Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive327

• Draft:Theresa Greenfield
• Theresa Greenfield
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Theresa Greenfield - redirected to 2020 United States Senate election in Iowa
• Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2020 June 4#Theresa Greenfield - endorsed
• Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2020 June 15#Theresa Greenfield - no consensus to overturn
• Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2020 July 11#Theresa Greenfield - no consensus to overturn

This article has had a rough history. It was nominated for deletion and redirected back in May this year, citing notability concerns. The deletion result was challenged at deletion review three times, as noted above. Meanwhile the article was recreated in place (in good faith) by several editors before the redirect was protected by Muboshgu in June. It was then created as a draft in July, which was submitted to AfC and has been declined three times by two reviewers (Robert McClenon and Bkissin). The draft was significantly reworked since the last decline in August and a third reviewer (UnitedStatesian) decided to accept the draft and made a request at RFPP to unprotect the redirect, which is how I came across the situation.

I declined to unprotect yesterday, suggesting that the draft should pass review first and not realizing that UnitedStatesian's request was an attempt to do so, and because they had already asked Muboshgu and they declined, so I said it should be reviewed one more time. In the midst of that one of the draft's editors pinged Robert McClenon, who again said that he would not accept. While discussing that on the draft's talk page and still not realizing that UnitedStatesian was an AfC reviewer trying to accept, I suggested someone else should review (since Robert McClenon had reviewed twice, or three times if you count the comment today, and was clearly becoming frustrated). Two things happened then more or less simultaneously: UnitedStatesian made a new unprotection request at RFPP explicitly stating they were accepting the draft, and Bkissin chimed in on the talk page that they also would not accept. It's currently marked as "under review".

So basically I've dug this hole as deep as I'd like it to go, and would like someone who hasn't already been involved in this to go get a ladder. Everyone's actions here have been in good faith, but we're clearly stuck. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:29, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

I am uninvolved, and I do not see any issue. If the article is significantly different from the deleted version (which I have not checked yet) it must be restored (unprotected and moved from the draft); if there are users who doubt notability they can nominate it for AfD. This is how consensus is supposed to work.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:44, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Ymblanter, it's in the AFC process, and has been declined a few times. It's under review again now. If it's approved, then you are indeed correct. But what if the draft is declined? Should we move it to mainspace regardless of the AFC review? – Muboshgu (talk) 20:42, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

I am the reviewer, and I have made the third WP:RPP request, at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection#Theresa Greenfield, precisely so I can accept the draft. UnitedStatesian (talk) 20:44, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

UnitedStatesian, is this a good idea? You've been quite vocal about wanting this to be published. I would hope the AFC review was done by someone uninvolved in this process. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:58, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

My only involvement has been in the review: only edit to the draft was adding {{draft article}} to it, no participation in the AfD or DRVs. Of course, the review has required discussion on lots of different pages, as is occasionally the case, so I guess that makes me vocal. That said, as in all cases, if my review is stopped by community consensus that continued page protection is warranted, there are plenty of other drafts that need reviewing and I will of course move on to them. UnitedStatesian (talk)

I know that in a situation like this, some editors will say that the answer is clear. I think I see at least two questions where policies and guidelines are not clear, and where perhaps they should be clarified.

The first question is the role of

Requests for Page Unprotection

, or should there be a (fourth) appeal to Deletion Review. The instructions for Deletion Review say that it considers situations where the circumstances have changed since the deletion; but some of the DRV regulars get annoyed at such requests and say just to go through AFC without going to DRV.

The second question has to do with the interaction between

general notability

. It is usually the rule, including at AFD, that political candidates who do not meet political notability are also not considered to meet general notability solely on the basis of their campaign. This is such a case. Greenfield was not generally notable before she began running for the US Senate. So is this an exceptional case where she is generally notable based solely on her campaign? Questions of general notability are decided at AFD. Since this draft is currently in AFC, the instructions for the AFC reviewers are that a draft should be accepted if it is thought that there is a better than 50% chance of surviving AFD.

A third question, which is not one of unclear policies and guidelines, is whether the reviewer is neutral.

Those, in my opinion, are three questions that are applicable. I am finished reviewing, but I am not finished expressing an opinion. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:07, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

The notability question can be decided only by community discussion, and the only applicable mechanism we currently have is AfD. The article has failed AfD and DRs, and therefore should not be reinstated - unless there are significant changes which can make it notable, or unless it has been significantly changes with new sources added so that notability can be reasonably considered on basis of these sources, which have not been presented to AfD. Therefore, as far as I am concerned, the only relevant question is whether significant enough sources have been added as compared with the AfD. If yes, the article should be accepted, and a new AfD can be opened. If not, AfD should not be accepted (with the understanding that if she makes it to the Senate in a month, the draft immediately gets moved to the main space - but this is irrelevant for the current discussion).--Ymblanter (talk) 21:16, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Since the old version was redirected, not deleted, the history is visible, and any editor, not just an administrator, can see the version at the time the AfD closed: it is here, with 5 references. UnitedStatesian (talk) 21:47, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Ymblanter, I see what you're saying, but I find it kind of ridiculously bureaucratic to accept the article just to nominate it for deletion again. At the same time I imagine the best we'd get from another deletion review is relisting the original AfD, which isn't much better neither in terms of bureaucracy nor in terms of moving forward. For what it's worth, this is the article prior to the deletion discussion, versus the current draft (diff, probably not terribly useful). You can see that the draft is expanded substantially from the deleted/redirected article, but does any of the added info address the notability concern? There was a strong sense in the AfD that US Senate candidates are not inherently notable, but do the 62 sources in the draft suggest she is an exception to that general rule? If the only way we can answer that is through a second AfD then I guess that's where we go from here. Can we simply create a new deletion discussion or relist the original and refer to the draft, rather than doing all the work of moving it around? Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 21:52, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Yes, indeed, my point is that some community discussion should happen somewhere at some point. It should not be happening here, here at AN at best we can have consensus of random admins whether it is time for that discussion to happen, but we can not seriously be discussing whether Theresa Greenfield is notable. We can only discuss whether enough sources have been added for the article to reasonably stand a chance at AfD. It superficially looks to me that we are ready for this community discussion, though at this point I do not see consensus. But it should not depend on a decision of one person who decides to remove or not to remove protection of a redirect. Administrators do not have any particular say in the content area, and the further process should not depend on whether a user accepting AfC is administrator or not. Concerning the process itself, a new AfD seems to me much better than MfD (for the reasons explained below) and reopening the May AfD (well, if the article is essentially the same, one AfD is enough, and if it is different the old arguments are not relevant anymore), but I am open to better solutions.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:27, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

For consistency, perhaps we should treat this the same as Draft:Rishi Kumar, another "local" candidate for a Federal office whose article name redirects to a similar place as Theresa Greenfield. The deletion discussion, as well as AFC comments, determined that the article should reside in draft space until after the election. The same should be applied here. ~Anachronist (talk) 22:57, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

The current draft for Greenfield's article lists significantly more coverage in both regional and national newspapers than Kumar's draft. To support analysis (because the current draft lists a somewhat daunting number of sources, some of which are fairly minor), I pulled out a list of ten example sources that contribute to notability at

Draft talk:Theresa Greenfield#Two additional sources. To me, this kind of discussion supports Ymblanter and Ivanvector's points that we need to figure the right way to get to an AfD -- I believe that a better venue for a robust and organized discussion about notability thresholds would be AfD. I believe that even though it'd be a bit bureaucratic to create the article just for somebody to nominate it for AfD, it'd at least be a logical process. Dreamyshade (talk

) 23:22, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

There's always Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion, which is where Draft:Rishi Kumar was discussed. I have doubts that this candidate was notable before becoming this candidate, and I am concerned that the existing coverage is nothing more than routine for any federal-office candidate. ~Anachronist (talk) 23:41, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

I don't see the relevance of MFD. I don't think anyone is suggesting that the draft should be deleted. Draftifying the article until after the election is a possible outcome of an AFD. I don't see the relevance of MFD. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:05, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

FWIW, if I saw this Draft article in mainspace I would AfD it. Lots and lots of sources, but zero coverage of her outside of her political candidacy. Obviously, should she win the election... Black Kite (talk) 23:43, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I just took a brief foray into the draft and right off the bat removed some citations that seemed to have no point other than to make the reflist look impressive. Such articles, if they appear in mainspace, tend to get moved immediately to draft space. There it should stay until the reflist is cleaned up. ~Anachronist (talk) 00:09, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

I am involved in the sense that my wife and I have donated to Greenfield's Senate campaign (and about a dozen similar campaigns) recently. But I do not support accepting this draft before the election. We have quite a few years of precedent that we do not accept biographies of otherwise non-notable unelected political candidates, but instead cover these people in neutral articles about the election campaign. In this case, the redirect to 2020 United States Senate election in Iowa is correct. I think that the description of Greenfield in that article could be expanded in the interim. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 23:55, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

I'll add, as an administrator, that I am not comfortable unprotecting the main space title so the draft can be moved there. I am not getting the sense that the other three admins in this discussion (User:Ivanvector, User:Muboshgu, and User:Cullen) are comfortable with that either. ~Anachronist (talk) 01:55, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

What about User:Ymblanter? UnitedStatesian (talk) 02:26, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

• This is not nearly as complicated as you are making it out to be. You come across an unprotection request, you check whether you would
  WP:G4 the draft if it were in mainspace. If you would, you decline to unprotect. If you would not, you unprotect. If you don't know, leave the request alone. If everyone leaves it alone, the filer will start a discussion somewhere to achieve a consensus that admins will be comfortable acting on. It is irrelevant how many admins would AFD it or !vote delete. There is no set>=n, where n is the number of admins that can dictate without a need for community consensus whether or not a topic deserves an article. Best, Usedtobecool ☎️
  03:40, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

• Let me emphasise: if you would not G4 the draft as soon as it got to mainspace but would require an AFD, you have no authority to stop an editor who has the ability to accept drafts from doing so. G4 is more or less an objective measure. You just have to read the AFD and compare the two articles. Everything else is irrelevant. Usedtobecool ☎️ 03:45, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

This is related to a concern I've expressed earlier in this process:

WP:NPOL in constructive ways for an encyclopedia. The draft article can definitely be improved further, but we don't have a requirement for articles to be excellent before they get created. I don't see a policy basis for using full protection in this way. Dreamyshade (talk

) 04:02, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

The redirect was repeatedly expanded into full article contra AFD consensus between the AFD and the full protection. So, that's the threat.

