Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2012 August 9

9 August 2012

O. J. Murdock

O. J. Murdock (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

<Redirects are cheap> I think that O. J. Murdock should have been redirected to History_of_the_Tennessee_Titans#2012 (or Tennessee_Titans#Current_roster) with the page history in tact. Suppose that someone created a redirect to Tennessee_Titans#Current_roster while Murdock's name was listed there. The redirect would likely not have been deleted per WP:CHEAP. Murdock's name is mentioned at History_of_the_Tennessee_Titans#2012.--Jax 0677 (talk) 23:02, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

• I have no objection to the redirect, which is a sensible idea, but I'm not sure I understand why it's necessary to restore the history beneath it. Could you elaborate on that please?—S Marshall T/C 01:44, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Easier to restore the history that exists than to recreate it. A similar thing was done with Lisa Chan.--Jax 0677 (talk) 03:21, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• It's not necessary to restore or recreate it.—S Marshall T/C 11:46, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• temporarily restored for discussion at Deletion Review DGG ( talk ) 03:38, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
• Strong endorse of the adminstrator's AfD decision. And it should not be redirected because it does not meet any of the criteria of Purposes of redirects. Sorry, I initially was hoping to find a legitimate reason to support keeping the article or at least redirecting it, but it became clear that there wasn't one. The article was already discussed in huge depth and with the input of many editors at Afd. And then it was carefully reviewed by an administrator. So there's no point in rehashing all the issues. You can read the AfD discussion. The meticulous comments and reasoning of User:Dirtlawyer1 throughout the AfD discussion make it abundantly clear why Murdock does not meet the notability standards and why it should not be redirected. And there are many others who supported his position. The article clearly should not be redirected to the History of the Tennessee Titans or Tennessee Titans current roster because (1) he never played a game (or even a down) for the Titans and (2) he is not on the team's roster. By the way, the only reason Murdock was mentioned in History of the Tennessee Titans is because User:Jax_0677, the editor who created this discussion, put it there. And he did so four days after the AfD discussion started (Afd started July 30, Jax first commented in Afd August 2, then Jax add Murdock content to Titan History article August 3). I've been told that no one should add contentious content like that while there is an intense AfD discussion going on. Then another editor reverted Jax for WP:RECENTISM, which was followed by Jax0677 reverting the revert, with the edit comment "this is the topic of an ongoing discussion at WP:AfD for O.J. Murdock". So editors let Jax have his way temporarily and waited for the AfD decision (even though the Murdock content never should have been in the Titans History article anywyay). Well, the Afd discussion is over and the Murdock article was deleted. And the content that Jax added to the team's history article was also then removed (by me). Sadly, Murdock had zero effect on the team's history, so he shouldn't be mentioned in it. Look at the content of that article and you'll see how inappropriate and out of place it would be. The article is solely about the team's perfomance. It contains absolutely no content regarding the personal life of any player, let alone a player who never took the field. --76.189.114.163 (talk) 07:44, 10 August 2012 (UTC) 08:59, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I need to emphasize this one issue... This article cannot be redirected because it does not meet any of the criteria of Purposes of redirects. It needs to be understood that User:Jax_0677 inappropriately added content about Murdock's suicide to History of the Tennessee Titans four days into the Afd discussion. This was one day after he started participating in the AfD discussion, so he was fully aware of the AfD. So by adding the Murdock content, he was then able to cite one criteria on Purposes of redirects, which would of course qualify the article for a redirect (if it was content worthy of inclusion). The criteria he cited was "Sub-topics or other topics which are described or listed within a wider article." So we have four big problems: (1) Jax0677 inappropriately added the contentious content about Murdock while an intense AfD was taking place, (2) when he commented in the AfD that he had discovered Murdock was mentioned in another article and so it therefore could be redirected, he didn't reveal that he had just added the content, (3) he reverted the revert of an editor who told him the content was not appropriate for the article, and (4) the contentious content was clearly not worthy of inclusion anyway (and still isn't) because that article is solely about the team's performance, and includes nothing about the private lives of any players, let alone one that never played. I wish I had known about this while the AfD was going on, but I discovered it aftewards when I looked at the revison history of the Titans article. Jax0677's actions actually caused at least one editor to change his recommendation from Delete to Keep because he was unaware of what happened. I must note, though, that I assume good faith from Jax0677 and that perhaps he simply didn't realize that what he was doing was improper. I'm sorry, I feel we just shouldn't even be having this discussion. --76.189.114.163 (talk) 10:22, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Endorse Consensus is perfectly clear and the idea of a redirect was raised in the AFD and failed to gain traction. Spartaz ^Humbug! 08:22, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
