Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shawn Moody (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 and redirect to 2018 Maine gubernatorial election.  Sandstein  13:43, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Shawn Moody
AfDs for this article: 
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Unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Maine in both 2010 (as an independent) and 2018 (as a Republican); has held no elected office or has any significant media coverage. Previously turned into a redirect following a previous AfD, but was recreated back in June with even less content. Seems pretty straightforwardly not notable, but given it was recreated, I'm unsure whether returning to a redirect or full deletion is the better option here. — Kawnhr (talk) 04:22, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. — Kawnhr (talk) 04:22, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. — Kawnhr (talk) 04:22, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Maine-related deletion discussions. — Kawnhr (talk) 04:22, 14 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Re-redirect as per prior AfD decision. Bondegezou (talk) 13:56, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep the article is admittedly in terrible shape now, but there is evidence of notability. An older version and quick google search shows independent, non-trivial coverage in USA Today, the Portland Press Herald, New York Times, Splinter News, Maine Magazine, Automotive Body Repair News, the Maine Beacon, and other sources. Many of them are unrelated to either of his political campaigns but that doesn't matter per WP:GNG.--TM 14:07, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Redirect per the previous AfD. Best, GPL93 (talk) 13:02, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Restore redirect. Nothing here is an improvement over the version that was redirected just last year — it's even weaker than the earlier version, in fact. As always, people are not automatically entitled to have Wikipedia articles just for being candidates in elections they did not win, but nothing else stated here constitutes a valid claim that he had preexisting notability for other reasons, and one media hit is not enough coverage to make him automatically more special than other unsuccessful candidates. Bearcat (talk) 13:58, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Did you read my comment above? There are multiple, independent sources covering the subject in detail. Many of them are from national media organizations.--TM 14:20, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Candidates are not automatically exempted from having to win the election just because some media coverage happens to exist — every candidate in every election can always show some evidence of campaign coverage, so if that were enough to hand a candidate a WP:GNG-based exemption from having to pass WP:NPOL, then every candidate in every election would always get that exemption and nobody would ever actually have to pass NPOL at all anymore. So it's not enough to say "but some coverage exists" — for the existence of coverage to exempt him from having to pass NPOL, the coverage would have to pass one of two tests: either (a) it demonstrates that he was already notable enough for preexisting reasons that he would already have gotten an article anyway, or (b) it demonstrates a reason why his candidacy was so much more special than everybody else's candidacies that even though he lost he still had a credible claim to passing the ten-year test for enduring significance anyway. Basically, he has to pass either the Cynthia Nixon test or the Christine O'Donnell test — and the fact that "some media coverage exists" does not automatically accomplish that, because every candidate in every election can always say that "some media coverage exists". Bearcat (talk) 14:41, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
 * WP:GNG is the guideline. All of these other caveats you mention are not part of Wikipedia's policies. Moody demonstrably passes WP:GNG. That should be the end of the discussion.--TM 20:36, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
 * If he passes GNG just because some campaign coverage exists, then so does every single candidate in every single election in every single everywhere on earth — but we have an established consensus that candidates are not notable just for being candidates, so the mere fact that the campaign coverage exists, precisely as it always does for every candidate, does not translate into a GNG-based exemption from having to pass NPOL. To be notable enough for an article, a candidate must demonstrate either that he was already notable enough to have an article for other reasons anyway, or that his coverage offers a credible reason to treat his candidacy as much more enduringly and permanently and nationalizingly special than everybody else's candidacies. There are lots of types of coverage that do not translate into a GNG-based exemption from having to pass the SNG for the person's occupation: city councillors aren't automatically accepted as notable just because some local media coverage exists. Local musicians who haven't passed any of NMUSIC's achievement-based criteria aren't automatically accepted as notable just because their local hometown media have written about them a couple of times. Writers who haven't passed AUTHOR aren't