Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eric Ely (2nd nomination): Difference between revisions

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Eric Ely

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Yes, I know this afd is just 2 weeks after the first one, which closed without consensus (14d vs 10k) - but I think we really do need to find consensus here. I think it will need more than 24 people participating for us to arrive at a stable result.

We can quote a whole lot of policy alphabet soup here, and how WP:BLP1E plays off against WP:RS. But I invite people to stand back and look at the big picture, get the right result, and then (if necessary) we can change the guidelines in light of this "test case".

Please consider the following submission from Jimbo Wales.

“

I think it is entirely possible for reasonable people to differ about where to cross the line, and these two editors are good editors who have put in a lot of work to construct the best possible biography. I would consider their work to be an incredibly valuable experiment seeking to answer the question: is it possible to create a quality biography on a small town school superintendent who would never have been heard of were it not for a WP:BLP1E situation?

I think the answer is clearly no. We've given it our best shot here, and we've failed. Those who don't agree, I ask to engage in the following thought experiment with as much love and emotion as you can. Imagine that you are Eric Ely. Everything that I am about to write is a view on the events from how it very likely looks from his perspective.

"I went to university with a dream of becoming a teacher and coach, and I did. And I worked with great pride at my job. I advanced over time in the usual way, rising from teacher to principal to assistant superintendent and finally to superintendent. At all of these jobs, I was a quiet ordinary citizen/teacher, widely liked by my students and colleagues. I assumed that I would retire in this job."

"The issues I faced were sometime difficult - as they are for all school district superintendents. I handled them in a way that I'm proud - although I must say that I didn't do anything all that remarkable.

"At one point, I was surprised to learn of an investigation into one of my employees. No one told me that I wasn't to tell him about it, so I did what I thought was the best thing to do: I asked him about it, and he denied it. People complain that I didn't fire him on the spot, but I take seriously the rights of employees, and under our current policies, it is not possible to fire an employee based on them being investigated.

"The newspapers made a lot of noise about it, calling me his "enabler" and so forth, but those allegations really don't make sense. The police and prosecution grandstanded about it, presumably for their own reasons. When I reflect on my performance at this time, I think I acted honorably and responsibly. Of course I regret deeply, with the benefit of hindsight, that this guy went on to commit crimes in the middle of the night in other counties - but I had no way of knowing that, and don't know what anyone expected me to do.

"I was not charged with any crime. An internal report, which has now been released, exonerated me completely. All of the information anyone could want is out there, and this all amounts to nothing.

"I am still seeking to do the honorable thing. I'm looking for work in another school district. I'm doing my job. But I've been smeared in the media and it's hard to find work because of it. If you google my name, you get this bizarre encyclopedia article with a huge section on it that would leave anyone wondering if I'm some kind of terrorist accomplice myself. It's sad, and it hurts. I think what makes it hurt the most is that this one thing has such an undue impact on my life. I didn't do anything wrong, I have the support of my school board, and yet I'm painted in this way. I don't understand why I'm even in Wikipedia - were it not for this criminal doing these horrible things, no one outside my town would even know my name - and even inside my town I'd just be yet another government employee just doing his job."

Please take this to heart. As far as I can tell, having read the case, this is all just about perfectly accurate. I don't know Eric Ely, I don't know if he is reading about this on Wikipedia, I don't know if his family or friends are reading it. But I do know that he's probably right - our article is harmful to him, even if it is 100% accurate in some hypertechnical sense. It's a bad biography because it is not a proper profile. It's a hatchet job, written ironically enough with no malice on the part of the authors. It's still a hatchet job, though, because that's what the press has done to him.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:18, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

”

