notable, and notability is not inherited. Simply being an attorney at GTMO is not enough to impart notability.--Yachtsman1 (talk) 17:35, 9 March 2009 (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.