Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jim Francesconi


 * 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. Black Kite (talk) 00:43, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Jim Francesconi

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Fails WP:NPOL. City council member in Portland, Oregon for less than a decade, who went on to lose mayoral and county commission chair elections. Further research demonstrates that he is now working as a vice president at a regional healthcare company. Just not notable enough for Wikipedia as far as I can see. (Be aware that there is an unrelated late North Carolina marine fisheries expert named James Francesconi who shows up in news searches.)  Julietdeltalima   (talk)  00:44, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:POLITICIAN. The guideline states that, "Just being an elected local official, or an unelected candidate for political office, does not guarantee notability, although such people can still be notable if they meet the primary notability criterion of "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject of the article". Francesconi has received significant coverage in reliable sources:, , , , , , , . These links, especially the second one, demonstrate that Francesconi is a local public official that is notable enough to receive significant coverage in reliable sources. Members of the Portland city council (as a populous city of over 600,000, and the largest in the state) are notable enough to be kept. MB298 (talk) 00:51, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:00, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Oregon-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:00, 8 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep, appears to meet GNG, which overrides NPOL (which one cannot fail NPOL anyway, you just don't meet the criteria for auto inclusion). I think in general city council members of cities over say 500k will meet GNG based upon the coverage in the press. Aboutmovies (talk) 18:23, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete. Our standard for the notability of city councillors is not "500K" or "600K" or "largest city in its own state"; it's "internationally famous metropolitan global city on the order of Toronto, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago or London" — that is, it has to be one of the largest cities in the world, not just the largest city in its own state or province or county. For any city outside of that range, you have to write a lot more substance than has been shown here, and source it to a lot more than just the WP:ROUTINE level of media coverage that all city councillors in all cities always get in the local media, before a city councillor actually gets in the door. A city councillor does not pass GNG just because local coverage exists, because local coverage of city councillors always exists — a city councillor doesn't pass GNG until he's getting nationalized coverage in media outlets beyond the geographic area where it would be simply expected. (That is, if a city councillor in Portland OR was frequently getting covered in The New York Times or the Washington Post, that would count for something toward demonstrating notability — but just showing a handful of hits from Portland's local media doesn't cut it, because any city councillor in any city could always show a handful of local media hits.) And MP298's second link, the one that supposedly makes an especially strong case for his notability as a local public official, is a blurb in an alt-weekly about his failure to win reelection to the city council in 2014 — if that's a strong case for inclusion, I'd hate to see how much more trivial a source would have to get before MB298 was willing to deem it a weak one. Bearcat (talk) 00:26, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Pardon my french, but BULLSHIT. Just BULLSHIT. Here is what the SNG for Politicians actually says: "Major local political figures who have received significant press coverage." It does not say a peep about "local political figures" being limited to the 10 biggest global metropolises, or what have you — you are simply making stuff up from whole cloth. Francesconi is indeed a "major local political figure who has received significant press coverage." Exactly that! His apparent "crime against Wikipedia" is having lost a primary race for Mayor of Portland. Carrite (talk) 18:09, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Pardon my (much more fluent) French, but NOT bullshit — everything I said was exactly correct. For starters, you do have to read WP:POLOUTCOMES as well; city councillors do get an automatic presumption of notability only in cities that are recognized by external sources as an alpha, beta or gamma class global city — for any city outside that class, a city councillor gets an article only if he or she can be demonstrated as significantly more notable than the norm. All city councillors always generate local media coverage, so there would never be any such thing as any local municipal politician who failed WP:NPOL if local coverage alone were enough. For city councillors, the coverage does have to demonstrate them as significantly more notable than the norm before it gets them over "major local political figures who have received significant press coverage" — because local coverage of all city councillors always exists, their coverage does have to nationalize into media beyond the purely local before the councillor can be deemed "notable because coverage exists". You can't argue that local coverage alone is enough to pass our notability standards for city councillors while simultaneously arguing that city councillors can be distinguished between "notable" and "non-notable" ones — if local coverage alone were enough, then by definition every single city councillor in existence would pass the notability test since no city councillor ever goes locally-uncovered. The distinction between a notable city