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18 August 2010

Gillian Duffy

Gillian Duffy (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (restore)

Gillian Duffy is a British woman and typical Labour Party heartland voter who on 28 April 2010 became the centre of a political storm during the 2010 United Kingdom general election campaign, when the incumbent Prime Minister, Labour's Gordon Brown was caught in an open-mic gaffe labelling her a 'bigotted woman' in private, straight after having a public discussion with her while on walkabout. full transcript here, courtesy of The Times.

All hell broke loose, grovelling apologies were made, Brown's already slim chances were written off, and he even mentioned it first in his opening speech in the third televised leader's debate on 29 April. The gaffe dogged him for weeks, before he eventually lost the election on 6 May 2010, and resigned as Prime Minister 5 days later.

However, Gillian Duffy was vanished from existence (on Misplaced Pages anyway) in a series of knee-jerk BLP over-reaction speedy deletions of various articles within a couple of days of the gaffe, and in an out of process speedy closure of an Afd of bigotted woman incident. The resulting DRV, which would likely not have even been needed had the Afd run its course, turned out to be no consensus as it turns out, but it was irrelevant by then, no admin was apparently going to fess up and admit infront of the deleters that this had been one giant runaway steamroller.

The general assertions at the time were the classic 1E rationales - the incident wasn't significant, she was a private person, the coverage would blow over within a week. And people used all their powers of sooth saying to support their opinions and actions, despite the fact that even at the time of the incident, the coverage showed this was anything but.

The coverage at the time went well beyond routine news, it was a hugely notable event of the election, as evidenced by the summaries of the immediate coverage of it from The Guardian and from The Times. Such was the interest in her, she was given full biographical style coverage by the BBC and by The Telegraph and by Channel 4. It got ample global coverage as well, even Americans in their haze of domestic insularity got how important she was to the UK election and the interest in it: Gillian Duffy, .... potential game-changer in the U.K. election -Wall Street Journal, 1 May, the only gaffe that got any attention during the campaign -CNN, 6 May

After Brown resigned, it was even mentioned as the last significant event in the BBC's rundown of the "political career of Gordon Brown" published the same day - "And then on the campaign trail, he met a woman called Gillian Duffy...Mr Brown visited her at home to apologise but the damage was done". This is just a few days after the first Afd would have been scheduled to have been closed, had it been allowed to run it's course.

Still, that was then. This is now. So, let's take a look at whether the people voting and deleting in that knee-jerk-fest were better political analysts/commentators/predictors than all those reliable sources, or were justified at being so concerned over her privacy and stating BLP demanded immediate prejudicial erasure of any and all content, such that we couldn't even wait 7 days to judge the impact or coverage.

Well, first, let's address the claims that this would be a flash in the pan event, violating NOT#NEWS, it would be over within a week, with no resulting ongoing coverage of any significance that would mean anyone would want to know anything about the event. First off, we have the basic indicator of Google hits. The incident happened in late April/early May. Yet searching for "Gillian Duffy" delivers 1,160 results for July 2010, rising to 13,200 results for this month, all 18 days of it so far. I even did a random 'last 24 hours' search as I type this, and still got 354 results. And as an aside, when searching for "Gillian Duffy" in Google, "Gillian Duffy wiki" is Google's top auto-complete suggestion. Rather depressingly, due to Misplaced Pages's blackout, people are resorting to asking WikiAnswers, Who is gillian duffy?.

Now let's address the claims that the event, or her role in the election, were not going to remain significant for the purposes of 1E, making here a notable person, and would not be mentioned in ongoing historical contexts proving long term notability, of at least the incident, but more probably, her. Well, her views are used as a benchmark in coverage of immigration issues by The Telegraph in early June, where it has become known as the "Gillian Duffy question" by The Guardian, with the "Gillian Duffy gaffe" described as having been symptomatic of Brown's "refusal to engage with the issue". All in coverage spanning the entire month of June. Gillian Duffy's encounter with Brown is still described as "one of the defining moments of the election campaign" by Channel 4, over two months on. It is described as "One of the biggest ever blunders to hit Gordon Brown" (in only three years in the job), which "effectively derailed his election campaign" and which "some observers say it was a major factor in him losing", this from coverage over three months on from the incident. Four months on, it is remembered as the "election disaster" by The Independent.

Now to address the claims that she was a private person and deserved simple blanket protection under BLP generally (which was probably about the only legitimate reason that was ever given in the deletion melee). Well, despite the fact that it always was a ludicrous suggestion that with the media explosion and already proven coverage as detailed already, now, well after the incident, she is courting, and receiving, ongoing media coverage. In the resulting Labour Party leadership election after Brown quit, at the end of July she was sought out by candidate David Milliband for a meeting, with the media making much hay of her edorsement of his candidacy. In early August she was guest of honour at a Labour Party constituency event in Rochdale, and began to give televised interviews to ITV about the gaffe. This doesn't sound like she is shunning the spotlight to me.

