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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2011 IHOP shooting

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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 keep. Numerically speaking this discussion is about as even as possible but the keep arguments based on the sources provided in this discussion are convincing that this subject is more than standard news coverage. J04n(talk page) 14:13, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

2011 IHOP shooting

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2011 IHOP shooting (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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News event with no enduring coverage, failing WP:N and NOTNEWS MASEM (t) 19:45, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete I have to agree that WP:NOTNEWS applies here. Notability isn't about how hard a crime tugs our heartstrings or how many people die, it is about the lasting effect after the event. Sadly, people get shot and die every day in America and Wikipedia doesn't exist to catalog them all, only those that have notability via a lasting impact, which this lacks. Dennis Brown - 2¢ - © - @ - Join WER 20:15, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete not likely to be significant in twenty, ten, or even five years time.--Beachsand2004 (talk) 21:16, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, this is a unique sort of CRYSTALBALL argument, is it not? The question is this: was the subject of the article covered substantially by multiple independently-published so-called "reliable" sources? Which this was, in spades. Carrite (talk) 00:29, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Nevada-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 23:09, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 23:09, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
At the risk of badgering, I note that this is an OTHERSTUFFDOESNTEXIST argument. Care to talk about the available sourcing? Carrite (talk) 00:40, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - I totally agree with Prime Minister Brown that "notability isn't about how hard a crime tugs at our heartstrings." It is all about sources. When a shooting makes ABC World News Tonight, chances are it is an event of lasting significance rather than an isolated shooting incident in the abattoir of gun-crazy America. Days after the event, the Christian Science Monitor was still looking for meaning from the affair. Ditto CNN. One year later, the Reno Gazette-Journal was still covering the event as "85 seconds that changed Carson City" — that would seem to be "lasting impact," would it not? Multiple fatalities, this can't be dismissed as a typical "one-and-done" blasting by a looney tune... Oh, yeah, USA Today picked up the story as well. This was, in short, a national event, not a local crime, extensively covered in by fairly vast number of tip-top, first tier sources of the mainstream press. Notability is not temporary — this was notable then and it remains so now. Carrite (talk) 00:26, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • These aren't secondary sources, though, specifically enduring coverage. This, save for the retrospective, was all at the time of the event. And the retrospective was from a local (not unreliable) source, again suggesting the event had no enduring coverage for a global encyclopedia. This is the type of story that should be in Wikinews, not Wikipedia. --MASEM (t) 00:35, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) Need a couple more sources: how about MSNBC? Huffington Post? New York Times??? New York Daily News??? Carrite (talk) 00:37, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Which would be: national internet news, national cable news, national "newspaper of record," mass circulation tabloid on the other side of the country from the incident. This was a HUGE national story. And it was the subject of coverage for at least a year. Carrite (talk) 00:39, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No question of national and international coverage on the day + some of the event, but no tail. I'm sure I could spend time and find several stories locally to Carson City a week or a month out from the event, but on an initial check of news sources it doesn't appear to have long-term coverage at a national level or better. This is exactly what NOTNEWS, WP:NEVENT and WP:N caution against. This is, for all purposes, a routine crime, and not appropriate for WP. --MASEM (t) 00:47, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Had there been legislation due to this event, that would be an example of enduring effect. Had some societal change in attitude that was documentable occurred, keeping would be obvious. Had he been in a watchtower screaming "Allah Akbar", and the government decided to classify it as a work place incident, you can rest assured the media would have ensured the story had a lasting impact. What we have is a shooting, people died, this happens with alarming frequency in the United States. Sadly, "only" killing a few people without having a political motivation has become routine for our purposes. Dennis Brown - 2¢ - © - @ - Join WER 01:03, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - I hate to sound like an asshole, but I really don't get how this is notable. Some guy went into an IHOP, shot some people, shot himself, they all died, the end. So what? What makes that so special in comparison to the hundreds of shootings that happen every day? --69.84.112.132 (talk) 22:08, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Shootings happen every day, yes, mass shootings by lone gunmen, on the other hand, not so much. And just because something happens frequently doesn't automatically mean it is not notable. (Thusz (talk) 16:06, 18 May 2013 (UTC))[reply]
