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. Mark Arsten (talk) 19:40, 31 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Raphael Tenthani (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Person only know for being arrested for an article he wrote. WP:ONEEVENT, unless someone can show that this person is notable in other ways, beyond simply being the author of articles. Travelbird (talk) 19:27, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

-- In the article I mentioned his arrest and the media attention from it during the time when Mutharika was trying to crack down on journalists and suppress the media. I added additional sources to show that he not only writes articles, he is has a national following in Malawi , hence reports when he is an auto accident from other newspapers. He is also a columnist for one of two major newspaper in Malawi, and a political analyst on issue in Malawi. I have included references of him being interviewed by other press in the country. He was also the subject of attack for his viewpoint that made national and international media. In addition, he is a famous journalist in Malawi. I have tried to provide additional sources for this...--MsTingaK (talk) 20:40, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

* Keep: Okay he has won a MISA Award , this is a national award for his column in Malawi so it would be equivalent to an award by a National Award within 'Country X' for the "west Europe" journalism Institute etc....See: http://www.misa.org/index.php/2012-04-30-09-04-14/2006/item/351-bnl-times-sweeps-misa-awards/351-bnl-times-sweeps-misa-awards?start=480 --MsTingaK (talk) 03:42, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that you can only vote once.
I am not opposed to keeping an article on him, if it can be shown that he received widespread coverage independent of getting arrested. If I search Google for "Raphael Tenthani MISA" I don't get all that many relevant hits, which seems to indicate to me that the award also didn't receive much coverage either. In that respect I also want to add that not all "national awards" are of equal. Winning a national award of a country such as the US will inherently be more important (and thus make the person more noticeable) than winning a national award of e.g. Liechtenstein, simply because the odds of winning are much smaller - and thus the note-worthiness of the win as such much higher.
The main problem I have with the article is that apart from references to his recent arrest and a few credits and references on article he did as part of to his work for the BBC, he seems to receive no third-party coverage. The fact that he is not noticeable is no judgement on his journalistic capabilities, it simply means that not all people are famous enough to warrant inclusion in an international encyclopaedia. Travelbird (talk) 06:32, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I didnt know I could only vote once, sorry. I had brought new information so I had re-voted. To address some of the concerns brought forward, the "noteworthiness of national awards by countries", the level of 'importance' by a nation is relative. An award to someone covering an issue from the country involved may have more significance then an award from an outside body. ie. a few dictators have received honorary awards from universities in the US that bare no significance to the nations they come from. Just because the award came from an American university, doesn't make it more relevant to others in the world. We cant assume that everything done in some parts of the world are relevant in everyone else's world, even if its from a larger nation. Wikipedia guidelines are not specific about percentage vs population size. If he won a prize in Cuba (11M), Jamaica (2.7M), and Israel (7M), it would yield different reactions. Im sure an Israeli journalist award winner will more likely make it to wikipedia then one from Cuba or Jamaica or Malawi (15 m)even though Israel has a smaller population. In other words, questions of ethnocentrism ( by this i simply mean putting certain countries at the center of things arise) - some nations have more clout then others and this is not because of population size but because of where they stand in the world hierarchy of nations. So being from a small, poor nations, is different then being from a small rich nation.

The same can be said for the 'third party' argument - Im not sure you mean validation from a country outside of Malawi. There is only that from Zimbio (Zimbabwe), the other sources from other countries deal with the threats. In any case, I dont feel that validation should be needed from outside the country. American Idol contestants have pages, and no one outside of the US is really interested in them at that stage of their career - they dont need a Malawian newspaper to report about it to validate them...I dont know, without getting in too deep in this rant or having a large philosophical debate about hegemony, epistemology and knowledge, I am having trouble with the big country, little country debate about this issue. --MsTingaK (talk) 17:40, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Africa-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:35, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:35, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, -- Cheers, Riley 00:13, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, —Tom Morris (talk) 14:52, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, MBisanz talk 01:46, 26 December 2012 (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.