Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Edwards paternity allegations

John Edwards paternity allegations

John Edwards paternity allegations (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

This article was allegedly created as a content and POV fork of John Edwards, related to a recent controversy in which it has been claimed that he fathered a love child. The article was speedily deleted, but related discussion here seems to be against the idea of the speedy deletion; I myself agree, especially (as was noted in the ANI discussion) because a speedy tag was removed before the article was speedied. Personally, I believe that the article is giving undue weight to the subject, and therefore deserves deletion; I have recreated it just now simply because I believe it deserves a discussion here at AFD. Nyttend (talk) 15:36, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

• Delete, WP NOT journalism, BLP-attack, POV fork because the original content placed in the Edwards article was removed per COATRACK. KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:37, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

  Hi, KC - could you cite an example of POV in the article, or of a BLP attack? Kelly ^hi! 15:44, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

  Yes, give me a few minutes pls, I want to try to be clear. KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:48, 5 August 2008 (UTC) EDITED to add will be a little longer, apologies, I will be away from the computer for a bit. KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:52, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

  (ec)Please assume good faith on the part of the author. This article was created because of claims of WP:UNDUE, not to generate a POV fork nor to create a COATRACK. Let's please argue the merits of the material rather than make assertions regarding motives. Ronnotel (talk) 15:46, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

  I am assuming good faith on the part of the author. Her intentions (and hard work) and not in dispute - the result (ie; the article) is in dispute. KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:48, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

• Comment - I will be back a little later to comment more fully, but in the meantime I ask commenters to read the comments at WP:ANI here, particularly the ones at the end by Noroton, DGG, and GRBerry. The article is not intended to be a fork, but one covering the media controversy. Kelly ^hi! 15:44, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
• Delete = POV fork, vandalism/trolling trap, undue weight to a monor event, attack bio, Wikipedia is not a news source, lack of decent sources... O the list goes on. Bearian (talk) 15:57, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Hi, Bearian - do you have any examples? I'm particularly unsure of the "lack of decent sources" claim, I tried hard to provide a lot of high-quality sources. Kelly ^hi! 16:21, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Responding to each policy objection:
    • POV fork -- If it would be a WP:COATRACK problem to be included in the John Edwards article, it can't simultaneously be a POV fork. The media coverage itself is an important element of this article (from what we know at present, I think it should be the major focus). You can't fit that in the John Edwards article and this is very obviously encyclopedic content which deserves to be in Wikipedia.
    • vandalism/trolling trap -- You can say that about all of our articles, and we certainly have plenty on controversial subjects. (This is actually not a policy objection, but it's a legitimate concern to bring up.)
    • undue weight to a monor event -- Others have brought this up, too. WP:UNDUE deals only with presenting "aspects" or "points of view" within an article. So UNDUE can't be a deletion issue, only an editing issue.
    • attack bio -- I think this is the strongest objection. The news organizations that have covered this and that are cited in the article are, overwhelmingly, not attacking Edwards, and the article presents information from them in a WP:NPOV way. John Edwards is a WP:WELLKNOWN person. This article was written after extensive discussions on the Talk:John Edwards page about whether it was proper to include the allegation in Wikipedia, and the consensus of a large number of editors was to include it (see Talk:John Edwards#Request for comments on alternatives). The additional details in this article don't seem to make our coverage of the allegation any more of a potential attack than that sentence would be. I think this is the strongest objection because there's a case to be made that it doesn't meet WP:WELLKNOWN, which insists on reliable sources. The National Enquirer (NE) typically isn't considered an RS. On the other hand, NE has actually been a reliable source in the past, and the recent hotel incident seems to be what put this over the top (the paternity allegation had been first reported by NE quite a while ago). The many news organizations that have reported on the NE report, at some point, disolved reliable sourcing objections, especially when we look at news media coverage as part of the subject. Since this is a bit complicated and nothing in the language of WP:BLP is absolutely decisive here, look at the spirit. The spirit of WP:BLP involves trying not to harm a subject (although unless more important considerations may take precedence, as with WP:WELLKNOWN), not putting Wikipedia into legal liability and not harming the reputation of Wikipedia. The last two simply don't apply, and the first depends on how we cover this, not whether we do.
    • Wikipedia is not a news source -- Wikipedia covers things like this, as many, many AfDs have shown. Looking at the media coverage of a situation like this is useful when the next one comes up, just as looking at the information Wikipedia has on similar, past situations is helpful in understanding this one, so this is not an article of only passing interest, which we already know by now becuse of the media-coverage information that has already come up (I go into this in more detail at the 22:08, 5 August post, below).
    • lack of decent sources -- The footnotes disagree with you. They include the most "decent" news-organization sources that exist (also see "attack bio" item above).