Those all are primary sources, not discussing the impact of the event on the world at large. Mere reporting is not sufficient for WP:N/WP:NEVENT/NOTNEWS. I can't read the ACM article but based on the abstract, the event similar appears to be an example, not a significant discussion of it, and thus again, fails secondary sourcing. --MASEM (t) 16:42, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
First, since when does an event have to have an impact on the entire world to warrant an article? If that were the case, we shouldn't have an article about the Los Angeles Times bombing and many many other things, because they had little to no impact outside the United States, or whatever country they occurred in. Second, the articles given are not primary sources according to WP:PRIMARY, because they are "one step removed from an event" thanks to the journalists who wrote them. So we do have significant coverage by reliable and independent sources for a considerable time and therefore the event meets WP:N, which furthermore states:
"Notability is not temporary: once a topic has been the subject of "significant coverage" in accordance with the general notability guideline, it does not need to have ongoing coverage."
(Thusz (talk) 12:52, 19 May 2013 (UTC))[reply]
"World at large" doesn't mean global impact but has to be more than local. WP defines secondary sources as transformative meaning that they have had original thought applied to the topic using other sources to build on. In this case, nearly every newspaper article that is just recapping events, while "one step away", is considered primary. See WP:PRIMARYNEWS. And no, not for a considerable time - we're looking more than just a few days from numerous sources, not just local (where an event like this will ring true for some time). Significant coverage is defined by a period of enduring notability. --MASEM (t) 14:34, 19 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I guess I have to admit that I misinterpreted the term „world at large“ in this context, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter, since WP:EFFECT isn’t that specific in what constitutes a „lasting effect“, so it is probably debatable, if the discussion about mentally ill people having easy access to firearms and the introduction of Senate Bill 221 can be considered an impact on the world at large, or not.
Regarding the lack of secondary sources, I honestly don’t see a problem here, because, as I said, not even two years have passed since the shooting, and that is not that much time to write books and scientific articles about it. But even if you can’t find secondary sources, it does not mean there aren’t any. A quick Google search is certainly not enough to verify what and how much has been published on the subject.
Furthermore I find your interpretation of WP:PRIMARYNEWS questionable at best. By declaring all of these newspaper articles to be merely primary sources, and that without secondary sources notability is not established, you are basically stating that hundreds of thousands of Wikipedia articles on unquestionably notable events should be deleted, because they rely solely on newspaper articles published in their immediate aftermath. This is insofar highly problematic, since these newspaper articles are often the only available sources for historic events, or events occurring in countries nobody in the western world actually cares about. So, following this argumentation would drastically increase western bias and cut a giant hole into Wikipedias coverage of important events of the past.
Also you state that "one step away", is considered primary, but then I have to ask myself, why WP:SECONDARY states that [a] secondary source provides an author's own thinking based on primary sources, generally at least one step removed from an event. (Let's conveniently ignore the fact that in the context of a newspaper "an author's own thinking based on primary sources" would basically be an editorial, which WP:NEWSORG then declares to be a "reliable primary source for statements attributed to that editor or author". Doesn't make a lot of sense to me, especially since any source where an author mixes facts with opinion would automatically be a primary source for all of the opinion parts.)
Finally, what is your definition of "a considerable time"? You youself stated that:
I'm sure I could spend time and find several stories locally to Carson City a week or a month out from the event
This tells me you didn't search at all, because a ten second internet search gives you not only several, but a pretty great lot of articles published by the Reno Gazette-Journal and the Las Vegas Sun many months later. Also the articles I have linked to were published months after the shooting, so your statement that we're looking more than just a few days from numerous sources, not just local is moot, because I have already proven that coverage of the shooting spread over more than "just a few days". Therefore I suppose you must agree that there is some notability to the shooting, if newspapers all over the United States and a couple of other countries bothered to report about it after all that time. Furthermore, the shooting is still mentioned in the media every now and then. If that is not a considerable time, I don’t know.
