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. People disagree about whether this is an incident with long-lasting impact. I guess we'll have to wait and see...  Sandstein  16:48, 6 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Shooting of Charles Vacca[edit]

Shooting of Charles Vacca (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Absolutely failure of WP:NOT#NEWS and WP:NEVENT, particularly as it was an accident in an otherwise controlled environment. Non-notable persons involved. It perhaps might be a point in the discussion about gun control and children, but we should not have a topic about it. MASEM (t) 20:17, 29 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Arizona-related deletion discussions. Jinkinson talk to me 20:21, 29 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Firearms-related deletion discussions. Jinkinson talk to me 20:22, 29 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why not, if there's significant coverage in reliable sources and it triggers debate about construction site safety or something? --Jakob (talk) 15:08, 30 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I think a key indicator of notability is whether it triggers discussion or acts as a catalyst. For example, Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Meleanie_Hain was deleted because, despite the sourcing, there was nothing especially standout about this incident. Upjav (talk) 15:20, 30 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
But we also should recognize, this was basically something being stupid and not following the rules (letting a child under the posted age to fire at an otherwise controlled environment). It's an accidental shooting incident. Unless for some reason the child is going to put on trial for murder, or a federal law gets put into place that bans gun use by all children under a certain age, this is has the same impact as a car accident that ends in the death of someone. There's not even a reasonable place to merge this. --MASEM (t) 15:31, 30 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
So you're thinking it's too soon? Also, according to the page, there is no minimum age for firing at a range ("At the time, the nine-year-old girl receiving instruction was legal, because Arizona does not have a law prohibiting people under a certain age from firing a weapon"), so it could be the precedent for age restrictions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Upjav (talk • contribs) 15:49, 30 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The articles I've read said that the range had a recommended age limit, not the law. --MASEM (t) 16:01, 30 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Straying from the point, but IIRC the recommended age was 8 (!), she was 9. Ansh666 18:27, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's my opinion that notability is a more relevant criterion for inclusion that significance (and indeed, notability is noted in the policy pages to be different from significance or importance). This in clearly notable under the GNG. If the tree in my front yard makes national news (for whatever reason), then it's notable as far as I'm concerned. By the way, the article at hand isn't a WP:109PAPERS issue either, because the articles aren't all near-reprints of each other. --Jakob (talk) 15:51, 30 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Notability is based on enduring (read, longer-term) coverage, not just breadth of coverage, and that has not been demonstrated yet. It was all over the news when it happened, making it a blip, but as I'm judging by google news hits, the coverage is already dying out, which makes the enduring aspect questionable. That's why NEVENT says one should wait to make these types of articles where the enduring notability is not obvious, and why we have Wikinews where editors interested in current events can contribute and eventually move content into Wikipedia should the event turn notable. --MASEM (t) 16:01, 30 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There's now another spurt of news coverage. How much do you want? Single stories that remain in the news this long are not common. --Jakob (talk) 18:03, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 04:09, 30 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm fine with a merge if someone cites a good article to merge to. Upjav (talk) 20:04, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't that basically WP:Other stuff exists? (Or, other stuff doesn't exist, you know what I mean.) Ansh666 02:16, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Not so much in this case, though I understand the point. If these other shootings were reported regularly at , say, a national level, but we opted not to include those, then trying to argue the same here could be pushing "other stuff doesn't exist". But we're talking that these other shootings get no attention at the national level, and since we try to reflect sources, we'd not even be able to have articles on these shootings. --MASEM (t) 02:24, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
At this point, is it fair to call this "no consensus" and then renominate it later? Upjav (talk) 02:37, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Masem, I don't understand your argument. Legislation does not need to be passed to confer notability (of course), and this story has received a great deal more than routine coverage. It seems like your argument is "it's just a shooting, and shootings happen all the time". But surely not all shootings are alike? Can a shooting that appears only in local news, for example, be compared with this? Everyking (talk) 03:18, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Many local shooters involve the death of the person shot accidentally, but they don't get any farther coverage than local. There is zero sign this is going to be anything that will fundamentally change society to some degree, and all signs point to the fact that in a few weeks, no one will remember this. That is a news report which should be documented at Wikinews, but not in an encyclopedia that is only to summarize enduring topics. --MASEM (t) 03:37, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"Fundamentally