Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Cochran (Survivor contestant)


 * 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. It's clear from the discussion here that there is no consensus to outright delete the page. That said, calls for redirecting or merging the article are not to be ignored. While there was no consensus to redirect/merge in this discussion, this does not mean this shouldn't be done. Since AfD - unlike other XfDs - is only about whether the page should be deleted, a keep-result does not necessary prevent anyone from proposing a merger using the usual venues. Regards  So Why  12:39, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

John Cochran (Survivor contestant)

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

All coverage I can see appears to be Hollywood Reporter and so on. I suggest voting him off the island.  E Eng  13:48, 23 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep He is really well known in the Survivor community, and the article has plenty of references from TV, magazines, and elsewhere. Besides, all Survivor winners get their own article, per convention. Greggens (talk) 04:13, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Being well-known in some community doesn't count, and the references are almost entirely to the shows themselves. The one or two remaining are promotional fluff. If I've missed something, please point to it.  E Eng  20:00, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Most of the references may be to episodes of the show, but it's an internationally popular show, viewed by millions in the United States alone. If it's more news references you want, that can be fixed easily (click here to view latest page update). Greggens (talk) 22:33, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
 * There are only two sources in the article which even conceivably count as independent and reliable:
 * A local newspaper item which reads, in its entirety:
 * Oakton’s John Cochran wins ‘Survivor’ show, and $1 million – “Survivor” is the granddaddy of American reality television. It was the first one to really capture huge ratings, and helped create the revolution in television in which there are now whole channels of reality shows. In Oakton, John Cochran was watching from the start, as a 13-year-old in 2000, and he calls himself a show superfan. Now, he is a part of Survivor history. Cochran, 26, won the 26th season of the show (there are two per year) in a live ceremony announcing the winner in Los Angeles last week. The episodes were filmed last year on Caramoan in the Philippines, where Cochran had to eat nasty things and do all the other physical and mental torture tests required of the contestants. He collects $1 million for his troubles. Cochran also competed in season 24 in 2011 but did not win. Meanwhile, the Oakton High School graduate has just finished up his law degree at Harvard. But he tells Dave Seminara in the Fairfax County Times that he’s not sure if he wants to be a lawyer. And that after the bright lights of Hollywood, his return to Oakton is “depressing. I’m a heartthrob on a TV show, but I’m still living at my parents’ house in my childhood bedroom, refreshing message boards and Twitter, and not doing much else.” Last year, after being voted off in season 24, he told Seminara in The Post that he had received death threats for his actions on Survivor, and was taking time off from Harvard Law to bask in the “fleeting notoriety of being a reality TV star.” He said he tended to get recognized more around Northern Virginia than at Harvard, though he later went back to Harvard and earned his law degree. Now, after a second season of life in the reality TV spotlight, Cochran said, “When I go to Tysons, the people who approach me are over the age of 60 or under the age of 12,” he said. “It’s the very old and the very, very young.”
 * An ABA Journal post which reads, in its entirety:
 * Harvard Law Student Who Wrote Prizewinning Class Paper About 'Survivor' Is Now On the Show – A Harvard law student who’s a huge fan of Survivor has already parlayed his love of the reality television program into a prizewinning paper for a class on the American jury system. Now John Cochran, 24, will have a chance to try out his theories about how such groups work as a participant on the show, reports Comcast’s Xfinity blog in a Q&A with Cochran. Fortunately, an Above the Law post points out, he will have his law degree to fall back on. But in the meantime, he plans to take his television persona to the limit as long as he isn’t voted off the island. “I’m prepared to be as deceptive as I need to be. I’m not going to be deceptive for the sole sake of being deceptive, like Russell [Hantz] telling people he was a firefighter in Hurricane Katrina,” Cochran tells Xfinity. “That didn’t earn him any sympathy, he just seemed to relish lying. I wouldn’t do something like that because I don’t see the purpose. I’d only lie if it forwarded my game.”
