Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kenneth Dickson (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 John Vandenberg ^(chat) 09:33, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Kenneth Dickson

AfDs for this article:

• Articles for deletion/Kenneth Dickson
• Articles for deletion/Kenneth Dickson (2nd nomination)

Kenneth Dickson (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

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Keith Dickson appears to be your basic moderately-successful member of the community: lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, elected to various minor local positions, failed candidate for the California state senate. None of this reaches the level of notability for a Wikipedia article.

In the event that the article is kept, it will need a good deal of pruning: it currently reads like a promotional puff piece. --Carnildo (talk) 01:28, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

• Keep. Satisfies WP:NOTE, subject "has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources". In addition, AFD is not for cleanup. Not sure why the nominator has not at the very least even attempted to discuss concerns on the talk page, where I would have happily done my best to address them. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 01:36, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
• Delete - fails WP:N and WP:POLITICIAN and WP:NOTNEWS. It's all puffery. The guy has some mentions in local coverage relating to purely mundane news about school board management and what not. It is not significant coverage about the person. ETA: Also, why was the actual second nomination and discussion deleted and not mentioned at all in this third one?--70.80.234.196 (talk) 02:28, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

The nominator used the deletion page to attack the BLP in his nom statement. An admin deleted that prior page per Wikipedia:CSD#G10, and warned the nominator for violating WP:BLP, specifically, WP:BLPTALK. -- Cirt (talk) 02:30, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

• Keep I can understand the puffery concerns and while it definitely meets the General Notability Guidelines it is "on the border" where I could understand an argument against it (the GNG gives a presumption of notability not a guarantee). That said it is very well referenced and I'm comfortable with it being on the project. James (T C) 02:38, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

• Keep Subject is notable. The content is very poor, and needs fixing - but that's nothing to do with AfD.  Chzz  ►  02:45, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
• Delete. The subject fails WP:POLITICIAN and WP:NOTNEWS, and, with all due respect to Cirt, the article is a classic example of WP:MASK. I'm tempted to also cite WP:BLP1E, but the subject is not even notable for one event. The article reports no "claim to fame" or reason for notability, and merely pieces together tidbits of information gathered from a campaign website and three small newspapers (i.e. The Press-Enterprise, The Valley News, and North County Times) who are reporting to voters the subject's views in the context of local election coverage. Addressing the current arguments for "keep", it should be noted that guideline never trumps policy: WP:NOTE/WP:GNG are only relevant when a subject passes WP:WWIN/WP:NOTNEWS. Location (talk) 03:55, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
• Delete - per nom. Fails WP:POLITICIAN. This is a very ordinary individual. His career in the USAF is the equivalent of your every day local lawyer that practiced law within a local community. The only difference is Dickson handled contract law which means he probably saw big cases but it wasn't like people flocked to him ala Perry Mason. ----moreno oso (talk) 04:10, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
• Keep -Counter to nom , I don't believe it is a WP:MASK ATTE...(damn caps lock)mpt. The sources I saw had him as a primary figure, or at least a main secondary interest in the article, and there were 50 secondary sources. he is not notable for just one event, but secondary sources have been covering him before his attempt to gain the senate seat. WP:BLP1E in the past has always been that a person is cited for one single event across several sources, this is not a case of this the secondary sources are spread out over 13 years, 27 of those 50 sources occurred prior to his senate attempt.Coffeepusher (talk) 04:31, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
• Delete—he doesn't seem to have done anything which qualifies him as notable. ╟─TreasuryTag►senator─╢ 07:58, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
• Delete Retired soldier who lost a few local elections. WP:GNG does not apply (if it is met, notability is presumed, not established) because none of the claims that are backed by sources lift the subject over the notability threshold. --Pgallert (talk) 10:28, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

  And a comment: It would have been nice if the admin who deleted the ongoing AfD copied over all votes that did not violate our attack policies, or at least notified all people to !vote again. I spent 10 minutes wondering where my previous comment went. --Pgallert (talk) 10:28, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

