Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ruth Lovell Stanners


 * 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. ‑Scottywong | spout _ 22:22, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Ruth Lovell Stanners

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

WP:BLP of a smalltown mayor who does not pass WP:NPOL for the role, and without enough reliable sourcing to get her past WP:GNG instead. Full disclosure: I created this, at a time when Wikipedia's standards for the notability of mayors and the volume of sourcing required were considerably looser than they are in 2014. It made sense at the time — but by 2014-vintage standards, if all we have for reliable source coverage is "got married" and "was defeated in 2010", then what we have is not a keepable article. Delete. Bearcat (talk) 05:53, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. Bearcat (talk) 05:53, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Bearcat (talk) 05:53, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ontario-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:22, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:22, 12 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete Small town mayors fail notability guidelines.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:42, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, j⚛e deckertalk 00:31, 20 August 2014 (UTC)




 * Delete - wouldn't seem to meet WP:GNG and the fact that the creator has nominated it for deletion says it all, really. As with a lot of these, higher office in the future or sustained coverage related to a particular policy might get this over the line. But I'm not convinced we're there at the moment.  St ★ lwart 1 1 1 02:05, 20 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep. Wondering where there is a Wikipedia guideline which says that 'small town mayors are not notable'? My understanding is that the WP:GNG prevails over any guidelines about politicians, but even the WP:POLITICIAN guideline specifies that (2) Major local political figures who have received significant press coverage are considered notable. A browser search of national Canadian newspapers yielded major discussion here and discussion here and some discussion here mention here, several lines here, major discussion here. If one uses this search string, which includes the Owen Sound newspaper, there are about 50 articles on her; so in my view, she meets the WP:GNG.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 20:13, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The standard for the notability of mayors is that the city has to have "regional prominence". It's not a hard and fast cutoff, because a smaller-town mayor can still get over the bar if the sourcing is really solid and a bigger-city mayor can still fail if the sourcing is for the birds, but the general consensus interpretation of "regional prominence" at AFD is that the city has to have a population at least in the 50K-100K range. Below that size of city, the article has to be really, really good as written, and cannot claim an automatic presumption of notability just because it might be possible to get it up to an idealized standard in the future. So I'd be more than happy to withdraw this if the actual article gets substantively improved before closure — but not just on the basis that improvement might be possible. Bearcat (talk) 02:34, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Is there a Wikipedia guideline you can point us to about the 50K-100K rule? Btw, if the article stays, I'll fix it up later.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 17:52, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia never writes specific arbitrary population-size cutoffs directly into its notability rules — the "50K rule" is a rough but not inviolable standard established by AFD consensus and precedent, not a matter of policy per se. As I explained above, mayors below 50K can get past GNG if you write and source the article really well, and mayors above 50K can fail GNG if you don't (e.g. if they serve in a place where the mayoralty is a purely ceremonial role that rotates automatically rather than being directly elected.) But below 50K, you're running a very real risk of failing to make a convincing case for notability if there isn't enough effort put into making the article good — it's not that a mayor can never have an article below 50K, you just have to put a lot more work into actively making the case for notability than you do for a bigger city's mayor. Bearcat (talk) 23:13, 1 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NorthAmerica1000 02:25, 30 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete - One reference is a dead link and the other is to a Wikipedia article regarding an Ontario radio station.--Rpclod (talk) 02:44, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The reference is to a news item ("Mayor of Owen Sound to wed") that the radio station broadcasted — it links to the radio station's article because a reference is supposed to link to the Wikipedia article about the publisher of the reference if it has one to link to, not because the Wikipedia article itself is the reference. Our referencing does not have to be web-accessible; content broadcast via radio or TV is acceptable sourcing. It's not enough referencing, I said that right up front in the original nomination — but you're misunderstanding the basic nature of what that particular reference actually is, if you think the Wikipedia article itself is the citation. Bearcat (talk) 03:01, 30 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep per WP:NRVE (Notability requires only the existence of suitable independent, reliable sources, not their immediate citation.) and sources demonstrated by Tomwsulcer. Hardly will a person with 50 news articles be non notable.--180.172.239.231 (talk) 08:46, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
 * If a mayor doesn't pass WP:NPOL on the basis of the size of the city, then yes, you do have to actually provide enough sources to demonstrate that they actually, rather than theoretically, pass GNG — because even smalltown mayors who can be substantially sourced can still be deleted if the sources don't support enough substantive content to actually justify an article. The sources Tomwsulcer pointed out don't improve the case, because they're not substantive coverage of her, but merely namecheck her in passing in conjunction with issues (the name of an airport, the opening of a local hospice, the cost of the local rec centre, the death of a local woman she was friends with) that don't substantively strengthen a smalltown mayor's notability. So no, in some cases it still isn't enough to just say that some uncited sources exist — you need to prove that the sources you've found actually support an article substantive enough to satisfy GNG, and he hasn't adequately demonstrated that here. We specifically discount purely routine local coverage as evidence of passing GNG — if all you had to do to satisfy GNG was add proof that she'd been named in an "above an arbitrary cutoff" number of news articles in the local newspaper, then we'd have to keep an article about every president of a local PTA, every local business owner, every organizer of a church bake sale, every local fire marshal, on earth. The sources need to do more than just contain her name, but rather have to support substantive and meaningful content which demonstrates why she belongs in an encyclopedia (which none of the ones Tomwsulcer listed above do.) Bearcat (talk) 16:25, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Generally we disagree about the sense of significant coverage. The Wikipedia guideline says Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material. Further, if any one source does not float your boat, then the Wikipedia guideline at WP:BASIC says If the depth of coverage in any given source is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability; clearly there are 50+ sources, none of them trivial mentions, suggesting that this person easily passes the WP:GNG.