Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Octaviano Tenorio

Octaviano Tenorio

Octaviano Tenorio (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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No independent sources. All "sources" of this article are either passive mentions (the Salt Lake Tribune article has a mention of Tenorio that is only one sentence long) or are connected with the LDS church, from which he draws his notability. pbp 16:43, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

• Keep To being with there is an attempt to cast drawing notability too widely. The LDS sources are indepth coverage because he is a major person to a religion with over 15 million members. Yet we have a source from the Salt Lake Tribune, which is absolutely not an LDS source. So why is it not accepted, because it is supposedly a "passive mention". However it is a mention that inherently shows that Tenorio is a widely respected and known person, it inherently shows that Tenorio is notable.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:02, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Did you even read that article, @Johnpacklambert:? It's a passing mention about Octaviano in an article about [redacted]. There is one sentence about him in the article. Please familiarize yourself with notability guidelines before continuing to create articles or vote in AfDs. Also, there is no policy that states that high-ranking LDS officials are inherently notable. The size of the LDS church has no bearing on this discussion. If you believe that high-ranking LDS officials are inherently notable, create a discussion at one of the policy-changing forums on the topic. Until then, GNG reigns supreme, and this article fails GNG. pbp 17:15, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

You are the one who does not even try to understand the nature and meaning of the reference. Size of religious organizations does have a bearing on the importance and notability of their leadership.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:30, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

It's one sentence! ONE SENTENCE. That's the only independent reference in the article! Also, please provide me with the policy or guideline that being a mid-level official of a religion of a certain size means automatically notable. Oh, right, there is one. pbp 17:42, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Tenorio is not a "mid-level" official. He is one of the top international leaders of the Church.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:12, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Sigh. It doesn't matter if he is the biggest chief of all time. What matters is whether he passes WP:GNG. Please, JPL go read and study GNG. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:53, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

• Delete - fails WP:GNG. K.e.coffman (talk) 18:14, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
• Delete. Clearly fails WP:GNG. The article's creator Johnpacklambert (JPL) confuses the concept of notability with the concept of importance. The policy at GNG is that there should multiple independent and reliable references to sustain an article about this individual. In this case there is only:

1. A mention in a book published by Brigham Young University, which the head article notes in its lede "is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints". Regardless of the size of the coverage there, it fails the independence part of the GNG requirement for significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.
2. A passing mention in an article about his brother. That fails the "significant" part of the GNG test.

So there is precisely nothing to count towards WP:GNG. The article's creator, JPL, seems to be aware of this, because he has just proposed amending the notability guidelines to create an exception for "Leaders in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other religious organizations", specifically to rescue this article. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:17, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

• Notice. I removed a sentence from the article and redacted part of two sentences from this discussion. Please read WP:BLP. I would strongly recommended not discussing that topic any further. Herostratus (talk) 20:26, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
• Delete "People are presumed notable if they have received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject." Article doesn't have this. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:06, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

• Keep. Squeaks in under WP:GNG, arguably. I added two refs to the Deseret News, which the Deseret News is owned by a church, but so is the Christian Science Monitor and they are both reliable and notable sources of general news -- although granted the Deseret News does also include Mormon church news (but then, that's important to life in Salt Lake City no matter what your persuasion). One of the sources has a couple sentences about him, but also quotes him, and the entire article is, while not about him, about the Missionary Training Center of which he is the head. The other source is a full mini-biography talking about his posts and his familiy and what have you.

So there's your multiple (two) coverages which are (arguably) "significant coverage" in a major general-audience newspaper.

In addition to that there're full bios of him elsewhere. Sure they're internal church organs, but it's a big and important church and people read this stuff. Liahona is notable enough to have an article here; it's not nothing. It counts some.

In addition, for your tie-breakers, he's A Grand Poobah or whatever of pretty big church, and there are only 100 Grand Poobahs, and that matters, and he's head of the church's second biggest Missionary Training Center, and Training Missionaries is central to this church's whole shebang. So he's an important guy.

