Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert A. Hawkins

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 Self-evident redirect and merge-as-you-like to Westroads Mall shooting, per WP:BLP1E. Guy (Help!) 13:24, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Robert A. Hawkins

Robert A. Hawkins (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

He's an otherwise non-notable person who's sole notability is summed up in the article for the shooting spree. Dismas|^(talk) 06:51, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

• Keep -- Not a noble way to achieve fame, certainly. But the rationale is twofold: first, he is widely reported by secondary sources. Second, I believe he has the requisite amount of historical importance, and his bio (even if short) is encyclopedic: eg, this appears to be a continuing narrative of modern America, these random massacres of the public by troubled young people. I have to say, however, I'm not too happy about Wikipedia's ongoing recentism, but..... you have to follow the policy.Brokethebank (talk) 07:09, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Delete - Individual is only notable in the context of the event, for which an article already exists. Previous consensus for Amanda Knox's involvement in the Murder of Meredith Kercher merged the articles in a similar fashion under the same protocol. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 07:15, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Delete and redirect to the shooting. WP:BLP1E and all that. Daniel 07:18, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per above (but technically, just redirect)... he's only notable in the context of the shooting, which already has an article. --Czj (talk) 07:24, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Don't grant this lowlife the notability he could never achieve until he ended his pathetic life. WWGB (talk) 07:26, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Please, there's really no need for that. Regardless of your opinion of the subject, there's no need to go and make such statements, especially given how recent the event was and the fact that people who knew him would probably take offence to such. Wikipedia is a notable website and such comments do us no good in instances like this. Daniel 07:28, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
    • "people who knew him would probably take offence to such" Are you serious? Nick mallory (talk) 09:25, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
      • Ah, yeah: "lowlife", "pathetic life". It's unnecessary, really. Daniel 10:18, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Merge into Westroads Mall shooting. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 07:27, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Merge to the shooting article he is a non notable person. Any useful info can just move to the article about the event. Chris! _ct 07:30, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep based on the fact that other pages on infamous mass murders exist -- for example Dylan_Klebold. Sounds like a discussion on a general WP policy for these, regrettably too frequent, events is needed. Professor water (talk) 07:32, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

• There is ongoing discussion - this AfD is part of that. WP:BIO1E is the guideline to be used for these AfDs, and that guideline is adjusted as community consensus shifts. SilkTork *^SilkyTalk 10:56, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• The Columbine Massacre is an event that had significant impact on American society, aside from its notability from press coverage (like so many other events). The shooters there have been studied somewhat, and some could argue that they are notable individually because of that. However, just because they have separate articles doesn't mean everyone else should too. You're welcome to open discussion on merging that article too. - Mtmelendez ^(Talk) 11:36, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

• Delete per Daniel. Mr.Z-man 07:32, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Merge into Westroads Mall shooting. Cite Cumulus Clouds's point on Murder of Meredith Kercher, but merging is the best possible outcome for keeping information on the event. Mattie^TK 07:32, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per Daniel and others - No notability outside the single incident, reliable sources will dry up shortly. Klebold/Harris were an isolated exception which do justify articles. Also concerns re recentism. Orderinchaos 07:33, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Restore redirect to Westroads Mall shooting. It should be noted, that Administrator John Reaves created the redirect which was then removed, and as mentioned, this person was not notable aside from this unfortunate event. Precedence shows that in the case of otherwise non-notable persons, the individual articles are usually redirected to the main article about the event, and do not warrant an article of their own. Ariel♥Gold 07:34, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
  • If the outcome of this debate is anything other than keep or no consensus, I strongly suggest the resulting redirect (and redirects for variants on this name) be fully-protected. Daniel 07:41, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, per Professor water's comments above. Kip Kinkel, Andrew Golden, Mitchell Johnson, Ronald DeFeo and other spree killers have their own pages; none has done anything noteworthy other than committing multiple homicides. Raider Duck (talk) 07:46, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Textbook case of this argument. Daniel 07:55, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Merge ... for now This is still a developing story. For now, I would argue that there is not enough information to sustain a single article, but that could change, and may even change before this debate is closed. On the other hand, there may never be enough significant information to develop an article. Professor water mentions Dylan and Klebold as having their own articles, though I wonder if the information for such an article existed within the first 48 hours after their notoriety was established. This will need to be monitored. LonelyBeacon (talk) 07:50, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Redirect, redundant. Tuxide (talk) 08:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Strong keep. In his own words, "Now I'm famous." And so he is, as a top national news story. If anything, merge the "massacre" story into his bio. Mass killers are almost notorious by definition. NTK (talk) 08:12, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Merge into Westroads Mall shooting, per above. This article is an almost verbatim copy of the Perpetrator section of the shooting article. It gives no additional information about the person at hand, whose only notable action was the aforementioned attack. As both articles are quite short, I say merge unless someone can actually come up with content that would not be appropriate in the shooting article. ♠ SG →Talk 08:21, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Comment. This incident was called breaking news in the UK last night, surely that makes the event and its perpetrator notable, for now, I am sitting on the fence. Hencetalk (talk) 08:55, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Redirect per ArielGold. Merge as needed. Save for 2 sentences, this article is redundant with the shooting article. • Gene93k (talk) 08:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. All relevant information is contained within the source article, rendering a separate bio entry unnecessary, and given the circumstances, a little gratuitous. I am of the opinion that it is the event that is noteworthy, not the perpetrator. All personal information should be included under a sub-heading in the main article, and searches for his name redirected to that article. - Nick, 20:04 5 Dec 2007 (I'm in Australia) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.105.102.221 (talk) 09:05, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold made Doom Maps that were played by a good amount of people, and they planned out the massacre before and to the minute detail (making bombs, acquiring arms, etc). Whereas this dude just killed people, there are nothing currently notable about him, and with the feeding frenzy dying down, there probably won't be any new evidence unearthed for a while (suicide note claimed he just wanted some "lulz". Clearly no serious planning was involved.). Per above, it's essentially copied from the section of the article for the event. Per WP:NOT#CRYSTALBALL, the article should be deleted until further evidence shows up to differentiate his article from the one documenting th shooting.
• Keep Seung-Hui Cho is only notable for being the perpetrator of the Virginia Tech massacre, and his "sole notability is summed up in the article for" that incident. Yet we have an article about him, don't we? -- BlastOButter42 ^See Hear _Speak 09:33, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Please read WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS and WP:BLP1E. Thanks. - Mtmelendez ^(Talk) 11:36, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

