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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. Spartaz Humbug! 02:35, 26 March 2018 (UTC) reply

Catalina Cruz (politician) (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)
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WP:BLP of a person whose main claim of encyclopedic notability is being an as yet unelected candidate in a forthcoming election. As always, this is not a notability claim that gets a person into Wikipedia in and of itself -- if you cannot demonstrate and properly source that she was already notable enough for a Wikipedia article before standing as an election candidate, then she has to win the seat, not just run for it, to become notable as a politician. But this does not properly demonstrate that she has preexisting notability for other reasons: apart from the campaign-related coverage itself, this is otherwise referenced entirely to primary sources (e.g. the self-published websites and press releases of organizations she's been directly involved with, pieces of her own writing, etc.) and glancing namechecks of her existence as a provider of soundbite in articles about other things, not to coverage about her. No prejudice against recreation on or after election day if she wins, but nothing here entitles her to keep a campaign brochure on Wikipedia in the meantime. Update: I'm also comfortable with the userfy alternative proposed below, if consensus leans that way. Bearcat ( talk) 18:12, 18 March 2018 (UTC) reply

  • Delete for the above reasons. I have checked the impressive array of references and agree with Bearcat's assessment: There's some coverage of her candidacy, usually in local news, several sources that don't meet our standards of reliability and independence, and a few name-drops. Unelected candidates are generally not notable, and there's no indication that Cruz is. If we had an article on the New York State Assembly election we could redirect thereto, but we don't. Huon ( talk) 19:23, 18 March 2018 (UTC) reply
  • Delete for the above reasons. At first glance this article looks like it might meet GNG because there are so many sources. However, upon closer examination, these sources do not establish notability because none of them are independent reliable sources that give her significant coverage (and I couldn't find any). The majority of the sources contain the same trivial, passing information regarding her candidacy. The article has been recently tweaked to focus on activism but there's nothing out there aside from local articles mentioning her in passing. Ca2james ( talk) 20:27, 18 March 2018 (UTC) reply
  • Delete and Userfy per nom as well as: "Candidates who ran but never were elected for a national legislature or other national office are not viewed as having inherent notability and are often deleted or merged into lists of campaign hopefuls." (from WP:POLOUTCOMES). There are notable reliable sources on this topic, so I'd support condensing it into the article about the election she is running in. Support userfying until election results. Vermont | reply here 01:51, 19 March 2018 (UTC) reply
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. MT Train Talk 04:37, 19 March 2018 (UTC) reply
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Bearcat ( talk) 18:03, 20 March 2018 (UTC) reply
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions. MT Train Talk 04:37, 19 March 2018 (UTC) reply


  • Keep This AfD is a retaliatory action made by Huon. He has been clear about that but it doesn't make it any less of a retaliatory action. This is not acceptable behavior no matter how much he tries to justify it on the Talk page.
I went to the #Wikipedia-en-help IRC channel for assistance on some disambiguation questions. Beyond the fact that only half of my questions were answered, with me repeating the questions more than once, Huon did not focus on the question. Instead he took it upon himself to over-step and fixate on notability. This precedence of "dinging" editors (newbie or experienced editors like myself) by not answering their questions but instead attacking the article is unacceptable. It inhibits people from asking questions. I know I will NEVER use the IRC channel. Huon by his actions has proven it is a place of retaliation. It is not a safe space to learn and ask questions. I used to always recommend the IRC channel to new editors. I think it's clear that it is absolutely the WORST place for both new editors and experienced editors alike. So that is the background of this action here. And it is pretty clear that most of the commenters here are friends with Huon. So that is another issue that is also not okay. Beyond the fact that when I did not agree with Huon's edits on the entry's Talk page, Huon threatened to AfD the article. Which he did. MORE retaliatory behavior. All of these unethical decisions, it is why contributing editors such as myself who actually add content versus deleting and admin-ing have such a hard time. And editor retention is low. So great job of fulfilling that remit. You have succeeded.
As far as this article, specifically, it seems that no one has evaluated the article accurately. I reworked the article significantly this afternoon, which I think made it even better at establishing notability. Cruz has established a very long-term focus on immigration rights at a very visible high level. She has worked with Cuomo and has developed an expertise in immigration reform that comes from her also notable experience as a DREAMer who is unique because she has had this successful career (and is only 35) but also because she is a DREAMer running for public office this fall.
