Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lindy West


 * 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 - the arguments to keep were better: especially on the sourcing issue. Other stuff doesn't exist is a poor argument. Bearian (talk) 21:53, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Lindy West

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I can't tell why Lindy West is notable. There are many journalists that have written articles for many sites that don't have or deserve Wikipedia pages, why is she special? CombatWombat42 (talk) 02:54, 30 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep and speedy close per WP:SNOW. Half a glance at the sources already listed in the article shows West meets the basic criteria in Notability (people) several times over: "A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject." Why are they notable? There is no "why" in WP:BASIC. If they have the coverage, they meet the criteria, and we're done here. If you scroll down from there, you'll see "Additional criteria" such as "The person has received a well-known and significant award or honor, or has been nominated for one several times" which would allow the article to be kept even though they didn't meet WP:BASIC. But West already meets the basic criteria so the additional criteria are moot.It's quite true that for this stub to become a Good Article, the lead ought to say why West is notable, which you can glean from reading the many news articles about her (she has been the focus of much controversy about rape jokes, fat shaming, hipster racism, and other topics, beyond being an mere journalist). But that's not a reason for deletion, per WP:SURMOUNTABLE. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 04:22, 30 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. lavender|(formerlyHMSSolent)|lambast 04:13, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Washington-related deletion discussions. lavender|(formerlyHMSSolent)|lambast 04:15, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. lavender|(formerlyHMSSolent)|lambast 04:15, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of News media-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:30, 30 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete None of the sources cited as references suggest notability, and most are unusable for that purpose anyway since they are not secondary sources but written by the subject of the article. Of the three sources that are not by West herself, two are just trivial blogs, not usable for anything really, and the third is an article about her father that mentions her merely as his daughter. Just being a writer of articles that have been published in X, Y or Z is not notable in itself. No sources suggest that the book she co-authored is notable, and I can find no proper book reviews of it. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 22:25, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
 * The Notes section lists 19 articles that cover West in some way. Even if all of them lacked sufficent depth of coverage, WP:BASIC says that "If the depth of coverage in any given source is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability; trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may not be sufficient to establish notability." These are not trivial or routine calendar listings or press releases. These articles mention West because she was the focus of international attention for her role in more than one notable controversy. Having 19 of these more than meets the "multiple" requirement. But beyond that, there are at least two which are do have deeper coverage: Seattle Times and The Telegraph. Only one of these would be sufficient, even if we hadn't already meet the requirement by having multiple sources that combined to demonstrate notability. So once again, the minimal standards are met more than one way, multiple times. Your assertion that all the coverage is either blogs or by West is demonstrably false. Your assumption that blog posts can't be used to establish notability is also false, per WP:NEWSBLOG. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 22:47, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I've had a quick look at the strange "Articles West is mentioned in" section, and many are just blogs listing various articles (one of which will be by West) that are in other sources, often in other blogs, like . And nor does having described "Sex and the City" as "a home video of gay men playing with giant Barbie dolls" define notability! And there is non-notable internet drama . There is a lot of drama actually. Drama-manufacturing to get controversy is no substitute for notability. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 22:56, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Labeling media coverage "drama" has no relevance to WP:Notability or to this discussion; that's merely a personal opinion. Whether you like it or not, major news outlets have deemed West notable. This might be a good time to review Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions so we don't keep wasting time this way. I just added two more: a profile of West in Seattle Magazine, and winning the Women's Media Center Social Media Award. Each of those alone is also sufficient to meet the minimums of WP:BIO. It needs to be said that when you reject coverage of a social critic by calling it "manufactured drama", you are admitting that your motivation is that you oppose the subject's politics. We don't filter out Wikipedia articles on the basis of which people we disagree with. You're saying we should delete this article because you think West is wrong for raising questions over rape jokes, fat shaming, etc, and you think major media were wrong to write about her on those issues. Deletion !votes on that basis are not normally counted. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:35, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Dennis Bratland, please start to assume good faith. It is completely unjustified for you to claim that I want this article deleted because of views the subject expresses. Your offensiveness in the above post goes well beyond the bounds of acceptability on Wikipedia. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 23:54, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
 * WP:AGF is how you get treated before you let the cat out of the bag. Nobody is required to assume good faith after you yourself have given evidence to the contrary. AGF doesn't require us to be thick. Here you disputed the fact that West has written on the subjects of racism, fat shaming and sexism. AGF means we all assume you at least skimmed the sources before you !voted, but then you proceed to let the cat out of the bag yourself: you haven't bothered to read before !voting. The opinions of those who !vote first and read later are of lesser value. Sorry but that's a fact. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:01, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
