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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 delete. After plowing through this wall of text, the policy and guideline based arguments clearly come down in favor of deletion. Ad Orientem ( talk) 02:25, 28 November 2017 (UTC) reply

Chuck Oberlie

Chuck Oberlie (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)
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Poorly sourced WP:BLP of a former small-city mayor. The city (pop. 31K) is not large enough to hand its mayors an automatic presumption of notability just for existing, but this isn't sourced well enough to get him past WP:NPOL #2 as the subject of significant press coverage -- the only "references" here are a primary source bio fromthe website of a directly affiliated organization, and a single news article from the local newspaper about his decision not to run for another term in office. This is not enough to deem a small-city mayor notable. Bearcat ( talk) 20:46, 13 November 2017 (UTC) reply

  • The claim is made "this <article> isn't sourced well enough to get <the topic> past WP:NPOL #2".  The claim is further made that the sources in the article are "not enough to deem a small-city mayor notable."  But WP:N states, "The absence of sources or citations in an article...does not indicate that a subject is not notable."  Unscintillating ( talk) 16:17, 23 November 2017 (UTC) reply
  • The claim that the article is "poorly" sourced has no basis in evidence in the nomination.  And if there is evidence, WP:BEFORE B3 states, "If an article has issues try first raising your concerns on the article's talk page, with the main contributors, or an associated WikiProject, and/or adding a cleanup tag".  Unscintillating ( talk) 16:19, 23 November 2017 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Indiana-related deletion discussions. Bearcat ( talk) 20:47, 13 November 2017 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Bearcat ( talk) 20:47, 13 November 2017 (UTC) reply
  • Delete This article is a relic of the overly permissive article creation guidelines that existed back in 2008. The fact that the article does not definitively tell when Mr. Oberlie's term in office ended, although it was about 6 or 7 years ago, shows just how little attention people in positions like this actually receive. My city has 4 times the population of Michigan City, and probably an even higher percent greater amount of economic activity, since in the dysfunction that is metro-Detroit, a suburb like mine attracts lots of Detroit residents to movie theatres, has many residents of other cities working in factories, and on and on. Yet our mayors are not notable for articles. I was a voice in the deleting of the article on Richard Notte, who was the mayor of my city of Sterling Heights for about 20 years. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 02:29, 14 November 2017 (UTC) reply
  • Keep  I didn't see any problems that needed the attention of AfD.  The article, Michigan City mayor will not seek re-election by Stan Maddux Times Correspondent, Dec 1, 2010, is in-depth and what is envisioned as a good article by GNG.  The profile published by the government of Indiana is also in-depth.  I also found a number of helpful snippets on WP:BEFORE D1 Google books, that the article by Stan Maddux tied together.  One of these dates back to 1976.  I didn't see a need to look any further.  Unscintillating ( talk) 20:12, 19 November 2017 (UTC) reply
"Michigan City mayor will not seek re-election" represents a type of article that every single person who'd ever been mayor of anywhere could always show from the local media, so no, it does not represent a WP:GNG pass in and of itself. And the "Government of Indiana" source is not independent of Oberlie, because it's from a government body (the Northwest Indiana Regional Planning Committee) which he's been a member of — that makes it a directly affiliated source that cannot support notability, not a reliable and independent source for the purposes of clearing a Wikipedia notability standard. People are not handed an automatic wikinotability freebie just because they have "our board members" or "our staff" profiles on the self-published website of their own employers or organizational affiliations. Bearcat ( talk) 15:17, 20 November 2017 (UTC) reply
The article I cited is a good article, where the commonly cited benchmark at WT:N to pass GNG is two good articles.  No two mayors are alike. 
Articles published by the government of Indiana are published by the people of Indiana, and such sources are generally WP:RS, in spite of your mysterious claim to the contrary. 
The world of the "wikinotability freebie" is imaginary.  Unscintillating ( talk) 03:48, 22 November 2017 (UTC) reply
The article was not published by the state government of Indiana, but by the Northeastern Indiana Regional Planning Committee: a regional government organization of which he's a member, and thus not one whose self-published bios of its own staff or board represent independent coverage by an unaffiliated source. And no, GNG is not simply a matter of being able to surpass two sources — I've previously listed many examples of the types of articles about unencyclopedic nobodies we would have to start keeping if that were all it took. GNG is not just a matter of having an arbitrary number of sources, but a contextual test that can be passed by just one source in certain instances and can be failed by six or seven sources in others.