councillor and a non-notable city councillor, rather, is whether or not the media coverage expands beyond the geographic range in which media coverage is expected to exist. Bearcat (talk) 18:34, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete per Bearcat . The sources seem to be WP:ROUTINE coverage of the subject's service on the council and coverage of his campaigns. The subject does not appear to have any non-local coverage. The most substantive article discussed thus far in the discussion - appears to be, and this coverage is within the scope of the the subject's campaign. The usual practice to evaluate losing candidates for public office is whether the subject would be notable before the political campaign (or after) for reasons other than the campaign. In this case, that bar does not appear to have been met. - --Enos733 (talk) 22:50, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — MRD2014 (talk • contribs) 01:04, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep Meets WP:GNG. I fail to see where the standard that Bearcat cited is in the guideline. And "routine" is items like "Wedding announcements, sports scores, and crime logs", not electoral candidates. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 00:45, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Elections are events, and therefore are covered by ROUTINE. All candidates in all elections and all city councillors in all cities always generate some local media coverage, so none of them would ever fail GNG if that type of coverage were enough in and of itself — but our notability standards for electoral candidates and city councillors are that they are not all automatically notable just because local coverage exists: at that level of politics, the coverage has to demonstrate a substantive reason why they can be seen as more notable than the myriad other people who also exist and also garnered local media coverage. To qualify for a Wikipedia article, a city councillor and/or a candidate for political office has to generate coverage well above and beyond the level of the merely expected level of local coverage. Bearcat (talk) 17:52, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
 * It's true that some routine coverage of candidates is guaranteed. However, the coverage went beyond posting of results and mentions of candidates. It includes features on the person. I don't think the reason for those features, interest in politicians, should disqualify them as significant coverage. Just because elections are events does not mean we should disqualify all sources that cover the participants. If that were the case, we would have to delete most articles that we have on poltiicans, because all coverage of them is caused by the event, the election. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 19:20, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Every serious candidate in every election gets "features on the person" in the local media too; the only people that type of coverage might not be available for are the obvious no-hoper fringe weirdos (and even then, sometimes it still is.) At this level of office, coverage simply has to nationalize beyond the local before there's a serious GNG claim to be had. And no, we would not have to delete most articles that we have on politicians if that were the case, either — some political offices (presidents, state governors, members of Congress, state legislators, etc.) are inherently notable ones where an article is automatically expected to exist, while some political offices (city councillors, county assessors, etc.) are not inherently notable ones and thus require the sourcing to explicitly show them as somehow more notable than the norm before they qualify. If a politician falls in the former class, then we don't care how local or non-local the coverage happens to be, because the position covers off the notability question — what I'm talking about is what happens when a politician falls into the latter class, by holding a position that is not deemed to automatically confer notability on all holders of it. Bearcat (talk) 12:38, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * GNG doesn't contain a provision that says political figures must be more notable than the norm. They simply have to have significant coverage, even if it is the norm. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 19:18, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Then all city councillors would always be notable, because coverage of all city councillors always exists. But that's not how the notability of city councillors works under NPOL — the established consensus is that city councillors do have to be demonstrated as more notable than the norm, and do not get articles just because the local coverage exists. You need to also read WP:POLOUTCOMES, which explicitly states that purely local coverage is not enough to get a city councillor into Wikipedia. Bearcat (talk) 04:17, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * POLOUTCOMES isn't a guideline. If there truly is consensus for that, then it should be added to the guideline. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 04:21, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Please read WP:ONLYESSAY. POLOUTCOMES serves to clarify points of potential dispute about how the guideline applies in actual practice — whether this is as it should be or not, we have a longstanding practice on here of writing the official guidelines and policies in very general terms that probably leave a lot more open to personal interpretation than they actually should, and then using essays like OUTCOMES to actually expand on what the guidelines actually mean in specific situations. So no, POLOUTCOMES is not ignorable or dismissable just because it's "not a guideline"; its purpose is to clarify what the guideline means in relation to politicians, which means it's every bit as binding in the absence of a specific reason why this particular person should be treated as an exception to the rule. Bearcat (talk) 18:29, 23 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete I consider the coverage listed as routine coverage of local candidates in local media. Just as every serious car crash in Portland would be covered in the local paper, so are every candidate in every local office, and every councilperson.  