Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Margaret Stock

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 keep. MBisanz ^talk 22:26, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Margaret Stock

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

Does not appear to meet WP:POLITICIAN, and there is nothing listed about her that makes her notable enough to have her own article. What is on her article seems impressive, but the article appears more like a campaign biography rather than something more substantial. Does not meet notability guidelines. --1990'sguy (talk) 01:24, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. 1990'sguy (talk) 01:31, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Alaska-related deletion discussions. 1990'sguy (talk) 01:31, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 01:50, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Political candidate not notable for career as a lawyer. Meatsgains (talk) 02:18, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral – The timing of this article's creation was indeed quite suspicious, but campaign advertising for topics lacking enduring notability has been an unfortunate way of life on Wikipedia for years. That won't change until people get their heads screwed on straight about what's notable versus what's today's or yesterday's trending topics and quit relying on corporate media to dictate to them what to write about on here. Going back to the last election for this same U.S. Senate seat, Scott McAdams had some pretty blatant COI issues. Moreover, I've seen evidence of the belief that McAdams was highly notable six years ago but is non-notable today. I don't believe whatsoever that this is the way Wikipedia is supposed to work. The reason I say "neutral" boils down to this story. To summarize, much of the Alaska Democratic Party establishment is supporting Stock over their own nominee, Ray Metcalfe. Evidence of that was abundant during the recently-concluded Alaska Federation of Natives convention. Perhaps this is the opposite of WP:TOOSOON, namely that this AFD is coming along too soon. Given that the election is two weeks away, if Stock's money and party support results in a respectable showing at the polls, it could be necessary to revisit a deleted article. Since the article has been around this long, there is no real harm in waiting until after the election. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 03:33, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Stock is notable as a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a major award that includes a $625,000 prize. We already have biographies of a large majority of MacArthur Fellows. Accordingly, she meets WP:ANYBIO which says that a person is notable if "The person has received a well-known and significant award or honor, or has been nominated for one several times." Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:18, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy Keep. The person is notable as a recipient of MacArthur Fellowship, and hence meets WP:ANYBIO: "The person has received a well-known and significant award or honor, or has been nominated for one several times".--Dwaipayan (talk) 13:45, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The rationale given regarding the MacArthur Fellowship pretty much proves my point about having our heads screwed on straight. Too many "biographical" articles I've read about MacArthur Fellows or Goldman Environmental Prize winners or similar are WP:COATRACK articles to the prizes themselves and have little or nothing to do with the biography of the article's titular subject. This is not too dissimilar to the way WP:PORNBIO has been used to justify coatrack articles to awards of dubious value to the general public while offering little or no useful biographical information or an WP:INUNIVERSE version of a biography tied to incestuous sources. I guess others must be interpreting WP:NOTDIRECTORY and/or the term "biography" differently than I am. This article leans too far in the direction of being a series of aggressively cherry-picked facts and sources as opposed to a proper biography; for example, a date and place of birth would be the logical starting point, not rattling off a laundry list of job titles. All this makes the rationale of "campaign biography rather than something more substantial" perfectly understandable. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 19:55, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The article was started in September, 2014 and it did not mention her Senate candidacy until February, 2016. That refutes the notion that the article was written as a campaign biography. Also worth noting is that the article includes only a single, neutral sentence about her candidacy. If you can find her date of birth, feel free to add it, RadioKAOS. If you want to change WP:ANYBIO or argue that MacArthur fellows do not qualify, please feel free to try at the appropriate places. I will oppose. At present, she meets the guideline by any reasonable interpretation, and therefore the article should be kept. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 21:04, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, looking at the history, it's clear the article has seen some big changes in the last several months, which is not surprising considering the election. I do think it needs a major re-organization and the refs need to be cleaned up (someone apparently doesn't know how to use reference names for multiple citations of the same ref) but I thinkat the end of the day the article is a keeper. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:30, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Clarifying my remarks, more like what Beeblebrox said. It seems there's too much dross coming across my watchlist constantly for me to keep things straight. The "campaign biography" stuff originates with multiple SPAs making major revisions before February of this year. As she's running an active, well-funded campaign, I hope that no one is naive enough to believe that to be mere coincidence. Cullen's remark "If you can find her date of birth, feel free to add it" further affirms what I've already said. Why do we use the term "biography" if we're not dedicated to offering biographical details about biographical subjects? If the primary purpose of the encyclopedia is to repeat the contents of some other webpage, then we ultimately don't have a purpose other than catering to those more interested in content than information or those willing to let us dictate "human knowledge" to them instead of informing them and letting them decide for themselves. If the world really worked that way, this AFD would have never happened. Partially in regards to Bearcat's comments, the repeated invocation of ANYBIO smells of policy shopping. That same page also contains WP:NPOL. The story I link to above indicates that she may possibly meet NPOL, but that won't be a certain thing one way or the other until the election is over and returns are available. It's not as clearcut as JPL claims below, as articles on other unsuccessful U.S. Senate candidates with similar rationales have survived AFD in the past. I originally became involved with this project because of my interest in biography, especially political biography. I've been rather dismayed at what I've seen in the years since, basically one huge example of reflecting what's trending today at the expense of reflecting human knowledge. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 23:30, 28 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete She will not be notable as a politcian unless she wins, and the fellowship does not meet any academic notability criteria.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:17, 25 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Reply @Johnpacklambert: You must be kidding. A MacArthur Fellowship is not an academic award, since it has been awarded to people like blacksmiths and social justice advocates as well as academics and authors and artists, but it certainly meets the WP:ANYBIO standard as a "well-known and significant award or honor". Are you arguing otherwise? The awards itself and the recipients receive massive coverage in reliable sources every single year. Look it up. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:07, 25 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - She is indeed notable as a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a major award.she meets WP:ANYBIO and WP:GNG.BabbaQ (talk) 21:04, 25 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:TNT, without prejudice against recreation on MacArthur Fellowship grounds if somebody can do better than this. GNG and ANYBIO are not met by winning an award in and of itself; they're met by garnering media coverage for winning an award. No notability claim, in fact, can ever be passed just by asserting that it's true — a notability claim is not passed until it's reliably sourced as true. But of the 12 sources present here, 10 of them are primary sources that cannot support notability, such as content where she's the bylined author and not the subject and/or her "our staff" profiles on the websites of organizations she's directly affiliated with. There are only two sources here that count as reliable source coverage at all — and one of them isn't about her, but merely quotes her giving soundbite about the person who is the actual subject of the article, while the other one is WP:ROUTINE coverage of the election itself. And while it's true that the article was written before she was a candidate and then torqued into a campaign brochure, the precandidacy version was staked entirely on the primary sources with no RS coverage, and would have been deletable on that basis had somebody noticed it at the time. Sure, a MacArthur grant would very likely be enough to grant her preexisting notability for her prior work — but this is not the sourcing that it takes to get her there. Bearcat (talk) 15:32, 26 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Update: Flipped to a keep per Cullen328's sourcing improvements. Bearcat (talk) 16:41, 27 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to Bearcat: I took your TNT comment seriously, and although I disagree that the article should be deleted, I also recognize the validity of your critique of the sources then in the article. I found several reliable, independent sources from before her Senate candidacy and added them to the article. I removed many of the weak sources, although I left in a few primary sources about her testimony before Congress as I believe that the other sources I have added establish her notability. This is not a campaign brochure as it contains only a single neutral sentence about her candidacy and is devoid of political language promoting her. I hope that you will reconsider. By the way, I had never heard of her until I saw this AfD debate. My only interest is in improving the encyclopedia. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:59, 27 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, that's more like it. Adjusted my comment accordingly. Bearcat (talk) 16:41, 27 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. SST flyer 12:48, 27 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep MacArthur makes her meet WP:ANYBIO. Improvements to the article have been made. No reason to delete. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:54, 1 November 2016 (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.