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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. ( non-admin closure) Crystallizedcarbon ( talk) 06:00, 30 April 2019 (UTC) reply

Carl Kline (White House official)

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Carl Kline (White House official) (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)
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Per WP:BLP1E and WP:PAGEDECIDE. Kline appears only to be notable for his involvement in the Trump administration's security clearance imbroglio of early 2019. Even if his job in the White House means he's not a "low profile" individual under our BLP policy, as a matter of pragmatism his involvement in that controversy is better explained in a comprehensive article about the controversy itself rather than in a biography. That article could be called, for instance, Security clearances during the presidency of Donald Trump. Please note, I've started a related AfD for Tricia Newbold. R2 ( bleep) 18:28, 23 April 2019 (UTC) reply

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 18:35, 23 April 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Oppose: While it may have been premature to start an article on Kline, details of his actions continue to emerge so it is too soon to say that his page should be deleted or merged. It could do with some fleshing-out, though, since it is short on biographic information. Websurfer2 ( talk) 04:19, 24 April 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Keep: Kline appears to have taken two dozen unusual, important, and decisive actions over a period of two years in granting security clearances to persons who did not quality under regular rules. News coverage of those actions is piled up in the shorter period of time that he has been identified in public, but even that covers two months from many reliable sources. It's a historic situation, a natural subject for national security documentation where his name is likely to appear for decades to come, possibly in parallel to Aldrich Ames or Robert Hanssen. An argument for WP:BLP1E seems to depend on it being a brief blip of news about a one-time event, the "imbroglio" -- but the events Kline caused went for a longer time and have a long-term effect. They aren't a brief scandal. I say the BLP1E argument is not relevant and say the news coverage standard applies. -- econterms ( talk) 11:52, 24 April 2019 (UTC) reply
To clarify, I'm not suggesting that there was only a brief blip of news about Kline, just that Kline's notability is almost solely about his involvement in Trump administration national security clearances, and that for BLP and pragmatic reasons the subject matter is more appropriate for an article devoted to that topic. R2 ( bleep) 19:02, 24 April 2019 (UTC) reply
And, in fact, Google Trend suggests that Carl Kline's notability really has been a brief blip concurrent with the recent event of Kline's actions becoming public. R2 ( bleep) 22:06, 24 April 2019 (UTC) reply

Sometimes, when a subject is notable, but it is unlikely that there ever will be a lot to write about it, editors should weigh the advantages and disadvantages of creating a permanent stub.

IMO, it is fine if the Kline article remains a WP:PERMASTUB.
Also, WP:BLP1E says:

avoid having an article on a person when each of three conditions is met:

  1. If reliable sources cover the person only in the context of a single event.
  2. If that person otherwise remains, and is likely to remain, a low-profile individual...
  3. If the event is not significant or the individual's role was either not substantial or not well documented.
Kline fails condition 3, and arguably also fails condition 2 (as noted by R2). Therefore, WP:BLP1E does not apply to Kline.
Kline does meet WP:BIO.
Kline therefore merits a Wikipedia article. Zazpot ( talk) 10:37, 25 April 2019 (UTC) reply
E.M.Gregory, would you mind reading the nomination and responding? No one questions that there are enough sources to satisfy GNG. R2 ( bleep) 16:37, 29 April 2019 (UTC) reply
The event in which Klien was involved is so significant, his role in the event is so substantive, and coverage is extensive and in such depth that we can confidently keep this page despite noms concerns. E.M.Gregory ( talk) 18:31, 29 April 2019 (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.
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