WP:SALT, which is policy, says in its first sentence, that admins can prevent creation of pages. That is what this full protection does. It keeps the redirect (which doesn't have consensus to delete, and also doesn't need to be edited anyway) and stops the full article from being created. Usedtobecool ☎️

04:47, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

• I don't see how one AfC reviewer gets to overrule the numerous prior discussions on this. The consensus in the AfD was that the subject isn't independently notable as an unelected candidate for office and should be covered in the article about the election. This is a very common outcome. The issue was taken to DRV three times, each time by someone who had found more news sources which cover her in the context of the election, and each time the discussion declined to reinstate the article. The draft which we now have still doesn't attempt to address this fundamental problem. Yes, there are plenty of news articles, but that's because competitive senate elections always generate news coverage. Essentially all the sources cited still cover her in the context of the election. I suggest we wait until the election, which is just over a month away. If she wins then she will be unambiguously notable, if she loses then I suspect the fuss will die down. Hut 8.5 07:25, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

  This is probably the best outcome we can now come up with.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:02, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

  I don't see "competitive senate elections always generate news coverage" as a counter-argument by itself for

  WP:GNG - a campaign like this generates significant news coverage because it's "worthy of notice" to a lot of people, because it's important and of interest to a lot of people. I believe a person primarily covered in the context of an election can still meet the notability standards, especially if there's a lot of national reporting and in-depth reporting over a couple years or more. The question to me is whether the current draft Greenfield is there, and AN still doesn't seem to be the right venue for that -- there are a lot of comments here that are essentially AfD-style comments, without being at AfD (including mine). Dreamyshade (talk

  ) 22:53, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

• One key point I feel that I should note is that AfC reviewers don't (and aren't supposed to) act off a "guaranteed to be notable" standard. Instead, if something is likely to pass, we should accept it, and then let the Community review it. Likewise, unprotection requests should work off that basis. Now whether people think it should wait until after the election, I discourage that, but it's viable as a second choice. Nosebagbear (talk) 08:40, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

• I will restate a few policy and procedure issues that I think are touched on by this case:

Here are three issues that are involved in the question about Theresa Greenfield:

• Should candidates for
  significant coverage
  of the campaign, if the candidate was not previously considered notable? It has in general been the practice of Wikipedia that candidates are not considered to satisfy general notability on the basis of election coverage, and therefore do not qualify for articles before the election if they did not have them before the campaign. This question arises frequently, and it would be a good idea either to address it on a general basis or to decide that it is always addressed on a case-by-case basis.

• When should a single AFC reviewer be allowed to accept a draft if the same title was previously deleted by
  Deletion Review
  be required? The instructions for DRV say that DRV can review deletions when the circumstances have changed, such as new sources or new activities. However, the DRV regulars normally tell applicants not to go to DRV but simply to submit the new draft for review.

• When should a single AFC reviewer be allowed to request that a title be unsalted if the same title was previously
  create-protected
  ? This question is related to the above, but is not the same.

Robert McClenon (talk) 23:31, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

• *Gets up on soapbox* I think Wikipedia is grossly irresponsible in our election coverage for the role we play in promoting incumbents over challengers. We should have some level of information about candidates for people seeking information about an election. This doesn't need to be done through a full article but could happen through reasonable coverage in an election article. The incumbent will still get a full article as opposed to say a paragraph (or two, maybe three) but our readers deserve to know more about Greenfield than Theresa Greenfield, businesswoman, candidate for Iowa's 3rd congressional district in 2018 which is what we're saying now.*Gets off soapbox*
  Why do we create protect articles (SALT)? Because repeated discussions are a drain on the community's time and attention. DRV has said three times that this isn't ready for mainspace. Robert is right that DRV also frequently says "don't bother us go to AfC or just recreate it" but that's after substantially new information or reasonable time has passed. Neither is true in this case. I am all for
  consensus changing but repeating the same discussion regularly is a form of disruption. This salting should hold. I am thankful that I got the chance to levy one of my biggest systemic criticism of our content in a public forum but other than that don't think repeated discussions are helpful. Waiting until after the election is not so cop-out or thwarting of our process. It is being respectful of the time, energy, thought, and collaboration that has already occurred about this topic. Best, Barkeep49 (talk
  ) 01:44, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
• The rule should be that challengers who receive significant national or international coverage (that is, non-local coverage, or coverage outside of the area where they are running) are notable enough for a page. Greenfield would meet that test (most general election US Senate candidates would), but not every candidate for every office would. Lev!vich 01:57, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
• I have some thoughts about this. If we were looking at an open seat, with both candidates not previously having held elected office, we would not advantage any incumbent. Furthermore, the idea that we are giving an advantage to the incumbent because they have an article disregards to an extent the possibility that their article itself may prove less-than-flattering (as people with opposing views often try to insert as much negativity as they can, while those with supporting views try to keep that sort of thing out). We have articles for all U.S. Senators because that is a reasonable barometer of notability, given the power and influence they wield. This includes articles for senators who or elected for a single term and did not run for re-election, so incumbency over an opponent was never an issue at all. We can't treat articles on U.S. senators any differently based on their possibly being challenged by somebody who does not fall into any other bucket for notability. That said, I do think there is inherent notability in a major party nominee for a U.S. Senate seat garnering national attention due to their perceived possibility of winning that seat (or, sometimes, due to other behaviour in the course of the campaign). This, of course, raises a question that has not yet been addressed, which is whether we should then create articles generally on historical losing major-party U.S. Senate candidates who garnered such attention during their candidacy. This is a discussion perhaps best left until the current silly season passes. If we do enact such a standard in the future, than Theresa Greenfield will merit an article at that point even if she has lost her Senate bid. BD2412 T 03:23, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

A problem with this suggestion is the phrase "major party candidate," which inserts a bit of political favoritism into which candidates may receive articles, and does not account for the fact that the relative strength of a party (or its nominee) varies from state to State. Even if we defer to the political jurisdictions themselves of who is a major party nominee, the Legal Marijuana Now Party is a major party in the State of Minnesota and I don't think that its nominee is notable. --Enos733 (talk) 04:23, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Major party candidate here is basically shorthand for someone coming from a political party that is able to provide the resources to make a U.S. Senate race competitive, which is what leads to the national press coverage of the subject. BD2412 T 15:57, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

• Let me throw these two things into the existing discussion. A
  ten year test in terms of their long-term relevance? Bkissin (talk
  ) 17:48, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
• This is trivial. Does the topic meet the GNG? Yes? Have article. We don't expect coverage of baseball players outside of baseball, why does anyone expect coverage of a politician outside of politics? Hobit (talk) 01:11, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
  • What he said. The existing policy to routinely reject articles on as-yet unelected politicians seems absurd to me. If a person gets coverage, I don't care who they friggin' are, or what the context is, if they get stuff like national coverage, then my God shouldn't we have an article on them? Why do politicians get assigned a different standard than other people? You pass GNG, you get an article. End of discussion. You don't pass GNG but you do pass a subject-specific guideline, boom, you get an article. That's how it works for everything else on Wikipedia. That is exactly how it should work for politicians. Anything else is following a rule because it's a rule.
    WP:IAR is a POLICY! A loose necktie (talk
    ) 02:45, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
    • Just to respond to the above comment from an
      educators or keep the veritable flood of bit-playing actors or potential-politicians who never get elected from having one-paragraph permastubs. Primefac (talk
      ) 09:55, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
    • I would agree in the case of a candidate who runs once, but after the first time there is a point when they become a perennial candidate, maybe hoping to eventually reach
      WP:10Y test above is interesting, since there was a Senate election in this same state exactly 10 years ago, and guess what, we have an article on the losing candidate. UnitedStatesian (talk
      ) 16:51, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
      • • UnitedStatesian, the two cases are not comparable. Roxanne Conlin was a U.S. Attorney confirmed by the Senate, and was also the first woman president of the American Trial Lawyers Association. She is notable for those reasons. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 18:39, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
          • Of those two reasons, neither has an inline cite to an independent source. UnitedStatesian (talk) 18:45, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
      • And how many articles do we have on football players, who all qualify for standalone permastub articles based on subject specific guidelines and whose articles will never, ever be expanded in 10 or even 100 years but also never, ever be deleted, while wringing our hands over allowing people to create articles on as-yet unelected political candidates with ample national coverage and lots of published information, whom we disqualify from having articles because "we just don't do that"? If we cared about permastubs, we'd address it in other contexts. We don't. And we could all stop caring about the politicians if we just followed our own policies regarding what makes a subject notable, and stop applying different rulers to different topics as a means to delete or remove articles on those subjects— I'm all for using them to include, since that is how they were meant to be used. Think of the headaches that wouldn't have to happen! Of the discussions we wouldn't have to waste time on! Like this one! Yay! A loose necktie (talk) 17:34, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
        • And how many articles do we have on football players Usually best not to compare the sphere of interest here to one of the known problem children of the notability guidelines. --Izno (talk) 18:11, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
  • "We don't expect coverage of baseball players outside of baseball, why does anyone expect coverage of a politician outside of politics?" Unless and until she is elected she hasn't done anything in politics. She's basically stood up and said "please, please, please let me do something in politics, I would really appreciate it, I have such great ideas", but she's done zip. Giving her an article is not the same as giving a baseball player an article for playing baseball, it's the equivalent of giving anybody who ever wanted to be a baseball player an article. --Khajidha (talk) 17:57, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