As far as the citations go, 20 citations have survived Ca2james typical nitpicking and unconstructive uncollaborative approach to editing. All he does is delete versus adding and improving content. In the process he deleted 10 citations. 10! 10 carefully curated citations that supported notability of the subject. I build this page carefully and there were 30 citations, now only 20. He took one third of the citations off the page. How on earth is that improving Wikipedia?!? He is a menace. So thanks for that.
But really the assessment that the citations are not about Cruz are the problem. The assessment reflects a bias against Spanish-language sources. El Diario is not notable? El Espectador, the largest newspaper in Colombia, is not notable? NY1 is not notable, when it is at the forefront of state and local politics. For that matter, the local Queens newspaper sources are all notable, but then again if you don't take the time to do due diligence on this you wouldn't know that. You are all wrong here, and haven't watched the video interviews and read the cover story because they are in Spanish. This is a multi-lingual area of Queens, one of the most diverse boroughs, especially in the region where Cruz lives. It would be incorrect to not include both English and Spanish sources. This is clear. The statements above reflect clear bias against a multi-lingual set of citations. I live in NYC. I know these sources are the local news sources that cover both state and local politics. So it's clear that editors here lack that ability to see this.
I have no expectation this article will survive AfD but the subject is notable and I have done my job. She will win the election -- an 'actual election not the jive district no election current situation -- and in the fall I will be restoring this entry.
Also, Ca2james needs to stop stalking my edits and harassing me. It is unacceptable behavior and he refuses to stop. It is personal and the free digital labor I am contributing at great time and effort is being attacked out of bounds to acceptable behavior. It causes me great stress and the end result is he weakens articles and doesn't make any attempt to collaborate or work with anyone except himself. I have asked him to stop and he won't. It needs to stop. He needs to work on other pages and stop fixating on the work I am doing. -- Erika aka BrillLyle ( talk) 05:17, 19 March 2018 (UTC) reply
It appears the nominator of the AfD is someone I am confident had nothing to do with the editing dispute you had with the page, as they frequently AfD articles about politicians who do not pass WP:NPOL, or who do not appear to pass WP:NPOL. No one is arguing for not including Spanish-language sources: simply, Wikipedia only includes politicians who have won an election or politicians who otherwise pass WP:GNG. Cruz does not pass WP:GNG yet by my estimation, and she has not won her seat yet; therefore, this article is WP:TOOSOON. SportingFlyer talk 05:43, 19 March 2018 (UTC) reply
Huon was not the nominator here; I was. And yes, of course the article can be recreated if and when she wins — if that happens, then her notability claim will obviously have changed. Wikipedia deletion discussions are not so much a matter of never, as of not yet: a person whose article was previously deleted can absolutely be recreated in the future if and when they have a stronger notability claim than they did the first time, such as a candidate who goes on to actually win the election in the end. But we don't keep an article about a not yet elected candidate just because somebody predicts that she'll win — per WP:CRYSTAL, we keep or delete articles on the basis of what's already true today, not on the basis of predictions about what might become true in the future. If she doesn't already satisfy a notability standard today, then we delete the article today and then permit recreation if and when things change. Bearcat ( talk) 17:42, 20 March 2018 (UTC) reply
  • Comment - As there is a good chance of this subject winning election in the fall, if this closes a Delete I would favor the content being userfied to the creator so that they may continue to work on the piece. Carrite ( talk) 06:15, 19 March 2018 (UTC) reply
  • Comment I did an advanced search for this article name on all namespaces (excluding File and File Talk) and there are two other versions of this article: one in Draft space that was twice rejected and one in User space. It's unclear whether the mainspace article was based on the Draft article, but it appears that the user space version was copied and pasted from a version of the mainspace article (which will create an attribution/history/copyright problem if that article is later moved to mainspace). I'm not sure what should happen with the other versions of the mainspace article but thought I should bring it up for the closer to deal with. I do support userification if the outcome here is Delete. Ca2james ( talk) 17:02, 19 March 2018 (UTC) reply
  • Userfy if closed as delete, which is a very reasonable thing to do. talk to !dave 18:12, 19 March 2018 (UTC) reply
Support Vermont | reply here 21:54, 19 March 2018 (UTC) reply
  • Keep On behalf User Group Wikimedians of Colombia, and the Chapter-to-be Wikimedia Colombia, we support keeping the article. We are very worry about the deletion of this well documented article of a relevant woman. Measuring relevance of underrepresented people, as woman, DREAMers or Latinos is not easy, because their voices has being invisibilized; What Catalina Cruz represent is very important, and that's why she notably appeared in some of the most widespread newspapers in Colombia, so reliable sources. As an example of what a DREAMer, a woman and a latina can do in politics, this article should be keeped. Do not invisiblize Catalina. -- Sahaquiel9102 ( talk) 15:22, 20 March 2018 (UTC) reply