I think this says everything that needs to be said. Scott Mac (Doc) 12:00, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete in these particular circumstances, there are not the sources to write a balanced and fairly-weighed biography. We've tried and failed.--Scott Mac (Doc) 12:10, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as per Jimbo and Scott. Local controversy given undue weight to the possible detriment of the living subject. Off2riorob (talk) 12:17, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I didn't see the previous AFD, so I read the current article and had no idea what Jimbo was talking about. What huge section? Then I checked the article history, and saw that there used to be one before Jimbo's message (about someone named Steven Raucci), but now it's gone. So what's the problem now? --GRuban (talk) 13:02, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
During the last AFD, I looked up superintendents for New York cities of similar size; not one of them had an article on Wikipedia. In fact, other than the New York City School Chancellor, Joel I. Klein, I couldn't find articles about any current school superintendents in New York. Mr. Ely would be a fine subject for a Schenectady Wiki, or even a Capital District Wiki, but for a global project like Wikipedia, I'm afraid that the level of notability should be higher. Delete. Santa Claus of the Future (talk) 13:44, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
DeleteThe refs, once the BLP1E scandal was whittled down to a sentence, are on the one hand from the school board (not independent sources) or are typical news items in local papers related to his work as a bureaucrat. Some claims to notability in the previous AFD noted 12000 students or a 131 million dollar budget. The press coverage was more about the school system than about the superintendent. The road commissioner and water commissioner of every similar sized governmental unit also have budgets, and similar big salaries, and do not automatically gain notability by association with a big number. Fails WP:BIO and WP:POLITICIAN (which I believe is applicable). Edison (talk) 14:00, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The upshot of that argument is that we should have very little coverage of politicians outside the western world since for say Honduran ones you very rapaidly end up scraping around for anything that even mentions the person in question. Or to put it another way if Mario Fernando Hernández had survived the attack your position would result in the deletion of that article.©Geni 18:02, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep but Rename and restructure so that the article does not cover the person but the event, to comply with BLP1E. The whole issue seems to be well sourced, so there is something notable that should be kept, so please keep in mind before losing sourced information; but I agree that this is not a good biography. --Cyclopia ^talk 14:18, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Scott notified the BLP talk page, but not the RS/N talk pages. I will notify them, I mean if we are looking to use this as a test case of WP:BLP1E vs WP:RS/WP:N, then we should not limit input to only people who share one POV we need to get input from those who advocate the other side.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 14:25, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment the quote from Jimbo above doesn't really seem pertinent to the current version of the article. There are 3 sentences in the entire article dealing with the incident cited above, one of which acknowledges that he was exhonorated. This does not seem like undue weight or a hatchet job. *I* personally do not see this current article as a BLP1E issue, but rather a WP:N vs WP:RS... I do not have the time to look at the 25+ sources to see if the references are meaningful/material or not.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 14:31, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, possible merge of material elsewhere. I read this, and I read a favorable resume wrapped around one negative sentence - it presently does not make for a good encyclopedic article. Most of the sources are coming from local interests - which of course are going to be interested in events at the school and the like, and thus arguable not independent. There is suggestion in the present text that this person is an expert on school budgets, which be part of the credence for notability, but reports on what budgets he passed, what voters failed and then later passed, etc. all seem puffery and more suited to Wikinews (if anything) than WP; the other sources that establish him as this expert appear to be very local sources, so again, independence is questionable. It is, basically, this appears for all appearance a way to inflate the importance of one person beyond a very localized BLP1E. If the sourcing can be improved to establish him better than his local importance, then keeping is possible, but right now, this is just a BLP1E with a factual biography, and no need to keep it. --MASEM (t) 15:09, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