• This is a good discussion, and I have to get up on my own soapbox here and echo Barkeep49's grand concern above that we're generally irresponsible in our election coverage, but for me it's in the opposite direction of Barkeep's argument. We cover elections in far too much detail. We're supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a newspaper: we're supposed to write basically academic summaries of things that already exist or have already happened, after all the discussion is had (so we're not the ones having it;
  WP:NOTESSAY) and when things aren't constantly changing, based on reliable sources that review those subjects in retrospect, not as they happen. We're incredibly poor at providing balanced coverage of anything that is ongoing because we're not set up to be objective to current events. We should not write about elections at all until the ballots are counted, in my ideal world, and certainly not while the propaganda machines are in full swing. Maybe this gripe is neither here nor there with respect to this discussion, but since it was brought up now you all get to enjoy my opinion. (/soapbox) There are a lot of quality arguments here on what our guidelines should be, and those are good discussions to have, but there's pretty clearly not a consensus here to restore the article or to do anything with the protection. I think Cullen328's advice to expand her content in the Senate election article is the way forward. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits
  ) 19:02, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

  I agree we cover many ongoing events in more coverage than an encyclopedia strictly would. In an abstract sense the idea of saying "we're not going to cover something until X months/years after it happens" makes sense to me given NOTNEWS/the first pillar. However, that's only in the abstract sense; I can't imagine if we had only begun covering COVID or if we couldn't reference someone's death because not enough time had elapsed. If we're going to start drawing lines about where we need to be careful about covering ongoing events the idea that we're covering elections too much seems like a strange place to start drawing that line. Our articles on elections are poor and serve our readers poorly - they become lists of endorsements and other things that fit nicely in tables rather than prose. But the fact that we do a poor job of it now isn't to say we're over covering it; it's to say we should do a better job of covering them with-in our encyclopedic mission. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:31, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

• For most topics, a deletion review is final. On this particular matter, we've had several successive deletion reviews and now we've got an appeal to the administrator's noticeboard. As this is purely a content decision, it's simply not open to administrators to overrule DRV here. I suggest that this is closed without result and referred back to DRV.—S Marshall T/C 01:47, 6 October 2020 (UTC)
• I'll just say it again: there can be no dispute as to if this meets the GNG. And the SNG says: "People are presumed notable if they have received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject." We have a huge number of high-quality sources that cover her in massive detail. So from a guideline viewpoint, this is open-and-shut. The problem is that people are trying to create a new SNG and even though they have failed to do so, somehow we still pretend like that SNG exists and has consensus. It's a bit maddening frankly. Hobit (talk) 13:02, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

  You missed a bit: "Presumed" means that significant coverage in reliable sources creates an assumption, not a guarantee, that a subject merits its own article. A more in-depth discussion might conclude that the topic actually should not have a stand-alone article --Khajidha (talk) 15:14, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

  Certainly. And we'd done things like not have articles on things like "Donald Trump's hands" on that basis. But a person with this much coverage? I can't think of any such case. The GNG is a bit more clear "Wikipedia articles cover notable topics—those that have gained sufficiently significant attention by the world at large and over a period of time, and are not outside the scope of Wikipedia. We consider evidence from reliable and independent sources to gauge this attention. The notability guideline does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article." This is clearly way over the bar of the GNG. And yes, we can merge articles still for organizational reasons. But AfD doesn't normally address *that*. The simple fact is, this person easily meets every relevant guideline we have for inclusion. Her case is not unusual. If we don't want articles like hers, there should be consensus that can be found for the general case. But no such consensus exists. Hobit (talk) 16:24, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

  Reading that draft, I don't see anything that I would call "significant". She exists. She has a family. She has run for office. But she hasn't really DONE anything, so there's nothing to say about her. --Khajidha (talk) 16:50, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

  Erb? First of all, that's not part of our inclusion guidelines. We have articles on people who are only famous for being famous. Secondly, she's done a ton. In the last hour there is reporting on an FEC filing against her [1]. In the last 12 hours there is a story on her leading in the polls against the incumbent [2]. She's been campaigning and the news folks think that is important enough to report on [3]. She was in a debate covered and broadcast by national news [4]. I doubt that 5% of our subjects have done as much. Probably not even done as much as she has in the last 7 days. Hobit (talk) 19:02, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

  Still nothing there besides "hey, this lady's running for election". --Khajidha (talk) 18:39, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

  A) Most soccer players are just "hey, this guy plays soccer". Most academics are "Hey this guy is an academic". And she has tons more coverage, include deep bios etc., than the vast majority of either of those. B) who cares? That isn't even vaguely part of our inclusion guidelines. She meets WP:N with more coverage than 90%+ of our bios. You are far into WP:IAR territory. Hobit (talk) 12:48, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

  The difference is the soccer player actually plays and the academic has earned a degree or published a work. Giving her an article is the equivalent of giving an article to anyone who walks into team tryouts or applies to a university for admission.--Khajidha (talk) 03:08, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  I'm guessing you don't understand US senate elections? It takes a lot of work to become a senate candidate in a competitive race. To maintain the sports analogy, it means you've made it to the playoffs, but might not win the championship. We cover even athletes that have never won a championship. Now it *is* tricky because in some non-competitive races for lesser offices it is pretty much someone just applying. But that certainly isn't the case here. Hobit (talk) 16:57, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  Oh, I understand them and I'm not saying that running an election campaign is easy. But the entire campaign is still just the equivalent of trying out for a team or applying for admission to a university. It's still just "I wanna do something" and not "I'm doing something". --Khajidha (talk) 18:30, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  And that's not an inclusion criteria in any policy or guideline. Perfectly reasonable

  WP:IAR viewpoint, but not based in any of our rules. Hobit (talk

  ) 12:07, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

  It's the perfectly obvious reading of the policy. 1) No source establishes notability outside of the election and 2) the coverage of her campaign is simply routine coverage of an election, not enough to establish her notability. --Khajidha (talk) 14:26, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

• My apologies for what I am sure are going to be some formatting errors, but I have not extensively used my Wikipedia editing permissions over the years. I was recently shocked to discover that Theresa Greenfield does not have a Wikipedia page; and not only that, but "Theresa Greenfield (American Politician)" is an article that's been created and deleted several times, and "Theresa Greenfield" redirects to a section of the article about the Iowan Senate Race (and that section isn't particularly about Greenfield), while her opponent has a very robust article. This back-and-forth appears to have been going on since this spring, and the election is just over two weeks away. I'm honestly surprised that this discussion largely seems to be circling around notability. Nearly all of the highest level legislative change or stability in the United States comes from the governing power of the US Senate. Having been controlled by one major political party for many years; but with numerous Congressional seats up for election, and many polls showing potential political shifts, there is a chance for another political party to take control of the Senate, with the implications of immense changes in US policy, both domestic and abroad. Only a very few number of US States have the chance to alter their representative political party in the Senate, and Greenfield is the incumbent's opponent in the "swing state" of Iowa. As a Greenfield victory could alter the political makeup of the US Senate, the leading legislative body of one of the most internationally-influential countries in the world, her political career is very notable. There are very, very many news sources - on the local, state, and national levels - citing her campaign; which, as an example, just raised a record amount of money for a Iowan running for US Congress. I've always thought of Wikipedia as a place for unbiased information - the Encyclopedia of the internet - and as authors, editors, & admins - it would seem that we have the opportunity to "balance out the objectivity" with her State's incumbent's article. I realize this is adding some real-world context to a platform that should be neutral of current events, but voters in Iowa started receiving their ballots last week, and the election closes in just over two weeks. They are trying to make their most critical political decision right now, and an objective, unbiased article on this candidate is an immensely important resource. If they currently search Wikipedia, and see the incumbent's robust article and no article for Theresa Greenfield, that is a potential strong influence on their decision-making. Please reconsider unlocking ("un-salting?") this article ASAP so that we can populate it with objective, practical, widely-covered information. Charlie918 (talk) 16:30, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

  "As a Greenfield victory could alter the political makeup of the US Senate, the leading legislative body of one of the most internationally-influential countries in the world, her political career is very notable. " Nope. Her career will only be notable if she wins. "If they currently search Wikipedia, and see the incumbent's robust article and no article for Theresa Greenfield, that is a potential strong influence on their decision-making. " Why would you go to an encyclopedia for this? This is something that newspapers and voter's organizations and such are much better designed for. --Khajidha (talk) 17:34, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

  Well I'm afraid there are Wikipedia precedents that are counter to your argument of not being noteworthy until being elected to office.

