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The result was nomination withdrawn as he won the election before the discussion was closed. Sourcing and content updates are needed, however. Bearcat ( talk) 06:39, 7 November 2014 (UTC) reply

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

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

WP:BLP of a person notable primarily as a mayor of a small (pop. 5K) town and as an unelected candidate for election to the state legislature. These are not claims of notability that get a person over WP:NPOL — mayors of big cities pass it while mayors of small towns don't, whereas a state assembly candidate must win, not merely run in, the election to claim notability on that basis. Further, this article as written is relying predominantly on primary sources — his own biography on the city's website, the websites of organizations mentioned in the text, etc. — rather than reliable ones, and the number of legitimate sources here is not sufficient to claim WP:GNG. No prejudice against recreation in November if he wins the seat — but in the meantime this is effectively a campaign brochure, which is exactly the kind of article that Wikipedia's notability standards for politicians are designed to weed out. Delete. Bearcat ( talk) 23:35, 17 October 2014 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Jinkinson talk to me 23:48, 17 October 2014 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. Jinkinson talk to me 23:48, 17 October 2014 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 01:00, 18 October 2014 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of video game-related deletion discussions. ( G· N· B· S· RS· Talk) • Gene93k ( talk) 01:02, 18 October 2014 (UTC) reply

• Delete Not notable as a politican and lacks the coverage required by the GNG. 131.118.229.17 ( talk) 20:59, 21 October 2014 (UTC) reply

• Keep Subject is notable outside of just running for California State Assembly and being a Mayor of a small city. A quick google search, news search, books search, and google scholar search all produce more than enough hits/results confirming notability. The article does need more references, which are available, but that is not any reason to delete it. Meatsgains ( talk) 04:37, 22 October 2014 (UTC) reply

Google Scholar gets a whopping five hits, of which three are archives of the university newspaper at the university he graduated from (not a source that can confer notability) and the other two are just cursory, non-substantive passing mentions. Basic Google search brings up his own campaign literature and social networking links; Google News search brings up campaign coverage and nothing else. So if he's notable for anything other than being a smalltown mayor and an unelected assembly candidate, it would help immeasurably if you'd actually explain and properly source something he's notable for. Bearcat ( talk) 07:15, 29 October 2014 (UTC) reply

@ Bearcat: Go ahead and take a look at the recent reliable sources I added to the page, of which don't deal with his campaign. Perhaps this article or this article are notable and deserve mentioning in the BLP, giving Obernolte more notability.

Below are some of the reliable sources I added (none touching on his campaign):

• No Regrets: The Life of an American Martial Artist
• Forbes
• Nintendo Life
• Racing Jets
• Plane and Pilot Mag

Still not notable? How many RS are you wanting? Meatsgains ( talk) 18:12, 29 October 2014 (UTC) reply

Reliable sourcing does not mean you can just add any web page that happens to have his name in it — it has to be substantive coverage of a significant and notable achievement in a specific range of acceptable media sources. But these all fail one or more of those conditions: No Regrets simply mentions his name a single time in a single paragraph about his private, personal and non-encyclopedic hobby of martial arts. He's not the subject of the Forbes article; it's about an airplane manufacturing company, and he merely happens to be mentioned briefly as a person who happens to own one of their planes. Nintendo Life is an interview with him, but it's a core principle of AFD that interviews with the topic cannot demonstrate their notability — they're acceptable for additional sourcing of facts after you've added enough sources to cover off his basic notability, but because of their self-promotional aspects they cannot count toward the establishment of his notability. Racing Jets is just a promotional blurb on the website of an organization he's directly involved with, not coverage in media — it's a primary source. And Pilot Journal is only covering him in the context of the private plane.