-- Noroton (talk) 01:57, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

• Keep An important story about a very prominant politician. More reasons why this is news can be found here: http://www.slate.com/id/2196758/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.136.25.72 (talk) 16:08, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
  • This previous comment supports the idea of coverage of this topic in Wikinews. I point out however, that this is Wikipedia, and in itself this argument has no weight towards the inclusion of the article here. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 16:47, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
• Comment - obviously, as the author, I'm saying keep. I think people have got it into their heads that this article is somehow trying to say the allegations are true. The article in no way presents the allegations as fact. (sorry for the bolding, I just wanted to make that clear for people who are saying "attack"). Some reasoning follows:

1. The article was written in response to concerns at the John Edwards article that to include details about media coverage of the controversy was a WP:COATRACK problem. The article is intended to discuss the allegations themselves, and an important controversy in journalism that has received/is receiving widespread coverage. A similar article to this would be John McCain lobbyist controversy, February 2008.
2. Yes, there are blog references, but they are only intended to apply to a discussion of blog coverage of the allegations (similar situations exist at Killian documents or Jamil Hussein controversy). Any controversial facts are referenced to the mainstream press - please look at the sources. Where less-than-stellar sources are used (i.e. the Enquirer or blogs), it is only to reference claims made or opinions given by those sources in the context of discussing the media coverage of the event.
3. If there are concerns about undue weight or neutral point of view, could someone please be specific about those? I honestly have worked very hard to comply with all policies and have looked at all of the similar articles I could find to ensure I was meeting Wikipedia guidelines and community norms.
4. There are two ways for Wikipedia to handle our coverage of this type of situation/controversial event - either close our eyes to the event, while numerous POV-pushers show up here to stir up drama about it on- and off-wiki, or to get ahead of the power curve, write a neutral, reliably sourced article about the event, and defend it against POV-pushers. I have no doubt the information will wind up in the encyclopedia in some form; obviously I think it's better if responsible editors control the form that information will take. I am trying to get in front of the issue and would appreciate any help or contructive feedback that anyone wishes to provide.

With respect to all - Kelly ^hi! 16:37, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

