Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mike Scott (sheriff)


 * 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.  Sandstein  19:39, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Mike Scott (sheriff)

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Fails NPOLITICIAN. Only widespread coverage is BLP1E John from Idegon (talk) 07:29, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Weak keep. In it's present form, there isn't a lot and the article does need improvement, but his notability goes beyond 1E. Mainly local coverage exists, but there's a significant amount of it. Niteshift36 (talk) 13:45, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:04, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:04, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Florida-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:04, 28 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep Scope and breadth of coverage from reliable and verifiable sources meets the notability standard. Alansohn (talk) 16:39, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:BASIC and WP:POLITICIAN criterion #2. VQuakr (talk) 18:25, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete Only acceptable, reliable sourcing relates to the BLP1E incident involving Scott's dog-whistling against Barack Obama. Clear delete case. AusLondonder (talk) 10:29, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete. County sheriff is not an office that confers an automatic WP:NPOL pass just for existing. Local media would be expected to offer coverage of local law enforcement officials, so purely WP:ROUTINE local coverage does not help get him over WP:GNG by itself — and there isn't even much local coverage shown, as the referencing here is almost entirely to primary sources. At this level of office, the coverage has to nationalize to make him suitable for inclusion, but no evidence of nationalized coverage has been shown here at all — what little RS coverage has been cited here doesn't actually extend any further than the next county over from his own, and the incident described by it does make him a WP:BLP1E. Bearcat (talk) 18:41, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
 * can you clarify why you think the subject meets WP:BLP1E? To me he pretty clearly do not meet either condition #1 (reliable sources, local or otherwise, have indeed covered Scott in contexts other than the 2008 election) or #2 (he is not a low-profile individual as he was elected to public office and voluntarily spoke at a rally). VQuakr (talk) 01:04, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
 * You say that reliable sources covered him in contexts other than the 2008 election, but no such coverage has been shown — as written, this article is based almost entirely on primary sources, like the web pages of the sheriff's office and raw tables of election results, and what little media coverage is actually present in the article is stacked entirely onto the "Barack Hussain Obama" comment itself with no evidence of any other coverage provided. It's not enough to assert that other coverage exists; hard evidence that such coverage exists has to be explicitly shown (preferably in the article itself, but some results being shown in this discussion would also be acceptable). And being elected to public office does not automatically equal "high profile", either — because the office he was elected to is a local one which does not pass WP:NPOL, and doesn't inherently make him known or "famous" anywhere beyond his own local area. But again, GNG is not passed because one person says the level of coverage needed to pass GNG exists; it's passed when the level of coverage needed to pass it has been physically demonstrated to exist. Bearcat (talk) 01:22, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
 * If you are claiming that there has been no coverage of the subject since 2008, then please review WP:BEFORE. Otherwise; WP:SURMOUNTABLE. Here is a link filtered for just the last year; Scott has managed to stay in the news quite consistently over the years. VQuakr (talk) 01:34, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
 * What I see in that search is (a) local coverage which fails to demonstrate that he's known beyond his local area (read what I said above about coverage of people at this level of office having to nationalize before they become suitable for inclusion in an international encyclopedia), (b) glancing namechecks of his existence in articles that aren't substantively enough about him to count toward meeting GNG at all, and (c) entirely coincidental mentions of other Mike Scotts who are not this Mike Scott, which merely happen to coexist in the same article as an entirely unrelated occurrence of the word "sheriff" (see, frex, "Discovery's 'Killing Fields' returning to Louisiana for new season", which is about a sheriff in Louisiana, and was written by a journalist named Mike Scott.) None of that constitutes strong evidence that GNG has been met — again, locally prominent does not automatically equal encyclopedic. A figure of purely local notability gets into Wikipedia if the coverage expands beyond the purely local, and not if the expected level of WP:ROUTINE local coverage is all there really is. Bearcat (talk) 01:42, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — UY Scuti Talk  07:48, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete Doesn't get over the bar for GNG -- HighKing ++ 14:43, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete WP:NPOL doesn't apply in this case. We have to go by GNG and over here clearly the sources are lacking. We generally do not consider local sources for GNG purposes - specifically because local sources tend to disproportionately cover local issues which may not be notable. Over here the coverage is local and most of it is routine coverage - the kind you will expect a law enforcement officer to have because they are involved with investigating crimes. There is nothing over here which shows that the person is anything other than a routine law enforcement officer. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 02:17, 6 August 2016 (UTC)
