Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shawn Moody

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 no consensus. MBisanz ^talk 23:02, 23 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Shawn Moody

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

Delete. Poorly sourced article about a person notable mainly as a non-winning candidate for political office. This is not an automatic notability pass per WP:NPOL -- if you cannot show that he's notable enough for an article for some other reason independent of his candidacy itself, then he has to win the election, not just run in it, to attain notability because candidate. However, the only potential claim of preexisting notability here, that his company is "the largest auto repair business in New England", is completely unsourced (and the whole business section is in fact a quasi-advertorial WP:COATRACK for the company instead of being about him). The sourcing here is entirely to four pieces routine campaign-related coverage that would be expected to exist -- of which #1 is a mere blurb about his campaign announcement; #2 is a substantive profile of him that would count toward GNG if the sourcing around it were better, but cannot carry GNG by itself as the only valid source; and #3 and #4 are both dead links whose content is unverifiable. This is not enough sourcing to make a non-winning candidate suitable for inclusion. Bearcat (talk) 18:33, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 21:05, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 21:05, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Maine-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 21:05, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Even as a Mainer I can't say I disagree with the reasoning given above. Not only was he a non-winning candidate, but his percentage of the vote was very low. 331dot (talk) 21:44, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per all above. It's basically an ad for his business - David Gerard (talk) 22:16, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I sympathize, I really do, but it looks like no one bothered checking Google News or archive.org. There's a long and detailed profile here, more recent coverage here, more coverage about the 2010 race here, and a magazine biography here. (There's also an opinion piece here, not sure if those count though.) The "missing" sources #3 and #4 are, like almost every online newspaper article, on archive.org here and here, although neither provides as much detail as the other sources do. 2602:306:3A29:9B90:892B:720A:D76D:82AE (talk) 08:54, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- That's precisely the sort and amount of coverage a failed candidate would have, and doesn't swing notability - David Gerard (talk) 09:05, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  - What is the notability rule, then? I thought it was "significant coverage in reliable secondary sources". 2602:306:3A29:9B90:892B:720A:D76D:82AE (talk) 09:14, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    - All candidates for office in all elections always garner coverage in the local media, so coverage of a non-winning candidate's campaign is considered WP:ROUTINE unless it can be shown to expand significantly beyond the bounds of what could reasonably be expected. For non-winning candidates, there has to be significantly more than the normal and expected level of campaign coverage, namely by getting into sources (such as The New York Times or the Seattle Post-Intelligencer or the Los Angeles Times) that would not be expected to be covering an election in Maine that extensively. Bearcat (talk) 16:25, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per WP:GNG. Well-known businessperson and independent candidate for governor.--TM 10:46, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Independent candidate for governor" is not a notability claim that gets a person into Wikipedia — politicians have to win the election and hold the seat to be includable because politics, and do not get articles just because of the WP:ROUTINE and expected level of campaign coverage. A non-winning candidate gets an article only if he or she can be properly demonstrated as having preexisting notability for some other reason independent of their political activity (but this fails to cite even one source which shows that he's as notable and "well-known" as a businessperson as you claim he is), or if the coverage can be shown as wildly more than the normal level of coverage that all candidates for office always get (which none of the campaign sourcing shown here is). Bearcat (talk) 16:25, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I see ample evidence of passing GNG with multiple independent sources covering the subject in detail. Whatever standard you have about candidates is immaterial to this discussion.--TM 18:20, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is not about my own "personal" standards, and is not immaterial to this discussion — what I said is not some shit I just made up, but Wikipedia's standard rules for the notability of an unelected political candidate: it's nationalized coverage or they're out. Every candidate for every political office in every election anywhere could always be claimed to pass GNG if the WP:ROUTINE and expected level of localized coverage were all it took — the coverage of an unelected candidate has to nationalize before GNG is passed. Not because I said so, but because AFD has a fully established consensus that says so. Bearcat (talk) 22:56, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Can you point to where it says that in the general guideline for notability? WP:ROUTINE is nestled under Wikipedia:Notability (events). Is Shawn Moody an event? No? Ok, so the standard guideline is GNG. Taking something from events and applying it to biographies is not the consensus.--TM 23:17, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The election is an event, so ROUTINE does apply to election coverage. There are zero sources here covering him in any context outside of his role in an event. See also WP:POLOUTCOMES, which also specifies that candidates are not presumed notable just for being candidates, if you're planning to get snarky again. Bearcat (talk) 23:37, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This short bio from a statewide magazine is from six years after he ran and barely mentions his campaign. There is also a news story about his appointment to the board of trustees of the state university system and the community college system. I still believe that he easily passes WP:GNG, which is the standard for any article. Bearcat, clearly you disagree, but you are not going dissuade me on this.--TM 23:55, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is from USA Today, published in 2015. Easily found if the nominator had followed WP:BEFORE.--TM 23:59, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Those are both blurbs, barely 100 words in length. WP:GNG is passed by media outlets giving the subject substantive coverage, not by media outlets glancingly acknowledging that he exists. Bearcat (talk) 14:49, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep How is this not a no-brainer, with the quality of the sourcing? The argument about him being non-notable because he didn't come first is weird as hell. If you can't point to a specific line in a policy document for the highly-specific notion of excluding non-victors, it's surprising that you think you'll convince a neutral observer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.255.206.160 (talk) 19:06, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The actual policy, from WP:POLITICIAN, is:

"Just being an elected local official, or an unelected candidate for political office, does not guarantee notability, although such people can still be notable if they meet the primary notability criterion of "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject of the article"."

It's like people switch up the words, and try to make everyone think that "does not guarantee notability" really means "does guarantee non-notability". 2602:306:3A29:9B90:D0F5:535F:71B1:CA8 (talk) 10:48, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You're both misrepresenting what's being said. Firstly, what "quality of sourcing" here makes this a no-brainer keep? This is a poorly sourced article, not a well-sourced or WP:GNG-passing one. And secondly, nobody ever said that non-winning candidates can never be notable enough for articles — non-winning candidates sometimes have preexisting notability for other reasons which made them eligible to have an article regardless of their success or failure in an election (e.g. Clay Aiken, Sharron Angle), and occasionally explode into the national media in an unusually prominent and voluminous way that makes them more notable than the norm for an unelected candidate (e.g. Christine O'Donnell). But our job here is to have articles about officeholders, not candidates, so the winner of an election is the only person who gets to have the fact of that election in and of itself be the thing that gets them in the wikidoor — non-winning candidates must either (a) already have preexisting notability for other things, or (b) have the sourcing show that their campaign got significantly more coverage than all candidates for office always get in the local media. Nothing here passes either of those conditions. Bearcat (talk) 15:42, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as a WP:PSEUDO BLP and a vanity page. Does not meet NPOL as unelected candidate, and is not notable as a businessman. WP:PROMO also applies as the article discusses the subject's "Board nominations". K.e.coffman (talk) 06:32, 6 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion should focus on whether Moody passes WP:BASIC. It says a subject is notable if it "received significant coverage in multiple published[4] secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject". It should be clear that this article has in fact surpassed that bar.--TM 14:57, 7 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Lots of people, including yours truly, have technically been the subject of enough media coverage to pass BASIC without actually qualifying for a Wikipedia article for it, if the context in which that coverage was being given doesn't constitute a notability claim in its own right. Politics is one of those fields where Wikipedia is especially vulnerable to getting misused as an advertorial platform for unelected candidates' campaign brochures — unelected candidates for county dogcatcher could claim BASIC if local coverage were all it took. So we have to, and do, have specific standards for what kind of coverage counts toward a BASIC claim for a politician and what kind of coverage does not — and the routine and expected level of campaign coverage, in local media that would be expected to be covering that election because that's their job, falls in the does-not bucket. Coverage outside of that context would assist BASIC, because it would demonstrate that he was notable for other things; coverage beyond the purely local would assist BASIC, because it would demonstrate that he was getting known beyond the area in which campaign coverage was merely expected. But the routine and expected level of campaign coverage does not assist BASIC if it meets neither of those standards — an unelected candidate for office does not pass BASIC or GNG until the coverage is showing him to be significantly more notable than the norm for an unelected candidate, which nothing shown here does. Bearcat (talk) 17:40, 8 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, MBisanz ^talk 19:54, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete The routine overage related to the election should be discounted per WP:POLOUTCOMES, otherwise every single local politician in the Western world will become notable. Other than the political coverage, there is hardly any coverage. I also don't see any good coverage in national media. It's also very clear that this Wikipedia article is being used with the intent to promote his business. Accordingly, delete. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 19:59, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Comment re: the suggestion to evaluate the article on WP:BASIC. Promotionalism is a perfectly good reason to delete an article; pls see WP:NOT, which is policy. The subject is not notable anyway, per available source. None of this rises to the level of encyclopedia. K.e.coffman (talk) 06:55, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If there is non-neutral language in the article, fix the article. However, multiple independent sources cover Moody in sufficient detail, so he passes WP:GNG.--TM 11:10, 20 October 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.