And incidentally, yes, the "freebie" is imaginary in the sense that it's not a thing we do — but the word represents a completely accurate assessment of what some people seem to think we do. "We should always keep an article about any mayor of anywhere the moment one source verifies that they existed" certainly isn't a thing that represents the reality of how Wikipedia works — but it is how some people seem to think Wikipedia works, and the fact that those people are wrong is precisely what I mean when I use the phrase "notability freebie": I always negate it by saying that something isn't one, and have never used it in the context of being an affirmative thing that anybody actually gets. Bearcat ( talk) 15:10, 23 November 2017 (UTC) reply
The "completely accurate assessment" is your own self-assessment.  Unscintillating ( talk) 14:18, 24 November 2017 (UTC) reply
And an absolutely 100 per cent correct one. That is exactly how some people do think Wikipedia works. Bearcat ( talk) 02:51, 25 November 2017 (UTC) reply
As for standards for GNG, the commonly cited benchmark at WT:N to pass GNG is two good articles.  Unscintillating ( talk) 14:18, 24 November 2017 (UTC) reply
Again, if all a topic had to do to get into Wikipedia was show two sources, we would have to keep an article about: every single person who'd ever been mayor of anywhere; every single person who'd ever been a fire chief or a police chief of anywhere; everybody who ever opened a restaurant anywhere; people whose only notability claim is that they happen to have an unusual number of toes; my mother's neighbour and her pig; and me. To be kept on the basis of just two sources, those sources have to be supporting a notability claim that passes an automatic "must-include" criterion like "Member of Congress". If a person does not pass an automatic must-include criterion, but rather their notability criterion is dependent on the depth of media coverage, then it does take considerably more than just two sources to get there. Bearcat ( talk) 02:51, 25 November 2017 (UTC) reply
The article was published by www.in.gov.  I put that URL in my browser and it reported "Copyright © 2017 State of Indiana".  The point is that you've dropped your claim that the website was other than reliable.  Unscintillating ( talk) 14:18, 24 November 2017 (UTC) reply
To be considered a reliable source, a reference has to be media coverage that's independent of the subject. An "our board members" bio written and published by an organization that the subject is directly affiliated with is not an independent source, and therefore not a reliable or notability-supporting one. Bearcat ( talk) 02:51, 25 November 2017 (UTC) reply
If what you say is true, why did you not cite from WP:RS?  The answer is that it is not true.  Here is a diff added to the encyclopedia today of a source reliable for the purpose for which it was added, that is not independent.  Unscintillating ( talk) 17:28, 26 November 2017 (UTC) reply
A source can be trustworthy for the simple verification of a fact in an article, and yet not reliable for the purposes of demonstrating that the topic is actually notable. A school's own website is obviously trustworthy on the question of who the school's principal is — but if the school's basic notability were in question, its own website would not, in and of itself, be a source that made it notable. And the NIRPC source works the same way: if there were a purely factual question about whether or not Oberlie had actually served on the NIRPC, then that source would obviously answer that. But if the question is whether Oberlie is notable enough to have an article at all, then the NIRPC bio is not a source that bolsters or assists his notability. Bearcat ( talk) 15:57, 27 November 2017 (UTC) reply
  • Weak keep Delete I have added some information and a handful of references (several of which are newspaper articles) in an effort to improve the article but I'm not sure it reaches the level of notability. Leschnei ( talk) 14:17, 20 November 2017 (UTC) reply
Just a thought; should smaller cities have a 'former mayors' section for their mayors who do not reach notability on their own? Leschnei ( talk) 14:30, 20 November 2017 (UTC) reply
If we can find a source that enables us to properly list all of the mayors, then yes, we do regularly permit lists of mayors either as a subsection of the town or city article or as a standalone "List of mayors of X". The challenge is that sometimes we can rely on just one or two good sources for a complete list (I created List of mayors of Muncie, Indiana just last week — because even with no knowledge of the city whatsoever besides being aware that it exists, I was able to locate a source that provided a complete list of all the mayors), but sometimes it would require much more complex research to track down a variety of sources to properly support the complete list. The only thing we don't allow, though, is unsourced lists of mayors. Bearcat ( talk) 15:10, 20 November 2017 (UTC) reply