 * What article were you reading? Aside from being the head of one of the state's largest agencies (more than a "routine" officer) I see sources about him that have nothing to do with investigating anything. Did you actually read the sources? And when did we start disregarding local sources? GNG doesn't say significant coverage by non-local sources. The last article I added as a source is entirely about him in a reliable source. Where are all you "we don't consider local sources" editors when I nominate some garage band? Niteshift36 (talk) 03:04, 6 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I was reading the ones in the News-press which is a local newspaper. From what I have seen in other countries (for example, India which is one of the larger countries), a head of a state level police force maybe notable but the head of a district level is not considered as notable. If I am not wrong, county in the US is similar to district in India. I have consistently maintained that local sources should not be used for GNG purposes for the reasons I stated above. The only non-local sources about the subject mention him in context of a particular remark made about Obama's middle name - a pretty insignificant event which faded away and wasn't even given much coverage at that time. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 03:31, 6 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure about others, but I have consistently maintained my view on local sources at other AfDs as well (See 1 and 2 for example) --Lemongirl942 (talk) 03:36, 6 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, the News-Press is a local paper, but it's a large daily, part of Gannett Company and undoubtedly a reliable source. I'm not asserting that he is notable solely by virtue of the office he holds. I simply pointed out that your statement of being a "routine" officer is hardly accurate. He heads about 1,600 employees, one of the largest employers in the area, and one of the largest agencies in the state. That's not "routine". Niteshift36 (talk) 03:51, 6 August 2016 (UTC)
 * The number of employees that a person happens to be the boss of is not a notability criterion, and neither is the organization's ranking in a "largest local employers" list. It's reliable source coverage about him, demonstrating a substantive reason why he can be considered more than just locally notable, or bust. Bearcat (talk) 17:01, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
 * do you honestly think I argued that number of employees or largest local employer were indicators of notability? Seriously? I was replying to the specific statement that Lemongirl made about his being a "routine officer". I even quoted her use of the word. A little good faith that I have actually figured out the basics of GNG in the past 9 years would be nice. Niteshift36 (talk) 22:17, 11 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep per, POLITICIAN Criteria # 2. The national uproar certainly made him a national figure. Also, we have kept articles for larger sheriff's offices; part of what makes a local official notable from our view is the size of the office he or she manages. Bearian (talk) 13:38, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
 * The national uproar made him a WP:BLP1E, not a topic of permanent encyclopedic interest that anybody would still be looking for 10 years after the 1E was forgotten. And keeping articles about sheriff's offices which satisfy WP:ORG has no bearing on whether we can keep BLPs of the people. Bearcat (talk) 18:51, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
 * As noted above, the subject does not meet criteria #1 and #2 of BLP1E. All three need to be met for it for that section to apply. VQuakr (talk) 19:30, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
 * The expected local coverage of a local figure does not count toward GNG, if the subject doesn't already have an automatic pass of an SNG. Only the nationalized coverage counts toward whether he passes or fails BLP1E #1 — and the nationalized coverage exists only in the context of the Obama comments, which means the GNG-eligible coverage does exist only in the context of a single event. And local figures do not escape #2, either: if his profile isn't nationalized in any substantive way, then he's still a low-profile figure regardless of the fact that he may have a higher profile in one small local area. "Low-profile" is a question of how nationally known a person is or isn't, and a person is not exempt from it just because he's locally higher-profile than he is anywhere else. My aunt has a local profile in her own town, but that doesn't make her a high-profile figure at the national level or a suitable topic for an encyclopedia article. Bearcat (talk) 20:20, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Yet local coverage is enough to keep an article about a hot dog place. Not a single source from more than a 40 mile radius. If we were talking about some local, free weekly paper, that might be one thing, but we're not. The sources are legit and part of larger syndicates. Niteshift36 (talk) 20:44, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Because no one argued the on point arguement in that 5 year old discussion. It miserably fails WP:CORP. That predates my time here; possibly CORP did not exist then. Besides WP:OTHERCRAP is seldom a persuasive arguement and comparing an article about a business to a BLP is apples and oranges. John from Idegon (talk) 21:38, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Wow John, you miss the point as badly as Bearcat does. I'm not comparing the 2. The point was that some editors here are acting like "local coverage" is useless and can't establish notability. I presented an example of where the AfD was a keep, based on nothing but local coverage, disproving the notion that local coverage can't result in a keep. BTW, just for giggles, I added CBS News and NPR sources so that you can all stop claiming there's only local sources used in the article. Niteshift36 (talk) 01:58, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
 * The expected local coverage of a local figure does not count toward GNG... no, that's not what either BLP1E or GNG says. If his profile isn't nationalized in any substantive way... that's not what "low profile" means. The term, as applied on WP, is defined in an essay linked from the policy. Sought media attention? Check. Holds a position of power? Check. Has "always avoided" high-profile activity? Definitely not. You are making up your own guideline content, which is a poor basis for an AfD !vote. VQuakr (talk) 00:22, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
