Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/William S. Gannaway

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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 delete, who give a much better argument. Daniel Bryant 04:03, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] William S. Gannaway

William S. Gannaway (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Individual is non-notable. Page creator seems to be making a practice of creating Wikipedia articles that are simply obituaries of non-notable individuals.

  • Comment. Really? How? There are three "references". One is a paid obituary. The other two actually make absolutely no mention of him in any way. And even if they did, they aren't the kind of references (independent secondary sources) required by WP:BIO. Mwelch 03:01, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Notability is as decorated WW2 veteran of 78 missions, DFC, Air Medal, elected school board member with 24 years service, work with the disabled, surely notable in Monroe, LA.

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  • Comment. So what if he's surely notable in Monroe, LA? That seems to be an argument you use frequently in defense of biographies of disputed notability: that the subject is notable in their corner of the world. But that argument flies directly in the face of actual Wikipedia guidelines, namely that notability, for Wikipeida's purposes, is NOT subjective. Quoting the guideline: "Thus, the primary notability criterion is a way to determine whether 'the world' has judged a topic to be notable". Note that it says "the world", not "the subject's home town". The military medals are a more objective issue, at least. But if we're going to say those satisify the notability requirement, then it should be in the WP:BIO guidelines. (and we should be prepared to accept a flood of new biographies that currently are not acceptable). Mwelch 20:56, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete per nomination; fails WP:BIO. Billy Hathorn, it's unfortunate that you seem to have the chops to create well-formatted biographical articles, but you use this skill on articles that are bound to eventually be deleted. Please, please, please familiarize yourself with WP:ATT and WP:BIO before creating any new articles. Your local perception of notability is really not valid. -- Dhartung | Talk 05:55, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete' as non-notable. The references are completely inadequate. -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 21:50, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. The DFC and the Air Medal should be sufficient to rank Bill Gannaway at least as notable as a supporting actor from "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure," don't you agree? Justin88 01:22, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment. The policy here on notability is WP:BIO. And no, it does not agree. Mwelch 01:30, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
  • comment WP:BIO says politicians are notable when they "have held international, national or statewide/provincewide office, and members and former members of a national, state or provincial legislatures. (or) Major local political figures who have received significant press coverage. Just being an elected local official does not guarantee notability." He was elected to 5 4-year terms on the school board, and according to his obituary held a few other important local board positions... so if there had been significant local press coverage of this local politician during his active lifetime, would that be sufficient? AllGloryToTheHypnotoad 23:44, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment. If such significant prese sources, acceptable to WP:ATT, could be cited, then absolutely. That would meet the WP:BIO guidelines. I'd just note here that the author has a history of creating biography articles of people who do not seem to meet WP:BIO and using as his primary sources things (such as the person's paid obituary or the author's personal e-mail exchanges with the inidividual) that are not acceptable per WP:ATT. He's been asked not to do this, but so far, seems undeterred in the practice. So in my opinion, there didn't seem to be much reason to expect differently with this article. If he would like to claim, though, that this article is an exception, and that indeed in this case, such WP:ATT-acceptable sources are available and that he intends to cite them, I'd assume the good faith of such claims and change my vote. Mwelch 00:07, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
OK, thanks for the clarification. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad 20:02, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.