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 Redirected to United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections_in_California,_2008#District_50. Merge appropriate info to that article. Black Kite 23:49, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nick Leibham[edit]

Nick Leibham (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Unnotable congressional candidate. He isn't currently a legislator, but an attorney. None of the sources actually discuss him in detail, with most being general campaign info, with only the gas thing being about him and certainly not enough to meet WP:BIO. Article is mostly a promo piece created by his campaign office. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 19:18, 22 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Clear Delete Redirect Fails WP:POLITICIAN -- candidates alone are not notable. RayAYang (talk) 19:54, 22 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment It appears a redirect target has been proposed in lieu of straightforward deletion. RayAYang (talk) 12:09, 23 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: The WP:BIO guidelines for politicians do not mandate that the article address a sitting legislator as Collectonian asserts; in fact, they expressely allow for articles pertaining to "candidate[s] for political office" so long as they meet the notability criterion of ""significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." Let's parse out the criterion as it applies to this article:

"Significant coverage" means that the "sources address the subject directly in detail." First, the subject of this article is not solely Nick Leibham, the person, but also his candidacy. The latter is addressed in every source but for the first reference which links to a biographical page relating to Cheryl Ede. Secondly though, Leibham's person is directly addressed as follows:

From the second reference: "This year he is being challenged by Democrat Nick Leibham, 34, an attorney and former prosecutor."

Leibham showed $267,000 cash on hand."

From the seventh: "Congressional candidate Nick Leibham was promoting his campaign at a gas station in the Encinitas..."

From the eighth: "Nick Leibham, Democratic nominee for the House of Representatives in California’s 50th District"

From the ninth: "Democratic nominee for the 50th Congressional District, Nick Leibham is rolling back the price of gas in North County."

From the eleventh: "...and Leibham, the preppy lawyer who lives in Rancho Santa Fe..." "the young “change” candidate down the ticket."

