Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Apache May Slaughter

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 keep. (non-admin closure) Femke (talk) 19:11, 22 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Apache May Slaughter

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Article on a child who died when she was about six years age who did nothing of note during her life. There are no sources. It is cleaimed she was mentioned in newspapers at the time, but this would have been incidental mentions because of who family was, not actual coverage of her as a person. There is no good reason to have this article at all John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:18, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: People and Arizona. Shellwood (talk) 17:54, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Brief mentions in an obituary from 1941 when the adopted mother died, otherwise nothing found. Non-notable incident. Oaktree b (talk) 18:34, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Doing some WP:BEFORE-style searches in Ebsco, newspaperarchive, and gbooks found sources, with a selection below. The good reason to have this article is there are many sources that have written about her over decades.

From Google Books: *[1] has passing mentions, including mentioning that there was a postcard of her, and has a theory that she is Apache Kid's biological daughter

a blog-y post but by a reliable person and magazine mentioning that theory/her [2])
a significant write-up of her and her story in Wild West magazine: Apache May, a warrior's young daughter, lived an all-too-short life with John Slaughter.
For older newspapers, it does seem like she was a popular subject to include see

"Arizona Album: Sheriff Slaughter's wife and Apache May" a seemly syndicated news blurb about her, this time in the Tucson Daily Citizen
"True Story of Apache Girl Captured from Indians Wins First Prize in Essay Contest"
"Patch", A True Story of a Little Wild Life Being an Aftermath of the Apache Raid of 1896.
"Tombstone the Ghost Town Comes to Life Once More" Salt Lake Tribune story from 1929, with a few paragraphs/photo of her

And another journal article with enough passing mentions to be worth looking at: CORA VIOLA HOWELL SLAUGHTER: Southern Arizona Ranchwoman from The Journal of Arizona History.

Anyone is welcome (of course) to use these to expand the article and I'll be able to when I have time to cite and parse through this more. Skynxnex (talk) 19:05, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I originated this article, and in cases like these, I always vote keep. Also, as Skynxnex says, there are sufficient sources to demonstrate her own independent notability. Some may, no pun intended, claim her only claim is being the daughter of so and so, but then, that is the case with many others like for example Chelsea Clinton and Malia Obama, and no one is deleting their articles. Antonio Keep me, keep me pleasseeee! Martin (que paso?) 23:29, 15 July, 2022 (UTC)
Keep. Her story is told in a fair amount of detail in two books Captive Arizona, 1851-1900 ISBN 0803210906 and The Apache Wars ISBN 0770435823, the former published by a university press. Marshall Trimble, the official state historian of Arizona, discusses her in True West magazine. SpinningSpark 07:20, 17 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep To augment the above searches, I searched on newspapers.com. There were 275 articles. The earliest I found was from 1896, the most recent was 2017. These provide significant coverage spanning more than a century! While I might consider sympathizing with an editor who perhaps may be unaware of or perhaps rejects policy WP:NEXIST (and therefore also rejects policy WP:CONSENSUS) because the article does not cite any sources, NEXIST clearly specifies that an article is considered notable based on the availability of sources, not on whether the article actually uses them. The existence of suitable sources is eminently provable here, in newspaper articles for well over 100 years, in books, and more. This subject meets GNG, hundreds of times over, but the article itself is in desperate need of improvement. Deletion is not cleanup, so my sympathy would mean nothing, and we must keep the article and ask the nominator to remember that although they might disagree with the policy, if they don't believe in the policy they should work to gain consensus to change the policy rather than attempting to subvert the policy with spurious deletion nominations. Jacona (talk) 03:08, 18 July 2022 (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.