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America 1000 17:40, 20 November 2017 (UTC) reply
Continuing the above discussion, I found a book that lists the mayors from the town's incorporation through 1906, and there are about 25 mayors! An entire list of mayors would be much too long for the Michigan City article, and a stand-alone list of mostly (all?) non-notable people is not worth the effort. Muncie is a bigger city, and I see that many of its mayors are notable. A brief search tells me that the same would not be true for Michigan City's mayors. It think that this article will have to stand or fall on its own. Leschnei ( talk) 18:39, 21 November 2017 (UTC) reply
I should have added, after my comment above, that I am changing my vote from weak keep to delete. I have made an edited my vote above to reflect that. Leschnei ( talk) 00:20, 27 November 2017 (UTC) reply
  • Delete The usual standard that an elected official must pass to meet the notability standards of Wikipedia is WP:NPOL with common outcomes described at WP:POLOUTCOMES. For local mayors, reaching notability usually means receiving national or international press coverage for their service as mayor. The reason for this is that most elected officials remain low profile individuals through and after their terms of office. This means that there is presumption of privacy and there is a community expectation that authors should "focus on high-quality secondary sources" when dealing with relatively-unknown individuals [See WP:NPF]" In this case, there does not appear to be any sources that suggests that the subject received coverage "beyond the scope of what would ordinarily be expected for their role" WP:POLOUTCOMES. -- Enos733 ( talk) 06:34, 23 November 2017 (UTC) reply
  • @ Enos733: The link you provide, WP:LPI, states,

    A low-profile individual is someone who has been covered in reliable sources without seeking such attention... Persons who actively seek out media attention are not low-profile, regardless of whether or not they are notable.

    As per our article, sourced by the Stan Maddoux article, "He was elected mayor", so he ran for office publicly.  Elected officials are public individuals.  Unscintillating ( talk) 15:57, 23 November 2017 (UTC) reply
  • And Wikipedia does not automatically accept every mayor of everywhere as notable enough for an encyclopedia article, if the "attention" they received was merely the normal degree of coverage in their local media. In a city of this size, the mayor's profile needs to significantly nationalize to escape LPI — it is not enough that he simply has exactly the same purely local profile that any mayor of anywhere always has. Bearcat ( talk) 18:28, 23 November 2017 (UTC) reply
  • Right, Wikipedia does not automatically accept every mayor of everywhere as notable enough for an encyclopedia article.  Sometimes, the topic is notable, but whether or not the topic is notable, in general the status of having been a mayor is important enough to the history of the community and therefore the history of the world that the topic is significant.  Unscintillating ( talk) 14:18, 24 November 2017 (UTC) reply
  • Passing GNG is only a presumption of passing WP:N notability, yes.  But in general, "normal" attention suggests that there is a significant amount of significant coverage, which means the topic satisfies the definition of GNG notability.  Unscintillating ( talk) 14:18, 24 November 2017 (UTC) reply
  • No, it doesn't. By definition, "normal" coverage is the coverage that every mayor always gets, but we do not accept that every mayor always qualifies for a Wikipedia article just for being a mayor per se. A mayor's notability depends on being able to show significantly more sourceability — much greater volume, or much wider geographic range, than what's simply normal and expected for every mayor to always get. Bearcat ( talk) 02:51, 25 November 2017 (UTC) reply
  • GNG is also commonly used in deletion discussions.  WP:N treats NPOL and GNG as equally valid paths to determine notability.  WP:BASIC is another path.  Unscintillating ( talk) 14:18, 24 November 2017 (UTC) reply
  • If a person doesn't clear NPOL because their political role isn't an inherently notable one, then they have to be able to show quite a lot more coverage than most other people who've held the same non-notable role elsewhere before they clear GNG. For example, if a city isn't large enough to hand its mayors an automatic presumption of notability for the fact of being mayor of a major city itself, then to get kept they have to show quite a lot more sourceability than most other smalltown mayors could also show. Bearcat ( talk) 05:46, 26 November 2017 (UTC) reply