Is the shooting notable? Harry Reid seems to be of that opinion, but anyway, WP:N/CA tells us that [a]rticles about criminal acts, particularly those that fall within the category of "breaking news", are frequently the subject of deletion discussions.
Ok, here we are, discussing. It further states:
As with other events, media coverage can confer notability on a high-profile criminal act, provided such coverage meets the above guidelines and those regarding reliable sources.
I assume you don’t doubt that we have numerous reliable sources about the event, so let’s go straight to the coverage guidelines on that page. The first one says that [a]n event must receive significant or in-depth coverage to be notable. As I see it there has been a significant amount of coverage, and quite a bit of it I would regard as pretty in-depth. This article e.g. puts the shooting into a wider context and is even a secondary source.
Number two states that [n]otable events usually receive coverage beyond a relatively short news cycle. A short news cycle for me would be one or two days, maybe a week, before the event is forgotten, never to resurface again. This is obviously not the case here, since there has been additional coverage, also by national and international media, even months later.
The third one says that [s]ignificant national or international coverage is usually expected for an event to be notable. No doubt, there was significant coverage in the United States, while on an international scale you have The Guardian, The Daily Mail, El Mundo, Terra Networks, O Estado de S. Paulo, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Hamburger Abendblatt, Le Fiagro, El Mañana, and there are probably many more, so I would say this is also covered.
So I come to the conclusion that the shooting meets all criteria of WP:N/CA, and also WP:GNG, with the possible exception of the "Sources" part, but for the reasons stated above I find the classification of newspaper articles, similar to the ones presented here, as primary sources unsatisfactory and even highly disruptive regarding the creation of articles on Wikipedia. Even the respective Wikipedia article says that (...) the distinction between primary and secondary sources is subjective and contextual, so that precise definitions are difficult to make.
So, I'd be glad to know how you came to the conclusion the article fails WP:N, WP:NOTNEWS, and WP:NEVENT, because merely stating and repeating it isn't that helpful. (Thusz (talk) 14:28, 20 May 2013 (UTC))[reply]
First, I never said "all" newspaper articles are primary. PRIMARYNEWS says the bulk of routine news reporting is primary as they are simply recapping the events as told down from officials and other sources but without interpretation. All the international sources and extensive reporting on this event within the week of the event is pretty much of this ilk, thus we have - as typical of world media - an event that is sensational and momentarily covered in detail, but once you're outside that week or so, the coverage is gone, outside of local sources. That is the typical pattern of an event that does not have permanence for coverage in an encyclopedia. So while these are fine sources to use for describing the event, ultimately they count for naught towards notability.
What thus is left are secondary sources that describe the impact of the event but mostly at a local scale (the gun law changes). (And to note, when I said "given some time to search", I was talking a detailed extensive search. I saw a few local sources on the first few gnews hits, but I was looking for the time and global scale well past the event date) It certainly was that this case might have catalyzed the SB221 bill, but obviously that bill didn't go anywhere. What this basically is saying is that there is a notable discussion on gun laws and the mentally ill, of which this event is a sentence or two in that discussion, but in the case of this event, it doesn't make the event notable. Or, better put, without putting into the larger context of gun control and the mentally ill, it is basically a local crime and does not make for an encyclopedia.