  John E. James is the nominated Senate seat challenger in Michigan. He has never held public office, and therefore his only notable accomplishments on his Wikipedia page are that he served in the military and worked for a company. With the nearly daily news articles between city, state, and national news outlets about Theresa Greenfield for the past month, I can't see why these two yet-to-win political candidates are cleanly permitted to have Wikipedia articles, but one of the nominees in one of the most critical "swing states" - a multi-business owner and setting a political fundraising record for the state - would not be notable. This sincerely might just be my misunderstanding of what constitutes 'notability' on Wikipedia. Charlie918 (talk

  ) 20:32, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

  WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a good argument to make. – Muboshgu (talk

  ) 20:37, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

  Muboshgu, then this is most likely simply a teachable moment for me, and there's probably a well-written explanation somewhere that I just can't seem to locate. For a Wikipedia article about a person, what constitutes "notability?" If I do a Google search for "Theresa Greenfield," there are virtually limitless articles from various print, digital, and televised news outlets about her going back months, nearly daily since her televised debate, with her name in the headline. There are even more articles significantly about her where her name isn't necessarily in the headline (e.g. "SCOTUS battle crashes into decisive Senate race in Iowa," Politico, James Arkin, September 30, 2020). Is the sheer volume of content created specifically about an individual by news outlets not a consideration in determining someone's notability? If not, what is? Honestly thank you for any insights, this is the first time I've been involved in a blocked article discussion. Charlie918 (talk) 03:15, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  WP:NPOL. The presence of citations alone is not enough as the context needs to be considered. – Muboshgu (talk

  ) 17:07, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  WP:GNG. In that first page, it is my interpretation that as the final one of two candidates to represent the entire state of Iowa in the American senate, Greenfield passes the "Major local political figures," and while I've previously noted she has significant press coverage, "who have received significant press coverage." In looking at the General Guidelines you linked, there appear to be five qualifiers: (1) Significant Coverage - there are virtually countless articles, hours of taped interview footage, social media, and more that cover Greenfield's political campaign, personal life, and career. (2/3) Reliable Sources - there are many, many articles and news TV segments from city, state, and national outlets covering Theresa Greenfield, so my assumption is that these qualify as reliable sources. (4) Independent of the Subject - these news articles were not produced by Theresa Greenfield. (5) Presumed - this of course seems to imply that even if a subject meets all the criteria, a more in depth discussion may need to occur for the subject to receive an article. Reviewing most of the comments in here over the last five months, it would appear that the majority of these comments seem to support having the article. If the question remains about notability, I wonder if this context is appropriate to apply: The United States government is is one of the most internationally-influential governing bodies in modern times. Within that government, the United States Senate - made up of two representatives from each of the 50 States - is arguably the most powerful, able to enact laws, impeach a president, make treaties, and more. In America's two-party system, simple majority of the Senate means that party will be able to enact their agenda for 2-4 years, and block the agenda of the other party, and thus significantly determine the country's global and domestic policies. In America's current election, there is a chance for the Senate to change party power, with many Senate seats up for election. Based on the political affiliation of the various states' populations, most of these elections are insignificant - people will vote for their party, and their Senate representatives will remain of the same political party. However, there are just five state elections that are qualified as a "toss up," which means due to the near-balanced political affiliations of their residents, determined through a combination of the national census and polling, it cannot be confidently forecasted which political party will win the state. Theresa Greenfield is the Democratic candidate in one of those five states. If the American Democratic party does in fact take control of the Senate in this election, the international and domestic policy changes - including enacting impeachment proceedings for the current president if he remains in power - would be significant, affecting - in various ways and degrees - billions of people around the world. Given this context, and the objective criteria thresholds of Wikipedia, it is my belief that Theresa Greenfield is notable, and should be permitted to have her own Wikipedia page now, not after her potential electoral victory. Thank you for your discussion and patience. Charlie918 (talk

  ) 17:40, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  How much of that coverage is about her per se and how much is about the election? Consensus on Wikipedia has always been that people who are otherwise not notable do not gain notability just by running for office. That's why this article has been redirected to the election article and that outcome has been endorsed multiple times. Unless and until that consensus changes (and this is not the place to argue that, per User:Spartaz's post below), there is no point in continuing this argument here. --Khajidha (talk) 18:36, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  Khajidha In preparing a draft article on my desktop before learning about the controversial history of this Wikipedia article, I have 21 articles saved in Word with Theresa Greenfield's name in the headline just from the last two weeks. The subject matter is a mixture of reviewing her professional career (as it relates to her qualifications for the role), her efforts and notable events of her campaign, and her personal background (education, family, organizational memberships, etc.). Several lines up, Muboshgu, who made the original redirect and lock - to my understanding - made the case that because Wikipedia articles currently exist about campaigning politicians who are otherwise non-notable is not a considerable precedent in determining if a page about Theresa Greenfield should be permitted; then your reverse argument, that "Wikipedia's consensus is that articles about political candidates who are otherwise not notable should not be published," would seem irrelevant. If a precedent is not to be considered, and only the objective notoriety rules of Wikipedia are to be weighed, then Theresa Greenfield would appear to qualify by those rules. Charlie918 (talk) 20:49, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

First of all, I have to cop to not having read all the links, so if this has been stated already, my apologies. While on the one hand it rankles that she doesn't have a page, on the other, I get the Notability issue, and I'm a believer in the policy. Still, I remember the AOC situation, and in retrospect, that was a blunder on our part. But if we obey N, where is the blunder? Well, either in the fact that "being a candidate doess not ipso facto make you notable" (for which this is not the right venue,

What about this? We have here, in my opinion, a

2020 United States Senate election in Iowa is the article for the "one event" in question. --Khajidha (talk) 03:04, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

That's a related topic for sure, but not quite the identical topic, and not a BIO1E, but rather a recurring event whose article title could be generated by computer. If that article were entitled, 2020 Ernst-Greenfield Senate election you might have a point, but it still wouldn't be the same topic. Mathglot (talk) 04:44, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

This is an entirely pointless discussion because this is essentially a content dispute where the policy, precedent and weight of several discussions is not to have an article. This whole thread is simply extended special pleading and asking the other parent. If you think the page should exist then your quest starts at WT POLITICIAN and I wish you good luck with that.

Spartaz ^Humbug!

05:14, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I believe this is a quite productive discussion, because it points out that there is no clear and accepted community consensus or clear written guideline for the notability of prominent candidates for high-level office who receive substantial, reliable, independent coverage over time (including significant national coverage). There are a lot of experienced editors here with one interpretation of the guidelines, and a lot of experienced editors with a different interpretation. And this discussion is very diffuse, over several talk pages -- there's also more at Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)#Changing NPOL to include at least some more nominees. Dreamyshade (talk) 00:28, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

• The US election is in a couple weeks? She was deleted because she's only notable for being a candidate, right? Why can't we just keep this deleted, wait to see if she wins, and then have a new discussion after the election? This happens all the time, specifically with US elections, and then once the candidate has officially lost most or all resistance to keeping the article goes away, especially if you give it a couple years. SportingFlyer T·C 12:07, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

• If the person passes GNG and there is no WP:BIO1E issue as pointed out above (the article was deleted at AfD before she received in-depth coverage), there is no proper reason to ban this article no matter how close or far an election is. Oakshade (talk) 06:01, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

• Two points:
  1. Is there an article for every other currently running candidate in every election for US Senate/House seat that is up for grabs this election? (I am assuming we have articles on the incumbents office holders)? If we have them on nearly all of them and hers is an an exception, that's a problem that we should fix. If hers is but many that we do not have, then I fail to see where the problem is. The arguments that show her lack of notability (just running for election is not showing depth of coverage about her directly) have been well presented.
  2. If we move her article to mainspace, it cannot look like a political ad. The draft presently looks like this with the section on her platform. Her platform can be discussed but it needs to be presented far less as a political position and more neutrality along with any criticism of it. Ideally, the platform should be part of the election article, and only her key policies that she has stood being and discussed at length should be on her bio page. --Masem (t) 14:15, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Redirect

While this article is in limbo can we at least get the redirect pointed to 2020 United States Senate election in Iowa#Democratic primary so users can easily find the three paragraphs on the candidate there? There's no named section for her so at present it represents a navigational challenge. Artw (talk) 02:46, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Right now due to the confusion around this article there’s a half dozen venues I could make this request, if this isn’t the right one feel free to point me at the right one, but it seems like an easy move to make Wikipedia slightly less broken in this case rather than fully broken. Artw (talk) 18:46, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Artw, I've just made the change. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:16, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Cheers. Artw (talk) 04:31, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

IAR

Allow me to quote from black-letter written Wikipedia policy: "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it."

In this case, we have this long tortured discussion about particular paths around purely procedural matters, which is preventing the movement of a perfectly valid draft (I'm not saying a perfect article by any means - a valid draft) about someone who is clearly notable as evidenced by literally thousands of high quality third party reliable sources. If a particular set of rules which work in ordinary circumstances have brought us to this absurd state of affairs, that's ok: one of the oldest and most important rules of Wikipedia exists to save us.