Not enough for GNG and NPOL. MB 06:41, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep - Multi-term city council member of the largest city in Oregon, and the SUBJECT of substantial coverage. Not every City Council member of every town is notable, but neither should the lack of election the Portland mayorship (Portland is a massively Democratic city and the D primary was the real race for mayor, not the general election against the D nominee and an R that had no chance) be an indelible mark against inclusion. Passes GNG and the SNG for elected politicians as well. Carrite (talk) 18:05, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * As I noted above, "largest city in its own state" is not a notability claim that gets a city councillor into Wikipedia in and of itself; city councillors only get an automatic presumption of notability because city councillor, in and of itself, in global cities which are among the largest cities in the entire world. And all city councillors in all cities always generate every bit as much local coverage as has been shown here, so the coverage of a city councillor in a non-global city does not pass GNG until it nationalizes significantly beyond the purely local, demonstrating that the councillor has a credible claim to being significantly more notable than the non-notable norm. It's flatly impossible, in fact, to argue that some city councillors are notable while others aren't while simultaneously pointing to purely local media coverage as proof that a particular city councillor falls on the "notable" side of the dichotomy — if purely local media coverage were enough, then the "some are but others aren't" argument would be disembowelled because no city councillor ever goes locally uncovered. Bearcat (talk) 18:19, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Not true. The problem is you are not using the accepted standard of local media coverage. The large, metro newspapers that cover large regions are not local coverage, but regional. When you understand and accept that, it is easy to see why city councilors of large cities will usually pass GNG. City councilors of small cities that are only covered in the truly local paper (as in that city only) often will not. However, you see to accept that some such politicians are and other are not, but why? As in we accept that all state level legislators (and equivalents) are notable, why are you drawing a line at city councilors? Not to mention, no where in the GNG does it ever say anything that excludes local coverage or that national or international coverage is needed. Many people like to argue that local coverage excludes, but there is no actual rule. Aboutmovies (talk) 18:51, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes true. For starters, I'm not "drawing the line" at city councillors; established consensus of AFD drew the line at city councillors and I'm expressing no personal opinion of my own but simply reporting the plain facts of where actual consensus actually stands. You're welcome to try for a new consensus that all city councillors are notable because local media coverage — but what you're not welcome to do is personalize this as if it were about me, because it's not. AFD consensus decided what kind of coverage is enough to get a city councillor into Wikipedia and what kind isn't, not me. Bearcat (talk) 04:12, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * If there was actual consensus, it would be in the guidelines, and it is not there. No to mention, in other debates I have been involved in at AfD came to the conclusion that large metro dailies are not local coverage, but regional. If we go with that consensus, and then added requirement that you suggest AfD has added that for NPOL the significant coverage cannot just be local, then we meet that here. People tried before to try and limit local articles but it failed, showing no consensus to limit coverage on topics such as city councilors. Aboutmovies (talk) 00:21, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
 * That's not how local vs. regional works in relation to NPOL. It's not the geographic range of where some of a newspaper's readers happen to be located that determines whether a city councillor or an unelected candidate for office has "purely local" coverage or "more than purely local" coverage — it's where the paper's editorial staff are located that determines which type of coverage it counts as being. Even The New York Times cannot singlehandedly make an unelected congressional candidate in New York City or a city councillor in an "outside of the Five Boroughs" suburb of New York City more notable than an unelected candidate or a city councillor in Alpena, Michigan is, just because the first person's local coverage happens to be in The New York Times while the second person's local coverage is in the Alpena News instead — the places where the coverage is coming from have to "go national", not just what supplementary places coverage produced in the person's local market might happen to also get read. In 2016, after all, any newspaper that has a website at all can quite accurately claim to have worldwide distribution, thereby forcing us to keep every city councillor in every city and every unelected candidate for every office. So it's where the content was produced that determines whether a subject's media coverage is localized or regionalized or nationalized in scope, not the size of the local media outlet's extended distribution area. Bearcat (talk) 18:13, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me)  04:14, 21 December 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.