Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Martha Cohen


 * 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. This is a bit of a conundrum in that it is now attributed to a banned user. If a user in good standing requests it I would be happy to userfy it to them for the purpose of rewriting it J04n(talk page) 13:10, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Martha Cohen

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Person of only local or at best regional notability. The Order of Canada does not confer sufficient notability as more than 150 of them are given out each year. (Also, note when searching that there are hundreds of thousands of people named "Martha Cohen".) Softlavender (talk) 03:45, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. The Mighty Glen (talk) 08:18, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. The Mighty Glen (talk) 08:18, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Alberta-related deletion discussions. The Mighty Glen (talk) 08:18, 28 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Comment from nominator: Article was created and written by a sock farm; see WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Keevaymusic, and the subject is a relative of that user, so this is a WP:COI case as well. -- Softlavender (talk) 10:32, 28 March 2018 (UTC); edited 02:35, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete as creation of sockpuppet, without prejudice against recreation if somebody else is willing to take it on. The Order of Canada is a notable distinction that counts as a valid notability claim — the number of people who receive it annually is a standard that's applied to lower-level distinctions like the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal, not to the top-level OC, so she does have valid grounds for inclusion. What's more determinative here is the sockpuppet problem — for denial of attribution reasons, we have to delete content created by sockpuppets of already-banned editors, and then permit recreation by somebody else. Bearcat (talk) 17:22, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment, only around 7,000 recipients in 50 years of this high ranking award, a recipient is definitely notable, with appropriate sources of course, nevertheless, agree with that article needs to be deleted, then can be recreated later. Coolabahapple (talk) 21:44, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep Canadian speaking here. The order of Canada is a BIG DEAL. I have been around many decades and have met perhaps one or two people who got it. Notability is clearly established by the OOC and the sources. I guess this is here because of the sock issue. However notability seriously could not be clearer!
 * 1) Honrary Phd from U Calgary.
 * 2) Large obit at Calgary Herald.
 * 3) Edmonton Journal profile.
 * 4) CBC obituary
 * That's enough for me.104.163.147.121 (talk) 05:14, 30 March 2018 (UTC)


 * has stated that the Order of Canada does not confer sufficient notability. Honorary degrees (especially in one's own city) confer no notability whatsoever. Everyone gets obituaries, they confer no notability; those are merely from the city of Calgary (where she lived), not in regional or national news. What confers notability is significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. The write-up from Edmonton (the capital of Alberta) is still only regional coverage. In my opinion there's still no indication that she had anything but local or regional notability. Softlavender (talk) 05:32, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Except that DGG is wrong about that. Bearcat (talk) 05:59, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I like you but disagree 100% with your interpretation this. Three of the four items above are RS. The order of Canada is serious. Notability is extremely clear, even if you want to hack away at good reliable sources for some reason. They are also not exclusively local: CBC is our national network, and the Calgary herald and Edmonton Sun are essentially provincial rags. If I go by what you are saying, then someone who:
 * has multiple awards,
 * received the order of Canada in 1975,
 * received the Diamond Jubilee medal from the Governor General
 * received the golden Jubilee medal from the Governor General
 * had a school named after them and
 * had their death reported by multiple in-depth independent reliable sources
 * is actually not notable. So my question would be, after all those awards and articles, what does satisfy notability? Would getting a fourth award from the Governor General f Canada do it? You are also not correct in saying everyone gets obituaries. Her obits are significant in-depth of the type that are reserved for notable persons. Nobody paid $43 to get these published. Sorry, but your interpretation here is entirely of base. 104.163.147.121 (talk) 06:24, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * CBC Calgary is the local CBC affiliate, not national CBC. The obits are local. The school is local. The OC is often given out to people of only local or regional notability (the same goes for the Order of Australia). Softlavender (talk) 08:12, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Which policy says we differentiate between local and national reporting? 104.163.147.121 (talk) 16:33, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * In this context, we do not deprecate "local" reporting as less carrying of notability under GNG than "national" reporting is. For city councillors and local poets winning local poetry contests and local bands playing their local Elephant and Dildo, sure, local coverage counts for less — but for national distinctions like a writer winning a Giller Prize or a person being named to the OC or the mayoralty of a city that's large enough to make its mayors "inherently" notable under NPOL, we do not deprecate local coverage as less valuable than other coverage. Incidentally, the higher levels of the OC are rarely awarded directly — except for the Governor General, who automatically goes in at Companion rank even if he or she was never previously OC at all, most Officers or Companions have to be promoted from within the rank of Members rather than being directly appointed at Officer or Companion status. So the rule for the Order of Canada has been and is that as long as it's possible to reliably source some content about what they did to earn the distinction, rather than relying solely on their inclusion in a list of OC members as the article's sole source, then all OC ranks are valid notability claims and no rank is deprecated as less notable than the others. Bearcat (talk) 05:49, 5 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete Per Bearcat. I had a similar situation with a prolific