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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. Spartaz Humbug! 09:03, 21 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Mark Harris (North Carolina politician)

Mark Harris (North Carolina politician) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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WP:BLP, created as a redirect to an election article in 2016 and then spun back out as a standalone BLP last week, of a person notable only as an as yet non-winning candidate in a future election. As always, this is not grounds for a Wikipedia article in and of itself -- people get Wikipedia articles by winning the election and thereby holding the seat, not just by being candidates. But this offers no strong evidence that he has preexisting notability for any other reason. So this needs to be either deleted, or reverted back to the original redirect -- he'll qualify to have a Wikipedia article if he wins the seat, but nothing here is a strong or substantive reason why he'd get one just for being a candidate. Bearcat (talk) 21:32, 13 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep I've been very involved in nominating articles like this one for deletion. I created this one because I do believe that the news coverage of him and his life is significant and has persisted over time, including coverage of his time as president of the Baptist State Convention and involvement in leading the charge to pass Amendment One, so that he does pass WP:GNG. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:37, 13 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:44, 13 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of North Carolina-related deletion discussions. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:44, 13 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Being a nominee is not a Wikipedia inclusion criterion. He has to either already have preexisting notability for other reasons besides the candidacy itself, or win the general election in November. Bearcat (talk) 04:31, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
No, defeating an incumbent in a primary absolutely should not be enough, and nothing stated in this article suggests a level of "prominence" in politics that exceeds that of any other non-winning candidate. Bearcat (talk) 17:42, 20 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - It's a valuable article to refer to, and has plenty of reliable sources. econterms (talk) 09:59, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - feels WP:TOOSOON to me. There are a couple good articles about him so it's closer to a keep than most of the ones I'd vote for, but all of the articles are either directly related to his candidacy or are not sufficient for notability (the mention in the AP article, for instance.) The problem with political candidates are most articles about them are WP:MILL unless they are elected, and I don't see anything here that's not a run of the mill candidate article. SportingFlyer talk 20:23, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep He unseated a three-term congressman in the primary - and has been the only candidate to do so thus far this cycle. Roger Marshall (politician) (who held no high office at the time) was created the day after he defeated incumbent Tim Huelskamp in August 2016. I grant you Kansas's primaries are much later in the election cycle, but that isn't really what we're debating. I can't cite any Wikipedia policy here, per se, but I would at least keep it until the November elections, after which this article can be deleted should he lose. Woko Sapien (talk) 21:44, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with your argument is notability is not temporary: either he's notable now and always will be, or he's not yet notable. SportingFlyer talk 00:49, 16 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Understood. My argument was more towards recent precedent, for what it's worthWoko Sapien (talk) 02:01, 16 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Neither of those articles are about him — they both just namecheck his existence as a giver of soundbite in an article about something else, which means they do not aid in getting him over a notability criterion. GNG is passed by coverae about the person, not by coverage of other things which happens to mention his existence. Bearcat (talk) 17:45, 20 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep or move to draft. Based on what I'm reading here, he is likely to win the general election and would then qualify for a page. It sounds rather bureaucratic to delete a page now, when there is a good chance that we will want it back in less than six months. If he doesn't win in November and doesn't acquire lasting notability in another way by then, delete away. Vadder (talk) 21:52, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Every single candidate in any election could always make the exact same claim that we have to keep it because we might have to recreate it in six months if they win. Per WP:CRYSTAL, Wikipedia does not deal in the realm of election predictions — we do not keep candidate articles pending the election results and then delete them only if they lose, we wait until they win before we start the article at all. Administrators, further, have the power to restore deleted articles after the fact if there are valid reasons to do that, so the idea that the original work would be lost if he wins is not a reason why it would have to be kept in the meantime. Bearcat (talk) 17:36, 20 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, the two above arguments are a classic WP:TOOSOON. Once you're notable, you're always notable - there's no revisiting in a few months if a notability-conferring event triggers or not. SportingFlyer talk 16:45, 19 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Running twice does not make him a perennial candidate, and even if it did being a perennial candidate is not a notability criterion. Bearcat (talk) 17:45, 20 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep -- political candidate who nevertheless measures up to GNG, as per above. Geo Swan (talk) 17:10, 20 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Every candidate in every election everywhere would always "measure up to GNG", without exception, if the amount of coverage shown here were all it took. Routine campaign-related coverage, in the district's own local media where such coverage is merely expected to exist, is not enough to make a candidate notable just for being a candidate per se — candidates need to be shown as special cases to qualify for Wikipedia articles without winning the seat first, not just to be referenced to the exact same volume and depth and range of coverage that every single candidate could always show. Bearcat (talk) 17:42, 20 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • People who win a Victoria Cross, get a knighthood, or hold national office, are exceptions. They can have their notability established by "one event". Most individuals have their notability established by weighing and adding up various factors that establish notability, none of which would be sufficient to establish that individual's notability, all by itself. So, it is unfair and unreasonable to argue that this particular factor, or that particular factor, falls short of establishing notability.

        The nominator claimed ALL the references out there were about his participation in the campaign. The Reuters article, from 2012, has six of 33 paragraphs talk about Harris. Yes, the article is not about him, but 15-20% is not a mere passing mention.

        Those references establish that Harris's press coverage does not all revolve around his political campaign. Geo Swan (talk) 18:49, 20 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

        • I didn't say anything about "one event" whatsoever. Winning a Victoria Cross, getting a knighthood or holding national office are not "exceptions" to anything I said — such people are notable because they receive ongoing coverage in a context that cleanly passes the people will still be looking for this article ten years from now test. There is no such thing, for instance, as a holder of national office who wins the election but somehow fails to ever actually do anything in office or get media coverage for it — so the person is not "notable for the single event of winning an election", they are notable for the ongoing event of holding an office of permanent encyclopedic interest. The notability test is not "does this person happen to be getting some news coverage today in a context that isn't inherently notable otherwise?" — it is "will people still be looking for this article in 2028 and beyond, because their notability exists in a forever context rather than a temporarily newsy context?" Officeholders pass that test, while candidates normally do not except in extraordinary circumstances which haven't been demonstrated here. Bearcat (talk) 20:17, 20 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The current sourcing of the article appears to satisfy WP:GNG for significant coverage in secondary sources. If I search for his name and look through the results, I can see there are many more articles that discuss him, including several non-local or national news sources.[3][4][5][6] The widespread national coverage indicates this candidate and this race are notable. Lonehexagon (talk) 23:15, 20 May 2018 (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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