Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joseph Saint-Amour


 * 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, consensus is that article fails notability guidelines as it does not have reliable secondary sources. Davewild (talk) 20:33, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Joseph Saint-Amour

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Another very old person with nothing to be said about them other than born X, died Y, aged Z and some irrelevant WP:OR commentary. The only references in the article are brief entries in lists, and when I tried a google search I found no further coverage in reliable sources (it's mostly blog entries and wiki mirrors). Without substantial coverage in reliable sources, this person fails WP:BIO and WP:BIO1E. He is already listed in Oldest people and Oldest validated person by year of birth, so the article should be deleted; all the referenced data is already in the lists. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:54, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Zagalejo's argument here seems to be that a topic should be presumed notable unless notability can be disproven, which is an inversion of the guideline. I have no objection to performing some due diligence, and where refs are available I will add them (as with Mary Christian), but I do object to the keep-because-something-may-turn-up approach. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:53, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Quebec-related deletions.  -- A. B. (talk) 02:01, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom.  jj137  ♠  Talk 02:35, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep : Sorrry --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • contribs. I believe that “….very old people”, as you put it, do deserve an article just for the fact that they are Supercentenarian. Hopefully, one day, we will all have an article in our name for this fact. Shoessss |  Chat  02:46, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment I'm not sure how much material you expect to find about this guy on the Internet. It's easy to prove Edna Parker's notability because she is an Internet-era supercentarian, but any newspaper articles about Joe are probably offline (and in French), and I don't think this AFD should be closed unless someone does the proper research. Zagalejo^^^ 04:55, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * If at some later date someone finds substantive coverage in the print archives of French newspapers in Quebec, and if that adds up to more than a lone obituary, an article can be written ... but there's no guarantee that such coverage exists, because not all these very old peopel achieved any recognition in their own lifetimes. In the meantime, all we have is a factoid from a list, which belongs in a list. This substub article offers nothing beyond what's already covered in Oldest validated person by year of birth and oldest people, so there is no need to split it out from the lists. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:43, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Stop waiting for "someone" to do the research, pull your finger out, and do the research yourself. Do a Google Books search and discover, as I did, that there's only one occurrence of this name in a book, and it is in a book published years after this person died so is unlikely to be the same person.  Do a Google News Archive search (The archive goes back to the 1850s for some North American newspapers.) and discover, as I did, that this person is not mentioned in any newspaper articles at all.  There are no sources from which a biographical article can be written.  This is a stub that is incapable (because there are no sources to use) of being expanded into a full article, and should be redirected per our Deletion policy. Uncle G (talk) 12:24, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * While I believe you make an excellent point in encouraging someone to do their own research, I believe your finger comment is not productive. User:benjendav  16:14, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Um, look through my recent contributions. I'm perfectly capable of doing research. I've helped save several articles from deletion within the past couple weeks. You're assuming that Google books is comprehensive, which is hardly true. I've just searched for random lines from some of the books I have near my computer, and came up empty. Google News archive is also missing lots of stuff. I've found subtantial articles using the Chicago Tribune PDF archives that aren't listed there. It's remotely possible that there is more information somewhere, but it might take some time to find it. I'm not trying to pass the buck; I'll do what I can. Zagalejo^^^ 19:29, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not assuming anything about Google Books. For one thing, there have been several occasions here at AFD in the past where I and other editors have all seen different results from Google Books.  But I am applying our Verifiability policy properly: Something is only verifiable if either there is a citation that tells the reader where the source is or a reasonable effort to locate sources on the parts of editors turns up sources.  Arguing that even though there are no sources cited or to be found "someone" might find sources, and that editors who have made reasonable efforts to locate sources (The nominator even told you explicitly what xe had done to look for sources.) have not done "proper research" is both fallacious and insulting to those editors.  Editors who, like BrownHairedGirl, go looking for sources first and come to AFD only when they don't find any are to be encouraged, not insulted.  Uncle G (talk) 20:18, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * One point which concerns me here is that some editors appear to be trying to invert the burden of proof. NOTE is clear about this: "Non-notability is a rebuttable presumption based only on a lack of suitable evidence of notability, which becomes moot once evidence is found. It is not possible to prove non-notability because that would require a negative proof."
 * One point which concerns me here is that some editors appear to be trying to invert the burden of proof. NOTE is clear about this: "Non-notability is a rebuttable presumption based only on a lack of suitable evidence of notability, which becomes moot once evidence is found. It is not possible to prove non-notability because that would require a negative proof."
 * Do note I never actually made a keep argument. I just thought it was a matter-of-fact observation, and I stand by it: there's lots of information that's still unavailable on the Internet, and you're not going to change my mind. (Leaving Google Books/News behind, there are also thousands of magazines and journals that aren't electronically archived anywhere.) My comment was not meant to reflect on BrownHairedGirl's effort, but rather her assumption that she could make absolute statements about someone who died in the pre-Internet era. Zagalejo^^^ 00:03, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I've blotted the last line of my first comment, since I realize that is asking a bit much. It would probably take much longer than five days to do the sort of research I'm thinking of. Zagalejo^^^ 00:06, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. Not notable; fails WP:BIO. -- Mikeblas (talk) 16:03, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Just getting old does not satisfy WP:BIO. Edison (talk) 17:22, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete or Merge No substantial independent, reliable sources to establish meeting WP:N or WP:BIO. Nothing here that couldn't be summarized in the many supercentenarian lists. Cheers, CP 17:50, 12 December 2007 (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.