Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roger Lagassé (2nd nomination)


 * 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 delete. Spartaz Humbug! 05:46, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Roger Lagassé
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Unelected, fringe political candidate. WP:NPOL and WP:POLOUTCOMES. Usual consensus has changed since 2013 AfD. Madg2011 (talk) 23:59, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions.  MT Train Talk 00:15, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  MT Train Talk 00:15, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions.  MT Train Talk 00:15, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions.  MT Train Talk 00:15, 2 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete Has made a few unsuccessful attempts, but has never been an elected candidate. Seems to have tried his hand at a few thing, but nothing singularly notable. Deathlibrarian (talk) 09:35, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete. While we used to have a consensus that running for the leadership of a political party was a notability claim in and of itself, that was deprecated several years ago — now, a leadership candidate is notable only if they either win the leadership or have some other independent claim of notability besides that, such as preexisting notability for other endeavours and/or concurrent notability as an MP or MLA. Nothing here, however, constitutes a notability claim that would have gotten him an article for any reason other than the leadership race itself — and he's not the subject of enough of the sources to claim that he passes WP:GNG, either: many of them just namecheck his existence in coverage about the more notable and more prominent candidates or the overall campaign, and others are primary sources or pieces of his own writing, which are not notability-supporting sources either — there's only one citation here that genuinely demonstrates Lagassé as the subject of reliable source coverage in his own right, and that's just not enough. There really just isn't anything here that's compelling grounds for him to have a standalone article separately from having his name mentioned in the other articles where it's relevant to mention. Bearcat (talk) 18:32, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep - the article needs significant pruning but the subject has received significant third party coverage in the past and thus passes WP:GNG. Nixon Now (talk) 19:44, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
 * If not keep, then merge with New Democratic Party leadership election, 1989 so that people reading about the leadership election can find out something about the candidates rather than just their names. Nixon Now (talk) 17:05, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Significant third party coverage about him where and in what notable context? The sourcing here consists of glancing namechecks of his existence in coverage of other things, not coverage about him. Bearcat (talk) 19:46, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
 * "B.C. teacher bids to lead NDP," Toronto Star, 10 April 1989, A9; "Teacher enters NDP race," Toronto Star, 1 August 1989, C6; Thomas Walkem, "NDP leadership candidates practice art of the ordinary," Toronto Star, 15 October 1989, A22. An article in which the topic is the subject himself is not a mere "namecheck". Nixon Now (talk) 19:50, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
 * None of which are covering him in a context that counts as an "inherent" notability claim — coverage generated in the context of the leadership race itself just makes him a WP:BLP1E, not a person who's earned permanent coverage in an encyclopedia on that basis. So if you're shooting for a WP:GNG pass just because "some media coverage exists", it would take far more than just three citations to get him there. And he's not the primary subject of "NDP leadership candidates practice art of the ordinary", either — that one's about all of the candidates, not him as a topic of special interest separately from everybody else. Bearcat (talk) 19:57, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia isn't paper. People reading about old leadership elections may indeed be curious about who the candidates actually were and there's no reason not to provide that information. Nixon Now (talk) 20:01, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, there is a reason not to provide that information: the need for a person to pass a subject-specific notability standard, on the strength of enough reliable source coverage to make them more than just a transient WP:BLP1E, before a Wikipedia article becomes appropriate. The idea that we need to keep an article about everybody who ever ran for the leadership of a political party at all, even if they lost and have no other notability claim at all besides running and losing, is not new ground that Wikipedia hasn't considered and debated before. It's been taken into account, and consensus decided that it just makes them a BLP1E who doesn't qualify for an article if there's no other notability claim outside of that context itself. Bearcat (talk) 20:09, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Can you please provide a source for this consensus in Wikipedia's policy pages? Nixon Now (talk) 20:10, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
 * WP:NPOL Bearcat (talk) 20:14, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
 * "Just being an elected local official, or an unelected candidate for political office, 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'." A quick search of the Globe and Mail archives yields:


 * York, G. (1989, Dec 01). Mixup symbolic of B.C. teacher's modest campaign. The Globe and Mail (1936-Current) Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.torontopubliclibrary.ca/docview/1237201335?accountid=14369
 * Teacher enters NDP race. (1989, Aug 01). The Globe and Mail (1936-Current) Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.torontopubliclibrary.ca/docview/1237184690?accountid=14369
 * You are insisting that coverage must also be independent of the election in which the candidate ran, but WP:NPOL doesn't say that. Nixon Now (talk) 20:24, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Every candidate in any election would always get an automatic "GNG exempts them from having to pass NPOL" if the existence of a handful of campaign-related coverage itself were all it took to pass GNG. There are only three ways to make a candidate for office notable: (1) they win the election and thereby become the holder of the office they were running for, (2) they have some other valid and properly sourced claim of notability besides the candidacy itself, or (3) they received so much more coverage than everybody else in the same boat could also show that they can credibly claim to be a special case. Simply being able to show that a few pieces of campaign-specific coverage exists is not enough in and of itself, because if that were all it took then there would never be any non-notable candidates in any elections at all. Bearcat (talk) 20:34, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
 * WP:NPOL doesn't say that. Nixon Now (talk) 20:35, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia notability standards are written in general terms, not expanded into epic novels that preemptively address every possible question of interpretation in advance. It's not enough to read the letter of any inclusion guideline and say that it's been passed — you also need to be familiar with the established AFD consensus about how the guidelines are interpreted in cases of debate about them. And my summary was correct about how NPOL is interpreted here in cases of dispute — because every candidate in any election always gets enough coverage to claim that even though they fail NPOL they still pass GNG anyway, NPOL would be inherently disembowelled if campaign-related coverage itself were all it took to get a candidate over GNG in lieu of NPOL. So yes, a candidate for office does need to win, have preexisting notability for other reasons or show a credible reason why their candidacy is somehow a special case over and above everybody else's candidacy — the fact that those conditions haven't been explicitly stated in NPOL does not make them not true, because passing a notability standard is not just a matter of being able to claim that a person technically meets the letter of the law. Bearcat (talk) 20:44, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
 * In other words, if its a matter of discretion. Then let's let discretion fall on the side of inclusion. Nixon Now (talk) 20:48, 7 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete fails NPOL and GNG the coverage of his (failed) bids are not sufficient to prove notability as per #3 of NPOL. Dom from Paris (talk) 13:50, 8 March 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.