Testwiki:Articles for deletion/Sarah Obama

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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 merge, as in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Malik Abongo Obama. Obama family is arguably the target agreeable to most participants. Someone seems to have copied the content there already.  Sandstein  18:49, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Sarah Obama

Template:La (delete) – (View log)

Another non-notable Obama relative. Just because someone is related to him and the media is aware of them does not mean we need an article on them - this person clearly fails notability. I'm surprised the article hasn't been nominated yet. John Smith's (talk) 19:22, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

  • Merge per Saberwyn. John Smith's (talk) 22:47, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Merge into the Family and personal life section of the Barrack Obama article.--T B C ♣§♠ (aka Tree Biting Conspiracy) 19:48, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: Actually the article has been nominated for deletion before. Julius Sahara (talk) 20:35, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep or merge - For consistency with the results of the Malik Obama AfD[1] we should round up the various articles about Obama's Kenyan relatives and in-laws, and organize them in a single article. Some of these are clearly worth covering in the encyclopedia. We can't gloss over the fact that Obama's family is from Kenya and that he has relatives there. Some may rise to the level of notability on their own; others in a group article. The main Obama article is clearly not the place to store all this information, nor is an AfD process the best way to decide which article to use as the target of a marge. Wikidemo (talk) 02:23, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
    Wikidemo, I think your attitude in this is rather POV yourself. Surely there should not be an Obama fan-club on this project. You seem to think it is justified to oppose this deletion/merger on those grounds. I challenge you to state how having relatives in a foreign country requires separate articles on them. John Smith's (talk) 09:15, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
It is inappropriate to disparage editors who you disagree with by calling them "Obama fans". If you look at some of the history of the Barack Obama article several editors coined epithets like "Obama fanboys", "Obama campaign volunteers", and "Obama campaign workers" to taunt people who opposed their attempts to insert negative material about Obama into the article. On the substance "requires" is not the standard for inclusion on Wikipedia, it's notability. Notability is presumed from the fact that the articles you are nominating clearly meet the WP:BIO guideline by virtue of multiple mentions in independent reliable sources. Thus it's up to you to argue why the subjects aren't notable despite meeting the criteria, or why even though notable they don't deserve their own articles. Wikidemo (talk) 09:34, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
Wikidemo, I believe that you could do with reading those articles yourself. I have not made any personal comments here or otherwise directed to individuals. I have no interest in Obama and criticism of - do not lump me together with those who do just because I made a joke about people writing articles up on his family members when really they are not suitable for the project. That is in of itself not assuming good faith - practice what you preach, please.
As for notability, per the recently closed Afd on Malik Abongo Obama clearly it has been successfully argued that notability inherited through one's relationship to another is not notability in of itself. You may disagree but I think that this is quite a clear-cut case. I think a re-direct merger is best because that way it will stop new articles being created. John Smith's (talk) 10:52, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't want to repeat this entire discussion four places - two AfDs and our respective talk pages. It may have been inadvertent on your part, with some humorous component, but as soon as you start talking about people being "Obama fans" you're casting the whole thing in POV terms which, as I said, has been a big problem on the Obama pages. It's best if we just acknowledge that and move on - I'll accept you didn't mean to be there. We both agree that the material from this particular article can be safely merged for now into some other, so there's not a whole lot of point debating the specifics. However, the other AfD does not establish the kind of precedent you propose. There is considerable dispute that the "notability is not inherited essay" means what you say it does, and the closing administrator on the other article made clear it was not deemed a "merge" for that reason. It would be a shame to repeat the entire debate from last time, but clearly people are notable via their relationship to their family members. Otherwise, as I pointed out there, we would have no articles on British royalty, for example, or spouses of famous people, etc. Wikidemo (talk) 11:42, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
Royalty is different, because people are notable in part because of their titles and public engagements. Also being related to a monarch is important as they have a place in line to the throne. That said I would not support articles on every minor royal relative. On the other hand Obama's relatives would not become president if he died having won the election and taken office, nor do they have a title - so the two are not comparable. Obama's wife is different because she would become the first lady and has a very high profile, such that people debate whether she is an asset or a hindrance to Obama's campaign. John Smith's (talk) 13:18, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
Comment (apropos above) - It looks like a snowball merge at this point. We don't need to go through a time-consuming AfD process to do a merge, just consensus. I suggest we wait another day to see if there is any opposition and, if not, be bold and just do the merge. If anyone objects at that point they can always revert or object and we can discuss further... In addition, although each Obama family member is different (ranging from his wife Michelle Obama being the most notable to nth cousin Dick Cheney and rumored distant Welch ancestors being remote, I think it might be most productive to centralize the discussion rather than having ad hoc AfD nominations one at a time. Perhaps gestate all new material for any family members on a central page, and spin them off as articles only if and when people feel they're ready. Wikidemo (talk) 22:47, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Merge - As with Malik, I see a list of random well sourced facts. I do not see a reason for notability. There should not be difficulty in creating a discussion simmilar to the one about Malik. Blackngold29 16:06, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Merge into Obama family - as per precedent at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Malik Abongo Obama. She is not notable on her own --T-rex 18:08, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
  • speedy merge into Obama family. I wish there could be some bot blocking the mushrooming of relatives-of-Barack-Obama-articles. --Soman (talk) 22:14, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Stong Keep Keep i have heard her mentioned on the news more than once which would establish notability, however if there isn't enough content for a standalone article lets merge it somewhere else for the meantime.MY♥INchile 06:56, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I think this goes back to the points raised in the previous afd discussion. Does being discussed in the media because you're someone's relative constitute notability? Or does it have to be something that the individual has done/knows/etc that is independent of that? My understanding is that it is the latter, not the former. John Smith's (talk) 06:58, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I understand your argument and it is compelling, however the argument you propose is a fallacy due to the fact you change the terms for notability due to original research and personal opinion, notability is established by the notability guidelines, and this individual has met these, whether or not you approve of the attention she has gotten, the fact of the matter is, is that it is wholly irrelevant that you have contempt for fact that Sarah Obama has received attention you feel is not merited. Therefore i change my opinion to strong keep.MY♥INchile 21:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
That seems to be a false dichotomy (I mean that in a rhetorical sense, not to accuse anyone of being false). The threshold question is whether the media discusses a thing, not why the media does so. If the media wants to devote article after article about how someone wakes up in the morning, brushes her teeth, goes for a walk, and tends to her baby, that's evidence the person is notable. The parallel substantive question, whether we think the person is worth noting, can be for most any reason. We don't necessarily have a standard that the person must have achieved great things before we will write about them. There is no policy or guideline, so far as I know, that says that relatives of important people are disqualified in this way. The previous AfD didn't answer that question, it just observed that there was a toss-up for opinions on that article that can't be decided, but that everyone seems to agree that merger is okay. It is up or us to decide whether to cover them or not. Wikidemo (talk) 08:21, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
It didn't take me long to find several news articles from reputable sources (USAToday, BBC, The Nation, AllAfrica.com, The Guardian) all of which have Sarah Obama as either the main subject of the article or as an important part of it. This helps to establish notability. As the election approaches (it's still several months away), more will no doubt be published on her as the media attention grows. I would add this info from these articles myself, but I have a term paper due this month. Again, please keep this article. Scanlan (talk) 21:42, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


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.
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