And there's probably more stuff out there. I found those two sources in two minutes of looking. Keep. Herostratus (talk) 21:18, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

@Herostratus: I don't think your keep vote is particularly rooted in policy. For one, I don't consider Deseret News to be an independent source. You mention the Christian Science Monitor: I can understand using the CSM to cite a random bio, but I would give pause at using it as the primary means of determining notability for a poobah in the Christian Science Church. The same logic applies to the Deseret News: acceptable for ascertaining notability of a non-Mormon, not as much for a Mormon (Note that that doesn't mean it can never be used as a source. It just means that Mormon officials need to have citations from other works in addition to it to pass the reliable, independent sources threshold). Also, the poobah argument has been discounted above as not being rooted in policy. pbp 21:39, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Which source is intellectually independent and has significant coverage of the subject? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:52, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

My vote is rooted in policy, specifically WP:GNG and I explained why and how. My take on the Deseret News is that it's not a religious paper but rather a large, long-established, distinguished, notable, neutral, professionally written and edited and fact-checked general-audience general-news entity with a large circulation.

And as I explained, in addition to maybe passing WP:GNG (depending on how you cock your head), what's the hurry to get rid of this article? There's plenty of church sources for info on the person. And it appears the guy is a major behind-the-scenes player in the world. Presidency of the Mexico City Missionary Training Center alone makes him a (minor) player on the world stage, notwithstanding that this is behind the scenes and less likely to garner press attention than if he played shortstop for the Dodgers. How does it help the project to say to readers "Well, you came here looking for info on this important person, but guess what? You're on your own". We're not rule-bound here, we're here to serve the reader. Herostratus (talk) 22:51, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

The same can be said for every YouTube "personality". Just wait and sources will turn up somewhere... some time... --NeilN ^{talk to me} 23:03, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

@Herostratus: The distinction behind important behind-the-scenes figures and important on-stage figures does matter, because our rules say that there must be reliable, independent sources. If you don't like it, change them...but they are there for reasons. pbp 00:18, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

There are sufficent refs in the Deseret News to support a stub article, IMO. It's MO and you don't have to agree. It's borderline and there's no way to be certain who is "right". I think I am but who knows?

The other refs are not good for establishing whether the article should exist, but if it is allowed to (by the Deseret News refs), they are considered reliable and useable to fill the article out to its present useful size and make it be another ornament to the project. Herostratus (talk) 00:29, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm not saying remove those sources if the article is kept. What I'm saying is for the article to be kept, there needs to be sources from somewhere else in addition to them. pbp 15:36, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

• Delete. This isn't really that hard. Is he generally notable? If so, he will have significant press coverage in neutral sources. Nothing significant in neutral sources? Conversation can end. If he is generally notable, and he becomes so widely known that a significant number of people will come to wikipedia looking for information on him, then significant press coverage from neutral sources will happen. The NYT, WSJ, and WashPo aren't ignoring him despite his importance because of his religious affiliation; if they're ignoring him, it's because he's not newsworthy. He's still an important human being; people can still love him, respect him, and admire him -- he just doesn't meet a notability standard on a website he doubtlessly isn't losing any sleep over. Deltopia (talk) 00:50, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

• Delete per BHG and others. --Francis Schonken (talk) 03:09, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

• Keep: The officials of the LDS Church are not apt to get a lot of widespread coverage outside of publications interested in the denomination, but looks like there are about 100 people holding this particular office. That is, given the total membership of the church, significant. His minority status is also rather unique -- the LDS church has had (at least in the past) something of a reputation for being a white male bastion, so this individual holding a position of responsibility is also significant. As for sourcing, a Google search brought up some possible Spanish-language sources on him, and there may be more third-party sources there --JPL, you may want to check on that. As for the Deseret News, it may be a "Mormon paper," but it has significant circulation. While it has a slant, it's not a tabloid and it would be a RS for what it contains. (and IMHO, the CSM has a reputation for journalistic integrity and I'd be OK if they covered one of their own too.) In other denominations, we would cover, for example, a Catholic Archbishop and certainly a Cardinal. I also am concerned that there is a bit of systemic bias against Mormonism here, which we need to be very careful to avoid. Montanabw^(talk) 07:22, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

"The officials of the LDS Church are not apt to get a lot of widespread coverage outside of publications interested in the denomination." Lemme stop you right there. That's essentially an admission that this and similar articles are unlikely to pass GNG. As for systemic bias, I'd say it's in the other direction at present: any mid- or high-level Mormon official who could possibly have an article (even an article that doesn't really pass GNG) has one. I'm not sure if this is analogous to an Archbishop either, maybe Bishop. pbp 14:29, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

