Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Stein (mayor) (2nd nomination)

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

The result was delete. MBisanz ^talk 02:15, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

John Stein (mayor)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

This person was the mayor of Wasilla right before "you know who" got elected. The sources are all either routine coverage of the election or mention him tangenitally in articles focussed on "that other mayor who came next". Notability is not inherited and being mayor of a suburb is not in and of itself sufficient to establish notability. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:18, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Beeblebrox, I just looked at the previous AfD, and saw that the consensus back then was to Keep. One of the reasons cited was WP:LOCAL and WP:NOTBIGENOUGH. How is the situation different this time to merit deletion (as opposed to any alternatives to deletion)? --talk2Chun^{(talk) (contributions)} 20:24, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, for starters the NOTBIGENOUGH link doesn't seem to work in that it leads to a section of WP:ATA that addresses a different issue. It would appear that, whatever this was, it has been removed. This was the case at the time of the last nomination as well. So,while ATA is a well-known and oft-cited set of unofficial guidelines, linking to a non-existent section of an essay is not a compelling argument at all. One would assume that whenever it was removed, it was because th community no longer supported it. On the other hand, INHERIT (which I referenced in my nomination) is a much more well-known aspect of that same essay and is still present in it that argues that argues against the idea of inherint notability.

As for LOCAL, that is also an essay, and I don't believe it is one that enjoys broad community support as opposed to the other page I cited in my nomination, ROUTINE, which is part of the actual notability guideline and argues that coverage of an election (or other routine local events) does not impart notability on everyone who particpated in, or even the winner of, said election. We don't generally have articles on each mayor of a suburb, this was an exception to that due to one particular mayor who went on to get massive amounts of press attention for things that she did after being mayor of Wasilla, the post itself is not inherintly notable.

So, while I don't think the closer had much choice but to close it as keep at the time, I believe those arguments were flawed and are refuted by my nomination statement. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:43, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your answers. I don't necessarily disagree with you (I'm still doubting between WP:INHERIT and WP:LOCAL, but inching more towards INHERIT now), and I'm not sure whether WP:ROUTINE really applies here. Hopefully you could also answer the second part of my question, which was about whether any alternatives to deletion could apply here (I'm thinking for example of merging any relevant info to the page of "you know who").--talk2Chun^{(talk) (contributions)} 21:58, 10 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure I've ever heard of merging a BLP article into another one, but I think she's been coveed pretty thoroughly already, not sure there's anything here that needs to be replicatd there. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:11, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - the people of Alaska seem to think the position he held was important enough. This small town was growing into a city while he was mayor. What's good for the gander is good for the goose. Bearian (talk) 20:03, 10 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see even a vague reference to a relevant content policy here, seems more liek an argument from a purely emotional standpoint. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:05, 10 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 15:03, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Alaska-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 15:04, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Mayors of small towns are not entitled to an automatic presumption of notability just for the fact of serving as mayor. Strictly speaking the size of the city itself is not the controlling factor, as any mayor of any size of city can keep an article if the sourcing is solid enough to actually pass WP:GNG, so this is not a WP:NOTBIGENOUGH argument — but the size of city is relevant to the question of whether a presumption of notability (a/k/a "the benefit of the doubt") is granted to a mayor in the absence of a GNG-satisfying volume of sourcing. All of the sourcing here just namechecks his existence as Sarah Palin's predecessor in an article about Palin, with the exception of one piece of purely WP:ROUTINE local coverage of him failing to win election as mayor of a different small city 14 years later — which means that none of the sources are about Stein to the degree necessary for a GNG pass. If somebody could properly source an article about him, then things would be different — but the sourcing shown here does not entitle him to an article just for the fact of being a mayor, because he isn't the subject of any of it. Bearcat (talk) 19:06, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: although he is only a town mayor, he is mentioned in several sources, some of which are listed on the page. It undoubtedly is in need of general cleanup but that can be done. DrStrauss talk 15:42, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

We require him to be more than just mentioned in several sources. He has to be substantively the subject of enough sources to pass WP:GNG, but that's not what's being shown here: the sources are almost entirely about Sarah Palin, and just glancingly namecheck Stein's existence as her predecessor. Stein, in his own right, is not the subject of even one of the sources. Bearcat (talk) 17:50, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

EDIT: @Bearcat: makes a convincing argument therefore I am changing to delete. DrStrauss talk 19:38, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.