Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joseph Murphy (veteran)


 * 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. On the whole, there seems to be consensus that this is a WP:BIO1E case, but that the content could be restored to merge into other relevant articles.  Sandstein  17:58, 2 January 2016 (UTC)   Sandstein   17:58, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Joseph Murphy (veteran)

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PRODed by me. Article creator didn't properly contest the PROD, simply removing the tag with the rationale that references were added. That in itself is a big part of the problem here: the article as currently constructed doesn't read like a coherent biographical article, instead reading like a series of statements strung together, with the existence of ref tags at the end of those statements constituting the ONLY common thread. Just from glancing through the sources, it certainly appears that the article could be fleshed out a little more. However, I'm fully well aware of WP:AFDISNTCLEANUP, so on to notability. The overwhelming majority of the sources' focus is on his recent death. Not only WP:NOTNEWS comes to mind, but it's rather pernicious to allow fleeting headlines to hold such sway over OUR coverage, unless Wikipedia really isn't independent of big corporate media and I just haven't been paying attention to that. What's really notable about Murphy's death is that it's one of many unexplained or controversial deaths which have occurred in Alaska Department of Corrections facilities over the past two or so years, which led to Governor Walker recently firing the department's commissioner. The only source not specifically pertaining to his death is from 2000, referring to his receiving a citation from the United States Department of the Interior, which on the surface would likely fail WP:BLP1E. Organized search-and-rescue teams and search-and-rescue operations are quite common in the coastal areas of northern and western Alaska. This area is mostly flat and beyond the tree line, so seeing nothing but snow and ice and the sun's reflection off of same for miles on end can be highly disorienting, even to people who have experience in the wilderness. From reading that source, it appears he received the citation because he performed these actions while employed by the Department of the Interior, not because there was anything special about it. Furthermore, it appears that Archie Ferguson, as a member of a search-and-rescue team, utilized that training and as such was mainly responsible for this rescue, with Murphy accompanying him in his role as a workplace subordinate. This brings to mind WP:PUFFERY, as does the mention of the film role when compared with the source. Charles Wohlforth's piece (and I say "piece" because I'm not sure whether it was published as an opinion column or a news story, which may have bearing on this discussion (Postscript: Wohlforth is an opinion columnist and not a news reporter for the ADN)) indicates that Murphy's role was incidental, plus leaves doubt as to whether this film has actually been released. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 07:58, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep As a general rule, if you need a wall of text to explain why we should delete the biography of a deceased Native American veteran and life-saving hero who died under tragic circumstances, it's quite possible that you are on the wrong side of history. Kvetching about the article being the result of a vast conspiracy of backwoods Alaskan "corporate media" is bad enough; but invoking the WP:Biography of Living Persons one event policy for the biography of someone who is dead is just extra ridiculousness. -- Kendrick7talk 08:48, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Perhaps that wall of text IS warranted, given that the very existence of this article suggests that we're here to mindlessly parrot yesterday's or last week's headlines, pretending that such reflects notability, while ignoring topics with established notability which have the misfortune of falling outside of Wikipedia's comparatively limited collective memory (more on that below). It's called providing background to the uninitiated and reflecting the bigger picture.  Journalists are tasked with coming up with X amount of material by a deadline, with context often falling by the wayside as a result.  They're also directed by their editors to focus on certain topics and aspects of topics and to ignore others, no matter how newsworthy those respective topics or aspects may or may not be.  Right or wrong, it's what people have to do in order to earn their keep in this world.
