Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shooting of David Douglas


 * 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. As far as I am converned, this is a poster case of WP:ONEEVENT, but a large fraction of voters in good standing disagree and cite WP:GNG, so that I am obliged to close this as no consensus.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:59, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Shooting of David Douglas

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NN criminal, notability not asserted, WP:TOOSOON as an event article, WP:BIO1E (because it is still very much a BIO article masquerading as something else, and WP:NOTNEWS at this point as well. The fact that the subject's entire criminal history (which is also the majority of the content of this article) is sourced primarily to one article written after his death does not meet the BIO requirement of establishing notability prior to death.  I assume this is why it was created as an EVENT article, and yet all we have is "the event happened."  At the very least this is a footnote in the gangland feud article, but as no actual connection has been established, this should not be redirected there based on supposition, and the article needs to be weighed on its merits as a standalone article. MSJapan (talk) 20:31, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete. Neither the deceased, nor the circumstances of his death, are notable. WWGB (talk) 01:30, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete. Per nominator and WWGB. Rusted AutoParts 01:39, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 09:49, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 09:49, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 09:49, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ireland-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 09:49, 3 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep. The subject is notable for several reasons: 1. Former member of Provisional IRA (and possibly expelled for involvement with illegal drugs), 2. Conviction for shooting a police officer with indent to kill, 3. Conviction for posession of 8kg of cocaine (sentenced to 10 years with 5 suspended), 4. Surviving a previous assassination attempt in 2015. This means that WP:BIO1E does not apply, as the deceased was notable for more than one event, particularly reasons 1, 2 and 4. Regarding sourcing, I will endeavour to add more WP:RS to support the article in the next few days. The question of links to the feud in question is a line of enquiry, as related by the Irish Times source in the article. Autarch (talk) 22:05, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Very very weak keep - The fact that he is/was a member of the IRA IS notable and mostly because I am siding with the comments of Autarch, but the article needs a REWRITE to SHOW notability. The article as it is written deserves a speedy delete, because all it really says is a good Irish boy went bad, became a criminal, sold drugs, shot a police officer and finally was shot at and finally killed.   Tippytim304 (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 02:15, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Article has been expanded to cover more of his early 1980s criminal activities, as well as providing WP:RS for links to Kinehan gang. Will add more as I find them. Autarch (talk) 00:47, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete Subject is non-notable, so no idea why his death would warrant an article. sixty nine   • speak up •  04:24, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
 * He is an infamous Irish criminal, and one that was IRA. Al Capone, Brian Nichols, John Gotti, etc.... are notable for their criminal activity.  And I believe if he is notable enough for inclusion in an encyclopedia about Ireland/Irish topics, he is notable here, even if his name isn't worth much to an American.  Tippytim304 (talk) 05:32, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep - per WP:GNG. Clearly good sourcing, noted case.--BabbaQ (talk) 12:58, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment : Even with the addition of sources, there is still a problem, because you are now asserting notability for the individual via an an article on an event. This a common conflation - notability for an event is not notability of a person.  If the event doesn't meet WP:EVENT, then the event is not notable, and it largely doesn't matter who was involved in it, because WP:NOTINHERITED applies.  If instead. you want to indicate that the victim is notable, then we need to address WP:CRIME and WP:BIO, which is a different discussion entirely.  At this point, we are concerned with an article that says "a career criminal was possibly shot due to his criminal career," and I don't particularly think that's notable in any country.  Moreover, the coverage has to be greater than WP:NOTNEWS - the people you cited as famous criminals are famous because they killed dozens of people and oversaw illegal empires that raked in millions.  Shooting a cop and drug possession and almost getting killed once are, honestly, parr for the course.  Being PIRA?  If there were six folks in it, sure, but there were a lot more than six folks in it, and they don't all get articles for that, again per WP:NOTINHERITED.  So just be aware of all that. MSJapan (talk) 01:37, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment Granted, the article has become a biography rather than an article on the event of his death, which is probably due to the information that has become available as well as the apparent lack of any developments linking it to the Kinehan-Hutch feud. Regarding WP:CRIME, he took part in four raids in 1982, three of which he claimed were carried out on behalf of the PIRA, a claim accepted by the Gardaí, meaning he was acting on IRA orders. Given that the PIRA was a proscribed organisation in the Republic of Ireland, these, as well as attempting to shoot a Garda with intent to kill, go from being average criminal acts to being ones of subversion. (Also, membership in the PIRA was itself a crime in the Republic of Ireland.) His subsequent criminal career in illicit drugs is evidence of continuing criminal activity - combined with WP:BIO, the article is referenced with multiple reliable sources, meeting WP:BASIC and WP:CRIME. Autarch (talk) 14:10, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
 * So what you're telling me is a) the shooting was apparently not related to the event that caused this article in the first place, and b) that the subject is a notable criminal because he claimed to have worked for the IRA and tried to shoot a Garda 35 years ago? Sounds pretty run-of-the-mill as far as a criminal goes, but maybe I'm just cynical and don't find it surprising that an armed criminal tried to kill a police officer.  I don't want to use an WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument, but a lot of the articles in Category:Irish criminals (and particularly the "Irish republicans imprisoned on charges of terrorism" subcat) have shown heavy coverage (often upwards of 20 sources) of the events and trials surrounding the individuals, even if they were just on trial for raids. So it seems that there is a fairly high bar in place for notability strictly on IRA grounds, and I'm not sure why we can't find which raids Douglas allegedly participated in.