sock years ago, and deleted all of his creations; occasionally, another (uninvolved) editor asks for their recreation, which I'm happy to oblige. OhNo itsJamie Talk 13:15, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * The Order of Canada has several ranks, corresponding to the ranks for corresponding orders in the uK and Australia: the lowest rank, Member, is not considered here to confer notability in the UK or Australia, and by analogy should not for Canada either. Like the other two countries, it is awarded for contributions "at a local or regional level, group, field or activity". There are two higher ranks in Canada, Companions and Officers. By analogy, Companion would imply notabilit, and Officer might or might no--the other systems have more than three ranks and the lower 2 do not. DGG ( talk ) 15:31, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Uh, I don't think you are correct. As the OOC Wiki page says, "The Order of Canada (French: Ordre du Canada) is a Canadian national order, admission into which is the second highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada. It comes second only to membership in the Order of Merit, which is the personal gift of Canada's monarch." 104.163.147.121 (talk) 16:38, 30 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Speedy Delete. on the basis of creation by a sock farm--we can safely assume that one or another of the incarnations of the sock form has been previous banned, and creating articles for pay, as was presumably done here, is a violation of the terms of  use.  Normally, an honorary Doctorate does confer notability, so the article could probably be rewritten.  DGG ( talk ) 15:35, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * DGG, could you point out the policy that says sockpuppet product must auomatically be deleted? I can understand the revulsion that is properly directed to such pages, but wonder why we would delete notable ones. Thanks.104.163.147.121 (talk) 22:18, 30 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep Although the article was originally created by a sockpuppet (I'm not 100% sure what that means), I believe it's well demonstrated that this person is notable and the article should be marked for improvement as opposed to being deleted. In fact, I'm not sure it even really needs to be improved any more. I edited the page and removed everything I think was promotional or not reliable and added more info and citations. In addition to more recent online sources, I found some older newspaper sources from when she was more active and from her honorary doctorate. She received the Order of Canada for unending community service, and a Prime Minister’s Medal from Israel. Even ignoring the awards, she passes WP:GNG for "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" (she was the first woman to sit as head of an Alberta educational institution, her work was widely covered while she was alive, her death was widely covered, two buildings were named after her, her art collection made headlines when it was being sold, two years after her death she was listed as one of the top people from Alberta, etc.). I believe her awards qualify her for WP:ANYBIO for "The person has received a well-known and significant award or honor, or has been nominated for such an award several times." I think the honorary doctorate for her work, ongoing coverage after her death and the fact that two buildings that were named in her honor help demonstrate that "The person has made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in his or her specific field". Lonehexagon (talk) 20:33, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * "created by a sockpuppet" means someone abused multiple accounts to create the article; the thinking here is that they were also doing it for money. It would also appear that one or more of the editors was blocked, meaning the pages were made/improved by a blocked editor. The editors above are arguing for deletion as sockpuppet product and product by blocked editors is very frowned upon, so it is not a straightforward notability question. However (and I cannot find the policy to cite at at the moment) it can be kept if a registered editor (you, for example) volunteers to clean up the offending product. Why don't you do that? 104.163.147.121 (talk) 22:05, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I thought I just did that. What else would you have me do? Lonehexagon (talk) 03:33, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
 * yes I guess you did! I am a bit foggy on why everyone is arguing for procedural deletion, where it gets delted and then can be recreated. I put the code on pastebin so it can be recreated it if it does get deleted.104.163.147.121 (talk) 04:39, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Also, I cannot find a policy anywhere that says sockpuppet product must be deleted. could someone point out the policy? I see the deletion reasons here, which do include WP:G5, creation by a banned or blocked user. But that's a reversible speedy.104.163.147.121 (talk) 22:16, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I do think I'm correct about OC, because of the 3 different ranks. They are not all the same That's exactly how we handled the 2 very closely corresponding countries. I am not sure what you mean by a reversible speedy. When used as a speedy, it can be challenged and removed by any editor except the contributor, but every one of these is also a basis for deletion at AfD. It's routine to bring challenged speedies here.  DGG ( talk ) 01:19, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
 * if by two countries you mean Canada and Britain, we are not closely corresponding at all. Britain is thousands of years old, Canada a few hundred. We might look alike, but what goes in one cannot necessarily be overlaid onto another. When you get the OOC here, it's a big deal that confers notability. 104.163.147.121 (talk) 02:51, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually, I mean the UK and Australia as the analogs to Canada. In all three, the lowest class is for purely local people.  DGG ( talk ) 18:42, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
 * "Member" class is most definitely not for purely local people when it comes the Order of Canada. Sure, it can be, but it's also the level at which no-brainer national and/or international notables like Jann Arden, Dan Aykroyd, Isabel Bassett, Bobby Curtola, Gord Downie, Joyce Fairbairn, Bill Graham, Brent Hawkes, Norman Kwong, Peter Liba, Eugene Levy, Don McKellar, Loreena McKennitt, Howie Meeker, Marina Orsini, David Onley, Charles Pachter, Eric Peterson, Léa Pool and Tanya Tagaq are sitting, and that's not even close to an exhaustive list of the 1,200+ articles that we have about.