• Comment. It is disappointing to see some editors (e.g. Montanabw and Herostratus) confusing the policy's inclusion criterion of notability with the separate concept of importance. Arguments at AFD are supposed to be based on policy, and the policy is clearly based on the extent of coverage in independent reliable sources, rather than on editors' subjective judgements either way about "importance". --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:24, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment: I respectfully disagree with your analysis. Here notability dovetails with importance within the field of governance of the LDS church. There exists a LOT of prejudice against Mormons in the United States, and there is seldom any coverage by the mainstream press of anything happening in that church unless it is a scandal of some sort. So here, if the sources are reliable for what they are reporting, and independent of the subject of the article, we are good to go. Do not confuse notability with notoriety! He is notable (arguably there are unimportant people who are notable in a tabloid-y way, such as, any of the Kardashians) and WP:N is straightforward: "...reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article." Sources such as the Deseret News are independent of the subject, which is Tenorio -- he does not own these papers, nor does he "own" the Mormon church. He was selected for a high position within the church organization, and this was reported in the press. WP:N goes on to discuss reliability, "...sources need editorial integrity to allow verifiable evaluation of notability, per the reliable source guideline." Again, the sources here have a reputation for fact-checking and reliability. Sure, the Deseret News may be owned by the Mormon church, but it isn't a tabloid that makes up stories about who assorted church officials are without fact-checking!!! (No claims of this guy performing miracles, no woo-woo conspiracy theories, it's a simple newspaper that has no more or less bias than any publication owned by News Corporation.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Montanabw (talk • contribs)
    • I don't think "it's a media conspiracy!" is going to work here. We don't get to decide he's notable because he's "worthy" of being notable. And Deseret News is in no way a regular newspaper. Prime example: "The newspaper does not accept advertising that violates church standards." Say what you will about News Corporation. I don't think they'll be refusing money from liberal causes if they want to run ads on its networks. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 23:31, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
      • And I don't care if there is a media conspiracy or not. If there aren't independent secondary sources, it fails GNG regardless of the reasons why there aren't independent sources. Conversely, notorious people still pass GNG (though they sometimes fail other guidelines like 1EVENT). pbp 00:24, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Reply @Montanabw: I don't know anything about whether there is media bias against mormons. It's not one of my areas of interest, nor is likely to become one. However, for the purpose of this discussion let's assume that you are justified in asserting such a media bias, and that it is demonstrably severe, long-standing and persistent. Even if that it is the case, it is still irrelevant, because Wikipedia is not here to right great wrongs.
    Policy is very clear that articles must be based on reliable, secondary sources which are independent of the subjects. If those sources do not exist, then we do not have the basis for an article which complies with our fundamental criteria for content.
    A lack of independent sources may even be due to crimes of the most heinous wickedness, but again Wikipedia is not here to right great wrongs. No matter how it came to be that there are insufficient reliable, secondary sources which are independent of the subjects, the policy is the same: without them, we should not have an article.
    As to the independence of Deseret News, you are trying to wriggle off that hook by creating a straw man. The policy is not that "the source must not be controlled by the subject"; it is the broader test that the source must be "independent of the subject". Desert News is owned by the organisation in which Tenorio is an officer; they are both part of the Mormon Church (Tenorio by office, the paper by ownership), and as NeilN notes above, the church control over the paper extends even to declining advertising revenue which conflicts with the church. A paper which restricts its most important source of income by deferring to the values of the church which owns it is not independent of that church. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:29, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
    • • @BrownHairedGirl: Independence is part of Journalism ethics and standards.  Did you have any sourced evidence for your extraordinary claim that Deseret News does not practice standard journalism ethics?  Unscintillating (talk) 21:22, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
        • • • • Deseret News is owned by the church, and anything it publishes relating to the church cannot be considered independent. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:38, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
