Deletion of Seamus (dog) (2nd nomination)

Comment: Widespread media coverage makes it pass . But rename to "Mitt Romney dog controversy" or something similar because the media coverage is about the incident, not the dog
Stance: keep
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Notability (WP:GNG)

Comment: Clearly a notable event.  Rename to Romney dog controversy to make scope clear per 
Stance: keep
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Notability (WP:BIO1E)

Comment: this utterly unimportant article about a single event in the life of a dog long since dead and buried.  Wikipedia should have ''some'' standards of decorum and professionalism, and clambering down into the day-to-day political muck of U.S. Democrats and Republicans is really beneath us.  At the very least, the article should be renamed to Mitt Romney dog controversary, since the dog itself is not notable per .  Whatever the final result, the same needs to apply to the equally unimportant Obama Eats Dogs meme (or whatever its name is today) article.  Honestly, both articles should be deleted.  Per , we should not be adding articles for every single talking point Team Red and Team Blue use in their endless battles
Stance: delete
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Notability (WP:SINGLEEVENT||WP:NOTNEWS)

Comment: to "Mitt Romney dog controversy" or similar. As a "bio" page, the subject fails . But as an article about an event, the event is notable. The POV-related issues should be worked out through the normal editing process, not through AfD
Stance: keep
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons (WP:BLP1E)

Comment: as per above  -  #NEWS.  It is already mentioned in a couple of lines in the  Mitt Romney presidential campaign, 2012, and thats what the notability of the topic deserves. Creators and bloaters of such partisan NPOV content need topic banning to help avoid such creations/expansions
Stance: delete
Cited policy: Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not (WP:NOT)

Comment: per #NEWS.  It is already mentioned in Mitt Romney presidential campaign, 2012, and that's about the extent of what the notability of the topic deserves
Stance: delete
Cited policy: Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not (WP:NOT)

Comment: I think the best way to evaluate the |notability of |controversial articles is via rigorous analysis using Wikipedia's policies.  Wikipedia's policy on the |notability of events gives 5 factors in evaluating an event -- (1) lasting effect, (2) geographic scope, (3) depth of coverage, (4) duration of coverage, and (5) diversity of sources.  So lets look at the Seamus (dog)|Seamus article
Stance: comment
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Notability (WP:NOTABILITY||WP:CONTROVERSY||WP:EVENTS)

Comment: Most of the "Delete" !votes amount to people saying, "I personally would not give this incident much weight in deciding how to vote, therefore it's objectively not important and doesn't merit an article."  Well, the objective standard is whether it actually ''is'' a matter of widespread interest, not whether it should be in some ideal world in which most people agreed with the judgments of a handful of Wikipedians.  The extensive media coverage is by itself enough to demonstrate that this is notable.  Further, although we usually have to make do with drawing inferences about notability from facts like that, here we have an impartial expert directly stating that it is notable: "Mark Halperin, the senior political analyst for ''Time (magazine)|Time'' magazine and MSNBC, opined that 'for a lot of voters' the incident was 'a serious issue'." (from http://thepage.time.com/2012/01/15/newt-seamus-story-paints-a-picture-of-mitt/)  We have standalone articles on comparable political attacks against Democrats, such as John Kerry military service controversy and Bill Ayers presidential election controversy.  Both of these, IMO, were complete horseshit meritless attacks, achieving notability only because of the relentless blaring of the right-wing noise machine (the Kerry smear was contradicted by Navy records and by the prior statements of the liars recruited by the Republicans; the Ayers thing tried to attack Obama for all the past acts of someone with whom he had only a slight connection).  Nevertheless, these articles are properly kept because the subjects achieved notability -- undeserved notability, but still notability.  Finally, the support for "Merge" is unrealistic.  It's a call for endless edit wars about how much information (if any!) gets merged into some other article.  The standalone article is a correct application of , with the Mitt Romney bio having a very brief mention plus a link to this more detailed article for the benefit of readers who want more information
Stance: keep
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Summary style (WP:SS)