All the sources cited would be considered "reliable" inasmuch as they are, save for the external link to Leibham's campaign website, secondary and independent, many of them stemming from established political blogs; the Union Tribune, San Diego's newspaper of record; the Coast Times; KPBS; and local news agencies. User:newmediasinecure (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 20:28, 22 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: see [Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Greenflea3000]. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 00:18, 23 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. -- RayAYang (talk) 21:12, 22 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. -- RayAYang (talk) 21:13, 22 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect per WP:ONEEVENT and WP:POLITICIAN to United States House of Representatives elections in California, 2008#District 50, merging at editor's discretion. WP:RS attention comes from running for office. If there's enough material to create a separate 50th district race article, we can merge it there. • Gene93k (talk) 23:07, 22 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is precedent for a page like this one; other congressional challengers, democrats and republicans, have stand-alone articles: Charles Brown (California),Dennis Shulman, Jim Ogonowski; In fact an entire category exists titled United States House of Representatives elections Candidates Newmediasinecure (talk) 23:47, 22 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect per • Gene93k - If the candidate is not notable outside of the race, redirect to the race. If the subject gained notariety from his work as a prosecutor and the assertions can be sourced, he very well could be notable. Shulman and Ognowski appear to be non notable as well and should also be redirected to the appropriate articles. Charlie Brown is a very notable cartoon character and should have an article. Montco (talk) 01:14, 23 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge and redirect In terms of notability, I think this person fails on many levels. I started with Time, Newsweek, U.S. News, and NY Times and found no results in searches on Nick Leibham. Then surprisingly for a California candidate, I found nothing in a SF Chronicle search. At the current stage of his political career, he is non-notable. Should he lose in an uneventful contest, he would remain so. Thus, unless the campaign becomes controversial or this person wins, I would suggest moving this information to a section of a larger article. The information was created by a less experienced WPian and probably suffers. Solving COI and POV issues would still leave us with an article that has some problems. I would not mind if this person were independently notable on the international level. I can not find his name mentioned in anything that is considered a national publication (although I have not checked the LA Times because they only make excerpts public). The best bet to establish notability would be if he has been involved in any notable cases as a prosecutor. Has he ever been granted certiorari? Has he been involved in any notable cases?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 06:30, 23 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• MaintainTonyTheTiger: compared to you, I may be a wiki neophyte, but it seems to me you engineer two criteria for notability in your comment above which do not exist. You imply that the secondary sources ought to be nationally circulating newspapers, but while wikipedia:RS particularly welcomes sources from the "high quality end of the market," like the Post, it only mandates that they be reliable, published and emanate from a third party. Moreover, the Union Tribune is hardly a rag, with a readership of 756,284. And again, the criterion for notability is significant coverage from reliable sources independent of the subject, not whether the subject has been granted cert, which, if left unpublished, would not bolster notability at all. In this discussion, let's stick to the parameters wiki gave us, not invent new ones. Newmediasinecure (talk) 17:19, 23 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I apologize, if I gave the impression that whether the article is kept depends on your experience at WP. I am, however, going to write this response based on my experience with creating WP:GAs on WP. I can tell you by experience where the line is drawn on notability. Go to Talk:Toni Preckwinkle. Look at the second deletion and the deletion review discussions in the article history template. The "letter of the law", is that the biography subject needs to be the subject of a third party WP:RS. I am not sure if that is the "spirit of the law". However, the "substance of the law" is that a person must be mentioned in non-local, significant WP:RSs. Look at the responses in those discussions. The deleted articles were articles similar to what you have created. I had to find four or five different important non-local sources to establish that she is notable on the international scale. I do not think that your candidate need to be the subject of an article like say Tory Burch in the Vanity Fair that provides a great deal of the subject. I would expect that if he is elected, you will be able to cite the Post, LA Times and SF Chronicle and establish notability based on his political career. I am saying that the evidence you have presented about his political career to date is not internationally notable. If his prosecutor career is notable you can argue based on that. If there are LA Times or W Post articles to add you may attempt reargue based on those. It is possible to present a very extensive article mostly on local publications as with Preckwinkle or in a more extreme example see Rob Pelinka. However, he has contributory notability from his athletic/academic past. If he has done something like win the Walter Byers Award that would cause one to say "If he has done anything subsequently that is halfway notable he is notable" then that would be different. In fact, if your guy had won that award on top of the exact article you are presenting I would vote to keep. I do not support a new standard for political candidates in their first notable role whereby all candidates are WP:N. That is just not the way things are at WP. You have to establish notability elsewhere in the career. I apologize that I can not support without further notability established. Again, I encourage you to review the discussions at Preckwinkle.