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. Sandstein 14:26, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Martin MacNeill

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Simply convicted of murder and related charges. Not a significant event. Fails notability IAW WP:CRIMINAL. Also, WP:NOTNEWS. – S. Rich (talk) 20:07, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per S. Rich. Run of the mill murderer. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 20:29, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep due to unique attributes: doctor, made multiple murder attempts, convicted of fraud, forgery, identity theft of one of his adopted daughters after wife's death[1][2], circumstantial case, very short jury deliberation. Also, upcoming Feb. 4, 2014 trial for sexual assault[3]. He's a one-man crime wave. (alternatively, merge to List of doctors convicted of murder, which should exist). --Lexein (talk) 22:30, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Utah-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 22:02, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 22:02, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 22:02, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I added this article when I was unable to find a good summary of the trial on the internet - one of the big stories of the year. I get that WP isn't a forum for summarizing news articles, but this seemed to be exceptional.--CaroleHenson (talk) 07:23, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep -[4][5]. The case and this person himself has recieved coverage.--BabbaQ (talk) 16:32, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment by OP. The policies we see in WP:NOT#NEWSREPORTS & WP:NEWSEVENT apply. Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events. Unique attributes do not make the crime notable. Consider, per Murder#Incidence "An estimated 520,000 people were murdered in 2000 around the globe." With so many murders it is inevitable that thousands of such crimes each year will have interesting aspects and news coverage. To compare, murder rates around the world are an encyclopedic topic. And articles about OJ Simpson, Lee Harvey Oswald, or Charles Manson are worthwhile. But just because this criminal trial ~~in this smaller state~~ gets ~~local~~ news reporting it does not make him or his victim notable. And once he's sentenced he will disappear from the news scene, indicating non-endurance. (BTW, I have nom'd Michele MacNeill for AfD as well.) Thanks. – S. Rich (talk) 17:00, 21 December 2013 (UTC)21:51, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Those look like national news refs to me: NBC, CNN, ABC. "Smaller state" is not an argument for deletion. "Local news" - demonstrably not. Obvious unique attributes certainly counter the assertion that it's a "run of the mill" murder. If you want to lard on more refs, both national and local, we could dump them all in, but it meets GNG without them. --Lexein (talk) 20:26, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Followup: his conviction for the murder, and sentencing, doesn't end the story. There's still the upcoming Feb. 4, 2014 trial for sexual assault[3, above]. I think this is a rush to deletion on insufficient grounds. --Lexein (talk) 00:02, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Followup: First broadcast/live-streamed trial in Utah history (added). --Lexein (talk) 12:25, 24 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. This was a significant murder trial, I totally get that wikipedia should not be used as a repository for information about crime victims, but this was a large murder trial that dominated news coverage during the trial with particulary unusual side-twists (identity theft, lover made narry, etc.). Based upon what you're saying, should Murder of Laci Peterson, Scott Peterson, Drew Peterson, Jon Benet Ramsey be deleted?... and should Wikipedia:Find-A-Grave_famous_people/M/Mit people like Theresa Moers and some even less notable ones (cannot remember all but there's an article about a mother who was killed after her daughter committed suicide and a Find-A-Grave famous people listing to create an article about the daughter) be removed from the Fina A Grave famous people list?

I wasn't sure which was more appropriate, one about Martin or Michelle, but it sure seems similar to the other named articles above where the individuals are not noteworthy other than having been a victim or murderer.--CaroleHenson (talk) 18:05, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, SarahStierch (talk) 03:54, 24 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Question I saw that this was relisted for discussion, but in the meantime the Michelle MacNeil article was deleted. We haven't reached consensus, but I thought we at least had acknowledgement that this wasn't something just covered in regional press and perhaps as significant as Lacy Peterson, Scott Peterson, and Drew Peterson types of cases and national media coverage. Is that where we're at? Thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 00:33, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reply. I posted a PROD on Michelle MacNeil thinking that this AfD would resolve sooner. At that point either Michelle could be merged into Martin (if kept) or deleted if Martin was deleted. The possibility of incorporating Michelle info into Martin's article is still there – if the article is kept. But the fact that no interest was shown in keeping the article about the victim is telling. It helps illustrate that this article does not have any enduring value. – S. Rich (talk) 03:07, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I had assumed that it wouldn't be deleted til we resolved this inter-related discussion.

If there is to be just one article, I think it may make sense to merge some of Michelle's information to Martin's article, since there seem to be ongoing issues with Martin, per edits made since nominated for deletion and upcoming trial, etc.

I'll ask administrators (Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion#Michele MacNeill) to restore Michelle's article to my user space (User:CaroleHenson/Michele MacNeill til we sort this out. From what I've been reading here, there's been an acknowledgement that this was not just a regional story.--CaroleHenson (talk) 04:52, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I don't see anything here that makes this murder, victim or defendant any more noteworthy than the hundreds of other murders that happen every year. There may be some traffic on this subject for a couple of months (the conviction was less than 60 days ago) but this is not an historical event. Yes, this murder is very important to the family and friends of the victim but the same could be said about every life lost. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RogerRoger1 (talk • contribs) 06:52, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I will try to be a bit more succinct about this reasoning for this article. (Not sure why it's so important to me, but apparently it is). 1) This is a case that has been, and continues to be in national news, 2) it has [ongoing readership] with about 6,700 hits in the past 30 days, 3) it is like Drew Peterson, Scott Peterson, and other similar stories (want more examples), where it made national news partly because of the circumstances surrounding the case, 4) it's helpful to keep these type of stories periodically in the forefront to keep awareness of how twisted domestic abuse / murder can become, and 5) I wrote it because there was so much national coverage, but nothing that really summarized the case down to the key facts.

For what it's worth, I'm often on the other side of the deletion nomination debate, most recently for several genealogy based articles and as part of a project to resolve notability issues (cleaning up/sourcing the article, nominating for deletion) of women artists.--CaroleHenson (talk) 14:44, 31 December 2013 (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.