        • @Unscintillating: before you link to a Wikipedia article in support of your assertion, it would be wise a) note that Wikipedia is not a reliable source; b) to check that the article you cite is properly-sourced and cited; c) to check that it says what you would like it to say. You fail on all 3 points.
          Large swathes of that article are unsourced, and the crucial section §Common elements is wholly unsourced, and does not support your assertion.
          I suggest instead that you provide evidence (from the assessment of uninvolved experts) of your apparent belief in the "independence" of a newspaper wholly-owned by the Mormon Church and which does not itself claim any independence from its owners. In fact, the paper's own statement on its Editorial voice is explicitly biased towards religion. It proclaims a "focus on faith and family oriented audiences" and that "Active faith cultivates the habits of self-governance required for a successful democracy". --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:54, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
          • If you have sources, why have you responded with a fake guideline, an appeal to your omniscience, an inappropriate link to WP:RS, a misdirection based on the word "unsourced", and an attempt to shift the burden of evidence?  No professional reporter is "independent" of a paycheck and living on the planet Earth.  Do you have any evidence that the journalism ethics standards of Deseret News are substandard?  Unscintillating (talk) 03:09, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
            • You are really scraping the barrel here, Unscintillating. You cite an unsourced en.wp article which doesn't support your claim, and now you try to accuse me of shifting the burden of proof? Boggle.
              Despite your series of smokescreens, this is all fairly simple. The test in WP:GNG is whether the source is independent of the subject. You offer no evidence for your bizarre claim that Deseret News is independent of the Mormon Church which owns it, and whose values it explicitly upholds in its own editorial guidelines. If you want to advance the fanciful claim that the journalists working in those conditions are "independent", go find the evidence for that claim.
              There is now a whole series of posts by you in which you try to create straw men. In this case, you are trying to evade the fairly simple test of of independence, by asking for evidence of actual misconduct. In your first reply to me you asserted that the Deseret News may be owned by the Mormon church, but it isn't a tabloid that makes up stories about who assorted church officials are without fact-checking.
              Stop and unpick that, because it's a textbook exercise in smokescreening. In the first 9 words you concede the crucial point about lack of independence ... but you promptly try to draw attention away from that by asserting that it isn't a tabloid that makes up stories. That second part is a straw man, because nobody except you has in any way suggested that it makes up stories.
              You have persistently tried to divert this discussion into testing the reliability of the sources, but none of the !votes of delete are based on the reliability (or unreliability) of the sources. In every case, the !votes to delete are based on the lack of independence: it has been repeatedly demonstrated that a) every source currently used in the article is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Mormon Church in which Tenorio is a reportedly senior office-holder, and b) those sources have active policies of support for the values of their owners. In simple terms, nobody except his own team writes about him ... and regardless of how accurately they write about him, he fails notability because nobody except his own team writes about him. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:36, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. Independent sources are a must to confer notability. If the subject were notable I'd have no problem retaining the LDS media sources as citations but they can't pass GNG. Chris Troutman (talk) 14:54, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
  • See above Chris, for my response to your comments and those of BHG. Montanabw^(talk) 23:16, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
    • I did. Independent sources are needed establish notability; reliability isn't the issue. That he's a Mexican in a mostly Caucasian church doesn't make him notable, either. As I've said at WT:N, efforts like yours to address "systemic bias against Mormonism" are arguments against consensus and policy. We don't make carve-outs for minorities of any kind because subjects fall short of notability and verifiability. I don't understand why an editor of your experience would push these arguments. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:50, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
  • You've cited WP:42, but WP:42 is a essay that is for beginners.  Notability is not conferred.  Verifiability is a core content policy, and no one has suggested that anyone is carving out exceptions to WP:V, in fact there is wide agreement here that reliable sources exist that satisfy WP:V.  The nature of your argument also agrees that reliable sources exist suitable for a merge target.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:35, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
    • Satisfying WP:V doesn't mean it satisfies WP:N (and BTW, the nutshell part of WP:N is essentially the same as WP:42). pbp 03:41, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

