Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Steven D. Bennion

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 no consensus. No prejudice against speedy renomination per relatively low participation. North America1000 05:11, 29 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Steven D. Bennion edit

Steven D. Bennion (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Non-notable academic/religious leader. None of the refs given are independent of the subject or reliable sources, and the other (from Deseret News - is it independent?) is an obituary of his father - not sufficient for the GNG. A search turned up nothing else of value. schetm (talk) 02:53, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. schetm (talk) 02:53, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. schetm (talk) 02:53, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Utah-related deletion discussions. schetm (talk) 02:53, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. He passes WP:NACADEMIC#6; he was President of Southern Utah University. Additionally, WP:CLERGY notes that The bishops of major denominations... are typically found to be notable.
    In terms of possible WP:BASIC, the individual seems to have also had significant coverage from multiple independent reliable sources. Newspapers.com returns quite a few articles giving in-depth coverage (such as this in-depth article on him and his family, this AP article describing his appointment to Southern Utah University, and this AP article describing his appointment to Rick's College), and others that mention him in trivial detail (for example, his student body president election in 1958 or his college freshman election as class president in 1960, or his work in the Midwest in the 70's). I'm also seeing evidence that there were additional AP wire stories about his appointment to Ricks. Per WP:RSP, Deseret News is considered to be generally reliable for local news and I don't think that coverage from Deseret would have independence problems for its coverage from before when he was a bishop, though I'm finding sources indicating that he became a Bishop no later than 1971 (where he officiated a wedding as a bishop). That being said, a family-written obit doesn't count towards notabililty.
Overall, I think that he's notable per WP:NACADEMIC#6 and WP:CLERGY. I can try to find additional WP:BASIC coverage if you'd like, though I think that he's likely to satisfy that notability guideline as well. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 03:32, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the Mormon church, there are, as of 2002, "nearly 18,000 bishops" (see this source). There's no way that all 18,000 are notable - the guideline simply does not work with Mormon bishops. As to NACADEMIC, how are we defining a "major academic institution"? At the time Bennion served there, the then Ricks College was a two-year school - hardly major by any standard. And, as for SUU, I don't know that that qualifies as major either, unless we're going to call all public universities major. It all seems quite run-of-the-mill to me, as does the coverage you present. schetm (talk) 03:50, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I was unfamiliar with the amount of Mormon bishops that there were, so I'll retract on WP:CLERGY. I can try to find additional coverage that would help us to agree on WP:BASIC, though I think that SUU seems to be a well-respected regional university. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 04:14, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bishops in Mormonism are essentially pastor-equivalents, and so he's not notable on that basis, but a couple of the other leadership positions held seem to be actually equivalent to the regional leadership associated with, for example, Roman Catholic diocesian bishops. Jclemens (talk) 22:08, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Extraordinary Writ (talk) 03:44, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 08:24, 21 October 2021 (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.