Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Bowie (lawyer) (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. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:18, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

James Bowie (lawyer)

AfDs for this article:

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Reasons for deletion include an apparent breach of the biographies of living persons policy, and because this article appears to be contrary to the What Wikipedia is not policy that discourages scandal mongering, so should also be excluded according to the second prong of the notability guideline.

This article was created on 22 December 2022 [1], after the subject began to receive Ottawa-based coverage related to a variety of serious misconduct allegations, including allegations described in an article source headline in terms that can be commonly understood as allegations of criminal conduct. An Ontario-based legal industry publication also reported on allegations in December 2022. Coverage of allegations appears to have begun in November 2022.

This article was brought to AfD on 18 February 2023, and NAC-closed as keep on 4 March 2023 by a now-blocked sock. Since then, the article subject has been criminally charged.

I have tried to find reliable sources to help establish this subject was well-known before and/or independent of 'lawyer is subject to bar disciplinary investigation and license suspension,' 'lawyer is accused of serious misconduct,' 'lawyer is facing criminal charges,' and 'lawyer is relatedly getting sued in a civil action.' With an assist from the prior AfD and article, I have found:

pre-November 2022 sources

a passing mention in a 2019 Toronto Star source that quotes him for his opinion: "James Bowie, an Ottawa criminal lawyer and past Liberal staffer, said..." - the mention of being a past Liberal staffer is used in the article to develop the Career section.
a 9-sentence report in a 2020 Ottawa City News source based mostly on Bowie's statements announcing his belief that there would be no arrests at an upcoming anti-racism protest, but if there were, he would volunteer to provide free legal services to those arrested.
a mention of Bowie live-tweeting court in a Feb 2022 post about a bail hearing for Pat King, published by the questionable Daily Hive, which describes itself as "hyperlocal" and delivering "information to its local audience and advertisers". Instead of editorial standards, this website appears to disclaim them: "The articles disseminated are believed to be reliable; however the publisher disclaims any and all liability as to the completeness or accuracy of the information contained in any article and for any omissions of material facts from such article."
a 7-minute 2022 CBC interview (a year ago) with Bowie - "Criminal lawyer James Bowie watched the bail hearing for convoy protest organizer Tamara Lich. He talks about the hearing, and where the process is at"
a nearly 7-minute 2022 CBC interview (a year ago) with Bowie - "Criminal defence lawyer James Bowie takes us through how a mass-arrest situation - such as we are seeing in Ottawa this weekend - is handled. He also reviews the bail hearing for one of the convoy organizers"

Based on available sources, compliance with WP:BLPSTYLE and WP:BLPBALANCE does not appear possible at this time - specifically writing a biography that is not primarily based on recent coverage related to allegations, investigations, and criminal charges. Since coverage of the allegations began, there are some brief mentions in Ottawa news about his past Freedom Convoy-related social media activity, e.g.

post-November 2022 sources

29 Nov 2022 CTV News Ottawa - includes a graphic content warning and briefly mentions "Bowie, who became known on Twitter this year for chronicling the court appearances of various 'Freedom Convoy' organizers"
30 Nov 2022 Ottawa Citizen - "Ottawa lawyer James Bowie, known for garnering Twitter followers during the “Freedom Convoy” movement,"
2 Feb 2023 Ottawa Citizen - describes Bowie's alleged belief in his own fame related to his tweeting about the Freedom Convoy
24 April 2023 CTV News Ottawa - "Bowie rose to prominence on social media by chronicling the court appearances of various 'Freedom Convoy' organizers last year."

Basic biographical and career information also appears to be limited, with the Ottawa Citizen mentioning on 2 Feb 2023 "Born in 1983, Bowie was licensed in 2015 and has worked as a sole practitioner since 2020 in Ottawa" and the general location of his residence. If his own representations about his media activity are included, he seems to have made some appearances in news media to offer comment on Freedom Convoy court proceedings in 2022, but there do not appear to be sources describing him as a well-known news commentator or pundit.

According to more recent sources, he "became known on Twitter"/"known for garnering Twitter followers"/"rose to prominence on social media by chronicling the court appearances of various 'Freedom Convoy' organizers" in 2022, but does not appear to have received contemporary, independent, reliable, in-depth coverage of this. I think WP:BASIC/WP:GNG notability would not be supported based on what appears to otherwise be available about his career, commentary, and social media activity, and this limited available coverage does not offer a lot to help develop a balanced biography.

