Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mike Nevin (2nd nomination)


 * 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. 78.26 (spin me / revolutions) 15:23, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Mike Nevin
AfDs for this article: 
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Poorly sourced WP:BLP biography of a person notable only at the municipal level of political office. Daly City is not a large enough city to hand its city councillors an automatic pass of WP:NPOL #2, and it's a council-manager city where the mayors are selected on a yearly rotation among the city council, not elected by the general public, thereby serving as ceremonial rather than executive mayors and thus not getting an automatic WP:NPOL #2 pass either. But the article is not sourced anywhere near well enough to get him over WP:GNG in lieu: there are just three footnotes here, of which one is the self-published website of his own alma mater, and the other two are just the routine local media coverage that's simply expected to exist. This is not enough coverage to make a person notable for this. (Note that first discussion had a keep result, but was conducted in 2005 — and 13 years later, our notability and reliable sourcing standards are much tighter and stricter than the "flying by the seat of our pants" approach that pertained back then. Consensus can change, so the fact that it was kept in 2005 is not in and of itself a valid reason why it would still have to be kept today.) Bearcat (talk) 20:02, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Bearcat (talk) 20:05, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. Bearcat (talk) 20:05, 3 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete WP:BLP doesn't apply as he unfortunately appears to have passed away recently, but the rest of your point stands: fails WP:NPOL and WP:GNG. SportingFlyer  talk  02:15, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, I copied and pasted the first part of this nomination statement from the related discussion on Mike Guingona that I initiated shortly before this, and forgot to change BLP to biography after pasting it. I've made that adjustment now. Bearcat (talk) 03:24, 4 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep: Notable figure. Article poorly done though needs much work. Karl Twist (talk) 10:37, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Notable on what basis and what sourcing? Bearcat (talk) 16:30, 5 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete- local politicians need to do something really extraordinary to meets the notability standards.--Rusf10 (talk) 00:15, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Like legalizing marijuana?E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:24, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * If he were directly notable for this, wouldn't it be in the article already? SportingFlyer  talk  05:52, 8 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep being elected to the San Mateo Board of supervisors is like being elected to the city council of a major city. (we're talking the large swath of industrial, high tech, and residential sprawl on the East side of San Francisco Bay, including SFO and the northern part of Silicon Valley. San Francisco itself is quite a small city. )  In addition to the several major daily papers that ran  obits, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a long profile of him in 2001 (now added to article).  And this gScholar search, which shows impact.E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:24, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The notability criterion for city councillors is not "major city" — it's "internationally prominent metropolitan global city", and there's no county in the United States which can claim that serving on its county council is inherently equivalent to that. And obituaries are not notability clinchers all by themselves, either, especially when they're all from the local newspapers that would simply be expected to obituary local political figures. Bearcat (talk) 14:23, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Kirbanzo (talk) 17:55, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Bearcat, the question at AfD is not whether the sources on the page validate the subject, but whether sources exist that can validate the subject. In this case the first 3 or four pages of a search on "Mike Nevin" + marijuana  show, in the text of the multiple obits, and in the coverage of his role in sponsoring early marijuana legalization legislation, show that he is notable.E.M.Gregory (talk) 23:29, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * So he supports marijuana legalization. The only problem with this is its irrelevant to his notability since as a county politician he does not have the authority to pass any meaningful marijuana legalization legislation.--Rusf10 (talk) 23:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep. Sufficient coverage to meet the WP:GNG. Intro seems focused on sourcing in the article. That's not what we examine at AFDs. gidonb (talk) 05:57, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Which other sources should be considered? SportingFlyer  talk  06:03, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Although incomplete, sources in the articles have by now been improved. The point I made is that improving the references in the article should NOT be the purpose of a nomination. If the sources are "out there" but not in the article yet (situation at intro write-up), then the appropriate templates of or  should be used. In this particular case . gidonb (talk) 23:54, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Except they haven't been improved. The only good source in my book right now is #2 and I can't access that one. #1 is about his dad's birthday, #3, 4, 5, 6 and 9 are obituaries (9 is a dead link), 7 is a three-sentence article in which he is quoted without saying anything, he's quoted in 8, and 10 is a run of the mill article about replacing the board of directors. #2 is the best source and I don't have access to it! We've been placing a lot of weight on obituaries to create notability in a couple AfDs recently and I just don't think what's there after improvement is significant enough to pass WP:GNG. SportingFlyer  talk  05:01, 15 May 2018 (UTC)


 * delete Coverage is typical and local, what you would expect of any small city mayor. Mangoe (talk) 12:44, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Note that the San Francisco Bay Area is an internationally prominent metropolitan global city, except that it's not a city. It's a cluster of county councils, more like the Holy Roman Empire than it is like Hong Kong, London or New York.  The Bay Area has no central city.  Palo Alto outweighs  San Francisco in terms of financial and political heft.  Oakland is in Oakland.   Berkley is on a separate planet, but, nevertheless, governed as part of Alameda County.  And San Mateo County (the territory between San Fran and Palo Alto) has close to a million people governed by 5 county supervisors, each of whom holds more actual power than city councilors in American cities with a strong mayor system;  Nevin held more power than, for example,  any of the 51 individual city Councillors in New York City to whom our rules give an automatic notability.E.M.Gregory (talk) 18:51, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment - If kept, it might be noted in the article that Nevin ran for state senate in 2006, losing in the primary to Leland Yee. Smmurphy(Talk) 18:54, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep - If Nevin was a regular city council member it would be different, but becoming mayor and Board of Supervisors member elevates him. If anything the article could be expanded, but coverage, sources and office are sufficient. Aside from that, I'm also unsettled by the nomination and possible deletion of an article with a past nomination that already resulted in "Keep". It makes no difference if the original keep was last month, 13 years ago or 100 years ago, it sets an uneasy precedent. Scanlan (talk) 02:04, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The standards for keeping articles are completely different than they were in 2005, though. It's not normal, but it's not uncommon either. SportingFlyer  talk  05:01, 15 May 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.