Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sean Bell


 * 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, but this certainly doesn't mean that the article can't be moved to another name if people want. I hope the discussion on whether and where to move the article will go on on its talk page. delldot  talk  10:22, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Sean Bell

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Nn bio. Name of someone in the evening news Sdoll555 04:32, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * This AfD nomination was incomplete. I have fixed the formatting and listed it in the log. Natalie 04:04, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete: He was in the news for about two months, and now no one except Al Sharpton cares anymore. The police shoot people every day, and times with a lot more than 50 bullets.  This incident is more news than notable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)
 * Keep: Notable incident, received lots of national media attention. Here are some more refs which could be added to the article. - Rjd0060 04:08, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep This has to be one of the more pathetic excuses for deletion I've ever seen. But then again, given that we allow anybody, no matter how little experience they have, to create two AfDs in three edits, this is really our fault. This is a thoroughly documented article with several dozen reliable and verifiable sources, for an incident that has been in the news on a constant basis in the year since it occurred. The case has raised significant issues of police undercover practices in New York City, above and beyond the racial overtones involved. Notability is established. The AfD process is broken. Alansohn 04:36, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Hear, hear I have been working some AFD proposals just now and it's disgraceful how casual and slipshod the process is currently.  Colonel Warden 09:42, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The process isn't. The people are.  The problem is the perennial problem of people who haven't been accultured.  And the only solution to that is education &mdash; for editors, like you, to do AfD Patrol and to point editors, who are not lifting a finger to look for or to read sources or who are outright ignoring our fundamental content policies or who are simply new and really shouldn't be bitten, at our various policies and guidelines, explaining to them that their arguments will be discounted if they are contrary to the fundamental policies that describe the goal of our project. Uncle G 12:39, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The process is not broken. It would be broken if an argument that an article citing 42 sources dealing with the subject (which is, as noted below, the shooting, not the person) should not be deleted were ignored by a closing administrator.  But that has not happened.  Nomination is not the same as the end result, nor is it the whole of the process.  You are confusing the twain.  Uncle G 12:39, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The process IS broken. The article need not be deleted to demonstrate the stupidity of our existing process. The mere fact that I (and many other people) will have to waste time responding to unjustifiable AfDs such as this one over and over again, is clear evidence of a deep and fundamental issue. As to pooh-poohing this as a problem of unacculturated users, why on earth are we granting one of the most potentially disruptive powers to any person who is willing to spend the seven seconds or less needed to register a Wikipedia user ID. When I create large-scale computer systems for entry and retrieval of corporate information, I establish policies and procedures to support the system, and set up the system to support these policies. Even if we were to establish a wastefully intensive manual process to guide every single newbie and to share our extensive experience on how to use every single feature of Wikipedia, we would still have no fewer incidents of individuals using (and abusing) powers that they never should have had in the first place. We need to start establishing policies as to who should be allowed to create XfDs (and other sensitive functions) and building it right into Wikipedia. Anything less is a wide-open invitation to further abuse. Alansohn 18:19, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Please take meta-discussion of AfD policies somewhere else (Village pump (policy), for example). This page is for discussing whether our article on Sean Bell should be deleted. —Caesura(t) 18:35, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, this entire discussion never should have existed in the first place. Alansohn 18:39, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Move to Shooting of Sean Bell and restructure appropriately. The incident may be notable as it was widely reported, the victim is probably not notable in his own right. Guest9999 06:10, 4 December 2007 (UTC)]]
 * Keep. Widespread media coverage. —Caesura(t) 06:29, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Rename Sean Bell shooting incident. -- brew crewer  (yada, yada) 08:28, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment on renaming IIRC, I proposed renaming the article last year, for similar reasons. The editors I talked to argued that the incident hadn't really been given a name by outside sources (the press), and so there wasn't a good name to rename to. I don't really have an opinion on the name, but I thought I'd mention this other view. Natalie 15:13, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong keep. Massive media coverage.  Suspect bad faith nom.  Ford MF 15:25, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep. Notable incident, well-sourced article, shouldn't even be close. It may well need to be reconciled with the other article since the incident clearly is what creates notability.  Xymmax 16:27, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong keep per Ford MF (bad faith nom). hateless 17:51, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment on renaming - the article is linked by name to several other articles as a reference to the person, not the event. Stephenb (Talk) 17:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Move to "Shooting of Sean Bell"; it is the event that is notable, not the person. --Nehwyn 21:18, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, more than adequately demonstrates notability. I personally view the renaming of such articles as an exercise in splitting hairs, but if it helps some people lean keep or better suggests to future editors what the scope of the article should be I concede it as a practicality. --Dhartung | Talk 23:21, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep Major political significance in NYC, national coverage by Fox, CNN, AP. multiple sources over many months and still continuing. Possibly rename, but that is an editing decision. NOT NEWS was meant to exclude articles that got coverage in a few newspaper articles for a few days. DGG (talk) 10:53, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Move per above. Person gets way too much recognition.  ZordZapper (talk) 21:55, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Move. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.191.52.172 (talk) 00:47, 6 December 2007 (UTC)   — 24.191.52.172 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * move, per above. 24.184.55.33 (talk) 02:15, 9 December 2007 (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.