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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Salaam Bhatti (2nd nomination)

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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 redirect to 2026 United States House of Representatives elections in Virginia#District 1. Spartaz Humbug! 07:57, 12 August 2026 (UTC)reply

Salaam Bhatti

[edit]
Salaam Bhatti (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Congressional candidate. Fails WP:NPOL EaglesFan37 (talk) 23:28, 4 August 2026 (UTC)reply

Source assessment table prepared by User:PacificDepths
Source Independent? Reliable? Significant coverage? Count source toward GNG?
No discounted as routine campaign coverage ✘ No
No ✘ No
No subject is alum of institution ✘ No
No self source ✘ No
No subject is alum of institution ✘ No
~ I give this partial credit, though I don't see this local paper having a lot of fact checking Yes Yes ~ Maybe
No not a reliable source ✘ No
Virginia Poverty Law Center (broken link)
 No They hired the subject ✘ No
No No significant coverage ✘ No
No interview No No No substantive information about the subject ✘ No
No It's a bio blurb of a panelist. Not fact checked. No ✘ No
No Press release ✘ No
Campaign coverage
No Routine campaign coverage ✘ No
No News about their own award ✘ No
I can't read the entire article. The intro paragraphs are a talk about Islam by the subject. It's really unclear that there is any sigcov here. ? Unknown
No Quoted, but not descripted directly and in detail ✘ No
Yes No There are a few biographic details, but this screams human interest story and is WP:MILL ✘ No
This table may not be a final or consensus view; it may summarize developing consensus, or reflect assessments of a single editor. Created using {{source assess table}}.
  • Delete: See source assessment above. I don't see anything from Google. Candidate campaign coverage should be discounted. 🌊PacificDepths (talk | contrib) 08:39, 7 August 2026 (UTC)reply
  • Keep per WP:GNG. I firmly agree that it doesn't meet politician specific notability requirements, but do think that it meets GNG requirements, which was the main reason that I re-established the article despite the prior deletion consensus. And I also believe that the original article merited its deletion, as it didn't do enough to find GNG sources and was frankly poorly-written. However, when deciding whether or not to un-delete the article, I read the GNG requirements, which say:
A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.
Assuming that "sources" in plural means at least two, I only need two GNG sources. I'm aware of four non-campaign related ones, three of which I had found and decided were sufficient for a GNG fulfilment:
1) Chestnut Hill Local - This is the only one of the four that I did not add to the article, but I'll put it here, since even OreosTrulyFlow decided that it maybe counts. I'll be lenient and say it does, since this is a smaller article.
2) York Daily Record - Obvious GNG fulfullment, even by strict standards. The entire article describes him and his speech specifically, and it's not related to anything about the 2026 election. I have no idea why OreosTrulyFlow couldn't access it, but I can, and I encourage anyone here who can read the whole thing to at least skim it and verify that this works as a GNG source.
3) Rabwah - I disagree that this isn't significant coverage. Even though the article doesn't technically talk about him much, the part about him still takes up like 20% of the article because it's so short. Could maybe bend on this one specifically, but not on the GNG thing in general.
4) WPM 2019 - I disagree that this is WP:MILL. WP:MILL doesn't apply to sources, it applies to articles and their subjects as a whole. It can absolutely be used to establish notability as long as that's not the only sort of source trying to back up the subject's GNG.
So, that's why I firmly believe that the article meets GNG requirements and thus should not be deleted. Under very strict interpretation of Wikipedia's rules, you could potentially argue that this should be deleted, but at that point you should probably delete the vast majority of the smaller articles on this site along with it. Bhatti, even before the election, already had a reputation for humanitarian aid and Islam-related activism. He was eligible for an article then and is eligible now. He didn't win second place in the election for no reason. I do think that this deletion discussion brings to attention the fact that the article may need major reworking, but GNG is still met, and the article should stay on the site. PsyKat777 WasTaken (talk) 21:01, 8 August 2026 (UTC)reply
  • WP:GNG says "multiple sources are generally expected" so I'd expect about 4-6 sources minimum (though that is subjective, and I do have strict views on this issue).
1) Chestnut Hill Local is a secondary source, which has some coverage on the person, so it is a decent source.
2) York Daily Record is a paywalled source so I unfortunately can't see what's in the article. But I'll take your word for it.
3) I disagree with Rabwah being a good source because it doesn't "[address] the topic directly and in detail" to be considered good coverage.
