Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marvin Anding


 * 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. As the size of the city (which I have actually lived in, ironically...) does not make a politician notable, per WP:POLITICIAN, the article's subject is found to not be notable. &mdash; Coffee //  have a cup  //  beans  // 00:25, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Marvin Anding

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Only claim to fame is being mayor of a 60k population town; doesn't come close to meeting WP:NPOL. OhNo itsJamie Talk 00:49, 10 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment Ohnoitsjamie sought to kill five Bossier City mayor articles in a period of seven minutes on Feb. 10. He moved against Lo Walker at the time .51; against Jake W. Cameron at .47, at Marvin Anding at .49, at Hoffman fuller at .46, and Burgess McCranie at .44. I suppose this means 12:51 a.m. for Mr. Walker but am not sure, maybe 12:51 p.m. How could he read and analyze five revised articles in seven minutes? Billy Hathorn (talk) 19:47, 12 February 2015 (UTC)


 * delete non-notable local politician per WP:POLITICIANDeunanknute (talk) 01:52, 10 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment approximately an hour after the nominations for deletion by ohnoitsjamie, User:Deunanknute posted the line: delete non-notable local politician per WP:POLITICIAN. Several of those "delete" statements were made in the same minute of time. Billy Hathorn (talk) 19:59, 12 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep The notability rules say nothing about mayors or the size of their cities. Portland, Maine, has a population 5,000 larger than Bossier City, but it has 24 mayors all deemed notable with their own Wikipedia articles. There are ten articles on Bossier City mayors, all but two recently submitted.

Bangor, Maine, a city about half the size of Bossier City, has eight mayors on Wikipedia and twelve city council members. Many times city council members are excluded from Wikipedia unless they have held other offices. There are no articles on Bossier City Council members.

Here is a listing of certain cities, followed by population, and number of mayoral Wikipedia articles:
 * Scranton, Pennsylvania, 76,000, 6
 * Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 50,000, 6
 * Burlington, Vermont, 42,000, 6
 * Augusta, Maine, 19,000, 7
 * New London, Connecticut, 28,000, 5
 * Terre Haute, Indiana, 61,000, 4
 * Wasilla, Alaska, 8,000, 5
 * Hoboken, New Jersey, 50,000, 23
 * Juneau, Alaska, 31,000, 18
 * Key West, Florida, 25,000, 8
 * Medford, Oregon, 56,000, 12
 * Norwalk, Connecticut, 85,600, 87
 * East Orange, New Jersey, 64,000, 6
 * Taunton, Massachusetts, 56,000, 13
 * Wilmington, Delaware, 70,000, 10
 * Santa Fe, New Mexico, 70,000, 10
 * Ashland, Kentucky, 22,000, 27
 * Melbourne, Florida, 76,000, 33
 * Fairbanks, Alaska, 32,000, 7
 * Missoula, Montana, 66,000, 16
 * Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 59,000, 41

So Bossier City, Louisiana, 61,000 10 is consistent with the above listing.

