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. There is a fundamental disagreement here on whether the sources are sufficient to establish notability that I don't think will be resolved with a third relisting so I'm coming down on "no consensus". Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:30, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Bill Workman[edit]

Bill Workman (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Not notable local politician. ...William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 16:15, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. ...William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 16:15, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of South Carolina-related deletion discussions. ...William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 16:15, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 16:22, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Journalism-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 16:22, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 16:22, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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• Comment Mayor of Greenville, South Carolina from 1983-1995. The current sourcing does not appear to meet our expectations for a mayor, but with Greenville's prominence in Upstate South Carolina, there is a likelihood that there are off-line sources available that expand on the policies that the subject accomplished while serving as mayor. --Enos733 (talk) 22:56, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep I was readily able to add three more paragraphs, with three additional online sources, since this proposal for deletion. Based on revision history, the article was previously more than twice its current size, though much of that former content was deleted in May 2020 among copyright concerns. —ADavidB 23:39, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. The amount of new work that's been done since this nomination was initiated is a start, but it isn't a finish. Greenville isn't large enough that its mayors would be deemed inherently notable just for being mayor per se — and while it might certainly be possible to write an article long and substantial and well-sourced enough to get him over the bar, that still takes a lot more than just three new sentences about his mayoral career sourced to just two new pieces of local media coverage. As written, this is still a depth of substance and sourcing that every mayor on earth can always match — but the inclusion bar for mayors requires evidence that he's a special case of significantly greater notability than most mayors, which is not what's been shown here. Bearcat (talk) 17:44, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Such a negative spin. I didn't say it was a finish, just that I readily found more information online, and that there used to be much more in the article. I added three paragraphs, including nine sentences from three new sources. I've read WP:POLITICIAN and get that there's no guaranteed notability, but much of what you write as necessary seems to go beyond what's written in that guideline. "Major local political figures who have received significant press coverage" are presumed to be notable. The associated note includes that such a person, "has been written about, in depth, independently in multiple news feature articles, by journalists." As the previous commenter noted, Greenville is significant within its region and Workman was its mayor for 12 years. No, the article as currently written doesn't confirm notability, though I'm not convinced the required journalistic coverage is non-existent. —ADavidB 22:59, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, you added three paragraphs, but only one of those paragraphs, consisting of three sentences, addresses anything potentially notability-building about his mayoralty, while the other two paragraphs address personal life trivia that does not speak to notability. So your statement about three paragraphs and my statement about three sentences can both be correct at the same time, because only three sentences within your three paragraphs actually speak toward whether he's notable or not. And as for whether you are or aren't convinced that the required journalistic coverage is non-existent, that's immaterial — we don't keep inadequate articles just because it's possible that better sourcing might exist than anybody has actually shown, we keep inadequate articles only when somebody proves that better sourcing absolutely does exist to salvage it with. Bearcat (talk) 15:56, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The article has grown significantly with additional sources. —ADavidB 08:22, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Although not super strong as a notable person/politician, he does meet the criterion of "Major local political figures who have received significant press coverage." The articles in the Spartan-Herald and the obits confer notability, albeit not beyond that locality. Lamona (talk) 03:59, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, for the reasons of those who want to keep this article, also article is well sourced. Davidgoodheart (talk) 21:51, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:PERX/WP:EVERYONEELSE. Pilaz (talk) 08:56, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Appears to pass WP:GNG. Article is not what it was when nominated for deletion, I think the nominator's rationale of "Not notable" has been successfully refuted. NemesisAT (talk) 12:35, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  They also appear to pass the criteria of WP:NPOL, "Major local political figures who have received significant press coverage." NemesisAT (talk) 10:27, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 16:06, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per WP:HEY. Sources have been added to prove he meets GNG. ~EDDY ^{(talk/contribs)}~ 02:25, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Municipal politician fails WP:NPOL. KidAd • SPEAK 21:50, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. although he is dead, enough citations exist to