Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rob Wyda


 * 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. There does not seem to be agreement on whether WP:BIO1E applies here, nor on whether the press coverage available confers notability. Lankiveil (speak to me) 05:03, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Rob Wyda

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BLP1E, does not meet GNG. The assumption seems to be a BLP1E relating to being involved with Guantanamo Bay. However, he wasn't the counsel-in-charge in any of the cases, he's not the Judge Advocate General, and he wasn't the only judge at Bagram. As he was a sitting district judge in the US at the time (per article), he could not have spent considerable time there. He was also not the only prosecution assistant. I did find a source, but it's wholly publicity-based, and even it does not make much mention of his service. Of the sources in the article, 1 and 2 are dead links, 3 gives him one sentence out of an entire newsletter from 2004 (and the website is private as of 2009), and 4 is an obit. MSJapan (talk) 20:27, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 00:07, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 00:07, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military and combat-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 00:07, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Pennsylvania-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:44, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:44, 9 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep WP:BLP1E does not apply to dead people. The "BLP" part of the policy which has been cited actually stands for Biographies of Living People. -- Kendrick7talk 05:13, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment - How is that a reason to keep? WP:BIO1E would apply, and the crux of both of them is notability for one event.  They are the same policy. MSJapan (talk) 19:45, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Being elected as a District Judge three times, as well as his military service in the Navy's Judge Advocate General's Corps, as well as his brief statewide campaign for a vacant seat on the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, have each been covered in multiple independent WP:Reliable Sources. -- Kendrick7talk 00:22, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment None of those positions confers notability, and he was actually (and clearly indicated as being) in the Naval Reserve JAG, so I hope you didn't change that. Those groups are administered differently and have entirely different people as commanders.MSJapan (talk) 06:02, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, he was in the reserves, but he was called into active service at least twice. I also added that he served on the Criminal Investigation Task Force. -- Kendrick7talk 18:07, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Comment You clearly don't understand deployment, then. Deployed reserves are still reserves; active duty does not change their status, e.g., Wyda was not transferred from reserve JAG to Navy JAG and commissioned there; he was always in reserve JAG (as the newsletter indicates) because the NR Chief JAG pictured therein is not the same one as we have an article on for regular Navy. Moreover, active service alone does not confer notability (see WP:SOLDIER, which Wyda doesn't meet either). MSJapan (talk) 21:57, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * None of which really matters since he clearly meets the WP:GNG guideline. -- Kendrick7talk 22:54, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Reply - I don't believe he does (which is why I nominated the article for deletion in the first place), and thus far, your keep argument is that "this is BIO, not BLP." Thus far,  he hasn't met WP:POLITICIAN, WP:SOLDIER, or GNG.  Interviews with the subject are apparently considered primary sources, and thus do not fall under usable material for GNG.  See WP:PRIMARY, which says "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources. Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources." (emphasis mine), and also "Do not base an article on primary sources." Could you provide a policy-based reason for your keep vote? MSJapan (talk) 13:18, 13 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete No indications of notability, and one of several articles on (then in this case) living people created by Geo Swan as WP:COATRACKs to criticise the Guantanamo Bay prison camps. Nick-D (talk) 06:11, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment Be that as it may, I've now extensively cleaned up and re-sourced the article in light of this AFD discussion. I didn't notice any criticism of Gitmo; the article rather reflects that Judge Wyda was quite proud of his work there. -- Kendrick7talk 01:24, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment No, he means the article author created the article to voice his own criticism. Also, none of Wyda's coverage extends outside of local news - everything is in Pittsburgh or the local county.  Objectively, however, in almost all of the sources (save "Wyda out" and the one posthumous article), Wyda himself is providing the information in the articles.  Therefore, the sources fail GNG because they are not "independent of the subject".  His election margin is trivia which does not affect his notability, nor does withdrawing from a campaign. MSJapan (talk) 06:02, 10 August 2013 (UTC)


 * The article appears to have originally been created to provide a platform for posting this guy's rather unattractive comments regarding Guantanamo Bay (which was a high proportion of the article's content). The correct place for this would have been in a central article on the Guantanamo Bay regime and related trials in which they could have been placed in whatever context exists. Nick-D (talk) 07:07, 10 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment (in reply to MSJapan above) Claiming that newspapers are not "independent" of a person purely by virtue of interviewing that person is as strained a reading of WP:GNG as I've ever seen. -- Kendrick7talk 18:07, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment - When every substantial piece of information about the subject is supplied directly by the subject in conversation with the reporter, that material is not independent of the subject (it's likely not neutral, either). I could claim anything I wanted about myself consistently (like this actual situation).  Note that independent verification found otherwise.  That is why it's not really reliable - no reporter has ever done research to verify what Wyda did or said; they all spoke to him directly and used whatever he said. MSJapan (talk) 21:57, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Comment I don't understand why you think these various reporters from multiple newspapers, covering the comings and goings of the elected head of a local court system over the course of the past 10 years, which seems to me to be a standard part of their journalistic duties during war time, is actually some vast conspiracy of journalistic malfeasance. -- Kendrick7talk 22:54, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment (In reply to Nick-D now far above) I was just reading an article by travel writer Michael Meyer that made me think of this article's relationship to User:Geo Swan. "[W]riting a book is like building a boat: Once it’s launched, all that matters is whether it floats, not what its creator intended to craft." -- Kendrick7talk 02:22, 11 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete. Not notable enough either as a civilian lawyer or as a military officer. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:50, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep Plenty of independent press coverage shown in the article and notable for Bagram and Guantanamo, so not BLP1E. JASpencer (talk) 07:03, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep per JASpencer. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 00:35, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete. Local elected official, see WP:POLITICIAN for guidance.  Coverage does not seem to meet the "significant" part of WP:GNG.  If this article does, it would seem that every local district court judge would meet the criteria for inclusion, and that is likely not the case.  EricSerge (talk) 02:49, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment No, the reason he received so much significant coverage was due to his dual role as elected public servant and as a voluntary military investigator during wartime. Let's not pretend that every judge's leaves of absence would ever be of the same import. -- Kendrick7talk 03:11, 13 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete - minor official lacking "significant coverage in reliable sources" to constitute notability per WP:GNG (a few brief articles in minor newspapers hardly equals "significant coverage"). [Kendrick7 pls don't bother reply to me too, it really is unseemly replying to every delete vote. You had your say, now let the rest of us do so in good faith pls]. Anotherclown (talk) 13:04, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment Oh, I don't mind being unseemly when you are clearly trying to get one over on some non-American closing Admin who might show up. Pittsburgh, though I've never been there, is the 20th largest metropolitan area in the US. Its major newspapers are hardly so easily dismissed. -- Kendrick7talk 03:27, 14 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep because the subject is notable, as indicated by the many sources building this article, and because contrary to a few highly partisan comments above, the article is written in a neutral and objective fashion. The notion that a wholly dispassionate article about a judge at Guantanamo should be deleted, because it could lead some to criticize the prison (as if criticism really depended on this article), is as idiotic as it is insidious in an encyclopedia. -Darouet (talk) 16:34, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment, the Judge was not a Judge while serving at Gitmo. If he had been a judge in a terrorism case, that might confer notability.  He worked part time assisting the US Gov in building terrorism cases against suspects.  He was a Commander in the US Naval Reserve.  He served as an officer in the Judge Advocate General's Corps, U.S. Navy, the Navy's legal arm.  None of the sources say he worked as a military judge in a terrorism case.  There are thousands of JAG officers, and hundreds working on terrorism cases.  That work does not make them inherently notable.  EricSerge (talk) 19:37, 13 August 2013 (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.