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 no consensus. There is clearly a lot of news coverage about him, but the question of whether that coverage fails WP:ROUTINE and whether WP:ROUTINE even applies in this case have not been settled. Bearcat presents a convincing argument, but it is true that WP:ROUTINE is part of Wikipedia:Notability (events) and Wikipedia:Notability (people) makes no mention of the word "routine" (except in an irrelevant footnote about IMDb), and it is preferable to settle the matter in an RfC than simply picking a winner in a single AfD. In any case, assuming that WP:ROUTINE does apply I think there are equally strong arguments on both sides over whether he passes the bar. King of♥♦♣ ♠ 06:43, 26 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Subject is merely a failed candidate for public office; thus fails WP:NPOL. Not notable due to little coverage (most is just passing mentions, being the running mate of the controversial Kris Kobach); thus fails WP:GNG.
I disagree with that assessment for a number of reasons, but here's two: 1) WP:MILL is an essay, and that is outranked by WP:GNG which is a key guideline. There is no passage of WP:GNG that WP:MILL can invalidate. 2) WP:ROUTINE applies to events and this is an article about a person so that doesn't even apply. If you'd like, I can list several more reasons but these should suffice.--Paul McDonald (talk) 00:07, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete and/or redirect. Firstly, WP:ROUTINE most certainly does still apply to articles about people, not just articles about events — kindly note that if you actually read it, it does explicitly provide examples that pertain to the notability of people involved in events: wedding announcements, crime logs, tabloid journalism, etc. So just because it's in the notability statement on events doesn't mean it's inapplicable just because the article's topic happens to be a person — ROUTINE is still a consideration, because his potential notability claim derives from his participation in an event. Secondly, there is an established consensus that when it comes to non-winning political candidates, they are not automatically deemed to pass WP:GNG just because some campaign coverage exists, because some campaign coverage always exists for every candidate in every election — so if "some campaign coverage exists" were all it took to get a candidate over GNG in lieu of having to pass NPOL, then NPOL would be worthless because nobody would ever actually have to pass it at all anymore. Rather, getting a candidate over GNG requires one of two things: either evidence that they already cleared GNG for other reasons that would already have gotten them an article anyway, such as preexisting notability in another field of endeavour, or they got so much more coverage than every other candidate also got that they've got credible grounds to be deemed special (e.g. because their coverage nationalizes well beyond where it would simply be expected to exist.) But neither of those things are in evidence here at all: there's no credible evidence that he would have already gotten over a notability standard for other reasons independent of the candidacy, and there's not nearly enough campaign coverage being shown to deem him more special than every other candidate who got the same amount of local coverage as this. Bearcat (talk) 17:31, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but WP:ROUTINE is a link to the page Wikipedia:Notability (events). Therefore, it applies to "events" and not "people" -- there is a separate guideline at Wikipedia:Notability (people) that applies to this article about a person. I find that the subject passes the sub-guidelines WP:BASIC as well as WP:POLITICIAN which states "Just being an elected local official, or an unelected candidate for political office, does not guarantee notability, although such people can still be notable if they meet the general notability guideline." -- meaning that the subject doesn't automatically get granted notability, but if the subject does pass WP:GNG, then that is enough to be considered notable. That's the case here.--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:37, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but as I explicitly and correctly pointed out, ROUTINE explicitly includes content pertaining to the notability of people involved in events — the fact that the article's title happens to refer to a person rather than an event does not change the fact that the person's notability claim derives from an event, and hence ROUTINE is still a factor in whether he's notable enough for an article or not. And as I explicitly and correctly pointed out, every candidate in every election always gets some local campaign coverage — so candidates do not automatically clear GNG just because a smattering of local campaign coverage exists, because if they did then every candidate would always clear GNG and NPOL would have no meaning or weight at all anymore. So the notability test for a non-winning political candidate is not just that some local campaign coverage exists, it is that the campaign coverage expands significantly beyond what every candidate in every election can always show, such as by nationalizing far beyond just the local media. I'm wrong about exactly none of what I said. Bearcat (talk) 20:42, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe that is correct interpretation because the second paragraph of the essay states "This notability guideline for events reflects consensus reached through discussions and reinforced by established practice, and informs decisions on whether an article about past, current, and breaking news events should be written, merged, deleted or further developed." And paragraph 3 (Section: Background) states: "This guideline was formed with the intention of guiding editors in interpreting the various pre-existing policies and guidelines that apply to articles about events..." Further, the essay makes multiple references to Wikipedia:Notability (people) specifically to refer editors to that article for matters about notability of people. The essay you reference seems to contradict your own point through its entire content. However--if you insist, then I will simply point out that the level of coverage includes feature articles which are clearly WP:NOTROUTINE, going way beyond the limits set in WP:ROUTINE of "announcements, sports, speculative coverage, and tabloid journalism" -- and therefore, once again, passes [[WP:GNG].--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:10, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