• Delete. Clearly fails WP:MILPEOPLE and WP:POLITICIAN by a country mile. Herostratus (talk) 14:26, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
• Comment. An editor blanked this page, on (I think) the grounds that some of the material was scurrilous. I'm not very happy about this, and I'm not at all clear to me that that is kosher. A number of editors' comments and their research and work was lost, and If I were them I don't think I'd be very happy either. An admin could restore the comments, but this would take some effort perhaps better spent on articles, but at any rate the closing admin should at least view and consider this material. Herostratus (talk) 14:26, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
• Keep - 50 sources! This article may not be on the most famous politician in the state, but it is well-written and deserves to stay on Wikipedia. Coffepusher brings up some good points above; bottom line is that Cirt's effort here meets all relevant Wikipedia requirements. Jusdafax 14:34, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
• Delete Non-notable either as a military member or a politician or in general. Failed primary candidate. Sure, there are a ton of references, but most are purely local, namely the Riverside Press-Enterprise and the Valley News. (Jusdafax was impressed that there are 50 sources, but 38 of them are from the Press-Enterprise.) He got a couple of trivial mentions in the North County Times; he had one report in the regional paper-of-record, the San Diego Union-Tribune, when he declared his candidacy; he seems never to have garnered a mention in the super-regional paper, the Los Angeles Times, even though his district is in its coverage area. Also, almost all the press references refer to the election rather than to the person (he declared his intention to run, he made a campaign appearance, etc.); this distinction has been used to delete failed candidates in the past as showing that they are not notable aside from the election. As noted above, the article is highly promotional. Example: the twice-repeated assertion that "Dickson beat Joel Anderson in votes cast in the Republican primary in Riverside County, California, but Anderson won the election itself; with Dickson receiving 20 percent of total votes." Sorry, he didn't "beat" the other candidate by doing better in one area of the district; he LOST the primary election, rather badly. Like others here, I am annoyed that my previous comments disappeared into the void when the page was blanked. I am curious whether Cirt was the administrator who did that; if so I feel it was inappropriate, since Cirt is the author and primary editor of this article and thus is not neutral. --MelanieN (talk) 15:04, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
  • See [1]. -- Cirt (talk) 15:06, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

OK, I see that. I also see that you were the one who brought that situation to the BLP noticeboard, and you also solicited for someone to close the debate here. I do feel that your heavy involvement in the closure process was inappropriate, seeing that you are the author and prime defender of this article. --MelanieN (talk) 15:20, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you fail to also see that it was an issue involving wanton violation of WP:BLP. -- Cirt (talk) 15:26, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that was your argument. As I recall the previous deletion discussion, it took you four or five days before you noticed the "wanton violation of BLP" and started using that as an argument for blanking the discussion. My opinion stands. --MelanieN (talk) 16:16, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Incorrect assumption. I had wanted to avoid that discussion, but after consultation with admins realized it needed to be addressed due to the BLP issue. The ruling that it was wanton violation of BLP was not my wording, though I do support it. -- Cirt (talk) 20:47, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

• Keep - clearly satisfies the general notability criterion in a rather overwhelming fashion. Content-specific guidelines don't supersede the general notability criterion. If there is substantive non-trivial coverage in multiple reliable sources, then a topic is notable - he doesn't lose his notability because he was on the school board or in the military. --B (talk) 15:05, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

What if his "notability" is limited to his own community? Doesn't there have to be some wider notability than just coverage in your local paper? --MelanieN (talk) 15:22, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

User:B is absolutely correct, notability does not decrease due to an individual's positions from some sub-guideline, especially if the general notability criteria is eminently satisfied. -- Cirt (talk) 15:27, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

• Changed to DeleteKeep Yes he fails Politician/Milperson or whatever that subcriterion is, but he does fulfill the primary requirements of Notability which means keep. A topic is presumed to merit an article if it meets the general notability guidelines below and is not excluded by WP:NOT. A topic can also be considered notable if it meets the criteria outlined in any of the subject-specific guidelines listed on the right. There are articles explicitly about him in reliable notable sources, so while our secondary criterias may not recognize him, we have to pay attention to the coverage he gets elsewhere..---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 15:31, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Neither you nor B have addressed the question of notability of a purely local nature. If a person is known only in his/her own community and receives no significant coverage outside of that community, does that really qualify them as notable? --MelanieN (talk) 16:00, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't see anything in WP:N or WP:BIO that would lead me to believe otherwise. Nothing in WP:RS says it doesn't count if it isn't the Washington Post or New York Times. As long as it's a legitimate paper covering him and not a school newspaper or some guy's blog or some such thing, he looks notable to me. --B (talk) 16:06, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Think carefully about this. If you accept purely local notability - just within the local community, doesn't even have to be regional - you are opening the door for wikipedia articles about every minor local official in every small town in the country. Not to mention every failed political candidate, every local high school principal, every executive of a local company. I have been mentioned several times in my neighborhood paper for my volunteer efforts; I'd better get busy writing an article about myself. --MelanieN (talk) 16:19, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

