Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mark Rutherford (politician)


 * 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. Tone 21:05, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Mark Rutherford (politician)

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Promotionally toned WP:BLP of a political candidate, whose claims of notability are not reliably sourced well enough to clinch encyclopedic notability. Serving as chair of the state Public Defenders Commission is not an automatic free pass over WP:NPOL in the absence of a WP:GNG-passing volume of reliable source coverage about his work in the role, and being a current candidate for office is not an automatic NPOL pass for a person who doesn't have any other solid claim to preexisting notability for other reasons, but the sourcing here isn't cutting it in terms of making him notable for either reason. Four of the eight footnotes are primary sources that cannot support notability at all -- his own party's list of its own candidates, a staff profile on the self-published website of his own law firm, a routine directory entry on the website of the state bar association and a party-affiliated podcast. But the other four that actually represent real media aren't doing very much either: one is a Soundcloud clip of a Q&A interview in which he's talking about his own campaign, one is a transcribed Q&A interview in his alma mater's college alumni magazine, one is a local interest magazine covering him in the context of being internally elected to a not inherently notable role within his own political party's org chart, and one is just the routine "party selects candidate" piece that every candidate in every election always gets in the local media. This is not enough coverage to deem him more notable than most other non-winning candidates, not one source here even tries to turn the Indiana Public Defenders Commission into a valid claim of preexisting notability, and the article is edging far too close to the résumé style that no politician, even an actual officeholder, gets to have on here. Bearcat (talk) 17:28, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Bearcat, thank you for reviewing this article! I get where you're coming from. There are not a ton of published information and it does have a promotional tone when you look at the fact that other non-winning candidates are not present. Could the article be trimmed to include just the viable (basic history and facts that directly pertain to the political landscape in Indiana? Similar to the article on Connie Lawson? Again, thank you for your time and for helping me get better at this process :) NurseEducator (talk) 27 September 2018 —Preceding undated comment added 17:52, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 * If there's not a lot of published information about him to base a solid and substantial article on, then why would a Wikipedia article about him be warranted at all? Connie Lawson has actually served in the state legislature and as the incumbent secretary of state, so she's not an equivalent situation to a person who's "notable" only as an as yet unelected candidate for political office — our job is to have articles about holders of notable political offices, not candidates for them. If he defeats Lawson in November, then he'll get an article because he'll be the actual new holder of that office — but people do not get Wikipedia articles just for being candidates. Bearcat (talk) 13:41, 28 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 00:49, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Indiana-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 00:49, 28 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete Being a candidate for office does not confer notability, so come back if he wins. Nothing about this CV appears notable, and the minor, routine, local coverage does not pass notability guidelines for politicians. Not sure (politician) is even the correct disambiguator when this is his first run for office and getting more than 5% is unlikely. Reywas92Talk 07:16, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom, fails WP:NPOL and WP:GNG. SportingFlyer  talk  01:52, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete - Currently does not meet WP:NBIO or WP:GNG as per Bearcat's rationale and answer to NurseEducator's question. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:26, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete Fails WP:NPOL with no other claim to notability. Has not received significant coverage in multiple independent, reliable secondary sources. AusLondonder (talk) 17:40, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Thank you all for taking the time to look this over. For future article creation, are any of the sources that have been added since this discussion began reputable or are local sources something I should stay away from in general? Again, thank you all. NurseEducator 10:04, 02 October 2018 (UTC)
 * If he wins the election and thereby qualifies for an article, then virtually all of these sources will be fine in it. They're not enough to make him permanently notable just for being a candidate, but that's not the same thing as being inherently unacceptable sourcing in an article about an actual officeholder — it's a question of the context of what the sources are covering the person for. Local sources aren't verboten in an article about a person who objectively passes a notability standard like "holds a notable political office" — they're just not enough all by themselves to make a person notable if you're shooting for "doesn't actually have a hard notability claim but is notable anyway just because media coverage exists", which is a different thing. Bearcat (talk) 17:43, 2 October 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.