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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. The consensus of this discussion is explicitly clear. The BLP arguments have not been supported by the discussion. I particularly do not accept that we should use articles like this to move the window on BLP and GNG. This person may well be a scumbag (to quote someome in the discussion) but his article should not be a battleground to change policy. Instead that is what policy talk pages should be for.

One final point should be the title of this article. I don't feel that politician is the correct tag and I would suggest further discussion on the article talk should agree a new location. Spartaz Humbug! 21:35, 2 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Nathan Larson (politician)

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Previous (incomplete) AfD for this article:
Nathan Larson (politician) (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log)
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He's not a notable person. He's notorius, and that's different. The article's a hatchet job, and that can't be fixed -- it's inherently a hatchet job because of the sources of his supposed notability. That's a BLP violation. So let's see...

Sure he meets the WP:GNG. So let me point out a couple-few things about that.

  • The GNG is a guideline (not a policy). It's a good guideline! It's important and useful, and I always look at it when considering the fate of articles. Look at it. There are quite a number of other factors in play when considering an article.
  • One reason we know this is that apparently a whole lot of our articles don't meet the GNG. I looked at 100 random articles ( here) and two thirds did not meet the GNG. Another third could probably be made to meet the GNG, or else meet an SNG (Special Notability Guideline, such as are in force for many athletes etc.) Another third cannot.
  • Conversely, sometimes articles that do meet the GNG are deleted (and should be). Right here is an article that meets the GNG probably better than 95% of our articles, with 45 refs including in-depth coverage by CNN, the Boston Globe, USA Today, the New York Times, Time Magazine, The Washington Post, and several other highly notable publications in America, and even internationally in the Guardian, Hindustan Times, Australian Broadcasting Company, the Indian Express, the Irish Times, the BBC, and Geo TV (Pakistan). The article was nevertheless deleted (basically on grounds of being ephemeral) and probably should have been. People looked at the GNG but (probably properly) decided there were other, more compelling, arguments for deleting the article.
  • And so an important factor in play is that the article's a WP:BLP violation. As noted, the GNG is a guideline. BLP is a policy, and so is WP:IAR, which comes into play since the article is not an ornament to the Wikipedia.

WP:BLP says:

Biographies of living persons must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid: it is not Wikipedia's job to be sensationalist...the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment... Wikipedia is not news, or an indiscriminate collection of information. Being in the news does not in itself mean that someone should be the subject of a Wikipedia article [emphasis added].... Many Wikipedia articles contain material on people who are not well known, even if they are notable enough for their own article. In such cases, exercise restraint and include only material relevant to the person's notability... Material that may adversely affect a person's reputation should be treated with special care...



And I mean a lot of the refs are of the nature of "OMG! Look at this! Here's this person who's a self-confessed _________, and he's running for office! Well what is the world coming to!". We are not supposed to be doing this.



So let's see.., article ledes are supposed to lay out why the person is notable... the lede of this article is too cutesy by half: it starts with

Nathan Daniel Larson (born September 19, 1980) is an American perennial candidate for public office in the U.S. state of Virginia.

So this is presented first, as his most important factor of notability. But he's not a perennial candidate to the degree sufficient for an article. He ran for Congress once, and got 1.46% of the vote. He ran for the lower house of the state legislature, which is not a very notable position, and got 1.68. And that's it. (He started another run for Congress, but withdrew.) That's... there are many thousands of people with this level of electoral accomplishment, and they don't have articles and shouldn't. Nor does two (or three if you squint) runs for office make one a "perennial candidate", which term is a pejorative and we shouldn't use it since it's not true.

So why does this person have an article? Well let's see what's really going on here:

He served 14 months in prison for the felony of threatening the President of the United States. He has advocated greatly curtailing women's rights and decriminalizing child sexual abuse and incest, and is a white supremacist. In 2020, Larson was [redacted].

Well first of all this applies to thousands upon thousands of people, except for the bit about threatening the President of the United States, but even that is an American sport: prosecutions for that average about 40 a year over the last 20 years (it says here). Larson was convicted, and I don't know how common that is, but prosecutors don't usually bring charges unless they've got a good chance of winning. This 2019 article notes two people who were convicted in the same week of threatening the President. Those people don't have articles. Should they, do you think?

So on what basis do have a lede here? We shouldn't really open with saying he's a perennial candidate, because he's really not, and even if he is he's only so at the level of thousands of people who don't have articles. We shouldn't really open with "is a person who was convicted for threatening the President of the United States", because that's very common and people don't get articles for that. We shouldn't really open with "A person who has advocated greatly curtailing women's rights and decriminalizing child sexual abuse and incest, and is a white supremacist", because that's true of my Grand-Uncle Dwight and millions of other people. We absolutely cannot open with the final sentence which is about an arrest, and BLP specifically forbids mentions of crimes until actual conviction (I removed that sentence since BLP compels editors to remove such material on sight). And we can't really open with "is just a really awful person" because that's not how we roll.

So let's be honest here: 1) Nathan Larson is a ______ ______, and he's also a ______ and a ______. 2) And he's also an extreme right-wing person, and a white supremacist, and all that. 3) And so we don't like him, at all. And that's why he has an article, even though he's just not worth an article. But "Here's a guy we reallllllly don't like" is not a basis for an article, and Wikipedia policy says so. [EDIT: the above section bit is utterly false, unkind, insulting, and other bad stuff. I was called out on it, probably not harshly enough, and I've apologized to the article creator User:Yngvadottir if that helps and commended the skill and daring of her work. I'm embarrassed, but the rest of my argument still stands. Herostratus ( talk) 01:40, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply

I get that there's going to be a whole lot of "votes" to the effect of "boop beep, meets GNG, keep". I'm calling upon the closer to note that this is not a vote, and that policy considerations are real important. (There was a previous deletion nomination for this article ( here), but it was closed after two days, apparently purely on preliminary headcount at the time, or the closer just liked the article, or something. I wouldn't count that as a real AfD.)

This is just a really bad article for us to publish. Delete. (Full disclosure: FWIW I hate this guy. That has nothing to do with what we're about here.) Herostratus ( talk) — Preceding undated comment added 09:17, 25 December 2020 (UTC) reply

(References for some of the above material are required per BLP, and here they are, lifted from the article: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