If the paper has substantial coverage of the high school principal or failed political candidate (beyond simply reporting their existence or their one-off comment about some situation) then maybe they should be considered notable. --B (talk) 17:57, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

How about the quarterback of the high school football team? My local paper gives the team at least two articles every week during football season; generally the quarterback (as the most important player on the team) gets a half-dozen paragraphs or more. Does the resulting 25+ articles covering him mean he satisfies the notability guidelines? --Carnildo (talk) 20:34, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I looked over the requirements for GNG again. They are:

1. significant coverage --- Yes this criteria is met, multiple articles that appear to be more than trivial in nature.
2. reliable--- Yes, this criteria is met. A respected regional newspaper.
3. sources ---At first glance ok.
4. that are independent of the subject--ostensibly this one is met as well, although one can raise the question that a regional/city newspaper might over hype local personalities and thus might not be fully independent.
5. presumed---well it is presumed, so I guess it is met.

When you look at the criteria for sources, it reads (in part), The number and nature of reliable sources needed varies depending on the depth of coverage and quality of the sources. Multiple sources are generally expected.[3] Multiple sources from the same author or organization are usually regarded as a single source for the purposes of establishing notability. In other words, all of those articles from the The Press-Enterprise have to count as a single source---not 38 independent sources. Get rid of them, then you do not have much left over, in fact if you count them as a single source, then you really are forced to fall back on WP:MILPEOPLE and WP:POLITICIAN where he fails.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 21:00, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

• Delete - my !vote was removed when the first version of this nom was deleted, so I'll re-register it. For those claiming that the number of sources verify the notability of the subject, let me remind you that the sources used to justify his notability need to be about the subject himself, not the school board/election/whatever else he's been a part of. I don't want to minimize Cirt's work, but I just don't think Kenneth Dickson's accomplishments warrant an article. If he wins a major election at some point, all well and good, the article can be recreated. But he hasn't yet. Parsecboy (talk) 17:08, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
• Delete as per Parsecboy above, especially considering my vote was deleted and not re-added. Skinny87 (talk) 17:57, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
• Mea culpa, because I think I was wrong. In the debate Gwen Gale deleted, I began by !voting "delete" on the grounds that notability isn't inherited from the election to the failed candidate, and then I retracted that, saying something to the effect that I wasn't sure the nomination was in good faith because certain comments on the Wikipedia Review led me to believe that there was an anti-Cirt campaign in progress. I still think there's an anti-Cirt movement, but I now think that Herostratus is uninvolved in that and the last debate was meant in good faith, though the wording was unfortunate.

  And that's all from me at the moment—this isn't in any sense a !vote. For now, I'll simply note that there seems to have been a commendable amount of energy gone into adding references since the last AfD. The rest of what I have to say belongs at the inevitable DRV rather than here.—S Marshall T/C 18:07, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

• Delete - he has some notability, and I admit there is some coverage around, but basically, he doesn't quite meet WP:GNG, and definitely fails WP:POLITICIAN. Claritas § 18:08, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

• Wait, what? Surely the GNG is about significant coverage in reliable sources. Which of the many sources are unreliable? Or are you saying that the coverage in them isn't significant?—S Marshall T/C 18:16, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