As for time, events 99% of the time are either assuredly notable within a week of happening or not. Rarely, there may be an event that seems non-notable but turns out to be critical many years later, but that's rare. Thus, for notability, it makes no sense to let event articles remain if nothing's happened a week out from the event. If we have to recreate it later, that's fine, but given the rarity this is the case, it's not a concern from the standpoint of data retention. This is why we have Wikinews. Current events that are well-covered but of dubious notability should be filtered there instead of being created on WP. If they turn out to be notable, we can transwiki them into en.wiki. If not, we still have an interwiki link to use in some article about a larger context that the event would fit into. --MASEM (t) 14:50, 20 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, and I never said that you said all newspaper articles are a primary source. To quote myself:
"By declaring all of these newspaper articles to be merely primary sources..."
With "all of these" I did not mean all newspaper articles per se, but those presented during this discussion. To challenge notability of an event on the ground of a lack of secondary sources, even though there are newspaper reports by the dozen from all over the world, and over an extended period of time, is a very questionable interpretation of WP:GNG and WP:N in my eyes, because as I said, there are in all probability hundreds of throusands of Wikipedia articles on events that are certainly notable, based entirely on media reports that are no different than the ones that have been linked here. To cast doubt on that notability, simply because nobody bothered to give a more detailed account and in-depth interpretation seems very wrong to me.
Also the only example given at WP:PRIMARYNEWS that might apply to the reports posted here is the third one, "Reports on events", but on a second look even that is not clear, because at least to me the impression is given that it may apply only to reports based on a single source who was present at the site of the event, which may be the journalist himself. It certainly is debatable, if a synthesis of various accounts of an event can be considered an interpretation, as the journalist, by weighing his sources, decides what kind of impression of the event to present to his audience.
Furthermore you repeat again that „once you're outside that week or so, the coverage is gone, outside of local sources“ and again I have to set it straight that the event did not vanish from the news after a week, or even a month. How many links to media reports outside that time frame do I have to present to you, before you accept this as a fact? Need a few more? Here you go:
I don’t know how you see this, but at least in my opinion a discussion at a state senate is way beyond „local scale“ and that the bill went nowhere doesn’t bother me at all, because the fact alone that the shooting incited a serious political discussion for stricter gun laws is enough for me to establish that it had a longer lasting impact. Also it apparently wasn’t just a side note in this regard, but was used as the featured example to support it. Maybe I’m mistaken, but I doubt that local crimes with no historical significance get a mention at the senate very often and spark debates about law reforms.
If you have performed a "detailed extensive search" on the subject and came up with merely "a few local sources" I have to say that your search apparently was not very efficient, because there are not only a few local sources, but a lot, (Reno Gazette-Journal, Las Vegas Sun, Kolo TV, Nevada Appeal) and for reports beyond the local level, well, look above. (Thusz (talk) 14:45, 22 May 2013 (UTC))[reply]
It is long established that newspaper sources that are simply reiterating details are primary sources even if it is published halfway across the world. This is akin to the concept that just because something exists doesn't make it notable - here we're talking about an event that clearly happened and is well documented, but its impact on the world at large is highly questionable. This is why we generally have to look beyond just how many news articles and when they were published, and look at what they are publishing, and of those sources, there's only a small fraction of them that go into more than just basic facts and attempt analysis of the event. Of several gnews papers I've seen, all of these are only published at the local level, because for all practical purposes, that was the extent of the "aftermath" of the event (eg the retrospective a year later). Laws didn't get changed, etc, despite there being initial efforts. That PDF from the nv.gov is literally a name-drop, and again can't be considered a secondary source. The ones you list above that are beyond local coverage are simply news tidbits and again are primary sources. So again, while there is some secondary coverage, it is highly local in nature, and that makes its inclusion in a global encyclopedia inappropriate. This is exactly why Wikinews exists because it can take these articles with no question, and with the potential to migrate them into en.wiki when the event actually is shown to be notable. You say that there probably thousands of event articles out there relying on primary sources - I actually don't doubt this (I've seen many happen like this because people want to rush to create an ITN story), but this is because editors do not remember NOTNEWS and it is impossible to patrol these all. Just because OTHERSTUFFEXISTS doesn't mean that it is by consensus. --MASEM (t) 15:04, 22 May 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.
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