Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kathleen Jodouin

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

The result was delete. JohnCD (talk) 18:03, 29 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Kathleen Jodouin

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Minimally sourced (sole source is a non-daily community newspaper) WP:BLP of a person notable only as an as-yet-unelected candidate in a forthcoming election. As always, this is not a claim of notability that entitles a person to an article per WP:NPOL — Wikipedia is not a hosting platform for promotional campaign brochures, so if you cannot make a credible and properly sourced case that she was already notable enough for a Wikipedia article before she became a candidate, then she does not become notable enough for a Wikipedia article until she wins the seat. Delete, without prejudice against recreation on or after October 19 if she wins. Bearcat (talk) 16:47, 22 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Bearcat (talk) 16:50, 22 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. Bearcat (talk) 16:50, 22 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, subject is an unelected candidate for a seat in the upcoming federal election. To have an article, the subject would have to be notable on her own prior to becoming a candidate, and I don't see anything in the article that would support a claim of notability. If she wins a seat in the election, then like all other elected MPs would meet notability requirements and an article can be added at that time. Cmr08 (talk) 00:00, 23 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Did anyone do WP:Before? She's been written about throughout Canada before her run since she is,also an activist. The sources need to be added, but just because they are not there yet doesn't mean she's not notable. In addition, non elected officials can be very important. I don't know Canadian politics, but just saying that her position is unelected doesn't take away notability. I agree with Bearcat that the article isn't well written. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 05:08, 25 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

She brings up no significant hits in a ProQuest "Canadian Newsstand Major Dailies" search — and on Google News, the only hits she garners anywhere outside of local media in North Bay and Timiskaming are passing namechecks of her existence in the context of her candidacy. So yes, WP:BEFORE has been done. An article doesn't get kept on Wikipedia just because the existence of national coverage is asserted — I'm certainly willing to consider withdrawing this if such coverage can actually be shown, but it can't just be claimed if it isn't shown, and I sure haven't been able to find any. Bearcat (talk) 14:55, 25 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Right, I found the local media, too. But local coverage doesn't mean she's not notable. I was hoping there might be more. I found no hits on EBSCO. But there's a good profile in local news here, and some coverage before the nomination here. I'm pinging SusunW because she's good at the depth of coverage assessment. Thanks! Megalibrarygirl (talk) 22:31, 25 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

~~Keep~~ I find additional sources. She has been a community activist over time, so her notability in her community is not fleeting and she doesn't have to have national notability to meet Wiki guidelines. (I did a google search for a custom range 01/01/2010 to 06/30/2014 to eliminate most of the political press.) Going back to 2010 I find her raising funds for the AIDS Committee of North Bay & Area, then in 2014 I find her again hosting a fundraiser [1]. She also was involved in establishing a women's clinic for high risk patients. The strike in which she is one of the local leaders for social worker pay was also carried nationally by Reuters [2]. The award she won in 2013 as a "leading women building communities award" is not just from her city, but is a provincial award. Meets GNG even if she doesn't ever get elected. She's a social worker and the fact that she is mentioned at all is evidence that in her community she is notable. Most social workers one never even hears of. SusunW (talk) 23:29, 25 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Reuters source is a press release, not a news article, so it doesn't count for anything toward the meeting of GNG — kindly note the "Reuters is not responsible for the content in this press release" disclaimer directly under the headline. Bay Today is an online-only community newspaper of the type that wouldn't even really be a reliable source for anything at all, even after GNG had already been met by stronger sources — and Kiss and The Fox are both local music radio stations, not even primarily news sources at all. And nearly all of those sources just namecheck her existence in the process of being primarily about other things, which is not the same thing as coverage in which she's substantively the subject. Local coverage is actually not out of the ordinary for a social worker who's actively involved in local issues — if she were getting into The Globe and Mail for this stuff, then there might be a case for GNG, but if all she's getting is Bay Today and the local Rogers Radio cluster, then it's just not there. Bearcat (talk) 05:45, 26 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Bearcat what you are hoping for is press coverage from the provincial capital which is over 4 hours away and really unlikely unless she does win that national seat. Where does this phrase namechecking come from? Certainly not in the guidelines which state specifically that if coverage is not substantial in a single source, mentions may be combined. Multiple mentions in multiple sources confirm that the source determined the subject was worthy of notice. Your claim of social workers appearing in newspapers is unsubstantiated, I have experience in the field and it is possible in a local market but rare. In the state capital, not very likely unless one has been selected for a state award or office. Why is it that you assume the local paper is unreliable? However, similar pieces appear in both the other two newspapers of North Bay, though they do not seem to come up in a Google search, see [3] [4] [5] [6] SusunW (talk) 15:11, 26 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Coverage extending beyond the local area is normally what it takes to prove that a person has the level of notability necessary to qualify for a Wikipedia article. Yes, you are correct that it's relatively unlikely unless the person wins a major award on the level of the Order of Canada or gets herself elected to the provincial or federal legislature, but that's not because provincial or national coverage is an unreasonable standard to impose on a person at the purely local level of prominence — it's because the purely local level of prominence isn't a thing that normally qualifies a person for a Wikipedia article. (For just one example out of many, that's the very reason why WP:NPOL is not considered to grant notability to city councillors in most cities smaller than the narrow range of internationally famous metropolitan global cities — all city councillors in all cities always get local coverage, but most city councillors outside of the megacity range don't get any significant coverage beyond the purely local.)

