Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sean Hart


 * 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. The arguments for deletion outweigh the arguments for retention given, namely that the sources given do not sufficient establish notability here. --MuZemike 19:37, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Sean Hart

 * – ( View AfD View log )

As far as WP:WPBIO, WP:N, and I are concerned, this is a csd article deletion; HOWEVER, in the spirit of debate and in allowing for the article's creator to defend the work I have decided to donate an ounce of mercy and run this through afd channels to allow all parties privy to the deletion to debate here to their hearts content. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:42, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 15:49, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 15:49, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note there is a more general discussion of notability of criminal investigators at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography and at Wikipedia talk:Notability (people). PPdd (talk) 23:20, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep -
 * Per WP:BIO - "If the depth of coverage in any given source is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability; trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may not be sufficient to establish notability".
 * There are multiple independent sources (almost SEVENTY). Most if not all have nontrivial coverage. Hart is either the direct subject of the story or is an important part of the story, as both the supervising investigator and an active investigator. Or he is cited for his expert opinion and knowledge, in an informative and interesting way, and thus non in a trivial way. In stories in which he appears in a less significant way than these, like in the stories where he is interviwed, his appearance is still not trivial because he is not just named as person who happens to be on the street and interviewed while doing the story, but is a person chosen to be interviwed for his knowledge of the story, which is often the only source, and this is still not a trivial mention. Here are just a few examples from these categories of multiple sources in which Hart appears in a nontrivial way. -
 * In the "Police Say Gang Crackdown is Working" story, Hart is the one doing the "saying". The story is about Hart's opinions, and thus about Hart.
 * In sensational crime stories, Hart is the Sergeant with knowledge of the case being interviewed. In an a murder mystery investigation story, both the supervising investigator and the active investigator are central characters, the opposite of trivial for the story. In Redwood City the Sergeant is both the supervising investigator and a participating investigator.
 * In stories on police or gang activities, Hart is the only or one of the experts whose opinion is being reported, the opposite of being trivial. This is not a trivial random opinion or a person on the street, but of the story's topic expert.
 * In other stories about what is going on in the area, he is a principal commentator generating the the story by his comments.
 * Any one of these points alone is sufficient with the multiple sources for it to establish notability under WP:BIO. When this AFD was started, the article was a single sentence stub article. Some or all of the comments and opinions below were made before the article was expanded with line item sources. PPdd (talk) 22:46, 18 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment - You keep referring to Hart as the lead investigator in the cases. The articles you provided do not support this as the case.  You may be missing the true role of a Sergeant/supervisor in a small PD such as RCPD.  The lead investigator would be one of the 10 detectives in the department and the lead would be determined according to the rotation roster or department specialization. In a small PD it would not be unusual for a Sergeant to take the duties of a media interface, this would be in contrast to a larger PD such as the LAPD where media access is funneled through a Media Relations Section. Hence, questions might be answered by someone such as Hart or the other Sergeant in the RCPD.  Granted Hart would oversee the work of other detectives, but would hardly be in field or investigative role.   red dog six  (talk) 05:41, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Reddogsix is incorrect that Hart is not both the supervising investigator and an active investigator in the case. He/she is incorrect that "Hart would oversee the work of other detectives, but would hardly be in field or investigative role". "The Police Sergeant in Redwood City... both supervises and personally perform investigations. Neither the supervisor nor an active investigator is a "trivial" part of an investigation story, and Hart is both''. PPdd (talk) 00:54, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment - The pdf is interesting; however; it is a HR document that lacks the percentage for each duty. The reality of a supervisory role is that one does moves farther from the daily work and is involved in the administrative roles within a PD. I would also bet that the detectives would take umbrage with your comment that the Sergeant is "brainwork of a detective investigation."  Regardless, I do not see the  "references" you have provided meet Wikipedia criteria for inclusion.    