• While I commend the main writer for the effort to document sources and then write quite an extensive article with neutral (at least at a sentence by sentence level) tone, the article is in some sense a victim of its own success in that it is an extraordinarily long article on what is essentially gossip and discussion of said gossip. As such its very size alone violates WP:UNDUE, thus reducing the article to a POV fork of the main subject. Per this and additionally BLP considerations, it is, at least, imperative for this material to be greatly condensed and most if not all of the material sourced only to blogs not up to RS standards for BLP articles removed. Some could argue then this is only an editorial issue. However, the main article covers this issue in a plausibly reasonable way already. I would argue then that it still is a fork; even if neutral and well sourced it would then be redundant. Further, such an article would be intrinsically difficult to maintain (someone might keep adding "at his two public appearances today, Edwards refused again to discuss the allegations"; even if well sourced, this is a clear disservice to the project). I thus propose the project is clearly best served by deleting this article (with the caveat mentioned below) and any editorial effort put into updating in a prudent way the content in the Edwards article regarding the topic. I note that this article's main author was one of the main forces to get good, balanced coverage of this topic into the main Edwards article. Her efforts, if she desires, towards my suggestion would be much appreciated as the main article's talk is starting to percolate more fervently with editors misinformed (at best) about our policies.
  Additional comment/caveat to the closer: it is very possible that during the running of this AfD, reliable sources will greatly increase the encyclopedic nature of this article's topic, to the point of early comments becoming out of date. While that is always the case, when tiptoing close to the line between Wikipedia and Wikinews it is all the more important to keep in mind. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 16:38, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
  • In regards to article length, the model I used was John McCain lobbyist controversy, February 2008 - I think this article is actually somewhat shorter. Is the McCain article too long? I really don't know. That said, this article could probably use some condensing, particularly in the blog/pundit coverage paragraph - I don't read many blogs and am not a good judge of their notability...I used Wikipedia articles to get a sense for that. Feedback on my editorial judgment welcome. :) Kelly ^hi! 16:54, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
• Keep The article documents a ongoing controversy of importance to the political career of a major public figure; this controversy has received significant coverage in reliable sources. The article is written in a straightforward and relatively unbiased fashion; a content fork in order to expand in detail on a substantive topic is legitimate. There may be too much narration and not enough reflection, but that is a fault of style, not of substance, and certainly not a reason for deletion. Quibbling with BLP issues on particular points of the article are a reason to edit it, not delete it. At this point, the Edwards controversy has received at least as prominent a degree of coverage as the McCain lobbyist controversy, and deserves an article of its own. RayAYang (talk) 17:09, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. The story is pertinent to the Vice Presidential selection process for the Democratic party. Further, the incident is demonstrating relevant differences between traditional media coverage and new media coverage of an important public figure. Lockesteps (talk) 17:13, 5 August 2008 (UTC)Lockesteps
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. -- RayAYang (talk) 17:13, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of News-related deletion discussions. -- RayAYang (talk) 17:14, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
• Delete Wikipedia is not a news source and not a courtroom. Reporting on this only serves to boost the Enquirer's circulation. None of the Enquirer's allegations have been corroborated by any reputable news source and this article is a biased, weighted, POV coatrack. Non-related events and facts are strung together in a manner designed to implicate and cause harm. Until there is any corroboration, proof, statement, or fact then there is nothing to report. Macduff (talk) 17:42, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

  The sources listed in the article specify corraboration and reporting by reputable news sources. Can you cite an example of bias in the article? I would be happy to fix it. Kelly ^hi! 17:53, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

  I won't speak for the OP, but there is a whole section of material much of which is from the National Enquirer. That is not a good thing in an article like this (indeed any article, but especially this). Where reliable sources discuss the allegations, it might be OK to use content from those sources, even to the point of them reporting that the Enquirer said this or that. But it needs to be another reliable source doing so, not the Enquirer itself. The same for blogs: for an article like this, we cannot use most blogs as sources, even for verification of what they themselves said (although in that case only, there may be somewhat more latitude to use them; and many not even for that). A reliable source's coverage of what's happening in blogs might or might not be reasonable, subject to editorial discretion. But to have large swaths of the article devoted to allegations and/or commentary sourced to blogs and unreliable sources is simply a Bad Thing: it is a recipe for bias if only because it provides a mouthpiece for an unreliable source, even if that source's content was accurately transcribed. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 18:55, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

  Hmmm - in most cases, the fact that the Enquirer published something is also mentioned in the mainstream news, particularly the longer pieces by The Times, Fox News, McClatchy Newspapers, or WCNC-TV, and can possibly be resourced. But are you saying it's unacceptable to source a sentence in the article that says "The Daily Newspaper published this claim" with a link to the Daily Newspaper article itself? That seems odd, I have never heard that interpretation. I do understand that a lot of people have an almost visceral reaction to seeing a National Enquirer link in a Wikipedia article, but they are only ever used in this article to source the paper made a particular claim, not for any assertions of fact. The context is one of history of media coverage of the allegations, not the accuracy of the allegations themselves, which is still a question. Kelly ^hi! 19:18, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

  In a BLP-relevant article, if there is any remotely reasonable way of avoiding sourcing an unreliable claim to its (unreliable) source, yes it shouldn't be done. If such content belongs at all in such an article, it will be necessarily (but not sufficiently) because a reliable source reported on that very content. If those other (more reliable) sources that you mention (for instance) report on content, then that reporting becomes reasonable, again subject to editorial discretion (read: NPOV and its children; UNDUE etc). But at that point, linking to the original NE source does nothing to enhance the article. In some cases it might be plausible to add such a link to the External Links section, but in a case like this that should be done with extreme care. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 19:39, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

