Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Norman H. Wolfe


 * 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 keep, with the core debate being over the inherent notability (or lack thereof) of USTC judges. --joe deckertalk to me 00:28, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Norman H. Wolfe

 * – ( View AfD View log )

This article is a biography of a living person about a judge in the United States Tax Court. The article has no references, and I am unable to find any coverage in reliable sources about him to establish notability; there's plenty of material that can confirm he is a tax court judge. My understanding is that the tax court is an inferior court, and being a judge in such a court would not be deemed to be automatically notable. Whpq (talk) 19:53, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: As the nominator, based on some of the discussion below, I've amended my position to redirect to List of Judges of the United States Tax Court. -- Whpq (talk) 13:54, 20 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. Judge Wolfe's biography can be found on the website of the United States Tax Court. WikiProject United States Courts and Judges has created articles on almost every one of the several thousand persons who have served in the Federal Judiciary of the United States. The Judiciary is a coequal branch of the United States government, placing its members on par with Executive Branch officials and members of Congress. Furthermore, the United States Tax Court is a particularly important federal court, in that it is the only place taxpayers can go to resolve IRS claims against themselves without having to first pay the penalty. Articles on the judges of that court are therefore useful to those who are interested in knowing more about what types of people are in this small and discrete group making decisions affecting hundreds of millions to billions of dollars annually. As for the Tax Court being an "inferior court", it is indeed an Article I court, but unlike some Article I judges (such as magistrate judges, who I would agree are generally not notable), Tax Court judges are appointed by the President of the United States and must be approved by a majority vote of the United States Senate, and unlike Executive Branch officials, their terms of office generally exceed the tenure of the President who appointed them. bd2412  T 20:25, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: I have now added the above reference to this article. Cheers! bd2412  T 20:53, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for adding the reference to the article. Verifiability is not an issue.  There is no doubt that he is a tax court judge.  It is case of notability.  I've read the long discussion below.  I'm still not convinced that that a standalone article is justified, but I would support a redirect to List of Judges of the United States Tax Court. -- Whpq (talk) 13:52, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that is an acceptable solution, provided there is no objection to merging in some of the information from the article (educational and career history), which can be incorporated into a table, along with the relevant external link as a reference. I presume this discussion will mandate the same outcome for anyone else in this class who does not have some indicia of notability other than being a Tax Court judge? bd2412  T 14:23, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I can't promise I won't nominate the list article for deletion based on my comments below. I'm struggling to understand how having what appears to be mundane biographical information about a tax court judge, most of which is available on the tax court's own website, adds value to Wikipedia. So, I oppose the redirect.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:53, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The information is relevant because it provides a sense of the kind of people of whom the Tax Court is composed. It would be absurd to say that the Tax Court itself is notable, but we are going to impose some black box of secrecy over any information about the backgrounds of the judges who make up the court based on the notion that those judges are non-notable. I don't see the value to Wikipedia of forcing people to leave the website if they wish to find reliable, sourced information about people who, even if non-notable, are certainly non-trivial in their role in government. bd2412  T 16:45, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how useful our debate is at this point, BD, but just because a court is notable doesn't mean that the judges are. Two analogies come to mind. First, magistrates are not inherently notable; yet, the courts they work for are. Second, a CEO of a company may not be notable, even if the company he chairs is. I think the terms "absurd" and "black box of secrecy" are a tad hyperbolic.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:13, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not, at this point, arguing that the judges are encyclopedically notable enough to merit individual articles (although I believe that they are, and if there is a policy that says otherwise than that policy needs to be fixed). I am merely arguing that it is permissible to convey information about them in an article on the court, or on the office of a judge of that court. The inclusion of such information in an article is a matter of editorial judgment as to that article, and is not the question being decided in this AfD. Your opposition to even having a redirect is not founded on policy, as the criteria for allowing redirects to be made to articles are very different from those relating to what can go support an article. If someone wants information on Norman H. Wolfe and comes to Wikipedia looking for it, the least we can do is direct that visitor to an article having the most likely relevance to what they were searching for. bd2412  T 18:06, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The suggestion was to redirect to the list. If you want to imbed the judge list in the Tax Court article itself and redirect to the Tax Court article, I have no problem with that.