are you in all serious trying to argue that we should reject local sources? Amoung other things I guess that means that we will have to revert a bunch of rambot articles back to the state they were created in. In addition rejecting things like the journal of the Sussex Archaeological Society would cause futher damage.©Geni 18:06, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - This article did not suddenly appear on Wikipedia by itself. I find it hard to understand why Bearian and UpstateNYer, the two admins responsible for what several editors have called a "hatchet job", still have their admin bits. I'm sure there will be backlash from even posing this question, but if admins can't uphold the basic principles of Wikipedia, should they remain admins? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 15:11, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: There are many outstanding people who still don't have articles here. I've just started one on Sir David Bell. One look at his current positions shows that he has a multi-faceted career and is a much more interesting person. There must be dozens of such people, leaders in their fields, who will make much more interesting subjects of biographies. Stephen B Streater (talk) 15:13, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So write them. We don't have to write all articles in order of importance. --Explodicle (T/C) 15:25, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I did. And I suggest that we do leave marginal cases until later. Stephen B Streater (talk) 17:10, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - I hate to be the only one to say this, but I disagree with Jimbo. His assumption appears to be that since the press coverage is a hatchet job, our article will be a hatchet job. Looking at the article, I'm inclined to agree with GRuban - it looks like that problem has been fixed and it can be fixed more if needed. WP:DUE says we should treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject, not with a weight proportional to that aspect's press coverage. In the story of Eric Ely, this incident is just another detail and should be treated as such. Once notability has been established by press coverage (even if by unkind press coverage) we can use other reliable sources to build a neutral article. --Explodicle (T/C) 15:25, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and close. "I think that it will take more than 24 people participating" is not a very good reason to bring this back up two weeks later. Very seldom does it happen that we have that many people participating in a deletion debate. If we were to reopen every debate that had recently closed as a "no consensus", I think that the daily AfD would double in size. Mandsford (talk) 15:27, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Surely we can make an exception for arguably harmful BLPs? I think it's very important that we either have a consensus on those or employ a "default to delete" rule for BLPs. --Explodicle (T/C) 15:44, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 15:32, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. We ought to be very careful about constructing articles mainly from primary sources. That most of the article is totally reliant on these primary sources is an indicator that the content shouldn't really be there. If we gave due weight to the coverage in independent sources and ones which are more than routine coverage, then the vast majority of the article would be about the controversy. This would make it squarely a case of BLP1E. So we have a choice - we break policies such as WP:UNDUE and WP:PRIMARY, or we break WP:BLP1E. Of course there is another choice, one which doesn't involve breaking any policies, endangering a person's livelihood and so on, which would be to delete the page. The very fact that to write any biography of this person would breach a policy or guideline is an indication that the page should not exist. Quantpole (talk) 15:43, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your argument would require the deletion of Biaxial nematic (pure primary sources based). This is not a reasonable standard.©Geni 18:09, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Subject is non-notable and fails WP:POLITICIAN. Blueboar (talk) 15:59, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep We can't keep renominating articles until we get the consensus we desire. Keep because it is a reasonably researched article and I already voted keep like 5 minutes ago and I don't want to have to keep voting keep every 5 minutes until you manage to get it deleted. If folk are that worried about primary sources then trim the artcile, but wait and see how it develops, like the original closer said. And the subject still isn't a politician. Weakopedia (talk) 16:06, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Interesting this one. Regardless of neutrality, although it has a whole pile of sources, the most important facts (e.g. awards) have poorly covered sources and therefore unreliable and does not meet WP:ANYBIO. If the sources have better coverage then the rest of the information would be necessary. Minima c (talk) 16:28, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: Not fit for inclusion in a general-purpose encyclopedia. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:38, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per above. The Hero of This Nation (talk) 16:43, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Jimbo's post says it better than I could have. To spell it out in policy terms, there are not enough independent secondary sources addressing the subject directly in detail (WP:GNG) to write a balanced encyclopedic biography. A local administrator like Ely will always be mentioned in routine local news, but this does not confer notability (WP:NOTNEWS). Ely has had a tangential involvement in a criminal case that has been covered in local tabloids and dailies – a member of his staff committed crimes, and questions were asked about whether Ely should have realised sooner that something was wrong, and whether he inadvertently tipped the perpetrator off about an ongoing police investigation by raising the matter with him in an e-mail. But this tangential involvement in a local criminal case – which itself would fail Wikipedia notability criteria, as would the actual perpetrator – does not establish encyclopedic notability for Ely either. The article has had a major WP:BLP and WP:UNDUE problem for most of its existence, apparently covering every job interview the subject has gone to. There is more than one good reason here to delete this article. --JN466 16:50, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nominator, Jimbo, and JN466. The fact is that being a school superintendent of a medium-sized district involved in a handful of minor controversies is simply not enough to justify an encyclopedia article. In my opinion, patching together a bunch of isolated newspaper reports to come up with a "biography" is an example of original research by synthesis. None of the sources have actually treated Ely as a biographical subject. *** Crotalus *** 17:02, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete this WP:TABLOID tittle-tattle. You have to draw the line somewhere, and this is the wrong side of it. Guy (Help!) 17:05, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. I just went through the whole article, and some of its sources -- some of which were not reliable sources -- and I agree with the Jimbo quote above. The only thing I've found that might be worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia is just an allegation. I've discussed this extensively on the masked pseudo-biography's talk page.[1][2] No one's proven that he interfered with an investigation. Many superintendents have been accused of failing to fire an employee when they should have. The fact that this hit the news doesn't establish notability -- because Wikipedia is WP:NOTNEWS, nor a mirror of it, and "most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion."
If we exercise restraint and include only material relevant to the notability of this borderline notable living person, the only thing left is the allegation -- three sentences. Wikipedia:Wikipuffery -- Rico 17:23, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Other concerns notwhistanding, notable allegations are allowed by WP:BLP -see WP:WELLKNOWN. --Cyclopia ^talk 17:16, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yet if the notable allegation is the only thing a living person is notable for, then it's a BLP1E.