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 02:38, 24 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• 'Third Opinion' What you refer to as the "substance of the law" is really your own interpretation of WP:N; and that interpretation hinges upon your defining reliable sources as those that are 'non-local' and 'significant'. Yet, this verbiage is completely absent from WP:RS; again, a source need only be published, reliable, and from a third party to qualify. You could make the argument that LOCAL publications that happen to enjoy wider readership like the NY Times and Washington Post, are more reliable, but you must also then be prepared to insinuate that the Union Tribune does not fact check or scrutinize its own writing, to which reliability is directly related perWP:RS. If anything, it is you who are unwittingly [perhaps] establishing a new standard, where only articles containing references to "national" publications which you deem "significant" are considered GA's. I do not support that. But my normative judgment aside (where it belongs), if that really were the standard and we accepted the publications you listed as a "significant" canon, many actors on the local stage, e.g. Councilwomen Donna Frye and Toni Atkins, State Senator Dennis Hollingsworth, would be considered non-notable. San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders would be too were it not for a single reference to the LA Times; but, what if I didn't give the LA times as much credence as you did, because its non-local readership was smaller than say, the NY Times? You can see the trouble with deferring to your reliability standard instead of the one explicitly put out by WP in WP:RS. The linked articles above also demonstrate that a subject needn't be internationally renowned to fulfill WP's notability criterion, the letter of which mentions nothing of that sort. Lastly, to your argument that political candidates without notable careers which predate their candidacy cannot be notable: From WP:Politician: "...an unelected candidate for political office... can still be notable if they meet the primary notability criterion of 'significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject;'" notice it does NOT say that the aspect of the subject's life being significantly covered need be his career prior to entering politics nor anything but his candidacy. So, it appears we've reached an impasse here; at the point when you resort to tautologies ("that's just not the way things are at WP") and direct me to a discussion that is predominantly between you, the author, and no third party editor, about an article whose most serious problems relate to POV, we need another opinion. Best, Newmediasinecure (talk) 06:19, 24 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I admire your persistence. You make strong arguements, which are hard to disagree with. Here is why each of the other articles pass notability (IMO): Donna Frye (extremely interesting election controversy), Toni Atkins (somewhat interesting controversy that led to her assuming office), Dennis Hollingsworth (does not and would not pass as written, but is lucky not to have been nominated, would pass with rewrite based on NY Times), Jim Ogonowski (fails for the reasons I have been discussing), Dennis Shulman (notable for handicap and notable source references), Jerry Sanders (needs rewrite, but would pass with the few U.S. News, a Time and a Newsweek ref that I have found) and Charles Brown (California) (mentions in notable WP:RS make him notable, see my AFD discussion comment). I guess I am saying the way notability works on WP is that the extensive coverage could come from a local source, but the arbiter of whether the person is notable is the popular media. I think you will find consistent precedent at AFD for people who are mentioned in the popular press as being notable and those who aren't as not being so. I am sort of taking on the role of Bearer of Bad news for your guy and I hate that I have to do so. All I can really say is watch for references in the Post, LA Times, NY Times, Newsweek, Time, U.S. News, and maybe SF Chronicle. All the other votes to redirect are probably based on the logic I am taking the time to explain to you. It is not up to you or I to determine who is notable. If there is no mention of him outside of San Diego, he is not going to pass as notable for this international audience. I don't know what else to tell you. This is how it works. The policies probably need to be tweeked to better reflect the substance of the law here, but I am explaining how things really work the best way I know how. I apologize that it does not help save this biographical subject as a stand alone article.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 14:24, 24 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete is just a candidate, not notable outside of that so fails WP:POLITICIAN. Darrenhusted (talk) 11:06, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Darren: WP:Politician: "...an unelected candidate for political office... can still be notable if they meet the primary notability criterion of 'significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject;'" notice it does NOT say that the aspect of the subject's life being significantly covered need be his career prior to entering politics nor anything but his candidacy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Newmediasinecure (talk • contribs) 13:04, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm well aware of what politician says, remove all the politic references and all you have is a lawyer, not notable. If you want I can strip the article down to its bones to show you what that would look like. Darrenhusted (talk) 13:56, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You left out the part about People notable only for one event. Leibham's RS attention comes from running for office and is about his run for office. The greater issue here is can we make a substantive biography of this person based on the reliable sources available? The sources evident are insufficient and Leibham doesn't yet qualify for the WP:POLITICIAN common sense exception for office holders. • Gene93k (talk) 14:08, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - As I've added to the article, Nick Leibham's campaign has been identified by the Democratic Party as one of the top 20 "emerging races" in the United States. That isn't just another election. --Ye Olde Luke (talk) 00:11, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • That establishes that the race is interesting. Leibham may have potential but notability should not be speculative. Until and unless he is elected in November, he is known for one event. Cover that event. • Gene93k (talk) 14:23, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Are you saying we should make a page called Nick Liebham's Congressional Run, 2008 instead? --Ye Olde Luke (talk) 01:43, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Not quite. Option 1: Redirect/merge as recommended above to United States House of Representatives elections in California, 2008#District 50 and expand on the race there. Option 2: Spin out and merge to a neutral California's 50th congressional district election, 2008 if there is enough notable material to justify a stand-alone article. If this is a race to watch, sufficient content should be no problem. • Gene93k (talk) 08:32, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect/merge per Gene93k's option 1 - I believe it's the race that is notable and not much is can be verified about the candidate beyond the candidacy. Morbidthoughts (talk) 17:04, 31 August 2008 (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.