References

  1. ^ "Nathan Larson's Biography". Vote Smart. Archived from the original on 2018-06-07.
  2. ^ Jesselyn Cook; Andy Campbell (June 5, 2018) [May 31, 2018]. "Congressional Candidate In Virginia Admits He's A Pedophile". Huffington Post. Archived from the original on 2018-06-07.
  3. ^ William Cummings (June 2, 2018) [June 1, 2018]. "Nathan Larson is a pedophile and a white supremacist. And he's running for Congress". USA Today. Archived from the original on 2018-06-04.
  4. ^ Jill Palermo (February 28, 2017). "Update: Delegate candidate convicted in 2009 of threatening to kill the president". Fauquier Times-Democrat. Archived from the original on March 17, 2018.
  5. ^ Andrew Buncombe (June 2, 2018). "Self-described white supremacist and paedophile running for US congress from his parents' home". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2018-06-04.
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Herostratus ( talk) 09:17, 25 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Virginia-related deletion discussions. Engr. Smitty Werben 09:27, 25 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep Was nominated for deletion three years ago and all the users voting said keep. The article also meets WP:NOTABLE and is rated C-Class in WP Biography. – Cupper52 Discuss! 10:10, 25 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Well but all the users didn't say keep. A few did, and then the AfD was shut down before any delete votes could be recorded. That doesn't really count as a proper AfD, I'd consider this the first AfD for the article. Herostratus ( talk) 11:57, 25 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. Fails NPOL spectacularly. At least he's consistent. Hyperbolick ( talk) 10:12, 25 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. I wrote the article after his candidacy for Congress had attracted nationwide news coverage. (I believe there are earlier deleted versions from before that.) I regret that to a certain extent; it was an agony to keep it neutral and to keep hiw Wikipedia activities, which I think are pure naval-gazing, out of it; I tangled with another editor and walked away. But he was notable then under GNG and has been recently arrested, with, again, massive amounts of news coverage ( Newsweek, September (!), Washington Post, Newsweek again, Denver Post, NBC, ABC local paper with arrest details). I'm afraid he amply meets our notability criteria to have a biography, although his criminal record and the latest accusations would now need to be more prominent in the introduction since the basis for his being all over the national news has changed. Yngvadottir ( talk) 16:51, 25 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. I'm pretty conservative on BLP issues, but the nominator's position, as I understand, amounts roughly to "If a person is only notable for being awful, we shouldn't have an article about them", which I don't think finds any support in either policy or common sense. Steve Smith ( talk) 18:15, 25 December 2020 (UTC) reply
    • Because people are piling on to Herostratus's nom, I should at least indicate that I agree with them wholeheartedly that, in appropriate circumstances, WP:BLP can absolutely trump WP:GNG. I am thinking here of cases where a fundamentally private individual is thrust involuntarily into the public eye in a way that results in plenty of coverage in reliable sources, but for reasons that are embarrassing to them; in that case, our regard for subjects' privacy should make us seriously consider whether it is appropriate to participate in that intrusion. That is not this case, however. Steve Smith ( talk) 00:25, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
      • Nobody is denying that principle. I have made many such nominations myself, eg: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Samuel Legg, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Deangelo Martin. But these principles do not apply here, as this individual is notable for several events unrelated to their alleged crime, and the nominator has stated as much in their nom. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 00:33, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
        • I think you and I are in agreement, but I don't agree that nobody is denying this principle. Several users are treating the fact that Larson meets WP:GNG as dispositive of the question of whether he should have an article, when in fact that's totally non-responsive to the nominator's rationale for deletion. More broadly, I am aware of a strong current of thought in the Wikipedia community holding that, since we rely on secondary sources that exercise editorial judgment, we are exempt from having to exercise any of our own, and I do not wish to be seen as falling within that current. Steve Smith ( talk) 04:45, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Obvious keep When your nomination begins by explaining why the subject clearly meets WP:GNG, you better have just about the most compelling argument anyone has ever seen coming in hot right after that. Not seeing it here. We have articles on lots of infamous people. I've written a number of them myself, for example Randy Roth. The article doesn't say anything nice about him because he's known for being a terrible person. The other issues identified in the nomination can be fixed by editing. Beeblebrox ( talk) 23:00, 25 December 2020 (UTC) reply
User:Beeblebrox, tsk, you of all people should remember that writing "known for being a terrible person" is a big BLP violation, unless you have a good source saying just that and link to it here. I note that the person below wrote "scumbag" and and above there's "awful" and who knows what other monkey business is going on. BLP does not permit but rather requires editors to redact such material on sight. But I'll tell you what. I'll turn a blind eye if you protect me if I'm brought up for writing "poor and insignificant mentally damaged person" below, which I did. Herostratus ( talk) 02:45, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Obvious scumbag, obvious keep - The sources are too darned many, and I don't find Herostratus' reasoning convincing in the least. -- Orange Mike | Talk 20:55, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep; there's nothing wrong with notability via notoriety. Everything is amply sourced. If we're invoking IAR, then I also have an IAR rationale to keep: it is good to document how people like this have misused Wikipedia to advance their own awful views and have kept returning as sockpuppets. Crossroads -talk- 21:58, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep He's included in this Vox article about incels from 2019 because of the forums he started. Coin ( talk) 22:22, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 22:27, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep - plenty reliable sources, and the subject meets notability. I don't know why this is at AfD in the first place, given the plethora of news sources - Alison ❤ 22:37, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep per Alison and Cullen (elsewhere). ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 23:45, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep - Per WP:GNG. Plenty of good sources. BabbaQ ( talk) 23:59, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep and SNOW close Per the sources in the article, the ridiculous nom statement that basically argues that the article meets our most basic, universally accepted inclusion criteria, (GNG), and due to the fact the there are no BLP issues since there is adequate reliable sources and notoriety of the individual. Valeince ( talk) 00:12, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep He meets GNG quite easily. The claimed distinction between notable and "notorious" is contrived and not based on policies or guidelines. The "he's not worth an article" argument is subjective and without merit. I do agree that if he was just a guy who lost a few elections badly, the article should be deleted. But the significant coverage of him in many reliable sources is for several other reasons as well. All those reasons combined make him a notable person, and an encyclopedia with over six million articles should have a biography about this person. Any BLP concerns can be resolved by normal editing. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 00:22, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Reluctant Keep - I would love to vote Delete. But try as a might the rationales don't work. It's not a BLP violation because he is intentionally courting negative controversy. There are plenty of source because the press is raising his star, not our fault. The coverage is significant enough it can't be tossed aside as mere moral panic. I don't understand why his history as a Wikipedia user, well sourced, is not discussed anywhere. The lead section needs some work to better indicate he is notable for being a troll and now criminal. The Haraatz article by Omer Benjakob can be a model to follow. -- Green C 00:47, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep It's obvious this article meets GNG as you have explained that yourself but I fail to find any BLP violations that make it so this article should be deleted. 'This guy is awful and I don't like him' is not a convincing argument for deletion. Jay Jay What did I do? 01:24, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Delete - Fails every metric as a politician. Not sure he meets the minimum standard as a criminal. There's probably enough from column A and column B to get this over the GNG hump, but my sentiment is for an IAR delete. I really don't like Wikipedians doing bellybutton-gazing articles on other Wikipedians, glorious or defrocked. If this guy was not a Wikipedian, would this article ever have been written? No, it would not. Carrite ( talk) 02:09, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
The article, strangely, does not mention at all that he was a Wikipedian, despite considerable extensive coverage about it in reliable sources. The problem is not bellybutton gazing, rather a reaction in the opposite direction giving it the air of a coverup. Does that mean we turn into an article primarily about Wikipedia? Of course not, but there is also a place for it, according to the sourcing. If that is too difficult to deal with there are some editors who skilled at finding the right balance for these difficult subjects. -- Green C 02:25, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
It has over a paragraph on it. There's too much of it, if anything. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 02:43, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Not sure what happened I searched cntrl-f "wikipedia" and found nothing (other than the Haraaz title), but I see the paragraph now. -- Green C 03:03, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep per WP:GNG. There are obvious content issues, but AFD is not the place to hash them out. This is a guy with multiple independent nontrivial mentions in the news media for a variety of incidents, and the ongoing criminal case only adds to that. 69.174.144.79 ( talk) 03:32, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Alright, but you started editing this month and this is your 20th edit, and your edit history shows that you are certainly a fast learner. Have you edited previously under another name or IP? (That wouldn't negate your argument, but it'd be a data point for headcount.) Herostratus ( talk) 13:34, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
If you’ve got an accusation to make, then I suggest you make it in the appropriate forum. 69.174.144.79 ( talk) 06:13, 31 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. Perhaps redirect his name to Threatening the President of the United States#Incidents with a few sentences there about him. What is the basis of notability for a stand-alone article? This is a troubled person. This article is worth reading, including the final sentence. He isn't a politician. Standing for office doesn't make him notable, and I'm not sure that standing three times over ten years makes him a perennial candidate. Other than that, there is threatening the President, the situation with his family, expressing vile (and bizarre) views, creating vile websites, editing Wikipedia, and now the latest abduction situation. It's all over the place. SarahSV (talk) 04:00, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
    It is worth noting that for almost a decade he was not eligible to run for office due to a conviction, according to the article. Also, your rationale confuses me. Are “troubled people” not eligible for an article? If so, what definition for troubled person are we using? Do we have any diagnosis to come to this judgement, or an RS? You list a laundry list of things this person has done, and then conclude he is not notable? I do not understand. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 04:58, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Libertarianism-related deletion discussions. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 18:13, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. Nobody is required to be notable for a particular reason and we don't censor articles on "troubled" people. These suggestions are not based in guidelines and policy. Larson has courted attention and has received significant, dedicated coverage in US national press since 2017, not only for his political runs, but also his online activities - and now his arrest. So BLP1E doesn't apply. Fences& Windows 21:43, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Comment: Has Nathan ever spoken about his Wikipedia article? If yes, what did he say about this article? HandsomeBoy ( talk) 12:15, 29 December 2020 (UTC) reply
I believe there is a guideline that says if a person is borderline notable, and has stated that he does not want to have a Wikipedia article, such can be considered as courtesy. I was just thinking if that would apply here. HandsomeBoy ( talk) 18:01, 2 January 2021 (UTC) reply
He has edited it with some enthusiasm, but I don't think he's ever commented on whether he wanted it or not. Also, back when he edited, he took the position that nothing should ever be deleted, so to that extent I guess he's made his position known? Steve Smith ( talk) 19:07, 2 January 2021 (UTC) reply
Then clearly Keep. HandsomeBoy ( talk) 21:11, 2 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • Keep, as someone with a lot of non-trivial coverage from major news sources like WaPo, USA Today and Haaretz (and tons of other sources of various scale), he unquestionably passes GNG. The argument about him being just another Wikipedian with article™ might've made a bit of sense a month ago, however with newest developments with his arrest for kidnapping it has become moot: he's both a fringe political candidate known for his extreme views and a suspect in a notable criminal case. Max Semenik ( talk) 15:48, 29 December 2020 (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.