 * You don't help your cause any by giving a rationale that's literally oozing with POV. If you can't maintain a neutral point of view, then how can I trust that your creations adhere to such?  Then you make things even worse by disparaging an entire geographic region of the world.  "Backwoods"?  If you really want to go there, it's been mentioned any number of times over the years that the area Murphy hailed from, known today as the Kusilvak Census Area, is Alaska's version of Appalachia.  It's an area which sorely lacks coverage on Wikipedia.  The only real editing attention given to the region as a whole has been to wipe its former name of "Wade Hampton" from our collective consciousness, coincidental with social media commentary that Hampton was a "terrorist".  However, all of that, including the connotations of historical revisionism, falls outside of the scope of this AFD.  More to the point, the only editing activity to this article since this AFD started has been to replace non-existent categories with other non-existent categories, which affirms my claim of WP:PUFFERY.  There is no category for the Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.  That article isn't in the deplorable shape found in many other articles covering Alaska state government.  However, there was a scandal in the National Guard which contributed to the reelection defeat of Sean Parnell a little over a year ago.  You honestly expect anyone to believe that this is more relevant to our encyclopedic coverage of the department than that?  Please.  Making things worse, there's a draft covering the incumbent adjutant general which has been left to rot by the geniuses who run AFC for over a year, because it appears that they're still stuck on last year's events when she was only an unsuccessful state house candidate, prior to Walker appointing her as adjutant general.  Going back even further than that, the state's first adjutant general died in the line of duty in a plane crash while conducting an inspection tour in the aftermath of the 1964 earthquake.  His son was also a National Guard officer, who also died in the line of duty in a plane crash three decades later.  There was also a territorial adjutant general who died in the line of duty in a plane crash.  Alaska Territorial Guard is chock full of redlinks referring to individuals whose notability is established and even inherent, at least as far as Wikipedia's aforementioned lack of collective memory is concerned.  Comparing the existence of this article with the lack of acknowledgment of any of those events or persons makes this article out to be a WP:POVFORK even without your rationale validating that.
 * As to your point about BLP: if you haven't noticed the recent deaths ticker found on the main page, the discussion process judges candidate articles in terms of how they would fare as BLPs ALL THE TIME, even though those persons are also deceased. At any rate, you're avoiding the point.  Take away his death and its coverage and you have a flagrant WP:BLP1E violation.  Add that event and coverage and you have a flagrant WP:NOTMEMORIAL and WP:NOTNEWS violation, something made all the more obvious by your rationale.
 * In summary, I simply cannot treat this article and its cherry-picked sources as if they exist in a vacuum. No one else should be expected to do so, either.  See this AFD for reference: even though someone managed to cobble together a series of reliable sources and prose backed by those sources, prompting one editor to !vote "keep" for that very reason, it was still the same deal as this, essentially making a mountain out of a molehill.  Using either that article or this article as an example, anyone could conceivably create a Wikipedia article on themselves irrespective of notability. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions  01:16, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. The Bushranger One ping only 08:14, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — UY Scuti Talk  18:39, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Alaska-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:44, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:44, 18 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete While this article is clearly about a tragic death, it is no more than a news story, which as we know is not sufficient for a WP article. I don't see anything that brings this up to notability criteria. LaMona (talk) 22:35, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete Nothing about this person passes the notability requirements for soldiers. We need to drop the false notion of "wrong side of history". History is the process of the past, it takes no sides.John Pack Lambert (talk) 07:59, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I dunno if "wrong side of history" was directed at me or not. Regardless, this constant mindless parroting of whatever's "trending lately" and offering only the same information found on the countless millions of other websites in the world, or gratuitous links to same in lieu of real information, suggests that our target audience are people who are dumbed down, know no better and are willing to accept whatever we offer them as perfectly valid.  I'm no longer in the position where I can sing Wikipedia's praises out in the real world because I deal with a lot of people who do know better, and therefore there are no praises I can sing which don't ring hollow.  It's been that way for at least the past four years, whereas prior to that there was some glimmer of hope. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions  11:22, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — UY Scuti Talk  20:38, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep/merge There seems to be something notable going on and the nomination tells us quite a lot about it. Perhaps the best place to summarise this is Alaska Department of Corrections which currently says that its commissioner is Schmidt when the actiing commisioner is now Monegan and the one who had to resign was Taylor. Please let's focus on correcting and improving our content per our editing policy. Andrew D. (talk) 09:55, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete. Doesn't meet the criteria of WP:SOLDIER to qualify for serving in the military, and that someone's death was tragic does not mean it meets the criteria for being an article (WP:NOTNEWS) - articles about an event when that event is someone's death need to meet WP:LASTING, not be based on how admirable a person the deceased was. Egsan Bacon (talk) 21:05, 31 December 2015 (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.