Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shahid Buttar (3rd 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. Academic Challenger (talk) 16:55, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Shahid Buttar
AfDs for this article: 
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Campaign advertisement masquerading as a Wikipedia article. Fails WP:NPOL and WP:GNG. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:59, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:59, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:59, 14 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete a non-notable candidate for public office.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:01, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete Fails WP:NPOL. Wikipedia is also not a WP:CRYSTALBALL. Try Ballotpedia. KidAd (talk) 18:05, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep. I'd requested this to be draftified at REFUND so I could put it together, but it looks like someone else created a new article in the meantime. Anyway, I think this pretty clearly meets GNG:Post-Super-Tuesday sources: '  .Earlier sources:    '    Bolded sources are listed as "generally reliable" on RSP, although of course that doesn't preclude the others from being reliable sources. I didn't bold Buzzfeed News, because the article is post-2019, and therefore "some editors recommend exercising more caution." Gaelan 💬✏️ 19:49, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Also, it’s worth noting that all of the sources I linked were published after the last AfD nomination. Gaelan 💬✏️ 19:54, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep, clearly there are enough sources out there to pass GNG, and these sources also clearly provide exceptional coverage as he has been covered in National News publications, not just local media. Devonian Wombat (talk) 22:59, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete. People do not get Wikipedia articles just for running as candidates in elections they have not won, but the existence of some campaign coverage is not in and of itself a WP:GNG-based exemption from having to pass WP:NPOL — every candidate in every election everywhere can always show some evidence of campaign coverage, so if that were how it worked then every candidate would always be exempted from NPOL, and NPOL itself would literally never apply to anybody at all anymore. Rather, to make a non-winning candidate for office notable enough for a Wikipedia article, he needs to pass one of two tests: either (a) he already had preexisting notability for other reasons that would already have gotten him an article independently of the candidacy, or (b) he can demonstrate a reason why his candidacy would pass the ten year test for enduring significance, such that even if he loses the election and then never accomplishes another more notable thing again as long as he lives, people will still be looking for information about him in 2030 because of the sheer lasting importance of his candidacy itself. Furthermore, even if he did pass either NPOL or GNG, he would still not be allowed to have an article that was written like a campaign brochure: that is, bulletpointed lists of his political opinions sourced to his self-published Twitter tweets are not support for his notability. Notability does not hinge on what the subject says, it hinges on what the subject accomplishes. But of the 34 footnotes here, 18 are tweets, three are to his own self-published website about his own campaign, four are other primary sources like other people's or organizations' self-published websites, three are to raw tables of election results, one is a YouTube video and one is a user-generated personal essay on Medium.com — which means 30 of the 34 footnotes are not reliable or notability-supporting sources at all, and the four that are left aren't enough to make his candidacy more special than everybody else's candidacies. Even Gaelan's 12 sources above still aren't enough to make his candidacy more special than everybody else's candidacies, because every other candidate can always also show 12 sources. As always, Wikipedia's job is not to maintain an article about everybody whose name happens to show up in the current news cycle — we consider the enduring significance of our article subjects, not just their temporary newsiness, and simply running as a candidate in an election the person has not won is not automatically a mark of enduring significance in and of itself. Bearcat (talk) 20:35, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I have several issues with this argument.
 * First, as best I can tell, your argument has little basis in policy. NPOL explicitly allows for candidates to get articles if they pass GNG, and GNG has no requirement that the subject has an unusual amount of coverage or anything like that.
 * However, the amount of coverage here is pretty exceptional. Unusually for a House candidate, he's received extensive coverage in the national media. The reason for this—which also forms a pretty good argument for the 10 year test, IMO—is in the headline of the Intercept article: NANCY PELOSI TO RECEIVE FIRST GENUINE LEFT-WING CHALLENGE IN 30 YEARS. This is one of the most important figures in US politics, who has been considered untouchable for 30 years, receiving a credible challenge. In 10 years, Buttar will either be notable because he won (and served as an example of the Democratic party's shift into the "AOC era") or lost, and served to demonstrate the limits of that shift. The fact that candidacy got to this point—a general election challenge—is notable.
