Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John James (businessman)


 * 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 delete. This closure should imply no prejudice against recreating the article if the subject is elected, and I'm happy to restore the delete content in those circumstances (just drop me a line). Yunshui 雲 水 09:13, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

John James (businessman)

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Article was prodded, but was removed with the following quizzical explanation: "Notability in being one of the top candidates in Michigan for the Republican nomination." Fails WP:NPOL. Every source on here and every source I found in WP:BEFORE pertain to the Senate campaign, therefore expressly failing NPOL. No indication this could meet GNG on any other facet of his life than this campaign. IMO, the fact that it is only on the campaign makes it at least to some degree WP:PROMO too. John from Idegon (talk) 00:30, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. cinco deL3X1  ◊distænt write◊  00:42, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. cinco deL3X1  ◊distænt write◊  00:42, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. cinco deL3X1  ◊distænt write◊  00:42, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Michigan-related deletion discussions. cinco deL3X1  ◊distænt write◊  00:42, 8 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete - The page can keep if/when he wins Senate election in Michigan. Outside his candidacy, he's not notable. Meatsgains (talk) 01:36, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Draftify Move the page to the draft as it doesn't meet notability guidelines currently but would if he was elected. Acebulf (talk) 02:45, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete you aren't notable for being an unelected candidate unless you otherwise pass WP:GNG, which he does not. SportingFlyer  talk  04:08, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Draftify - obvious answer on notability as already mentioned above and in WP:POLOUTCOMES. Promo but contains some relevant facts - might as well keep it around in case he wins. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:49, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete. There is no "inherent" notability just for being a candidate in a party primary per se — and even if he wins the primary and goes into the general election as his party's official candidate, that still isn't an automatic notability freebie. He'll obviously qualify to have an article if he wins the general election in November, but as a candidate he's notable only if you can demonstrate and properly source that he was already notable for some other reason besides the candidacy itself. But this demonstrates no serious evidence of preexisting notability — even his business career is referenced not to coverage about him in the context of his business career, but to mentions of his business career by way of background in the candidacy coverage, which is not how you demonstrate that someone is notable as a businessman. (Since every candidate's routine campaign coverage is always going to mention their prior career background, every candidate would always be able to claim notability on those grounds as a dodge of their not having achieved notability as a politician yet — so making a person notable for their prior work requires preexisting coverage of that prior work in its own right, not just background mentions of it in the candidacy context.) POLOUTCOMES also explicitly states that we do not hold onto candidate articles in draftspace pending the election results, precisely because we do not want draftspace to turn into the repository of campaign brochures that NPOL is intentionally designed to prevent Wikipedia from becoming — if he wins the election in November, then an administrator can easily restore the deleted article with one click on a button, so the principle of not losing the work doesn't require draftspacing. Bearcat (talk) 15:08, 8 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Clarity - "Losing candidates for office below the national level who are otherwise non-notable are generally deleted. They are not moved to user space for fear of establishing a precedent that any premature article about an as-yet-unelected candidate for office can be kept in draftspace pending election returns, effectively making draftspace a repository for campaign brochures " is not a fully clear statement.
 * It makes is crystal clear that losing candidates are deleted - but it does so in order to prevent establishment of precedent for a distinct category, it isn't actually specifically stated that candidates within elections are deleted. You may well be specifically right on the issue, but if so that aspect of POLOUTCOMES must be re-written to be clearer or it cannot be acceptably used as an argument. Nosebagbear (talk) 15:22, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I fail to understand the distinction you think you're drawing between what I said and what POLOUTCOMES says. It does not rule out articles about losing candidates "in order to prevent establishment of precedent for a distinct category", it rules out articles about losing candidates in order to prevent articles about losing candidates from being here at all. QED. Bearcat (talk) 03:33, 9 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Redirect to United States Senate election in Michigan, 2018. Major party candidates for the US Senate should be redirected to the wikipedia page about the election they are running for, if they are not already notable. The election page can include verifiable facts about the candidate. The proposal to draftify the page should be discouraged per Bearcat. --Enos733 (talk) 19:51, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete If James wins the primary, that may propel him to notability. However even that is unclear, since with Michigan having a governor's election as well, most of the focus is on that race. People are not notable until they win an election, with very rare exceptions. Wikipedia is not the place for candidates to host their campaign brouchers, which is what it would become if we start delaying deletion until elections.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:14, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Draftify Per WP:POLOUTCOMES, politicians have to be elected to be considered notable. Unless there is some other claim to notability, which is not the case here. Suggest moving to the draft space and restoring if he wins, deleting if he does not.  Hawkeye7   (discuss)  22:48, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I created the article. The way I looked at it was that there was sufficient notability based on coverage in non-local sources (which i could add more) and the significant endorsements he has received. However, I also get the points made above. Would it not be that he is notable until he loses?Patapsco913 (talk) 17:20, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Generally, notability cannot be lost - you either have it permanently, or you never had it. Poloutcomes (attempts) to set out that it doesn't matter how much electoral coverage someone has had (for almost all elections), notability also requires them to have won the election. POLOUTCOMES is supposed to indicate this as well for current candidates, but does a poor job at saying so. Nosebagbear (talk) 17:48, 13 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Redirect to United States Senate election in Michigan, 2018 - I'm with Bearcat here regarding applying the lessons of WP:POLOUTCOMES. It's also WP:TOOSOON. However, since there's so much that's been done and the sourcing is decent, a simple redirect, proposed also by Enos733 above, keeps it from taking up space, yet makes it easy to bring back from the dead without having to bother any admins. TimTempleton (talk) (cont)  07:02, 15 May 2018 (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.