Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lloyd Levitin


 * 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. W.marsh 16:31, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Lloyd Levitin
This page fails WP:PROF and WP:N and therefore should be removed from Wikipedia. Being a somewhat notable person's relative does not make the person notable. --Ineffable3000 20:51, 28 September 2006 (UTC)


 * 1) The person is not regarded as a significant expert in their area by independent sources
 * 2) The person is not regarded as an important figure by those in the same field.
 * 3) The person has not published a significant and well-known academic work.
 * 4) The person's collective body of work is not very significant and well-known.
 * 5) The person is not known for originating an important new concept, theory or idea.
 * 6) The person is not known for being the advisor of an especially notable student, even though he was the father of a barely notable scientist, Daniel Levitin.
 * 7) The person has never received a notable award or honor, or has been often nominated for them.

Lloyd Levitin only has 4 Google Scholar hits, and only 125 Google hits. Having a certification or a certain job position does not give someone notibility.


 * Strong Delete as nom --Ineffable3000 20:51, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete guy with a job and some marginally notable relatives. Don't forget to delink him in the other articles. Opabinia regalis 04:14, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Evaluate him as a corporate executive, not as an academic. Being chief financial officer of the United States's "largest natural gas distribution utility, serving 19.5 million people through 5.5 million gas meters in more than 530 communities" is a major accomplishment. Besides, his analysis of the financial health of Southern Pacific Rail Corporation persuaded the United States Department of Justice to permit the merger of Southern Pacific with Union Pacific in 1996. --TruthbringerToronto (Talk | contribs) 05:49, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Eusebeus 16:04, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. Doesn't quite meet the notability requirements of WP:BIO. -- Satori Son 20:31, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per TT. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:15, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep I am persuaded by the arguments of TT. Cedars 01:12, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment - TruthbringerToronto made a good point. However, Sempra Energy had many CFOs and none of them have their own Wikipedia articles. The current CFO, Mark Snell does not have his own Wikipedia article. Sempra Energy has numerous officers, and they frequently change.  Lloyd Levitin is not even the CFO anymore, and he did not have any notable accomplishments while he was a CEO. I think that he should be mentioned in a page listing all past officers of Sempra Energy. Also, if you read the source about Lloyd Levitin persuading the US Departement of Justice, you will find that it was not intepreted correctly.  Lloyd Levitin was one of the many people involved in the case, and his name should be included in a related article. In conclusion, Lloyd Levitin does not meet WP:BIO and does not deserve  to have his own article. --Ineffable3000 02:18, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
 * WP:BIO does not seem to talk about businesspeople in any great depth. We have lots of articles on minor celebrities, politicians and jurists, but we seem to lack articles on engineers and businesspeople despite the impact these people have on our everyday life. Maybe the best solution is to work towards a guideline on businesspeople. Until we have that judging whether articles on businesspeople should be kept or deleted is a very difficult task. Cedars 05:21, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
 * This guy is not a very notable businessman. He only has 125 Google Hits, and he is not featured on any news article. I couldn't even find much about him on his company's website. A local band would have more notability than he does. --Ineffable3000 17:09, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment. This is more a criticism of how some people measure notability than of actual notability. Once somebody retires from a company, the company will normally remove his or her biography from the company's web site. And someone who makes multi-million dollar decisions (which seems like a good definition for notability) won't necessarily show up with lots of hits on Google. We should try to measure notability, not fame, because a business executive could well be notable (as I argue here) but not famous. --TruthbringerToronto (Talk | contribs) 07:11, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Lloyd Levitin was one of the many people working on the merger case. If we would consider every single person who somehow participated in making an important decision, every single jury member from notable cases would have his own page. --Ineffable3000 08:06, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep. The argument by Ineffable3000, that he doesn't have a lot of "Google" hits is unconvicing; people shouldn't be evaluated solely on the basis of their Google tally.  Having a large number of Google hits is a positive argument for inclusion, but having a low number is not a positive argument for deletion or non-inclusion; there are many well-respected sources for information that pre-date the internet era, and a trip to a brick-and-mortar library can clear up any doubts.  This guy was listed in "Who's Who in Finance and Industry," "Who's Who in the West" and "Who's Who in America" for many years.  These sources indicate he was the President of the American Gas Association, and of the Financial Executives Institute.  Taken together, this looks to me like a significant person whose influence cut across industry, lobbying groups, and public policy.  His relatives have nothing to do with it. --User:ClydeC 07:39, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment: I do not believe that any of the various Marquis Who's Who vanity publications would qualify as "credible, third-party sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" under WP:V. In fact, an exposé by Forbes magazine found them to be just the opposite: "The Hall of Lame". I really think we should insist on better sources than that to substantiate notability.  -- Satori Son 15:12, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment: Despite whatever was wrong with Marquis Who's Who when Forbes published its article in 1999, librarians and journalists still use Marquis titles to look people up. The Canadian Who's Who from the University of Toronto Press is also useful, as is the original Who's Who from A.&C. Black. -- TruthbringerToronto (Talk | contribs) 22:52, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Your assertion that journalists use Marquis titles to "look people up" is highly questionable at best. Can you provide an example? I do not believe any reputable journalist would use a vanity pub to establish the significance of a person, and nor should we. -- Satori Son 20:27, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Journalists use Marquis titles with all their faults because, on balance, Who's Who in America and its related titles are a reliable source of information about notable people. Granted, there is a vanity aspect to these directories, but most of the people listed in them are notable within their field. Ask a librarian or journalist you trust whether they would use Who's Who in America to get background about a notable person. And if you don't know any journalists, phone the city desk of your local newspaper and ask. --TruthbringerToronto (Talk | contribs) 20:55, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The question is not "whether they would use Who's Who in America to get background about a notable person", the question is "whether someone being listed in Who's Who in America confirms that person is notable absent any other reliable, reputable sources". Don't obfuscate the issue to support your inclusionist agenda. -- Satori Son 22:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The issue debated is not whether Who's Who is notable but rather whether Lloyd Levitin is not notable. --Ineffable3000 22:31, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
 * You are correct, of course, but a component of that issue we are debating is whether Marquis Who's Who is a credible, third-party source with a reputation for fact checking and accuracy, and thus whether it can be used as a source to establish the notability of Mr. Leviten. And the answer is no. -- Satori Son 23:41, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
 * There is a wonderful irony here, because Who's Who is being accused of being just as much a vanity publication as Wikipedia has often been (and that is what we're here to fix)! The reference librarian at our university library said that although there are questions about the extent to which the Marquis editors go to verify a person's own account of their biography, the inclusion criteria are still somewhat strict. He told me that some professors at our University tried to be included in Who's Who and were rebuffed by editors, or cases of others who wanted to be in "Who's Who In America" and didn't meet the notability criteria for that, but did for the smaller, regional, "Who's Who in the East."  This suggests that there is something to being listed by them.  As to the issue of whether Lloyd Levitan should be listed, I would think that listing the officers of the Top 100 corporations in the U.S. (and his was one of them in the 1970s and 1980s) makes sense for WP.  And not everyone testifies before congress...do you consider that notable? --User:ClydeC 14:22, 7 October 2006 (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.