Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jim Rogers (politician)


 * 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The result was Withdrawn; to be split into separate AFDs  Purpleback  pack  89  ≈≈≈≈  15:59, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Jim Rogers (politician)

 * – ( View AfD View log )

As a local politician of a not-a-large city, doesn't really pass notability for politicians. Is several years out of date. Also a BLP without reliable references on top of that. Nominating the following similar articles for deletion as well:


 * Irma Anderson
 * Nathanial Bates
 * Rosemary Corbin
 * Richard Griffin (Councilmember)
 * John Márquez
 * Mindell Penn
 * Harpreet Sandhu
 * María Viramontes

 Purpleback pack  89  ≈≈≈≈  05:04, 2 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. Eastmain (talk • contribs)  07:52, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Eastmain (talk • contribs)  07:52, 2 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep Jim Rogers - he is also cited as a known TV personality in the San Fransisco Bay area. There are still sources online which testify to this (p.21 of the latter suggests he was ubiquitous for more than 2 decades). If he was just a councillor in a minor suburb I'd agree with deletion, but this guy seems to be more than that. Once notable, always notable according to WP. Sionk (talk) 01:16, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment Why are all the deletion discussions for the other politicians in the list directed here too? Is this normal? Having looked dispassionately at the entries for the other individuals (listed above) I would agree the remainder should be deleted. That is with the exception of Irma Anderson, *if* a reliable source can be found to confirm she was the first african american woman mayor of a major Californian city. Even in her case I would tend to suggest she would be more suitable for a mention in an article about the 2001 election (similarly to Richmond, California municipal elections, 2006), rather than an article in her own right. The article suggests there were other black american female mayors in non-major cities, which rather dilutes the claim! Sionk (talk) 13:52, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Plz read WP:AFD. It is acceptable to nominate multiple similar articles for deletion.  If you want to keep Rogers and Anderson, and delete the rest, you say, "Keep Rogers and Anderson, delete the rest"  Purpleback  pack  89  ≈≈≈≈  14:25, 3 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep Jim Rogers. I have updated the article, which was out of date. I don't know why nominator describes it as a "BLP without reliable references"; the article is well referenced. As to his notability, he would not qualify as notable for being a county supervisor and city councilman, but he is highly notable/notorious for his previous incarnation as a lawyer. He was one of the first attorneys to advertise on TV, becoming a household name in the Bay Area as "the People's Lawyer" - and his fame/notoriety was such that his law firm was covered at length in an article in the New York University Law Review. --MelanieN (talk) 23:33, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * NB I added the secondary references and augmented the article after the AfD notice was posted. It is fair to say the article claimed him as notable for being a councillor in Richmond. A quick google search may not have uncovered the fact he was notable for something entirely different. He is certainly not notable for being a councillor and, probably, the article should be renamed 'Jim Rogers (lawyer)'. Sionk (talk) 16:17, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Deferring judgment for now on the others in this batch nomination. IMO it is unfair to lump nine individual people into a single nomination like this, since it encourages discussants to treat them all the same, rather than evaluating each person on their merits. Yes, I know, Wikipedia permits multiple nominations, but IMO it should be limited to articles that are substantially related to each other in some way. I don't know about the others here, but I am not willing to shrug and say "oh, well, I'll just call all of them non-notable and move on." --MelanieN (talk) 23:33, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * These are clearly related...they are all city council members from a medium-sized city, they all hadn't been updated in over three years, and all of them had no reliable sources. Notability is determined by reliable sources, and if you don't have reliable sources, you ain't notable.  And Jim Rogers was that way when he was nominated...he had one source, which wasn't reliable.  