automatically accepted as notable just because their local hometown media have written about them a couple of times. High school athletes aren't exempted from having to pass ATHLETE just because they've had a couple of local human interest pieces written about the fact that they're competing in high school sports despite having a disability. And on and so forth: GNG is not just "count up the footnotes and keep anybody who has surpassed an arbitrary number of media hits", but rather it also tests for factors like the depth of the coverage, the geographic range of the coverage and the context of what the person is getting covered for, and not all kinds of coverage that are possible for a person to show are equally GNG-worthy. Bearcat (talk) 00:00, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Looking at the eleven sources (the one on the current revision and the ten on the previous revision linked above), fully seven of them are news articles on his then-current campaign— WP:ROUTINE. Of the remaining four, two are puff-y blurbs about his business and a third is the "GOVERNOR'S AWARD FOR BUSINESS EXCELLENCE". Only the last, of Moody being appointed to the education board of trustees, would suggest he's a public figure, but "member of the education board" is far, far below WP:NPOL. What I am getting from these sources is that Mr. Moody may be a notable local figure, particularly in local business circles, but is not notable outside of that, and certainly nowhere near notable to pass the WP:GNG threshold. — Kawnhr (talk) 08:25, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * WP:ROUTINE does not say what you claim it does. It says "Per Wikipedia policy, routine news coverage of such things as announcements, sports, speculative coverage, and tabloid journalism are not sufficient basis for an article." There is no exception in GNG that indicates that coverage of a candidate cannot be used to establish notability. None of the sources are WP:ROUTINE. this story in the New York Times is a long-form piece from the largest newspaper in the country. Here is a story from the national media site Splinter News. Here is a talk filmed for Maine Magazine about his business philosophy.
 * ROUTINE is very clear that it does not just cover off event articles about events, but also applies to the standalone notability of people involved in those events. An election is an event, for example — so the existence of campaign coverage is not automatically enough to exempt a person from having to pass NPOL, because as I said before every candidate would always get exempted from actually having to pass NPOL if it were. As for these three sources, Splinter is a subsite of Gizmodo, not a notability-making established or reliable media outlet; the Maine Magazine source is just a video clip of him speaking about a subject, not a journalist-written third person article about him; and as for The New York Times, the existence of one hit of more-than-local coverage is still not in and of itself enough to make his candidacy more special than everybody else's candidacies. GNG is not, and never has been, just "media coverage exists = GNG passed": it takes into account the depth and range and context that the media coverage represents, and is not automatically passed by just everyone who can show that the number of media hits on their name meets or exceeds two. It does not count sources that represent the person speaking, about himself or something else, in the first person; it does not count Gizmodo blogs; it does not count unsuccessful election candidates as notable just because they have campaign coverage, if that campaign coverage doesn't significantly outdo the depth and range of campaign coverage that every other candidate in election history can also show just as easily; and on and so forth. Bearcat (talk) 18:43, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
 * An election is an event, but a campaign is what happens over many months. Coverage of a campaign in Maine, especially in national media outlets, is not routine. Splinter, the NY Times, the Portland Press Herald, Bangor Daily News, and other sources cover Moody himself (as well as his campaign) in-depth. We should not have a bias against political candidates and ignore GNG to avoid including their entries. --TM 18:48, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
 * As I already noted, Splinter is not a reliable or notability-making source at all. Local media always cover all elections that involve their coverage area, so every candidate in every election can always show some evidence of campaign coverage in the local media — so the Portland Press Herald and the Bangor Daily News are not automatically notability-clinching coverage in and of themselves, because even failed candidates for town council in Maine can show coverage in those papers. And The New York Times is a start down the road toward making his candidacy more special than other people's candidacies — but it isn't the golden ticket to the finish line all by itself if it's the only source you can show that goes above and beyond the merely expected. Even if you're going for "notable because he got nationalized coverage of his candidacy", it still takes a lot more than just one piece of that to get there. Bearcat (talk) 18:56, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Not every candidate for "dogcatcher" gets multiple in-depth profiles of their lives. That's preposterous. Anyway, [here is ANOTHER national story about Moody. Here are all the times he was written about by the Associated Press This is getting ridiculous now, isn't it?