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 17:50, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The coverage still has to support something genuinely substantive that we could actually add to our article. A news article quoting her on the death of a friend, for just one example, does not help us improve our article in any significant or properly encyclopedic way, and neither does quoting her on the cost overruns of a non-notable local sports facility. She doesn't have to be the primary subject of every article that comes up, I didn't say that she did — rather, the test is whether or not the sources in question actually give us something useful and encyclopedic to say about her, and none of the ones you've provided do that. You could add 100 sources to the article, and it would still fail GNG if they were all piled directly on the statement that "Ruth Lovell Stanners is the mayor of Owen Sound" but none of them actually supported saying anything more substantive about her than that fact by itself. It's not a question of the raw number of sources you can add, but one of how much actual substance they do or don't allow us to actually add to our article. Bearcat (talk) 18:17, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Let's see. Take this source; it says she is opposed to naming a second airport after the same person; as a prominent mayor, her view might change the outcome of that naming decision; I think that is definitely substantive, but is that substantive enough for you? Take this source; it says she is concerned about a possible accident involving radioactive waste; I think this is substantive; why don't you think that is substantive? Or, this source; says she opposes a second bridge being built; it is substantive since her view will probably cause the second bridge not to be built. There are 50+ more of these references. So, I am trying hard to understand (substantively) and in good faith, what exactly your view of substantive is...--Tomwsulcer (talk)
 * On the airport: that ship's already sailed — go ahead, read up on Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport if you want to know how much of an impact she actually had on the decision. On the nuclear waste: all mayors are concerned about the possibility of industrial accidents in or near their city — it's part of the job description — so the question you need to answer is, what substantive thing did she do that enables us to say anything of encylopedic value? On the bridge: she's not the mayor anymore (she lost reelection in 2010), and the project is still in development. The significance and encyclopedic relevance of her opposition, therefore, being...what, exactly? In all three cases, it boils down to "mayor expresses concern over an issue she has no control over, changes nothing, the end". And as I already explained, your 50+ other Google sources are all of the "cost overrrun at non-notable local sports facility" or "friend died, mayor commented" variety — so no, I'm not the one whose view of substantive is skewed here, because the sources simply don't give us anything notable or distinctive or encyclopedic to say about her besides "smalltown mayor does her job". Bearcat (talk) 18:43, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Maybe it is not important to you or me but it is important to Ontarians who live there, and there is plenty of media coverage indicating this importance. I have learned to try not to revamp articles that are on the chopping block, but I feel confident I could do a solid job with this one if it stays, adding substantive material like building a $38 million recreation center, or being instrumental in getting a new hospice, or reducing development fees, or purchasing a vacant railroad station to transform it into a business to improve the harbour area, or restoring a historic engineering building, and there are 50+ of these references. You and I may not think having a leash-free dog park is substantive, but the residents of Owen Sound -- particularly dog owners -- might disagree. Where I live, there is no place where dogs can run free. Or, being a Canadian who needs to be in hospice. It all depends on one's context, but the Wikipedia rule for WP:Politician says elected local official ... 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 that's it. She meets the WP:GNG.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 19:59, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Importance to the locals has nothing to do with whether a person qualifies for a Wikipedia article or not — if it did, our standards for city councillors would be much looser than they are, because they're locally important too. But AFD has always deprecated exclusively local claims of importance which were based exclusively on routine coverage in the local media (otherwise we'd have to keep articles about every president of a local PTA, every communications officer for every local SPCA, and on and so forth.) So "importance to people who live in her own city" doesn't help her case, if the city isn't large enough to get her past NPOL — in an international encyclopedia with a worldwide audience, we need a reason why someone in Singapore or Buenos Aires or Vancouver should be interested in reading about her. People in Owen Sound don't need a simple repetition of stuff they already know; the purpose of a Wikipedia article is to inform people who don't already know anything about her, not people who do — even pretty well-sourced articles about smalltown mayors have frequently been deleted at AFD if the article covered purely generic local issues, and didn't provide sufficient evidence that their notability extended beyond the exclusively local. Bearcat (talk) 20:32, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, we disagree, but thank you for explaining your position.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:44, 30 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Natg 19 (talk) 08:46, 7 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep per Tom - she's received widespread notariety. Articles in the local paper set aside, we've got the Globe and mail, CBC, Canada.com, and a slew of others.  D u s t i *Let's talk!* 21:49, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
 * "Widespread notoriety"? Where's this now? Bearcat (talk) 04:05, 9 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete per  Bearcat. My sense is that "'substantive'' coverage must (at minimum) come from a regional paper or organization and provide a major focus on the subject as the subject. The question is (usually) not about verifying information about the office - but is there "substantive" coverage of the life of the individual. Enos733 (talk) 04:36, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete, the news pieces I found were all local news outlets referring to her candidacy or her marriage, save the one Globe and Mail article dealing with the airport naming issue. I don't see enough to meet WP:POLITICIAN guidelines.   PK  T (alk)  13:42, 19 September 2014 (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.