Perfectly acceptable, perfectly fair, should have been done two years ago  Purpleback  pack  89  ≈≈≈≈  23:42, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * According to WP:BEFORE you are supposed to do a little research before nominating an article for deletion - not just basing your nomination on the current state of the article, which can be fixed by editing if the person is notable. I am now having to do that person-by-person research since you didn't. --MelanieN (talk) 00:06, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not the nominator's responsibility to fix articles that have been bad for three years. They should have been deleted years ago  Purpleback  pack  89  ≈≈≈≈  00:43, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete Irma Anderson. I could find no confirmation of the claim that she was the first African-American woman mayor of a major California city - only that she was the first African-American woman to be mayor of Richmond. Her career and news coverage are otherwise unremarkable. --MelanieN (talk) 23:46, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep Nathaniel Bates. I found plenty of coverage about him and added some to the article. He is one of the longest-serving city councilmembers in the state of California. --MelanieN (talk) 00:01, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete Rosemary Corbin. I found only routine coverage about her as mayor and city councilmember. --MelanieN (talk) 00:03, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep Richard Griffin (Councilmember). I found plenty of references about him; he served for more than 20 years. --MelanieN (talk) 00:24, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Being a councilperson in a town of 103,000 doesn't make you notable. Your "plenty of references" is nothing but a few items in the local paper.  Griffin needs to go, as does Bates  Purpleback  pack  89  ≈≈≈≈  00:43, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Please don't use Straw man arguments. Nobody claimed that being a councilperson in a town of 103,000 makes him notable. The very fact that I am saying "delete" for some of these people and "keep" for others shows that I am applying WP:BIO on an individual basis, not claiming some kind of automatic notability for all these people. --MelanieN (talk) 01:38, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Weak delete John Marquez. I added some info to the article but I didn't really find a lot of coverage about him. --MelanieN (talk) 00:36, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete Mindell Penn. OK, this one was easy. She only served for six years and coverage was pretty minimal. --MelanieN (talk) 00:38, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * For starters, you shouldn't put each !vote in a separate header...you should bundle them all in one header. Or you enbolden the person you're talking about.  For second, the "sources" you're using are nothing more than local newspapers.  I still maintain that these people are non-notable...if these are kept, we could be facing a flurry of thousands of councilmembers of small and medium-sized towns who are mentioned in local papers  Purpleback  pack  89  ≈≈≈≈  00:43, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I will keep on putting each !vote in a separate header. I don't know any other way to give each individual article the attention it deserves. The references I cited are mostly regional (the San Francisco Chronicle, the Oakland Tribune) rather than local (Richmond's local paper is the Contra Costa Times). Significant coverage in regional reliable sources is sufficient to establish notability. --MelanieN (talk) 00:51, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete Harpeet Sandhu. He was only on the council for a couple of years and got minimal coverage. --MelanieN (talk) 00:48, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete Maria Viramontes. One-term councilmember with minimal coverage. --MelanieN (talk) 00:54, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: User has voted separately for each article  Purpleback pack  89  ≈≈≈≈  04:13, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Procedural Keep all - Individual politician bios are not peas from a single pod and should not be nominatable by group as "similar articles." Each case is different and they should be all brought up on their own merits after WP:BEFORE is followed by the nominator. Carrite (talk) 04:42, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * These articles are too peas in a pod. They are poorly written, out of date, and not reliabily sourced from non-local areas.  Each one of them could have been prodded.  I stand 100% behind my decision to nominate them together.  They're cruft, and should have been gone years ago  Purpleback  pack  89  ≈≈≈≈  05:20, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Correction: they are no longer out of date. I spent more than an hour yesterday bringing them up to date. --MelanieN (talk) 14:50, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Furthermore, what it sounds like you're doing is criticizing the policy of AFDs rather than me personally. If you don't like the policy, suggest a change (which I obviously will oppose).  And keep in mind it's not the nominator's responsibility to completely clean up bad and pretty clearly non-notable articles.  