 * In reality, Member is the level that almost everybody in the OC starts at regardless of how localized or nationalized or internationalized their notability claim is: with a few rare exceptions, Officers and Companions are not appointed directly to those levels from the jump, but get inducted as Members first and then get promoted from within the order — and because there are limits on the number of Officers (no more than 64 per year) or Companions (no more than 15 per year and no more than 165 living at any one time) who can be appointed, lots of people who probably should get promoted to the higher ranks don't. So no, "Member" does not automatically connote "only locally notable and therefore not notable enough for an article" — the OC simply does not work that way. Rather, the rule is that the OC does count as a notability claim regardless of rank, so long as you can properly source some evidence that they got reliable source coverage for the work they did to earn the distinction and aren't relying solely on their presence in an OC inductees list as the article's only real source. Bearcat (talk) 05:49, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh, trust me, the article very definitely still needs to be improved if and when it gets recreated. Just for the one big thing that jumps out at me right away, every single section that is currently formatted as a bulletpointed list must be converted into prose before the article could even get uprated from "start" to "C-class". It has to be an encyclopedia article, not a résumé. Bearcat (talk) 06:19, 5 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete It is the ethical thing to do to delete sockpuppet farm created articles. scope_creep (talk) 10:50, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Which Wikipedia guideline says an article must be deleted because it was created by a sockpuppet? I checked WP:SPI, WP:SOCK, WP:BLOCK and I didn't see anything about that. The closest I saw was in WP:BANREVERT, which said that "Pages created by banned users in violation of their ban, and which have no substantial edits by others, are eligible for speedy deletion." However, it continues, "If editors other than the banned editor have made good-faith contributions to the page or its talk page, it is courteous to inform them that the page was created by a banned editor, and then decide on a case-by-case basis what to do." From my reading of the guidelines, we should be treating sockpuppet-created articles on a case-by-case basis, just like any other AfD. It is a good article, and the notability/sourcing is not contested. I don't see how it fulfills the goals of Wikipedia to delete a well-sourced article about a notable topic. If the article had major problems, a vote to delete would make more sense to me as it's not Wikipedia's job to fix up articles that don't fulfill the guidelines. But given the demonstrated notability combined with the efforts of legitimate editors who made improvements, why still delete it? As another user said, if someone were going to recreate the article, it would basically be a copy-paste of what is here now. Lonehexagon (talk) 22:55, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Sockpuppets of banned editors aren't allowed to retain credited attribution for having created the article in the first place. Even if it is more or less a copy-paste of what's already here now, that's not the point: the point is that the article's edit history absolutely, unequivocally must have the sockpuppet's name removed from the edit history — this is absolutely, unequivocally mandatory, not optional — and while deleting it and then permitting recreation by another unbanned editor isn't specifically stated as mandatory in its own right, it is the only mechanism that exists to produce the denial of attribution that is mandatory. Bearcat (talk) 05:49, 5 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Comment If it hadn't went into AfD, it would have been an automatic G5 as the product of a proven sockpuppet farmer, who has been indef's blocked for making legal threats. It has to go. I don't mind recreating the article, although I see you have created a few articles yourself, Lonehexagon. Why dont you have a go at recreating it and I can give you a hand, if necessary?  As regards your argument, that it would fundamentally be a cut and paste job, is baseless. It wouldn't, and I could go into the reasons, but I wont. There is plenty of material. scope_creep (talk) 10:09, 5 April 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.