 * You had better start to get wise, quick. If you go around stating editors are racists, are sexist, and think rape is a joke, you are not going to be on Wikipedia for much longer. If you continue in this way, I will raise a complaint against you. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 00:32, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Okie dokie. I stand by my assessment . I don't think your !vote carries much weight here, based on your own words and actions. This is not a vote; not everybody's opinion is equal. Opinions based on poor reasoning carry less weight. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:46, 31 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Note for clarity. Since the above discussion took place, Dennis Bratland has renamed what was the "References" section to "Notes", and renamed the "Articles West is mentioned in" section to "References". The "Articles West is mentioned in" section was originally named "Notes" until I changed it because it contained no actual citations. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 00:55, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete. This article seems kind of promotion-y and there's not much for notability other than the Social Media award. It could probably also be merged into Women's Media Center since most of the article seems to be about the award. If the article ends up staying, the section currently labelled "references" (formerly Articles West is mentioned in, I think?) should probably be removed as it isn't very useful and just appears to be a collection of mostly tangentially related links. And the section currently labelled "notes" appears to be the actual reference list. Hustlecat (talk) 22:01, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Once again, WP:NOTCLEANUP means that surmountable problems are not valid reasons for deletion. And WP:NRV says, "Notability requires only the existence of suitable independent, reliable sources, not their immediate citation". Hence the value of listing sources at the end of a stub: to make editors aware that sufficient sources exist, even if the article has any number of surmountable flaws in neutrality, tone, writing, layout or citations. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 22:20, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Hustlecat, I have been trying on the article talk page to explain to Dennis Bratland that the "references" section, formerly the "Articles West is mentioned in" section, are NOT actually references - but he is not listening. The "Notes" section was called the "References" section until he changed its name. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 23:47, 31 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep: Subject of the article meets WP:GNG and WP:BASIC. There are multiple independent reliable sources that established the subject notability. “Why is she notable?” Is not a good rationale to me. However WP:GNG have answered that question that A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject. In addition, the condescending tone such as You had better start to get wise, quick. And you are not going to be on Wikipedia for much longer By   to  is unacceptable if an editor is really here to build an encyclopedia. Wikicology (talk) 14:40, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
 * The above editor, a notoriously problematic editor (see the numerous complaints about his behavior here ) has probably arrived only to attack me, and is voting keep for no other reason than I voted delete. In the past he has AfD's articles I have created for no other reason than I created them . Wikicology, have you forgotten that you have been warned on many occasions about imparting your unwanted and faulty "advice", as well as being warned against repeatedly posting links to Wikipedia advice pages when your own actions have shown you do not understand them. You quote the "a person is presumed to be notable if he or she has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject" but misunderstand it. It is not the sole establishing criteria to guarantee an article's existence - it is just the bare minimum standard. The presumption part is that anything without that minimum standard (reliable secondary sources independent of the subject) can be deleted. However, anything that passes that minimum standard is still subject to all the normal arguments for deletion, such as lack of notability, not suitable for an encyclopedia, etc. I have already pointed out that many of the supposed sources are not independent of the subject because they were written by the subject or are just blogs that link to sources written by the subject. In my opinion, sources do not indicate the degree of notability that is needed to justify a blp article. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 17:44, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
 * First, please read WP:NOTBATTLEGROUND. And take all the the surmountable problems to Talk:Lindy West, not AFD, and take the issues you have with other editors to WP:ANI. I would be very happy to put this stuff to rest at ANI rather than put up with the endless sniping. Or drop it and stay on topic.Second, one of the central arguments against this article is that "most" of the sources are inadequate, because they're trivial, or not independent, or some other reason. Pick any subject, and most of the mentions of that subjects will be tweets, Facebook posts, or blog posts by unreliable sources. It doesn't matter if you're talking about Lindy West or Bill Clinton. For every 5,000 word piece in The Economist or the New York Times, there will be 100 blog posts by reliable authors, and 10,000 blog posts by private individuals, and 100,000 tweets. There's more chaff than wheat. So what?Sources that establish notability are a subset of sources that meet WP:RS for citing a particular fact, because WP:N has a higher standard, and therefore the one outnumbers the other. It's not a reason to delete anything. The sources that more than meet WP:BASIC include and . The case could be made without those, citing  or aggregating the coverage of West in the two dozen other articles.The argument that it's unencyclopedic to cover West because the controversies she has been at the center of over the years are "drama" and "tabloid trash" is a value judgement about the seriousness of fat shaming, rape culture, and sexism in film and comedy. For example, the conservative National Review here dismisses Wests assertions as "griping". Wikipedia should be neutral on the question of whether the subjects under debate are serious or are mere gripes. Ignoring substantive coverage because we are taking the side of those who disagree with West is not neutral. Neutrality requires accepting substantive coverage on its face. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:45, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
 * , Let it be the last time you will ever accused me of a biased argument . When next I found you doing this, it will be trouble for you. However, am aware of a revert restriction sanction issued to you on Armenia and Azerbaijan related article here . Such sanction is usually issued to a problematic editor. This whole thread alone speaks for itself. Wikicology (talk) 07:04, 2 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Weak Delete, while the subject has received multiple mentions in multiple non-primary or tertiary sources, there appears to be very few tertiary reliable sources where the subject is the primary subject of what is being written, and when that is the case, gives the subject significant coverage. There is one sources, that goes rather in-depth, but it is an interview, so it should. Other sources are a paragraph of content(such as this blurb, but nothing that I would consider significant coverage. Therefore, it is questionable, that the subject meets WP:GNG. Therefore, we look at the more stringent criteria of WP:AUTHOR, while the subject has been cited at least once, I would not consider that as "widely cited by peers or successors". Thus, appearing IMHO to fail GNG and author, unless more significant coverage of the subject, as the primary topic of the reliable source, I cannot at this time support keeping this article.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:21, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Can you help me understand why interviews don't count? I would think that if a source deems a person worth interviewing, and they publish a significant quantity of content from that interview, it's because they think the subject is notable. If anything lengthy interviews should be near the gold standard for establishing notability in the news media. You could argue Vice lacks gravitas, but not because it's an interview.And why are the following not significant? ?--Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:45, 1 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Obvious keep. No guideline-based reason to delete has been presented. The subject meets WP:BASIC per sources listed in this discussion, specifically, , , (note that the first of these is acceptable per WP:NEWSBLOG as the author is a professional with the Telegraph). VQuakr (talk) 21:50, 4 November 2014 (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.