  I understand your point, though I guess we have to agree to disagree on the specifics. I think your policy makes sense for a biography, but not for the history of a media story. But the question is probably better discussed on the article talk page, as opposed to here. Kelly ^hi! 19:46, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

  OK . Kudos to your levelheadednesss in this and related discussions. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 19:58, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

• With GRBerry's kind permission, I am quoting his earlier post to WP:ANI below:

A little thought experiment - let us pretend that we are looking back from 25 years later and everyone agrees that this marked the end of Edward's political career. How much material would belong in the John Edwards article in those circumstances? Probably no more than one or two paragraphs, because what he actually did during his career would need to be covered also, and we wouldn't want to unbalance the main biography. Additional coverage about the mess would belong in a sub article. This projection is comparable to how the Lewinsky scandal is handled in Bill Clinton. If no matter how important this becomes, we wouldn't put significantly more in John Edwards than was already there when Kelly wrote this page, than the issues we need to handle definitely do not include it being a POV fork. As one of the admins who is monitoring John Edwards (and the latest to use my tools on the main biography), I'm reasonably well aware of the consensus there (which continues to shift to fine tune the paragraph as more sources become available - just as it should). I'm also highly aware that new editors will probably be back in a couple days (when the current protection period ends) trying to get more material added. Kelly was attempting to get ahead of that forthcoming problem and wrote an article that if it had a POV problem was only going to far towards "this story matters". (I.e., it was neither an attack page nor unsourced, though bits might have needed to be edited to be more succinct.) Kelly definitely does not deserve any opprobium for his/her writing this article.

As to whether or not now is the time for this article, I've long been an occasional advocate for taking WP:NOT#NEWS a lot more seriously than we do. (I think if someone were to propose adding that to the policy now the community would reject it, because the evidence is that the community largely ignores it and writes articles whenever a major news story occurs.) So I'd be happier if we now had a Wikinews article, and waited a while before we started a Wikipedia article, possibly just keeping a soft-redirect to wikinews at a reasonable title. Assuming this doesn't linger on - and it might, depending on whether or not any of the mainstream news sources decided to do investigative journalism the way they did years ago and what such hypothetical investigations might find - then in a few months we'll be able to have better encyclopedic perspective. I refuse to predict whether the main story will be about how the media and blogosphere handled this, the substance of the allegations, or something else we have yet to identify. And until we know the main storyline, we are just to close to the event to know how to handle it. So my preferred outcome would be to have a wikinews article instead, and adopt a temporary policy of just waiting a few months here. But if this comes to DRV for a straight up/down decision, I'll have to opine based on those two options. GRBerry 02:58, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

End quote... Kelly ^hi! 17:53, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

• Weak Keep—So, while considering what to say about this I wondered how similar past situations have been handled by WP and wandered over to Gary Hart. The Donna Rice "situation" gets a 4 paragraph subsection. I had forgotten that the Hart/Rice photos were also published by the Enquirer, an uncanny resemblance to the current situation. I think that this topic deserves coverage in Wikipedia, but I personally think that it should be included in the main Edwards article, not in its own article. However, since the consensus of editors there seems to be to exclude any mention of this until it is picked up by the likes of the Miami Herald, I suppose my only possible reaction is to keep it, though I really wish it could be merged back in to the Edwards article, hence my "weak"ness. Livitup (talk) 19:29, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the consensus on the Edwards article is (and has been for a few days now) to have a paragraph on the topic. So in some sense the merge you wish for already exists. I would imagine this might further weaken your keep rationale, but allow you to elaborate as you see fit. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 19:48, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Just a minor correction - the only consensus there is to have a couple of sentences on the allegations' impact on his VP changes. There is a consensus against including any other details of the controversy. Kelly ^hi! 21:40, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

