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This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was keep. Joyous 02:41, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

Kristen French

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Although I am probably going to get a reputation as heartless for requesting VfDs on articles like this, murder victims (however tragic) are not necessarily encyclopedic and this article doesn't establish a reason for her death to be so. Thryduulf 12:28, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • Delete. While it would be a much better world if murder was so rare that being a victim of any murder, let alone extremely unpleasant ones, made someone notable, we do not live in that world. Average Earthman 13:14, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree that most murder victims are below the bar. Kristen French is a household name in Canada, and will be in the living memory of the generations who remember the Paul Bernardo/Karla Homolka trials, the most infamous murder trials in Canadian history (Louis Riel's was for treason), until at least late in this century. Strong keep. This would merit deletion only if Ron Goldman and Laci Peterson were deleted. Samaritan 13:26, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • By the way, she's hard to google-test: her first name is sometimes spelled wrong, and often just omitted - say "French and Mahaffy" and everybody in Canada knows what you mean. The "French and Mahaffy families" are also major figures. Samaritan 13:46, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong keep, for precisely the reasons enumerated by Samaritan. French and Mahaffy are household names in Canada; the Bernardo trials were as big in the media there as the O.J. Simpson trial was in the States. --TenOfAllTrades 14:01, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • The article should say this. I'm not Canadian and so don't have the background knowledge assumed in the article. Thryduulf 15:09, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep Samaritan and TenOfAllTrades are absolutely correct. - SimonP 16:20, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree with Samaritan. Keep. --YUL89YYZ 17:08, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. While Wikipedia is not a memorial, this death was notable. Jayjg (talk) 19:14, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep for reasons stated above. This murder victim qualifies as notable. I assume there's probably an article for the second victim as well (Mahaffy or something like that). 23skidoo 20:14, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. —Mar·ka·ci:2005-02-4 20:30 Z
  • Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy are both household names in Canada. They were both the subjects of major missing persons searches before their bodies were found, and not just locally -- I can personally vouch for having seen "HELP FIND KRISTIN FRENCH" billboards hundreds of miles away from St. Catharines. It's not even the slightest exaggeration to state that every single Canadian who was old enough to follow the news in the 1990s can name these two right off the top of their heads. This is equivalent to Laci Peterson, as Samaritan points out above; the victim is every bit as famous as the killer. Unqualified keep. Bearcat 21:13, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong keep, for reasons listed already. --Idont Havaname 23:36, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete, apart from her murder she wasn't notable herself. Wikipedia is not a crime database. Megan1967 01:48, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Extreme keep. You'll surely burn in hell for this one, Thryduulf. Say your prayers tonight. —RaD Man (talk) 04:38, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • I am not Canadian and so didn't have any pre-knowledge of this case, I was also only 11 at the time it happened and so not in the habit of following international news (if it made the news in the UK?). When I put the article up for VfD there was nothing in the artcile about strong media coverage, or a mention of the other victim. Thryduulf 09:51, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep Spinboy 04:44, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep Samaritan hit the nail on the head. - Jord 04:46, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep as per Samaritan and Bearcat. One key point is that this victim became sadly very famous in Canada long before her killers were caught, thus notability in her own right. -- Curps 05:06, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. It seems that this is again a very notable case in Canada. Capitalistroadster 07:04, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete otherwise non-notable murder victims unless their case sets a legal precendent, spawns new legislation, or something else that will matter 100 years from now (or becomes larger than life, like the fiction-inspiring Jack the Ripper victims). FWIW, I'm not sure we need to have the Laci P. article, but "laci peterson" gets 450,000 hits, while French Mahaffy gets less than 10,000. PS I sure wish people would stop making personal attacks on VfD pages. Niteowlneils 13:06, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment. I agree about the personal attacks. One should note that Mahaffy is frequenly misspelled (as Mahaffey) which probably affects your Google count, and further that Google may be somewhat unreliable as a notability metric outside of the United States. A search on "Jean Chretien" [1] (Canada's Prime Minister from 1993 to 2003) garners only 403,000 hits—fewer than Laci Peterson.
    • Above comment from User:TenOfAllTrades
      • What's more, all the online media responsible for those Laci Peterson hits did not exist when French's tragedy was most current. Unless we want to be an encyclopedia of what people wrote about in their blogs and livejournals in the early 2000s, this is no comparison. Samaritan 17:58, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
      • I've just added information about the Green Ribbon of Hope adopted by her fellow students, teachers and friends at her school; the Green Ribbon Campaign continues as the major national campaign for missing children across Canada to this day. It also gave its name to the Green Ribbon Task Force, a controversial multi-agency police group that was later subject of an inquiry. Samaritan 18:28, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment. Setting the threshold at "what will matter 100 years from now" is not only impossibly high (much current Wikipedia content would fail this test) but utterly impossible to predict. Our only standard must be what matters today, because the readers of Wikipedia are using it today. Some crime victims become famous in their own right, sometimes by mere accident of circumstances: for instance Carlie Brucia, whose name is much better known than her killer's. If the public has made someone famous for whatever reason, then they are "notable" for our purposes, regardless of youth or lack of personal achievements. In any case, Samaritan makes a very valid point that Google hit counts can't be compared for events that occurred before vs. after the current era of widespread Internet use. -- Curps 19:08, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • keep. Yuckfoo 01:15, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. -- Necrothesp 03:53, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep and allow for organic growth. GRider\talk 19:02, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Redirect. A single article should be written on these crimes, possibly merging the information from the existing articles and all the separate articles on the perpetrators and victims Paul Bernardo, Karla Homolka, Kristen French, and Leslie Mahaffy should be redirected to that one article. I will leave it to those more familiar with the facts to decide an appropriate title for that article -- perhaps something on the lines of French-Mahaffy Murders. It doesn't make structural sense to me to have the same basic set of facts quaduplicated in four different articles. If any of these people had notability independent of these notorious crimes, a separate article on that person would be reasonable, but that doesn't seem to be the case. --BM 19:41, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Largely because of the Green Ribbon of Hope Campaign founded in her name. This adds significance to what is otherwise a tragic footnote to history HowardB 08:45, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • 'Keep. Household name in Canada. Article could be expanded to explain her family's role in preventing media from gaining access to videos. Also, there may only be 10,000 Google hits, but the Canadian population is small and Canadian media do not have the same global penetration as the US outlets that covered Laci Peterson. Moreover, as a past event, few people are likely to be blogging about French than Peterson, thus limiting the number of hits. --Westendgirl 09:11, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep this was an important part of Canadian criminal history and will probably become more prominent when Karla Homolka gets released later this year. Dabbler 16:55, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.

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