So none of those sources demonstrate that he warrants an article in an encyclopedia. All they've added is "does martial arts" and "owns a private plane", neither of which is a reason why a person gets an encyclopedia article — so you still haven't demonstrated that he's notable for anything besides being a small-town mayor and unelected candidate. Bearcat ( talk) 19:40, 29 October 2014 (UTC) reply

Okay, thank you for your explanation and insight. Would the CNN article/event I noted add to his notability or would that fall under WP:ONEEVENT? Also, he is the Founder and President of FarSight Studios, a video game development studio, which seems notable. It would be my suggestion to postpone deletion until after the election is over. If we wins, we keep the article as a California Assemblyman is notable but if he loses, we can delete the article. What do you think? Meatsgains ( talk) 20:10, 29 October 2014 (UTC) reply

The CNN articles still wouldn't really help — he's not their subject, but is merely quoted briefly commenting on the thing that is. The video game studio might certainly get him over our inclusion standards for businesspeople, but leading a company doesn't automatically get a person into Wikipedia either — what would be necessary is significant reliable source coverage in which the video game company itself is the substance of what he's getting covered for. (Mentioning it as background in coverage of the candidacy doesn't satisfy that.)

One other thing it's important to understand about AFD is that a deletion result here is not a permanent ban on the subject ever being allowed to have a Wikipedia article — it's merely a judgement on the specific version of the article that exists at the time of the discussion. If we delete an article about an unelected candidate, and then he goes on to win the election in the end, then his basic notability claim has changed and a new article about him is allowed to be recreated again. If we delete a promotional PR-kit article about a musician who has yet to actually release his first album, but then once he finally does release the album it turns into a big hit and makes him a major celebrity who gets lots of press coverage, then he does get to have an article again. People's basic notability claims can change, the availability of sourcing about them can change, and on and so forth — and if those things happen, then you can start a new article about them again regardless of what AFD has done in the past (the only thing you're not allowed to do is recreate the same version without improving the sourcing or the notability claim.)

And we even have the ability to restore previously deleted articles, so even the work that's already been done here isn't going to be permanently lost if the article does need to be recreated after the election. So we don't postpone consideration of articles about unelected candidates until after the election is over, because deleting it today doesn't preclude recreation or restoration in the future if circumstances change. Bearcat ( talk) 20:50, 29 October 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, Spirit of Eagle ( talk) 04:28, 25 October 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,  Sandstein  10:28, 2 November 2014 (UTC) reply

• Wait or Redirect to article about election per WP:POLOUTCOMES & WP:BIO1E. Subject has received significant coverage from multiple non-primary and secondary reliable sources, however almost all of them are regarding the subject as a candidate for a California Assembly race. Therefore, those fall under notability for a single event, and thus per WP:BIO1E, if the subject of this AfD loses, the appropriate thing is to redirect to the event which the subject is notable for, in this an election. As today is election day here in California, we shall no in the next 24 hours if the subject has been elected, if the subject has the subject is automatically notable as being a member of a sub-national assembly per WP:POLITICIAN, therefore I suggest we wait 24 hours before making any decisions.

As for the links above No Regrets, it is produced by a self-publishing company, thus falls under WP:SPS, and is not notable, the rest are only brief mentions and are not significant coverage. The one that is significant coverage is the interview from NintendoLife, but one interview does not make for notability.-- RightCowLeftCoast ( talk) 13:21, 4 November 2014 (UTC) reply

Appears the subject will likely be meeting WP:POLITICIAN (66.2% of the vote with 14.4% of precinct reporting as of this post), therefore this AfD will be moot soon, and thus the article should be keeped.-- RightCowLeftCoast ( talk) 05:54, 5 November 2014 (UTC) reply

Indeed, it looks like he won after all and I'm accordingly withdrawing this nomination. That said, however, the article still needs to be rewritten to put the weight and the referencing where it belongs — as of right now, two full days after the election results were announced, it still says he's a candidate rather than the member-elect. And also, just for the record, in the future please don't make speculative presumptions based on where the vote stands after just 16.6 per cent of the ballots have been counted; leads can flip as more of the results are tabulated — it has actually really happened, believe it or not, that the person who was trailing at 99.9 per cent of the vote count actually flipped into the lead in the final 0.1 per cent. So just because a person happens to be leading at any given point during the count doesn't necessarily always mean they're guaranteed to win. It doesn't kill anyone on here to wait until all 100 per cent of the votes have been counted. Bearcat ( talk) 06:39, 7 November 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.