• Keep: Although Wikipedia is not a news source, the initial allegations were made almost a year ago. How much time needs to pass before Wikipedia covers it? Given the quality of the article (notice how few specific complaints about it are made above?), the article should be kept. I also agree with the reasoning of RayAYang above. Although the article is by no means perfect, that is a reason for editing, not deletion. It also seems to be the clear (and reasonable) consensus at John Edwards that very little space there should be devoted to this topic. That's fine but also another reason why a separate article is needed. David.Kane (talk) 19:36, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
• Keep While some of the sourcing in this article is subpar, a lot of the sources are reliable. The topic is, therefore, clearly notable and belongs in this encyclopedia. There is currently enough content on this subject to justify its own article, so "keep" is preferable to "merge/redirect to John Edwards". Ice Cold Beer (talk) 19:58, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
• delete blp this is not a 'fact' nor 'knowledge' it is media speculation still about a living person. --Buridan (talk) 20:10, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
• Keep notable, decent sources, any problems with the article can be fixed by contructive editing. Arkon (talk) 21:01, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
• Keep although at this point, when the allegation itself has shaky sourcing to the National Enquirer (and only sourcing of part of the allegation to Fox News), the focus should be on the overall media coverage, with the allegation as background (and therefore worth giving fewer details per WP:UNDUE). But the shape of the article is not an AfD decision: AfD is about whether there is a subject we can know is worth an article. There is just no way that the subject of the tortured, complex media coverage of this allegation is not a worthwhile subject for this encyclopedia. I'm not just talking about the NE and Fox coverage, but even the coverage of decisions by news organizations not to cover the allegations. There are plenty of sources that have discussed these decisions. Note the long section on media coverage at John McCain lobbyist controversy, February 2008. That section is encyclopedicly useful to readers interested in the media coverage of this issue. Above (timestamp 19:29), User:Livitup used the "Donna Rice affair" section of the Gary Hart article to see how we cover that. He found information worth considering in thinking about the media coverage here. In other words, Livitup used the encyclopedia as an encyclopedia and that editor could do so because we covered the subject as an encyclopedia of our size should. This is what we do.

And you can't have an article on the media coverage if you don't say what the coverage is about. You also can't fit an article (or even a long section) on the media coverage into the overall John Edwards article.

Editors have already decided by consensus at John Edwards that the allegation itself is OK to mention essentially because there's enough media coverage surrounding the Enquirer's stories. That decision got the camel's nose in the tent and when you let the nose in, you can't stop the rest of the animal from coming in -- this article is the whole camel. This is -- and should be -- an uncomfortable, extremely sensitive subject. Edwards has a wife and children, and, as our article says, at least one newspaper columnist thinks Wikipedia coverage itself may have an effect on news organizations decisions to give this more publicity. Edwards is also a WP:WELLKNOWN person under consideration for vice president or possibly a cabinet position if Obama wins, and that also tends to make this subject encyclopedic because it affects those hiring decisions. It's worth noting Wikipedia's standard practice of having articles on controversies, political and not: see Category:Controversies and Category:Political controversies (and including what are usually referred to as "scandals" and "affairs" -- see Wikipedia:Words to avoid#Scandal, affair)-- Noroton (talk) 22:08, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