Purpleback  pack  89  ≈≈≈≈  05:23, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * As the first person that commented on this AfD, I have to agree with Purpleback . On December 1st all of these articles claimed notability based on being elected officials in Richmond. That in itself is not sufficient for notability and a fair reason to nominate them all. However, being poorly written, out-of-date or unsourced is not a reason for deletion, otherwise half of Wikipedia would be zapped :) Sionk (talk) 16:29, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment Is this discussion open to all Wikipedians, or only to those intimately familiar with the topic? Where do I find the definition of notability for mayors? What is a "not-large-city"? Ottawahitech (talk) 13:42, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * It's open to all Wikipedians. For definition of notability, see WP:POLITICIAN, although not all these people were mayors.  Richmond is a substantially sized city, but not one of the 100 largest cities in the U.S.  Purpleback  pack  89  ≈≈≈≈  14:28, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for asking, Ottawahitech. Certainly everyone's input is welcome; AfD discussions are not limited to "specialists" in a given area. The answer to your question is that local politicians have to meet the general notability guidelines of WP:BIO. There is no automatic inclusion for mayors, or for officials of any particular size of city (unlike, say, state or provincial legislators who are automatically deemed notable). It all depends on whether they have received significant coverage in independent reliable sources. Reasonable people may differ on what constitutes "significant" coverage, and what kind of sources are required. --MelanieN (talk) 14:48, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment Notability overview, to whom it may concern.
 * 1) The main document regarding notability is WP:Notability, which is a guideline and is commonly known as WP:N. WP:N has only one requirement, that a topic be "worthy of notice".  The nutshell is a must read.
 * 2) Within WP:N, WP:GNG is the general notability guideline, which is one path to determining that a topic is "worthy of notice". Other shortcuts in WP:N that often are mentioned are WP:NNC, WP:NRVE, WP:NTEMP, and WP:LISTN.
 * 3) The lede of WP:N recognizes a number of "subject specific guidelines", also known as SNGs, which are alternate guidelines to determining that a topic is "worthy of notice". Note that there is a body of editors who deny that SNGs are valid alternatives to WP:GNG, although I don't claim to understand their viewpoint.
 * 4) WP:Notability (people) contains sub-guidelines each of which might also be called an SNG, and each of which are alternate guidelines to determining that a topic is "worthy of notice". Included here are WP:ANYBIO and WP:POLITICIAN.
 * 5) There may also be notability essays that could apply. Notability essays also define whether or not a topic is "worthy of notice", but are not recognized as such by WP:N.  An essay may be no more than one person's opinion.  An essay is neither a guideline nor a policy.
 * 6) To my knowledge, the absence of notability is not defined at Wikipedia, it is the set left after removing topics that are "worthy of notice". In particular, such a claim requires evidence that WP:GNG is not satisfied, and in this case would also require evidence that WP:ANYBIO and WP:POLITICIAN are not satisfied.
 * 7) WP:N is a guideline to decide if we should have a stand-alone article on Wikipedia, deletion is determined by WP:Deletion policy.
 * 8) WP:ATD, "Alternatives to deletion", is a part of WP:Deletion policy in which the point is that we avoid deleting material when there are alternatives.
 * 9) WP:IAR also comes into play, but editors tend not to cite it. Unscintillating (talk) 01:07, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I was thoroughly aware of the guidelines when I nominated it, so lecturing me on what notability guidelines are comes off a bit condescending. It seems blatently clear that these fail ANYBIO, and probably POLITICIAN as well.  That leaves GNG.  Really the question comes down to, "Does being mentioned in the local paper make you notable enough for a Wikipedia article?"  And I think it doesn't  Purpleback  pack  89  ≈≈≈≈  05:09, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, the reason I said "to whom it may concern", is because the person asking the question was more specific than the answer that I gave. But this editor was also asking questions on another page that made me think it was worth posting in case it was helpful.  Unscintillating (talk) 07:36, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Close AfD and split - The fact that people are arguing for different outcomes for the different articles is a pretty clear sign that they all should not be decided in one lumped AfD.--Yaksar (let's chat) 04:59, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Withdrawn: Will be split into separate AFDs  Purpleback pack  89  ≈≈≈≈  15:54, 6 December 2011 (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.