Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Peter Jacob


 * 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) 19:02, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Peter Jacob

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Fails WP:POLITICIAN as an unsuccessful candidate for public office. All of the coverage surrounding him is about his campaigns and he doesn't therefore meet WP:GNG. Marquardtika (talk) 18:33, 8 February 2018 (UTC) I would support redirecting this article to United States House of Representatives elections in New Jersey, 2018 per the standard outcomes at WP:POLOUTCOMES. 19:27, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. North America1000 20:14, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of New Jersey-related deletion discussions. North America1000 20:14, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions. North America1000 20:14, 8 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete: failed politician bio. Quis separabit?  19:57, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep yes failed politician bio but passes the general notability guideline. As a reminder, the politician rule says Just being ... an unelected candidate ... does not guarantee notability, although such people can still be notable if they meet the primary notability criterion of "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject of the article" and Jacob easily passes with in-depth coverage here and here and here and here and here and here and elsewhere. The nominator's argument that All of the coverage surrounding him is about his campaigns and he doesn't therefore meet WP:GNG is bogus -- it would be like saying that all of the coverage about Henry Ford was about his automobile business, therefore it doesn't count and he doesn't meet the GNG. Politicians get covered about politics; business people about business. Both Ford and Jacob are notable.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:59, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep as per Tomwsulcer -- Hagennos  ❯❯❯  Talk  08:45, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep per coverage in reliable and verifiable sources above and beyond his political activities that meets the notability standard. Alansohn (talk) 17:50, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete. Coverage of all candidates in all election campaigns always exists, but we have a rule that because we do not want Wikipedia to devolve into a collection of campaign brochures for unsuccessful candidates, the bar that a candidate normally has to clear is "wins the election and thereby holds a notable office", not just "has coverage of the campaign". If having some campaign-related coverage in and of itself were all it took to get an unelected candidate over GNG, then we would have to always keep an article about every unelected candidate who ever ran in any election at all. There is admittedly a "special case" provision where a candidate can keep an article just for being a candidate if they can be shown as significantly more notable than the norm for unelected candidates — i.e. Christine O'Donnell, who got so much coverage and became such an international household name for her witch thing that our article about her is actually about 50 per cent longer, and cites three times as many references, than our article about the actual officeholder she lost to — but the volume and depth and breadth of referencing here are not marking Jacob out as an unusual case who got more coverage than most other non-winning candidates for Congress also got. It's not showing him as a special case whose candidacy was more notable than everybody else's candidacy — it's just the completely normal depth and range and volume that every candidate could also show. Bearcat (talk) 18:09, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Really? You mean you have a rule; we (the community) have rules clearly specified by WP:POLITICIAN and WP:GNG -- please read them.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 18:49, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
 * No, I do not have my own special personal rule for determining the notability of politicians outside of existing Wikipedia practice — every word in my comment was and is correctly reflective of Wikipedia's established consensus about how a non-winning candidate for office becomes notable enough to have a Wikipedia article just for being a candidate. It is not sufficient to point to how an article technically meets the letter of a Wikipedia inclusion test — rather, you need to be familiar with the corpus of how AFD has actually responded in similar situations: campaign-related coverage always exists for all candidates, but we do not automatically accept all candidates as notable for that per se, so the coverage does have to expand significantly beyond what every other candidate could also show before it makes mere candidacy an includable notability claim in and of itself. NPOL is significantly outdated, in fact, and requires a significant rewrite that just hasn't been undertaken yet, so the fact that it doesn't already explicitly say that doesn't mean it's not true. Bearcat (talk) 19:04, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
 * So you, Bearcat, know the correction interpretation of WP:NPOL, but the guideline as written, is outdated and wrong. Seriously?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 22:09, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Not at all what I said. For one thing, not one syllable in NPOL suggests that anything I said is even slightly wrong in the first place. And for two, I'm not expressing a personal opinion that differs so much as one iota from established consensus about unelected candidates. The simple fact is that Wikipedia does not automatically accept an unelected candidate for political office as notable just because some campaign-related coverage exists, precisely because every candidate for any office could always show some campaign-related coverage. The key to making a candidate notable enough for an article because candidate per se is to show that she's significantly more notable than the norm by virtue of having generated outsized coverage that goes significantly above and beyond what every other candidate could also show — not because I said so, but because AFD consensus established that years ago. Bearcat (talk) 22:49, 12 February 2018 (UTC)


 * What Bearcat said is what has always been my understanding as well. There are many political candidates for every elective office and there is invariably news coverage of them, but to establish their enduring encyclopedic notability, we need to show that the coverage extends beyond local and routine coverage of their candidacy. Marquardtika (talk) 23:25, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Show us the rule that says this.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 01:21, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
 * WP:NPOL + WP:POLOUTCOMES + WP:ROUTINE + WP:MILL Bearcat (talk) 01:30, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
