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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 delete. Little point in redirecting to Gerald Walpin; the question of whether he is notable is not for this AfD. This article is a fairly unremarkable news article (WP:NOTNEWS), and more problematically is clearly a WP:COATRACK; it was only created and only exists as a criticism of Obama. User:SarekOfVulcan put it best - "Once there's actually some investigation that shows he acted improperly, or this blows up into something on the scale of the White House Travel Office firings, then it's notable enough for an article". Very few of the Keep arguments hold any water - once the obvious SPAs are dismissed, most of them boil down to "well, there are a lot of sources" - yes, news stories tend to have news sources writing about them, but that doesn't mean they're encyclopedic - and bare WP:ITSNOTABLE arguments. At the moment, we have an article on Gerald Walpin - this article doesn't need to exist alongside that, and indeed, in its present form, clearly shouldn't. Black Kite 22:08, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Gerald Walpin firing

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Gerald Walpin firing (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

The article is essentially serving as a coatrack for a "criticism of barack Obama" style of article, which has been rejected in the past. Yes there are reliable sources that make note of the firing itself, but little in the way of there being an outright "controversy". There is nothing controversial about other politicians questioning a firing; it is a routine of Washington politics. There are many unreliable sources stoking the "controversy" fires, but they cannot be used in Wikipedia articles. So, absent a notable controversy, the firing in and of itself fails notability guidelines. And article on Gerald Walpin alone would likely fail WP:BLP1E, so there is really nothing salvageable here. This is a criticism article that couldn't be shoehorned anywhere else, hence the coatrack observation Tarc (talk) 15:52, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • I support keeping the article (but refocusing away from a bio), so that's not the point. But hot-button AfDs like this one typically attract many "new" users who are really vote-stacking socks or products of canvassing on external web sites. If you're the 1 out of 10 new user in an AfD who's legit, then I got it wrong. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:31, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - This is a nice example of Recentism. OK on Wikinews, but in a real encyclopedia, its only use is as a coatrack for pushing anti-Obama POV. I know that "Other crap exists" is no argument, but in this case it is more like "a lot more crap like this WILL exist". We do not really need hundreds of articles more to be patrolled against Obama bashing vandals.--Paul Pieniezny (talk) 12:50, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, BUT keep as an article about Gerald Walpin. Whether or not the firing becomes article-worthy remains to be seen. Walpin, however, seems to be of sufficiently important position to warrant an article regardless. So redirect it and rewrite it, I suppose. --User:AlbertHerring Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla! 19:43, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weakest of weak keeps at the moment, the nominator is right about this being a coatrack. However, the person may be notable not only for his firing, but for his position too. If kept, the article must with all due expediency focus on his life, not the firing. Sceptre (talk) 23:39, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think the better course is to rename the article something like 2009 inspector general dismissal controversy and focus on the firing controversy, not this person's life. Then it's clearly not a coatrack, but instead a description of a political controversy. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:43, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Absolutely not. I abhor "controversy" articles, especially on something like this which is bound to reach "no-one really cares" levels within the next few news cycles. Sceptre (talk) 23:52, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Controversy articles are merited once the matter reaches the level of official investigation, such as White House travel office controversy or Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy for example. It remains to be seen whether this IG dismissal matter gets that far, hence my 'weak' on the 'keep'. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:00, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • And Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. If this does reach an official investigation, I think that it would be time for a controversy article. But really, "controversy" and "criticism" articles are an endemic problem on the encyclopedia because they're magnets for crap content that wouldn't pass in a normal article. Sceptre (talk) 00:08, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • Regarding "Politican John Smith controversies" articles, I'm in 100% agreement; I'm the guy who helped lead the flushing of all of them out of the 2008 presidential candidate BLPs. But articles about government ethics controversies, scandals or investigations, that's a whole different matter. Usually the only way that these can be handled in enough depth to be clear and fair is to have a separate article for them. As a pragmatic matter, in a case like this I think a separate article is the best way to collect information as it happens and keep the pressure off articles where inclusion of the matter would lead to undue weighting. If the controversy fizzles out then the article can be boiled down and merged into somewhere else. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:25, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