Arbitrary break

Extended content

There's a lot to chew on here, and I'm requesting the closer to relist as long as comments are coming in. We want to get this right, there's no hurry. I'm trying to move the Overton window on both GNG and BLP maybe just a little bit here, maybe by only one or two editors (but you never know!), so let's keep going.

So... a point that I haven't seen addressed are are around the User:Herostratus/Trump orb situation. That article was deleted in 2017 (here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Trump orb (2nd nomination)) despite not only meeting the GNG but far far far exceeding it. The headcount was 28-8 to delete, so this is fine (I think it's OK because I'm not a slave to the GNG guideline).

My questions are 1) Since the article clearly and incontrovertibly met GNG, should that AfD been closed as Keep (AfD is not a vote)? Were 28 editors wrongheaded?
2) If not, why would that article be deleted and this one kept, considering that

2A) After all, the entity described in that article is far far far more famous and remains so (three years later in 2020 I see three lengthy articles in the WSJ, the Guardian, and Business Insider on the entity; and SNL's latest show referenced the entity).
2B) That article, after all, is not using our enormous power to -- at least arguably -- drag some poor and insignificant mentally damaged person through the mud and besmirch his name highly visibly and forever. (Which isn't a reason to make a special effort to keep articles. I hope?)

I'd like to see some cogent answers to my questions, but they're probably not forthcoming, because there aren't any I don't think. Prove me wrong. Herostratus ( talk) 02:32, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply

  • If you want a general policy discussion, WT:DP. This is an AfD for Nathan Larson (politician), for which the weather seems to be heavy precipitation. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 03:07, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
    I'll give you an answer anyway. Trump orb appears to have been deleted because editors were convinced it met various overriding criteria in WP:NOT. Editors can decide to put content in another article as a matter of content. WP:NOT does not apply here, and editors have decided that an article is warranted. These are decisions to be made on a case by case basis, which is being made, and effectively has been made, here. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 03:12, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
OK, and thanks for answering. The problem is, let's be honest. Read the AfD. Trump orb was deleted because Wikipedia editors just don't want that kind article. Again: fine. WP:IAR specifically allows this, and WP:1Q tells how it works: "Ask yourself, should the article exist? Answer that question first, then pick whatever policy, guideline, essay, or argument supports the answer. Don't flip the order." Not only is this OK (WP:IAR is a core policy!) but, as humans, we do this is a lot. You know we do. Editors did it there, and they're doing it here. Fine, just let's not kid ourselves and each other, and then we can address what's going on here on a more honest level. Make sense?
So, there was a good deal of flailing there. Some editors were out front: "The Wikipedia is not Know Your Meme" and "not encylopedic" so forth. Good! Casting about for more cover, editors basically painted the entity as ephemera (a good reason to delete, if true!) But the entity obviously turned out not to be ephemera (see above, and there's more). So, they were certainly wrong. There's nothing in WP:NOT to proscribe the article (NOTNEWS mainly says not to publish our own eyewitness reporting), but "Delete per WP:SOMEPOLICY" sounds impressive, so that was deployed a lot.
The actual reason that article was deleted was because, come on, GNG or no, people do not want us to document every meme that comes down the pike, or publish 365 articles a year on what Donald Trump does each day. Again: fine.
The actual reason that this Nathan Larson article is being kept? All I can figure so far is these three:
  • Yes, I really am a GNG bug, and those 28 !voters were misguided, and I wish that article had been kept.
  • That article was about silly nonsense, but Nathan Larson is a figure in 21st century American politics and that's important.
  • I hate this guy and, hey, he asked for it so we should give him what he deserves and make him infamous.
I think that all of these reasons are in probably in play, and I think that all are wrong, is all. Herostratus ( talk) 12:53, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
”Does it make the encyclopaedia better” is a very different question from “Do I want this article to exist?” I’ve closed many discussions in a way that beats my personal preferences and what I think makes Wikipedia better. It’s perfectly possible to assume objective roles. So I strongly disagree that #3 is motivating this discussion. It may motivate some votes, but I do not think it motivates consensus. As for that article, you can try WP:DRV on it with a decent argument. But, as you will know, in a project as large as this even with objective standards, application will always have to come down to a small group of people who can think. They, while thinking, decide what interpretation applies, they may decide it doesn’t hold up to the spirit of Wikipedia, or they may simply decide they do/do not like it. That’s probably why there are deletion review processes. I think that discussion arrived at the correct outcome. Every other thing Trump (or many public figures) does gets media attention, some becomes memes, yet none of it persists with time and has zero educational or informational value to anyone. WP:NOTNEWSPAPER strongly applies; Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events. This is my interpretation/argument - others evaluate, they vote, we get a consensus. The question you ask, I think, is how does one reconcile differences across other articles. It perhaps makes for a valid policy discussion, but in a given deletion debate it’s covered by WP:OSE, otherwise we’d never get anything done. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 13:10, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Oh absolutely, it was fine to close that AfD as delete. Headcount is an important data point, especially when it's lopsided. And this article will be kept unless there's a big turnaround soon, and that's correct also; I won't object. Still looking for that turnaround though -- you never know till the lady sings.
Not seeing how "Does it make the encyclopaedia better" is a unrelated to "Do I want this article to exist?". My opinion (not much shared apparently, but still reasonable) is that it makes the Wikipedia better for this article to not exist. It's existence is not an ornament to the project.... picking on a hapless nobody. Let's leave that to the news rags maybe, hmnn? Maybe people don't realize how big and powerful we are. That means you and I User:ProcrastinatingReader: right now, for this person's fate in the world, you and I are very powerful. You can't run away from that. When you're powerful it's easy to crush people without meaning to even realizing it, and then it's easy to do it without much caring, and then it's easy to do it to advance your interests... It makes the Wikipedia better to not go down that path. And we don't have to. We're free persons in the world, and we can sweep aside rules when we want to (as happened in the the Trump Orb AfD), and no rule written can force us to publish anything we shouldn't.
The thing about NOTNEWSPAPER, heh, is that a lot -- a whole lot! -- of editors think that we should not publish about very recent events unless they're obviously an especially really big deal, but there's no policy against it (maybe there should be), so given its title NOTNEWSPAPER looks like the best port in that storm. But if you read the rest of the section you quoted it does go on to say Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events... For example, routine news reporting of announcements, sports, or celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion in the encyclopedia... breaking news should not be emphasized or otherwise treated differently from other information. Not be emphasized. The rule proscribes the argument "borderline notable at best, but it's in news right now and that's a reason to make a special exception and publish", and that's all it does really. Most cites of NOTNEWS are cover for "I don't like articles on recent events", is all. (That's reasonable, it's just not our policy.) Herostratus ( talk) 14:16, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
It's best to consider WP:NOT loosely and in terms of principles. It's not written with the main intent of being deletion criteria. Some events-related application of it is WP:ROUTINE and WP:SENSATIONAL (read from "Even in respected media" onwards), which covers the orb imo. Further examples in WP:DELAY
I think, in line with our current standards, this person is worthy of note and should have an article. I think it's not my business to decide whether it's good or bad, holy or evil - readers can decide that. The point is that it's notable, and hence we have an article on it. We're not "[giving] him what he deserves", I think editors don't decide what someone "deserves".
The points you're making directly lead to saying that living criminals should not have articles (regardless of conviction) out of fear of their future reputation. That is a significant deviation from current standards and deserves a policy discussion. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 14:29, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
"I think it's not my business to decide whether it's good or bad..." well OK then, but whoever told you that was surely wrong. "It's not my place to make a moral judgement here" is a moral judgement, and you can't escape the moral world by sitting down at a keyboard. You just can't. I could point you to the B___ P___ case where the community did indeed decide "yeah there's news coverage, but let's leave this poor pathetic guy his privacy", except that I'm not going to publish his name. But that was a long time ago. It's a different Wikipedia now. Better? Maybe not. Are we so rulebound now that we've forgotten that we're supposed to be a benefit to the world of men and not just a hobby website.
I get what you're saying about the criminals, and yeah, we do have a remit to inform the world of important stuff. It's one of the things we're supposed to do, but within the context of balancing inform-the-world with not-being-a-bully. It takes some subtle analysis. We're going to have an article on Charles Manson (even when he was alive). We're not going to have an article on some random private citizen who downloaded child porn. In between is the middle. Earl Bradley is in there and he has an article and should, because he's just too notable to keep out -- hundreds and hundreds of crimes, maybe the worst child molester in American history [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] and we'd be failing our mission if we left him out. Nathan Larson is in the middle too, but (IMO) he's just too far below the line, it's just not mission-critical to cover him -- one crime (for which he hasn't even been convicted yet). I get that the news rags played it up because he's a clickbait sideshow geek in other ways. So what. And the lede isn't even "Nathan Larson is an American criminal..." because there's not enough there to hang an article on. Herostratus ( talk) 15:50, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
As for your porn guy, he's covered by BLPCRIME unless he's convicted. If convicted, we generally wouldn't have vast amounts of media coverage on the person, but if we did then BLP1E and enduring relevance for notability considerations apply and he may or may not be notable. It depends on a case by case basis and evaluation.
"Moral" is usually a weak standard in a deletion discussion, because your morals are different from my morals which are different from the next guy. PAG arguments give everyone a clear framework to work from.
"Mission critical" is also a weak argument. We aren't trying to cover vital articles only. This guy ran for Congressional election multiple times, tried to spread his platform and policy agenda including through media interviews, was convicted (and yes, he is already a convicted felon, this is at least his second crime) of threatening the US president, operates illegal websites, and is now arrested for allegedly kidnapping a kid. He has multiple claims to notability. In your view, these things hurt his reputation so you wish to delete them and believe it causes undue harm. That has no basis in our current standards, and if you want to change the standards WT:DP and WT:BLP and {{ rfc}} all have space for you to raise these concerns. Anyway, this is circular, I've given you better venues to raise these concerns. I don't think there's much else I can say here. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 16:30, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
I just wanted to draw attention to the moral point as well. The idea that the people who want to keep this article are doing so in order to publicly shame someone is itself a moral judgment. We're supposed to leave those judgments at the door when we discuss inclusion. From my perspective, one of the core principles of inclusion and exclusion is and should always be to convey information though the sky may fall. That is to say, the alleged impact of our articles should not be considered legitimate arguments for inclusion or exclusion. Or put differently, we should not concern ourselves with issues external to our mission of providing a repository of free encyclopedic information. Everything flows back to the very basic principle that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It will just serve to derail the discussion further. 69.174.144.79 ( talk) 17:03, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply

References

  1. ^ Prof.Helen McCaffrey (2010-04-11). "The Justice of God". Wgmd.Com. Archived from the original on 2011-07-18. Retrieved 2010-05-18.
  2. ^ "'America's worst pedophile'?". The Week. 2010-02-24. Retrieved 2010-05-18.
  3. ^ "Earl Bradley – Worst Pedophile". CALLS FOR JUSTICE. 2010-03-22. Retrieved 2010-05-18.
  4. ^ "Dr. Earl Bradley sex case ignites outrage". The News Journal. 2010-02-24. Retrieved 2010-05-18.
  5. ^ "Dr. Pedophile". Article.wn.com. 2010-02-27. Retrieved 2010-05-18.
  6. ^ Velez-Mitchell, Jane (February 24, 2010). "Details Emerge of Pediatrician Accused of Abusing Patients (Transcript)". CNN.com. Retrieved July 29, 2014.
  7. ^ "Earl Bradley - Photos and News". New York Post. 2010-03-24. Archived from the original on October 23, 2012. Retrieved 2010-05-18.
  8. ^ "Pedophile pediatricians follow patterns". Daily Record. 2010-05-02. Retrieved 2010-05-18.
Ahem, WP:OSE: "When used correctly, these comparisons are important as the encyclopedia should be consistent in the content that it provides or excludes." Oof I wish that people would read the pages they cite, particularly when they say the opposite of what they think. And the deletion argument proscribed by OSE is "Delete: we do not have an article on XYZ, so we should not have an article on this". Nobody's making that argument or even remotely close. I know that "per WP:SOMEPAGE" looks impressive when you're casting about for reasons to keep an article you want to keep, but surely there's something better out there. Herostratus ( talk) 13:06, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
WP:WAX then. You're making precisely that sort of argument and it deserves no more than a flippant citation to such a page. 69.174.144.79 ( talk) 16:20, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • I feel like this "Arbitrary break" wall of text is pounding the table creating an impression of controversy where none really exists except with one vocal user, the nominator. There is a sense of negotiation with the judge going on ("requesting the closer to relist as long as comments are coming in"). Well the whole thing feels a bit out of order and a little manipulatory of the process. I have converted this into a sub-section (replacing "====" with "===") and changed the title from an "arbitrary break" to "Discussion" so that voting can continue in the voting section and discussions out of the voting section. -- Green C 14:52, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Thanks but I'm good. This isn't an RfC, people expect to jump to the end to "vote". It's fine that you can't digest or address the merits of the case, I get it, but there's no need to distract with complaints about how the process works here. Herostratus ( talk) 22:14, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Herostratus's unwillingness to co-operate with a request to separate his discussion from the voting is noted. -- Green C 22:42, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Uh just what is that supposed to mean and what does it have to do with what we're trying to accomplish here. Herostratus ( talk) 23:30, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Move to collapse this subsection as unrelated to the AfD. 69.174.144.79 ( talk) 00:19, 29 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Thumbs up icon Agree. Coin ( talk) 02:36, 29 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Concur. -- Green C 04:16, 29 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Agree. Lengthy text hurts participation, which I think is happening above now. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 14:17, 29 December 2020 (UTC) reply

The above section should not have been collapsed, although there's nothing I can do about it is there. Of the "wall of text" objected to, one paragraph was my laying out new data, including pointing to new sources; the rest was fruitful, if involved, discussions with other editors.

The only proper reason for hiding text on pages like this is for off-subject material, and that's all I've ever seen it used for, pretty much. The material hidden is directly on subject, and it's against practice to be like "This on-topic material doesn't interest me, therefore nobody else should read it either".

Discussions on this article have resulted in one discussion being prevented, another attempt to prevent discussion (reversed), and now this hiding. That's kind of suspicious, and a disinterested person would note that it's behavior typical of people who don't have winning arguments. Attempts by editors with the weaker argument to violate practice and procedure to try to cut short discussion is not a good look.

That being said, it's clear that the Keep camp has the numbers and no turnaround is coming, and weak argument or no, no closer is going to go against numbers like that or should. I'll withdraw the nomination if I could (but I can't, because there're two other Delete !votes and so withdrawal's not permitted, and I can't close it normally because I'm involved. So some uninvolved person has to do it.) Herostratus ( talk) 01:02, 30 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Nathan_Larson_(politician)&oldid=1138115034"
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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. The consensus of this discussion is explicitly clear. The BLP arguments have not been supported by the discussion. I particularly do not accept that we should use articles like this to move the window on BLP and GNG. This person may well be a scumbag (to quote someome in the discussion) but his article should not be a battleground to change policy. Instead that is what policy talk pages should be for.

