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 her election's now been confirmed, so this has to be kept. Updating for conformity with our actual content rules will follow. Bearcat ( talk) 02:28, 8 April 2014 (UTC) reply

Hélène David (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)

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No indication of notability Eye snore ( pc) 06:33, 30 March 2014 (UTC) reply

She's a Canadian Quebec politician and University of Montreal vice-rector, and sister of the Québec Solidaire party leader Francoise David, who has numerous seats in the Quebec provincial legislature. Authored, last time i read in news article, over 200 scientific papers related to psychology and other fields she's engaged in. Nguyễn Quốc Việt ( talk) 07:41, 30 March 2014 (UTC) reply

Per WP:POLITICIAN, a person does not qualify for an article on here just for being a candidate in an election — and per WP:NOTINHERITED, a person doesn't qualify for an article just for being the sister of someone who has an article either. Her career at the Université de Montréal might get her past WP:ACADEMIC if you could properly source the notability of her work as a faculty member at the university — but simply asserting that a person was a faculty member at a university isn't in and of itself sufficient for a Wikipedia article either. Bearcat ( talk) 18:22, 30 March 2014 (UTC) reply

Normally, I would fully agree about that. However, in this particular case, the rationale of this deletion request will almost certainly be moot in eight days, as she's a candidate in the riding of Outremont and thus her election is almost certain. Certainly, it would have been better if the creator of the article had refrained his enthusiasm and waited until next week before creating it. The creation during the election campaign is a bad idea. But it would probably only be useless trouble to delete the article, merely for the principle of it, in seven days from now, on April 6, only to then restore it almost immediately, the next evening, on April 7. -- Asclepias ( talk) 20:28, 30 March 2014 (UTC) reply

Well, for the record, I find that AFD debates are only very rarely closed promptly on the seventh day anymore; typically, they linger for at least a few more than seven days before actually getting dealt with. And, of course, if she does win the election her notability claim and sourceability will have been changed sufficiently that she'll become keepable, and I'll be happy to withdraw my !vote if that happens. However, Wikipedia does not deal in WP:CRYSTAL predictions. No matter how likely or "almost certain" a person's victory may seem, it's not actually unheard of for a "favoured, likely or certain to win" candidate to actually lose the election in the end for one reason or another — see British Columbia general election, 2013, see Brandon—Souris by-election of last fall, see Bradley effect — so we can't keep an article just because somebody asserts that the topic is probably going to win. For our purposes, either they've won or they haven't, and there's no place for the prospects of future victory to skew their notability or lack thereof.

The other danger here is that if we led this slide just because she's "probably" going to win, that has the potential to set an undesirable precedent in which other candidates have to be allowed articles, just because somebody asserts that their victory is probable, if she got to keep hers. We don't want to invite a situation where any political party feels like it can game the system by swamping Wikipedia with campaign brochures for all of its unelected candidates, as long as it does so late enough in the campaign that we'll be obligated to keep them just because of the chronological proximity of election day. So no matter what timing is involved, we have to treat this the same way we'd treat any other article about an as-yet-unelected candidate rather than giving her special treatment. I'd certainly encourage the reviewing admin to leave this open for an extra day or two instead of rushing to close it right away on day 7, if possible — but even if we end up with the article getting deleted and then having to be recreated again within one or two days because she wins the seat after all, then so be it, no matter how silly that may seem. Bearcat ( talk) 22:48, 30 March 2014 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Quebec-related deletion discussions. Vectro ( talk) 16:55, 30 March 2014 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Vectro ( talk) 16:55, 30 March 2014 (UTC) reply

Per WP:POLITICIAN, she'll certainly qualify for an article if she wins the election, but she is not entitled to an article just for being a candidate in it. Delete unless it can be properly sourced that she actually passes WP:ACADEMIC for her work as a university professor. Bearcat ( talk) 18:22, 30 March 2014 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp ( talk) 10:25, 31 March 2014 (UTC) reply

• Delete. I can't see a pass of WP:Prof but am prepared to change my mind with further evidence. Xxanthippe ( talk) 03:14, 1 April 2014 (UTC). reply
• Delete In most cases candidates are not notable. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 21:29, 1 April 2014 (UTC) reply
• Update Dr. David authored about 200 scientific papers. She received the Simone Chouinard Award from the Montreal Heart Institute Research Centre, and the International Cesare Sacerdoti Award from the International Psychoanalytical Association. She's a member of the Quebec College of Psychologists since 1977, served for many years on the Montreal Heart Institute Board of Directors.
• Keep, as per WP:ACADEMIC, David fulfills criteria #2 (won the International Cesare Sacerdoti Award from International Psychoanalytical Association), criteria #7 (Assistant Deputy Minister for higher education in Ministry of Education, Recreation and Sports (Quebec) under provincial Premier Jean Charest; member of Quebec College of Psychologists since 1977 and former member on the Montreal Heart Institute Board of Directors), and criteria #5 (Deputy Director of U of Montreal's Department of Psychology). If she wins the election tonight, which is almost a guarantee in the heavily- federalist (and virtually opposing all remaining provincial parties other than David's federalist Quebec Liberal Party) constituency of Outremont, Montreal, she fulfills WP:POLITICIAN and even more of a reason to have an article on her on Wikipedia. She has already received significant media coverage in Canadian national media, stemming from her attribute of being a federalist sister of Francoise David, leader of the opposing separatist Québec solidaire party, already fulfilling WP:POLITICIAN. She was on national evening news on the CTV network.