keep the page alive. Caphadouk (talk) 08:31, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Your argument appears to be for "keep". Did you write delete by mistake? NemesisAT (talk) 09:22, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes meant to post Keep, I fixed it. thanks. Caphadouk (talk) 07:32, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete mainly because the sources don't seem to be that usable for notability. For instance three of them are obituaries from local news outlets. Which don't work for notability. A couple more are announcements in local news papers about his run for office. Which literally anyone running for local office gets. What else is there besides that? Something about a local police officer settling a law suite. "Glimpses of Greenville: 1980 to 1990", "Mayor Knox White runs for seventh term — decades after he promised term limits", and "Lost Restaurants of Greenville" all literally have nothing to do with him. So it's laughable to say he's received significant press coverage. The only thing that might work is one of the obituaries, but that's about it and I'm pretty sure there needs to be more then that. So there's zero basis for this guy to be notable. --Adamant1 (talk) 08:08, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Please re-read WP:NPOL regarding local politicians, and its note as to what significant press coverage means. Many of the sources were in fact prompted by Workman's death, but are by journalists, not paid obituaries. White ran against Workman and succeeded him as mayor, as that source includes. The "Lost Restaurants" book notes Workman's city redevelopment, and the "Glimpses" article notes his bringing international cultural ties to the city. There are three Spartanburg Herald-Journal source articles that focus on Workman's run for a U.S. House seat. —ADavidB 08:58, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I'm aware the reason obituaries are bad indicators of notability has nothing to do with them being paid for or not, and journalists can write them as much as anyone else. Or I'd like to see a guideline that says otherwise. Unless I'm wrong like Pilaz says they are silent on obituaries. As far as your other points, none of them are indicators of notability. Literally all mayors are involved in city redevelopment and bring 'international cultural ties", whatever that means, to the city that they are mayors of. In the meantime, NPOL is pretty clear that runs for office aren't notable on their own. Which I assume would include someone running for the House. --Adamant1 (talk) 10:26, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that paid (funeral home-generated or classified ad-style) obituaries would not be independant, thus negating their proper use. Journalists can potentially skew most all of their writing, but we use what they write that is published in reliable sources. Most mayors do attempt to lead their cities well; not all of them are successful at it. —ADavidB 11:28, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hhhhmmm, OK. Obviously the guidelines are pretty vague on a lot of this stuff and I don't really feel like arguing about it. So we will have to agree to disagree. Although I am interested to know where the sources said his good leadership as mayor or whatever had anything to do with the buildings being built. The blog says he and the city council "took a risk," but it's a blog and that doesn't really have anything to do with his leadership. All city councils/mayors take risks when they approve projects. Outside of that I think another reference said he was mayor at the time, but nothing else. So where exactly does it say his "successful leadership" resulted in anything, let alone beyond what most mayors are usually involved in? --Adamant1 (talk) 00:01, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've added more content and sources, which may provide more support considered necessary. Many (not all) leaders take risks, yes, though those who are repeatedly or greatly successful in doing so are generally given credit for it. Which source is a blog? —ADavidB 01:06, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. Local press coverage only, fails WP:NPOL and WP:NBIO (and possibly WP:BIO1E - his death). He is not, unlike claimed above, a major local political figure who have received significant press coverage. The only seemingly-reliable sources that cover him with some depth are the Greenville Journal, The Greenville News, the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, The (Orangeburg) Times and Democrat, and maybe WHNS. The first two are from the city where he served as mayor, and Spartanburg is 35 minutes away. WHNS is also based in Greenville, and the (Orangeburg) Times and Democrat appears to be only the 13th largest South Carolina newspaper (and that's excluding free circulation). All of this coverage is local and not outside the specific region as demanded by WP:NPOL. Pilaz (talk) 09:24, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • To elaborate on the failure of WP:NBIO, I've always found obits to be a poor indicator of notability. Not only are many of them paid for (hence not independent), but they always happen in the context of the death of the subject (WP:BIO1E) and usually do not fall under the editorial policy of the newspaper in question (there's often just an obit department doing its own thing). This is a personal preference and Wikipedia guidelines are silent on obituaries, but it is the reason why I don't usually count them towards the WP:GNG, especially if they are local. 