Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paul N. Carlin


 * 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. No arguments for deletion aside from Mtiffany71. (non-admin closure) Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:09, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Paul N. Carlin

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

Delete. I do not support the idea that all postmasters are somehow inherently notable. Especially ones that only served for a year. If the best we can come up with is "X held position Y for one year" then really the choice to delete is clear. JBsupreme ( talk ) ✄ ✄ ✄	 17:20, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep - the guy was in charge of a major national public service. The article needs expanding, sure, but that's no reason to delete it imo. --  role player 17:31, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. The nomination is a straw man argument. The article should be kept, not because "all postmasters are somehow inherently notable", but because the subject clearly passes the general notability guideline, as can be seen by reading any number of the hundreds of sources found by Google Books and Google News archive searches. There's much more that can be said than "X held position Y for one year", as the nominator knows full well having removed it from the article rather than make any effort to look for sources. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:40, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. If you feel that much more can be said and you have citable sources, then by all means, fill out the article.Mtiffany71 (talk) 18:08, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Luckily I don't have sole responsibility for building this encyclopedia. This is a discussion to evaluate the notability of the article subject, not an edit-on-demand service. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:15, 16 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete. While the US Postal Service may be notable for a number of reasons, notability is not heritable.Mtiffany71 (talk) 18:08, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete as he is notable only for one event. Armbrust  Talk  Contribs  18:19, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * On that theory, most public servants who held one position would be deleted!--Milowent • talkblp-r 19:13, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * If they held only this position and nothing indicates notability, than yes. Armbrust  Talk  Contribs  21:15, 16 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep Multiple reliable and independent sources have significant coverage of Carlin, as proven by the Google Book and Google News Archive sources noted above by Phil Bridger. WP:N and WP:BIO are thus satisfied. The nominator should have checked for references before nominating the article. See WP:BEFORE.  Edison (talk) 18:24, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep: I see no reason to delete, held a major US public office. Plus it looks like every US postmaster general has an article and deleting this one would upset a settled organizational scheme for the project--Milowent • talkblp-r  19:13, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * In other words, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS..? JBsupreme  ( talk ) ✄ ✄ ✄	 20:33, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * In other words, you nominated something without realizing this is an encyclopedia. We don't delete Rhode Island because its the least notable U.S. state.--Milowent • talkblp-r  21:18, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Your analogy is flawed and doesn't pay mind to the link I just cited. We deleted WP:WALLEDGARDENS all the time.   JBsupreme  ( talk ) ✄ ✄ ✄	 21:24, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep - I'll make the "straw man argument" — Postmaster Generals are inherently notable. Any serious history of the US Postal Service will need a link to him. One doesn't "make" Wikipedia merely by dominating the news for a protracted period, thereby showing up all over the place on Google searches... Postmaster Generals of the United States are inherently notable public figures the same as Secretaries of the Treasury, Ambassadors to the United Kingdom, or other such top level government officials. Carrite (talk) 21:48, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 *  Speedy Very strong keep. The nomination implies that the subject was just a postmaster. If he were, I would have recommended deletion ... but he wasn't. He was the United States Postmaster General, a position which had Cabinet status for over 140 years (albeit not at the time Paul Carlin served in the position). It appears we have articles about every single other Postmaster General in the history of the United States, from Benjamin Franklin to John E. Potter. Deleting this article would leave an inexplicable redlink gap. I am willing to improve this article myself. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 23:04, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think it can be improved and I'm not sure this is a valid speedy keep either. Perhaps a better solution would be to just create a "List of Postmaster Generals" or something to that effect?  We can't keep one line stubs like this around even if there are dozens of others (which don't really justify each other, either).   JBsupreme  ( talk ) ✄ ✄ ✄	 23:53, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I've already found some sources with which to improve the article, and I plan to use them to add sourced information to the article unless someone gets there first. With regard to whether this is a valid speedy keep, I admit that it no longer is a "speedy keep" because two other editors have also recommended "delete" besides the nominator. However, the nomination is at least seriously misleading by implying that the subject was just a "postmaster" (of which there are thousands in the United States at any given time) rather than being the Postmaster General of the U.S. (of which there is only one at any given time). I have not checked all of the other articles about the Postmasters General, but of the ones I have checked, this is the only one-line stub. If you have found any other one-line stub articles about U.S. Postmasters General, please indicate which ones those are. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 00:14, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 03:11, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep I can't believe this even got nominated. OF COURSE all Postmasters General of the United States are notable. They are the head of an agency specifically authorized by the United States Constitution, one that affects every single American every day. His appointment was reported in dozens of newspapers, his firing was reported in dozens more, up to and including Time Magazine . I don't know how much more notability you want. --MelanieN (talk) 23:15, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. Regardless of whether one believes that postmaster-general is inherently notable (I tend to think it is), the fact that his brief tenure and firing were written up in Time magazine is enough by itself to convince me of a pass of WP:GNG. And there's plenty of other press also cited. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:43, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. I've completed the work I wanted to do on expanding the article. Please note that the article is now very different from the way it looked at the time it was nominated for AfD. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 07:32, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Magnificent work, Metropolitan. As complete and well-sourced an article as I've ever seen. (BTW I have always disliked the pattern where an editor will strip the article down to a stub and THEN nominate it for deletion; you shouldn't have had to dig all this stuff back up again IMO.) --MelanieN (talk) 15:59, 18 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Strong keep per great job on the rescue. Even, arguendo that Postmasters Generals of the United States, a constitutional officer, were not per se notable, this guy most surely is. Bearian (talk) 16:55, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I have withdrawn my nomination as I believe this article has somehow magically improved to the point where it does not warrant a deletion request. My believe that not all US Postmaster Generals are notable remains, but this biography is at least now sufficient in my eyes.   JBsupreme  ( talk ) ✄ ✄ ✄	 22:53, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * "Somehow magically improved" seems a rather grudging description of the research and editing done by Metropolitan, don't you think? --MelanieN (talk) 13:57, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 *  Keep US Postmaster Generals are inherently notable. Edward321 (talk) 13:58, 21 July 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.