Talk:Saoirse McHugh

Contested deletion

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived.

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This page should not be speedily deleted because, as asserted by BrownHairedGirl (talk · contribs) on the previous AfD page, McHugh clearly meets the general notability guidelines. Yes, she fails WP:NPOL, but this does not inherently mean that the subject isn't notable, only that they aren't assumed to be notable from the offset. Reading WP:NPOL again, I am actually convinced she does pass due to the second criterion, which considers "Major local political figures who have received significant press coverage" to be inherently notable. As I show below, Saoirse McHugh is described as being among "the most high-profile members of the Green Party in recent years", which, alongside her extensive media coverage, to me constitutes a pass of WP:NPOL. Furthermore, "significant coverage" for politicians is defined in the footnote to that statement ":A politician who has received "significant press coverage" has been written about, in depth, independently in multiple news feature articles, by journalists." I have provided that much here, and there is even more of it if we do consider her electoral coverage.Furthermore, McHugh is not necessarily primarily a politician, as she is also a notable environmentalist. I will make the case here that there is sufficient evidence to prove the McHugh is a suitably notable personality to warrant an article, and I will ignore election coverage as editors in the previous AfD made the case that such coverage does not inherently warrant coverage.

Here are interviews with the subject in national Irish news sources, that do not take place during or in the immediate aftermath of an election, showing that she is a notable personality outside of her electoral coverage. This interview: also gives extensive information on her political views. A second interview, from a different publication: . This interview is of a far more personal nature.

I would argue that such interviews demonstrate notability within Ireland. Note that in the first interview she is described as "one of the most high-profile members of the Green Party in recent years" and "now one of the most high-profile former members", and in the second interview she is described as "one of Ireland's most high-profile environmental activists". Two national publications describing her as "high-profile", and in different contexts, is clear evidence of her notability to me.

This article further discusses her issues with bulimia, with only one sentence about electoral defeat and the rest focusing on her struggles with the illness.

A biography of McHugh is provided on Youth.ie, the website of the National Youth Council of Ireland, and in it she is stressed as an environmentalist, moreso than as a politician.

Luke Ming Flanagan was embroiled in well-documented political scandal after either he or a purported hacker tweeted "Sapirse mchugh photo skinny dipping (sp)". This is well documented in national media.. While this alone would of course not constitute notability in its own right, it is another facet of coverage which adds to her having general notability.

When this is added to her electoral coverage, I fail to see how people believe her not to warrant an article. --Xx78900 (talk) 19:02, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree with @Xx78900 & @BrownHairedGirl that the article should remain, McHugh is a person of interest that has been the subject of significant public interest in Ireland.

WP:NPOL doesn't exclude unelected candidates, nor should it IMO as many who fail to get elected have an outsized impact on society compared to some who are elected. Cashew.wheel (talk) 12:14, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

References

Completely agree. Perhaps the article needs updating but certainly not deletion. FishandChipper 🐟🍟 19:45, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

@FishandChipper: I entirely degree. The deletion was based on a misreading of WP:NPOL combined with a completely bizarre reading of WP:NOTNEWS and an utterly bogus reading of WP:1E.

The closer erred significantly in accepting these misrepresentations of the guidelines. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:55, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

PS The assertion by User:Guliolopez in the speedy nomination that Coverage doesn't meet WP:SIGCOV is bizarre. There is bucketloads of SIGCOV, some of which is in this recreated article, some of which has been posted blow by @FishandChipper, and there is much more in the deleted article. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:44, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Article obviously should remain. Previous deletion requires huge work to be understood as good faith... AugusteBlanqui (talk) 06:23, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi all.

• RE: Contested. On the basis that WP:G4 was contested (by editors other than the author), I have removed the speedy tag. As per WP:SPEEDY, any of Xx78900, AugusteBlanqui or BrownHairedGirl could have done the same.
• RE: NPOL. The subject fails WP:NPOL. Having never been elected to any political office. Local, national, European or otherwise.
• RE: SIGCOV. To my understanding, all of the coverage used to support the (recreated) article is that which was discussed in the 2020 AfD. The result of which was apparent consensus that such coverage is similar to that to be expected for pretty much any political candidate. The coverage since seems to be in the "left the party" vein. And whatever that Ming Flanagan stuff was about.
  Personally I'm not seeing what has materially changed since the previous AfD. And question the focus in the article on outdated/superseded opinion polls and the overreliance on quotes from the subject. Otherwise, a second AfD remains an option to (re)confirm consensus. Guliolopez (talk) 15:50, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

@Guliolopez, it is true that at the previous AFD, some editors did claim that such coverage is similar to that to be expected for pretty much any political candidate.

However, that claim was utterly absurd, and was its falsity was well-demonstrated at the previous AFD. Very few candidates, even successful ones, get as much coverage as much coverage as McHugh got. And it has continued since the elections. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:46, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

The great thing about this community (and the wider IRL community) is that we can disagree on things. And still work together to create something better than was there before. Personally I disagree that my read of the sources (and others contributions to the previous AfD, including the closer's take) was/is "utterly absurd". You can discount my/other's opinion as a "falsity" or as "absurd". Your call. Personally I read your arguments at the time (yes, I did read that great wall of text :) ). And since. Rather than discounting or dismissing them. I just didn't/don't happen to agree. Is all. Guliolopez (talk) 17:24, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Why was this re-created? This person has done nothing since the article was deleted, to merit re-creation. So the original deletion outcome stands. It's a clear violation of WP policy and should be deleted ASAP. Also, she's not a politician, for that you actually have to be elected to office, standing and losing does not count! Spleodrach (talk) 18:41, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

@Spleodrach, you should read Wikipedia policy before making comments like that.

And before that, read the lead of the article politician: "A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government". That's McHugh: she was active in the Green Party, and sought election, three times.