if this is enough coverage to get a candidate over GNG, then every candidate in every election always gets over GNG and NPOL means absolutely nothing anymore, because every candidate always gets local media coverage by which a GNG claim can be attempted. So the test for getting a candidate over GNG is not and never has been just the fact that some campaign coverage exists in the local media of the place where they were running; it is that the coverage nationalizes far beyond the scale of what every candidate always gets, to the point that the candidate has a strong claim to being a special of significantly greater notability than most other candidates. And if you feel strongly that my interpretation of ROUTINE is wrong, then you're more than free to propose that it be reworded to wipe out all the parts of ROUTINE which plainly indicate that it does apply to the standalone notability of people involved in events — as long as it says what it says, it stands alone as its own thing and is not invalidated just because other parts of the document address other things. Bearcat (talk) 15:04, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Please quote any part of WP:ROUTINE "which plainly indicate that it does apply to the standalone notability of people involved in events" as you say. I also feel compelled to point out that this individual was the was on the Republican ticket for Lieutenant Governor of the State of Kansas (hardly indicative of "every" candidate in "every" election, and garnered 453,645 votes). Plus, there are sources in the article from 2010 to 2018, so it clearly isn't about "an event" at all but a person. --Paul McDonald (talk) 16:13, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Its examples of what counts as routine coverage explicitly include things like wedding announcements and crime logs, specifically because people often attempt to use sources like that in Wikipedia as support for the notability of people. Nobody tries to write Wikipedia articles about weddings per se, but people regularly attempt to claim that the bride and/or the groom are notable enough for BLPs because the wedding announcement exists. People never try to write articles about "Charleston Street mugging, July 2018" as a notable "event", but they regularly attempt to use the local newspaper reporting about the mugging incident as support for using Wikipedia to name and shame the person who got arrested as the mugging suspect. This is what I'm talking about: ROUTINE does not only apply to "event" articles about events, but most certainly does also apply to the question of whether the people involved in those events are notable enough to warrant their own standalone biographical articles or not. The question of whether ROUTINE is relevant or not does not attach to the question of whether the article's title names a person or an event; it attaches to the question of what the article's body text is describing as the context of the topic's potential notability claim. And no, even lieutenant governor is still not an office where candidacy confers an automatic notability freebie: the coverage still has to nationalize well beyond where it's merely expected to exist before a non-winning candidate clears the notability bar, even at the gubernatorial level. Even presidential candidates, in fact, aren't guaranteed articles just because they exist — even at that level, a non-winning candidate still has to show a broad range of quality coverage, that still has to go well beyond mere technical verification of their candidacies, before they're notable enough to be exempted from having to pass NPOL by winning. Bearcat (talk) 18:26, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'll ask again: Please quote any part of WP:ROUTINE "which plainly indicate that it does apply to the standalone notability of people involved in events" as you say. I won't get drawn further into arguments that are not germane to the discussion (the article isn't sourced by a wedding announcement or crime log).--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:24, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that ROUTINE's own stated examples of how it applies explicitly cite types of coverage that pertain to people is in and of itself inherent proof that ROUTINE does apply to people. It doesn't have to explicitly say that it applies to people if its examples of what it means are examples of it applying to people. "Wedding announcements" and "crime logs" are examples, being cited in a "including but not limited to" way, so the fact that this article isn't sourced by a wedding announcement or a crime log is irrelevant to the matter anyway. Bearcat (talk) 19:49, 21 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If that were true, it would be no problem to provide simply one of these explicit examples as I have requested. Third and final ask: Please quote any part of WP:ROUTINE "which plainly indicate that it does apply to the standalone notability of people involved in events"--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:04, 21 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Delete/Redirect: The only notability criteria that the subject has a chance of passing is WP:GNG/WP:BASIC (which we must remember also gives a presumption of notability and not a guarantee). In this case, the 2012 CNBC article constitutes significant coverage by a reliable secondary independent source. The other given sources are entirely coverage of his runs for congressional and gubernatorial office by local news outlets. This