  • Comment  Note that GNG has no exception for local sources.  Unscintillating ( talk) 17:01, 24 November 2017 (UTC) reply
GNG does not prevent local sources from being included in the overall sourcing pool for a topic, but our notability standards most certainly do weed out most classes of people who can be sourced only to a small handful of purely local sources. GNG is not simply a matter of surpassing an arbitrary number of sources — it most certainly does depend on contextual considerations. One source is enough to get an actor into Wikipedia if that source is confirming that said actor won an Oscar, while ten sources are not enough to get an actor into Wikipedia if those sources are just confirming that he's had roles at a local dinner theatre in Podunk, Missouri. GNG most certainly does take into account contextual variables — the less "automatically includable" the person's notability claim is, the stronger in volume or geographic range (or both) the sourcing has to get before they're actually considered notable enough to pass GNG. GNG is not simply a matter of counting the footnotes and keeping every single article that happens to have more than two of them — because as I've pointed out many times before, literally millions of people have been written about twice by their local newspapers without having achieved anything that would make them belong in an encyclopedia with an international audience. Bearcat ( talk) 02:51, 25 November 2017 (UTC) reply
TLDR, but the bottom line is that GNG has no exception for local sources.  I fell into this trap once at an AfD and !voted to delete a band that was only covered in local sources, but I was wrong and the article was kept.  Unscintillating ( talk) 17:36, 26 November 2017 (UTC) reply
The bottom line is that GNG does not prevent local sources from being included in a mix of sources for a person who has a clean pass of a subject-specific notability criterion. But if a topic's notability claim is "fails all relevant SNGs but is still notable anyway just because media coverage exists", then they are deemed to fail GNG if said media coverage consists exclusively of purely local coverage exclusively in the topic's own hometown. I can't judge this band AFD without seeing it, but it's entirely possible that they actually passed an actual WP:NMUSIC criterion quite independently of how local or non-local the sourcing happened to be — and it's also entirely possible that the conclusion of that discussion was just wrong and has to be revisited, because perhaps nobody actually made any policy-based arguments at all. But I can't know which of those is the case without knowing what specific discussion you're talking about. Bearcat ( talk) 16:06, 27 November 2017 (UTC) reply
  • Delete - First note, "Just being an elected local official, or an unelected candidate for political office, does not guarantee notability", according to WP:NPOL. The subject clearly does not receive significant coverage; evidence to this is in the poorly-referenced article and an easy-to-do WP:BEFORE search which garners little else. I would elaborate further but Bearcat has hit the nail right on the head several times already above. TheGracefulSlick ( talk) 18:57, 26 November 2017 (UTC) reply
  • WP:N states that, "The absence of sources or citations in an article...does not indicate that a subject is not notable."  WP:PERNOM statements, "add little to the discussion".  And if you are ignoring the WP:ATD, you can't claim to have made a policy-based WP:DEL8 !vote.  As for the claim that WP:BEFORE D1 garnered "little else", what about the snippets I already identified?  Since notability is not defined by a WP:BEFORE D1 search, it might help to know what more you want to see.  Unscintillating ( talk) 19:37, 26 November 2017 (UTC) reply
  • That is something I don't get, that you resist the force of reason, instead of getting in its flow.  Respectfully, Unscintillating ( talk) 02:42, 27 November 2017 (UTC) reply
  • Unscintillating, by the looks of your poor AFD stats, maybe (and I know this may be crazy) you are the one who resists the "force of reason"? Brush up on some policies, read them for what they actually say, and you'll find these discussions much more easier. TheGracefulSlick ( talk) 04:07, 27 November 2017 (UTC) reply
  • Your post talks about policies as something others should do, while your posts here ignore the policy WP:Deletion policy#Alternatives to deletion and cite confrontational essays.
    Ad hominems are not necessarily fallacies, but here it appears that they are all that is left of your logical position after it has stripped bare by the force of reason.  Instead of taking it, you can join it.  Respectfully, Unscintillating ( talk) 01:22, 28 November 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.
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