Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michael Lohman

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This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was no consensus. Woohookitty 04:20, 14 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Michael Lohman

Delete This looks like character assassination to me. I do not understand how Wiki can countenance it. The guy has no criminal record if he follows up. But people here are publishing emotional responses. He is not a public figure. The only way in which he is "of media interest" at this point is that Wiki has chosen to make him so. How is he supposed to get a job and move on when anyone can wiki him and read the emotional responses here? There are people on our streets who been convicted of far worse things that do not have wiki articles attacking them.

Keep This person has become an individual of media interest. In the future when one person says to another "it's like the Lohman thing" and they say what? and the first person says "search for him on wikipedia", what will this site have to say on this person of media interest? Nothing? Or a concise article?

Delete This is a vanity page, about an obscure individual, of no encyclopedic value. Furthermore, unless someone is convicted of a crime, it is prejudicial to put accusations against them and publish it in an encyclopedia. After all, you are still innocent until proven guilty. I'd hate to see Wikipedia become a platform for smear campaigns and personal grudges.

Comment I don't see any indication that the accused here is claiming innocence. In fact, he's pleaded guilty in order to avoid jail and to be diverted to an intervention program. Also, I don't see any evidence that the authors of the article have a personal vendetta or grudges.

keep We don't require a conviction for inclusion. This submission is unlikely a personal grudge. This was quite the sensational news item not only at Princeton but in college circles. lots of issues | leave me a message 07:43, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

1) So Wikipedia is now a forum for listing everyone arrested for something? The accused is not a professor or a politician or even a public person. How is this appropriate for an encyclopedia? Furthermore, this seems likely to be applied in a discriminatory manner, since obviously 99% of criminals and accused criminals won't be listed. 2) This could open up Wikipedia for lawsuits of people accused and later proven innocent. Especially bad is when the article is NPOV and states things like "On several occasions, he would cut the hair of Asian women without their knowledge or consent." Typically newspapers and other reputable source make sure to qualify statements with "so and so is accused of ..." or "allegedly".
Comment All of the above were reported similarly by mainstream, non-student news sources because the guy has confessed and admitted as much, making the cautionary language unnecessary. Howee 01:08, 14 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Comment As mentioned above, the guy has pled guilty already, so there are not legal issues to consider.

keep The only real problem I see with the existance of this article is the point that it could be construed as a personal attack - however, I think simply what already happened, without a conviction at this point, is noteworthy - the accusations caused a great deal of buzz, conversation, anger that students weren't aware of suspicion earlier, and will likely have long-term effects on the university. If in two years that is not true and/or he is suprisingly cleared of charges, then the article should be deleted - the problem is not that it's an inappropriate topic, it's just that it's not a resolved story yet, and that resolution may, in fact, eventually make it non-notable, but right now I think it is definitely notable - this is not an obscure name in Princeton, certainly... that's the only area I can speak for. Sirmob 21:36, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


keep I don't see how this page could be viewed as a personal attack. It's a NPOV article that simply recounts what the police report stated. The page also cites third party press articles about these alleged acts. There is no conclusion of Michael Lohman's guilt or innocence so it is not correct to state that this article may potentially open up Wikipedia for a lawsuit. The language in this article is no more discriminatory or libelous than any standard newspaper article. And, as others have pointed out, when this story broke, it attracted a lot of attention. Do a Google search for "Michael Lohman" and you will pull up multiple newspaper articles about this story. For better or worse, the story attracted lot of attention so Lohman is now a public persona. westworld

delete now that he has not been convicted, the page strikes me as dubious. Also, I don't like the precedent of non-notable non-public figures being posted. Is this moving into Megan's Law style sex offender lists??? See lots of potential for abuse, revenge, harrassment of private individuals. Willowx 6 July 2005 08:11 (UTC)

Comment This is a really old discussion, neither the person who put this up for VfD nor I (at that point) had really figured out the whole VfD thing, and so it never got listed and after a few weeks it appeared that something like consesus had been reached - I removed the notice instead of listing it under VfD, which I now realize to be inappropriate but forgot to correct and apologize for playing god administrator. I still believe that the person is relevant due to the impact that he had in and out of Princeton. Sirmob 6 July 2005 12:31 (UTC)
Why does this entry attract so many deletionist? The man is quite infamous. I even saw someone using "mittenswithhair@domain.com" email address last week. And no I'm not a Tiger - just a crappy state school kid in San Diego. All the more reason to support keeping. lots of issues | leave me a message 6 July 2005 13:03 (UTC)
Comment This guy has pled guilty which gives you the same legal status as being convicted, when you're convicted, you're found guilty
Howee 01:08, 14 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Unfortunately, the acts of harrassment cited–though certainly indicative of abnormal psychology–are not unusual enough to warrant an article on the person in question. We don't write an article on every alleged criminal, pervert, or wacko. If you want to be famous for bottles of urine, you have to be Howard Hughes. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 6 July 2005 15:13 (UTC)
  • Delete. Not every criminal act that gains its perpetrator his 15 minutes of fame also gains him a permanent spot in the encyclopedia. This misses the mark for me. DS1953 6 July 2005 17:54 (UTC)
  • Transiency is absolutely not part of the Wikipedia inclusion criteria. And I wonder for how many years this anecdote will affect the enrollment of Asian chicks at Princeton. lots of issues | leave me a message 6 July 2005 18:40 (UTC)
  • Comment Not all criminals or criminal acts get nation-wide media coverage Howee
  • Delete. Appear to be crimes of mainly local interest and therefore not enough to establish notability. Capitalistroadster 6 July 2005 19:01 (UTC)
  • Delete, unless we get a good number of cites outside of the Princeton/N.J. area. Keep, evidence provided of larger-scale impact. Dcarrano 22:45, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete, nonnotable. mikka (t) 6 July 2005 22:55 (UTC)
  • Delete nonnotable about someone who apparently won't even get a criminal conviction to wave around the notability room. Also had little or no impact outside the immediate locality. -Splash 7 July 2005 00:09 (UTC)
It's been pointed out that the upset was wide than just his locality. True, but he still isn't a criminal for it (even though he plainly ought to be, IMHO) and this erases the notability of his acts. Non-criminal misbehaviour is non-notable. My vote stands. -Splash 7 July 2005 16:49 (UTC)
Comment "Pleading guilty" in order to enter an intervention program establishes same level of guilt as being "found guilty", you're guilty nonetheless Howee
  • Delete I don't see the notability of this man. Redwolf24 7 July 2005 04:56 (UTC)