does fall into the spiritofWP:ROUTINE. Indeed, countless individuals who run for political office garner coverage from local news outlets specifically about their campaigns but should fail notability for lack of anything else and that should similarly apply to the local coverage for this article. Nevertheless, the subject's involvement in industry and entertainment may provide some other sources that will demonstrate notability (there seems to be a lot of sources with passing mentions of the subject but I haven't found one with significant coverage on him outside of his two political campaigns). — MarkH21 (talk) 08:51, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, basically every one of those is a passing mention (i.e. trivial coverage as opposed to routine coverage). They don’t look like significant coverage of the subject. Also note that some of those articles are identical to each other and not intellectually independent (per WP:BASIC). The Forbes article might be on the edge though... it’s three sentences about him. Pretty on the fence though. — MarkH21 (talk) 18:21, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I give up. If the closer of this discussion can't tell the difference between a wedding announcement and a feature article; or can't tell the difference between an event and a person; or can't understand how someone who has references in reliable third party sources at a local, regional, and national level that span 8-9 years; or thinks that thousands of articles of coverage for a candidate of a major party for Lieutenant Governor who managed nearly half a million votes is simply "routine", then do as you will.--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:12, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to 2018 Kansas gubernatorial election (if the consensus is that this race is the most notable event the subject was a part of) or Delete (because there are multiple potential redirect targets). My sense is that the community generally agrees with the concept of passing coverage for multiple activities does not equal notability under WP:GNG. The subject was chosen by Kris Kobach's for Lieutenant Governor in 2019, but the ticket did not win the election. The sources provided by Paul McDonald contain only passing mentions of the subject - the Forbes article listed above contains this line about the subject: "Shortly before the 2008 Indy 500, Hartman was watching ESPN when he heard the story of Fisher’s attempt to qualify, but a sponsor’s check did not arrive. Hartman recognized her plight and wired the money that she needed to compete" The vast majority of the Forbes article is about Sarah Fisher. All this said, there is not one redirect target that makes the most sense. Valid redirect targets could additionally include 2010_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections_in_Kansas#District_4 (failed to advance to the general election), Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing (not currently named in the article, but mentioned in many news articles), or theoretically Hartman Oil Co (not created, owner and primary occupation).
Changed to Keep per the CNBC article found by user Otr500. The one thing that was missing from my searches was a second article that featured the subject - and there is no question in my mind that the CNBC article meets that criteria. Passes WP:GNG. --Enos733 (talk) 16:12, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comments: DYK, Even the racing mention can be covered elsewhere. Wink, as well as Sarah Fisher, are currently former owners. Wink (a Republican) might have offered financial assistance after news reports of Hillary Clinton (a Democrat) visited the team in 2008. Fisher was in trouble as a sponsor failed to deliver, and Hartman sent her money. It became officially became CFH Racing for one season in 2015. Hartman must have been only a sponsor from 2008 to 2015? Hartman pulled out for the 2016 season and the team became Ed Carpenter Racing. We have articles that have wrong or misleading information and we propagate that Hartman is a current owner (He co-owns Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing) when this is not true. Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing (SFR) "is an auto racing team founded in January 2008", would now be outdated so the lead should state: "was an auto racing team", because Hartman pulled out, and is now Ed Carpenter Racing. Now we consider that Hartman is "notable" because he owns a team, and this almost made me change my mind, until I looked at it a little more. I can understand creating and keeping articles but surely there should be standards as advanced by policies and guidelines. "CFH Racing" (a start-class article) is covered under the history of Ed Carpenter Racing (also a start-class article) and it would seem that instead two of these start-class articles they could be merged to one better article. My point is that the subject, Wink Hartman, does not currently own a racing team, and did not when the article was created, so what is the consideration for adding to notability? Notability is not fleeting. The subject is not really notable for not winning any political office, he is was a short term owner of a racing team that likely does not give notability, so we add these non-notable things together to create notability? I can understand if we allow all rich people to have an article. That would at least give a criterion. Otr500 (talk) 14:58, 22 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Notability is not temporary. If he was notable before, nothing could happen to make him "un-notable" later. If the content of the article is out of date, that is simply an editing issue and not a deletion issue.