And I didn't cast aspersions on all local newspapers, either — I specifically knocked Bay Today, because it's (a) a web-only publication, not the city's daily newspaper, and (b) doesn't have a large staff, and thus consists very largely of reprints of press releases and/or user-submitted content. And I'm not making random personal guesses about the publication based on appearances, either — I have preexisting personal familiarity with the publication, because I grew up in Northeastern Ontario and still actively follow the region's news on a regular basis. So I'm not guessing at what Bay Today might be; I've been personally familiar with it for over a decade, so I know exactly what it is — and what it is, is the kind of weaker source that can be used for supplementary confirmation of facts after enough stronger sourcing is already there to cover off GNG, but cannot itself be the foundation of a GNG claim.

And "namechecking" is standard Wikipedia jargon for the type of article that briefly acknowledges a person's existence, such as because they provided a brief soundbite or because they're simply being briefly listed as an organizer of an event, but that person isn't a main subject of the article in a substantive enough way to count as a point toward their GNG score. Bearcat (talk) 16:16, 26 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Bearcat thanks for your explanation about the paper, and you'll note that I did not accuse you of making random guesses, simply asked for clarification. I bow to your superior knowledge of the paper, but as I pointed out, the other papers confirm the information and I have added them to the article. She isn't an elected politician (yet?) thus, WP:NPOL is inapplicable. As for the "namecheck", it isn't used in notability guides either (it does appear in a pretty poorly written essay). If her name wasn't likely to be recognized, she would not be repeatedly requested to speak and give input on health, AIDS, and women's issues in news articles. It would be a one-off, which seems precisely why the guidelines *do* provide for combining mentions. She probably isn't ever going to merit international or even national recognition, but that is not Wikipedia criteria. SusunW (talk) 17:28, 26 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There are no sources here that are seeking her out as some kind of outside expert or commentator on things she's not directly involved in; she's giving soundbite in articles about events she was directly involved in organizing (in a way that's completely WP:ROUTINE, since any remotely intelligent journalist covering any community event will always want to speak to its organizers), speaking at conferences on topics within her area of expertise (in a way that's completely routine, because any coverage of that event will always quote from some of its speakers), and on and so forth. Any person who's actively involved in their own community will always have their name show up in the local news from time to time — but nothing here demonstrates that she's gotten any media attention that goes beyond the routine level of local coverage that any person who's active in her local community can always be expected to garner. If having your name show up in local newspapers in your own hometown three or four times were all it took to satisfy GNG, we'd have to start keeping articles about heads of local PTAs, coordinators of church bake sale committees, vice-principals of junior high schools and organizers of local community fundraisers. Bearcat (talk) 17:49, 26 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Bearcat you are indeed persuasive. Should she win the election, it can be revisited. SusunW (talk) 18:02, 26 September 2015 (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.