red dog six  (talk) 08:17, 17 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete - Fails to establish WP:NOTABILITY. I have added 5 or 6 links to articles cited by the author. None of the articles provide coverage of Hart or an in-depth discussion of his role in the case - he is only quoted in the articles.  One will have to access these articles at  since the author of the article has taken it upon himself to remove the links to the actual article in favor of just using the article titles.   red dog six  (talk) 06:48, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete. There is no actual coverage of the subject. Location (talk) 16:02, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Location, which of the 70 news stories did you read to make your factual assertion that there is no actual coverage? 98.234.235.21 (talk) 17:44, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it is fair to assume from the titles given, as well as the absence of biographical details in the article, that the news stories are not covering Sean Hart... they are covering various non-notable crimes. Location (talk) 23:56, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
 * There is coverage of the subject in the sources. At the time of your comment, the article only had one sentence. I substantially added to the article from the sources, and put a couple of quotes from the sources to the references to aid in you hopefully reconsidering in response to your stated concern. PPdd (talk) 01:31, 17 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep - passes WP:BIO.--BabbaQ (talk) 18:57, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Weak delete If someone can show me that Mr Hart is the only investigating officer who, single handled, solved or worked on in a significant fashion all these crimes, then yes. But I suspect Officer Hart is part of a team, a team who has investigated a work load of jobs not significantly larger than any other team covering a similar geographic would cover, and he is perhaps just the media spokesman or local go-to-guy for the media when it comes to covering law enforcement. I suspect a senior sergeant in the NYPD's anti-gang unit is often vocal amongst the media to promote the task force and press a harsh anti-gang policy. I would not say that this makes him notable compared to the thousands of other team leaders in police stations across the globe who deal with crime to this level. Last time I checked, several UK police officers would have 15-20 crimes in their drop each week. S.G.(GH) ping! 19:07, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
 * SGGH, Hart is the Sergeant, so is person in charge of the whole investigation. He is in numerous news stories as the main subject or as an important subject, and this is the crtierion at Wikipedia, whether or not it is fair to the other hard working investigators who cannot establish notability. He is the sergeant assigned to lead media sensational stories, which in itself is notable. He is also notable for reasons state in the article that have not yet been addressed by anyone on this AFD discussion. PPdd (talk) 00:53, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
 * He is a sergeant, a very junior officer. It would be simply ludicrous to have articles on every detective sergeant in the world simply because they lead investigations. -- Necrothesp (talk) 18:24, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Concur. A Sgt is, with respect to Sgts out there, a junior officer. Even his unit will be lead by a Lieutenant, with the division or what-have-you under a captain. The city holds only 76,000-odd inhabitants so it's not even going to have a notable department. Let alone one individual officer who is the spokesperson for their media. S.G.(GH) ping! 19:17, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment The size of a city is not a standard for notability in any Wikipedia policy or guideline. Being a junior vs. senior officer is not a standard for notability. Hart is not the spoekperson to the media of that department. 00:49, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not implying that city size makes notability however a notable 4,000,000 person town may have a notable police department with notable individuals, but a 400 person town (for example) will not have a police force or individual of separate notability unless they do something extraordinary, which this individual does not seem to have done so. S.G.(GH) ping! 19:30, 20 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete. Junior police officer who merely appears to act as a media spokesman for the police. No particular notability. -- Necrothesp (talk) 21:37, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment - Notability is established or not based on citation of Wikipedia policies and guidelines, not on rank, or being relatively junior or senior within a department. PPdd (talk) 00:49, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but of course it is. Even the chief of a small town police department would be unlikely to meet notability requirements. A sergeant? No chance. Detectives investigate crimes - it's their job. Crimes are usually reported in the local media. So naturally the names of detectives are frequently mentioned in the local media. That doesn't make them notable. A detective such as Jack Slipper, who led investigations into major cases of national importance, who was once a household name throughout his country, and who held the highest possible rank for an operational detective in the largest and most famous police force in his country, is notable. A sergeant with a small town police department that most people have never heard of who investigates