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:10, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I note also that there is a distinction on this court between the regular judges and the special trial judges. As it turns out, special trial judges (such as Judge Wolfe) are indeed more like magistrate judges; they are hired by the chief judge, and not appointed by the President. However, I would also note that decisions of the special trial judges, like those of the regular judges, are appealed directly to the Circuit Courts. bd2412  T 18:49, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You appear to be trying to bolster your notability case based on the fact that Tax Court decisions are appealed to the circuit courts rather than to the district courts. I don't believe it's uncommon for administrative agency decisions to be appealed directly to the circuit courts. For example, in the case of labor relations, the first step of the adjudicatory process is for an ALJ of the NLRB to have a hearing and issue a decision. That decision may be reviewed by the members of the NLRB itself. A decision by the NLRB is appealable to the circuit courts, not the district courts. That kind of procedure doesn't really establish notability. Continuing the NLRB illustration, the NLRB has five members (as opposed to the much larger number of tax court judges), and, yet, as far as I can tell, only the chairs of the NLRB get their own list, and it's not clear to me whether an NLRB member is considered inherently notable.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:08, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete.I must say that the Tax Court is a fascinating creature. Who knew? The Wikipedia article says it is part of the legislative branch, not the judicial. I read an opinion by the Tax Court itself that addressed this issue, albeit in a different context. According to the opinion, the court used to be part of the executive branch. However, according to the opinion, in 1969, Congress removed it from the executive branch and made it an Article I "legislative court". The opinion may be found at Burns, Stix Friedman & Co., Inc. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 57 T.C. 392 (1971). All that aside, the power of the judges on the court are limited. The reach of the court itself is limited. Although juges are appointed by the president, they are not appointed for life (as with Article III judges), and their appointments are generally without any controversy. I doubt - but don't know - they are vetted in the same way as Article III judges, either. To me, they are much more like specialized magistrates, even if they are appointed by the president. I don't think they should be inherently notable.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:19, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Most judicial appointments, probably better than 95%, are without controversy. As a practical matter, a fifteen year appointment is about as lengthy an appointment as one can get short of a lifetime appointment, and I should have noted above that Tax Court decisions, like District Court decisions, are appealed directly to the United States Courts of Appeals. On the other hand, it has occurred to me that since the thirty or so articles on Tax Court judges are very short, and likely to remain so, we could merge them all into the list without much loss of information. bd2412  T 22:35, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * 95%? Not that I doubt your word, but do you have something to back that up? And over what period of time? In any event, equating tax court judges to district court judges seems way off base to me, and even a list requires notability for the list members.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:44, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd say just look at the vote tallies for List of federal judges appointed by George W. Bush and see how many nominees drew any opposition (much less the ones confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent). I would also say that the Tax Court judges, given the relative finality of their decisions, are much more like District Court judges than like magistrate judges. As for lists, the notability bar for inclusion in a list is necessarily lower than the notability bar for having an individual article on something on the list. We see that all the time when we list, and perhaps describe, the songs on an album or the minor characters in a major work, even though most songs on any album, and most minor characters in any work, are not inherently notable. bd2412  T 23:00, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Too much work to collect data to assess your percentage. The practice of Wikipedia and lists may be different than the guidelines and policies. See WP:LISTPEOPLE ("A person may be included in a list of people if all the following requirements are met: The person meets the Wikipedia notability requirement."). Bankruptcy judges are appointed for 14 years, only one year different from tax court judges. They are not necessarily specialty judges like tax court judges. I stick by my delete, but, notwithstanding my other comments, if my only choice were many articles about individual tax court judges and a list of them, I'd go with the list for efficiency, even though I generally dislike Wikipedia lists.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:27, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * By that reasoning, should we delete List of Judges of the United States Tax Court and Category:Judges of the United States Tax Court? bd2412  T 00:07, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes to the list and I don't know what the guidelines are for categories. What about imbedding the list in the Tax Court article (that's done with other courts)?--Bbb23 (talk) 00:13, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * If the list can be maintained within the article, I see no reason why it could not be maintained separately, and quite frankly no reason why the information in these articles, if not maintained in separate articles, can't be merged into it. If we can list the names and dates, why not also the qualifications that got them the job? I would also like to point out that I put a lot of effort into assembling this information, as apparently no one else - not even the Tax Court itself - has bothered to put together a complete list of all Tax Court judges. Unlike many other articles we have here, if this information is lost from the encyclopedia, it is lost to the world. Well, unless of course someone else puts the list together, but believe me, it was a pain tracking down all the names. I had to run through years of old cases just to figure out when judges started and finished. bd2412  T 01:23, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Imbedded lists don't have the same notability requirements as stand-alone lists because they are not articles. See WP:EMBED. Article content is not subject to notability. I sincerely sympathize with all the work you've put in, but, unfortunately, that isn't really a sufficient reason to keep an article or articles. However, if the judges were put in the Tax Court article as an imbedded list, your work would not be lost.