If Wikipedia, due to some procedural rules, doesn't have an article on the clear frontrunner in a US Senate race, then it is the rules that are preventing people from improving or maintaining Wikipedia. IAR tells us what to do: ignore those rules. This is policy.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:07, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Note that

The "A" in IAR stands for "All" – so I wasn't too selective in which rules I was ignoring and which ones I wasn't (...but there certainly was more than one I was ignoring, although I certainly must have been still very far from ignoring each and every rule this namespace holds). For the record, I was in the midst of filing a

Fram, or whoever reads this, to do a better proposal for triggering prompt reaction to get this sorted in the shortest delay of time possible. Tx. --Francis Schonken (talk

) 08:28, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

An "uncontroversial technical request" to get a fully protected page unprotected so you can get a declined AfC submission, the topic of a lengthy discussion at WP:AN, at your preferred result? That would me a rather severe misuse of the term "uncontroversial"... The better way would be to propose a closure here, get a consensus for it, and then let people implement the close. If there is no consensus to be found, then we are stuck with the status quo.

Fram (talk

) 08:42, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

The "A" in the abbreviation of the name of the IAR policy still seems to trip you over. Yes, IAR would usually mean ignoring multiple rules. Anyhow, closure request logged at

WP:ANRFC#Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Theresa Greenfield. Thanks for that suggestion. --Francis Schonken (talk

) 09:14, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Oh, I'm not claiming that you wouldn't be ignoring all rules when you would post a highly controversial move at the "uncontroversial moves" requests. I'm just pointing out that it would be a doomed effort which would only boomerang against you, as it would be very swiftly rejected and would reflect badly on you in discussions about your actions.

Fram (talk

) 10:25, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I understand that. Thanks for reminding. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:43, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

While I appreciate Jimbo's concerns, I feel I have to point out the last time an admin "took initiative" and IARed like this, they got desysopped. Specifically, I agree with his talk page comment "I would personally WP:IAR and move the draft into article space, but I believe doing so would simply generate unhelpful press coverage of an unfortunately disappointing failure of the slow grinding wheels of our policies." - or indeed, reams of pages on here and possibly Arbcom from everyone who disagrees. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:01, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm with Jimbo on this one. Let's not make the Donna Strickland and Clarice Phelps mistakes yet again. Lev!vich 14:34, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm with Ritchie on this one. It's all well and good for Jimbo to say "IAR!" from his high perch, but regular editors who use that as a reason to bypass a consensus discussion are going to face harsh criticism for their actions, if not winding up blocked. If Jimbo thinks this is good enough reason, let him do it & deal with the fallout. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:11, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

There was an overwhelming community consensus at wp:AN, and an obvious conclusion. She slam-dunk met WP:GNG many times over and per wp:notability that means we need look no further regarding wp:notability. Egalitarianism aside, something that comes from Jimbo has extra weight, and even that was just to expedite (and read the community consensus from a different place wp:AN) what was inevitable, and which had strong community consensus. North8000 (talk) 19:01, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Towards closure

• Oppose Wanted to sneak this in before closure. She can be adequately covered on the election page - if she loses, she won't have lasting notability, and content shouldn't be discussed here. SportingFlyer T·C 21:55, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

  Even if she loses the election, the notability will be lasting with GNG-passing coverage in abundance.Oakshade (talk) 16:31, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Related AfDs and articles

I think it would be helpful to list other AfDs (current or past) that may be impacted by whatever outcome the above discussion comes to.

• [[8]] Ran for office three times in Ireland (European Parliament, Parliament, and Senate) and failed to be elected all three times. However, in the news since elections for vocal criticism of the Green Party and for advocating that the Green Party not form a government. Article was AfD because she was not elected. Could this deletion be revisited in light of the discussion here? AugusteBlanqui (talk) 11:17, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/John E. James -- active AfD of a US senate candidate who has a meaningful chance of winning. Hobit (talk) 19:58, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Mr. James is running for the US Senate in the state that ranks 10th in population, representing more than 10 million people. He will forever be either a US Senator or the guy who lost that Senate race. It's not reasonable to maintain a fiction that rules are more important than ground truth - these candidates are more than a line item on another page.--Brad Patrick (talk) 20:10, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

• Draft:Kara_Eastman -- US house candidate in 2018 and 2020. Much smaller race than most US Senate races, but still closely related though the coverage isn't quite as overwhelming. Hobit (talk) 20:29, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
• Draft:Al Gross (politician) -- Also a US Senate candidate in a competitive race with significant coverage available (not all of which is reflected in the current sourcing). Dreamyshade (talk
  ) 21:14, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daniel Gade, the 2020 Republican US Senate candidate in Virginia. -- Tavix ^(talk) 21:22, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

• I would argue that all of the articles that were mentioned are notable. In particular, now that Theresa Greenfield is on the mainspace, Dr. Al Gross is one of the only major party U.S. Senate candidates this cycle without an article, and there is
  a draft written available about him. This article should be moved to the mainspace, as should the draft about Kara Eastman. The articles about John James and Daniel Gade should stay up at least through November 3. I say this because the voters need to have information about the candidates on their ballots. Narayansg (talk
  ) 22:33, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

  I say this because the voters need to have information about the candidates on their ballots. This isn't an effective argument for inclusion on Wikipedia. If they pass the

  WP:GNG in the case of candidates. ST47 (talk

  ) 22:49, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

  It also defers to several elements of

  WP:BIO1E. It may seem oddly political to oppose these, but I would strongly prefer to not turn Wikipedia into a partisan US-orientated website, and instead allow for articles on people only if they are notable. (We can always cover the candidates on the election page, which will likely be watched by interested parties on both sides of the aisle.) SportingFlyer T·C

  22:54, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

  For these draft articles, there's a problem related to the cycle that the draft Greenfield article got stuck in (resolved only with a vote here): there's no avenue for robust community discussion of notability for an AfC draft, because a single AfC reviewer can decline a submission and keep declining it. As a relevant example, I saw that for Gross,

  WP:GNG? I expect that few candidates do, but the exceptions (like Greenfield) are important. Dreamyshade (talk

  ) 23:19, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

  Anyone can accept an AfC submission too. If you believe it's ready, you can move it to mainspace. See

  WP:AFD. If you can't move it to mainspace due to protection, ask an admin. ST47 (talk

  ) 23:48, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

  @ST47:, I actually tried to move the Kara Eastman draft and couldn't for the simple reason it already has a history. Is this a common problem? And could you treat this as an "ask an admin" request for the move (even though I don't believe it is a protection problem)? Hobit (talk) 13:20, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

  It's probably not particularly common, but yes, ask an admin, or ask at

  WP:RM/TR. That one hasn't had an AfD since 2018 and the current version is better-sourced. However, the principal author of Draft:Kara Eastman has requested (through a comment on that page) that it not be nominated again until after the election, I would respect that request unless there's broader support for her immediate notability. ST47 (talk

  ) 15:57, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

• One guideline that doesn't appear to have been explicitly mentioned above is
  individual for-all-time notability of that candidate is marginal, even if coverage of the election itself including coverage of candidates is significant. ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)
  ~ 03:40, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

• After reading/participating in the discussion around Greenfield, I found myself very curious about which other non-incumbent candidates in the various Senate races have articles. I put together User:GorillaWarfare/Senate races with my results, and figured I'd share it here in case anyone was interested as I was. Many of the candidates have previously held office and met NPOL as a result of their past positions, but I found eighteen biographies of non-incumbent candidates who were not previously elected for office (including Greenfield). Out of that eighteen, four were independently notable for reasons unrelated to their runs for office. Out of the remaining fourteen, there were 9 Democrats, 3 Republicans, and 1 Independent, plus Mr. Willie Wilson in the Willie Wilson Party. They are evenly split gender-wise, with 7 articles about women and seven about men. Edits welcome if I've made any errors. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:17, 23 October 2020 (UTC)
• Here are the 14 articles listed on GW's page of non-incumbent 2020 US Senate candidates who are not notable outside politics, and how many page views each article received in the last 30 days. Why in the world would we not provide our readers with the verified, neutral summaries of these topics that they clearly are interested in reading?
  1. Al Gross, I-Alaska ♂, 13,661 pageviews
  2. Jon Ossoff, D-Georgia ♂, 135,335 pageviews
  3. Raphael Warnock, D-Georgia ♂, 76,410 pageviews
  4. Richard Dien Winfield, D-Georgia ♂, 3,000 pageviews
  5. Willie Wilson, Willie Wilson Party-Illinois ♂, 31,311 pageviews
  6. Theresa Greenfield, D-Iowa ♀, 17,114 pageviews
  7. Amy McGrath, D-Kentucky ♀, 155,241 pageviews
  8. John James
     , R-Michigan ♂, 88,815 pageviews
  9. Jo Rae Perkins, R-Oregon ♀, 15,166 pageviews
  10. Marquita Bradshaw, D-Tennessee ♀, 24,992 pageviews
  11. MJ Hegar
      , D-Texas ♀, 197,488 pageviews
  12. Daniel Gade, R-Virginia ♂, 36,133 pageviews
  13. Paula Jean Swearengin, D-West Virginia ♀, 24,214 pageviews
  14. Merav Ben-David, D-Wyoming ♀, 11,236 pageviews Lev!vich 16:52, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

  Because providing encyclopedic information is only one traditional function of encyclopedia. Another function is to select notable subjects (for which the information is provided). This is exactly why we reject, for example, purely local coverage or ONEEVENT (which both can generate a lot of interest as well). No opinion on specific individuals listed above.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:59, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