Mr. Anding died in office in 1983. There are sources here showing his notability. All these Bossier City mayors should be considered notable, even if more material on them would be desirable though not yet located. Billy Hathorn (talk) 04:38, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * comment - Wikipedia also says notability is not determined by similar articles. See WP:WHATABOUTX.
 * Comment If you look closely at the articles about the mayors from those towns, you'll see that most of them went on to do more notable things (i.e., become a governor or member of congress). OhNo itsJamie  Talk 15:38, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Louisiana-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:17, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:17, 11 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Note In Ashland, Kentucky, only three of 26 mayors with Wikipedia articles served in other offices, one a county judge, another a state senator, and a third a U.S. representative. Three or four of the other 23 mayors were previously city council members. All Ashland mayors listed here have been deemed notable.Billy Hathorn (talk) 18:31, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep - WP:POLOUTCOMES notes that "Mayors of cities of at least regional prominence have usually survived AFD, although the article should say more than just 'Jane Doe is the mayor of Cityville'." This referenced article about a mayor of a city of regional prominence does say more than that. 24.151.10.165 (talk) 18:35, 11 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Note: Mr. Anding was president of the Louisiana Municipal Assn. in 1981; that made him the top mayor in the state for a year. Even presidents of state bar associations are deemed notable in Wikipedia articles on the view that such lawyers are at the peak of their profession by serving as state bar presidents. Billy Hathorn (talk) 18:41, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * comment- is Bossier City, Louisiana regionally prominent? And again, how is this person notable? Deunanknute (talk) 18:55, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
 * Bossier City, sister city of Shreveport, is regionally prominent; it is the ninth largest city in the state and some studies have shown it the first, second, or third fastest-growing city in the state.Billy Hathorn (talk) 19:45, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * comment These articles were probably all nominated at the same time for the same reason I've been commenting at the same time; for a group of very similar articles, it's sometimes easier to research them together. Also, please only add comments to the end of a discussion. Deunanknute (talk) 23:05, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Another point Mr. Anding was the retired commander at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City at the time of his first election as mayor on April 2, 1977. Billy Hathorn (talk) 22:27, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, N ORTH A MERICA 1000 14:23, 18 February 2015 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
 * Keep. With all respect to the good faith of every participant here, I sense a tendency to equate "city of regional importance" with "city I've heard of". From the standpoint of Wikipedians based in East and West Coast urban centers, or outside the USA, Louisiana occupies little mind space, and "Bossier City" is a ridiculous-sounding name. To those unfamiliar with the region, it doesn't evoke a city larger than (say) Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (which it is).  We should pay attention to the population numbers and avoid jumping to an impressionistic conclusion. Kestenbaum (talk) 21:47, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, N ORTH A MERICA 1000 17:19, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete He is NOT notable per WP:POLITICIAN, since he was not mayor of a city of regional prominence; Bossier City isn't even the parish seat. And population numbers are irrelevant; despite assertions that 50,000 or 100,000 or whatever population makes a mayor automatically notable, no such number has ever achieved consensus. It doesn't matter if some other mayors of some other cities have articles; WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a valid argument. He also fails WP:GNG; all coverage is about routine local matters (he fired a police officer, he inspected tornado damage, etc.) --MelanieN (talk) 02:24, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
 * P.S. I would also be OK with Richard Arthur Norton's suggestion (above) of a redirect to the city article (which surprisingly does not have a list of its former mayors, but it could). --MelanieN (talk) 03:06, 2 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment notable as commander of Barksdale Air Force Base and as president of the Louisiana Municipal Assn. from 1980 to 1981. The Bossier City article has the mayors and their dates at the bottom in a box. Billy Hathorn (talk) 04:26, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, good. Since the mayors are listed in a template, a redirect to the article could be accepted in place of a delete. About his military career, he was a colonel; that is not a rank that grants automatic notability. Neither does being president of the non-notable Louisiana Municipal Association. --MelanieN (talk) 15:40, 3 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete per MelanieN above. And respectfully, I must say that many of the "keep" opinions in these Bossier City discussions sound to me like local pride more than interpretation of policy. Geogene (talk) 00:24, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment. My comments and "keep" vote are not motivated by "local pride". I have never been to Bossier City and don't know anyone from there. I have never even lived in that part of the country.  But I think regional elitism is a greater problem than "local pride". Kestenbaum (talk) 02:00, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Had you heard of it before this? Geogene (talk) 02:06, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment. It was well known in even the 1940s for The Bossier Strip, which was subsequently superseded by casinos. Even if I had never heard of the community, I wouldn't favor removing all of this material. It's what is there from an Internet search. Billy Hathorn (talk) 03:48, 3 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment Mr. Anding was head of LMA, which made him the choice of his mayoral colleagues statewide in 1980. That is like being president of a state bar association or a state historical association. Makes him at the top of his profession. Billy Hathorn (talk) 05:33, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Neither of which confers notability. I have no doubt that Mayor Anding was at the pinnacle of his profession. Not just anyone is entrusted with that office in a city of 10,000 people, much less 80,000. But I'm not sure that he's notable enough for an encyclopedia about him, according to the current rules that apply to local politicians. Geogene (talk) 18:50, 4 March 2015 (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.