• Endorse Dirtlawyer1's arguments were strong enough deletion was reasonable and not redirecting was a reasonable outcome given the discussion. In general if someone isn't quite notable before "an event" we tend not to consider them notable after the event. I will note that if non-trivial coverage of the suicide exists after (say) mid-Sept. it might be worth bringing it back to DRV as sustained coverage (say folks use it as a basis for a wider discussion of suicide or sports or something) could overcome the BPL1E issues. Hobit (talk) 10:14, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
• Comment I don't think the AFD was closed improperly, although I was on the side of Keep. However, I can see some merit in retaining the article history in some way--perhaps through Userfy or holding the redirect. The good it could do is that if the subject comes back to be notable (as it seems some think is possible) then the history is intact and can be built from. The downside is we suck up a few extra bytes of memory on the server. I don't see a problem with it.--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:04, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
• Endorse. I am the editor who nominated the article. My overall opinion hasn't changed, Murdock failed notability guidelines and the closing administrator made the right decision....William 13:56, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
• Endorse AfD close - There's not much news coverage of him: AAU national gold medalist in the 200-meter dash (Tampa Tribune August 31, 2001), Tampa Trailblazers track results in 2003,[1] a purported career ending arrest in Oct 2006, 2011 sidelining injury and a Feb 2011 effort to get in front of scouts,[2] and died of an apparent suicide in front of his old high school in July 2012.[3] Most of the significant news converge in response to his death, so a Wikipedia article on the topic might be Death of O. J. Murdock, which isn't a basis to redirect to Tennessee Titans anything. I think if the original article were more respectful of his entire life as covered by sources rather than focusing on how he died (particularly with the Wikipedia article being within a few days of his death), consensus might have swung towards keeping the article. As for the AfD close, I don't think separating the coverage outside of the tragic events from coverage of the tragic events is how notabilty per GNG should be judge because, by that parsing approach, any topic could be deemed not to meet notabilty per GNG. But looking at the totality of all coverage on O. J. Murdock reviewed at the AfD, I think the AfD close was correct in the consensus to delete with policy-based arguments. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 09:58, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
• Reverse the deletion Like, 76.189.114.163, I contribute regularly to articles and discussions (such as this AfD), but unlike 76, I don't overwhelm those who disagree with me with multiple long passionate replies. I hope new editors take a look at this case objectively, including the various published reliable and independent of secondary sources mentioned by multiple editors. My short version of the case: unlike 76, I don't think its a problem that he never played an NFL game. While I can understand why editors would establish WP:NGRIDIRON as a guideline, I think that the judicious invocation of WP:IGNORE is warranted in this case. To quote myself: It is the combination of his somewhat troubled personal life, his professional-quality athletic career (including the track accomplishments mentioned by Paul McDonald), and his high profile suicide (it made news front-page on cnn.com as opposed to just sportsillustrated.cnn.com) make the subject notable. One admittedly sad way of looking at it is that the suicide [ which has larger implications due to other recent NFL-related suicides ] clinches notability in the same way that playing in one NFL game would have. 72.244.206.167 (talk) 20:09, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

@72... First, editors can read the AfD discussion for themselves and see why this article was deleted. They don't have to take my word for it. The explanation in the AfD by User:Dirtlawyer1 alone will clearly show why your reasoning is flawed and the decision to delete was correct. Second, other editors have a right to know the full background of the Murdock discussion. Third, contrary to your claim that you "contribute regularly to articles and discussions," your contribution history shows you edited for a total of four days over the past two and a half years, and the last time was May 13, 2011. --76.189.114.163 (talk) 20:56, 12 August 2012 (UTC)