  Personally I believe NPOL should be changed to deem major candidates in Senate races such as Greenfield's inherently notable. I strongly agree with Barkeep49 who said above, I think Wikipedia is grossly irresponsible in our election coverage for the role we play in promoting incumbents over challengers. We should have some level of information about candidates for people seeking information about an election. This doesn't need to be done through a full article but could happen through reasonable coverage in an election article. The incumbent will still get a full article as opposed to say a paragraph (or two, maybe three) but our readers deserve to know more about Greenfield than "Theresa Greenfield, businesswoman, candidate for Iowa's 3rd congressional district in 2018" which is what we're saying now. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:04, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

  GorillaWarfare, How is that an argument to change NPOL? Writing more about a candidate in the election article requires no change to NPOL. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:21, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

  Sorry, not super clear, those were supposed to be two separate statements. I think NPOL should be changed, and separately I agree with Barkeep's point. GorillaWarfare (talk) 18:02, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

  @

  unicameral legislature elections as well? "Senior national legislator candidates" in all countries? Lev!vich

  18:37, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

  I was referring to US Senate. I admit I'm not very well-versed in other countries' political systems, but I would think any major candidates in elections that are somewhat equivalent in other countries ought to be considered notable as well. GorillaWarfare (talk) 18:46, 24 October 2020‎ (UTC)

  Any Republican/Democrat nominee for a Senate race will seemingly always meet GNG. So de facto "inherently notable" ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:49, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

  I feel like the discussions upon discussions about Greenfield have proven that's not agreed upon, not to mention the handful of AfDs, declined AfCs, and merged/redirected pages on R/D candidates recorded in my user subpage. GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:28, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

  Let's put it this way: we can argue "presumed notable" in the lead up to the election, but if the candidate loses and their only notability to that point was being the candidate, deletion or merging back to the election article would be reasonable after the election. There are some races where the incumbent has nearly no chance of losing, so the random challenger from the other party is just because they need to test the waters, and that may be a case that that person would readily meet BLP1E. --Masem (t) 19:36, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

  Yeah, that's why I specified "major candidates" in my original point about NPOL. I don't think candidates like the ones you mention, or the long list of candidates pulling in single-digit percentage points of support or less in some of the Senate elections should be deemed inherently notable. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:03, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

  What we need to be careful though is that if we make these articles routinely, these cannot come off as supporting their platform, though obviously we do want to document major platform points that a candidate is notable for running for. (A full platform position would be more appropriate on the election page to compare candidates, or if the campaign election itself was notable) Greenfield's section on political positions is a bit too close to promotional but not at a point it needs to be flagged. I just feel that this will be the primary content people will add to these types of candidate articles rather than bio details. --Masem (t) 18:14, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

  This is why I support including all of the information on the election page, such as

  WP:CRYSTAL and our "once you're notable, you're always notable" policies - why not just cover the candidates properly in the context of the election, and have that be the worldwide standard? SportingFlyer T·C

  19:52, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

  This. Exactly this. One million times, this. --Khajidha (talk) 22:33, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

  Nobody has ever claimed automatic notability simply because they are a candidate, but that doesn't at all mean someone is automatically non-notable due to them being a candidate. Some people do in fact become notable due to their candidacy, like of Greenfield and Ossoff (the first special election). That was the problem with the Greenfield controversy back in June and July - In this case the person was clearly notable but some editors clung to the idea that nobody could become notable only due to a candidacy, not to mention feeling it was "too soon" since a previous discussion (I had warned back in July the Greenfield issue would come back again and again if we don't allow an article and it turned out I was correct). Oakshade (talk) 02:45, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

  That assumes Greenfield IS notable, which is still a question the community disagrees on. If she loses the election there's a very good chance the article could be deleted or merged. There's really two issues here: 1) not providing enough information on candidates on the election page, which there seems to be a hunger for along with general agreement to do so; and 2) at what point someone who is running for office but not otherwise notable becomes notable enough for a standalone article given the numerous issues with having these sorts of articles. SportingFlyer T·C 10:07, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

  If just being a candidate doesn't make you notable, then continuing routine coverage of your candidacy does not make you notable either. You can say "she's running for election" 1 time or 500 billion times, it doesn't change anything. --Khajidha (talk) 11:35, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

  Community consensus above shows that Greenfield does meet GNG. If she loses the election, an editor might bring up yet another AfD in some kind of

  WP:POINT exercise, but the GNG-passing train has long left the station and the community's patience will be beyond thin at that time. Oakshade (talk

  ) 16:22, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

  So, let's look at hypotheticals. If this were an article being proposed about a candidate from the previous senate election in that state, with basically the same sources saying the same things, plus a source for their having lost the election, you would support its existence? Really? I saw lots of people above saying basically saying that we "need to serve the voters". That seems totally wrong to me. We aren't here to serve the voters of this year, we are here to cover this year's election for the people of next year. Or 5 years from now. Or 10. Or 100. If this last round had not resulted in the posting of this article, I doubt anyone would raise the issue 10 days from now if she loses the election. --Khajidha (talk) 17:01, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

  That's a straw man argument as I've never said anything like "to serve the voters" since coming across this issue back in June. Others might have. And to answer your question, yes of course we should have an article about a person who is notable and easily passes GNG as consensus has confirmed even if they lost an election they became notable for just we had the article of Jon Ossoff after he lost the 2017 Georgia's 6th congressional district special election. Oakshade (talk) 19:37, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

  Jon Ossoff was AfD'd in 2017, incorrectly closed as a keep (8:4 delete/redirect:keep ratio), and then a mess of a DRV which potentially identified 3 of the keep !voters as SPI but wasn't really close-able as anything other than no consensus. Ossoff is probably the worst possible example you could have given. SportingFlyer T·C 20:09, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

  If it really is a bad example then show us - If you truly feel Ossoff is not notable due to becoming notable only because of his 2017 candidacy that he lost and his current candidacy and, should he lose the upcoming Senatorial election like Greenfield might or might not, continues to be non-notable in your view, then you are always free to AfD the Ossoff article. But honestly that would also come across as a

  WP:POINT AfD. Oakshade (talk

  ) 20:34, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

  The messy AfD and messier DRV were three years ago. I don't think an AfD would be

  WP:POINTy, but certainly at this point in the discussion it wouldn't help much, either. We need good guidelines for when candidates are considered all-time-notable. SportingFlyer T·C

  20:56, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

• The
  MJ Hegar article can be summarized as: she is in the middle of a notable life, and additionally, she is a candidate. The Theresa Greenfield article can be summarized as: she is candidate and she is candidate. The only notable thing in her bio, seems to be Jimbo Wales campaigning for her article... but this is not yet covered by Reliable Sources: simply too soon. Pldx1 (talk
  ) 15:02, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• The bigger issue here is that arguing over Greenfield's notability (and the fact the community is split on the issue) doesn't get us any closer to actually solving this problem, which pops up every two years in the midst of US election season. We need to have this election resolve and then workshop what the actual rule is to avoid having this be a point of contention, the question being: when is a recent candidate notable? SportingFlyer T·C 17:02, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

  I think that's a great idea. Avoiding doing it just before the election is probably wise, and I don't think there's harm in waiting for election dust to settle to discuss it. GorillaWarfare (talk) 21:13, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

  I completely agree with waiting as it avoids any

  WP:CRYSTAL issues of "well they might be notable..." Considering the fact we typically lack consensus on what to do with these US candidates, maybe it would be better to frame the question as, how do we improve election coverage on Wikipedia? SportingFlyer T·C

  21:23, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

  Yes, working on this after the election sounds good. I believe both of these questions are worth asking, because they both come up with deeply split answers (especially when working article-by-article): How do we decide when a candidate may have their own article under their name? And related, but broader: how do we set up our policies and guidelines so that elections can be covered in ways that fulfill the purpose of Wikipedia to the best of our capacity and ability as editors? Dreamyshade (talk) 23:03, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

• I know I'm coming late to this discussion, likely after it has become moot, but looking at the 14 biographies on GorillaWarfare's list, I was struck by the fact that most of these candidates should be notable because they were political activists. I don't know if that term means anything beyond the US, so I will define how I am using it: a political activist is someone who works, often as a volunteer, to effect a change in how government works, often by pushing thru a ballot initiative or class-action lawsuit -- although there may be other ways. And that means these are people who woke up one morning & decided to run for office & somehow garnered one party's nomination. There are exceptions to this. For example, Merav Ben-David strikes me as a notable academic (we need to know more about her publishing history, though); Richard Dien Winfield is another notable academic (his bio article barely mentions he ran for office twice). A possible one is Marquita Bradshaw, but she is notable as "the first African American woman to win a major political party nomination in any statewide race in Tennessee". Willie Wilson is one of those footnote people like Emperor Norton whom you can't exclude from a comprehensive encyclopedia. Jo Rae Perkins represents a movement Wikipedia probably has too little information about, the QAnon people. In all honestly, about the only one of these I might exclude would be Daniel Gade, because his biography makes it appear he did wake up one morning & decide just that, but further research about his work advocating for disabled veterans could show I am wrong about that. Far too often we look at articles on politicians & decide if they are notable only if they held public office, when there are many notable political activists (Martin Luther King comes to mind) who never held office. -- llywrch (talk) 23:34, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Now she lost

Now she lost, and her article still does not contain anything significant which could not be in the article on the Iowa senate elections. Shoud it go to AfD again, or can we just move it back to draft?--Ymblanter (talk) 07:43, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Neither, as it is quite hard to judge a candidate's post-election notability on election night. Lev!vich 07:55, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

As per Levivich. Waiting at least 48 hours (if not a week) to consider another merge/delete proposal is certainly called for.