• Keep I was on the fence about this. I can certainly support removal of many of the blog refs. However Noroton's arguments about the need for encyclopedic material push me into the Keep camp. Ronnotel (talk) 22:24, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. cf John McCain lobbyist controversy, February 2008,Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal, Mark Foley scandal, ad nauseum. It's interesting that an attempt to redirect Rielle Hunter to this article was rejected, yet Vicki Iseman still has an article about her, along with the mentions in John McCain lobbyist controversy, February 2008, John McCain presidential campaign, 2008, and John Weaver (political consultant). Horologium (talk) 23:32, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
• Comment The McCain Lobbyist controversy, the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and the Gary Hart/Monkey Business scandal were all reported and confirmed in reputable news sources. The John Edwards paternity allegation has only been reported in the National Enquirer, a non-reputable source. I don't think a fair comparison can be made. Macduff (talk) 23:48, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Actually, if you take a look at the sources, the allegations have been reported on by numerous mainstream sources, including The Times, Der Spiegel, McClatchy News, and multiple American major metropolitan newspapers, as well as Business Week and US News & World Report, among others. Kelly ^hi! 00:08, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
• Keep This easily passes the notability test. These allegations have apparently derailed the political career of one of the most visible politicians of this decade. Prior to the allegations there was talk of Vice President or Attorney General. Now that the allegations have been aired by the mainstream media, talk has shifted to the death of his political career. 69.204.74.75 (talk) 01:08, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
• Keep To summarize what I said at AN/I referred to above, Quite independent of Edwards, the subject is an important controversy in journalism that we cannot avoid covering. Either as a possibly unique example of the prototypical US tabloid -- actually publishing against opposition something of national political importance or a spectacular example of how that journal's incompetent/biased journalism , was adopted not just by political opportunists, but the London Times, publishing on the authority of the Enquirer. We will have to cover this separately form our coverage of Edwards. I would leave Edward's name out of the title (as it reads, either he made allegations about someone's paternity or someone made allegations about his.) I think the version of the article is acceptable, describing what the E, the LA T, and the T have published, and the major blogs; some details of the accusations are necessary to set the context, because their (im)plausibility is a major part of the charges against the Enguirer et al. As for its role in his bio, we should wait and see. I'm not worried about harm--quite the opposite--there has been so much malicious nonsense published elsewhere that a sober article here would help decrease its effect. DGG (talk) 02:40, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
• Comment on blog references - some of the blog sources I used were to bring balance to arguments from the "other side" in this dispute. A couple of examples that come to mind...the woman in question, and the claimed father, issued their denials to MyDD, not normally considered a reliable source. But I don't want to simply mention the allegations (which were reported by mainstream sources) without also mentioning the denials. Another instance is the LA Times blog "gag order" which was covered in the mainstream press - the LA Times editor in question responded and defended himself in a blog interview. Drafting this article has been a lesson to me on how the line is fraying between print and online journalism. But surely consensus on this can be found by editors of the article. Kelly ^hi! 03:09, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

• Keep. Normally I wouldn't like to keep an article like this, but reading through it and the references, it does pass the notability test - this story, and more importantly how the media has (or hasn't) covered it, has been the subject of attention from multiple reliable sources over an extended period of time. There are nonetheless BLP issues involved - in particular, I'm concerned that the length of the page may give undue weight to what is arguably a fairly minor event in Edwards' life. It would be better if it were cut down, and/or merged into the John Edwards page, similar to how the Donna Rice scandal is covered in Gary Hart. However, whether this is merged or not, I'm convinced that the subject of the article is notable and the content belongs on Wikipedia. Terraxos (talk) 03:23, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
• Delete and salt until people come to their senses and more perspective is available: This is exactly the sort of circumstance that WP:BLP is designed to prevent. "Editors should avoid repeating gossip. Ask yourself whether the source is reliable; whether the material is being presented as true; and whether, even if true, it is relevant to an encyclopedia article about the subject. If the original publication doesn't believe its own story, why should we?" The "mainstream" coverage is not presenting this material as true, and even if true, its relevance is entirely unclear at this early juncture. Being "conservative" in the BLP sense means waiting to find out whether this incident has any real impact on Edwards' career before expounding on it at length in a content fork. Not everything that's mentioned in a newspaper automatically belongs here. And if you're citing a list of other examples that have been handled differently, most of you should know better than to expect consistency from Wikipedia. See WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. And to the liberal-bias bunch, I felt exactly the same way about Vicki Iseman's article and POV forks. Speaking of consistency, I hear a lot of complaining about Wikipedia's fast and loose way with BLP's, and yet some of the same voices are encouraging us to aggressively amplify a tabloid storyline in this particular case. Wikipedia is not a tabloid. Right now, this is a tabloid story. The third-party sources merely confirm the fact that yes, this is a tabloid story. MastCell ^Talk 05:10, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
  • this is a tabloid story There is a reason why this particular tabloid story and not others has received so much coverage in the rest of the press: It's more than a tabloid story even though it happens to have appeared first in a tabloid. It just isn't that cut and dried, and your comment ignores the reasons why. (a) The fact is that it becomes a serious matter when a potential vice presidential candidate and potential cabinet member gets into a mess like this; (b) it's only a mess now because 1. He was in that hotel at that time, as Fox News confirms; 2. He hasn't denied he was there when reporters have asked him; (c) it ain't hard to prove or disprove paternity these days; (d) if he did it and can't admit it, he can be blackmailed, probably not in this case, but, if he did have an affair, it shows poor judgment that could get him into similar situations -- a legitimate public concern; (d) The Enquirer has developed a track record for breaking a number of these stories, lending some credence to this; (e) you've ignored rather than addressed the main argument of the "Keep" side -- a significant part of the justification for this article is that it's subject is also the media coverage -- a solid subject for this encyclopedia. Even if the allegation is proven false, the media coverage is still a legitimate subject. Your objections were adequate for rejecting an article as the situation existed before the hotel incident, but not with the changed situation afterward. The fact that Wikipedia has a practice of creating and keeping these articles is an argument relying on outcomes (even though this kind of subject is not listed there) and an ongoing consensus (after many AfD discussions) that hasn't yet been reflected in policy, not WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. -- Noroton (talk) 07:07, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
• Delete Trying to circumvent WP:NPOV by the expedient of claiming to document the "allegations" is just bias by the backdoor. A sentence or two in John Edwards is the most that would be appropriate; the concept of undue weight still applies when a topic is spun out to a separate article - It's why we don't have George Bush incompetence allegations or Allegations that Barack Obama is unfit to be president. CIreland (talk) 05:41, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

