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 keep‎. WP:NPOL as a widely accepted and followed guideline creates at least a strong presumption of notability for state-level legislators. The "delete" side would need compelling arguments to rebut this presumption, which they don't provide; instead we get lengthy quibbling about specific sources that is quite beside the point. Sandstein 20:57, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Daniel W. Greear[edit]

Daniel W. Greear (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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The subject is a lawyer, currently serving as a judge in the West Virginia Intermediate Court of Appeals - that is not a role that would make one inherently notable, so we are looking at WP:GNG. The only secondary sources in the article look like rehashed press releases, recording the fact that he was given the '2021 Legislative Staff Achievement Award' - not a notable award. The other sources appear to be primary; I don't see any better sources, WP:GNG is not met. Girth Summit _(blether) 13:37, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: People, Law, and West Virginia. Girth Summit _(blether) 13:37, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. This person appears to be marginally notable as a judge and former legislator and administrator. The sources cited are not the best possible, but they appear to be valid sources: the West Virginia Record is an online legal paper, and the facts that it's funded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and has a strong bias toward "tort reform" doesn't affect factual statements about judicial personnel. West Virginia MetroNews is more-or-less an online newspaper. Releases from the Governor's office or official state websites are likewise valid sources for things like appointments or awards. The nominator's statement, "I don't see any better sources" is clearly based only on what's currently cited; I was able to find the subject and some of the facts relating to his career just by searching the word "Greear" on The Herald-Dispatch, and presumably more could be found at the Charleston Gazette-Mail. So this nomination did not comply with WP:BEFORE. P Aculeius (talk) 12:54, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I did Google News searches on "Daniel W. Greear" and on "Daniel Greear". The first search yielded six hits, one of them literally a press release, the others either rehashed press releases or passing mentions. The second search yielded a lot more hits, most of them seemed to be about this person, but all of the ones I looked at again seemed to be rehashed press releases announcing his appointment to some position or other. I did not directly search the archives of the Herald-Dispatch or the Charleston Gazette-Mail because I've never heard of either of them. If new page reviewers were expected to be intimately familiar with the local press sources that might be available for any given subject, we would never get anything done - I don't appreciate the suggestion that my nomination did not comply with BEFORE, and unless you can point to any actual sources that give the subject significant depth of coverage (and are not rehashed press releases) it remains my view that GNG is likely not met. The point in the comment below about NPOL being satisfied may however make that point moot. Girth Summit _(blether) 10:12, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I suggest that new page reviewers reviewing biographies of local political figures ought to be aware of, or make themselves aware of, the local news sources that would tend to provide coverage of them, before asserting that no sources exist, and that the subjects therefore fail to be notable. A basic Google search simply isn't enough. The two papers I mentioned are the largest newspapers of record in West Virginia, so you would expect to find coverage there. I didn't even have to search "archives". I simply used the search window at the top of the paper, and typed in "Greear". There were more stories than the two I cited, but some of the others concerned the subject's candidacy in past elections, and others looked to be cumulative. There are probably more facts worthy of inclusion or citation in some of them, and as I said, other news sources that I didn't consult.

  As for "actual sources", the news sources are "actual" and satisfactory for what they state. You can't disregard them on the grounds that they're "rehashed press releases", nor can you pick through the article, deleting things that you deem to have come from a "press release" by the state's official websites or the governor's office. A "press release" issued by a person about himself would not be a particularly reliable source for most information—although presumably for his name, age, place of birth, family members—but when the governor states that X has been appointed to Y, that's entitled to be treated as an authoritative source for those facts. Not that "X is one of the greatest Y's in the history of our state", although potentially for the fact that "Governor Z praised X as 'one of the greatest Y's in the history of our state'." But the source is perfectly good for the bare facts of the appointment. You don't get to exclude entire classes of material from citation or consideration for notability or verifiability simply because not everything in them constitutes a citeable fact. You must consider what it is they're being cited for, and whether they carry sufficient authority to verify that material. P Aculeius (talk) 13:38, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  On the contrary, we routinely disregard sources that are clearly rehashed press releases when considering notability (as opposed to verifiability, for which they are generally fine). GNG clearly sets out that for a source to contribute towards notability, it must be (amongst other things) independent of the subject. A press release by a subject's employer or a body that they are affiliated with is not independent, and its having been rehashed by a local online newspaper that routinely reprints all press releases from that given body does not make it any more independent. If we

  Look at it this way - with all the AGF in the world, when I look at that article and its history I cannot fail to suspect a COI, or more likely UPE. A brand new account has written it, an account that has made no edits to any other article, and which did not seem to go through any learning curve when it comes to formatting citations, adding wikiproject templates etc. The account also uploads a photograph of the subject, clearly posed for and submitted as their own work, so it is reasonable to conclude that the author knows the subject, either personally or professionally. Upon reading through the article, I find no organic coverage of the subject at all, just a bunch of press releases. UPE is not a reason for deletion, but it is a reason to scrutinise an article, and I do not think that a discussion of whether or not the subject is actually notable is an unreasonable step to take as part of that process if a reviewer finds no decent sources about the subject. And FWIW, I reject your contention that a reviewer of any subject related to West Virginia needs to be personally familiar with West Viriginian news sources - we simply do not have the volunteer capacity for that, if we took that approach the NPP queue would become entirely unmanageable. Girth Summit _(blether) 07:36, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Who created the article or why is relatively unimportant, if notability can be demonstrated through reliable sources. Even a press release is a good source for "X was appointed to Y position on Z date". And anything released by the governor's office or the state's official sites is entitled to full weight for its factual statements: "X is a member of Y", etc. Major newspapers of record are entitled to the presumption that their stories have been factually vetted, even if they might have borrowed their wording or structure from press releases—cause to groan about the state of modern journalism, if they did, but until shown to be inaccurate in some fashion, the stories can and should be regarded as accurate.