 * All other sources are either the show itself, Hollywood Reporter, someone's Twitter feed, Entertainment Weekly, or Xfinity promotional material. By the way, it's refreshing to see a lawyer who only lies when it profits him, not just for the sheer pleasure of lying.  E Eng  03:11, 30 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions.   CAPTAIN RAJU  (✉)   19:59, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions.   CAPTAIN RAJU  (✉)   19:59, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Actors and filmmakers-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:13, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:13, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 09:54, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Entertainment Weekly and The Hollywood Reporter are magazines about the entertainment industry, so of course many of the articles about Survivor will come from those types of sources. Also, don't forget the article in the Oakton Patch, a regular news Web site (albeit local). But at any rate, it's going to take more than just one person wanting to delete the article for anything to happen at all. Greggens (talk) 20:49, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
 * There are two E.W. sources and one from T.H.R.. One is by the host of the show. One is a press release reading, in its entirety:
 * Survivor champion John Cochran has followed through on his pledge to become a writer in a big way. The winner of the CBS reality show's most recent season, Survivor: Caramoan -- Fans vs. Favorites, tweeted Thursday that he has landed a gig writing for one of the network's new comedy series. "I'm thrilled to announce that I'm going to be a writer on the new CBS sitcom 'The Millers' (with Will Arnett, Margo Martindale, and more)!" he wrote. (The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed the news.) The Greg Garcia-created comedy centers on a recently divorced man (Arnett) whose life is complicated when his parents decide to move in with him. Cochran, who studied law at Harvard, first revealed his plans to forgo becoming a lawyer and instead pursue writing during Survivor's live reunion show, which aired May 12. Afterward, he told THR that his dream "is an abstract aspiration at this point. I've always been a good writer in school. … Maybe I'll write some sort of screenplay, or comedy writing. Then I start thinking, am I really that funny, or am I just deluding myself?" The two-time competitor is not the first to parlay his Survivor fame into Hollywood gigs. Among others, season one's Colleen Haskell starred with Rob Schneider in 2001's The Animal and later served as an assistant producer on E!'s The Michael Essany Show.
 * The third is . I leave it to my esteemed fellow editors to judge whether this constitutes the "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" contemplated by WP:GNG.  E Eng  00:40, 1 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Just to clarify, Survivor is not the subject of this Wikipedia article; Cochran is. None of these articles referenced were written by Cochran, who incidentally has a life outside of Survivor. Greggens (talk) 03:34, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The show itself is a WP:PRIMARY source, and is worthless for notability purposes. It's as if you said, "This reality-show contestant must be notable – look at all his appearances in the show!" Oh, wait. That actually is what you're saying.  E Eng  03:42, 1 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep per WP:OUTCOMES. We usually keep the winners of major "reality TV shows", regardless of their quality. Bearian (talk) 03:08, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The only problem with that fine piece of reasoning is that that WP:OUTCOMES itself says to Avoid citing this essay at AfD, as that would promote circular reasoning. It may very well be that we usually keep such winners, but that's probably because they usually have GNG-qualifying coverage. If, by "regardless of their quality", you mean regardless of the quality of the article, that's always true, since it's the coverage that exists out in the wild, not the sources actually in the article at the moment, that counts. But no one seems to be able to point to such coverage – in the article or outside it.  E Eng  03:27, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The latest page update shows many more news sources than before, and these sources do represent a wide array of publications. Greggens (talk) 01:39, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry, which ones of these are not press releases, interviews, and duplicates of sources already in the article? Please, just list three sources meeting GNG.  E Eng  03:18, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Second relist for additional comments
 * Keep I feel his role on two season of Survivor (the TV show, not the game) was more notable than TV stars from scripted shows who are obviously kept. Power~enwiki (talk) 08:19, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  DGG ( talk ) 16:05, 10 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I renew my request that someone list even three sources meeting GNG -- i.e. not not press releases, interviews, TV listings, commentary by the show's host, or episodes of the show itself.  E Eng  16:13, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I sense multiple agendas here. There are roughly 50 pages for Survivor contestants not notable for other reasons (I note examples like Jimmy Johnson, who appeared on the show but is notable for his football career).  The case for notability here should be WP:NACTOR; despite being reality television, for purposes of notability, Survivor is a popular broadcast television show and not a sporting competition. Cochran had a significant role (as defined by a large fan base or a significant "cult" following) in two seasons of the show and won 1 million dollars in one season; I think that clearly meets NACTOR, especially compared to many of the other pages.  http://www.funny115.com/v3/version3.htm is a secondary source on the notability of characters on Survivor within the context of the show. Power~enwiki (talk) 19:40, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
