Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lawrence Van Buskirk


 * 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 no consensus. King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 20:26, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Lawrence Van Buskirk

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A completely unsourced mayoral article. Fails WP:NPOL #2 and WP:GNG. Importantly, my WP:BEFORE search wasn't in an attempt to nominate the article for AfD but rather to find sources on the article - but one non-reliable source excepted, I couldn't find anything on him whatsoever. I did look through a number of genealogy articles and gravestone articles in an attempt to get something - but it appears this article also fails WP:V. SportingFlyer  talk  21:15, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete being a mayor of a city does not give default notability, and we lack sources showing notability otherwise. Wikipedia is not a place to post the geneological information on your ancestors, which is about the only way I could understand such extreme detail on his immediate family in this article.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:59, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions.  MT Train Talk 07:27, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Indiana-related deletion discussions.  MT Train Talk 07:27, 26 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom. Mayors of small towns don't normally qualify for inclusion without lots of supporting references. Deb (talk) 12:49, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment I am working on the article and it seems possible that he has sufficient notability based upon his multi-faceted role in the city of Bloomington. I'll make a vote if I find enough material to establish notability.–CaroleHenson (talk) 17:02, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep If it was an article about a living person, I would vote to delete, but this is a historical figure that makes it harder to find sources. I did find content and sources to add the article, and it seems that he was notable within the city for several governmental and other executive roles in the city - as well as a grand king of the Masons. By the way, Bloomington is not a small town. It's the seventh largest city in Indiana.–CaroleHenson (talk) 18:35, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment Thank you very much for adding the sources - this satisfies my WP:V concerns as I had difficulty with my before search (and will start looking at newspapers.com for historical mayors.) However, I'm not going to withdraw the nomination: I still don't think the sourcing is enough for WP:GNG, as the marriage sources are not in-depth and WP:MILL, and the mason sources are substantial but also what you'd expect from the organization - nothing that would make him stand out. I'd like to leave it open to see how others vote. Keep in mind in 1900 Bloomington was only the 34th largest town in Indiana - smaller than Elwood, Brazil and Alexandria - and he was the mayor between 1891-1897, which is one of the problems with our "large enough city" mayoral assumption. SportingFlyer  talk  20:57, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment / Question - He seems more notable than other Bloomington mayors before him. I cleaned up another article, but will stop right now. Does that mean that all the articles for the mayors for Bloomington should be deleted? (I have no stake in the game, I just started cleaning up articles a particular user worked on and happened upon this article in the process.)–CaroleHenson (talk) 00:14, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think it implies all Bloomington mayors should be deleted, but they probably should be judged on WP:GNG. Being the mayor of Bloomington doesn't get you a WP:NPOL pass, at least in my opinion. I flagged it since I've been going through mayor stubs and tagging ones that don't pass WP:GNG - Mr. Van Buskirk had no sources, and I had difficulty finding any so nominated it instead of improving it. SportingFlyer  talk  01:37, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks!–CaroleHenson (talk) 01:46, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep - after cleanup, this satisfies WP:CCPOL (V/NOR/NPOV) and has suitable references. The subject seems to me to be encyclopedic. Bloomington is not quite a typical small town, as being home to a flagship university means it punches above its weight. Smmurphy(Talk) 12:48, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete. Bloomington IN is not large enough to hand its mayors an automatic free pass over NPOL #2 just because they exist, the fact that Bloomington is home to a university is not in and of itself to make its mayors special if they weren't personally and sourceably involved in the university's creation, and simply being able to add just enough sourcing to hand the article a technical pass of VNPOVNOR — a thing which almost anybody who exists could instantly do the moment they've gotten their name into the local newspaper once or twice for doing nothing that would actually satisfy a Wikipedia inclusion criterion — is not in and of itself an exemption from having to actually WP:GNG the person well enough to get them over the defined notability criterion for their field of endeavour. But this is not sourced well enough to satisfy NPOL #2. Bearcat (talk) 19:10, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Respectfully, being mayor of Bloomington and Treasurer at IU are more than enough to show that the individual is suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia in my opinion. This individual more than meets N. I do not see a particularly great case for NPOL#2 - that is a fairly poorly defined criteria and I don't tend to think of individuals in that way. Perhaps he has a week case for meeting NPOL #1, as IU treasurer is a state level elected position, although it was an election made by the board of directors which consisted of 5-10 people. I would not make that case, as I read SNGs as sufficient but not necessary. I understand I am repeating myself, I just wanted to make it clear that I do read your !vote and disagree somewhat. Best, Smmurphy(Talk) 19:51, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Being treasurer of a university is not a political role, so NPOL is irrelevant to whether it constitutes a notability claim or not. It's also not a role that guarantees an automatic inclusion freebie to every treasurer of every university regardless of their depth of sourceability or lack thereof — it might count for something if the article were sourced much better than this, but it's not such an "inherently" notable role that you would be exempted from actually having to source him over WP:GNG on career coverage, and could instead to rely on a mix of primary sources and routine marriage and death notices as the entire sourcing pool because the "inherence" of the notability claim somehow trumped the low quality of the sourcing. Bearcat (talk) 20:12, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Would the editors who weighed in prior to the article’s overhaul (User:Johnpacklambert, User:Deb) care to weigh in again?
 * Keep Meets GNG per the sources provided by Carole Henson. ~ EDDY  ( talk / contribs )~ 13:57, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  A  Train talk 13:09, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep meets GNG and is interesting for a historical mayor. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 19:56, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment I don't see any need to change my earlier vote, but certainly the article has been enormously improved and I will accept that a defensible case has been made for notability. Deb (talk) 08:10, 3 June 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.