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Susan Lindauer

• Articles for deletion/Susan Lindauer
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Susan Lindauer (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Article was deleted at AfD, then brought to deletion review. The result of that review was to relist on AfD for a clean discussion. My involvement is purely administrative; I have no opinion on the outcome. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:48, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

• Delete per consensus at the previous AfD where it was established that, because the coverage is almost entirely about her arrest and trial, the intent of WP:BLP1E is met. Now that I have seen the article and had a chance to look at the sources, it is clear that to me that that view is correct. I also point out that the DRV was tainted by canvassing, badgering, and dishonesty by the DRV nominator and a strong case could have been made for endorsing the original close procedurally. Reyk _YO! 00:09, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

  Addendum: I also agree with commenters at the first AfD that WP:PERP seems to cover this precisely. Reyk _YO! 00:56, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

WP:PERP reads that we can have an article when: "The motivation for the crime or the execution of the crime is unusual—or has otherwise been considered noteworthy—such that it is a well-documented historic event. Generally, historic significance is indicated by sustained coverage of the event in reliable secondary sources which persists beyond contemporaneous news coverage and devotes significant attention to the individual's role." (emphasis mine) The rule is meant to give privacy to people charged with routine DUIs or shoplifting. This is not a private person needing protection, she has written an autobiography about their role and appears in media interviews. We have sustained coverage from the 2004 trip, to her arrest, the hearing ... and continued media interviews and mentions in current published books and scholarly articles. We are not doing an online perp walk. We also have an unusual legal case where an American is charged with being an unregistered foreign lobbyist, and we have the coverage of the case from the point of the government wanting to force an incompetent person to take medication to become competent. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 01:11, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

@Reyk: I think the arrest is the cherry on top of a very big sundae of interesting news, and it might well (together with allegations regarding her sanity) be taken as a discrediting tactic. As usual with spy news, there are a lot of angles, but I've been trying to start gathering together bits in the new "Diplomatic activities" section. There was coverage of her in an extremely interesting context, namely whether Libya was or wasn't responsible for the Flight 103 bombing, as early as 2000. I know the draft was written entirely as a crime story, but this ISN'T a crime story, it's something far more interesting. Wnt (talk) 02:40, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

• delete WP:PERP the only significant coverage in reliable sources was in regard to the trial and the events for which she was on trial. given the dismissal of the charges and the lack of coverage since means deletion. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:34, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
• Keep Misplaced Pages:Notability says: "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list." We have multiple years of hits in Google News from her trip to Iraq, to her arrest, to her competency hearing. We have a 5 page biographical profile in the New York Times Magazine. We have 3 hits in the current Google News that only carries stories for the past 60 days. There are 876 hits for her in Google Books and 123 hits in Google Scholar on the legal ramifications of the case. We have video interviews with ABC news and RT news. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 00:44, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
• Keep: WP:BLP1E stipulates that we should not have articles about low-profile individuals who do not seek attention for the single event they are known for. While I agree that Lindauer's notability is based largely around a single event, she is not a low-profile individual. She is certainly a person who seeks this attention, evidenced by her public speaking, many freely-given interviews and publication of her book. This alone would probably not convince me, but there is also a substantial volume of reliable sources covering her activity over a significant period of time, indicating lasting notability. I wouldn't oppose rewriting this as an article about the trial but I don't think it really matters. Ivanvector (talk) 01:00, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

@Ivanvector: My interpretation of "low profile" when I submitted this for AfD was and is somewhat different than yours, though I'm willing to listen to be convinced otherwise. WP:LOWPROFILE is of course an essay and YMMV as to interpretation. To me "low profile" has nothing to do with the persons intent and everything to do with how the RS cover that person. The Naked Cowboy is an active attention seeker, and to his credit he has been able to garner the attention of RS. Take some hypothetical random 9/11 truther as a counter example (and for the record I'm not talking about Lindauer). This guy may blog like crazy and try to garner as much attention as possible in order to "let the truth be heard". So what? That some conspiracy theorist "source" is willing to give him airplay is no concern of ours. That he is trying to be heard is also no concern. What we should be concerned about how the reliable sources take note of this guy. If the NYT comes out and says this hypothetical nutjob has been making the grade as a celebrity (or annoyance), that would help establish this individual's profile. Just because a dog barks a lot, doesn't mean the barking is low-profile. We need reliable sources to establish this.Two kinds of pork_Bacon 16:29, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

You're right, and her simply seeking attention wouldn't warrant an article, that's nonsense. It's the

@Ivanvector: You didn't post your section below, and in fact managed to remove some comments there. Please try again... more carefully. Wnt (talk) 18:26, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

• Keep. Lindauer is not known for just one event. She is known for a substantial number of separate events, written about in reliable sources. The article was written in terms of an arrest and ultimate release because this is when much of the information that is known was permitted to come out, but it is certainly notable material anyway. I have started to add bits of this material but there's a lot to go through. Wnt (talk) 01:21, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
• Keep the subject seems to satisfy notability guidelines and the sourcing appears adequate.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 04:47, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:23, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:23, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of News media-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:23, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:23, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

• Jeez, I dunno. The article doesn't make her look so good. The judge -- who was later Attorney General of the United States, no less -- said she has a "lengthy delusional history... There is no indication that Lindauer ever came close to influencing anyone, or could have... even lay people recognize that she is seriously disturbed".(Hartocollis, Anemona (September 9, 2006). "Ex-Congress Aide Accused in Spy Case Is Free on Bail". The New York Times.) So what's going on here. Either the judge is right, in which case: no article, obviously. Or else he's wrong, in which case this is an instance of someone at the very highest levels of American jurisprudence (a federal judge, and later Attorney General, and someone mooted as a Supreme Court nominee, and all that) being totally in the can for the national security apparatus to the point of labeling someone as psychotic who isn't, which it's hard to image much greater malfeasance than that, and this would be extremely notable. Impossible to know, but I'm with the judge here, so Delete. If the judge was wrong, let's see some evidence from neutral sources with standing and expertise.