One final point should be the title of this article. I don't feel that politician is the correct tag and I would suggest further discussion on the article talk should agree a new location. Spartaz Humbug! 21:35, 2 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Nathan Larson (politician)

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Previous (incomplete) AfD for this article:
Nathan Larson (politician) (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log)
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He's not a notable person. He's notorius, and that's different. The article's a hatchet job, and that can't be fixed -- it's inherently a hatchet job because of the sources of his supposed notability. That's a BLP violation. So let's see...

Sure he meets the WP:GNG. So let me point out a couple-few things about that.

  • The GNG is a guideline (not a policy). It's a good guideline! It's important and useful, and I always look at it when considering the fate of articles. Look at it. There are quite a number of other factors in play when considering an article.
  • One reason we know this is that apparently a whole lot of our articles don't meet the GNG. I looked at 100 random articles ( here) and two thirds did not meet the GNG. Another third could probably be made to meet the GNG, or else meet an SNG (Special Notability Guideline, such as are in force for many athletes etc.) Another third cannot.
  • Conversely, sometimes articles that do meet the GNG are deleted (and should be). Right here is an article that meets the GNG probably better than 95% of our articles, with 45 refs including in-depth coverage by CNN, the Boston Globe, USA Today, the New York Times, Time Magazine, The Washington Post, and several other highly notable publications in America, and even internationally in the Guardian, Hindustan Times, Australian Broadcasting Company, the Indian Express, the Irish Times, the BBC, and Geo TV (Pakistan). The article was nevertheless deleted (basically on grounds of being ephemeral) and probably should have been. People looked at the GNG but (probably properly) decided there were other, more compelling, arguments for deleting the article.
  • And so an important factor in play is that the article's a WP:BLP violation. As noted, the GNG is a guideline. BLP is a policy, and so is WP:IAR, which comes into play since the article is not an ornament to the Wikipedia.

WP:BLP says:

Biographies of living persons must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid: it is not Wikipedia's job to be sensationalist...the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment... Wikipedia is not news, or an indiscriminate collection of information. Being in the news does not in itself mean that someone should be the subject of a Wikipedia article [emphasis added].... Many Wikipedia articles contain material on people who are not well known, even if they are notable enough for their own article. In such cases, exercise restraint and include only material relevant to the person's notability... Material that may adversely affect a person's reputation should be treated with special care...



And I mean a lot of the refs are of the nature of "OMG! Look at this! Here's this person who's a self-confessed _________, and he's running for office! Well what is the world coming to!". We are not supposed to be doing this.



So let's see.., article ledes are supposed to lay out why the person is notable... the lede of this article is too cutesy by half: it starts with

Nathan Daniel Larson (born September 19, 1980) is an American perennial candidate for public office in the U.S. state of Virginia.

So this is presented first, as his most important factor of notability. But he's not a perennial candidate to the degree sufficient for an article. He ran for Congress once, and got 1.46% of the vote. He ran for the lower house of the state legislature, which is not a very notable position, and got 1.68. And that's it. (He started another run for Congress, but withdrew.) That's... there are many thousands of people with this level of electoral accomplishment, and they don't have articles and shouldn't. Nor does two (or three if you squint) runs for office make one a "perennial candidate", which term is a pejorative and we shouldn't use it since it's not true.

So why does this person have an article? Well let's see what's really going on here:

He served 14 months in prison for the felony of threatening the President of the United States. He has advocated greatly curtailing women's rights and decriminalizing child sexual abuse and incest, and is a white supremacist. In 2020, Larson was [redacted].

Well first of all this applies to thousands upon thousands of people, except for the bit about threatening the President of the United States, but even that is an American sport: prosecutions for that average about 40 a year over the last 20 years (it says here). Larson was convicted, and I don't know how common that is, but prosecutors don't usually bring charges unless they've got a good chance of winning. This 2019 article notes two people who were convicted in the same week of threatening the President. Those people don't have articles. Should they, do you think?

So on what basis do have a lede here? We shouldn't really open with saying he's a perennial candidate, because he's really not, and even if he is he's only so at the level of thousands of people who don't have articles. We shouldn't really open with "is a person who was convicted for threatening the President of the United States", because that's very common and people don't get articles for that. We shouldn't really open with "A person who has advocated greatly curtailing women's rights and decriminalizing child sexual abuse and incest, and is a white supremacist", because that's true of my Grand-Uncle Dwight and millions of other people. We absolutely cannot open with the final sentence which is about an arrest, and BLP specifically forbids mentions of crimes until actual conviction (I removed that sentence since BLP compels editors to remove such material on sight). And we can't really open with "is just a really awful person" because that's not how we roll.

So let's be honest here: 1) Nathan Larson is a ______ ______, and he's also a ______ and a ______. 2) And he's also an extreme right-wing person, and a white supremacist, and all that. 3) And so we don't like him, at all. And that's why he has an article, even though he's just not worth an article. But "Here's a guy we reallllllly don't like" is not a basis for an article, and Wikipedia policy says so. [EDIT: the above section bit is utterly false, unkind, insulting, and other bad stuff. I was called out on it, probably not harshly enough, and I've apologized to the article creator User:Yngvadottir if that helps and commended the skill and daring of her work. I'm embarrassed, but the rest of my argument still stands. Herostratus ( talk) 01:40, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply

I get that there's going to be a whole lot of "votes" to the effect of "boop beep, meets GNG, keep". I'm calling upon the closer to note that this is not a vote, and that policy considerations are real important. (There was a previous deletion nomination for this article ( here), but it was closed after two days, apparently purely on preliminary headcount at the time, or the closer just liked the article, or something. I wouldn't count that as a real AfD.)

This is just a really bad article for us to publish. Delete. (Full disclosure: FWIW I hate this guy. That has nothing to do with what we're about here.) Herostratus ( talk) — Preceding undated comment added 09:17, 25 December 2020 (UTC) reply

(References for some of the above material are required per BLP, and here they are, lifted from the article: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