 * WP:NPOL is official policy; it suggests Jacob is notable since he passes the WP:GNG. WP:POLOUTCOMES is not official policy. WP:ROUTINE is about events not people. WP:MILL is not official policy.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 11:10, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
 * We have always agreed that the election campaign is notable, see WP:POLOUTCOMES. "Candidates who ran but never were elected for a national legislature or other national office are not viewed as having inherent notability and are often deleted or merged into lists of campaign hopefuls, such as Ontario New Democratic Party candidates, 1995 Ontario provincial election, or into articles detailing the specific race in question, such as United States Senate election in Nevada, 2010" --Enos733 (talk) 15:50, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
 * NPOL: No, a candidate for office does not pass GNG just because campaign-related coverage exists — as I've pointed out several times already, campaign-related coverage always exists for every candidate in any election, but we have an established consensus that every candidate in any election is not automatically notable. Making a candidate notable enough for a Wikipedia article does require evidence that he or she is substantively more notable than most other candidates who don't qualify for articles — namely, by showing that significantly more coverage exists than usual — and is not demonstrated by the mere existence of the same depth and range of coverage that everybody else could also show. People have to pass the ten-year test for enduring significance, not just to be temporarily newsy, to qualify for Wikipedia articles — which means officeholders, not unelected candidates. POLOUTCOMES: Per WP:ONLYESSAY, precedents listed at Common Outcomes are binding in the absence of a compelling reason to make an exception, and are not ignorable just because they're not "policy" per se. Guidelines exist as clarifiers of how policy is actually applied in actual practice, not just as floating randomness — the principle is that policy states what to do, while guidelines state how to do it, and so they work in tandem with each other. So guidelines do matter and do require good reasons to break them. ROUTINE: No, routine is not only about the notability of events themselves, but rather many of its own stated examples do speak to whether certain types of events count toward establishing the notability of people involved in those events — see, for example, the part about how wedding and death notices don't establish the notability of the bride, the groom or the corpse in and of themselves. MILL: See what I said about POLOUTCOMES, because the issue is the same. It's an accurate reflection of a genuine issue on Wikipedia — we really, truly can't maintain an article about every house in existence just because every house in existence is technically sourceable somewhere, and on and so forth — so it's not ignorable just because it's an essay. Bearcat (talk) 17:52, 13 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete The people voting keep have confused widespread coverage of the election including incidental coverage of the candidates with actual widespread coverage of the individual.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:13, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
 * My reply is that one can't dis-associate people from what they do. Farmers farm. Writers write. So coverage of a farmer will be about farming. Ditto political people: coverage will be about their positions and statements and endorsements etc, and disqualifying this information is nonsensical. And the "incidental" versus "widespread" distinction is a POV.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 11:10, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Again, the point is that every candidate in any election can always show some coverage about their positins and statements and endorsements. It's ROUTINE and MILL, because every candidate for any political office could always be sourced to that kind of coverage — but we explicitly don't accept that every candidate for any political office is always notable. The key to getting a candidate over the bar is to demonstrate that either (a) his or her candidacy is somehow more notable than everybody else's candidacy, by virtue of having garnered a lot more and/or wider coverage than everybody else could also show, and/or (b) that he or she would already have qualified for an article for some other reason completely independent of the candidacy and its attendant coverage. Bearcat (talk) 17:52, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep per Tomwsulcer, substantial in-depth coverage so I think Jacob passes GNG. Davey2116 (talk) 04:56, 15 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Every candidate in any election could always show campaign-related coverage, but Wikipedia has an established consensus that candidates are not notable enough for Wikipedia articles just for the fact of being candidates per se. The coverage shown here is not marking Jacob out as a special case who's more notable than most other candidates for any reason. Bearcat (talk) 19:30, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Strong Delete- Failure of WP:POLITICIAN and his non-political activity is not notable. There is one, just one article about him before his candidacy . And really the article isn't about him, its about an organization he coordinates. And the article is not even in a notable publication, its in the town newspaper, even though it is hosted on the star-ledger's website, it was never published in that paper. At the top of the page it says "suburban news" which is basically just the local town newspaper (I guess the Star Ledger owns it).--Rusf10 (talk) 07:47, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Seraphimblade Talk to me 11:37, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:GNG, WP:POLITICIAN, and Bearcat's careful argumentation. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:16, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep as even though he did not win the election, enough significant independent sources exist to qualify for WP:GNG. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SportingFlyer (talk • contribs)