Now, as to the guidelines: there is no requirement that a person has to hold elected office as a precondition for having a Wikipedia article. If there was such as requirement, 90% of biographies should not exist, because they are not about politicians.

There is of course WP:NPOL, which provides an automatic presumption of notability for a person who holds elected office. But the guideline is explicit that this is not a requirement: Just being an elected local official, or an unelected candidate for political office, does not guarantee notability, although such people can still be notable if they meet the general notability guideline

The AFD was heavily polluted by similar nonsense, including from Spleodrach,[1] who responded very unpleasantly to being challenged about their misrepresentation of NPOL. Two years later, Spleodrach has clearly still not read NPOL.

Sadly the closer failed in their duty to explicitly disregard such nonsense, but did disregard my evidence that the coverage of McHugh was an order of magnitude greater than that of other unsuccessful candidates.

I don't know what is going on here, but it is very striking to watch editors repeatedly making vague assertions which deny the documented existence of an exceptional amount of coverage in national news media. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:46, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

@Guliolopez, I slept on this before replying, but I think it needs to be said.

One of the practices that I most deplore in Wikipedia consensus-forming discussions is the tendency of some editors to cast their !votes on the basis of brief, unevidenced assertions, and then denounce carefully-collated and presented evidence as a wall of text.

In that AFD, I spent many hours researching and gathering the evidence, and on trying to present it clearly. Not for example, how I didn't just post a list of bare URLs, but used fully-formed citations are separated them into groups.

In cases such as this with dozens of reliable sources available, the evidence in support of a claim of notability cannot be presented as a one-liner. Dismissing it as a wall of text is a form of bullying, a type of anti-intellectual sneering which undermines the core principle of WP:V. If editors are that hostile to actually analysing the reliable sources before forming a judgement, I question whether their approach is compatible with editing an encyclopedia.

I am disappointed to see you stooping to that level, because I know you to be capable of much better -- both in intellectual endeavour and in civility. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:06, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Hiya BrownHairedGirl. Thanks for your note.

RE: "Wall of text V brief assertions". Noted. This is a fair and well-made point. Certainly I typically favour the former myself. Fair enough.

RE: "Slept on it (and still decided to imply that I was stooping to incivility/sneering/bullying)". I don't think is at all fair to be honest. Bullying? Sneering? Incivility? Really? And, even if it were fair, is misplaced. On an article talk page. Rather than user-talk.

While I had thought it self-evident, my WP:G4 tagging was made entirely in good faith. On the basis that the article had largely the same content/sources/substance as it had when AfD'ed. And, when that basis was questioned, I self-reverted. Immediately. And engaged in what I thought was a constructive good-faith discussion. To be accused of bullying and incivility for either is, frankly, more than a little unsettling. I have nothing more to say on the matter. If you have more comments to make (editor to editor), then please feel free to do that on my talk page. Even if you thought it appropriate to call-out another editor in this way, I have no idea why you thought it appropriate to do so on an article talk page. Bye. Guliolopez (talk) 10:10, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

@Guliolopez: you chose to use this page to try bully me with your wall of text sneering, so I replied to it on the page where you wrote it. I reject the suggestion that I should leave such things unchallenged on the page where they were written.

I am glad that you found my reply unsettling. I was very unsettled by your comments, and after sleeping on it, I decided to reply bluntly in the hope of prompting you to rethink.

Thank you for withdrawing the G4. That helped by avoiding an escalation to another layer of drama, at DRV. I am glad that instead, editors' energies have been available to improve the article. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:33, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Hiya. In reminding you of AGF, I would note that those words and emoji (wall of text ") were absolutely and 100% not intended to be (or expected to be read as) a sneer. As per the trailing smiley, it was intended to be a light-hearted comment. A (I thought) shared and knowing nod to the closing admin's comments about the volume of discussion in the original AfD. That is all. A shared joke among peers. To lighten the discussion. Not a sneer. Directed at you or anyone at all. And certainly not bullying. While I now know what miscommunication has lead to your accusations (which, as noted, were otherwise baffling to me) and noting that I should pay more attention to how the written word (even punctuated with a smiley :) ) may not convey the same tone or intent as the spoken word, likewise you might want to remember the AGF tenets. (In your note above, you implied that you considered me to be a typically civil and considered editor. Which I like to think I am. And, even if you thought I'd forgotten myself entirely, would a quick clarifying editor-to-editor note not have been best? Anyway. I'm sorry if my attempted collegiate levity wasn't clear or was open to misinterpretation. But we don't have AGF policies and UTALK pages for naught....) Guliolopez (talk) 15:54, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Guliolopez, in my opening piece above, I cited sources that are explicitly about things other than the "left the party" vein of things. I suppose you can dismiss the Ming Flanagan things, but I do not believe you are correct to do so. Withstanding said dismissal, I think I have demonstrated that McHugh is a high-profile personality within Ireland, and I would appreciate if somebody calling for deletion of article of such a personality to address those concerns. Whether or not the article as of yet makes use of those sources is, in my opinion, irrelevant in determining the notability of the subject, though of course highly relevant to determining the quality of the article. I also do think that in the original AfD that BrownHairedGirl showed that there were far more hits for McHugh's name than other candidates, including those who were elected - do you not feel that this is a sign of notability? Respectfully- Xx78900 (talk) 21:51, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Well nominate for deletion then. Wikipedia has no shortage of editors who will support removing a left-wing woman. AugusteBlanqui (talk) 20:41, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Contested deletion

As per the arguments outlined by User:BrownHairedGirl in this page's previous nomination I believe that does not fail either WP:NPOL and it certainly doesn't fail WP:SIGCOV --FishandChipper 🐟🍟 19:44, 10 July 2022 (UTC)