  Please, CIreland - I am not trying to "defame" anyone. Is there something in particular in the article that you can state is POV? I will happily work to address your concerns. We do have an article called Criticism of George W. Bush - I'm not sure about Barack Obama equivalents. Kelly ^hi! 05:51, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

  That's an invalid comparison. We don't have an content fork entitled Allegations that George W. Bush has fallen off the wagon and is drinking again, even though the National Enquirer and its ilk routinely make that claim, and it has been repeated occasionally in more reputable sources. We should not have such an content fork, nor should we have this one. MastCell ^Talk 06:03, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

  Hmmm - I'm not aware of the George Bush drinking allegation spreading around the mainstream media like this allegation has - can you cite some examples? Kelly ^hi! 06:05, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

  My NPOV concerns are pretty simple - considering the totality of Wikipedia's coverage of John Edwards, we are giving undue weight to recent tabloid gossip. As for Criticism of George W. Bush and Movement to impeach George W. Bush they have issues of their own - related to the problem of articles dedicated to summarizing mainly negative commentary rather than the balance of commentary on a given topic. Do we give undue weight to negative commentary of George Bush? Absolutely - and that's bad. What's more we'll probably do it to the next US President, regardless of political colour. It doesn't excuse it in this case, especially when the particular issue has a personal as well as a political dimension. CIreland (talk) 06:13, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

  Ah, thanks - I understand where you're coming from now. I disagree but your point is a legitimate concern. I have one request - would you mind striking out the "defamation" thing above? I definitely do not like being tarred with that. With respect - Kelly ^hi! 06:16, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

  I removed defamation and replaced it with bias which probably more accurately expresses my concerns anyway. CIreland (talk) 06:28, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

  I think the fear of undue weight is a good reason to balance things within an article, but not a good reason to delete an alternative article. As I understand it, this article was created in part to avoid giving undue weight to these allegations within the article on John Edwards, while providing a good level of detail to those interested. It is the nature of Wikipedia that certain subjects will attract more editor attention than others, and to delete on those grounds would not help the project (to say nothing of the howls of Buffy fans as their collection of pages is pared down in proportion to the importance of World War II). RayAYang (talk) 07:05, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

• Keep Noteworthy due to Edwards being an important Democrat who may still run for President in 2012. Also, as an aside to CIreland, we do have a similar article to the "incompetence" article, the one about the movement of impeaching Bush (which moves like a snail).--King Bedford I ^{Seek his grace} 05:49, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. Frankly, the "tabloid" issue is a prejudice of exactly the sort to which Wikipedia ought to be a response: the degree to which this story is notable or important doesn't depend on whether the paper folds horizontally or vertically, and the Enquirer has a pretty significant history of breaking this kind of story; contrariwise, the New York Times' recent history of poor sourcing of "gossip" articles (viz the McCain lobbyist article) might call into question whether it can be considered reliable. In any case, in this kind of article, Wikipedia ought to practice a sort of "Cǣsar's Wife" caution toward speedy deletion, rather than continue the impression that Wikipedia as a whole can't be trusted to be NPOV. -- Charlie (Colorado) (talk) 05:51, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
• Merge to John Edwards per undue weight at this time. A paragraph or two would suffice at this point, sourced from the reliable sources used to construct this article (ie, not the blogs or the National Enquirer). Should this actually significantly impact (ie, end) Edwards' political career, then yes, at that point you could justify spinning it back off into an article a la the Lewinsky scandal. Neıl ☄ 08:43, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
• Delete and merge relevant content to John Edwards based on notability. This story has hardly been touched by the mainstream media, and a lot of references cited by the article are blogs and tabloids. For goodness the main claims haven't even been corroborated or confirmed by the mainstream media yet, and there's already a page on this? Ethereal (talk) 10:28, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. Not a content fork. Removing such topics from main article (John Edwards) is a good thing.Biophys (talk) 14:32, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
• Delete and merge until (if at all) more substance and notability arises. CENSEI (talk) 15:34, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: Suggestions to "delete and merge" are incompatible with the GFDL. RFerreira (talk) 18:17, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
• Keep More than a stub, reliably sourced, clearly notable. Joshdboz (talk) 16:40, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Random break