π, ν

) 07:57, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

We can wait for a couple of days, no problem, but if there is no consensus here to revert the move from the draft she will go to AfD again.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:58, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree there will be another discussion; it just won't be a useful one until the presidential election is called.

π, ν

) 08:01, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Her article might go to AFD, but she probably won't. :-) Lev!vich 08:03, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Like any mainspace article that has had a decent amount of effort put into it, if an editor believes that the subject may not be notable and can't find sources indicating sufficient notability, that editor would need to nominate it for deletion.

WP:DRAFTIFY isn't appropriate for mature articles that have had a bunch of editors and edits over time. I agree with waiting at least a couple days or a week to consider an AfD nomination, especially because coverage of the race isn't over - this article came out a couple hours ago, for example. We'll be able to have a better picture of longer-term notability after journalists have a chance to write up analysis, etc. Dreamyshade (talk

) 01:47, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Honestly, take the advice as

WP:BATTLEGROUND and wait at least a year to reassess notability. There's no chance it can be meaningfully re-assessed in the near term, and there'd be no reason to re-nominate now, in a day, or a week, except to try to win a battle. WilyD

06:18, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

It should have not moved out of the draft after three failed DRVs to start with. The argument was mainly that if she wins election (which she was expected to) than everybody knows that Wikipedia failed to create an article on a notable person (who is accidentally also a woman etc). This argument is obsolete for the time being. I also do not see how my behavior is

WP:BATTLEGROUND. I do not think I was in any way previously involved with this article except for a pair of procedural comments on the top of this thread. I am just absolutely sure that if she were not an American democrat Senate candidate but a candidate to the parliament of Peru with similar credentials, nothing like this would ever happen--Ymblanter (talk

) 07:46, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

The argument was mainly that she met

WP:GNG. The closing statement a couple sub threads up was "Consensus is that the subject does meet the GNG." Lev!vich

07:53, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

WP:ONEEVENT perfectly describes the sittation, but I do not think we shoule be discussing this here. I said very early in this topic that AN is not a good instrument to look for consensus in these issues.--Ymblanter (talk

) 15:04, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree ONEEVENT perfectly describes the situation: However, if media coverage of both the event and the individual's role grow larger, separate articles may become justified. If the event is highly significant, and the individual's role within it is a large one, a separate article is generally appropriate. I'm not sure why you expect an AFD would end up with a different result than the we had here at AN. Do you expect editors will have changed their mind? Or do you expect a different group of editors will arrive at a different result? I expect the same editors will come to the same result. Lev!vich 15:33, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I think it will be a different group of people. After all, it has already been to AfD and three times to DRV with the decision delete / not undelete.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:03, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

She was at AFD in May where there was no consensus that she met GNG at that time, and the three DRVs were in June and July, and found no reason to overturn the May AFD as of that time. Then, in late October, consensus was reached that she met GNG as of that time. Now it's early November. If she met GNG in late October, she still meets GNG in early November. A merge proposal might have some support, but an AFD would be a disruptive waste of time (as would draftification). No matter what happens, we will have a page on Wikipedia called "Theresa Greenfield". The only question is whether that page will be an article or a redirect. AFD is not the place to answer that question. It's still called Articles for deletion, not Articles for discussion. Lev!vich 16:34, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

This also serves to remind us that GNG reiterates BLP1E - we are looking for enduring coverage of a topic, not a blip of news coverage, and that even a prolonged election period run should not be considered "enduring" for our purposes (that is, what is enduring depends on the nature of the topic). Clearly this was being misread if editors took her to be notable by the GNG while as a candidate (there are other routes to presume notability) --Masem (t) 16:46, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

WP:GNG, as written now, and there really is no argument that she does not meet the requirements as written now. Lev!vich

17:01, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Notability requires

WP:N) which ties right back to BLP1E and NEVENT. That's the enduring requirement of notability. It's why a burst of news coverage is not sufficient for notability. --Masem (t

) 17:11, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

True, but that brings us back to the main point here: it's really nonsensical to assess notability on October 21 and then re-assess it to judge SUSTAINED on November 6. If she met N (including SUSTAINED, as could be ascertained at that time) on October 21, 2020 based on coverage in 2020, then we are not going to have sufficient information to make a determination about SUSTAINED until, at least October 21, 2021. If she's been covered non-stop for a year, then we have to wait at least one year, and only then can we determine if it was a "brief blip" or "sustained" coverage. This is why I agree that the notion that we should do anything with this article this week is just BATTLEGROUND behavior. There is no logic to making any sort of decision this soon after the election; the only reason anyone could possibly want to change the status quo right now is to prove a point. And that point is: candidates who don't win shouldn't have a page. Everyone needs to let go, in the drop-the-stick sense, of the notion that a person's notability is linked to whether they win or lose an election, and also let go of the notion that the mere presence of an article about a candidate is somehow promotional.

By the way, Theresa Greenfield is still the subject of more coverage than Donna Strickland or Clarice Phelps. The problem in all three of these womens' biographies is that each woman was judged by editors according to their accomplishments in the eyes of those editors. So, editors say, "she's not notable until she wins the Nobel Prize", or "she's not notable unless she is a named author on the paper", or "she's not notable unless she wins the election". This approach is wrong, wrong, wrong, and it's not our way, and it's not how the guideline N works, nor how our core policies work. We follow sources. A person is notable if the sources say they are notable: whether we think their accomplishments are important doesn't matter at all. Yet some editors continuously try to add these extra requirements: whether it's "won an election" or "played in a professional league" or "published a paper", it's always just some editor's opinion about what makes someone important. But editors' opinions don't count; it's sources that count. This is misapplied in both directions: sometimes editors apply their idea of "importance" to !vote keep when the sources don't exist (football players, famously); other times editors apply their idea of "importance" to !vote delete even when the sources are plentiful (women, famously). Every time we stray from the path of "follow the sources", we should remind ourselves of what we're here for: to summarize secondary sources. Not to decide what's important. In this case, there is no lack of secondary sources about Greenfield for us to summarize. Lev!vich 17:29, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

First, I fully agree we don't need to decide today or next week even on its fate. Let's wait for the election results to finalize and see any fallout from that.

There is a huge difference with the Strickland case in that we didn't have ANY article for her - no attempt at draft or deletion. Take away the Nobel, she would still have met the NPROF allowances for an article, but no one wrote it, a discovery made when she got named for the Nobel. That's a problem with our volunteer system is that we write articles that really only interest us and not probably what we should write. It is a very different situation from Greenfield where people were making a draft and trying to include it but there were hard questions on notability.

And there are hard questions on notability when it comes to a candidate in an ongoing an election. WP is now seen as a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tool blatently used to build up a profile in search engines, and people and corps pay money to try to get editors to make pages to improve their hits. NCORP was recently reworked to try to stall as much of this from the corporate side by making it harder for random corps to get pages. We have to consider the same problems for a candidate in an election that has no other history of note. I mean, we initially have to assume good faith that editors that wanted an article on Greenfield were trying to do in with the intent for an encyclopedic topic, but in the middle of an election in a heated race, some questions have to be raised. (The same issue was at play at the early stages of Phelps article based on the early AFD discussions - lack of third-party sourcing points to more self-promotional concerns). But in the case of Phelps, when this was recognized by the media, they came to the "rescue" to provide addition third-party coverage and establish her as clearly notable for her whole career. Which is a perfectly acceptable route to assuring notability. (This also happened with Strickland too). WP is stuck that we have to be very careful of simply allowing every person that may be named-dropped in sources from having an article since this may be feeding into some system for promotion and marketing and thus must play cautiously.

That said, there is nothing requiring us to not cover candidates in election article with appropriate redirects to make them searchable topics, which should be the default situation for all major US congress races in the first place. Too many editors focus on wanting a separate standalone article for each topic but this is not a requirement; a topic of weak notability can be fairly covered in a larger topic with more affirmed notability and using redirects to get readers there, serving the same purpose without raising any questions of notability. --Masem (t) 18:32, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

• We need to have a serious discussion about this before doing anything. It should go to AfD, but I think a better result is a merge to the election article - there's no reason to get rid of good information. The real question: is she notable enough as a candidate or for any other reason for her own stand-alone article at this point? I don't think the answer to that is yes, but considering this is going to be a problem over and over again every two years, I don't see the rush to remove it. SportingFlyer T·C 13:00, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

  I agree that there is no rush and we should try to work on general principles. To some extent it may be easier to discuss old instances. For a ten year old candidacy where I think there is a reasonable case for merging a biography into an election article see Talk:Alvin_Greene#Merge_with_2010_United_States_Senate_election_in_South_Carolina? Haukur (talk) 14:22, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

  The merge to the election article is probably the smarter move, but I definitely would wait a few days to make sure the results are certified and no other options come up. This does not require a AFD (as no admin action is required for a merge, though to maintain it may require that). --Masem (t) 14:30, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

  If it is merged without reaching consensus first I am sure merge is going to be undone quickly. AfD is one of the instruments to achieve consensus, admittedly not the best one. RfC can be another one.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:04, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

  Except that AFD has been

  repeated denied as a venue to bring up non-deletion requests because the net result doesn't involve admin action. A merge discussion on the article's talk page is reasonable though. --Masem (t