4) Though WP:MILL does not apply to sources, this article doesn't contain significant coverage on Bhatti himself, except for who his partner is. It's more of a feel-good story than anything else.
Also, most of the sources here are primary sources and I think that needs to be mentioned. Without these sources, the article basically collapses because this person isn't notable per WP:NPOL. So, in reality, there are maybe two sources which satisfy WP:GNG, and I don't think that's enough for Bhatti to have his own article. This article should definitely be kept in the drafts until more independent sources come out.
Also, I did not write the analysis of the sources; that was PacificDepths, so you should have directed this comment to them (though I do agree with the points PacificDepths makes).
OreosTrulyFlow (talk) 22:48, 8 August 2026 (UTC)reply
Alright, I'm sorry, my mistake with thinking you did the source analysis thing. I don't know why I thought that. I'll tag some other people then.
@EaglesFan37 You opened the deletion discussion. Some people are discussing now. Just thought you should know. Also, it is generally agreed that the article fails WP:NPOL, and we're now more or less discussing whether or not it also fails WP:GNG.
@PA Uploader I might as well tag you too.
@PacificDepths We're discussing your source table. I referenced it in my defense for keeping the page on the site. I agreed with most of it but had some key disagreements.
And, for the most part, I'll concede that I'm not sure there's much I can do to convince you specifically. You just seem to have a much stricter view of what qualifies for Wikipedia than I do, and you explicitly admitted that yourself. We just have different opinions. I would like to add (sort of for everyone reading), though:
1) I feel like if an article could reasonably be argued to exist, it should generally be allowed to exist. Exceptions to this would be particularly poorly-written articles that are unsalvageable or articles just created for bad-faith reasons. I somewhat understand why someone would think this article shouldn't exist, but I don't think this article is anywhere near close to the territory where it currently exists and needs to stop existing.
2) I think I agree with you that 3 doesn't meet it very well (though I still think it contributes a little bit to GNG and is worth mentioning), but I still think that 4 is a pretty major contributor. Even if it doesn't do much on its own, it still is a secondary source that mentions Bhatti consistently throughout it and works as a GNG source combined with the other sources.
3) Again, I believe that if this article would merit deletion, than a significant minority if not the majority of articles on Wikipedia also would. I don't think it's realistic to expect every single topic on Wikipedia to have GNG requirements that go well beyond the written and literal wording of the baseline GNG requirements. I think GNG requirements are necessary to some extent to prevent the site from being filled with poorly-written slop, but if these rules are executed too harshly, it only restricts the content that can be put here unnecessarily.
P.S. I'm also curious as to what you all would think about tagging everyone from the first deletion discussion. They may have useful opinions that we should take into account before deleting this again.PsyKat777 WasTaken (talk) 23:36, 8 August 2026 (UTC)reply
@PsyKat777 WasTaken, I understand what you are saying, but it is important to understand that how you are approaching this is not how we determine whether an article should exist. I feel like if an article could reasonably be argued to exist, it should generally be allowed to exist is not Wikipedia's standard, and it is not a workable standard. Almost everything could be "reasonably be argued to exist" and everyone would have a different way in which they apply that. It is very difficult to imagine any articles ever being deleted with that approach. This is why we have a set of standards that have been developed at length and applied many times over. For candidates for office who have not (yet) won, or who never win, it is very rare for them to have pages. They almost always need some form of notability that exists outside the election, or extremely detailed coverage from their campaign. The consensuses from past deletion discussions involving candidates far more prominent than this one have resulted in deletion or redirects to election pages. PA Uploader (talk) 00:35, 9 August 2026 (UTC)reply
I understand, too, but I believe I just worded it poorly.
I believe: If an article could be argued to exist within a reasonable interpretation of Wikipedia's rules, it should generally be allowed to exist
That probably makes more sense than the vague statement I said earlier.
Also, part of my point is that Bhatti is more than just a political candidate, and had a history prior to this election and would have been eligible for at least a small Wikipedia article well before this election even happened. I don't think it would be fair for him participating in an election to remove him of the GNG status that he had prior to running. PsyKat777 WasTaken (talk) 01:45, 9 August 2026 (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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