Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sekou Odinga (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   no consensus. Flowerparty ☀ 00:31, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Sekou Odinga
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This one is a bit complex. I'm inclined to offer WP:ONEEVENT as reasoning, as the only thing he seems notable for is his conviction for the Brinks Armored Truck robbery in the early 1980s. What came up in a Google News search on Mr. Odinga offered only stories on this and an arrest in the late 1960s (where he was arrested along with about 20 other Black Panthers in connection with a bombing plot); no indication was ever offered as to whether he was actually indicted in connection with this, though at the same time most newspaper stories from this time are locked behind pay-to-view archives.

The other problem is the lack of sources that offer anything even vaguely resembling impartial coverage. Other than scant, brief, tangential mentions in a few sources (such as The Nation), from what I can tell every post-1990 hit is surrounding a decidedly non-notable campaign to free him as a "political prisoner" (which, from what I can tell, is absolutely non-notable on its own).

In sum, I sincerely doubt that an article can be made on Mr. Odinga that would touch on anything other than the Brinks robbery and the arrest in the late 60s, and which would have access to impartial sources. Tyrenon (talk) 20:58, 10 June 2009 (UTC)  Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:01, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete It goes against our standards to include articles which lack a good number of unbiased sources. Shii (tock) 22:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions.  -- TexasAndroid (talk) 23:44, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Brief footnote: the reason two nominations are listed is that I filed for a deletion earlier in the day and the first one didn't go through (either in being listed on the main page or on the article page). Minor error there, but...it happens.Tyrenon (talk) 03:27, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep The subject has been covered in court records, the NYT and numerous books. If the article needs work then this may be done by normal editing. AFD is not cleanup. Colonel Warden (talk) 21:41, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete lack of impartial and reliable sources Rirunmot (talk) 11:27, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.


 * Improvement [[Image:Life_Preserver.svg|16px]] I have done a little cleanup and had no difficulty finding a source which seems quite adequate for our purpose. Editors who criticise the sources for this topic need to be more specific as their complaint seems too general, given the large number of sources available.  Colonel Warden (talk) 12:18, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep but add proper sources from the many news articles in the NYT and elsewhere.    That the nom rejects the NYT as a RS seems extremely eccentric, but I suppose that can be best treated as an argument that only the free part of the NYT is a RS, which is still a direct contradiction to WP:RS. The fact that sources are not immediately free on the web is not relevant  to their reliability or usefulness here. In any case,  almost every library in the US and I suppose most large or academic libraries elsewhere offer free access to the complete NYT file, most of them remotely.  The other papers too are available in many libraries, in various formats.   What was notable in the 60s remained notable--and in fact this remains notable today, as there is still active discussion of the case. The Nation, though a source of definite political leanings, is none the less a RS for the continuing protests.    DGG (talk) 01:19, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete: per WP:N/CA. I don't see the persistent coverage shown under that standard. Later coverage wasn't about the crime, but more about people trying to free him. The most notable thing he did was commit a crime....and it doesn't qualify him. Niteshift36 (talk) 04:27, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Books are fairly persistent, and there are a fair few more biographical details about this person available in books. ISBN 9780415927833 has a few, for example.  (They are listed in its index, under "Odinga, Sekou".)  ISBN 9780933121966 corroborates some of that information.  ISBN 9780742520271 mentions this person in several places, and even has a potted biography, of Sekou Mgobogi Abdullah Odinga, on page 137, that almost exactly parallels ours (and which, indeed, is accompanied by its own source citations).  ISBN 9781604860351 even documents which prisons this person has been incarcerated in and when, on page 194, in an article written by this person, who obviously has an interest in preserving a good reputation for academic rigour.  And that's only from the first page of my Google Books results.  "lack of sources" is really quite false here. Uncle G (talk) 05:57, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * It still comes back to most of the coverage being about his single event crime. That's where the attempt at notability originates. So I'm unconvinced. Niteshift36 (talk) 14:39, 18 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete Per WP:N/CA, he fails all three of the Perpetrators clauses of the "Criteria for inclusion of articles on participants" section. We already have Brinks robbery (1981), nothing else is needed.   Click23 (talk) 13:30, 24 June 2009 (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.