Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Michael Cole (public relations)

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 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the discussion was:  Keep and move to article space. Deletion policy says "where the subject has requested deletion and there is no rough consensus, may be closed as delete." but in this case the consensus for deleting does not appear to be here. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 07:55, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Draft:Michael Cole (public relations)

 * Previous AfD: Articles for deletion/Michael Cole (public relations)
 * Previous AfD: Articles for deletion/Michael Cole (public relations)

Listing here as a purely administrative action per Deletion review/Log/2017 March 14. I offer no opinion on the outcome. There was a long discussion at the DRV. Rather than trying to summarize it here, I'll just refer folks to the link above to get the background. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:06, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Clarification to my nomination statement. Per a discussion on my talk page, I see there's some confusion about why this is at MfD vs. Afd.  I'll reproduce part of my talk page comments here:
 * Yes, I was aware this was a draft, and made a conscious decision to leave it in draft space. My logic there was if we ended up accepting the WP:BLPDELETE, leaving it in draft space now would cause less harm than restoring it in mainspace. And if we ended up rejecting that, then it would be easy enough to move into mainspace later. What I didn't realize is that when I ran the XfD tool, the discussion it generated would get listed under MfD. I was expecting it to be listed under AfD. So, yes, an accident that it's in MfD. But, no, not an accident that it's still a draft
 * I was also asked on my talk page to clarify what should happen in the event of various scenarios this discussion might evolve towards. It's really difficult to predict the future, so I'll just leave things with the above clarification and trust that whoever comes along and closes this will exercise good judgement and do the right thing.  -- RoySmith (talk) 11:56, 23 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I advertised this at WP:BLPN, Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:56, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete I fear that if a BLP is deleted, it is generally not likely to survive as a draft either. Collect (talk) 01:26, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I can't parse what you're even saying. Can you explain this using more words? Also, did you not read the DRV discussion to get the history on this? —Locke Cole • t • c 07:19, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * This article has never been deleted. It was speedy deleted, and that deletion was recently overturned at DRV. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:39, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Michael Cole (public relations) was deleted pursuant to Articles for deletion/Michael Cole (public relations). Recreation requires consensus per WP:BLPDELETE and this discussion is intended to test whether a consensus for recreation exists. What you should have done was create a draft of your proposed new version of the article and start a discussion proposing recreation. We'd have gotten here a lot faster if you'd done that, instead of just recreating it without regard to WP:BLPDELETE. WJBscribe (talk) 14:43, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * WP:BLPDEL does not apply. The original article was deleted at WP:AFD, it was not summarily deleted (which is what WP:BLPDEL covers) by an administrator, and thus did not follow the process outlined there. WP:BIODEL, which is part of the deletion policy, does not take a position on recreation for biographies. Regardless, it is a slippery slope to begin deleting articles because of complaints from their subjects. —Locke Cole • t • c 15:14, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE, which deals with deletion discussions where the subject has requested deletion, could be argued to cover this case. Patar knight - chat/contributions 03:14, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE just quotes WP:BIODEL, which again takes no position on recreation. —Locke Cole • t • c 17:01, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * An article was deleted there. It was not this article. Your assertion of what I "should" have done is utterly without basis or merit. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:23, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Speedy keep, move to article space, not sure why this was relisted given the comments at the DRV. Confused further why it's here at MFD and not AFD which is where the original deletion discussion took place. Regardless: this is a well sourced article about a notable subject, and there is no reason whatsoever to delete a BLP article because the subject of the article asks. That's a slippery slope I strongly urge we NOT go down... —Locke Cole • t • c 07:19, 23 March 2017 (UTC) Clarifying keep —Locke Cole • t • c 14:41, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep, per Locke Cole and what I said in the previous discussion. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:28, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep/Restore – per Locke Cole. It seems obscure to argue that the BBC Royal correspondent is not automatically notable when the incumbent is a household name (eg Nicholas Witchell, Jenny Bond). Michael Cole was similarly omnipresent (in the UK) in earlier decades. (Michael Cole was not disputing his notability. He was protesting about unspecified inaccuracies and pleading a case for privacy.) Oculi (talk) 11:17, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete/disallow recreation. I note from the talkpage that this article has been rated as "low importance" by the relevant wikiprojects. I think that is a correct assessment. The coverage of Wikipedia is not left with a striking gap if this article continues not to exist. Whilst I accept that the notability of this person is sufficient that Wikipedia can have an article about him, I do not think that it is so great that Wikipedia must have an article about him. As Articles for deletion/Michael Cole (public relations) shows, the article subject would strongly prefer that we not include an article about him in Wikipedia. I think this is an appropriate case to respect such a wish. I do not think being a royal correspondent for the BBC makes someone a public figure and would say that this person is relatively unknown. Accordingly, WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE applies. Having articles about living people can have a real and significant impact on those people; it can cause harm in ways we may not readily appreciate. It would therefore be callous for us to disregard a BLP subject's request for privacy when there is no appreciable damage to the project if we comply with their request. WJBscribe (talk) 11:36, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Project ratings (applied by one individual editor, not by consensus at a project; not that projects have a stronger voice than the sum of individuals involved, per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS) are not deletion criteria. And while a royal correspondent, who appears on BBC national news on a regular basis, is a public figure, the subject passes GNG even without that part of his CV. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:16, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep in article space Clearly notable public figure, passes WP:GNG by a mile. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:16, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep/allow restoration to mainspace (Which is what I assume the keep !votes above were pushing for based on their comments). Folks,  is a crazy-good source.  99% of our BLPs don't have anything like that.   is also a stellar source from what I can see.   is a shorter article, but from the BBC.  And again is solely about the subject of this article.  This isn't a "low-notability" individual in any way and his request for the deletion of the article is irrelevant given he is/was such a high-profile person.  I honestly don't see how that can be in debate. Hobit (talk) 12:25, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Folks, it's probably important that when !voting, you distinquish between keeping the draft and moving the article into mainspace. Could everyone please try to clarify their !votes wrt that issue? .  Thanks, Hobit (talk) 14:14, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Given that the DRV for the deletion of the artcile resutlted in "overturned", the issue is moot. The artcle must be restored. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:36, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep draft, and when it’s ready, ‘’’restore to mainspace’’’. We are doing an AfD on a DRAFT? This is kind of ridiculous.   Montanabw (talk) 17:10, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * User:Montanabw, we are dilberating on reversing Articles_for_deletion/Michael_Cole_(public_relations). --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:31, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete the subject asked us to remove our article on him because the available sources contained inaccuracies and as a fairly unknown figure he wanted privacy. We decided to comply with that request, as we're allowed to do. There isn't anything here which justifies altering that decision - the article makes him out to have had essentially the same career as the version which formerly existed in mainspace. He was a journalist for the BBC for a long time, they sent him to cover current events, he worked for Mohamed Al Fayed, he appeared on a comedy panel show and gave a lecture. None of that makes you a "high profile person". Granted, he passes the GNG, but I don't see how that enters into this. By writing articles about him we are violating his privacy and causing harm to him, and that outweighs the very small loss we suffer by not having an article on him.  Hut 8.5  14:20, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Again, a slippery slope that the project should not even contemplate walking down. Where do we draw the line? What if Donald Trump is offended by our article on him and requests that we delete it? On what grounds do we "violate his privacy", but not this individuals? If a subject is notable enough to warrant an article, that's all that is needed. It's unfortunate that the subject of this article felt deletion was the best solution, but that doesn't change the fact that under policy here an article about him is completely appropriate. If someone doesn't want to be written about, the simple solution is to not do anything noteworthy. —Locke Cole • t • c 23:10, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * That's not an appropriate comparison. Donald Trump is a very high profile public figure, this guy isn't. Having a few newspaper articles written about you doesn't make you a public figure. Policy does allow us to delete articles about non-public figures at the request of the subject and has for a long time, this is nothing new.  Hut 8.5  06:35, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * It wasn't a comparison, it was a question: where do we draw the line? As for "this is nothing new"– two problems: 1) logical fallacy, just because something has been done before doesn't mean it's the right thing to do, and 2) this is my first encounter with an article being deleted like this (due to the subjects request), care to elaborate on just how many articles have met their end this way? Is there a list somewhere? —Locke Cole • t • c 17:01, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I know that the fact that something has been done before doesn't make it the right thing to do in this situation. The reason I brought that up is your assertion that this is a slippery slope that the project should not even contemplate walking down. The fact that we have been deleting articles for unknown individuals at least partly at the request of the subject for a while rather undermines this. No, I don't have a list of articles that have been deleted this way, just as there aren't any lists of articles that have been deleted for any other reason, but searching AfDs for related keywords brings up plenty of examples of places it has been considered. We aren't obliged to grant requests like these. It's entirely at the discretion of the editors involved and there aren't any fixed criteria for it, so you are perfectly entitled to disagree with me, but I don't think we should have an article about this person in this situation. He's sufficiently low profile to be entitled to his privacy.  Hut 8.5  20:49, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. Sources provided would indicate that the GNG is met (e.g. being the BBC Royal Correspondent, a position that generally confers notability in a public manner). An attempt should be made to contact Mr. Cole to inquire as to what inaccuracies there are in the article, but if that is a dead end, or a search of the available RS do not indicate any reason to question the article content, it should be restored. We should not delete articles of people even borderline notable because of their roles in which they were public figures over vague claims of inaccuracy without evidence. Patar knight - chat/contributions
 * Keep (reverse the previous AfD), undelete, merge, restore to mainspace. I think we are mature and professional enough to handle the slippery slope fallacy.  Non-public persons subjected to distress by inaccurate or biased coverage is a good reason to delete something, even if there are sources.  Here, we do not have a non-public person, I see no good reason for him or anyone to be concerned by biased coverage, and it is all out there to read, just search for michael cole bbc.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:15, 28 March 2017 (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 page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.