Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marcel Van Goolen

Marcel Van Goolen

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Biography of a recently deceased mayor. While he was important in his town I can’t find any sources saying he was elected to provincial or federal positions that would make him notable. Mccapra (talk) 21:48, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Mccapra (talk) 21:48, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Belgium-related deletion discussions. Mccapra (talk) 21:48, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep According to the rationale of the nominator he want to delete the article because he "can’t find any sources saying he was elected to provincial or federal positions". However, Wikipedia (WP:GNG) is not about importance but about coverage. It's doesn't matter if it's local, national of internationa coverage; as long it is reliable and independent. Van Goolen had a lot of coverage in secondary independent reliable sources. And besides of the sources in the article, he will have much of the coverage in offline sources; for instance he was interviewed in the VRT talk show Saffloer over de Vloer on 22 May 1990 (see here). SportsOlympic (talk) 09:49, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Interviewed on talk show" doesn't help to make him notable. Notability is not established by sources in which he's doing the speaking, it's established by sources in which he's the subject that other people are speaking or writing about. Bearcat (talk) 01:21, 8 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Passes WP:GNG as current news coverage such as [1][2][3][4][5][6] seems enough to qualify general notability guidelines. I also agree with SportsOlympic, (WP:GNG) is not about importance but about coverage. Jaysonsands (talk) 11:04, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment If he had been elected to a federal or provincial body he would certainly be notable. For mayors the situation is less clear. Recent AfD outcomes for mayors have reinforced the consensus that most mayors are not notable; those in charge of major world cities are and others might be for one reason or another, but not just because they were a mayor. It is also presumed that all mayors and other elected office holders will get some press coverage, do interviews etc. But WP:NPOL makes clear that this isn’t enough to make them notable, otherwise more or less all elected local officials would be notable, which they aren’t. Mccapra (talk) 20:55, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Of the sources indicated by Jaysonsands all are local except the last one, which I’m afraid I can’t access. Mccapra (talk) 20:58, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Of the sources listed above by Jaysonsands, one is his profile on the self-published website of the town he was mayor of, which is not a notability-supporting source as it isn't independent of him, while all of the others that I can see (I'm having the same problem as Mccapra with the last one) are just multiple repeat hits of "mayor dies" on March 23, 2021. But the notability test for a mayor does not hinge on how many news outlets you can find to have given him one-shot coverage on the day of his death — it hinges on how much career coverage you can find while he was alive, because it has less to do with being able to verify that he existed and far more to do with being able to write a substantive article about his political significance. Specific things he did as mayor, specific effects he had on the development of the city, and on and so forth. Just showing a one-day blip of coverage on the day of his death just makes him a WP:BIO1E, and establishing his notability as a mayor requires much more than that. Bearcat (talk) 01:19, 8 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Being mayor for 3 years of a town with 15,000 people doesn't come close to showing notability as a politician. I don't see the coverage necessary to meet WP:GNG. The coverage of his death is one event and only shows that he existed, neither of which is sufficient to show notability. The last source mentioned by Jaysonsands is a funeral home and lacks the significant independent coverage required to help show notability. All local politicians receive local coverage, but very few are WP notable. Papaursa (talk) 02:18, 8 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Based on the sources we have in front of us, he's not notable as a mayor - the problem with the "not about importance but coverage" argument is that there are some types of articles which get deleted in spite of the fact they receive coverage, basically on WP:AUD grounds, and local politics is one of those areas. However, I ran one of the articles through Google Translate and it appears he was indeed in the Brabant Provincial Legislature in the 1980s. What that means in terms of WP:NPOL, I'm not sure. SportingFlyer T·C 00:04, 11 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - there doesn't seem to be an entity called the "Brabant Provincial Legislature", but there is a "Provincial Council of North Brabant", which the computer translation might be referring to. The issue is what does the term (in my google translate) "successor" mean? I'm not sure they ever served on the provincial council. Without a reference which shows that they did, fails WP:NPOL. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 15:58, 12 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Provincial Council of North Brabant" is a council in the Netherlands, this article is about a Belgian politician. I think you mean the nl: Provincieraadsverkiezingen. SportsOlympic (talk) 11:50, 13 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]