• Keep Highly notable controversy, which is now excelent impartial and complete. Solves the problems of weight on the Edwards page, and means wedon't need an article on Hunter IMHO. This is an excelent and elegant solution and mirrors the phoney McCain scandal. Wikipedia at its best, fair and seen to fair too. There are many more sources that could be added.Bonobonobo (talk) 16:56, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
• Keep The incident seems notable. Any who claim the article seems biased are free to edit to balance it, but that's not the same as deleting well sourced information they don't like. --GRuban (talk) 17:09, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
• Keep This article is more than a content fork. It is a well written and NPOV entry on a notable event. Some have mentioned that they think there are too many references to blogs in the sourcing; i see that point, and do consider it a weakness with the piece. I also believe that simple editorial pruning would solve that, through concensus. However, in aother (and i believe better) solution to this problem, i think that the blog material might be used in support of further descriptions of the way that this event (as a news event, not as a "John Edwards scandal") has brought to the fore important issues concerning the emerging and evolving ascendency of privilege and power accruing to the blogosphere, and the subsequent loss of privilege and power accorded to the traditional "gatekeepers" of news, the print journals. By adding in the tabloid media, the article presents us with an unusually clear view of the current uneasily contested triangle of "gatekeeper" privilege being waged by mainstream media versus tabloid media versus blog media. Also important, and well-mentioned here, is the pressure that this event has put on Wikipedia, as it impinges on Wiki's traditional print-medium encyclopedia directive to not report "news" while still allowing it to claim the advantages of electronic-media "up-to-date" online publishing. For me, these issues of media authority are the real story here, and they are the reason i have continued to participate in discussions on the subject of the Edwards paternity allegations. cat yronwode a.k.a. "64" Catherineyronwode (talk) 17:10, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

• Delete The "story" is simply a tabloid-manufactured rumor, pushed by conservative media outlets and activists in the hope that it somehow snowballs from "rumor" to "news". Apparently, these miscreants hope that merely repeating the rumor long enough and loudly enough will do the trick. And the article here is primarily the work of conservative activists who are attempting to co-opt Wikipedia for blatant political purposes. J.R. Hercules (talk) 18:50, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

  Wait, what? I'm a "conservative activist" now? Kelly ^hi! 18:55, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

  Comment Hercules, I don't see how this is possibly a valid argument for deletion. Nyttend (talk) 20:34, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

It's not. Horologium (talk) 20:36, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

This isn't a argument at all, if anything it is an arguement to keep, since the travesty of this conspiracy would be a much bigger deal that Edwards shtuping some employee. It is irrelevant whether the story is true (I is true by the way - and I say this as a Kerry Edwards voter, you have to be very naive to bet against this story at any odds). The only question is it is a relevant news story. If it is we need a conservatively worded article that conforms to wiki policies with particular reference to BLP. Even if you are correct and this is the work of the VRWC (y'know like all those Monica LIES!) this article will discuss the phony conspiracy which will still be relevant just like the McCain and Rathergate articles, a BS-bases controversy is still a controversy, Oh and I'll gladly eat my giant dunces hat if the NE story isn't ultimately vindicated. Bonobonobo (talk) 20:49, 6 August 2008 (UTC)