Comment: A number of editors have cited  as grounds for deleting this article.  Everything in the news is not entitled to a Wikipedia article.  However, the Seamus incident is not a one-time news story.  It has been in the news repeatedly since 2007, it has been covered by foreign newspapers, it has been mentioned in books, two super PACs have been formed just around this issue, national polls have been taken on this issue, and when Diane Sawyer interviewed the Romneys, this was the issue that the most viewers inquired about.  As I said in my earlier post, the issue is not whether we believe that the story should have so much media coverage, but whether it meets Wikipedia's notability guidelines.  Wikipedia's policy on |notability of news states that notability is based on depth of coverage, duration of coverage, the diversity of sources.  Based on the vast number and types of sources discussing Seamus over the last five years, it is pretty clear that the article meets the notability standard. It would be unusual for a topic with as much popular interest and media coverage as Seamus (dog) not to have a Wikipedia article
Stance: comment
Cited policy: Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not (WP:NOTNEWS||WP:INDEPTH)

Comment: Notable incident, but I don't know that the dog needs his (her?) own page. And, Hipocrite, should you now be nomiated for violating ? Nothing said by the other editors evidences that they are trying to be disruptive, or trying to prove a point
Stance: merge
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Assume good faith (WP:AFG)

Comment: WP:NOT#NEWS applies here. The article is merely a  for political campaigning - the entire article is about politics, not the dog.  The issue is already appropriately covered at Mitt Romney presidential campaign, 2012.  That may not be enough for political partisans, but that's plenty for an encyclopedia
Stance: delete
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Coatrack articles (WP:COATRACK)

Comment: for reasons that should be self evident, but they seem not to be, so: , , , and |Biographies of dead dogs known for one event
Stance: delete
Cited policy: Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not (WP:NOTNEWSPAPER||WP:COATRACK||WP:SOAPBOX||WP:BIO1E)

Comment: to Mitt Romney per  and . Article isn't even about the dog, just the controversy from 30 years ago involving its owner who is running for President
Stance: merge
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions (WP:NOTINHERITED||WP:ONEEVENT)

Comment: The article meets the |general notability guidelines; there are a number of citations indicating significant coverage in reliable secondary sources, and the incident is notable enough in the public memory for it not to fall under . An article of this quality should have never been listed for deletion in the first place, since it is neither advocacy nor gossip
Stance: keep
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Notability (WP:GNG||WP:IINFO)

Comment: And ban multiple people participating herein for violating 
Stance: delete
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point (WP:POINT)

Comment: albeit with some regret. On a personal level, I think this is not important enough to be included - but the coverage in the press ''is'' significant, and the subject meets the criteria for inclusion as a stand-alone article - my personal opinion is not relevant here, the |notability criteria is, however
Stance: keep
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Notability (WP:N)

Comment: regardless of why, Seamus is quite the notable canine. There is plenty of source material to sustain the article, and the incident has played a significant role in a US presidential race and is likely to continue to. This is not a flash in the pan incident, and regardless of one's personal views on it, it is an appropriate and sourced topic for an encyclopedia article. In conclusion, I'm unsure of the relevance of the Obama meme&mdash;that should also be considered on the basis of sourcing or lack thereof, not anything else, and not on the basis of |anything else
Stance: keep
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions (WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS)

Comment: No notability other than the single incident, which has been dealt with appropriately in other articles.  as others have pointed out
Stance: delete
Cited policy: Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not (WP:NOTNEWS)

Comment: WOW, cooler heads have arrived. A few days ago, I did not see it as a possibility to get this mess cleaned up the way it should be, by deleting. Delete is the appropriate option and I am about to go change my compromise !vote on the other page, too. This is a flash-in-the-pan, election year, bashing topic which has been thinly (very thinly) disguised as a dog biography, of all things (see ). It is here only to disparage its true subject and should have been deleted on first sight. This needs to go, forthwith; and I am glad to see that that is a real possibility
Stance: delete
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Content forking (WP:POVFORK)

Comment: per |WP:BLD1E. The suggestion of TheRedPenOfDoom sounds reasonable, too
Stance: delete
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons (WP:BLP1E)