--Paul McDonald (talk) 16:28, 22 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Subject is notable-ish as owner and founder of several companies, and article is useful to readers, as subject was candidate for office in race with widespread coverage. -- econterms (talk) 23:41, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Subject received significant coverage in multiple, reliable sources, and thus passes WP:GNG. Many of these are feature stories written about the man. Such coverage is the antithesis of WP:ROUTINE. Cbl62 (talk) 23:48, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion has been sidetracked on a lot of philosophical issues. Regardless of whether ROUTINE applies to biographies, the coverage here is far, far from routine. We have multiple, in-depth feature stories about Hartman, including major metropolitan dailies. This one in particular is a 1,500-plus word feature profile of Hartman in a national publication written years before his run for lieutenant governor: "A Wealthy Guardian Angel Lands at Indy 500" USA Today, 5/20/12. How can anyone honestly contend that such coverage is routine? Cbl62 (talk) 21:40, 21 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: Per users "K.e. coffman" and John Pack Lambert. There is only WP:ROUTINE coverage. I am not against a redirect (if the article is applicable) as long as a closer does not confuse that an agreement for "Redirect" is still an opinion that the article does not warrant stand alone status so is a defacto "deletion". While Wikipedia:Run-of-the-mill is an essay it is used to determine the quality and state of things such as sources and enjoys consensus by use. A source may be acceptable for content but not advance notability such as multiple uses of the same source or just plain normal news coverage such as A Wealthy Guardian Angel Lands at Indy 500. See comments below. Otr500 (talk) 14:39, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The argument given for keeping is, essentially, that the current consensus needs to be changed. I agree. There usually are sources. The sort of routine coverage that does not count are mere listings of results, , and reports of candidates speeches or positions are significant coverage. The effective of our rule has been to create an enormous incumbant advantage, which is taken overall, a violation of nPOV for the entire field. DGG ( talk ) 20:54, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The incumbent advantage is a good point, but shouldn’t that be discussed at the talk page for WP:NPOL? The current consensus seems to rule against this particular article and that would need to be changed. — MarkH21 (talk) 02:02, 21 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to provide one more point for keeping this article: the policy ignore all rules. Fifteen different articles (not including redirects, disambiguation pages, or non-article-pages) link to this article, and we typically create and keep articles for major political party candidates for lieutenant governor of a state in the US -- for example, John Doll (Kansas politician) has a page as the candidate for LG in Kansas in that same election as an independent, but also lost the election and only managed about 15% of the vote of the losing Republican ticket. Keeping the article looks better and helps Wikipedia to be more complete and well-rounded, thus making it better and meets the policy of Ignore All Rules. While the article may remain a stub, stub articles are okay.--Paul McDonald (talk) 22:18, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment@Paulmcdonald: Doll's article was created in 2006; 13 years ago, long before his gubernatorial candidacy alongside Greg Orman. Hartman's article was solely made due to his candidacy in 2018 which does not make him notable. That's what we're discussing here. ––Redditaddict69(talk)(contribs)13:46, 21 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Response The creation date of the article is of minor consequence as Wikipedia is not being built in an orderly fashion. Sources in the article go back to 2010.--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:32, 21 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Apart from the CNBC article, all of the coverage is WP:ROUTINE political coverage, or coverage that is to be expected of a political candidate. I do not see anything which would get him past the WP:GNG test we use for political candidates across the world, not just in the United States, meaning the person was either elected or received non-routine coverage, or coverage that goes above and beyond candidate announcements, endorsements, withdrawals, or routine local coverage. This was discussed during the recent United States campaign last year and did not pass. I also do not see notability on other, non-political grounds. SportingFlyerT·C07:41, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Question can you please provide a link to this "WP:GNG test we use for political candidates across the world" ?? The words "politics" and "political" cannot be found on the page at WP:GNG.--Paul McDonald (talk) 12:26, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:POLOUTCOMES#Candidates, which shows we do not treat failed candidates as notable just because they receive routine coverage of their candidacy. There was also a RfC last year which tried to make it easier to keep unelected candidates, but it didn't go anywhere. I would not mind merging his election information into the proper article(s) if that's not already done. SportingFlyerT·C17:43, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, that's not even a policy or guideline. According to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Siân Gwenllian, that's merely a "consensus of three editors" and two of them, as admitted by the third were "trapped" to the conclusion. That's at best an essay, and would be superseded by the guideline WP:POLITICIAN which is of course a part of Wikipedia:Notability (people). The "whatever-it-is" that is written at WP:POLOUTCOMES#Candidates can certainly be considered useful, but it is only the opinion of at most three editors. Hardly a "consensus-built" conclusion and certainly not related to WP:GNG at all. It's more of a straw man than anything else. It sure isn't a guideline or a policy.