• Delete. After reviewing the sources, this doesn't pass GNG or any other notability criteria. WP:ITSIMPORTANT is an argument to avoid unless you can relate why it's useful to relevant policies and guidelines. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 05:09, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

• • If we are going to go ALLCAPS about guidelines, then let's look at WP:IGNORINGATD, then. It states, in short: "The fact that a topic is not notable is not, alone and in of itself, a valid grounds for deleting a page, its content, or its page history. It is at most an argument for merger and/or redirection. To validly argue for deletion, editors need to additionally advance separate arguments against both merger and redirection, on relevant grounds... Since any verifiable topic/content can in principle be redirected/merged to an article on a broader topic, this should be exceptionally difficult." Perhaps Johnpacklambert could start a List of people with this status, spinning out the better-known ones into separate articles. That said, given that we keep articles on every contestant in Miss Universe, seems to me we have some screamingly inconsistent standards here. Also note WP:BASIC: "If the depth of coverage in any given source is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability." Montanabw^(talk) 07:27, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

• • • Where do I sign up for reviewing AfDs on Miss Universe contestants? :-) K.e.coffman (talk) 07:32, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

• • • • they do show up at Wikipedia:WikiProject Women/Article alerts (along with scientists and CEOs, but most of the porn star articles wind up kept. Sigh...) Montanabw^(talk) 07:41, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
    • You're quoting an essay, not a guideline. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 07:47, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
      • As was I, to be fair. I have no quarrel against a merge or redirect if someone proposes one. None have been proposed and I can't think of a valid target. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 07:51, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
    • @Montanabw: You're again delving into the realm of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. You think that because WP has articles on cheesy celebrities like the Kardashians or Miss Universe contestants, we must have an article about each Mormon authority. You're continually missing the point: this article can't be sourced from non-Mormon sources, and policy says it needs to be. pbp 13:28, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
• Keep barely passes WP:GNG--TM 13:53, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
  • @Namiba: why do you say it passes GNG, even barely? There is not a single independent source. The article is sourced entirely to emanations of the Mormon Church: its private university, its newspaper, and its in-house magazines. -BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:14, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
    • I think the combination of his position within the church and coverage in the BYU studies book is just barely enough to keep. I also suspect that, given his position there are offline sources that give more coverage that we do not yet have access to.--TM 13:24, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
      • @Namiba: As noted elsewhere, the book is not independent. It was published a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Mormon church and as pbp notes below, it was "co-authored by a former assistant historian of the Church of Latter Day Saints. The project was started by the Mormons as a fulfillment of the biblical prophecy of Malachi that the hearts of the children would be turned to the fathers and the prophet Elijah would return".
        Obviously, offline sources can be evaluated if and when they are found. But until then, we have none, and should bear in mind the warning by the pro-keep User:Montanabw that The officials of the LDS Church are not apt to get a lot of widespread coverage outside of publications interested in the denomination. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:22, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
        • Would books about Massachusetts government not be considered independent if published by the University of Massachusetts Press? Afterall, that's a state-sponsored print house. I think what you're implicating is in fact heavily tinted by anti-Mormon bias. I am not ready to say that sources published by a certain press are automatically biased towards a certain subject.--TM 17:31, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
          • Ah, the old unevidenced bias allegation, a regular personal attack tactic of those without a viable substantive argument.
            The state of Massachusetts appoints the trustees of UMass, but the state of Massachusetts does not have a consistent or singular belief system. The political and other views of the state's rulers change periodically at elections. That is a severe contrast to BYU, which has always been owned by one body with a stable belief system, and where we actually have an article on the controversies around the university's restrictions on academic freedom: Academic freedom at Brigham Young University. Note that the American Association of University Professors has placed BYU on its censure list since 1998, having concluded that "that infringements on academic freedom [at BYU] are distressingly common and that the climate for academic freedom is distressingly poor"[1]. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:10, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
            • I quite agree. I'm skeptical of BYU's research and that of places like Bob Jones University more than I am of research out of other institutions. pbp 20:49, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
    • Comment To call "Hearts Turned to the Fathers: A History of the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1894-1994" a "Publication of the LDS' Church's private university" is just plain misrepresentative of it. It was published by BYU Studies Press, which is more or less a mid-history ancestor/descendant of BYU Press. This is run as an academic press, adhering to established standards of academic presses. The ownership issues should not be allowed to obscure these facts. The mention of Tenorio is significant enough to be included in the index, and shows that Tenorio in addition to later being a General Authority (one of the top leaders of the Church worldwide, who give talks to the Church worldwide, listened to worldwide and seen as normative to doctrine), was also the initial pioneer in the international expansion of some key components of LDS family history work and local control of such components, so much so that he is deemed worthy of mentioning in such a role. The people who wrote this book, James B. Allen, Jessie L. Embry and Kahlile B. Mehr are well recognized scholars, and to ignore their work as a reliable source just because of who published it is to unfairly block off many sources on Latter-day Saints because of the nature of publications on the subject.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:57, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
      • I can't find the actual reference to Tenorio online (except that he's indexed for only a single page, which does question the depth of his coverage in the book), but let me read you the epigraph: "co-authored by a former assistant historian of the Church of Latter Day Saints. The project was started by the Mormons as a fulfillment of the biblical prophecy of Malachi that the hearts of the children would be turned to the fathers and the prophet Elijah would return". The epigraph screams, "connected with the LDS Church"; I don't really know how it could scream it any louder. If Tenorio was as dang significant as you seem to make him out to be, @Johnpacklambert:, why can't you find anything about him that isn't connected to the LDS Church in some way? pbp 22:17, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
• Comment I have been, in anclear roundabout way, told I should have made my role in the creation of this article more clear. I created this article, and am probably responsible for close to 75% of the article text, the history of editing is hard to assess, but much of what I didn't do was adding categories and info boxes.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:19, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