 * No, they don't. If the depth and breadth of coverage shown here were enough to get a candidate into Wikipedia on WP:GNG grounds despite not passing WP:NPOL, then every single candidate for any political office at all would always qualify for an article on GNG grounds despite not passing NPOL, because every candidate always gets at least this much coverage in the context of the campaign itself. But our rule is quite explicitly that candidates don't qualify for articles on here just for being candidates per se — a candidate has to be shown as significantly more notable than most other candidates before he qualifies, and the sourcing here isn't suggesting that Jacob's candidacy is anything out of the ordinary. Bearcat (talk) 17:40, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I disagree. I believe the depth and scope of coverage here helps pass WP:GNG. There's a lot more written about Mr. Jacob than for most candidates for office. SportingFlyer (talk) 07:50, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * No, there really isn't. Of the 14 footnotes here, five are to sources that can never be used to assist notability at all — Ballotpedia, YouTube, a non-notable activist organization's self-published website — and what's left after those are taken out is not an unusual volume or range or depth of coverage for an election candidate. Bearcat (talk) 17:45, 19 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep - The person does easily pass WP:GNG despite losing an election. And no, in-depth press coverage by the national and state press do not always cover every candidate.  In fact, there were many congressional races when a candidate of one party or another was the overwhelming favorite with their opponents not even getting support from their own party who did not receive GNG passing coverage. For example Congressional Democratic incumbent Nancy Pelosi's most recent Republican opponent Bob Miller did not receive GNG-passing in-depth coverage, despite running against such a high profile candidate. --Oakshade (talk) 05:36, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
 * It's true that not every candidate receives a huge volume of coverage equal to what an already nationally known figure like Nancy Pelosi would get, but every candidate does always get enough media coverage that they could at least try to claim that they had passed GNG on "media coverage exists" grounds (a test which some people wrongly think is passed the moment the number of sources in an article exceeds one.) Media coverage of candidates does not fail to exist, even in the case of fringe no-hopers — unelected candidates do not fail to get any coverage at all, but often do fail to get enough coverage to make them more notable than most other candidates. And eight or nine pieces of proper media coverage is not an unusual volume of coverage that would satisfy the "more notable than most other candidates" criterion. Bearcat (talk) 17:45, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Comment- As pointed out by Bearcat above, I've got to say that the sourcing for this particular article is incredibly weak even when compared to other unelected candidates. Other one Newark Star-Ledger article and the subruban news article mentioned above, I wouldn't consider any of the current sourcing in the article to be reliable. And the Star-Ledger articlesaren't even exclusively about the subject so the requirement for in-depth coverage is not met. The only in-depth rs coverage comes from the local Morristown Daily Record and that's just one article. I don't see this article passing WP:GNG under any circumstance.--Rusf10 (talk) 01:22, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep per SportingFlyer, Tomwsulcer, AlansohnDjflem (talk) 01:05, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The following publications/websites are among those used as references in the article and support the article: The Times of India, Politicker Network, NJ Spotlight, Daily Record (Morristown), Our Revolution, CBS News, Washington University in Saint Louis, The New York Times, NJ.com/The Star-Ledger, Insider NJ, India West NDTV Justice Democrats, The Economic Times, The Hindu Djflem (talk) 02:16, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
 * You just added some of those. The Times of India article might help. The New York Times doesn't count, all it has is election results, its not an article. The Washington University source is basically nothing more than a press release highlighting a former alum. I already discussed the Daily Record and Star-Ledger above. And the rest of them are not reliable sources. The only in-depth independent rs coverage comes from the Times of India and a local newspaper, that's it. That hardly passes GNG (if at all) and does not pass WP:NPOL--Rusf10 (talk) 02:30, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Those of us who actually write articles know about Verifiability, thank you.Djflem (talk) 02:47, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
 * What you should know is that just because something is verifiable does not necessarily mean it also is notable, thank you.--Rusf10 (talk) 03:14, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Please refrain from telling me what I "should know". Verifiability states that other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source, which they can do for themselves and thus ignore the opinions of one editor. Djflem (talk) 10:42, 21 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Comment Since initial listing and re-listing, article has been expanded with significant refs addressing concerns.Djflem (talk) 09:28, 22 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Commont "more common than the norm" is from an essay and is not part of any guideline, nor is it supported by any history of decisions here. (I am not necessarily saying it shouldn't be considered, but it has not been.)  DGG ( talk ) 05:09, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep. Apparently meets GNG. I think most losing candidate from a major party for national office in the US two party system probably could be shown to be notable, if enough effort were made for sourcing. SAnd obviously all or almost all references for a politician will be about their political career--that's what politicians are notable for, unless they happen to be notable fortheir prior or subsequent careers also) All the NPOL says is that they are not considered so by default.   DGG ( talk ) 05:12, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete - no notability outside the election... which he lost. Fails npol. GtstrickyTalk or C 16:21, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Since when is "notability outside the election" a valid requirement for any politician? Yes, Jacob lost election but meets WP:GNG.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 16:29, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Every candidate in any election would always meet GNG if coverage of the campaign itself were all it took to get a candidate over GNG. For a non-winning candidate to be deemed as passing GNG despite their failure to win the election, the person does have to be shown as clearing another notability standard for another reason outside of the campaign itself. Bearcat (talk) 19:01, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
 * As stated above with its example, every candidate does not receive GNG-passing coverage such as this person has.--Oakshade (talk) 20:48, 25 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Redirect to United States House of Representatives elections in New Jersey, 2018, as per the standard outcome as discussed in WP:POLOUTCOMES, per my comments above. All of the coverage of the subject appears in the context of the election. It takes a lot of effort to keep Wikipedia an area free from becoming a repository of campaign information. In the version I am reading, there are quite a few statements that are positive spin from the candidate or their supporters, that are either unreferenced or creep into original research. Much of the information on the existing page, can live in the page about the election (either 2016 on 2018). --Enos733 (talk) 22:12, 25 February 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.