 * No, I'm not making anything up. It's standard policy and procedure on Wikipedia that purely local coverage is not enough to establish notability for a person of purely local prominence. There's not a single sheriff anywhere in the entire United States (or a single sheriff-equivalent in any country on the entire planet, either) who would fail to qualify for a Wikipedia article if local coverage were enough; there's not a single city or town councillor or school board trustee anywhere on the entire planet who would fail to qualify for a Wikipedia article if local coverage were enough. Local shop owners and restaurateurs and parent-teacher association presidents and church bake sale committee spokespeople would start qualifying for articles if local coverage were enough. And on, and so forth: local media frequently devote coverage time and resources to profiling local people who may be of local interest, but do not belong in an encyclopedia. So if you're trying to get a person over GNG on "because media coverage of him exists" grounds, because he doesn't have any valid claim to passing any SNG, then the media coverage most certainly does have to be more than purely local, and the "highness" of his profile most assuredly does have to expand beyond the purely local, to count toward passing GNG. Bearcat (talk) 02:17, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Straw man; coverage of this person has already been demonstrated to not be exclusively local in nature. "highness" of his profile is again your own terminology with no basis in policy. VQuakr (talk) 02:31, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Nope, not a strawman: the only nationalized coverage that exists of this person stacks entirely onto a single blip of coverage deriving from a single incident, with no non-local coverage of him existing anywhere outside of that one isolated incident — thus fully satisfying WP:BLP1E. And again, I am making nothing up in this discussion: a "high profile", for the purposes of satisfying GNG or escaping BLP1E, does require that profile to be more than purely local. Every sheriff or sheriff-equivalent in existence has a high profile in his own local area, and every mayor and every city councillor and every school trustee in existence has a high profile in their own local area — but sheriffs and mayors and city councillors and school trustees do not qualify for Wikipedia articles until they can be demonstrated as more notable than the norm for their role, until there's a substantive reason why their profile and notability and sourceability can be substantively demonstrated as nationalizing, in a sustained manner, for much more than just a two-day attack of Dude Said Something Dumb. Bearcat (talk) 02:56, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
 * So you don't think "purely local coverage" and "nationalized coverage" are mutually exclusive? "Local" and "reliable" are both descriptors of sources that can be relevant to deletion discussions, but they are not synonyms. BLP1E says nothing about local coverage; your repeated claims to the contrary do not change the content of the policy. VQuakr (talk) 05:08, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Obviously I have to try this in different words: only nationalized coverage counts toward whether somebody at this level of significance qualifies as notable or not, and only nationalized coverage counts toward whether he can be deemed "high-profile" or not. If nationalized coverage of him exists only in the context of a single, minor, incident that fails the ten-year test, then he is still a WP:BLP1E regardless of how much localized coverage may also exist, because the local coverage isn't contributing any notability. All sheriffs or sheriff-equivalents in the world are locally "high-profile", but not all sheriffs or sheriff-equivalents in the world are notable enough for encyclopedia articles — a sheriff or sheriff-equivalent's profile has to expand considerably beyond the purely local for that person to warrant a Wikipedia article. But that hasn't happened here, as a two-day blip of coverage for a single event doesn't demonstrate that. Bearcat (talk) 05:36, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't think word choice is the issue. You are very clear that you think locality of sources should be mentioned alongside reliability in BLP1E criterion #1, but it quite verifiably isn't. Yours is a defensible opinion, but you should propose a change to the policy rather than attempting to pass off your opinion as policy here first. We are not discussing "All sheriffs or sheriff-equivalents in the world"; straw man. Anyways, among things to reach an impasse on this is a pretty good choice; kind regards. VQuakr (talk) 06:43, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not expressing a personal opinion of any sort; a lot of past AFDs, many of which I did not participate in at all, have decided that this is the way GNG and BLP1E work in a situation like this. And "all sheriffs or sheriff-equivalents in the world" are not a straw man or an irrelevant tangent, either — because all sheriffs or sheriff-equivalents in the world could always make the exact same claims of being locally high profile, and locally sourceable enough to satisfy GNG, that you're claiming for this one. But sheriffs are a class of topic that are not automatically notable because they exist; they're a class of topic where "more notable than the norm for a county sheriff" is the condition that has to be met for one to qualify for inclusion here, and nothing written or sourced here demonstrates that this one passes that test. Bearcat (talk) 14:35, 13 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete. even the 2008 event is rivial. Theextent to which we use local sources for showing notability of a local person is a matter of judgment. The recent trend, which I fully support is to be very cautious about usingthem because they are considerably indiscriminate.  DGG ( talk ) 01:38, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete due to lack of sources which demonstrate any notability. All the sources listed in the article are either first-party, or local news outlets with routine coverage.  The only non-local media I see is the CBS news bit, and that's both a trivial mention, and subject to WP:BLP1E -- RoySmith (talk) 11:15, 14 August 2016 (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.