  ) 16:16, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

This Encyclopedia is supposed to be neutral, or at least is supposed to appear as neutral. Seeing Jimbo Wales campaigning for this article was amusing. And what has been won, except a disgracious scar on our neutral face ? The article was only asserting, in Wikipedia's voice, that the candidate was notable for being candidate, and for being candidate, and maybe for nothing else that can be found. This doesn't appear as having helped her. But let us wait and see if reliable sources attribute any influence to any Wikipedia issued endorsement. Pldx1 (talk) 10:32, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

If having an article = endorsement, then we endorsed her opponent long ago. Lev!vich 15:28, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

An issue I pointed out is that we should be very careful of these bios looking like political ads. It is important that for a notable politician to identify key issues that they have been known to focus on, but we should not make their bios list out their entire political platform, otherwise you start approaching the endorsement or political ad issue. On the other hand, on election articles, outlining the key issues at play and where the candidate sit is fair game without making us endorse or promote any single one. --Masem (t) 15:41, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Pldx1, you sound like those folk I see on social media who claim that this or that news outlet is spreading propaganda because they're reporting the news. And after seeing this I'm wondering if you shouldn't be advised of discretionary sanctions in the AP2 subject matter. Drmies (talk) 16:05, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Dear User:Drmies. As it can be seen from my contributions, my focus is more about Korean Literature than about American Policy Too. But obvious is only obvious: there are well written stories, and there are poorly written ones. To remain credible, the selection criteria have to be applied evenly. As a side remark, the WIRED article I was referring to is amusingly praising over the hills the Professor in Wikipedia Studies they have recruited. Is smiling so diabolic ? Pldx1 (talk) 17:36, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

What you are saying here is neither relevant nor clear. I don't know what stories or criteria you are talking about, or what the Wired piece has to do with anything. I don't think you have retracted that odd comment on Jimbo's talk page, and I left you a template with some helpful links, on your talk page. Drmies (talk) 17:44, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

I have no opinion about whether we should have an article on this person, but I think the one takeaway that everyone can get from this is that having a Wikipedia article about a candidate makes only a minuscule, if any, difference either way to the vote that they get. I hope that supporters of particular candidates will learn that they should expend their campaigning energy on other things than getting a Wikipedia article, as if it is some sort of prize. A Wikipedia article is neither an endorsement of its subject nor of any opponents, and whether we have one or not should be decided by our policies and guidelines, not any other consideration.

Phil Bridger (talk

) 18:03, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Or, to put it more bluntly, WP:An article about yourself isn't necessarily a good thing. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^{Takes a strong man to deny...} 18:12, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, it's interesting. AOC didn't have an article at the time of her election and won. Nobody reading Donald Trump would vote for the guy, yet look at the election results. I think Wikipedia's affect on elections is overrated. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:22, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

• I don't think this has been Wikipedia's finest hour. First off, a rather hasty discussion on the administrator's noticeboard has overruled deletion review, so now we haven't just got sysops making binding content decisions, we've got them making the decisions in a rush. Second off, we're now deciding that she isn't notable enough for an article because she lost --- even though notability isn't temporary. If we do now decide that she shouldn't have an article, then I think many outside observers would feel that her getting an article in the runup to an election was a political intervention by Wikipedian sysops, instigated by Jimbo. I think it's going to be hard for the community to pretend that it wasn't.
  I think the learning points from this mess are: (a) if it's urgently necessary for the community to overrule DRV because DRV is wrong, then that discussion should happen at the village pump rather than here, because sysops don't make binding content decisions; (b) post-1932 US politics is unbelievably toxic and it's important to follow the processes scrupulously when we're dealing with it, instead of making up new rules as we go along; and (c) we need a big, centralized RfC about whether candidates in a national election should get articles that reaches binding conclusions.—S Marshall T/C 23:13, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

  Is AN not the right place to appeal a page protection decision, a DRV decision, or a close? Lev!vich 00:12, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

  I think it's the right place to appeal a use of the tools, but I don't think sysops have any special authority to make binding content decisions.—S Marshall T/C 00:20, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

  But if a page is protected from recreation, the use of the tools is required to recreate it. (Indeed, if I'm reading right, a non-admin approved it on AfC but was unable to implement this because of the protection.) So ultimately administrator intervention was necessary. And more generally, deleted page protection is only intended to prevent G4-speedy recreations (or similar unambiguous issues like vandalism.) So technically what should have happened was that an administrator should have immediately unprotected it with no further discussion once the AfC was closed. No administrator was willing to do so (probably wisely given the controversial nature, even if it was technically the correct action to take provided the draft was not a G4 speedy), but the fact is that at that point it was already being decided by administrators. If you want to avoid that then there needs to be hard-and-fast rules when any editor can request that protection be removed from a page that has been protected from recreation - if I read

  WP:SALT correctly, any administrator can, on their own initiative, unsalt a page on request with no further discussion (DRV is also an option but I believe it's only for if you want to recreate the deleted page specifically.) --Aquillion (talk

  ) 00:29, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

  Yes, the fact that the page was protected was the pretext that the closer gave for making a binding content decision.—S Marshall T/C 00:34, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

  The consensus in the AfDs and DRVs was pretty much against having an article until after the election was decided. So in your hypotheticals: if there's an explicit consensus against having an article until such time, nobody should be unprotecting it on their own initiative. It wasn't deleted for notability reasons in the sense that she didn't have enough media coverage, so the general condition for recreation (ie recreating with any number of extra sources, relating to her political run) wouldn't address that concern. The technical matter of unprotection may be an administrative issue, but whether to have an article is really a content one. One that's decided, the technical matter of unprotection is pretty uncontroversial; may as well be at

  WP:RFPP. ProcrastinatingReader (talk

  ) 00:36, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

  S Marshall, if someone is unhappy with a DRV close, the place to appeal that close is AN, is it not? Lev!vich 03:39, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

  I don't think it should be. Content decisions are a matter for community consensus, and administrators don't have any special authority over content, so the optics of making content decisions here are terrible.—S Marshall T/C 03:49, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

  Last time we discussed it, we more-or-less concluded (it was a sparse discussion) that DRV or AN were the two places to appeal a DRV close. Sorry, I'd have to hunt down the link again. I think I included it above somewhere. Hobit (talk) 05:25, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

  I guess what I'm not understanding is: you said this wasn't WP's finest hour. What is it you think went wrong here, and how would having this discussion on a different page (DRV again? VP:PROP?) have resulted in a better outcome? Lev!vich 06:15, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry, we're talking at cross-purposes and I think it's my fault. I agree that AN is where we currently review DRVs. In the light of this episode, I now think it shouldn't be.

I think the discussion since Greenfield's defeat demonstrates that she is not, in fact, notable enough for an article. DRV was right and the AN was wrong. DRV is where we have all the experience and practice at coming to the right choices in these things, whereas AN came to a rushed and expedient decision that, in the cold light of day, looks poor. Even worse, the AN doesn't have a fixed duration for discussions, so the closer could be accused of picking a strategic moment to close (note that I'm not saying that happened: I'm talking about the optics).

I do not think DRV is infallible. There must be a place to review DRVs. But I think that place should be ideally RFC, and if it's too urgent for that, a fixed-duration discussion on the Village Pump. Rushed, ad hoc decisions on the AN are suboptimal.—S Marshall T/C 12:17, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Philosophically I agree with S Marshall that AN making content decisions, and that is absolutely what happened here, makes me uneasy. Conduct forums, and that's definitely what ANI, while content forums do what they do best. The conventions are different at these types of places and for good reasons as the kind of processes that go into successfully handling one type are not the same as handling another. If someone thinks DRV got something wrong they can convince... DRV. DRV is already an appeal forum. Arguably if someone thinks an admin got a close wrong that could be appropriate for AN (since it is definitely the place to appeal closes) but that wasn't the claim that was made. AN falls into this muddle but this conversation, in my opinion, did not. And I say that as someone who thinks, before there was an article, we had been irresponsible in our coverage of her (and many other non-incumbents). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:26, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't agree that content vs. conduct forum is an issue - the correct step after a DRV is DRV or AN and only one of them ensure a wider view on the article in question. Unstructured discussion is often more helpful than arbitrary bureaucratic structure we have made to keep a smoothly running system, it's quite obvious some articles won't fit properly into the standard processes but they have to dealt with in a manner specific to that article. Finally adding - that as long as appealing a DRV dicussion at AN does not become a norm, this particular discussion is absolutely fine (not a comment on the discussion itself but the fact of dealing with the appeal on AN). --qedk (t 愛 c) 12:32, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm very disappointed that after numerous DRVs with weeks of discussion held that the article should not exist and the matter should be next reviewed after the election, that a contrary decision was reached with a 13-hour debate here. The US-centric, recentist arguments held up over rational, policy-based debate. And now she's lost the election – what next?

As for where one can "appeal" a DRV? One can't. There has to be a place at which a decision is final. Stifle (talk) 17:27, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

There is no place at which any decision is final. A decision at DRV can be appealed at DRV, but the appeal should be quickly shut down if no strong evidence is provided. I agree that decisions on content should not be made by administrators. Is there any case in which such lobbying of Jimmy Wales has resulted in an improvement to Wikipedia? And does anyone think that such a decision would have been reached in the case of a candidate in India or Germany, for example?

Phil Bridger (talk

) 18:38, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Because this is a project to build an encyclopaedia, there aren't any absolute rules, or final decisions, other than those required by law. The processes are standard ways of working things out, but exceptions can always be made when the processes aren't working, because the processes aren't the point. WilyD 08:07, 19 November 2020 (UTC)