Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert A. Wilson (Virginia politician)

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 no consensus‎. Nothing sticks out to me saying a third week of this discussion would change the outcome towards a consensus to delete. Given that, there's no real reason to kick this one back in the queue. Courcelles (talk) 13:50, 12 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Robert A. Wilson (Virginia politician)

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Local politician fails WP:NPOL. Novemberjazz 19:42, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Politicians and Virginia. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 21:02, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Working on adding some additional details and improving sourcing. Wilson was extremely active in Richmond's civic, political, and business life over several decades of the twentieth century. He not only served on Richmond's city council and as vice-mayor but helped to draft the city's 1948 charter, which established the council. He served on the boards of visitors of the Richmond Professional Institute and Virginia Commonwealth University, including two years as VCU's rector. In 1983, VCU awarded him with the school's highest honor, the Edward A. Wayne Medal. He was an editor of one of Richmond's biggest newspapers, the The Richmond News Leader and was a named partner and later president and chairman of the executive committee of Cargill, Wilson & Acree, described by the Washington Post as "one of the premier [advertising] agencies in the Southeast in the '60s" before a '70s merger with DDB. A search of Newspapers.com yields hundreds of relevant hits. Rockhead126 (talk) 03:20, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: Fails GNG and BIO. I can find mentions in sources about other topics, but nothing that addresses the subject directly and indepth. Let me know if someone adds IS RS refs with SIGCOV. // Timothy :: talk 05:11, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

SIGCOV describes "significant coverage" as sources that "address the topic directly and in detail." Further "[s]ignificant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material." I fail to see how major state newspapers detailing Wilson's education; business, political, and civic careers; as well as his personal life fail to meet this criteria. Rockhead126 (talk) 22:57, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ✗plicit 23:33, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep. Most of the sources seems to pass WP:GNG, but there are still significant problems with the sourcing of this article. The New York Times article only mentioned the subject in passing, and should be removed; Sources 2 and 7 are reporting on the same thing, so one of them should be removed; sources 3 to 6 were cited for the same claim, at least two of them need to be removed as well. And the "Offices and distinctions" template seems an odd inclusion, since the subject was not named in the template. Tutwakhamoe (talk) 04:41, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Agree 100% it's a borderline case, even if I think GNG is ultimately met. I did have some questions and comments though:

Regarding the NYT article, if I reword to detail how the firm's acquisition by DDB took place during his tenure as chairman of the board, do you think that would be more acceptable?
Re sources 2 and 7: Is it improper to cite to separate articles primarily about the same thing/event, even if they contain different but equally encyclopedia-worthy facts? If there are two separate newspaper articles reporting on the President awarding a soldier the Medal of Honor, I don't see why one can't be used as a source for, say, what town the soldier is from and the other for what unit the soldier was serving with at the time of their heroic action. In the case of this article, the former source provides more detail about Wilson's time with Cargill while the latter talks about his being awarded the Wayne Medal. If necessary, I can probably find a different source for either of the two things.
Re sources 3 to 6: While I'll concede that this looks like a textbook case of citation overkill on its face, I found these sources while researching the subject and think each one of them contains valuable biographical information. Unfortunately, I've had very little free time recently and haven't had time to incorporate all of them into the article, so I dumped them all after the sentences about Wilson's career. I agree it's a bit sloppy and needs to be fixed, but it's my intention to clean it all up when I get the time.

Genuinely, thank you for the constructive criticism. Most of my work here on Wikipedia is done solo, and, while this article is certainly not representative of the best of my work...yet...I always really appreciate hearing other editor's feedback. Rockhead126 (talk) 03:19, 11 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

One last thing I forgot to address last night: I'm not sure what you mean about the "'Offices and distinctions' template." It's simply a collapsible navbox to house succession boxes. Not completely necessary here, especially with only one succession box used at the moment, but it looks clean in my opinion. Just a stylistic choice. Rockhead126 (talk) 20:08, 11 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep. While not an attorney, the closest essay that I have is User:Bearian/Standards#Notability_of_attorneys. He was chair of several civic committees for the state capital, and contemporaneous with Lewis Powell and Eppa Hunton IV, prominent residents of that city. There are sources in those articles that show their work together. See also [1]. Yes, I know WP:NOTINHERITED applies. I'm saying some of the sources for the other two subjects might have information on this particular subject. Bearian (talk) 16:57, 11 May 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.