See also Santa Claus of the Future's post concening whether Ely is notable for having been a superintendent.

In light of the report commissioned by the school district, I have to say: Just because a cop said Ely interfered with an investigation, that doesn't prove he did -- and certainly doesn't establish that he did illegally. -- Rico 17:41, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Obvious delete. I wonder, those of you voting keep... did you actually read what Jimbo wrote? Do you not care what harm this project does to others at all? I just don't get it. We have no need for this clearly harmful article. ++Lar: t/c 18:12, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete in the interest of doing no harm. Without the unfortunate incident, this person would not be notable at all. With it, he is just barely notable. There will probably never be enough material on him to make a decent biography. I think this is definitely a situation where the spirit of BLP1E needs to be upheld. The Wordsmith^Communicate 18:21, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - for all BLPs where either the subject has said they don't want the article, or it clearly seems a net negative for them, it seems best to default to delete unless the subject is massively notable, such as a top tier politician , A list celeb etc. As this is being flagged as a test case over at Wikipedia_talk:Notability , i'll add im strongly against using BLP1E as an excuse to delete when the subject clearly wont be harmed, e.g. such as an article for a Pop idol finalist where the subject very likely welcomes attention. FeydHuxtable (talk) 18:26, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 63: / Line 63: @@
 *Obvious delete. I wonder, those of you voting keep... did you actually ''read'' what Jimbo wrote? Do you not care what harm this project does to others at all? I just don't get it. We have no need for this clearly harmful article. ++[[User:Lar|Lar]]: [[User_talk:Lar|t]]/[[Special:Contributions/Lar|c]] 18:12, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 *'''Delete''' in the interest of doing no harm. Without the unfortunate incident, this person would not be notable at all. With it, he is just barely notable. There will probably never be enough material on him to make a decent biography. I think this is definitely a situation where the spirit of BLP1E needs to be upheld. <span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:3">[[User:The Wordsmith|'''The Wordsmith''']]</span><sup>[[User talk:The Wordsmith|Communicate]]</sup> 18:21, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
+*'''Delete'''  - for all BLPs  where either the subject has said they don't want the article,  or it clearly seems a net negative for them,  it seems best to default to delete unless the subject is massively notable, such as a top tier politician , A list celeb etc.  As this is being flagged as a test case over at [[Wikipedia_talk:Notability]] , i'll add im strongly against using BLP1E as an excuse to delete when the subject clearly wont be harmed,  e.g. such as an article for a Pop idol finalist where the subject very likely welcomes attention. [[User:FeydHuxtable|FeydHuxtable]] ([[User talk:FeydHuxtable|talk]]) 18:26, 21 April 2010 (UTC)