 * Finally, the state of the article now is not a notability argument. I completely agree that the current citations aren't great, but that's why I found a bunch more sources! And sure, every candidate can find 12 sources. But in the national media? I'm pretty sure that's unusual. Gaelan 💬✏️ 23:37, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Firstly, the understanding and interpretation of policies is debated and disputed all the time on here. So it isn't just a matter of reading the letter of a policy statement — you also have to familiarize yourself with established consensus around how the policies are applied in actual practice when they come up for debate in similar situations. And the established consensus is as I described: every candidate in every election can always show some evidence of campaign coverage, and thus every candidate in every election can always claim that they have passed GNG and are therefore exempted from having to satisfy NPOL at all — so we have an established consensus that the existence of some campaign coverage is not in and of itself enough, precisely because our established consensus that candidates are not all notable enough for articles on here would be inherently meaningless if every candidate could always exempt themselves from it. GNG is not simply a matter of counting up the footnotes and keeping anybody who technically meets or exceeds an arbitrary number of them: GNG is also a matter of testing for the context of what the person is getting covered for, and treating some contexts as less notability-making than other contexts. A person with just one or two media hits can pass GNG if those hits are verifying that the person has accomplished something we deem "inherently" notable, and a person with 15 or 20 media hits can fail GNG if those hits all exist in contexts that are not accepted as "inherently" notable. For instance, if a person wins election to an NPOL-passing office, then you get to start the article as soon as one source can be added to verify that they won the election, and it will be kept on that basis even though it still needs significant improvement before it can actually be considered a good article — but a person who has merely been a non-winning candidate for office, or a holder of a minor local office (such as a smalltown municipal councillor) that is not accepted as a notable one, can still fall below the notability bar even with sourcing that numbers well into the double digits, if they cannot show strong evidence that they're markedly more special than the tens or hundreds of thousands of other people who've done the same thing. Similarly, we also have a rule called WP:BLP1E, whereby people who receive a blip of media coverage in the context of a specific event, but cannot show any enduring notability outside that specific event, are not automatically entitled to keep articles just because they've technically passed an arbitrary number of media hits. As I said before, we consider the enduring notability of our article topics, not just their current newsiness: making a candidate notable enough for a Wikipedia article is not simply a matter of showing that his name exists in the current news cycle, it is a matter of demonstrating that his candidacy would pass the ten year test for enduring importance. Basically, if you can't show that he had preexisting notability for another reason that would already have gotten him an article anyway, then the test he has to pass is not just a reason why he might be of interest to some people today, but a credible and convincing reason why an article about him will still be necessary in 2030. Bearcat (talk) 04:40, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * First off, congratulations on winning the “Wall of Text award for unnecessary explanation”. Secondly, BLP1E cannot be invoked here because the coverage identified was published months apart, clearly not just in the course of one news cycle. And also, there was clearly an argument set out that you just ignored completely that the nature of this coverage would cause this person to pass the 10-year rule. Your position inexplicably seems to be that being just a candidate for office automatically disqualifies someone from having a Wikipedia page, which is ridiculous. Devonian Wombat (talk) 21:30, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Firstly, I didn't say BLP1E has anything to do with this — I raised BLP1E as an example of why just counting the footnotes for their number is not an automatic GNG-maker in and of itself. It's merely one example of how our policies explicitly state that the number of media hits the person can show counts for a lot less toward the notability race than the context of what the person is getting covered for does. And secondly, any notability claim that boils down in its essence to "first person with X characteristic to do a not inherently notable thing" is not in and of itself a WP:10YT-passing notability claim. Being an incumbent officeholder's "first left-wing challenger in Y amount of time" is not, in and of itself, a reason why any significant number of people would still remember his name in 2030, even if he loses the race he's running in. Being an incumbent politician's "first left-wing challenger" is not inherently important or enduringly noteworthy in and of itself. Bearcat (talk) 14:16, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * In case you missed it, I made a case for this in the comment you replied to. Gaelan 💬✏️ 19:09, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
 * And in case you missed it, that case was not a convincing one. Bearcat (talk) 14:19, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry if I came across as sarcastic in my reply—I just wanted to make sure my argument went unaddressed. That being said, your reply feels pretty close to violating WP:CIVIL. Gaelan 💬✏️ 22:59, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * In case you missed it, I made a case for this in the comment you replied to. Gaelan 💬✏️ 19:09, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
 * And in case you missed it, that case was not a convincing one. Bearcat (talk) 14:19, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry if I came across as sarcastic in my reply—I just wanted to make sure my argument went unaddressed. That being said, your reply feels pretty close to violating WP:CIVIL. Gaelan 💬✏️ 22:59, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * In case you missed it, I made a case for this in the comment you replied to. Gaelan 💬✏️ 19:09, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
 * And in case you missed it, that case was not a convincing one. Bearcat (talk) 14:19, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry if I came across as sarcastic in my reply—I just wanted to make sure my argument went unaddressed. That being said, your reply feels pretty close to violating WP:CIVIL. Gaelan 💬✏️ 22:59, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry if I came across as sarcastic in my reply—I just wanted to make sure my argument went unaddressed. That being said, your reply feels pretty close to violating WP:CIVIL. Gaelan 💬✏️ 22:59, 20 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete -- per the other arguments for its deletion. Also, that has to be the most pointless infobox I have ever had the misfortune to see, and I have seen a few in my time.    Cassianto Talk  07:31, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep individual seems both notable for his role in challenging the incumbant to the seat and his previous work in the private sector. additionally article is still underconscruction by other editors i believe. Epluribusunumyall (talk) 21:39, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment I have restored the history of version deleted in the previous AFD, if anyone is interested. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:11, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete Unelected candidates (even those who challenge the incumbent Speaker of the US House of Representatives) do not pass WP:NPOL. The best case for meeting WP:GNG are the articles in Salon and the Hill. However, our standard for keeping unelected candidates is the campaign coverage needs to rise to the level of Christine O'Donnell or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (after she won the Democratic primary). In both of these cases, the candidate became commonly known nationally and internationally. In addition, this page currently reads like a campaign brochure - which is not the purpose of this project. --Enos733 (talk) 04:41, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:SOAP and WP:SPAM; accord and . This was deleted less than two years ago, and other than running yet again, there's no new evidence of notability. In 2020, everybody knows we are not Ballotpedia, nor a resume host; we are a charity and a general encyclopedia. Lots of people run for public office, as I did, and even get local coverage. Bearian (talk) 02:32, 21 April 2020 (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.