Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barry Aspinell

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was KEEP, due to notability, but the article does need a bit of a cleanup job. Mo0[talk] 00:33, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Barry Aspinell

Former local councillors are unlikely to be notable, only 525 Ghits, claims he "gained national attention" are probably somewhat exaggerated and relate to some minor local dispute of no lasting notability. A couple of third-party news reports cited, but I cannot see sufficient overall notability here to warrant an article. DWaterson 00:28, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Seems notable enough. Keep and clean up. Notability is local, but the articles point to what seems to be a larger problem: child welfare abuses. --Dennisthe2 00:39, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep. Not a former councillor but a current one; appears to have some claim to notability with regards to the child welfare situation. ObtuseAngle 00:42, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Apparently subject of considerable news coverage, considering the links. Frickeg 01:09, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Frickeg. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 01:33, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Passes
WP:BIO with a large number of articles specifically about him from reliable third parties such as UK newspapers. --Charlene 19:49, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply
]

Delete. This will be just another bio of a living person clogging up wikipedia, and an example of the overwhelming systemic bias towards current events. If this had happened in 1982 there would never be an article on it. This guy's 15 seconds of fame will shortly be up, but his article will remain, and it will be a liability. -R. fiend 22:13, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- ...um, how is this even remotely a possible liability? =O.o= --Dennisthe2 02:55, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Having articles on nearly everyone who exists (which seems to be the direction we're heading) is a liability because it only takes one vandal among those millions of articles to get a severe case of libel on our hands. Having articles on every person who makes the papers for a day (hundreds of thousands of articles which no one will pay attention to for long) is therefore a liability. We have to maintain quality control on these articles than anyone can edit. That's quickly becoming more and more unmanagable. This article isn't such a problem per se, but it is a very small part of a larger problem. -R. fiend 04:10, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - That's what
      WP:N is for. Note that I don't have an article outside of my userspace. It's also understood that anybody can edit this. But really, if you're worried that this can cause a legal liability to Wikipedia because somebody with a stick up their arse doesn't like what they see about themselves on a vandalized article, then I'm sure Jimbo has some answers. --Dennisthe2 07:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply
      ]
      - WP:LIVING is nice and all, but it assumes that someone is looking after these pages. Who will be watching Barry Aspinell a year and a half from now? It's creator? Apparently he hasn't even noticed that it's at AfD. All it takes is someone to add "He's a pederast" to the bottom of the article and we've got a serious problem on our hands, as such vandalism is likely to go unnoticed for long periods of time in the future. And even if this particular article is not such a problem (maybe some of the people who voted here will put it on their watchlist and keep an eye on it, I don't know) think of the thousands upon thousands of similar articles on people who were in the papers one day and quickly forgotten (I was exaggerating about "nearly everyone" getting an article, but it's a staggering number of people). This is an example of a growing problem. Among our already 1.6 million articles, it's basically a statistical certainty that we have substantial cases of libel; Seigenthaler was likely the tip of the iceberg. And I don't think "I'm sure Jimbo has something up his sleeve" is a real solution. -R. fiend 16:18, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply
        ]
        That's a straw-man argument. I'm done. My !vote stands. --Dennisthe2 18:31, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep -- As demonstrated above, this councillor has had a large amount of external writing about him - making the article notable and verifiable. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 07:53, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Could use more info, but worth keeping. Captain panda In vino veritas 02:27, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.