  In this case, two news stories in a reliable, normal paper are both cited and linked to for key facts that go toward notability: the subject's having served as chief of staff for the House of Delegates, being appointed to the Intermediate Court of Appeals in 2021, being appointed to the position of Chief Judge through 2023, and having a term expiring in 2026. These are the most important facts in demonstrating notability. Other facts asserted in the article may be provable through other sources (The Blue Book at least will verify his service as a member of the legislature), but are not necessary to show that the subject is notable. Some of the sources, particularly those about awards, may indeed be "puff pieces", and the facts asserted not especially important (on the other hand, we can generally take the subject's word for things like his name, date of birth, what high school he attended, who his family members are, and for this sort of thing even "puff pieces" are fine).

  But this is AfD: the question is whether the subject is notable, not whether all of the facts mentioned are important, or whether all of the sources cited are the best. Those can be dealt with through the normal editing process; deletion is not cleanup. And I stand by my position that in dealing with the notability of local subjects, such as state politicians, local sources should be searched for; you cannot rely on global searches such as a Google search for someone's name, and conclude that someone or something isn't notable because they don't have enough of a Google presence. You don't need to know all of the possible sources in advance; just have the ability to search for or find out what some of them are, and see whether any of them cover the subject in a way that supports notability. P Aculeius (talk) 13:12, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't think you're getting the point I'm making. I'm not talking about whether press releases are reliable, I'm talking about whether they are independent. Press releases in and of themselves do not contribute towards notability for the purposes of GNG, even if they are rehashed in media outlets, because they are not independent of the subject. I'm not saying that they can't be used to establish straightforward facts, I'm talking strictly about whether they can be used to establish notability via WP:GNG - they can not be so used. Based on the sources currently in the article, I do not see a GNG pass because of their dearth of independent sources, and my search for better sources did not reveal any.

  Having said all that, and as I conceded in my first response, the point in the !vote below about NPOL probably renders all this moot - his one-year membership of West Virginia House of Delegates probably gives a route to presumed notability, so a GNG pass is not required. I would be content for this to be closed as keep based on an NPOL pass, and for us to get on with the job of trimming the unsourced trivia and puffy editorialising introduced by the original author. Girth Summit _(blether) 15:33, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  You seem to be confused about the general notability guideline, if you're claiming that press releases by someone other than the subject of an article can't be cited because they're "not independent of the subject", and that "media outlets" (i.e. news sources) that rely to one degree or another on them aren't independent either, and can't be used to demonstrate notability. That's an absurd reading: the policy is saying that someone's own press releases aren't independent sources about that person, not that no announcements are independent of anything merely because they're released directly to the press!

  The governor's announcement that he's appointing someone to the bench is entirely independent of the person being appointed, and is not only a reliable source, but is the best possible source. It's impossible for any other source—such as a newspaper or television news broadcast—to report on such a thing without relying on official sources. Your argument seems to be that both official sources and anything based on them must be excluded from consideration.

  Similarly, the state's official sites indicating who personnel are, what positions they hold or what their terms might be are entitled to be treated as independent of the people listed—nobody is sitting there entering their own name and hoping that no-one notices! It simply makes no sense whatever to disregard all official sources for facts that demonstrate notability: being a state employee does not make the state itself and everything based on what the state says invalid for demonstrating that someone is notable! P Aculeius (talk) 20:24, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  WP:IS explicitly lists press releases from a person's employer as an example of a non-independent source. They're reliable, for sure, and using them to add extra details in an article that also contains multiple genuinely independent sources isn't a problem, but when those are the only types of sources that can be found it becomes a problem: we don't host articles about every person whose appointment is announced by their employers, even if that appointment goes on to be published in local news media. If we did, we would likely have a lot more articles about head teachers, hospital officials and minor public officials than we do. Girth Summit _(blether) 09:35, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  When the governor announces that he's appointed someone to an office, that is absolutely entitled to be treated as an authoritative statement as to the fact of the appointment, irrespective of whether you call it a "press release", and regardless of the fact that the governor is the "employer" of most people in state government. Likewise, a state agency website or directory is authoritative as to the names and terms of its personnel, even though those personnel aren't "independent" of the agency. The idea that you can't cite official sources of information because they're not sufficiently independent is so absurd that it shouldn't even require a reply. P Aculeius (talk) 20:33, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep -- Per WP:NPOL as he served in the West Virginia House of Delegates. Central and Adams (talk) 19:56, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. I opened each and every reference and they are far short of supporting GNG. NPOL isn't a slam dunk it says "Just being an elected local official, or an unelected candidate for political office, does not guarantee notability" - and this is were we're at. Desertarun (talk) 16:10, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  He's not an elected local official, or an unelected candidate for political office, he's an elected state-level politician, and thereby notable per se. Central and Adams (talk) 17:42, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Unless we are going to re-litigate WP:POLOUTCOMES and WP:NPOL, a state legislator is always per se notable. There are enough sources to prove the claims. Bearian (talk) 16:25, 13 May 2024 (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.