In advance of this AfD, I removed content from the article based on WP:BLP policy. Sources remaining in the article are primarily coverage of allegations. So I am bringing this article here for further discussion, because notability does not appear to be well-supported, and it appears BLP policy further supports deletion of this article at this time. Beccaynr (talk) 00:34, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: People, Crime, Law, and Canada. Beccaynr (talk) 00:34, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. (as article creator) As per the reasons listed at the first AFD. Since then the subject has only got more notable. He inevitably will continue to get more notable. Any BLP policy concerns can be (and a perhaps already have been; I see that over 4,000 bytes was removed from the article today) resolved (see the essay Wikipedia:Deletion is not cleanup and WP:ATD: If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page. The votes to keep at the first AFD were not plentiful, but they were unanimous, User:Loewstisch pointed out how WP:GNG was met and I made the same argument citing news from 2020, 2022 and 2023:

WP:NOTSCANDAL says that we should not promote things heard through the grapevine. The article is cited. We should not delete content just because the content is scandalous if it is reported in reliable sources. See Category:Scandals for the many dozens of article specifically on scandals.

I don't think balance is missing from the article. He's somewhat known for live tweeting court cases, a little bit known for other legal things and mostly known for legal challenges, which are properly documented in the article. CT55555(talk) 00:51, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. we don't need to rely on his assertions that he was a pundit:

CT55555(talk) 01:03, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOTSCANDAL also says, "Articles and content about living people are required to meet an especially high standard, as they may otherwise be libellous or infringe the subjects' right to privacy. Articles must not be written purely to attack the reputation of another person." And in the previous AfD, there were two keep !votes; the nominator did not change their support for deletion, so there was not unanimous support to keep.

I also think WP:CRYSTALBALL predictions of further coverage related to criminal proceedings and further sensationalized coverage of titillating claims about people's lives are particularly difficult to predict, especially given how limited and localized the prior coverage has been.

And I think the removal of content shows two things: 1) how non-notable this subject is if there is an attempt to comply with BLP policy, and 2) how BLP compliance is still not possible after such a removal because the sources (and headlines in the references section) still describe allegations that are problematic according to BLP and NOT policies. Beccaynr (talk) 01:14, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

To help avoid the possibility of inappropriate canvassing by a ping to only one participant in the previous AfD, courtesy pinging the other previous AfD participants: Bueller 007 and Elinruby, in addition to Loewstisch. Beccaynr (talk) 17:00, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I was a little surprised to see the Daily Hive described as unreliable, although I have not evaluated it specifically with respect to Wikipedia policy. My overall reaction to this AfD however is that this guy was a useful idiot who jumped on a toxic bandwagon that caused who knows how many deaths from covid, and we should not be straining to give him oxygen. I am very preoccupied with a wildfire near me, but assuming that remains stable I may come back and do a detailed analysis. I would have to see much more than passing mentions in the Toronto Star to change my vote however. EtElinruby (talk) 17:32, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Recent coverage is almost entirely about allegations that he sexually harassed "pro-bono" clients. It looks like this was substantiated to the extent that he lost his law license, but I don't know that this makes him notable outside Ottawa (as Ottawa, not as the capital of Canada). Some additional stories cover similar new allegations that don't seem to have been adjudicated yet, so correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't that mean we don't use them in a BLP? Speaking of policy, I did find the disclaimer at the Daily Hive website, which does lead to the conclusion that it is not an RS. The mentions of him as any kind of pundit have faded out with the trucker's convoy, and *that*... well . It was a big deal for a while, mostly in traffic news outside of Ottawa, but American money apparently was behind it, so I am not convinced it was genuine news story, and supposing it was, notability is not inherited and being a sorta social media commentator on Twitter about the ensuing legal proceedings does not make him notable. I don't think the article should have been kept last time. Elinruby (talk)

Delete as per my rationale on the original nomination for deletion. Non-notable, BLP1E, potential violation of BLPCRIME, etc. I find it very difficult to believe that anyone truly thinks that this person is notable enough to deserve an entry in an encyclopedia. Bueller 007 (talk) 19:23, 21 August 2023 (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.