 * My recommendation for targeted Survivor AfDs would be any people who had an appearance on Survivor and an appearance in a beauty pageant, but were notable for neither *at the level of "episodes of the show itself". Survivor fans definitely care about John Cochran, but they don't care about Ashley Underwood (and being Miss Maine 2009 is not notable either).  I'm working to update Template talk:Survivor (U.S. TV series) contestants with a full proposal. Power~enwiki (talk) 20:10, 10 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Weak Keep The interviews in my opinion have more weight than passing mentions, John I feel passes WP:ENT #2. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 22:36, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Interviews are not independent of the subject and have zero notability value.  E Eng  12:03, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, I change my opinion to Redirect to Survivor: Caramoan. Each survivor contestant though is a separate entity (case by case basis), so going forward I want editors to keep that in mind. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 13:34, 11 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Survivor: Caramoan; not independently notable, so WP:BIO1E applies. None of the other accomplishments convey independent notability. Much of the article is cited to CBS, which is not an independent source. I don't see the depth of coverage here that we'd expect in a stand-alone BLP.  Anything useful (a paragraph perhaps) can be picked up from the article history. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:10, 11 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Why is John Cochran's page specifically being discussed for deletion? I think it's strange for any reality tv contestants to have wikis, but of Survivor contestants or winners, he's one of the most publicly visible (he returned on the most recent season in an unprecedented twist) and continues to be involved in media, having recently sold a television show to CBS (http://deadline.com/2015/12/john-cochran-survivor-greg-garcia-cbs-bobs-your-uncle-comedy-1201665477/).  If you want his removed, why wouldn't you also ask for the deletion of the rest of the Survivor contestants?  This seems like a personal focus.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Televisionary55 (talk • contribs) 07:49, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
 * It's because I happened to run into it somewhere and realized there are no independent sources. I know nothing about any of those other articles. Cool it with the conspiracy theories.  E Eng  12:03, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I still feel (very strongly) that WP:ENT is the right standard here, not WP:GNG. Power~enwiki (talk) 18:50, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
 * You're misinterpreting the page you're linking -- read the bit at the top (WP:Notability_(people)): "People are likely to be notable if they meet any of the following standards". They're rules of thumb. If, in the end, there are no independent sources, or a paucity of them, then there's no notability. That seems to be the case here, since no one will answer my challenger to list three independent, reliable sources giving significant coverage.  E Eng  18:58, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't feel you're even attempting to engage in constructive debate at this point. Power~enwiki (talk) 19:04, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I'll interpret that as an admission that there are no appropriate sources.  E Eng  19:08, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
 * His appearance on two seasons of a major broadcast TV show is not in dispute. His having "significant fan support" is not in dispute.  His having received over a million dollars in compensation for his appearance on TV shows is not in dispute.  He is currently engaged in a career in the entertainment industry.  Those facts make a complete case for notability, *without* the three independent sources that you keep asking about. I would note  and  as secondary sources, you can find a third one yourself. Power~enwiki (talk) 19:09, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
 * You completely misunderstand the notion of "reliable source".  E Eng  19:11, 11 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. Not my usual field, but it seems we have articles on the winners of other parts.  I do not see wh ythis particular one should be an exception.  It makes sense as a criterion, as with people in all fields. (I'm not sure I;d accept this beyond the main series, but that may be my ignorance of the others).  DGG ( talk ) 23:43, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment if somebody wants a test case as to whether all Survivor winners are notable, it should be Natalie White . Power~enwiki (talk) 20:05, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
 * This isn't a test case. It just is itself. I wish I could say I'm amazed at how far this discussion has drifted from applicable policy, but I'm not -- this happens all the time in specialized corners of the project.  E Eng  22:17, 14 May 2017 (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.