• Comment: The applicability of WP:N is simple: either there is enough third-party coverage or there is not. Here we have no "self-published" sources, so that's a plus, the sources we have are not paid-PR sources either, so that's a plus. He didn't pay someone to write the article as a puff piece, so that's a plus. The sources are independent of the subject and reliable. Just because they are affiliated with his faith does not mean they fail WP:N -- there are Catholic publications about notable Catholics, Jewish publications about notable Jews, and so on. This has nothing to do with the tenets of the Mormon church and nothing to do with whether we agree with these tenets or not (and, FWIW, I don't. I'm not LDS, nor am I a conservative fundamentalist sort. I've mentioned elsewhere that I'm a not-very-active Methodist with fairly liberal theological beliefs, ). The question is if a leader within the Mormon church, at this level is either a) inherently notable because he holds an inherently notable position, or b) the position might not be inherently notable, but this guy is more notable than most of the other folks who are similarly-situated. The fact that he is primarily covered in the "specialty press" does not defeat notability, otherwise we couldn't have an article on Bodacious (bull) because the primary coverage he got was in the rodeo press. Montanabw^(talk) 20:49, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
  • There's quite a large gap between specialty press and a publication owned by the subject's employer. If the bull's owner also owned a newspaper and that newspaper published an article on Bodacious, I would similarly advocate deletion in the absence of better sources. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 21:03, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
    • @BU Rob13: Thanks for noting that distinction. For whatever reason, Montanabw has engaged in a lot of attempted obfuscation in the course of this discussion. The latest round is this attempt to blur the focus by:

1. cheering the fact that "the sources we have are not paid-PR sources". Yet another straw man, 'cos nobody else raised any suggestion that they are paid-PR.
2. labelling these sources as "speciality press", whereas Montanabw knows perfectly well that the objection is to the fact that this is the wholly-owned press, which explicitly pledges its allegiance to Mormon values.

Mbw also asks if Tenorio is a) inherently notable because he holds an inherently notable position, or b) the position might not be inherently notable, but this guy is more notable than most of the other folks who are similarly-situated, but neither question has any basis in policy. WP:N does not label any position as "inherently notable". and it does not apply some sort of comparative test. It's a huge timewaster to have a discussion such as this bombarded by an editor who has either not read the policy, or is just making stuff up.

This smokescreening by straw man and red herring is very mischievous, and surprisingly persistent. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:40, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

• • Sigh. JPL please please please please please desist from cluttering up this discussion with more comments until you have read WP:GNG. The issue here is not whether these are reliable sources. The question is whether these sources are independent of the subject ... and the evidence is that they are not. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:12, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
  • JPL, any editor is quite entitled to offer a reasoned critique of the independence of a source without being subject to an unfounded accusation of religious bigotry. Please withdraw that allegation, promptly. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:36, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
    • • JPL, any editor is entitled to query any source, and query the independence of any institution, without facing an unevidenced allegation of bigotry. If you checked your facts, you would see that I did not mention that other university. This is my last request. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:46, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