change society"? That's your standard for inclusion? Well, it's not a news report; it's an encyclopedia article about a notable topic, something that society has deemed important. Everyking (talk) 04:19, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It is a news report. It's all sourced to primary newspaper/news site sources with no secondary sources. That shows that's there's little expected impact of this event on the rest of the world. This goes to WIkinews, not en.wiki. --MASEM (t) 04:32, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You didn't answer the question. Earlier you said legislation needed to be passed, or that society needed to be "fundamentally changed" by the event. Now you just say more sources are needed. Can you please precisely identify what kind of source you would accept as demonstrating notability? Everyking (talk) 11:19, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Without anyone notable involved in this event, it would have to be a source that talks about how this shooting would be influencing gun safety regulations at a larger scale (not just at that range, but at a national level), or adding legislation about that, or something else that aims to avoid a repeat of this incident outside of the local area. Again, consider the AMBER Alert; children are kidnapped and lost every day (and we don't have articles on every one of them), but her kidnapping specifically sparked the creation of the AMBER Alert system to prevent or stop future kidnappings. These types of actions are in response to the event, showing enduring notability of the event and would be secondary sources (eg articles saying that these plans were designed based on the event itself, as to make them secondary). But given that everything about this was an accident likely means you aren't going to see that, and thus deletion is appropriate. Now if it turns out a year later national legislation finally comes about, say something named "Vacca's Law" which involves limiting gun access to children or along those lines, then we might need to reconsider this article (but again, consider that we don't have an article on the actual kidnapping that led to AMBER Alert, but the crime is described in that article, we'd likely do the same here).
At the end of the day, this story is sensational news - it has all the right buttons that newspapers - which are in the business of selling news - love; a gun accident, a young girl, someone mortally shot. It's a eye-drawing headline. But that's all it is. There's no encyclopedic meat to this story at this time, and the story is already dropping out of newswire services, so there's no enduring coverage either. --MASEM (t) 14:02, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I certainly don't subscribe to your view that things need to have legislative consequences to be notable. If I were to produce a source in a week or a month that was still discussing this shooting, would that not satisfy your demand for "enduring coverage"? Surely if people were still talking about it in a month, that would be "enduring"? Everyking (talk) 14:29, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
One source would not be sufficient. I can't say what the number of sources would need to be but it would have to be more than just primary sourcing after (at this point) 2 weeks since the incident. I'm sure there will be a story when Vacca is released from the hospital, but that's a natural conclusion of the story. And note I'm not saying there needs to be legislation but there needs to be more than just reporting of the events. I see nothing that suggests that people are going to change or try to change the situation to prevent this from happening again beyond changes at the specific range. (as noted, no law was broken, and while the range had a recommended age of 10, it wasn't strict). It was an accident, end of story. That's not encyclopdic-worthy. --MASEM (t) 15:18, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Also, one thing to add: how many people did this event directly affect? Obviously the girl and her family, Vacca and his family, and the management of the shooting range. A dozen or so people. Compared to the 7 billion people in the world. It is far far far too limited in scope to be an encyclopedic topic since we are not a collection of indiscriminate information. --MASEM (t) 15:29, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Pretty sure most of these are secondary sources. The New York Times can't be doing firsthand reporting on what's happening in Arizona. It's encyclopedic because it was covered by multiple sources, not because it's an important event itself. See also WP:UNENCYCLOPEDIC and WP:BELONG, both of which your argument is based on. Also, just so you know, Vacca was killed in the accident (in reference to your comment "I'm sure there will be a story when Vacca is released from the hospital"). --Jakob (talk) 15:36, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Secondary sources require transformation of content (such as analysis, synthesis, criticism), not just re-iteration of content. Most non-op-ed pieces in major newspapers are primary sources. See WP:PRIMARYNEWS. --MASEM (t) 15:46, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I have added a section about the potential legislative impact of this shooting to the article, but as this impact is still very slight I'm not sure if it is enough to meet the criteria set out by User:Masem. Masem, would you say this is enough of a legislative impact? Jinkinson talk to me 20:35, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's in the direction but I don't feel it still justifies the article. I do not know where it might be but there feels that there should be a larger topic about "guns and children in the United States" (maybe not to that specific level) that this would be a shorter section in.--MASEM (t) 20:39, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's quite apparent that it's being analyzed, though, and by politicians as well as the media. @Jinkinson: Nice work adding that section in. --Jakob (talk) 20:43, 5 September 2014 (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.
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