3 million people die in the United States every year, and hundreds of thousands of obits are published every year in the US alone. Imagine if we had to determine the notability of every dead person in the world through the lens of obituaries. Pilaz (talk) 09:38, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Where, specifically, is 'outside their area' stated as required of sources for major local politicians? Areas where WP guidelines are silent don't seem a proper area in which to make assumptions against notability. Relatively few dead people receive full coverage by journalists, so the referrals to "3 million" and "every dead person in the world" are non-applicable exaggerations. —ADavidB 10:33, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, my mistake: I incorrectly thought that Wikipedia:Notability (politics) had already been adopted, due to the fact that we continuously refer to WP:POLOUTCOMES when looking for precedent. I've consequently corrected my original comment. Under that proposal, #9 has "outside their specific region" added to "major local political figures who have received significant press coverage", but it's clearly not in NPOL. Per WP:POLOUTCOMES, we usually tend to only retain mayors who belong to cities of regional prominence; and Greenville isn't even in the top 300 largest US cities nor in the top 5 of largest SC cities. Being a mayor of such a small city hardly qualifies for a "major local political figure", and the fact that coverage is almost exclusively hyperlocal confirms that. The failure to meet WP:NBIO due to quasi-total reliance on obituaries from local media (with its WP:BIO1E concerns) remains valid in my eyes. Pilaz (talk) 11:52, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I am free to determine whether sources are reliable on a case-by-case basis, especially when the guidelines are silent on said sources, since sources need to be reliable to count towards the GNG. Obits are notoriously paid-for, edulcorated biographies not subject to the same editorial guidelines as other journalistic pieces. This is something that has come up at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard several times. As an example, throughout her carreer, obit writer Kay Powell of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has written about notorious people such as "The church choir singer who had a frontal lobotomy and donated his brain to science, the girl who sang at Martin Luther King Jr’s funeral, the woman who was Flannery O’Connor’s secret pen pal for 30 years". Of course local newspapers are going to be writing about every dead mayor when the bar is so low. Pilaz (talk) 12:07, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We differ on whether Greenville is regionally prominent (not nationally or necessarily state-wide). It is the seat of Greenville County, the most populous county of the Upstate region and the state, with the largest school district in the state. The Greenville News circulation is at or near fifth in the state. If the writers or publishers of Workman's source articles are known to be unreliable in their journalistic standards, you may have a point. Otherwise, referring to other newspapers and writers is tangential. —ADavidB 18:41, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The way I usually side with the whole "regional coverage" thing is that I determine if what the paper is covering is a local story or not. Obviously regional news outlets have a vested interest in covering topics that are local to them. So they will, even if it's something that's not otherwise notable. But if it's a news story about something in the "Greenville region" then I'd say it's fine as a regional source. Really though, if it's a topic relating to Greenville then it isn't regional coverage. Outside of that the Whole discussion about what is or isn't a regional news outlet is a little pedantic. Especially these days with the internet and most local outlets being connected to the Associated Press or bought out by bigger news companies. Like most local newspapers in my region now are owned by the same company, which also owns USA Today. So there's an extreme amount of overlap in what they cover. Plus a lot of news stories from USA Today. So the whole "regional/local" thing is really a moot point. --Adamant1 (talk) 00:11, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Article appears to have sources outside of obits, so WP:BIO1E is not a problem. Passes WP:NPOL as this person has "been written about, in depth, independently in multiple news feature articles, by journalists". It doesn't matter if this coverage is local either, as it is here. Swordman97 ^{talk to me} 21:17, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Which "sources outside of obits" are you referring to? Are said sources also reliable, independent of the subject, and significant? Pilaz (talk) 21:48, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sources now include The State from state capital Columbia. Additional sourcing is on the way via NewsBank. —ADavidB 04:59, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep article has significant coverage demonstrating notability. WP:NPOL is not meant to exclude politicians who do not meet the criteria set out there if they meet WP:GNG; this article should be kept not as an NPOL pass but as a GNG pass. Elli (talk | contribs) 01:09, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 19:53, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete- US local mayor with local news titles mentions only. The better RS here is'nt specifically about him, they discuss other topics and he gets a mention. Fails WP:NPOL and WP:GNGDeathlibrarian (talk) 00:35, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Workman is more than trivially mentioned in many of the sources, and he does not need to be the main topic of such source material, per WP:GNG (read it). Also, "There is no fixed number of sources required ... but multiple sources are generally expected." In WP:NPOL, the requirement for 'major local political figures' is multiple sources of significant coverage. The article has grown greatly since nominated for deletion, and the content is fully sourced. —ADavidB 09:12, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep There are numerous sources here that are specifically about him. I don't understand the objection to obituaries - presuming that they are not of the paid notice variety (and these seem not to be) they are a testament to the perceived importance of the person. I also think that local newspapers that are actual newspapers, not freebie coupon papers, are good sources. In fact, the local newspapers here have WP articles, which says something about their stability and perhaps reliability. Lamona (talk) 15:25, 15 February 2022 (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.