Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Patrick Murray (politician)


 * 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. --  Phantom Steve / talk &#124; contribs \ 03:03, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Patrick Murray (politician)

 * – ( View AfD View log ) •

Non-notable ex-colonel and political candidate who has never held office; fails WP:POLITICIAN test Orange Mike   &#x007C;   Talk  00:19, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect to United States House of Representatives elections in Virginia, 2010 per precedent in similar articles (e.g. Articles for deletion/Craig Weber, Articles for deletion/Rami Bader (politician), Articles for deletion/Naheed Nenshi, Articles for deletion/Billy Coyle, Articles for deletion/Mike Kelly (Pennsylvania), Articles for deletion/Lisa Johnston, Articles for deletion/Ann Marie Buerkle (Politician)). Location (talk) 00:32, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Speedy Keep - A major candidate in a notable race for a federal office. I don't see how this fails WP:POLITICIAN at all. -- NINTENDUDE 64 01:58, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It fails WP:POLITICIAN because there is no significant coverage in independent sources outside the context of the election, so redirect to the election article is warranted per WP:BLP1E, WP:NOTNEWS, and WP:Wikipedia is not a source for election candidate biographies. Location (talk) 03:26, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The election itself is notable, it's for a federal office. A major party candidate in a race for federal office is notable and fulfills WP:POLITICIAN. -- NINTENDUDE 64 03:34, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:POLITICIAN does not say what you say it does and precedent (see above) does not agree with you. Location (talk) 03:38, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep at least through the election These AFD tags on politicians the week before the election are getting tiresome. What's the rush?  By the time this AFD is over, we will know if the candidate is notable or not... any speculation/!voting prior to the election at this point is premature and and a waste of time/energy.  If they get elected, then they are notable, if not, then we can clean the 'pedia up... but at this point, any action taken by Wikipedia looks political especially on articles that have existed for 4+ months.--- Balloonman  NO! I'm Spartacus! 04:45, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Well... The point of these deletion requests is that Wikipedia does not want to become a free advertising space for candidates. People should only have a page here if they have already become notable not if they might become notable in the future using Wikipedia as a tool to do so. Travelbird (talk) 10:22, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yet again I will indulge those who don't think these politicians already meet the GNG's:
 * Fairfax Times has an article w/ significant coverage on Murray.
 * WTOP TV has an article dedicated to Murray's military career.
 * The Dailykos on Murray
 * WMAL radio on Murray
 * The American spectator
 * American Chronicle's in depth coverage
 * Business Wire coverage
 * Alexandria Times has in depth coverage
 * A number of papers from accross the country found the endorsement of Murray by the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste Political Action Committee (CCAGW PAC) notable enough to cover, those include but are not limited to: MSNBC,Rueters,Forbes, Denver Post,SF Chronicle
 * While not significant coverage of Murray himself, it is interesting that the Voice of America talked about him.
 * Meeting the criteria for POLITIICAN does not define if a person is notable enough for Wikipedia, it is a back-up guideline that people use when GNG fails. In the above I only cited each source only once, I could have provided multiple coverages of Murray from the same sources.  Nor did I resort to questionable sources, all of those sources easily meet the standards for reliable sources.  And, unless noted, they are all significant coverage of Murray...eg not trivial.   The fact is that anybody running for US Senator/Representative/Governor will have enough sources to meet the GNG---POLITICIAN does not supersede GNG.--- Balloonman  NO! I'm Spartacus! 15:02, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Redirect per earlier suggestion. I am heartened to see others filing nominations this morning, too.  As for the specifics of Mr. Murray here, this falls short of WP:POLITICIAN (I will note that "Nintendude64" above is completely misrepresenting this guideline in his "speedy keep" entries), as he is only a nominee for office.  Murray also fails the GNG, as the coverage is scant (one brief mention in the WaPo). Tarc (talk) 11:26, 26 October 2010 (UTC)