  Notability presumed ≠ notability met. And there's still WP:ROTM, although only an essay. The Weather in London has far more sources and an incredible influence but still no article on its own. --Pgallert (talk) 09:02, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:07, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:07, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:07, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
• Delete - The person fails the WP:GNG notable criteria for significant coverage in multiple sources. There is no apparent coverage outside of the single source -- a local community newspaper. The majority of the article attempts to establish WP:POLITICIAN, but a careful reading shows it is a WP:MASK for non-notable community service.— Cactus Writer ^(talk) 05:21, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
• Delete. I do not think that coverage only in a couple of local newspapers counts as significant. To the extent that 'wikipedia notability' is meant to reflect 'real world notability', there needs to be some sort of coverage outside of the local area. As MelanieN mentioned above, you would expect him to have received some sort of coverage in the LA Times, if he were notable. Quantpole (talk) 11:10, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
• Keep Yes, he has coverage in some local newspapers, but he also has print coverage from the The San Diego Union-Tribune. When you're talking Riverside County, California, it seems that the San Diego paper will be less of a local paper than the Los Angeles Times would be. Nyttend (talk) 21:30, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment San Diego is less than 88 miles from March Joint Air Reserve Base and within the Tribune's media footprint. When I was at the base when it was active duty, we used to laugh that the Press-Enterprise was the un-official "official" extension of the base newspaper because we constantly saw their reporters with our Public Affairs Officer. As a WikiProject California member, I am familiar with the JRB, its local media and even this individual. As per Balloonman's observation, this AfD candidate does not get significant press coverage. ----moreno oso (talk) 21:47, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Please identify the article about Dickson in the The San Diego Union-Tribune - I cannot find it in this article. There is only a reference to Joel Anderson titled "Anderson announces state Senate run". — Cactus Writer ^(talk) 21:51, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I think people are looking at the large number of sources and not realizing that if you ignore the local paper, that his coverage is trivial at best. The one's from the San Diego Union Tribune appear to be one's about the person who won the election...and at best mention that he defeated Dickson.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:05, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

How do you know that it doesn't give Dickson significant coverage as well? That's the only San Diego reference that I see as well. Nyttend (talk) 22:44, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Because I read the article and it doesn't cover Dickson. — Cactus Writer ^(talk) 06:02, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Looking on the San Diego Union Tribune website and searching for Kenneth Dickson gives only 2 articles, both only mention Kenneth Dickson's election result. Thus, again, it fails WP:POLITICIAN. The often cited local source is mundane coverage of local schoolboard politics. Simply not notable acccording to WP:N.--70.80.234.196 (talk) 02:09, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

The reason for his two passing mentions by the San Diego Union-Tribune is that the seat he was running for - the 36th state senatorial district - includes portions of both Riverside County and San Diego County, and thus falls within the U-T's coverage area.[2] [3] --MelanieN (talk) 00:06, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

• Delete - despite the initially impressive look of this article, on closer inspection it appears to fail our notability guidelines. He's only locally 'notable', and there's nothing in the sources provided which indicates he's received the level of significant long-term coverage to satisfy WP:BIO. Robofish (talk) 02:42, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
• Delete - Seeing how the individual's WP:GNG standing has been debunked, as previouisly mentioned, individual presently fails WP:POLITICIAN & WP:MILPEOPLE. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 05:00, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
• Delete - Overwhelmingly trivial mentions in exclusively local media. If this person meets notability guidelines, we'd need a page for virtually every small-town alderman, every high school quarterback or point guard, every owner of a local business, every Rotary Club president, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Minnowtaur (talk • contribs) 05:42, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
• Delete. Nominating this article for deletion the first time around was one of the first times I got involved in an XfD, because the article is so outrageously overblown and pufftastic that it's almost a self-parody. His kids' high school grades? His former boss said that he "did a 'great job'"? "He was very much a team player, always asking, 'What else can I do to help?'"? The guy is a local school board member, fairly average attorney, and political primary also-ran. Like anyone who is on a school board and runs for a local political job, his local papers have occasionally mentioned him. I give Cirt credit for writing the best-formatted, most thorough, best-MASKed article imaginable on this generally unknown local personage. Still, just as we do our best not to let a crappily-formatted article from a poor English speaker sway us toward deletion, the underlying (non-)notability of Kenneth Dickson cannot be affected by purple prose or by fifty footnotes to minor local press clippings marshaled in two columns. Minnowtaur is right: he is no more notable than "virtually every small-town alderman, every high school quarterback or point guard, every owner of a local business, every Rotary Club president." I.e., not particularly notable within the context of an encyclopedia of global scope. I'm sorry so much work went into the article, but that's just the cost of doing business.  Glenfarclas  (talk) 03:49, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
• Delete per nom and per Glenfarclas - despite the article's size and number of references Mr Dickson doesn't appear to meet WP:BIO. I note in particular that the references are to local newspapers and generally aren't about Mr Dickson in particular. Nick-D (talk) 07:39, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
• Delete This reads like an advertisement for someone with an eye on political office. Regent of the Seatopians (talk) 00:25, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

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.