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 no consensus. Black Kite ( talk) 10:05, 7 November 2013 (UTC) reply

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

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Does not meet criteria of WP:NPOL (local official). I was unable to find significant coverage in reliable sources outside of the local area. Contested prod. ... discospinster _talk 15:03, 9 October 2013 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 16:49, 9 October 2013 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 16:49, 9 October 2013 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 16:49, 9 October 2013 (UTC) reply

• Delete. City councillors are not generally held to be notable. If he was the first Arab-American councillor in the country then that might be notable, but not in one city. -- Necrothesp ( talk) 15:55, 10 October 2013 (UTC) reply
• Delete All we have is coverage of his being sworn in. We generally avoid creating articles on "firsts" unless we have widespread coverage. In this case that would mean non-local coverage of the fact. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 16:57, 10 October 2013 (UTC) reply
• Delete per past WP:OUTCOMES. While San Jose, California is a large city, it is not in the same category as London or Chicago. I'd be willing to change my mind if others would go along with keeping all the members of the San Jose City Council. Please, convince me. Bearian ( talk) 22:29, 14 October 2013 (UTC) I am convinced by Neil and Cullen's comments below. Keep. Bearian ( talk) 17:44, 23 October 2013 (UTC) reply
• Keep. WP:NPOL is a supplement to the general standard of "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject," so I looked at the sources and found multiple in-depth articles primarily about Khamis (one heuristic: his name's in all the titles) in the San Jose Mercury News ( [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]) and the Contra Costa Times ( [7]), plus plenty of coverage in articles not entirely about him (for example, 49 hits for his name in Mercury-News news articles alone). So I think it's a clear keep.— Neil 06:57, 16 October 2013 (UTC) reply

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

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mark Arsten ( talk) 15:10, 18 October 2013 (UTC) reply

• Keep San Jose is a city of regional importance, by far the largest city in Northern California, and the tenth largest city in the United States. No one seems to doubt the notability of members of an equivalent body, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors which governs a city that is significantly smaller in population. We have biographies of all current and many past members of that body. Although I would challenge notability of city council members in smaller cities that are not of regional importance, in this case, we have significant coverage of the person in reliable sources, some of them many miles away from San Jose. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 18:07, 18 October 2013 (UTC) reply
  • Comment. In this case, I agree with your conclusion, but I don't really get the point of debating how much notability different boards and councils confer on their members. Does it really save any time? It didn't take me long to assess the sources and form a direct opinion about this article, and since I listed what I found, others don't have to duplicate the work. And does it make discussions easier? Would we delete someone with significant, independent coverage just because most Peoria City Councillors aren't notable? Would we keep someone without it just because most San Francisco Supervisors are? I wouldn't think so, but otherwise I don't feel there's much point to adding another layer of policy. — Neil 08:48, 19 October 2013 (UTC) reply
    • Reply I am not proposing any policy language, Neil, but I do believe that assessing the significance of the city in question is one of several tools we can use to determine whether a city council member is notable enough to have a biography here. I thank you for finding solid coverage in reliable sources for this person. And I challenge the assertion by another editor above implying that city council members are somehow generally assumed to be not notable. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 20:24, 19 October 2013 (UTC) reply
      • Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you were going rogue or anything like that! I was just surprised to see most of the debate here dealing with the importance of San Jose City Council rather than the sources about Khamis, and out of curiosity I singled you out, probably unfairly, to ask about the rationale for it. Thanks for the reply! — Neil 07:46, 20 October 2013 (UTC) reply
  • I would argue that we shouldn't have articles on every member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors either. -- Necrothesp ( talk) 14:38, 21 October 2013 (UTC) reply
• Keep Although it wasn't clear from the article as nominated, he does appear to be notable. I have expanded the article and added half a dozen references. For a councilmember from a city of this size and significance, there usually turns out to be enough independent coverage to support notability, and that is the case here. -- MelanieN ( talk) 01:06, 25 October 2013 (UTC) reply

Have you found any independent coverage beyond local news coverage? Local news coverage does not strike me as "significant coverage." TJRC ( talk) 18:29, 30 October 2013 (UTC) reply

The Mercury-News is a regional paper covering a huge swath of California. To dismiss its coverage of a San Jose city councilman as "local" would be like dismissing the New York Times when it reports about a politician from New York. -- MelanieN ( talk) 22:58, 1 November 2013 (UTC) reply

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

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mark Arsten ( talk) 00:22, 26 October 2013 (UTC) reply

• Delete or merge to San Jose City Council. The only grain of notability is his position as a San Jose city council member. That position is not inherently notable. Being the first Arab-American in a non-notable position does not make him any more notable; nor does being the CEO/founder of a non-notable corporation. I suspect that most SJ council members do not meet notability standards, either, with a possible exception being Madison Nguyen, due to her recall election. The arguments for Keep boil down to one of two arguments.

First: that San Jose City Council is notable (based on the size and economic prominence of San Jose), and that therefore individual council members are also notable. I don't buy that. I agree that the council itself is notable, but I disagree that members inherently inherit that notability; WP:NOTINHERITED. (I would also argue the same for individual members of equivalent positions on equivalent local government bodies, including San Francisco Board of Supervisors, so that does not persuade me.) If Khamis loses his next election, I don't think anyone would consider him notable; for perspective, consider Larry Pegram who was a San Jose council member in the 1980s. I don't think anyone could muster a serious claim for his present notability; and if notability is not temporary, then he's at least as notable as Khamis is now.

Second: that he's had a lot of news coverage in the local news papers San Jose Mercury News and Contra Costa Times (which is another local paper, that is co-owned with and shares stories with SJMN; the CCT article cited above is actually just one more SJMN article: [8]); however every member—heck, every candidate—for a local city council gets news coverage in the local papers. That does not make them notable; WP:NOTNEWS. There appears to be no coverage of Khamis outside of the local news.

I would limit coverage of these council members to a one- or two-sentence description of each current member in the article on the council itself; and individual articles only where there is independent indicia of notability apart from mere membership in the council. TJRC ( talk) 18:16, 30 October 2013 (UTC) reply

• I agree that I haven't seen any coverage of Khamis outside of San Jose–specific publications (by the way, the Mercury News has a circulation above 500,000—that seems more "regional" than "local" to me). But you seem to believe that Wikipedia shouldn't cover topics notable only to people from San Jose. I disagree; if the topic meets the general notability guideline (which says nothing about "local sources"), I'm all for it. I suspect we have a fundamental difference of opinion there.

Also, since you brought up that notability is not temporary, that guideline actually says "once a topic has been the subject of "significant coverage"...it does not need to have ongoing coverage." To me, that means we should include Larry Pegram, not exclude Johnny Khamis. — Neil 00:54, 31 October 2013 (UTC) reply

I agree with Neil P. Quinn here. The Mercury News transcends "local coverage", and San Jose is the largest city in Northern California, and therefore it is highly likely that its council members are notable. The sources cited prove the notability. The notion of "independent indicia" outside the political career is without merit in my view. That's like saying we shouldn't have a biography of a movie star or a baseball player without "independent indicia" of notability apart from coverage about merely acting in movies or merely playing ball games. People are notable for their accomplishments. How could it be otherwise? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:33, 31 October 2013 (UTC) reply

• Keep San Jose is a city of regional prominence. The Mercury News transcends "local coverage." Enos733 ( talk) 21:21, 5 November 2013 (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.