Wikipedia does not keep inadequately sourced articles about people who haven't passed a notability standard just because they happen to be members of underrepresented groups — whether people deserve more coverage than they're getting or not, it is not our role to help them rectify that by creating special carve-outs from our inclusion standards just because of a person's gender or sexuality or ethnic background. Our notability standards for politicians require the holding of office, not mere candidacy for it, and nothing else here would have gotten her a Wikipedia article before becoming a candidate — and the Colombian media coverage still has to clear the same standards as the New Yorkian media coverage: one of them is just candidacy-related coverage that doesn't help get a candidate over GNG in and of itself, and in the other one she's merely quoted as a giver of soundbite in an article about something other than her, so those aren't notability-boosting sources. Bearcat ( talk) 17:36, 20 March 2018 (UTC) reply
It would be great if you stopped displaying your cultural bias here, Bearcat. The article is very adequately sourced. She meets notability. The Colombian newspaper is the largest paper in Colombia, and was a cover story. The other Spanish-only language articles support notability, as does the extensive and long NY1 Spanish language TV interview. Cruz has an established history as an immigration activist, which is supported by citations. She worked for Cuomo multiple times, was the person who implemented the identification card system in New York City. If anything the article is over-sourced. This is an obvious vendetta against articles about people who are seeking election. It is fine if that is what this is, but the cultural bias represented here -- with possible shades of being against the article because she is a woman too -- is wrong. And the false accusation this article is not properly sourced is patently inaccurate. It is obvious that this collective in concert effort will delete the page but let's not be inaccurate or disingenuous about what is happening here. This article meets notability. It has 30 good citations. More than most starting articles. I won't sit here and let this mischaracterization of the creation of this article stand. And yes, this is a hostile approach to editing. If I was a new editor I wouldn't continue editing. Hide behind your WIKI:Rulez all you want but this so-called work all of you are doing is not helping the editing community and it is definitely not helping to improve diversity on Wikipedia. Don't hide behind that here. It's inaccurate. -- Erika aka BrillLyle ( talk) 20:35, 20 March 2018 (UTC) reply
I am displaying no cultural bias whatsoever, and neither do I hold women to a different notability standard than I hold men. Nowhere did I say that the language of a source is relevant to whether it supports notability or not. For one thing, I use other-language sources all the damn time myself when I can find appropriate ones that properly support notability — I've used Spanish and French and German language sources myself on numerous occasions, in fact. What makes the Colombian sources a problem is not that they're in Spanish, it's that one of them is directly candidacy-related while the other one just namechecks her existence in an article that isn't about her. And no, a man wouldn't get an article just for being a candidate in an election either. There is no bias here on my part — I performed a good faith evaluation of the sources, and found them lacking. They are not demonstrating her preexisting notability as an immigration activist, because all of the sources for that content are either primary sources or glancing namechecks of her existence in coverage of other things — the sources here that are both reliable and substantively about her exist exclusively in the context of an election campaign she hasn't won yet, which is a context where the routine coverage that is merely expected to exist for all candidates does not aid passage of GNG. That is not how you demonstrate a candidate as notable enough, regardless of the candidate's gender or ethnic background. There is no bias involved, because a white man who was sourced the same way wouldn't get a keep vote from me either. Bearcat ( talk) 21:02, 20 March 2018 (UTC) reply
  • Delete Cruz is far below the threshold for notability. I would also point out that the article can be highly questioned on use of language that is hardly NPOV. Lastly, the role of Wikipedia is not to right great wrongs. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 01:20, 21 March 2018 (UTC) reply
  • Delete as is consistent with other candidates for office who did not previously have a claim to notability. It is disturbing that claims of notability are being made based on gender, race, ethnicity, and country of origin. None of these are things that should be even considered when assessing notability. It also does not matter that she worked with Governor Cuomo, since notability is WP:NOTINHERETED-- Rusf10 ( talk) 21:35, 24 March 2018 (UTC) reply
    • Every point made in this argument above is factually inaccurate. — BrillLyle ( talk) 13:36, 25 March 2018 (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.