Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Steve Kerrigan


 * 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   keep. (Non-administrator closure) NorthAmerica1000 16:12, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Steve Kerrigan

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WP:BLP of a person notable primarily as an as-yet-unelected candidate in a forthcoming election — a claim of notability that does not satisfy WP:NPOL — with no particularly substantive claim that he'd already qualify for an article under any other inclusion rules. No prejudice against recreation in November if he wins, but candidates are not entitled to keep campaign brochures on Wikipedia in the interim. Delete. Bearcat (talk) 07:28, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep - WP:NPOL - Candidate and failed-candidate for non-national elections. His work assisting in campagnes does not make him noteworthy. I have some doubts about his work for the national Democratic party, but tend towards not noteworthy. -- Taketa (talk) 09:00, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Changing to keep. Arguments below are convincing that there are enough sources to support relevance. Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 10:17, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep - has received significant coverage for his role as CEO of the Democratic National Convention and President of the 2013 Presidential Inaugural Committee, as well as his campaign for Lieutenant Governor . Meets GNG. --Hirolovesswords (talk) 13:31, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Coverage of a candidate's electoral campaign itself doesn't contribute to getting them past GNG. Media have a legal and ethical obligation to give "equal time" to candidates in elections in their local coverage area, so no candidate would ever fail GNG if coverage of the candidacy counted — but our inclusion rules for politicians dictate that, except in extremely rare special circumstances such as the international media firestorm that swallowed Christine O'Donnell, campaign coverage does not confer notability on a person who didn't already qualify for an article before the candidacy. For an unelected candidate, either sufficient notability was already there before they became a candidate or it doesn't exist until after they win the election — because for a candidate whose coverage derives from the candidacy itself, the article invariably ends up functioning as a campaign brochure (violating Wikipedia's content rules against advertising) rather than a true encyclopedia article about a topic of permanent long-term interest. Bearcat (talk) 21:22, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
 * He received significant coverage in at least nine different news articles for two separate events (2012 convention and 2013 inauguration) before he was a candidate, so sufficient notability was already there before he became a candidate. Also, there is nothing in the notability requirements for politicians that says significant coverage for an unelected candidate has to come before the candidacy. --Hirolovesswords (talk) 01:29, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The notability requirements for politicians specifically confer notability only on actual officeholders, and exclude unelected candidates for any office from being able to invoke NPOL for notability. Unelected candidates, rather, have to get past GNG, and AFD has a longstanding consensus that routine coverage of the candidacy itself cannot contribute to whether the person passes GNG or not — because all candidates in all elections always get media coverage. It's not a thing that some candidates get and others don't, such that some could pass GNG and others not; media are required to give coverage to all of the candidates. But since we're not a database of campaign brochures per WP:NOTADVERTISING, we simply cannot allow articles about all candidates in all elections — so the consensus established by countless past AFDs has been that candidates cannot get over GNG on the basis of campaign coverage if they didn't already have preexisting notability before they became candidates. Whether they've been formally codified in a notability rule or not, precedents established by AFD consensus, as documented at WP:POLOUTCOMES (see in particular the section about how unelected candidates are not viewed as having notability for the candidacy), still apply and are still binding unless you can make a credible case that he's actually become the Christine O'Donnell exception to the rule. Bearcat (talk) 02:59, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
 * WP:ROUTINE news coverage applies to such things as announcements, planned coverage of pre-scheduled events, wedding announcements, obituaries, sports scores, crime logs, ect, not multiple in-depth articles about a candidate that appeared in reliable sources. Secondly, the article does not violate WP:NOTADVERTISING because the information is "written in an objective and unbiased style" and all article topics are verified by independent, third-party sources. Thirdly, WP:POLOUTCOMES is not a policy, and therefore not "binding". Lastly, previous notability has already been demonstrated by the number of articles written about the subject before his 2014 campaign for Lieutenant Governor. --Hirolovesswords (talk) 04:28, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Firstly, see WP:ONLYESSAY — precedents at WP:POLOUTCOMES are binding unless you can make a credible case for why the article in question should be treated as an exception to it; the fact that it's not a "policy" does not mean that you're free to dismiss it as something we don't have to follow. Secondly, an article can be written "neutrally" and