• A much fairer comparison would by of BYU to the Catholic University of America. I doubt that comparison will change anyone's mind about the BYU Studies published source, but it might.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:43, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
• Comment  I have attempted to engage BHG in a discussion of independence in journalism ethics and been unable to do so.  The last reply to me was a 2500 character response with words such as "bizarre".  The response also contained a lengthy analysis of words attributed to me that I never said (search for "tabloid").  The bottom line is that there is no evidence that Deseret News and LDS Church News practice substandard journalism ethics.  Unscintillating (talk) 04:49, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
  • @Unscintillating: (and @Johnpacklambert: and @Montanabw:): Being independent and being ethical are two different things. I think that was the whole point of BHG's comments above. Also, in one of his (now-removed) comments, JPL claimed that BHG and I were calling for removal of all Mormon sources. What we are calling for is for articles on Mormon topics to contain both Mormon and non-Mormon sources. pbp 05:04, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
    • Thank you, pbp. You are of course correct that the whole point of my comments above was that these wholly-owned subsiduaries of the Mormon Church are not independent of a senior officer of that church.
      I have spelled that out in simple, direct terms to Unscintillating, Johnpacklambert and Montanabw so many times that it should be very clear by now.
      The point is simply that notability requires independent sources. It is not enough for the sources to be reliable; that too is a requirement for notability, but for notability to be established it is q requirement that the topic gets substantial coverage in a reliable source which is not part of their own team.
      The writing concerned may be honest and truthful, but the GNG test of notability is not met if it is not independent. What part of that is hard for Unscintillating, Johnpacklambert and Montanabw to understand? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:35, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
  • In reply to my comment, two editors with a combined edit count of 37 on this one page have added 1,897 characters; but I don't yet see a discussion about independence in journalism ethics.  Unscintillating (talk) 23:53, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
    • You must've missed what I've said above at least once: independence and ethics are two different things. Nobody here's saying that Deseret News is unethical. All we're saying is that it's not independent. And BHG has provided ample evidence of why Deseret News isn't independent. pbp 00:13, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
      • • So if they are not unethical, then they practice independence in their journalism ethics.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:35, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
      • This discussion is about notability, which in this case hinges on the independence of the sources. The repeated efforts of Unscintillating to sidetrack the discussion off into the red herring of journalistic ethics are starting to look some sort of disruption tactic. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:55, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
• Delete, bottom line of the extensive discussion above is that publications owned by an organization cold not be considered independent, third-part sources when they cover members of the same organization, and do not count towards GNG. In case of LSD, I personally take their reliability too with a grain of salt. Sentences such as "Elder Octaviano Tenorio Domínguez knows that receiving the ordinances of the temple changes lives. It’s changed his, and he’s been in positions to see it change others’. “Stay close to the temple,” he urges." or "Doing well in his job in the publishing industry, he was not sure about taking the new position. But following a series of inspired events, he realized it was a job he was supposed to take." (excerpts from the Liahona profile, the main referencence of the article [2]) are hardly examples of independent journalism. Also, in this case even such coverage appears scarce, and routinely. If Tenorio's figure and position were really important, it would not be difficult to find genuine third-part sources about him. I would support a redirect if there was an appropriate target. Cavarrone 08:26, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment The "specialty publication" argument is a particularly weak one, that would be like saying that Variety is not an RS for information about movie stars or we can't use an article from Dog Fancy about the winner of the Westminster Dog Show. The definition of "independent" is "independent of the subject." Here, Mr. Tenorio clearly does not own the Mormon Church or the Deseret News. The Salt Lake Tribune is completely independent, and is support for the other sources. Keep in mind that WP:N, the policy here, is very simple and here is met. There is a presumption of notability and the burden is upon AfD to prove that the subject is not notable. That burden has not been met. The material is reliable and independent of the subject. Montanabw^(talk) 17:22, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
    • You just fail to take the point, I never used a "specialty publication" argument, I am absolutely fine with specialty publications. Variety is NOT owned by a Hollywood studio, it is owned by Penske Media Corporation, hence it is independent from the film producers/distributors/etc. of the films they review. If Variety was owned by Warner Bros., it would be certainly considered not independent, particularly when reviewing films produced by Warner Bros. Deseret News, Liahona and other BYU publications are OWNED by the Church, and their articles about LDS personalities most of the times read like press releases. My argument is about their lack of independence, lack of neutrality, lack of criticism, no neutral point of view, obvious conflicts of interests, and bottom line, questionable reliability. They are not "independent of the subject", the actual subject being LDS Church. Notability could not be established on "articles" such as this one. And about the Salt Lake Tribune article, it is a trivial mention in an article about a scandal involving Tenorio's brother, as said above multiple times it is not significant coverage by a country mile. Cavarrone 19:28, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
      • Note that Montanabw raised the "specialty publication" red herring before in this discussion, and was refuted by BU Rob13 and by me, in much the same terms as Cavarrone. Monatanabw replied to neither me nor User:BU Rob13.
        It is disappointing to see Montanabw continue to trot out the same red herring again. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:02, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
        • PS OoopS! I missed another red herring: Montanabw's claim that There is a presumption of notability and the burden is upon AfD to prove that the subject is not notable. This is just one of many blatant misrepresentations that Montanabw has introduced into the discussion. WP:N actually says A topic is presumed to merit an article if: 1) It meets either the general notability guideline below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline listed in the box on the right; and 2) It is not excluded under the What Wikipedia is not policy.
          In other words, notability requires that both those conditions are met ... and the word "presumed" is used there because in some instances, even those two conditions are insufficient. It does not mean, as Montanabw falsely claims, that an AFD discussion must somehow "disprove" notability. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:27, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
          • (edit conflict)Articles are created with an assumption of good faith.  Unscintillating (talk) 00:49, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