For the rest... she's not a published author in any meaningful sense since her publisher is "CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform", in other words she had the book printed herself, which indicates that no real publisher thought it worthwhile (although maybe she just didn't shop it well). FWIW compare to Imprisonment of Roger Shuler, also a marginal article, but which IMO gets in because of the highly unusual application of prior restraint which in itself is notable. Lindauer's arrest was for being an unregistered foreign agent which is comparatively common and mundane, as was the judgement that she was unfit to stand trail and the subsequent dropping of the case. Nothing to see here, no article, and if the judge was correct -- and again, give me some good sources that indicate this isn't the case and I'll reconsider my vote -- leave the poor woman alone. Herostratus (talk) 04:59, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

These are not valid arguments. It makes absolutely no difference whether she could have influenced people or not. Without arguing over the judge's claim here, we have many, many, many articles on celebrities who have absolutely no impact, whose sole claim to notability is that they make the media echo with their own names until they become household words. Yet I think even you wouldn't argue for deleting those articles. As for your humanitarian impulse, I am thoroughly unimpressed with the "subject believes something unusual so let's gag her for her own good" school of AfD, of which this is a garden-variety example. Misplaced Pages should not be judging that either; that kind of humanitarianism smells a lot like unconcealed bias. Wnt (talk) 10:35, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

• Keep. I see a substantial number of documents from reliable sources clearly indicating that she was an object of media and government attention. Matthewhburch (talk) 07:11, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
• Keep Sources meet WP:GNG.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 12:04, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
• Keep - Massively over the GNG bar, which calls for multiple published sources dealing substantially with the article subject. See (1) "Susan Lindauer's Mission To Baghdad" (New York Times); (2) "Turncoat or Straitjacket" (American Spectator); (3) "Neighbor Seemed Activist, Not Agent" (Washington Post, March 11, 2004 — no internet version); (4) "Woman Accused of Iraq Ties Is Ruled Unfit for Trial Again," (New York Times — 2008, four years later!). There are many more but that's way, way more than needed for a GNG pass. Content of the piece is an editorial matter, about which I have no opinion — nor should we here. Carrite (talk) 15:47, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, its still all "one event". Just because an event has received coverage over a multi-year period. With the US legal system in play, this is rather to be expected. To me this comes down to what "low profile" means as I describe above. Does soap-boxing raise their profile? I'd be interested in hearing the thoughts of someone familiar with the background of BLP1E on this matter.Two kinds of pork_Bacon 16:35, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

• Delete per WP:BLP1E. In the first five (5) pages of google results, I found only the following references from reliable sources. All were about her arrest and trial:

• NY Times Susan Lindauer's Mission To Baghdad
• The American Spectator TURNCOAT OR STRAITJACKET? The odd case of "Symbol Susan" Lindauer.
• Washington Post dead link: Neighbor Seemed Activist, Not Agent
• Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren Statement of Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren on Ms. Susan Lindauer

I am surprised by the assertions that there are many reliable sources about her at all, let alone about other than this one event. JoeSperrazza (talk) 16:49, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

@JoeSperrazza: I am mystified. You are getting the same version of the article from the servers as I see, with five different New York Times articles, three from the Washington Post, and many more from other reliable news sources? Wnt (talk) 16:59, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Here's the link I used . There were plenty of references, but, in the first pages I noted, only those listed were reliable. Others were blogs, Examiner, etc. JoeSperrazza (talk) 17:08, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

@JoeSperrazza: So your theory is that if Google ranks blogs about a topic highly and crowds out hits from the New York Times, that makes the topic non-notable? This is just about the most peculiar AfD theory I have ever read. Though to be sure, it is interesting that Google ranks the reliable sources so low and the unreliable sources so high for this issue. There are reputation management companies that advertise the ability to do such things regarding undesirable news about clients, but who would hire them to do this? (So far as I can tell from her frequent interviews and statements, Lindauer wants her story told!)

To be clear: I still don't understand why you're not just reading the article rather than going from scratch to Google. This is why we got it temporarily undeleted! Wnt (talk) 18:13, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

• Keep -- this isn't really a close call, she easily meets WP:GNG and there's more than "one event". Nomoskedasticity (talk) 18:32, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
• Comment further to my reply to Two kinds of pork up above: WP:BLP1E is not an inclusion standard. We have it to protect the privacy of otherwise unremarkable individuals who get unwittingly tied up in news coverage of an event they were marginally involved in, for which they do not actively seek attention. Such individuals should be entitled to their privacy, so as a rule we don't write about them. Lindauer is not such an individual. She actively seeks the attention she's getting here, and has continued seeking this attention for a substantial period of time, thus she is not entitled to the BLP1E treatment. She easily passes WP:GNG. Ivanvector (talk) 18:34, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
• Note: because of the weird way this has gone through, I think the old article talk page is still in deleted condition. It might have additional sources or suggestions that could help improve the article and document its notability, so could someone undelete it? Also, the more conversation goes on the new page, the more complicated it's going to be to do a history merge or whatever. Wnt (talk) 19:22, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

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