--[[User:Namiba|TM]] 19:12, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Firstly, I said town council. Secondly, you're not showing "multiple in-depth profiles of their lives", you're showing routinely expected campaign coverage of the type and depth and range that every candidate in every election can always show. Thirdly, he's not the subject of most of the pieces in that Associated Press directory — that's just the basic search results pulling up every article in their database that has his name in it at all, not a list of articles about him for the purposes of establishing that he's been the subject of enough coverage to get a GNG-based exemption from having to pass NPOL. Fourthly, even the existence of a CNN piece still isn't in and of itself the mic drop — you still have to demonstrate a reason why his candidacy would somehow pass the ten-year test for enduring significance. Again, campaign coverage always exists for every candidate in every election — so for such coverage to get him over GNG in lieu of having to pass NPOL by winning the election, what such coverage has to demonstrate is that there's a compelling reason to believe that even if he never does another thing as long as he lives, his candidacy still has a genuinely unique claim to being so much more notable than everybody else's candidacies that people will still be looking for information about it in 2028 anyway. The measuring stick is Christine O'Donnell — her candidacy generated so much coverage, nationalizing and even internationalizing, to the point that a full ten years later her article is still twice as long as, and cites twice as many distinct sources as, and she as a person is still significantly more famous than, the actual senator that she lost to. Bearcat (talk) 19:25, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
 * A long-form biographical articles, such as was written about Moody by the Press Herald and the Bangor Daily News, are not WP:ROUTINE. Here is ANOTHER article, this one written by the Boston Globe, which goes into depth on Moody. Whatever you declare about "measuring sticks" is irrelevant. The policy is clear. All that is needed are multiple, in-depth sources covering the subject in detail--19:35, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
 * A long-form biographical article about an election candidate, in a media outlet that is simply and routinely expected to always give equal time to every candidate in every election that takes place in its local coverage area, is most certainly routine — every single candidate in every single election in Maine is always going to be able to show evidence of having been covered in those papers. Being a candidate in an election that the person did not win is not an "inherently" notable context that guarantees the right to a Wikipedia article — so a person most certainly does have to show that their coverage has gone very significantly above and beyond what's merely expected to always exist for all candidates before "media coverage exists" constitutes a reason to exempt them from having to satisfy NPOL. Again, if all you had to do to get a candidate over GNG in lieu of NPOL was show that some campaign coverage existed, then every candidate in every election would always get that exemption and nobody would ever actually have to pass NPOL at all anymore — but being a repository of campaign brochures for unsuccessful political candidates is not our mandate or our mission or our goal. Lots of people get local media coverage in contexts that would not be expected to earn them a place in an international encyclopedia — which is precisely why GNG is not, and never has been, just "two or more hits of media coverage exist, and therefore the person passes GNG and doesn't have to actually pass the defined notability standards for their occupation anymore." GNG most certainly does take into account the context of what the person is getting coverage for, and it most certainly does deprecate some kinds of coverage as not enough to override the defined inclusion standards for their occupation. Musicians are not exempted from having to pass NMUSIC just because they can show a few hits of coverage in their local papers for playing at the local pub on Friday nights. Writers are not exempted from having to pass AUTHOR just because they can show a few hits of coverage in their local papers for winning a local poetry contest and self-publishing a chapbook. Mayors and city councillors are not exempted from having to pass NPOL just because it's possible to source the election results themselves. High school athletes are not exempted from having to pass ATHLETE just because they had a couple of pieces of human interest coverage written in the local media about their recovery from an injury. Unelected candidates for political office are not exempted from having to pass NPOL just because the campaign coverage that always exists for every candidate exists for them too. And on and so forth. Bearcat (talk) 19:52, 18 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Restore redirect No new claims of notability since the last AfD. Any campaign related content can supplement the campaign page. --Enos733 (talk) 06:39, 20 November 2019 (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.