local crimes is not. However well-known he may be in his own town or even the surrounding area is irrelevant. If such people were notable then any police officer who had been mentioned a few times in a local paper would be notable, which is simply ridiculous. My local paper, for example, mentions and/or quotes the sergeant in charge of our local police station in pretty much every issue. It also mentions the mayor in pretty much every issue. That's what local papers do. It certainly doesn't make either of them notable. If a national paper did it, that would be different, but not a local paper. -- Necrothesp (talk) 01:17, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * San Jose Mercury, San Francisco Chronicle, and Oakland Tribune are not "small town" papers. PPdd (talk) 02:16, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * No, but they are still "local" papers! -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:10, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Further comment can we establish that this gentleman is the sole creator and instigator of these media comments? Can we establish that this officer is not a selected spokesperson of a murch larger team? Can we establish that any of these events are notable themselve sin a way that would make his and his team's investigation of it notable? Can we establish that this officer has, single handedly, solved any of these crimes in a way that suggests notability (i.e. above and beyond the crime solving that goes on in every police force in the world)? If there is a yes to any of these it would suggest notability, but as far as I can discern there is not. S.G.(GH) ping! 19:28, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Regarding your third question, yes we can establish notability of the events. They were in multiple and widespread news story series over a period of time, which establishes notability by the sufficent (but not necessary) criteria in WP:BIO. Your first two and fourth questions are not necessary per WP:BIO standards. Being a significant part (the investigation supervisor and active investigator) in multiple news stories about an investigation establishes notablity per WP:BIO. PPdd (talk) 21:49, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I have not changed my keep opinion after reading trough the arguments here. Sean Hart passes WP:BIO.--BabbaQ (talk) 01:34, 26 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete An excellent example of what does not amount to notability. Detectives work on many homicide cases, local newspapers   cover all homicides crimes in their area,   someone in any department supervises the others, and someone in a department gives the press interviews. Normally none of these people are notable, any more than the victims or the perpetrators.  There is no indication given or asserted that the subject here is    personally responsible for the solution of the crimes, and even so this would not be notability, and more than the public prosector  prosecuting the cases would be, or the local judge who hearts them, or the reporters on the papers who report them. This is all routine, and non-encyclopedic.  Repeated citing as an expert by major national newspapers can establish someone as an expert, but in this case according to the quotations given, the   only person calling him an expert is the person who prepared the press release for the city manager, ref.1, a thoroughly unreliable source if there ever was one. Notability in his profession could be many things: actually being a nationally known expert, having major awards at the national level, being president of his police officers association at the national or perhaps the state level, writing or being the subject of  notable books or films.   Or he could have in fact been the key investigator for multiple notable crimes, by the standards of having a Wikipedia article on them--or even for one really famous crime. None of these are the case. The discussion here shows the weakness of the GNG: if we use it we need to resort to  the restrictive wording of significant coverage to exclude what clearly does not belong, and the actual guideline is the way we use "significant"--and the way we really use it is to include what we think should be included and exclude what should not. (In other words, we determine that the career is or is not notable, and interpret the sourcing to fit.)  I personally no longer consider  the GNG is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for inclusion in the encyclopedia, but has a very limited role as a rough guideline is subjects where we otherwise could not decide. It's use as a rule is obsolete, from the period where we needed some sort of crude rough-and=ready distinction without having to actually think about it. It's primitive, and we're beyond that point.  Notable means being of interest to the readers of an encyclopedia, such that a reasonable person would look for information here. Our function is not assigning importance or distinction, but making an encyclopedia, and notability means what is worth including as a separate article for the benefit of the present and future English-reading users worldwide.  He is not. Almost nobody not associated with him would think otherwise-the only person other than the contributor making a !keep vote does not explain their reasoning. This was however not a speedy--it does count as an assertion of importance, and I do not consider it specifically promotional in the usual way.  DGG ( talk ) 04:54, 26 December 2011 (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.