  • [1] San Francisco
  • [2] Non-princeton blog, refers to New York Post article
  • [3] Asian Week article (appears to be the San Francisco area)
  • [4] Non-Princeton blog, calls for action against the D.A.'s office it seems
  • [5] Cornell Student's blog, refers to (probably the same) N.Y. Post article.
  • Comment This is just a selection of the Googlings I turned up. I do very much hope this counts as a "good number of cites outside the Princeton/N.J. area," and in light of looking all of this up I have expanded the article a good bit. Sirmob 7 July 2005 04:11 (UTC)
Plus the item made its way into News of the Weird, a nationally syndicated column.

Let me try to illustrate the shock of this story and why it reverberated further out than the campus. There are 6500 total students at Princeton. Half, 3250 are females, and 10% of that number forms the Asian female population. The man was involved in 50-60 lewd acts. An entire ethnic body nearly systematically targeted! This was a petty pervert but he pulled off an intimidating feat. You can imagine why Asians far from Princeton reacted to this as a shocking hate crime. lots of issues | leave me a message 7 July 2005 05:56 (UTC)

  • Delete until he becomes a real criminal. Alternatively move it to Wikinews.--nixie 7 July 2005 06:18 (UTC)
  • Delete until notability established. JamesBurns 7 July 2005 09:09 (UTC)
  • Delete - this is not a list of criminals A curate's egg 7 July 2005 15:43 (UTC)
Comment The man "pled guilty", establishing criminal status, and the case was covered widely by national media outlets, a pretty good indication of notability
  • Keep. This case received a great deal of attention. Pburka 9 July 2005 17:12 (UTC)
  • Delete Notability beyond local community/ethnic minority not established. This story will likely see whatever little notoriety it's achieved vanish whether or not he's ever convicted. But certainly until he's convicted this is just a story of local/special interest group interest only.

carmeld1 06:36, 10 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • I had promised myself I was going to stop commenting on this VfD, I apologize - But is it really a legitimate critera to say that something that is only shown to be important to Asians is unimportant to Wikipedia? Sirmob 13:00, 10 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep! Notability to any ethnic group is indeed notable to MANY readers of Wikipedia. -Uris 04:23, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I'm more than a little disturbed to see comments from some people saying that this Lohman story is not notable beyond "an ethnic minority". In my opinion, some of you are basically saying that because his actions only affected non-Caucasians, it doesn't matter. And I'm sorry, but that attitude is verging on being racist. Maybe that's not what you meant, but it sure sounds like it to me. As for this story only being a "local community" (i.e, Princeton University) story, that is clearly not the case. The story attracted a lot of attention from nationwide press, as others have already pointed out. In addition to the ones already listed above, here's a few more.
  • [6] Boston Globe
  • [7] Lousiana State University student newspaper
  • [8] The Advocate, Baton Rouge daily newspaper


  • [9] Claremont College newspaper
  • [10] Yale Daily News
  • [11] Blog discussing the Lohman story.
  • [12] Another blog discussion
  • [13] Yet another blog that mentions the story.
  • [14] Another blog (all the rest that follow are also blogs of one kind or another)

Clearly this news article caught the attention of a lot of people beyond just Princeton. I don't think it's valid to say that he is not notable or notorious.


  • Keep The main arguments for deletion seem to center on three issues: 1) the lack of a criminal conviction 2) the lack relevance to a non-Asian American (e.g. Caucasian) audience and 3) and the lack of national notability. I think if we examine each issue, it becomes clear there is insufficient cause to delete this article.
1. lack of a criminal conviction
this does not seem to be a particularly useful criteria for notability
for example, OJ Simpson wasn't convicted of a crime
2. lack of relevance to a non-Asian American audience
as pointed out above, even if the story was only of interest to Asians/Asian Americans (highly unlikely given the number of stories in non-ethnic, mainstream press e.g. Boston Globe, NY Post, ABC News, college publications, etc.), there are plenty of Asian and Asian American users of Wikipedia
3. lack of national notability
as noted above, media coverage was not isolated to local, or even regional outlets, but included national outlets
Howee 00:43, 14 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment BTW, Google search for ""Michael Lohman" +princeton" produces 250+ results. I'm new to Wikipedia, but I just read over the guidelines for VfD. Based on the "Google test", the lack of a clear consensus, and the principle of keeping articles when in doubt, it seems that there isn't sufficient evidence/support to justify deletion. Also, it sems that this VfD process has gone on quite a lot longer than it should (5 days). It would be great if an admin could please remove VfD notice. Does anyone know how to request attention to this effect? Thanks! Howee 03:06, 14 July 2005 (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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.
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