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:32, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I see. Okay, I got this. Here's what we do. Instead of having a "List of" article, we'll have an article on the office of Tax Court judge describing the qualifications and duties of the position with the existing articles on the judges merged into a list embedded in that article. bd2412  T 03:00, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if your proposing your own solution or misinterpreting mine. But just so my idea is clear, I suggested that you take the existing United States Tax Court article and create tables with the judges, just as, for example, in United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. But now that I think about it, that wouldn't really save all of your work about each judge because the court articles don't have details about the judges, just entries in a table, meaning it would really be no different than List of Judges of the United States Tax Court, which some might say should be deleted as a stand-alone list. Anyway, I think I've exhausted all I have to say on this issue for the moment and will let others comment. Maybe our mini-debate will illuminate some of the issues for the benefit of those others.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:40, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete this is a close call - there seems to be nothing notable about this guy other than his (former) judicial office. So it boils down to: are Tax Court judges inherently notable? As discussed above, these are not lifetime appointments. There are others, as noted above, like bankruptcy judges (and I may add administrative law judges, magistrate judges, judge advocates general, etc.) all of which are "federal" judges in the US scheme of things but they come and go and while they may write or handle momentous cases, they are not inherently more notable than a typical civil servant of equal stature (say the career non-political-appointee folks in the Dept of State, Energy, etc.). So, unless this guy handled some notable case or wrote something notable (nothing in the current draft seems to so indicate); he's just not notable. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 23:41, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I have proposed merging and redirecting this information for comparable judges into a single article on the office itself. If you have any objection to this solution, please indicate this. Cheers! bd2412  T 21:43, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions.  — • Gene93k (talk) 23:39, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions.  — • Gene93k (talk) 23:40, 20 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. I'll just add a few comments. I respectfully disagree with the notion that Tax Court judges are not inherently more notable than a typical civil servant (and I wouldn't know how you would determine whether a Tax Court judge and a civil servant were of "equal stature"). I made a minor edit to the article to move the material about the Tax Court being part of the legislative branch. The material cited was to a government web site, but the U.S. Supreme Court has already weighed in on this. The Tax Court (I argue) is not part of the "legislative branch"; it is an article I court, but it is part of the judiciary, not the legislative branch. Also, I would argue that Tax Court judges are not like district court magistrates. They are more like U.S. District Court judges (except that they're not appointed for life). But to get to the main point, I would argue that Tax Court judges are sufficiently notable for the simple reason that of all federal judges, these might be the ones most often seen by citizens who are litigating federal tax cases. With a few exceptions, the Tax Court is often the only place that a taxpayer can litigate with the Internal Revenue Service without first having to pay the tax and sue for refund. Famspear (talk) 02:06, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment - The guy at the drivers license bureau is probably the guy I'll see the most as the face of government, but it doesn't make him notable. That seems to be a very weak argument for keeping the article. -- Whpq (talk) 02:51, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Famspear said that of "of all federal judges" these would be the ones most encountered by citizens, not "the face of government"-type bureaucrats to which you allude. It is unfortunately all too easy to characterize an argument as weak when you are knocking down a straw man instead of the actual argument being put forth. bd2412  T 04:38, 21 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep Notable position. The analogy of the position is indeed with US District Court judges, who are accepted as inherently notable. Their salaries are equivalent. They are normally reappointed for life.  Their decisions are appealed to the Circuit Courts of Appeal, not the district Courts.  They are not equivalent to US magistrates -- the tax court  equivalent to that lower rank  is "special trial judges", who are  appointed by the chief judge of the Tax Court   DGG ( talk ) 06:59, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't see how salary has anything to do with notability. Magistrate judges are paid 92% of what district court judges are paid. Does that make them inherently 92% notable? As for reappointment, most term-appointed judges (magistrates, bankruptcy judges) are reappointed as often as they wish; yet, that doesn't make them inherently notable either.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:31, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * DGG, how would you feel about merging and redirecting all of the existing articles on Tax Court judges into List of judges of the United States Tax Court? We could redirect to sections, so readers would still be able to find the information immediately. bd2412  T 15:34, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * (1) Salary in a government position is normally a good indicator of relative rank in a hierarchy. (2) I would not in the least accept merging. They're as notable as the district judges individually. I'd as soon merge all the members of a state supreme court.    DGG ( talk ) 03:04, 25 May 2011 (UTC)!
 * Keep ... or at least keep information about the Tax Court judges at the level suggested by BD2412. (As a sidenote, there is a difference between "a court created by Congress pursuant to its Article I powers" and "a court that is part of the Legislative Branch," but we don't need to have that discussion here.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:26, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Certainly keep per all those above. Neutralitytalk 19:46, 26 May 2011 (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.