 * KEEP at this time. One, he was elected in the primary election. Two, the article uses the congressional candidate infobox, which has been around for a long time and was presumably created for these sorts of people. By some of the reasoning here, that infobox could never be used. Any person notable for something else would be using an infobox related to that other notability, which makes it a Catch 22 situation. Flatterworld (talk) 14:52, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * COMMENT. This request is taking the wrong path. The proper path is to use the Template:Merge to and Template:Merge from templates, invite all those involved in both articles, and discuss the issue until consensus is reached. That's why those Templates exist, and that's why they're (normally) used when the issue involves (but not necessarily limited to) a claim that a person is notable only for one event. If consensus is reached, then an actual merge of material rather than a simple delete, or even a delete and redirect, is done. See Scott Harper for an example of this. For an example of the opposite, note that one of the claimed Redirects mentioned above, Ann Marie Buerkle, shows no history at all of what was in the previous article. That article was actually deleted, then a redirect was added after the fact. That's why it's wrong to do deletes in these cases, and that's been the consensus achieved in many, many AfD requests for various political candidates over the years. The other examples show no evidence of any actual merge of material. There seems to be a lot of confusion on the definition of 'merge' here. It is not a synonym for a redirect. There are two steps, and both must be taken. Flatterworld (talk) 14:52, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * In some of these cases, there were merge templates that sat around for a week. I redirected two of these only to be reverted by  (I believe) .  As for Articles for deletion/Ann Marie Buerkle (Politician), it is unfortunate that that was closed as a literal delete, when IMO the history should have been preserved under a redirect.  You can always request that that be done from that closing admin, I don't see it as a controversial request. Tarc (talk) 14:58, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * There was no consensus. There's nothing in the template which says 'will be done within a week' as an AfD does. Flatterworld (talk) 15:20, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Flatter, what is wrong with keeping if the candidate meets GNG as this one does?--- Balloonman  NO! I'm Spartacus! 15:06, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I've now signed my keep request above my comment, which made my position on this particular article unclear. Apologies for that. Flatterworld (talk) 15:15, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you, at first I didn't realize they were one in the same.--- Balloonman  NO! I'm Spartacus! 16:54, 26 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep, at least temporarily. per Flatterworld and Bds69.  As to this particular article, just wait one week and then after Election Day there will be time to decide which articles are to be deleted and which ones will be merged.  There is no harm to Wikipedia in waiting, but there is huge potential harm to Wikipedia in destroying editor's work prematurely.  It makes Wikipedia look like a partisan free for all. Also, complete deletion is absolutely wrong.  There are less destructive ways to handle these articles.--InaMaka (talk) 15:51, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Merge per User:Location Racepacket (talk) 18:48, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions.  --  Ray  Talk 05:39, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Virginia-related deletion discussions.  --  Ray  Talk 05:39, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Merge and Redirect per Location. As the nom says, no notability exists. For that matter, no notability is likely, given that the seat is rated a safe Democratic. I find no sign of coverage significant enough to pass GNG independent of WP:POLITICIAN. Ray  Talk 05:42, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
 * GNG supercedes POLITICIAN not the other way around. There is plenty of coverage on him, so we do not have to fall abck to POLITICIAN.--- Balloonman  NO! I'm Spartacus! 06:25, 27 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment. This article refers to an article specifically about this election: Virginia's 8th congressional district election, 2010. I had previously tagged that article with a Merge request to be merged into United States House of Representatives elections in Virginia, 2010. imo this is an example of a lot of forking done only to try to get 'eyeballs' when googling, and we don't need this sort of thing for every election and every candidate. There's no reason the material can't be merged and redirected. Flatterworld (talk) 16:49, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep - I favor a low bar for inclusion of active politicians as a public service. Independent coverage of congressional politicians is massive and every R or D candidate and most minor party candidates for these offices should be regarded as notable per se the same way that every pro baseball player is assumed to be covered by third party sourcing. Proximity to the election makes me especially hesitant to advise deletion of such material. Carrite (talk) 22:04, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep - The article for the 2008 Republican nominee for this seat, Mark Ellmore, was nominated for similar reasons but just got deleted a few months ago. If Murray loses, the article shouldn't stay that long, but we should keep it at least through the election. He has received significant coverage recently, most notably two national TV interviews on FOX News, FOX Business, and a separate segment about him also on FOX News, and articles about him on FOX Business again, The Daily Caller, The Weekly Standard, in addition to substantial coverage in local media (local NBC News, Washington Examiner, and WTOP Radio, among others). So there are references out there, we just need to incorporate them into the article. Perhaps a refimprove tag would be better than deletion. BS24 (talk) 23:48, 31 October 2010 (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.