In conclusion, it's about time this almight balls up was corrected, and people were allowed to create this link. It took me barely two hours to rustle up the evidence above that this is justifiable, it is by no means comprehensive, many many more examples are out there. MickMacNee (talk) 18:10, 18 August 2010 (UTC) MickMacNee (talk) 18:10, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

• I'd prefer we have an article on the incident and redirect the person there, at least for now. The incident is clearly notable and I see no reason not to have an article on it. At present she should redirect to . I can see no reason not to have _that_ redirect in any case. Hobit (talk) 19:07, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
• Agree with Hobit. All those sources are brilliant, and they show that the coverage did indeed continue... but it's still coverage directly related to that one event. Duffy herself would fail BLP1E; on the other hand, the event passes WP:EVENT. So let's allow creation of an article on the event, and possibly redirect her name to that. Alzarian16 (talk) 19:14, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
• No - To quote a well-known meme image, "Aw geez, not this shit again". Mick was a rather fanatic proponent for retention back in the original discussions, and I find it slightly disturbing that this sentiment has not abated over time. The concept of "one event" has not changed in the slightest; a woman says something, a live mic catches an unfortunate, candid retort, and then the political fallout. There is nothing notable about the woman other than she talked to a politician. There is not now nor will there ever be a rationale to create an article on the woman herself, or even a redirect. A few interviews doesn't elevate her notability in the slightest. I'd rather see either the Gay Nigger Association of America's or Brian Pepper's article make a return before this. Tarc (talk) 22:20, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

• The sentiment has not abated over time because the abuse of policy back then was such a monumental disgrace to the pedia that it stuck in my mind, and I vowed to do something about it once the inevitable evidence of notability became overwhelming, which it has now, which any clueful editor will easily appreciate now I'm sure. Still, I guess it's something to see that you are consistent. Your fringe and fantastical interpretations of actual policy is as bad now as it was back then. Why don't you actually try reading them beyond the titles this time? MickMacNee (talk) 23:26, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse was and still is a classic BLP1E. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 23:36, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

  Prove it. I will most definitely go after any admin who dares close this review by giving any weight to simple assertion votes like this. MickMacNee (talk) 23:53, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Manny Machado

Manny Machado (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

There are lots of articles about minor league baseball players from the last two MLB drafts that have less information and less reliable sources than this page did and those pages have been kept up. I think this page should be undeleted because he meets WP:GNG. He has signed a professional contract. The deleter hasn't replied to my message about the page. The deleter said that the situation with Machado had not changed since a different page was deleted two months ago, but this time the article was put together with good information with references from him being coverd nationally by places like The Miami Herald and Sports Illustrated. ¿Ice? (talk) 05:18, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

• Keep deleted. Deletion review is not a second bite at the cherry to be used just because you disagree with the outcome of a deletion debate. Stifle (talk) 08:17, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
• Could someone do a temporary restore of this article please (both the AFD version and the G4 version). I think the concern here is with the G4 deletion rather than the last AfD and given the G4 criteria we really need to see the version that was deleted at AfD and the recent version that was deleted to see if this was a valid G4. Dpmuk (talk) 08:36, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
• comment I did the second speedy deletion. The new article is completely different to the old article, with different references. However the major claim, that he was picked third in the draft remains the same, and the issues expressed in the AFD have not yet been resolved, in that he still has not played. I am quite willing to userfy the deleted articles as a userspace draft if someone asks as the article does not harm the encyclopedia. If I do so I will note it here. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:46, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn Per the G4 deleting admin comments above the page was not "a sufficiently identical and unimproved copy" (G4 criteria) as per the own comments it was "completely different" to the AfD article and so not sufficiently identical. I read the "this excludes pages that are not substantially identical to the deleted version, pages to which the reason for the deletion no longer applies ..." part of the criteria to mean that if the article meets any of the clauses it's not eligible for G4. Yes the reason for deletion may still apply but it's definitely not substantially identical, especially given that it has two sources that were only published after the AfD so can't possibly have been considered, and therefore it wasn't eligible for G4. Dpmuk (talk) 09:16, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn (ec) The outcome of the deletion debate was not clear "delete". In my opinion this player meets WP:GNG - he has currently signed a $5.25 million contract with Baltimore Orioles , which is quite unusual for an amateur. The article was reasonably well written and referenced. There should be an exception in the rules, this is a disservice to our readers. But I know nothing about baseball. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 09:35, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn and send to AfD. Not quite similar enough for a G4. The AfD close was correct at the time, but the new article is sufficiently different (both in terms of content and sources) to suggest that another discussion is necessary. Whether or not he's notable I'm not at all sure. Alzarian16 (talk) 13:07, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
• Overturn speedy New sources and WP:ATHLETE specifically allows inclusion via WP:N, so those new sources may well be enough to overcome issues from the last AfD. I do wish admins would overturn debatable speedies and list at AfD when there is a reasonable request. Hobit (talk) 13:27, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Looking at the AfD, I'd also say there wasn't any policy-based consensus for that deletion. Things like "not drafted yet" as a reason to delete is an IAR delete argument as no one argued he doesn't meet WP:N and several argued he does... Hobit (talk) 13:31, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
• After I restored it I forgot to remove the G4 tag, and it got deleted again. Now it is at User:Icealien33/Manny Machado after userfication. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:58, 18 August 2010 (UTC)