Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lewis P. Fisher


 * 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. While consensus here is to delete, should new sources be found down the road those sources could be considered for notability.. Barkeep49 (talk) 01:39, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Lewis P. Fisher

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Biography of a person notable only as a smalltown mayor, not referenced as the subject of enough reliable source coverage to clear WP:NPOL #2. To be fair, this was actually created in 2004, a time when we accepted an article about practically anybody who had ever been mayor of anywhere because we hadn't really codified our notability standards for politicians at all yet -- but under the standards that apply in 2019, making a smalltown mayor notable enough for an article requires a lot more than just one or two pieces of cursory verification that he existed. Mayors are also not automatically notable just because they've had local infrastructure in their own town named after them, so the library and the hospital aren't notability clinchers -- but the sources here are a primary source that is not support for notability at all, a single retrospective article in the local newspaper, and a brief unsubstantive blurb about the probation of his will -- but every mayor of everywhere can always show two or three sources of this type to verify that he existed, so this is not enough to establish the permanent notability of a smalltown mayor all by itself. The key to making a smalltown mayor notable enough for an article is to show substantive and well-sourced reasons why he's much more special than most other smalltown mayors, not just to verify that he existed. Bearcat (talk) 16:03, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Bearcat (talk) 16:03, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. Bearcat (talk) 16:03, 16 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment I found this source that mentions him with the post-nominal KC or King's Counsel which would mean that he may meet #1 of WP:ANYBIO. There is also mention of him in the Encyclopedia Britannica  and other passing mentions  but nothing consequential sadly. Dom from Paris (talk) 17:04, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Even a KC/QC lawyer still has to have reliable sources that go beyond just glancing namechecks of his existence — and we would need to see an Encyclopedia Britannica article about him, not just a mention of his name in the entry on the town, to count that toward GNG either. So, yeah, nothing consequential here. Bearcat (talk) 17:52, 16 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep Give the timeframe, more work is needed to ferret out sources from newspaper archives, but that doesn't mean the article should be deleted. You can see that he was re-elected 24 times, so there should be more cited. -- Auric   talk  19:32, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Per NPOL, smalltown mayors get to keep articles only if they have a credible and properly sourced claim to being much more special than most other smalltown mayors, and the number of times a mayor got reelected is not such a claim in and of itself. Given that we're talking about an era in which mayoral elections were held annually, 24 elections wouldn't even make him an unusually long-serving mayor — serving for 24 years as mayor of a small town is hardly unprecedented, and wouldn't even get him into a list of the top 100 longest serving mayors in North American political history. Even being able to provide 24 pieces of technical verification of his election results still wouldn't even contribute a bloody thing to his notability, if there were no sources focusing in detail on the work he did in the mayor's chair. And we also don't exempt articles from having to be properly sourced just because somebody speculates that maybe better sources might exist somewhere that nobody has actually found yet — articles that are not already making a valid and properly sourced notability claim get kept on WP:NEXIST grounds only if somebody shows hard evidence that the quality and depth of sourcing needed to get the article over the bar definitely does exist, and not if all you do is idly speculate about what might be possible. And so far, the only new references you've added to the article are a biographical source about the mayor's father, tangential confirmation of the death of his predecessor in what isn't even his most potentially notable role, and coverage about other things that got bequeathed money in his will — you have yet to add even one single solitary new source which has anything whatsoever to do with getting Fisher over NPOL as a person. Bearcat (talk) 19:36, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Most of the articles I've found have more to do with his will and the results thereof. Note that the money didn't go to those things, they went to the creation of those things. I don't think I've seen any other mayors that have done the same. -- Auric   talk  10:25, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
 * The distinction between "those things" and "the creation of those things", in terms of where the money went, being...? Also, you're obviously not familiar with a very significant number of mayors if you think a mayor bequeathing some of his estate to the city for municipal projects is unprecedented or unique. Bearcat (talk) 15:23, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
 * His estate (the majority of it) went to the creation of the L. P. Fisher Public Library, the Fisher Memorial School, and the Carleton County Vocational School. They funded their construction, not just to enrich pre-existing buildings. I didn't link to the notices of tender, but I can. The Fisher Memorial Hospital was previously his mansion and presumably, the money went to help its conversion into a hospital. -- Auric   talk  16:59, 17 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment Mayor of Woodstock, New Brunswick from 1856–1880 (population under 6,000 in 2016). The appropriate standard would be WP:GNG as a mayor of a city this size does not merit a pass under WP:NPOL. --Enos733 (talk) 00:58, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete we only keep articles where sources have been identified. We do not keep articles just because there might be sources but people are too lazy to find them.John Pack Lambert (talk) 07:20, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
 * What about articles where people have been looking for sources, but can't seem to find them?-- Auric   talk  10:11, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
 * The inability to find notability-supporting sources directly implies the lack of notability-supporting sources. So no, articles aren't exempted from having to have notability-supporting sources just because you're putting in an effort — their keepability or deletablity hinges on the results that you actually get, not on how hard you're trying to find more than you're actually finding. Bearcat (talk) 15:41, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree with that, I just resent the implication that not being able to find those sources is a sign of laziness on other editors part. There are many people on Wikipedia that lack those sources but are still considered notable. Not everything is available on the Internet.-- Auric   talk  18:07, 22 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete. Fails WP:GNG. A search yielded no sources to establish notability.4meter4 (talk) 15:38, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
 * How? From my reckoning, the article passes. (see WP:NEXIST, WP:NTEMP and WP:SUSTAINED)-- Auric   talk  18:20, 23 September 2019 (UTC)


 * If the sources exist, please produce them here (such as url links, relevant offline publications, etc). I personally found nothing in a google search, a JSTOR search, a google books search, and a google news search. There are no sources in the article which demonstrate the threshold of notability required in WP:GNG, and with none being produced here at this AFD then the subject can not be considered verifiably notable. Your assurance that there are noteworthy sources is not good enough. You must actually produce them so others can look at them, and agree with that assessment. If you can not do that, then the assumption is that they do not exist and that the subject is not notable. In other words, without evidence presented, there is no evidence to verify notability to earn a keep.4meter4 (talk) 22:30, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete. Per arguments above as well. The standards, such as WP:NPOL and WP:GNG are set up, and if sources cannot be shown to exist, the subject does not pass notability. Rollidan (talk) 21:39, 23 September 2019 (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.