Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joseph Bishop


 * 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. Black Kite (talk) 23:57, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Joseph Bishop

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An LDS mission president, community colleges president, or an author of a few obscure religious books does not make for notability; rather, individual is notable for one event: accusations that are better covered on its own page. Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 04:13, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 *  Delete  - wp:1E: "... The general rule is to cover the event, not the person. However, if media coverage of both the event and the individual's role grow larger, separate articles may become justified. ..." --Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 04:17, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * (As for the wp:Notability_(events): "Events are also very likely to be notable if they have widespread (national or international) impact and were very widely covered in diverse sources, especially if also re-analyzed afterwards" - I believe this is the case here. This is not just a routine news report about a minor event. The news have already made its topic notable.)--Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 04:38, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * striking duplicate !vote. Primefac (talk) 00:13, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * That was my only !vote.--Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 06:05, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * The nomination itself was your first !vote. WP:AFDFORMAT says "Nomination already implies that the nominator recommends deletion (unless indicated otherwise), and nominators should refrain from repeating this recommendation on a separate bulleted line". Dorsetonian (talk) 07:59, 26 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep Bishop was President of Weber State University which meets WP:PROF "#6. The person has held a highest-level elected or appointed administrative post at a major academic institution or major academic society." Therefore he definately gets an article. The whole assault issue was not in the article when I approved it and that issue has been largely added by the nominator. If the assualt allegation warrants a mention, it needs to be a short and sweet mention - and definitely not an entire article. I've tried to counsel the nominator on this but hey clearly are not getting my point.  Legacypac (talk) 04:35, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Weber State Univ. did not exist 1972-1978. (Neither did Utah Valley University.)--Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 04:40, 25 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep (Edit conflict with Legacypac). Weber State University is hardly a "community college". He held the highest position there, and as a result meets WP:PROF. Acebulf (talk) 04:49, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Au contraire. 1st Pres. of Weber St. U. in fact was Paul Thompson...in 1990. Pls see: (1) List of Weber State University people (2) a quote from a recent profile of Bishop (owing to recent events) in the local[-to-Weber] Ogden UT Standard-Examiner: "Bishop contributed to Weber State’s shift from a college to a university...".--Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 06:25, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  MT Train Talk 06:00, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Utah-related deletion discussions.  MT Train Talk 06:00, 25 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete At least as of 2004 Weber State Univeristy barely granted more bachelors degrees than did Henry Ford College which is a community college. In the 1970s Weber State University was a two year community college just begenning transitioning to giving four year degrees. We already have a seperate article on the accusations against Bishop. Bishop is the author of a few books virtually no one has heard of, ran a place that in the 1970s is best described as a community college, was a mission president (which is clearly not grounds for notability), was president of the MTC (which is also not grounds for notability, and so not defining I could not even tell you who the president of the MTC was when I was a missionary there). He was also a professor at BYU, as best I can tell the director of some of its teacher education functions. I do not think any reasonable interpretation of Academic notability point 6 would make Bishop notable.John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:18, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment If this article is deleted we should delete the article on Wilford M. McKendrick. Even if it is kept, McKendrick was the principal of a high school for two years. Although there may be more info that might indicate notability for McKendrick.John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:24, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment What are we going to do about Joseph Bishop sexual abuse allegations? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  13:59, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Procedurally speedy keep. The nominator significantly expanded the article's controversy section, split it into an article of its own, and now wishes to delete the original article. That would be a cut and paste move which will lose the earlier edit history and the talk page discussion, and should instead have been been done by moving the page to a new title and removing the extraneous content. Therefore, even if we support the nominator's proposal that there should be an article about only the event and not the subject, the nominated article should still not be deleted. Dorsetonian (talk) 16:04, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete and also delete the spin-off article about the unsubstantiated accusations. This person is not notable and we should not have an article about unproven accusations about a non-notable person. That article is a blatant BLP violation since there has been no conviction, and the alleged offense, though serious, is commonplace. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  05:54, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * cmt - Accdg to wp:1E, wp:GNG & wp:Publicfigure are incontiguous. In the US, one inadvertently becomes a public figure when accused of a crime, as far as 2ndary sources covering the same in the news media (in this paricular case, the NYT, WaPo, FNC, HuffPo, USNews&WorldRpt, etc.) is concerned. WP does not have to follow suit, of course (e.g., a recent Mass. court decision controversially renders even victims as inadvertent public figures). (IMHO, due to the present case's notoriety, due to the alleged abuser's non-notability otherwise, perhaps a reasonable compromise will be to render him into the generic "the Missionary Training Center's mission president '82-'86 and have it a child article to the parent article "Mormon abuse cases." -- And, such discretion w rgd those inadvertently become public figures should be done across the WP project, not just here. [Cf.: "Sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Boston," "Catholic Church sexual abuse cases"], etc.)--Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 18:32, 26 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Comment the related page Joseph Bishop sexual abuse allegations is currently renamed 2018 allegations of 1984 LDS missionary-trainees' abuse. Dorsetonian (talk) 19:22, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Additional comment: I have nominated it for deletion at Articles for deletion/2018 allegations of 1984 LDS missionary-trainees' abuse Dorsetonian (talk) 20:35, 26 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep I have no clue how to engage with this non-visual editor so my apologies to other more experienced Wikipedia editors. I am the original submitter of the entry.  I appreciate the efforts of others to make sure Wikipedia is not used as a tool to engage in character assassinations of others.  A lot has been added to what I originally wrote around the sexual abuse controversy.  I tried hard to be very neutral in my original coverage.  If the additional edits have gone to far, then pare them down.  The whole minimization of his role as a President of Weber State College seems like an effort to protect unfavorable association.  It is quite easy to see that other Presidents of Webster State / College have Wikipedia pages and they perhaps are of equal notoriety for better or worse.  (I didn't dive into whom of them were still living.)  I just question the motives of trivializing Weber as not being major academic university.  In terms of there not being a "conviction". There probably never will be due to the statute of limitations on this.  There has been an undeniable confession by him to the police that he asked her to expose her breasts and that he was serving in a position that all within the LDS church would revere as quite significant. Faithcrisis (talk) 20:29, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * No one "revers" the president of the MTC. We have never even gotten a full consensus that all general officers and general authorities of the Church are notable. Area Seventies, who are probably higher in the hierarchy than MTC presidents, are by consensus only notable for other things. If I had asked Every Mormon I know, which is a lot, who Joseph L. Bishop was 2 months ago, I doubt any would have known. While from a religious perspective Bishop asking a woman to expose her breasts is wrong, I find it hard to construe it as a criminal act, especially in light of the whole Monica Lewinsky scandal.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:52, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Cmt  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Comment WP:PROF is a hard standard to meet and if you meet it you meet it. It is nonsense to say Weber State College is not the same as Weber State University - same school. Additionally even if one argues that he was not notable before these allegations, all the press on the allegations makes him notable now. Legacypac (talk) 20:48, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Change my delete !vote above to: Speedily close AfD & delete blp! per extremely applicable considerations @ Biographies of living persons.--Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 22:14, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Commment in the last 10 or 20 years there has been a strong tendency for educational institutions to adopt more prestigious titles--in the US, many former technical institutes have become community colleges, many community colleges have found some method of granting a bachelors degree and called themselves colleges, many colleges have devised some sort of graduate programs and been relabelled as universities. (I believe a similar process has taken place in the UK). Though WP:PROfstates that we regard presidency of a major university as not just implying but proving notability, in practice we have been extending it to all universities and to 4-year colleges.  DGG ( talk ) 15:54, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually there are many places in the US that do not grant anything above a bachelors degree that use the name university. Southern Virginia University is an example of this, but by no means the only one. There are regional issues as well. In the east we have Boston College and The College of William and Mary that are by any definition universities. In Utah and some surrounding states, university is pretty much designating any institution that grants 4-year college degrees. BYU-Haweaii and BYU-Idaho are other examples of the all undergraduate university. On the other hand in Utah, Wyoming and Idaho, there are junior colleges that are Snow College and similar. It should be kept in mind that community colleges and junior colleges are different. In almost all cases community colleges are junior colleges (although I am working on a post-bachelors certificate from Schoolcraft College which is a community college, so the issue is complex), but classic junior colleges like Snow College are not community colleges at all. The community college tends towards lots of technical programs, career orientation, while also having an emphasis on preparing people for universities. Most key it is almost always a multi-campus entity, with a clear attendance district that it seeks to serve. The junior college is a college that tends more toward liberal arts and general education, has most of its students transfer, will at times have a single campus, dorms, and some are even private institutions. Some also evolved from regional academies which were more at the high school level.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:01, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) Per wp:PUBLICFIGURE, if it turns out any 4-yr higher ed. institution pres. is automatically notable, all bets are off. You can't be part-way pregnant and more/less granularity of allegations would not necessarily translate to more/less libel (which wd not be legally actionable w rgd a public figure in any case).
 * 2) W rgd nature of allegations as being not much, etc., yes, like most such, 'tis "He said, she said"--he: "Never anything nonconsensual"; she: her (attempted) rape!. (Cf. e.g. Bill Clinton's/Juanita Broaddrick's conflicting accts.) --Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 06:20, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   09:44, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm not emotionally involved in the whole LDS exposing breast scandal thing. If he is guilty of clergy sexual assault that is between him, his God, the girl, the church and maybe the courts but has no bearing on if he has a page here. He led a 4 year degree granting state owned school. Notable under Prof - full stop. The rest is a side show. Legacypac (talk) 10:01, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep I agree with earlier comment that Bishop was President of Weber State University, a major university which meets WP:PROF "#6. The person has held a highest-level elected or appointed administrative post at a major academic institution or major academic society." Therefore, he is a notable figure who should have his own page. He also wrote several books and academic articles, and served as the two-time president of the largest missionary training center for a major world religion. I see no legitimate justification for deleting this page.the truth matters 14:47, 7 April 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pblowry (talk • contribs)


 * Keep This person, especially regarding the rape allegations, are highly notable in a region of the US (Utah/Idaho/Arizona) and more broadly as the \#metoo movement filters through different parts of society. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.187.81.218 (talk) 23:21, 7 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep per the WP:PROF arguments above. TimTempleton (talk) (cont)  22:12, 9 April 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it.</b> 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.