--Paul McDonald (talk) 20:17, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comments: We had a line break above by a relisting concerning WP:Routine that was argued against being used on this subject but a "keep" !vote did make the application. The "standalone notability of people involved in events", especially when sources are used on specific events to advance the notability of a subject, would certainly invoke the use when assessing a source. This type of discussion is more relevant in another area, however, I concur so unless further contested WP:ROUTINE can and has been used. When I looked at the article I see what I refer to as routine coverage of an event of a politician running for office. A person thinks about running for office (may run again) so it is reported, a person decides to run then withdraws, and so forth is routine coverage of a politician running for one or more offices (didn't continue for governor so now the Senate). It appears the subject is wealthy, maybe bored, or maybe just has enough money to have several businesses and to take the time to champion personal causes. Possibly the subject would like an article on Wikipedia. The can of worms| is the "wide-reaching consequences" that any person running for any office could be "considered" notable for an article if we don't consider a basic test: "For people, the person who is the topic of a biographical article should be "worthy of notice"or "note"—that is, "remarkable" or "significant, interesting, or unusual enough to deserve attention or to be recorded" within Wikipedia as a written account of that person's life.". If I counted correctly four sources are from "Kansas.com" (Wichita Eagle), two from "Kansascity.com" (The Kansas City Star), so are from two sources for any notability consideration. Some of the sources are plain routine news coverage good for content verification, he went to college, bought a racing team, ran for governor, possibly the Senate, picked as a running mate they apparently lost. I don't think the local or regional reporting rises to match the bar of notability for a stand alone article. Otr500 (talk) 14:39, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The only keep !votes that I see with some substance is: WP:IGNORE with the supposition that it improves Wikipedia but this argument opens the door to allowing businessmen, that would not normally be considered for an article, to run for offices ---- lose ---- and get an article. If we agree to "significant coverage in multiple, reliable sources, and thus passes WP:GNG", we would really need to do away with any notability requirements, just go with WP:IGNORE, and allow all articles to exist. I examined the sources and "significant" is certainly subjective because two sources dominate this article (see above) and multiple uses of the same source count as one towards notability considerations. Since the subject is still alive and rich there will be more chances to become encyclopedia notable and maybe he can win.
Don't forget that using mundane coverage (calling it "significant") for a losing candidate opens the door for any person with local coverage to gain an article. I can start probably 50 in one town of 250,000, one television station, and four newspapers. If the AP wire picks it up it will be several newspapers covering the same subject. My favorite "keep" above would be "notable-ish". We could add that to changes allowing everyone everywhere to have an article. I support this if I get one.
Normal state elected officers, that might not usually get an article, can join all the ones that ran and lost where there was "significant local coverage". Why stop at a losing Governor or Lt. Governor? Pretty much anyone can provide coverage for every position in a state government and all state representatives that lose will certainly deserve an article. All it would take would be multiple reporting of the same coverage in three sources. My weatherman has more than that. Where is the line? There are other pretend encyclopedias out there that don't have the requirements we have so we can digress to that level. Wikipedia has started to become more trustworthy on articles and maybe that is a bad thing?
No consensus ruling on Routine The idea of "routine coverage" serving either inclusively or exclusively for a political candidate was discussed extensively at Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)/Archive 2019 -- this "centralized discussion" which appears to have a much higher volume of involvement resulted with "no consensus whether or not routine election coverage suffices for Wikipedia:Notability." This seems to refute or at least negate any delete position referencing the "routine" coverage argument. At least one of the editors in this discussion was also in that discussion.--Paul McDonald (talk) 22:18, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate you vigorously pushing for this to be kept, but unfortunately there's a logical flaw in your argument suggesting that discussion negates delete !votes in this discussion. As the closer noted, the options in that RfC were in itself flawed to the point where someone "supported both." The "no consensus" close means nothing changed as a result of the RfC, not that we're bound by some new rule, and that everything is still status quo. If we were to accept your interpretation of "no consensus," that would be potentially similar to having option B as the "winner" in the RfC (though, in my opinion, Option B was not well worded and could technically be a status quo argument.) In political AfD discussions, the "status quo" looks at someone's notability in light of the fact many politicians and political hopefuls exist around the world, trivial coverage of politicians exists, and determining whether the coverage is trivial/routine, or significant is an exercise for the !voter. SportingFlyerT·C03:54, 26 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with SportingFlyer in how the AfD should be interpreted - in that there was no consensus to change how the community treats unelected candidates under WP:NPOL, which I think is captured pretty well in WP:POLOUTCOMES. --Enos733 (talk) 05:06, 26 March 2019 (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.