• • Comment: Please remember WP:AGF. My arguments are cogent and have not been refuted by IDONTLIKEIT misunderstanding of GNG. Fox News is "biased," The Nation is "biased," yet routinely used as a RS, and so on. Any of these arguments go to the weight, not the admissibility of the evidence of notability. An LDS publication is no more "biased" than a right-wing or left-wing political publication, or a publication by any faith-based group. (all that said, I also find it fascinating that I am defending an AfD by someone who is typically a very strong (over 90% !vote) deletionist, and so I do think that Johnpacklambert needs to stop by and put at least as much energy into this as I am). Montanabw^(talk) 23:38, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

You've drawn a poor analogy. Here's a better one: The problems Deseret News has from being the primary basis for this article are the problems we would have if The Nation was the sole source for E. L. Godkin or Carey McWilliams's Wikipedia articles. pbp 03:41, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)Comment from WP:Assume good faith:

“ Assuming good faith (AGF) is a fundamental principle on Wikipedia. ”

Posted by Unscintillating (talk) 00:49, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

• Reply @Unscintillating and Montanabw: please read WP:AGF before making a vague wave at it. In particular note the 5th sentence of para 1: the guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of obvious evidence to the contrary.

In this case, the evidence to the contrary includes repeated misrepresentation of other editors, and repeated misrepresentations of policy. (I'll diff-farm if we get to a drama-board, but it's all visible above).

In a message on my talk page[3], Montanabw has explained that their motives for supporting this article are a) concern that Mormons are discriminated against in the real world; b) that Wikipedia is systemically biased in favour of some topics such as sport and porn, and that Mormons deserve the same generosity.

Whatever the philosophical merits of those assertions, neither of those arguments is based in policy which Montanabw has cited: WP:N. Instead of making an open and honest argument for either a policy change, or for a relaxation in the case of this article, Montanabw has thrown up a smokescreen of misrepresentations. As I noted in a length reply on my talk page[4], Montanabw's approach to this discussion has been fundamentally dishonest, and a clear breach of WP:DGF. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:10, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

WOW. I don't know why you have only responded here after my last set of comments at your talk page, but I am going to insist upon an apology once again. I am expressing my sincerely held opinion here and you need to knock it off with these accusations of bad faith and nefarious motives. Montanabw^(talk) 10:29, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

@Montanabw:, I made a brief reply while taking time between other activities to write a long reply on my talk, which is not yet finished. You can insist all you like on whatever you like, but my summary reply will remain: WP:DGF. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:28, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

• Merge and redirect to List of general authorities of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; that list article could and should contain more information on all the General Authorities. It is almost a WP:BIO1E. Similarly for most of the others. Thorough in-house coverage of the people in the church belongs somewhere such as http://tech.lds.org , but not here. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:45, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
  • A redirect would at least preserve the article history should the position of people change. Redlinks just beg for being recreated. Montanabw^(talk) 10:29, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
• Comment, Wow!, as a young WP:wikicat, it has been fascinating to follow this epic battle ahem, discussion(over 7thousand words!:)) between such experienced wikieditors. Coolabahapple (talk) 15:36, 15 July 2016 (UTC)