References

  1. ^ "Nathan Larson's Biography". Vote Smart. Archived from the original on 2018-06-07.
  2. ^ Jesselyn Cook; Andy Campbell (June 5, 2018) [May 31, 2018]. "Congressional Candidate In Virginia Admits He's A Pedophile". Huffington Post. Archived from the original on 2018-06-07.
  3. ^ William Cummings (June 2, 2018) [June 1, 2018]. "Nathan Larson is a pedophile and a white supremacist. And he's running for Congress". USA Today. Archived from the original on 2018-06-04.
  4. ^ Jill Palermo (February 28, 2017). "Update: Delegate candidate convicted in 2009 of threatening to kill the president". Fauquier Times-Democrat. Archived from the original on March 17, 2018.
  5. ^ Andrew Buncombe (June 2, 2018). "Self-described white supremacist and paedophile running for US congress from his parents' home". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2018-06-04.
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Herostratus ( talk) 09:17, 25 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Virginia-related deletion discussions. Engr. Smitty Werben 09:27, 25 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep Was nominated for deletion three years ago and all the users voting said keep. The article also meets WP:NOTABLE and is rated C-Class in WP Biography. – Cupper52 Discuss! 10:10, 25 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Well but all the users didn't say keep. A few did, and then the AfD was shut down before any delete votes could be recorded. That doesn't really count as a proper AfD, I'd consider this the first AfD for the article. Herostratus ( talk) 11:57, 25 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. Fails NPOL spectacularly. At least he's consistent. Hyperbolick ( talk) 10:12, 25 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. I wrote the article after his candidacy for Congress had attracted nationwide news coverage. (I believe there are earlier deleted versions from before that.) I regret that to a certain extent; it was an agony to keep it neutral and to keep hiw Wikipedia activities, which I think are pure naval-gazing, out of it; I tangled with another editor and walked away. But he was notable then under GNG and has been recently arrested, with, again, massive amounts of news coverage ( Newsweek, September (!), Washington Post, Newsweek again, Denver Post, NBC, ABC local paper with arrest details). I'm afraid he amply meets our notability criteria to have a biography, although his criminal record and the latest accusations would now need to be more prominent in the introduction since the basis for his being all over the national news has changed. Yngvadottir ( talk) 16:51, 25 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. I'm pretty conservative on BLP issues, but the nominator's position, as I understand, amounts roughly to "If a person is only notable for being awful, we shouldn't have an article about them", which I don't think finds any support in either policy or common sense. Steve Smith ( talk) 18:15, 25 December 2020 (UTC) reply
    • Because people are piling on to Herostratus's nom, I should at least indicate that I agree with them wholeheartedly that, in appropriate circumstances, WP:BLP can absolutely trump WP:GNG. I am thinking here of cases where a fundamentally private individual is thrust involuntarily into the public eye in a way that results in plenty of coverage in reliable sources, but for reasons that are embarrassing to them; in that case, our regard for subjects' privacy should make us seriously consider whether it is appropriate to participate in that intrusion. That is not this case, however. Steve Smith ( talk) 00:25, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
      • Nobody is denying that principle. I have made many such nominations myself, eg: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Samuel Legg, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Deangelo Martin. But these principles do not apply here, as this individual is notable for several events unrelated to their alleged crime, and the nominator has stated as much in their nom. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 00:33, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
        • I think you and I are in agreement, but I don't agree that nobody is denying this principle. Several users are treating the fact that Larson meets WP:GNG as dispositive of the question of whether he should have an article, when in fact that's totally non-responsive to the nominator's rationale for deletion. More broadly, I am aware of a strong current of thought in the Wikipedia community holding that, since we rely on secondary sources that exercise editorial judgment, we are exempt from having to exercise any of our own, and I do not wish to be seen as falling within that current. Steve Smith ( talk) 04:45, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Obvious keep When your nomination begins by explaining why the subject clearly meets WP:GNG, you better have just about the most compelling argument anyone has ever seen coming in hot right after that. Not seeing it here. We have articles on lots of infamous people. I've written a number of them myself, for example Randy Roth. The article doesn't say anything nice about him because he's known for being a terrible person. The other issues identified in the nomination can be fixed by editing. Beeblebrox ( talk) 23:00, 25 December 2020 (UTC) reply
User:Beeblebrox, tsk, you of all people should remember that writing "known for being a terrible person" is a big BLP violation, unless you have a good source saying just that and link to it here. I note that the person below wrote "scumbag" and and above there's "awful" and who knows what other monkey business is going on. BLP does not permit but rather requires editors to redact such material on sight. But I'll tell you what. I'll turn a blind eye if you protect me if I'm brought up for writing "poor and insignificant mentally damaged person" below, which I did. Herostratus ( talk) 02:45, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Obvious scumbag, obvious keep - The sources are too darned many, and I don't find Herostratus' reasoning convincing in the least. -- Orange Mike | Talk 20:55, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep; there's nothing wrong with notability via notoriety. Everything is amply sourced. If we're invoking IAR, then I also have an IAR rationale to keep: it is good to document how people like this have misused Wikipedia to advance their own awful views and have kept returning as sockpuppets. Crossroads -talk- 21:58, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep He's included in this Vox article about incels from 2019 because of the forums he started. Coin ( talk) 22:22, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 22:27, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep - plenty reliable sources, and the subject meets notability. I don't know why this is at AfD in the first place, given the plethora of news sources - Alison ❤ 22:37, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep per Alison and Cullen (elsewhere). ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 23:45, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep - Per WP:GNG. Plenty of good sources. BabbaQ ( talk) 23:59, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep and SNOW close Per the sources in the article, the ridiculous nom statement that basically argues that the article meets our most basic, universally accepted inclusion criteria, (GNG), and due to the fact the there are no BLP issues since there is adequate reliable sources and notoriety of the individual. Valeince ( talk) 00:12, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep He meets GNG quite easily. The claimed distinction between notable and "notorious" is contrived and not based on policies or guidelines. The "he's not worth an article" argument is subjective and without merit. I do agree that if he was just a guy who lost a few elections badly, the article should be deleted. But the significant coverage of him in many reliable sources is for several other reasons as well. All those reasons combined make him a notable person, and an encyclopedia with over six million articles should have a biography about this person. Any BLP concerns can be resolved by normal editing. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 00:22, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Reluctant Keep - I would love to vote Delete. But try as a might the rationales don't work. It's not a BLP violation because he is intentionally courting negative controversy. There are plenty of source because the press is raising his star, not our fault. The coverage is significant enough it can't be tossed aside as mere moral panic. I don't understand why his history as a Wikipedia user, well sourced, is not discussed anywhere. The lead section needs some work to better indicate he is notable for being a troll and now criminal. The Haraatz article by Omer Benjakob can be a model to follow. -- Green C 00:47, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep It's obvious this article meets GNG as you have explained that yourself but I fail to find any BLP violations that make it so this article should be deleted. 'This guy is awful and I don't like him' is not a convincing argument for deletion. Jay Jay What did I do? 01:24, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Delete - Fails every metric as a politician. Not sure he meets the minimum standard as a criminal. There's probably enough from column A and column B to get this over the GNG hump, but my sentiment is for an IAR delete. I really don't like Wikipedians doing bellybutton-gazing articles on other Wikipedians, glorious or defrocked. If this guy was not a Wikipedian, would this article ever have been written? No, it would not. Carrite ( talk) 02:09, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
The article, strangely, does not mention at all that he was a Wikipedian, despite considerable extensive coverage about it in reliable sources. The problem is not bellybutton gazing, rather a reaction in the opposite direction giving it the air of a coverup. Does that mean we turn into an article primarily about Wikipedia? Of course not, but there is also a place for it, according to the sourcing. If that is too difficult to deal with there are some editors who skilled at finding the right balance for these difficult subjects. -- Green C 02:25, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
It has over a paragraph on it. There's too much of it, if anything. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 02:43, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Not sure what happened I searched cntrl-f "wikipedia" and found nothing (other than the Haraaz title), but I see the paragraph now. -- Green C 03:03, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep per WP:GNG. There are obvious content issues, but AFD is not the place to hash them out. This is a guy with multiple independent nontrivial mentions in the news media for a variety of incidents, and the ongoing criminal case only adds to that. 69.174.144.79 ( talk) 03:32, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Alright, but you started editing this month and this is your 20th edit, and your edit history shows that you are certainly a fast learner. Have you edited previously under another name or IP? (That wouldn't negate your argument, but it'd be a data point for headcount.) Herostratus ( talk) 13:34, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
If you’ve got an accusation to make, then I suggest you make it in the appropriate forum. 69.174.144.79 ( talk) 06:13, 31 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. Perhaps redirect his name to Threatening the President of the United States#Incidents with a few sentences there about him. What is the basis of notability for a stand-alone article? This is a troubled person. This article is worth reading, including the final sentence. He isn't a politician. Standing for office doesn't make him notable, and I'm not sure that standing three times over ten years makes him a perennial candidate. Other than that, there is threatening the President, the situation with his family, expressing vile (and bizarre) views, creating vile websites, editing Wikipedia, and now the latest abduction situation. It's all over the place. SarahSV (talk) 04:00, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
    It is worth noting that for almost a decade he was not eligible to run for office due to a conviction, according to the article. Also, your rationale confuses me. Are “troubled people” not eligible for an article? If so, what definition for troubled person are we using? Do we have any diagnosis to come to this judgement, or an RS? You list a laundry list of things this person has done, and then conclude he is not notable? I do not understand. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 04:58, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Libertarianism-related deletion discussions. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 18:13, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. Nobody is required to be notable for a particular reason and we don't censor articles on "troubled" people. These suggestions are not based in guidelines and policy. Larson has courted attention and has received significant, dedicated coverage in US national press since 2017, not only for his political runs, but also his online activities - and now his arrest. So BLP1E doesn't apply. Fences& Windows 21:43, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Comment: Has Nathan ever spoken about his Wikipedia article? If yes, what did he say about this article? HandsomeBoy ( talk) 12:15, 29 December 2020 (UTC) reply
I believe there is a guideline that says if a person is borderline notable, and has stated that he does not want to have a Wikipedia article, such can be considered as courtesy. I was just thinking if that would apply here. HandsomeBoy ( talk) 18:01, 2 January 2021 (UTC) reply
He has edited it with some enthusiasm, but I don't think he's ever commented on whether he wanted it or not. Also, back when he edited, he took the position that nothing should ever be deleted, so to that extent I guess he's made his position known? Steve Smith ( talk) 19:07, 2 January 2021 (UTC) reply
Then clearly Keep. HandsomeBoy ( talk) 21:11, 2 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • Keep, as someone with a lot of non-trivial coverage from major news sources like WaPo, USA Today and Haaretz (and tons of other sources of various scale), he unquestionably passes GNG. The argument about him being just another Wikipedian with article™ might've made a bit of sense a month ago, however with newest developments with his arrest for kidnapping it has become moot: he's both a fringe political candidate known for his extreme views and a suspect in a notable criminal case. Max Semenik ( talk) 15:48, 29 December 2020 (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.