 * One of the problems that occurs is that certain people get no coverage until they die. WP:BIO also indicates that we have to show notability prior to death, and thus far, the whole of his "criminal past" has appeared to have come out in post-death material (a case of WP:RECENTISM. I don't really put too much stock in a claim the IRA never substantiated, especially when it was more convenient for the Gardai to believe him.   I'm not sure how easy it is to do, because I've had no luck, but you're going to need to find earlier coverage, during his life, aside from an arrest report. MSJapan (talk) 19:31, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Can you point to the place where WP:BIO "indicates that we have to show notability prior to death." It is not unusual for an individual to show notability only after his death, Jane Austen and Henry Darger are in that category.  In this case, we have a major newspaper bio/profile of Douglas written after his death, (Latest feud victim was long-time member of Provisional IRA, Cusack, Jim. Sunday Independent [Dublin] 03 July 2016: 6. ).E.M.Gregory (talk) 22:22, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, -- RoySmith (talk) 00:31, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep There is no need to intricately untangle the separate notability of the event and the individual. Taken together there is adequate coverage. It actually makes very good sense to describe together an individual and the circumstances of his death. We do not insist that the coverage of a person must have been written before they died. We very often use obituaries both as an indicator of notability and as a source of biographical information. Thincat (talk) 04:10, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep Coverage was international, at least, British papers as well as Irish ones. But IMO the thing that makes it a keeper is not only the fact that there were 2 attempts to kill this gangster, it is the angle in this headline "IRA and INLA at war on capital's streets: Aligning of the INLA with Kinahans and IRA with the Hutches stokes fears of further violence, writes Jim Cusack" (Sunday Independent [Dublin] 10 July 2016)    This lifts it in to the realm of WP:GNG and out of the realm of a routine "gangland feud."  It can be usefully linked from a number of articles.E.M.Gregory (talk) 22:12, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep The nominator is correct in pointing out that this is essentially a bio, but then the subject does appear to meet GNG. I don't believe BLP1E applies here, because there is some coverage from before the shooting and some from after the shooting that nonetheless discusses his previous activities in detail . Vanamonde93 (talk) 05:24, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete instead as I acknowledge the Keep votes and what they say, but I'm still seeing questionability about the overall solidity here, and how it can be futurely maintained; there's nothing else to suggest any other better information and sources, suggesting this is better deleted. SwisterTwister   talk  04:34, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep - As much as I appreciate the concerns and constructive criticism as to how the article should be improved, to the central point it looks to me that multiple reliable sources identify Douglas as a dangerous criminal of notoriety, report his shooting as a shocking event, and also find that there are broader implications to the attack in terms of inter-criminal conflicts. This seems, well, part and parcel of what many other related articles talk about. Should the page be revamped, maybe drastically? I could agree with that. I don't feel that deletion is the right move. This is no matter about some random hoodlum off the streets. CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 05:46, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Except the last point does not appear to be the case; it was speculative at the time, and does not seem to have been borne out. The initial notability here was presumed on that relationship.  Barring that, I don't see what makes him notable - he's not the only PIRA member, he's not the only Irish drug dealer, etc., and I suppose what I find to be the biggest problem is that the only person who said he was PIRA was the subject.  Now, that may be the norm, but it's a legitimate concern, I think.  None of those things presumes GNG, as there aren't articles on every drug dealer or PIRA member.  Maybe I'm just not impressed through some Clockwork Orange-style lack of "superviolence" here, but I just don't see how this is anything more than an article on a run-of-the-mill criminal whose notability (because this was written as events unfolded instead of a "lagging indicator" as it should have been) was predicated on something that wasn't proven. MSJapan (talk) 06:42, 24 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete for now. Coverage does not, to me, seem to exceed what can be expected for any run-of-the-mill violent crime story. Per WP:NOTNEWS and WP:BIO1E, that's not what we're here for. Can be recreated if coverage persists over a longer period of time.  Sandstein   07:16, 24 July 2016 (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.