• Merge back into the main article per WP:BIO1E. As he is being discussed purely in relation to Westroads Mall shooting that's where details about him should be placed until such time as either the information about him grows too large for the main article and needs to be split out, or until sources write directly about him rather than about him in relation to this event. As it currently stands the Robert A. Hawkins article contains the same amount of material as the Westroads Mall shooting article so there is no need for a split. Added to which, having a split at this early stage creates a content fork with the inherent problems of simultaneous maintenance of two articles. Keep the content in one place, split it out when it grows, with an adequate summary left in the main article - all future development then takes place on the standalone article with only the occasional need to update the summary. SilkTork *^SilkyTalk 09:42, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Redirect to main article. No notability outside the shooting. --GSchjetne (talk) 10:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect per people here.--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 10:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Merge into shooting article for now. While the event itself is of historical significance, it isn't known at this time whether the shooter will become a notable figure as the Virginia Tech and Columbine shooters. Their lives have been examined in depth and their names have become historically notable. For now, this falls under the WP:N#TEMP criteria, until and unless there is further examination of his whole life background.--Mike Straw (talk) 10:09, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - historically significant person, "perpetrator" accompanied by "event" articles are common at Wikipedia, for example: Kimveer Gill and Dawson College shooting amongst many others. Chessy999 (talk) 10:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
  • There is no distributive property of notability. Unless there's some claim to notability otherwise, a single incident doesn't generally confer notability on the person involved in it. If we find out more later, then the content can be forked from the main article. --Ssbohio (talk) 12:12, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

• Merge per reasons above Q ^{T C} 11:01, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Merge to the shooting article per the reasons above. Brad (talk) 11:03, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Merge for the reasons stated by 122.105.102.221. Hfodf (talk) 11:13, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect for all the good reasons above. Deleting the article won't do much: new editors are bound to recreate it once they see it doesn't exist. I also suggest temporarily protecting it, per Daniel above. - Mtmelendez ^(Talk) 11:36, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect for all the good reasons above MrMarmite (talk) 11:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep No reason to delete --Apyule (talk) 11:45, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
  • So, by the same logic, a good reason to delete would be that there is no reason to keep? --Ssbohio (talk) 12:12, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect Non-notable individual involved in a notable incident. --Ssbohio (talk) 12:12, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect I can appreciate people's feelings that an individual article about the shooter would be an outrage, which is fair enough. Redirect is the obvious choice, and an inevitable one, and I'm not exaggerating about the inevitability. You can prevent an article that would memorialize this killer, but you can't prevent his name from coming up in other articles in the future. When his name comes up again, a red link turned blue will have to lead to something else besides a Manitoba legislator or a character on Jerico (see Robert Hawkins (disambiguation). Separate article doesn't have to exist, but reference will. Mandsford (talk) 12:24, 6 December 2007 (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.