@ Johnpacklambert: i'm not basing the creation of this article merely because she's an electoral candidate, which is ridiculous as they'll be thousands of these random unknown people in Canada. Nguyễn Quốc Việt ( talk) 21:22, 7 April 2014 (UTC) @ Xxanthippe: Hola, i've just added additional details on her academic and political background in the "Update" section and in my response. Nguyễn Quốc Việt ( talk) 11:39, 2 April 2014 (UTC) reply

The only cites I can find on GS are 123, 34, 19, 61, 54, 14, 11 .... (you might have got these yourself). Not really enough to pass WP:Prof#C1. Xxanthippe ( talk) 21:32, 2 April 2014 (UTC). reply

It's not enough to say "the topic was a notable academic, so we have to keep", if the sourcing isn't there to verify that she's notable as an academic. The only source that you've actually added at all for her academic career is her faculty profile on the university's own website, which is a primary source that cannot demonstrate notability. Rather, all of the article's reliable sources are specifically about her candidacy, and thus fail to give her sufficient notability as of right now. If she's notable enough as a university professor to get past WP:ACADEMIC, that would be demonstrated by reliable secondary sourcing about her academic career, and not just by asserting any particular number of papers authored without sourcing the fact (or by articles about her political candidacy which just mention her career as an academic by way of background). So it's certainly possible that she does actually pass a notability guideline for other reasons, but what you've written and sourced here fails to properly demonstrate that.

And as already noted, if she does win the election and thereby get through the WP:POLITICIAN door, then the article can and will be recreated given that her notability claim will have substantively changed — an AFD discussion does not mean that the subject can never have an article, it just means that they're not entitled to keep the particular version of the article that existed at the time of the deletion discussion. We have lots of articles that got deleted via AFD at one point in time, but then became recreatable at a later date because their notability changed — a deleted "campaign brochure" article about a candidate can be recreated if and when they actually win the election. A deleted "publicity machine" article about an emerging musician can be recreated if and when they actually release their debut album and it becomes a hit and wins a Grammy Award for "best new artist". And on and so forth.

But what we don't do is keep articles about people who aspire to surpass our notability guidelines, but have not actually done so yet, just because that might happen in the future. We don't speculate on our article topics' prospects of making it over the notability bar in the future; we only keep articles about people who have already cleared the bar. And that includes making assumptions about how likely it is that a candidate will win the election — Outremont's federal counterpart used to be a hypersafe Liberal stronghold too, where you could make the same argument that a new Liberal candidate was automatically notable enough for an article just because their eventual win was that inevitable. Until the time it suddenly got won by a party that, according to conventional wisdom, had no chance of ever winning any seat in the province at all, let alone that one. It may indeed be that she'll win the election in the end — and if she does, then she'll certainly qualify for an article when that happens — but Wikipedia does not deal in election predictions, so a candidate does not become notable enough for an article until the ballots have been counted and they did win the election. Bearcat ( talk) 14:44, 3 April 2014 (UTC) reply

Who are you addressing? Xxanthippe ( talk) 22:07, 3 April 2014 (UTC). reply

Nguyễn Quốc Việt. Also known as the person who made the assertions that I responded to...and the person to whom my comment was already correctly threaded, indentwise, as a response. Bearcat ( talk) 23:58, 3 April 2014 (UTC) reply

Thanks. Xxanthippe ( talk) 01:11, 4 April 2014 (UTC). reply

• Delete She doesn't pass our guidelines for WP:POLITICIAN nor WP:ACADEMIC at this time. Let's see what the future holds. Besides, the article itself would have to be totally rewritten to a short boring stub to rid of the promotional electoral jibber jabber on it. SarahStierch ( talk) 16:52, 6 April 2014 (UTC) reply

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  —  Crisco 1492 ( talk) 09:38, 7 April 2014 (UTC) reply

• Tentative keep assuming her win can be verified in the next 48 hours. Bearian ( talk) 20:08, 7 April 2014 (UTC) reply
• Guaranteed Keep - ELECTED. Nguyễn Quốc Việt ( talk) 00:24, 8 April 2014 (UTC) reply
  • 29 polls out of 152 reporting as of right now, so hold your horses. Seats have flipped back unexpectedly even with a strong lead at 29/150, so Wikipedia waits until the numbers are done. I'm not saying that will happen here; I'm just saying — like I did before — that Wikipedia is not in the business of publishing predictions. Trust me, as well, that I'll personally close the discussion when it's over — but it's not over until 152/152. Bearcat ( talk) 00:36, 8 April 2014 (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.