              • The problem is, it's a grey area. Obviously, we need to cover Watergate; and obviously, we don't need to cover Mustardgate or Flygate; but there's a line in the middle. And personally, I think most editors set the line too near Mustardgate for my liking. Sceptre (talk) 00:41, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
                • Yes, it is a grey line. When it comes to bogus controversies about personal and cultural behavior that the professional bloviators carry on about, I say skip it. When it comes to government ethics, accusations of firing watchdogs etc, if there's even reasonable chance of substance to it I tend to be old school and want to cover it, regardless of who's in power or the motives of those making the charges. But I grew up during Nixon and tend to be instinctively in favor of investigations.... Wasted Time R (talk) 00:52, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect and merge with Gerald Walpin. It remains unclear if this will still be considered a major controversy after it has passed. I suggest making a biographical article on the former IG (see for example Janet Rehnquist).--– sampi (talk•contrib•email) 04:36, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete There is no justification for a whole article on the firing: if it is considered notable it should be a mention in another article. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:34, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete An article on Walpin himself may be needed (but perhaps not, given the length of the article of the office itself), but if the subject himself wasn't notable for an article before the "controversy," then a weak article on just the controversy is superfluous. Grunge6910 (talk) 14:53, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or Merge This is more of a coatrack issue and should either be renamed into an article on the man, if he is notable, or deleted. Brothejr (talk) 18:07, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep The article needs some work. But there is lots of very substantial coverage of the subject in reliable sources. Improving the article should be the focus, rather than the calls for censorship from the usual crowd. ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:31, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Who has called for censorship? JamesBWatson (talk) 20:36, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No-one. CoM has this delusion that Wikipedia is trying to censor anything anti-Obama. Sceptre (talk) 01:59, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That would be the right title forthe single necessary article nonetheless. It should have been written that way from the start. DGG (talk) 06:02, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This will be the latest she said/he said battle between conservatives and the Obama administration as all players jockey for positions in the ever-increasing politics games with the 2010 US election cycle heating up. Conservatives, who seem to just need to find something to smear Obama with are talking this up big time - scandal! tax payer funds! etc. - to little effect besides volume. For that reason alone we likely should keep this here so there is a repository not on either Johnson or Walpin's BLPs. I'm sure this is the umpteenth "Obama scandal" whereever we're housing all those. The lead as of this writing is fine and can serve as a reasonable stub and eventually this could certainly be a good article as it's notable enough and many reliable sources besides opinion pieces exist. Certainly should be policed for coatracking and POV-pushing issues but the basic nugget is fine here. -- Banjeboi 11:51, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Maybe I should say "weak merge," but there doesn't seem to be very much useful NPOV information in the article as it is now. The article currently is a clear coatrack of editorial opinion, but that could be fixed through editing if there were a reason to do so. But there is no reason that this should be a separate subject from the biography (especially given that the biography is merely two paragraphs). --Loonymonkey (talk) 20:56, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • This article was created first. The biography article was only created later, as a redirect to this article. The fact that there was no biography article before this article was creatred is because this person is notable for one event. The article should be about the event, not the person. Grundle2600 (talk) 00:20, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete For the moment, it's an attempt to make Obama look bad. Once there's actually some investigation that shows he acted improperly, or this blows up into something on the scale of the White House Travel Office firings, then it's notable enough for an article -- for now, see WP:NOTNEWS. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 04:50, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • It has already been verified in the sources that Obama acted improperly. The law says he must give a notification and explanation 30 days before the firing. As Senator, Obama even voted for the law. He did not give 30 days notice before the firing. And he still hasn't cited any specific action by Walpin that justifies the firing. Grundle2600 (talk) 00:20, 24 June 2009 (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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