Arbitrary break

Extended content

There's a lot to chew on here, and I'm requesting the closer to relist as long as comments are coming in. We want to get this right, there's no hurry. I'm trying to move the Overton window on both GNG and BLP maybe just a little bit here, maybe by only one or two editors (but you never know!), so let's keep going.

So... a point that I haven't seen addressed are are around the User:Herostratus/Trump orb situation. That article was deleted in 2017 (here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Trump orb (2nd nomination)) despite not only meeting the GNG but far far far exceeding it. The headcount was 28-8 to delete, so this is fine (I think it's OK because I'm not a slave to the GNG guideline).

My questions are 1) Since the article clearly and incontrovertibly met GNG, should that AfD been closed as Keep (AfD is not a vote)? Were 28 editors wrongheaded?
2) If not, why would that article be deleted and this one kept, considering that

2A) After all, the entity described in that article is far far far more famous and remains so (three years later in 2020 I see three lengthy articles in the WSJ, the Guardian, and Business Insider on the entity; and SNL's latest show referenced the entity).
2B) That article, after all, is not using our enormous power to -- at least arguably -- drag some poor and insignificant mentally damaged person through the mud and besmirch his name highly visibly and forever. (Which isn't a reason to make a special effort to keep articles. I hope?)

I'd like to see some cogent answers to my questions, but they're probably not forthcoming, because there aren't any I don't think. Prove me wrong. Herostratus ( talk) 02:32, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply

  • If you want a general policy discussion, WT:DP. This is an AfD for Nathan Larson (politician), for which the weather seems to be heavy precipitation. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 03:07, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
    I'll give you an answer anyway. Trump orb appears to have been deleted because editors were convinced it met various overriding criteria in WP:NOT. Editors can decide to put content in another article as a matter of content. WP:NOT does not apply here, and editors have decided that an article is warranted. These are decisions to be made on a case by case basis, which is being made, and effectively has been made, here. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 03:12, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
OK, and thanks for answering. The problem is, let's be honest. Read the AfD. Trump orb was deleted because Wikipedia editors just don't want that kind article. Again: fine. WP:IAR specifically allows this, and WP:1Q tells how it works: "Ask yourself, should the article exist? Answer that question first, then pick whatever policy, guideline, essay, or argument supports the answer. Don't flip the order." Not only is this OK (WP:IAR is a core policy!) but, as humans, we do this is a lot. You know we do. Editors did it there, and they're doing it here. Fine, just let's not kid ourselves and each other, and then we can address what's going on here on a more honest level. Make sense?
So, there was a good deal of flailing there. Some editors were out front: "The Wikipedia is not Know Your Meme" and "not encylopedic" so forth. Good! Casting about for more cover, editors basically painted the entity as ephemera (a good reason to delete, if true!) But the entity obviously turned out not to be ephemera (see above, and there's more). So, they were certainly wrong. There's nothing in WP:NOT to proscribe the article (NOTNEWS mainly says not to publish our own eyewitness reporting), but "Delete per WP:SOMEPOLICY" sounds impressive, so that was deployed a lot.
The actual reason that article was deleted was because, come on, GNG or no, people do not want us to document every meme that comes down the pike, or publish 365 articles a year on what Donald Trump does each day. Again: fine.
The actual reason that this Nathan Larson article is being kept? All I can figure so far is these three:
  • Yes, I really am a GNG bug, and those 28 !voters were misguided, and I wish that article had been kept.
  • That article was about silly nonsense, but Nathan Larson is a figure in 21st century American politics and that's important.
  • I hate this guy and, hey, he asked for it so we should give him what he deserves and make him infamous.
I think that all of these reasons are in probably in play, and I think that all are wrong, is all. Herostratus ( talk) 12:53, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
”Does it make the encyclopaedia better” is a very different question from “Do I want this article to exist?” I’ve closed many discussions in a way that beats my personal preferences and what I think makes Wikipedia better. It’s perfectly possible to assume objective roles. So I strongly disagree that #3 is motivating this discussion. It may motivate some votes, but I do not think it motivates consensus. As for that article, you can try WP:DRV on it with a decent argument. But, as you will know, in a project as large as this even with objective standards, application will always have to come down to a small group of people who can think. They, while thinking, decide what interpretation applies, they may decide it doesn’t hold up to the spirit of Wikipedia, or they may simply decide they do/do not like it. That’s probably why there are deletion review processes. I think that discussion arrived at the correct outcome. Every other thing Trump (or many public figures) does gets media attention, some becomes memes, yet none of it persists with time and has zero educational or informational value to anyone. WP:NOTNEWSPAPER strongly applies; Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events. This is my interpretation/argument - others evaluate, they vote, we get a consensus. The question you ask, I think, is how does one reconcile differences across other articles. It perhaps makes for a valid policy discussion, but in a given deletion debate it’s covered by WP:OSE, otherwise we’d never get anything done. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 13:10, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Oh absolutely, it was fine to close that AfD as delete. Headcount is an important data point, especially when it's lopsided. And this article will be kept unless there's a big turnaround soon, and that's correct also; I won't object. Still looking for that turnaround though -- you never know till the lady sings.
Not seeing how "Does it make the encyclopaedia better" is a unrelated to "Do I want this article to exist?". My opinion (not much shared apparently, but still reasonable) is that it makes the Wikipedia better for this article to not exist. It's existence is not an ornament to the project.... picking on a hapless nobody. Let's leave that to the news rags maybe, hmnn? Maybe people don't realize how big and powerful we are. That means you and I User:ProcrastinatingReader: right now, for this person's fate in the world, you and I are very powerful. You can't run away from that. When you're powerful it's easy to crush people without meaning to even realizing it, and then it's easy to do it without much caring, and then it's easy to do it to advance your interests... It makes the Wikipedia better to not go down that path. And we don't have to. We're free persons in the world, and we can sweep aside rules when we want to (as happened in the the Trump Orb AfD), and no rule written can force us to publish anything we shouldn't.
The thing about NOTNEWSPAPER, heh, is that a lot -- a whole lot! -- of editors think that we should not publish about very recent events unless they're obviously an especially really big deal, but there's no policy against it (maybe there should be), so given its title NOTNEWSPAPER looks like the best port in that storm. But if you read the rest of the section you quoted it does go on to say Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events... For example, routine news reporting of announcements, sports, or celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion in the encyclopedia... breaking news should not be emphasized or otherwise treated differently from other information. Not be emphasized. The rule proscribes the argument "borderline notable at best, but it's in news right now and that's a reason to make a special exception and publish", and that's all it does really. Most cites of NOTNEWS are cover for "I don't like articles on recent events", is all. (That's reasonable, it's just not our policy.) Herostratus ( talk) 14:16, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
It's best to consider WP:NOT loosely and in terms of principles. It's not written with the main intent of being deletion criteria. Some events-related application of it is WP:ROUTINE and WP:SENSATIONAL (read from "Even in respected media" onwards), which covers the orb imo. Further examples in WP:DELAY
I think, in line with our current standards, this person is worthy of note and should have an article. I think it's not my business to decide whether it's good or bad, holy or evil - readers can decide that. The point is that it's notable, and hence we have an article on it. We're not "[giving] him what he deserves", I think editors don't decide what someone "deserves".
The points you're making directly lead to saying that living criminals should not have articles (regardless of conviction) out of fear of their future reputation. That is a significant deviation from current standards and deserves a policy discussion. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 14:29, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
"I think it's not my business to decide whether it's good or bad..." well OK then, but whoever told you that was surely wrong. "It's not my place to make a moral judgement here" is a moral judgement, and you can't escape the moral world by sitting down at a keyboard. You just can't. I could point you to the B___ P___ case where the community did indeed decide "yeah there's news coverage, but let's leave this poor pathetic guy his privacy", except that I'm not going to publish his name. But that was a long time ago. It's a different Wikipedia now. Better? Maybe not. Are we so rulebound now that we've forgotten that we're supposed to be a benefit to the world of men and not just a hobby website.
I get what you're saying about the criminals, and yeah, we do have a remit to inform the world of important stuff. It's one of the things we're supposed to do, but within the context of balancing inform-the-world with not-being-a-bully. It takes some subtle analysis. We're going to have an article on Charles Manson (even when he was alive). We're not going to have an article on some random private citizen who downloaded child porn. In between is the middle. Earl Bradley is in there and he has an article and should, because he's just too notable to keep out -- hundreds and hundreds of crimes, maybe the worst child molester in American history [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] and we'd be failing our mission if we left him out. Nathan Larson is in the middle too, but (IMO) he's just too far below the line, it's just not mission-critical to cover him -- one crime (for which he hasn't even been convicted yet). I get that the news rags played it up because he's a clickbait sideshow geek in other ways. So what. And the lede isn't even "Nathan Larson is an American criminal..." because there's not enough there to hang an article on. Herostratus ( talk) 15:50, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
As for your porn guy, he's covered by BLPCRIME unless he's convicted. If convicted, we generally wouldn't have vast amounts of media coverage on the person, but if we did then BLP1E and enduring relevance for notability considerations apply and he may or may not be notable. It depends on a case by case basis and evaluation.
"Moral" is usually a weak standard in a deletion discussion, because your morals are different from my morals which are different from the next guy. PAG arguments give everyone a clear framework to work from.
"Mission critical" is also a weak argument. We aren't trying to cover vital articles only. This guy ran for Congressional election multiple times, tried to spread his platform and policy agenda including through media interviews, was convicted (and yes, he is already a convicted felon, this is at least his second crime) of threatening the US president, operates illegal websites, and is now arrested for allegedly kidnapping a kid. He has multiple claims to notability. In your view, these things hurt his reputation so you wish to delete them and believe it causes undue harm. That has no basis in our current standards, and if you want to change the standards WT:DP and WT:BLP and {{ rfc}} all have space for you to raise these concerns. Anyway, this is circular, I've given you better venues to raise these concerns. I don't think there's much else I can say here. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 16:30, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
I just wanted to draw attention to the moral point as well. The idea that the people who want to keep this article are doing so in order to publicly shame someone is itself a moral judgment. We're supposed to leave those judgments at the door when we discuss inclusion. From my perspective, one of the core principles of inclusion and exclusion is and should always be to convey information though the sky may fall. That is to say, the alleged impact of our articles should not be considered legitimate arguments for inclusion or exclusion. Or put differently, we should not concern ourselves with issues external to our mission of providing a repository of free encyclopedic information. Everything flows back to the very basic principle that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It will just serve to derail the discussion further. 69.174.144.79 ( talk) 17:03, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply

References

  1. ^ Prof.Helen McCaffrey (2010-04-11). "The Justice of God". Wgmd.Com. Archived from the original on 2011-07-18. Retrieved 2010-05-18.
  2. ^ "'America's worst pedophile'?". The Week. 2010-02-24. Retrieved 2010-05-18.
  3. ^ "Earl Bradley – Worst Pedophile". CALLS FOR JUSTICE. 2010-03-22. Retrieved 2010-05-18.
  4. ^ "Dr. Earl Bradley sex case ignites outrage". The News Journal. 2010-02-24. Retrieved 2010-05-18.
  5. ^ "Dr. Pedophile". Article.wn.com. 2010-02-27. Retrieved 2010-05-18.
  6. ^ Velez-Mitchell, Jane (February 24, 2010). "Details Emerge of Pediatrician Accused of Abusing Patients (Transcript)". CNN.com. Retrieved July 29, 2014.
  7. ^ "Earl Bradley - Photos and News". New York Post. 2010-03-24. Archived from the original on October 23, 2012. Retrieved 2010-05-18.
  8. ^ "Pedophile pediatricians follow patterns". Daily Record. 2010-05-02. Retrieved 2010-05-18.
Ahem, WP:OSE: "When used correctly, these comparisons are important as the encyclopedia should be consistent in the content that it provides or excludes." Oof I wish that people would read the pages they cite, particularly when they say the opposite of what they think. And the deletion argument proscribed by OSE is "Delete: we do not have an article on XYZ, so we should not have an article on this". Nobody's making that argument or even remotely close. I know that "per WP:SOMEPAGE" looks impressive when you're casting about for reasons to keep an article you want to keep, but surely there's something better out there. Herostratus ( talk) 13:06, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
WP:WAX then. You're making precisely that sort of argument and it deserves no more than a flippant citation to such a page. 69.174.144.79 ( talk) 16:20, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • I feel like this "Arbitrary break" wall of text is pounding the table creating an impression of controversy where none really exists except with one vocal user, the nominator. There is a sense of negotiation with the judge going on ("requesting the closer to relist as long as comments are coming in"). Well the whole thing feels a bit out of order and a little manipulatory of the process. I have converted this into a sub-section (replacing "====" with "===") and changed the title from an "arbitrary break" to "Discussion" so that voting can continue in the voting section and discussions out of the voting section. -- Green C 14:52, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Thanks but I'm good. This isn't an RfC, people expect to jump to the end to "vote". It's fine that you can't digest or address the merits of the case, I get it, but there's no need to distract with complaints about how the process works here. Herostratus ( talk) 22:14, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Herostratus's unwillingness to co-operate with a request to separate his discussion from the voting is noted. -- Green C 22:42, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Uh just what is that supposed to mean and what does it have to do with what we're trying to accomplish here. Herostratus ( talk) 23:30, 28 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Move to collapse this subsection as unrelated to the AfD. 69.174.144.79 ( talk) 00:19, 29 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Thumbs up icon Agree. Coin ( talk) 02:36, 29 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Concur. -- Green C 04:16, 29 December 2020 (UTC) reply
Agree. Lengthy text hurts participation, which I think is happening above now. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 14:17, 29 December 2020 (UTC) reply

The above section should not have been collapsed, although there's nothing I can do about it is there. Of the "wall of text" objected to, one paragraph was my laying out new data, including pointing to new sources; the rest was fruitful, if involved, discussions with other editors.

The only proper reason for hiding text on pages like this is for off-subject material, and that's all I've ever seen it used for, pretty much. The material hidden is directly on subject, and it's against practice to be like "This on-topic material doesn't interest me, therefore nobody else should read it either".

Discussions on this article have resulted in one discussion being prevented, another attempt to prevent discussion (reversed), and now this hiding. That's kind of suspicious, and a disinterested person would note that it's behavior typical of people who don't have winning arguments. Attempts by editors with the weaker argument to violate practice and procedure to try to cut short discussion is not a good look.

That being said, it's clear that the Keep camp has the numbers and no turnaround is coming, and weak argument or no, no closer is going to go against numbers like that or should. I'll withdraw the nomination if I could (but I can't, because there're two other Delete !votes and so withdrawal's not permitted, and I can't close it normally because I'm involved. So some uninvolved person has to do it.) Herostratus ( talk) 01:02, 30 December 2020 (UTC) reply

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