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. – Juliancolton |  ^Talk 02:54, 20 April 2017 (UTC) reply

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

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Local politician lacking in-depth, non-trivial support. Fails, WP:POLITICIAN and WP:N. reddogsix ( talk) 14:30, 3 April 2017 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. North America ¹⁰⁰⁰ 15:36, 3 April 2017 (UTC) reply

• Wait Article is fairly new, sources proving NPOLitician could be produced. If not produced in 48 hours, Delete L3X1 (distant write) 15:42, 3 April 2017 (UTC) reply
• Keep. Parrish has a lot of name recognition in this area (largely due to his well-known father, Harry J. Parrish, plus his own long tenure as mayor) and he has run in two important elections, the very pivotal Virginia's 29th Senate district election, 2015, which attracted millions of dollars in campaign donations and involvement by Terry McAuliffe and Hillary Clinton in supporting Parrish's opponent; and Virginia's 50th House of Delegates district election, 2017, which Democrats are eyeing as one of their more promising pickup opportunities. I think the news coverage of him has been more than trivial. N I H I L I S T I C ( talk) 15:46, 3 April 2017 (UTC) reply
• Delete, without prejudice against recreation if somebody can put the emphasis where it belongs. A person does not get a Wikipedia article just for being a candidate in an election — either you show and properly source that he was already eligible for a Wikipedia article for some other reason independent of his candidacy, or he has to win the election, not just run in it, to clear the bar because of the election itself. Campaign coverage, further, does not assist a candidate for office in clearing GNG just for the candidacy — all candidates for office always garner campaign coverage, so such coverage is WP:ROUTINE, not notability-building. If campaign coverage built notability in and of itself, we would always have to keep an article about every single candidate for any office at all. But we don't do that.
  Accordingly, in order for Parrish to get an article today, the substance and the sourceability would have to be shifted onto his role as mayor of Manassas — and even then, Manassas is not large enough that he would get an automatic presumption of notability for that in the absence of a demonstrated WP:GNG pass, so there aren't grounds for an automatic "keep because mayor" either. I'm willing to withdraw this if the substance and the weight sourcing are transferred onto his mayoralty — but until that actually happens, nothing present in this version of the article qualifies him to keep it now. Bearcat ( talk) 19:24, 3 April 2017 (UTC) reply

I don't think that's what WP:ROUTINE is talking about. They seem to be referring more to a kind of situation in which an article is devoted almost entirely to the other candidate and then, at the end, says, "Oh, by the way, Hal Parrish is also running." Or when a newspaper has a list of candidates and includes him just for the sake of completeness. That's not what's going on in the news coverage of Parrish; they're covering him more in depth. N I H I L I S T I C ( talk) 21:50, 3 April 2017 (UTC) reply

No, that's not how ROUTINE works. What you're describing is what we call "namecheck" coverage, where his existence is acknowledged but he isn't the subject of the source — but that's not the same thing as "routine" coverage. "Routine" coverage is coverage that's simply expected to exist regardless of enduring notability or lack thereof, such as election candidates getting covered in the context of the election campaign they're running in (which is simply expected to always exist for all candidates, whether notable or not, in any election for any office), or trying to stake somebody's notability on the fact that they have a paid-inclusion birth, marriage or death notice in a newspaper's "births/marriages/deaths" section (which anybody, whether notable or not, can get just by placing one).

For a political candidate to be deemed notable on here because campaign coverage in and of itself, what that coverage would have to do is demonstrate that he's significantly more notable than the norm for an unelected candidate. I call it the Christine O'Donnell test, other people have other names for it, but it's the same principle no matter what: the coverage that was available about her nationalized, to a volume wildly out of proportion to what an unelected candidate could normally and routinely be expected to receive, so the sheer volume of coverage carried her over WP:GNG regardless of her not actually having a claim to passing WP:NPOL. But most candidates for most offices do not clear that bar, because the coverage that's available about them is just what's expected to always be available for any person in that context — and that is what ROUTINE is talking about.

Simply put, it's not our job to be a repository of campaign brochures for political hopefuls — our job is to be a source of information about holders of notable political offices, not a public relations database about everybody who ever ran for one. Bearcat ( talk) 15:03, 4 April 2017 (UTC) reply

Okay, well, by the standard you're describing, Sara Townsend and Elizabeth Guzman wouldn't be notable. Of the three, Hal Parrish probably has the strongest claim to notability, but if we're going to say that he's not notable unless he rises to Christine O'Donnell levels of national fame, then yeah, he doesn't make the cut either. (Then again, by that standard, neither does Jeremy McPike, because he's not as famous as Christine O'Donnell either; he just happens to get an article because he meets WP:POLITICIAN criterion #1.) Parrish did get an unusual amount of media attention for a state legislative candidate in 2015, but that's all that can be said. Parrish probably does meet criterion #2, although barely. I just say that because Manassas, even though it has a small population, has outsized importance historically and culturally, and because of its status as the seat of Prince William County, one of the more important northern Virginia counties.

(Speaking of campaign brochures, most of the articles for incumbent state politicians read like campaign brochures, because the politicians' supporters seem to be more active in editing those articles than their detractors. So if the goal was to avoid having a bunch of articles with a spammy tone, Wikipedia fell short. Hopefully the articles about districts will allow for some more balanced coverage.) N I H I L I S T I C ( talk) 15:40, 4 April 2017 (UTC) reply

Just to be clear, I did specify above that Parrish may be able to be deemed notable per WP:NPOL #2, if the balance of substance and sourcing can be shifted onto his mayoralty of Manassas rather than his candidacy for the state legislature. The city isn't large enough that being its mayor would get him an automatic keep just on the basis of one or two sources that nominally confirmed that he held the mayoralty — but if an article about a mayor has a reasonable amount of substance and sourcing, then the size of the city is no longer relevant to his includability. The city size test for a mayor only applies when we're having to judge the improvability prospects of an article that isn't adequate in its current state — if an article about a mayor has genuinely solid substance and sourcing, however, then the size of the city doesn't actually matter anymore. So yes, there is a chance of this article becoming keepable, if it's revised into a reasonably substantive article that actually contains and sources meaningful content about his term as mayor, instead of just stating that he was a mayor and then going on to primarily be about other things that have nothing to do with that. Bearcat ( talk) 16:03, 4 April 2017 (UTC) reply

• Undecided. As Bearcat says, it might be possible to put together a sufficient article with sources from earlier in his career. We would need secondary sources for his birth, education, and so forth. And, well, more. Feel free to ping me to reconsider if someone upgrades it. However, article creator and other Parrish supporters are cautioned to be careful what they wish for. If article stays, Democrats will have an equal right to edit, and anything oppo can properly source will be on the page. E.M.Gregory ( talk) 14:52, 5 April 2017 (UTC) reply

I'm more of an inclusionist than a Parrish supporter. N I H I L I S T I C ( talk) 15:11, 5 April 2017 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 01:44, 10 April 2017 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Virginia-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 01:44, 10 April 2017 (UTC) reply

• Delete The subject is name-checked in a CNN article and a Newsweek article, but has little coverage independent of his electoral campaigns. In addition, Manassas, Virginia is a council-manager form of government, and is less than 50,000 in population, two markers that do not lead to the presumption of notability under WP:POLITICIAN. -- Enos733 ( talk) 13:21, 18 April 2017 (UTC) reply
• Delete if Parrish gets elected to the House of Delegates he will be notable, until then he is not. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 23:58, 19 April 2017 (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.