still fail WP:NOTADVERTISING; a campaign brochure about an unelected political candidate is practically the textbook example of how this is possible. And WP:ROUTINE coverage most certainly does include standard-issue "media covering a political campaign because it's their job to cover political campaigns" coverage — AFD has a longstanding precedent that a candidate has to explode into Christine O'Donnell territory (i.e. international media firestorm) to actually pass GNG just on campaign coverage alone. Bearcat (talk) 07:00, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Per WP:POLOUTCOMES — This page is not a policy or guideline, and previous outcomes do not bind future ones because consensus can change. Therefore, precedents are not biding. WP:ONLYESSAY also states that essays and policies are not binding, as there are common sense exceptions to them. Instead of abiding by the letter of a precedent or creating your own standard of notability ("Christine O'Donnell territory"), look at the fact that multiple sources reliable cover the subject in detail in the course of more than one event. This alone makes the subject suitable for a stand-alone article. --Hirolovesswords (talk) 12:19, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Consensus can change, absolutely, but the precedent does have to be respected until the consensus actually changes. And there has to be a substantive reason why any particular case should be treated as an exception to the precedent — the mere fact that something is an essay or guideline, rather than a policy, is not a valid reason to simply ignore it if there isn't a substantive reason why the specific case at hand warrants a specific exception to it. And the "Christine O'Donnell" test is not my own personal "alternate standard of notability", either — it's a longstanding consensus at AFD that coverage of a candidate's campaign can only contribute to notability if it happens to go significantly beyond the normal level of coverage that all candidates in all elections always get. O'Donnell is the textbook example that I refer to when it's necessary to clarify how that can happen — but since all candidates in all elections always get media coverage, if campaign coverage contributed to notability we'd never be able to delete any article about any candidate at all.
 * And the problem with the other roles with the political party's convention and the inaugural committee is that they're simply not roles that would be expected to get a person into an encyclopedia in the first place — not to mention that the convention leadership sources you provided above are mostly not about him per se, but merely mention his name in passing within coverage of the convention, while one of the inaugural committee sources is an entirely unsubstantive blurb and the other one is on a university's website rather than a media outlet, and thus contributes to notability in no manner whatsoever. Bearcat (talk) 18:43, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Massachusetts-related deletion discussions. Hirolovesswords (talk) 18:57, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Hirolovesswords (talk) 18:57, 30 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Natg 19 (talk) 08:42, 7 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep In addition to the sources found by Hirolovesswords, Kerrigan is now the Democratic nominee for Lt. Gov. The coverage he will get will increase and he's likely to be the next Lt. Gov. Tiller54 (talk) 14:12, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia does not deal in the realm of election predictions, per WP:CRYSTAL. There have been many elections over the years in which the candidate who appeared "likely" or "certain" to win actually lost, for one reason or another; there have been some elections in which the candidate died before election day; and there have been many elections in which the question of which candidate was likelier to win depended on which pundits you chose to believe. I'd have no objection to sandboxing this for future retrieval, if his victory's really that likely — but advance predictions about the likelihood of his eventual victory have no bearing on our inclusion rules, because advance predictions don't always pan out accurately. Bearcat (talk) 06:54, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Even if he loses, there's more than enough here to meet WP:GNG and WP:POLITICIAN. Tiller54 (talk) 13:56, 11 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep Martha won the nomination for governor so he will be her running mate, I do not see how he will not get additional publicity from it. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:27, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep Now that Mr. Kerrigan has won the primary and become the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor in the general election, this article is no longer of dubious relevance. BigD527 (talk) 17:08, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Even a candidate in a general election doesn't qualify for an article just for being a candidate — a person has to win the office, not just run for it, to be notable enough for a Wikipedia article. Bearcat (talk) 05:18, 11 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep. Bearcat is right that simply being the major party nominee in a statewide election does not confer notability, even for offices as high as the US Senate. Per WP:1E, that would be a redirect to the election article. But as Hirolovesswords pointed out, Kerrigan was notable for 2 other events prior to this election. Combined, the three events together make Kerrigan notable enough for his own article. -LtNOWIS (talk) 06:56, 11 September 2014 (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.