Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christopher Nevill, 6th Marquess of Abergavenny (2nd nomination)

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 no consensus and none looks likely to emerge. Star Mississippi 02:42, 26 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Christopher Nevill, 6th Marquess of Abergavenny (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Previously deleted page, fails WP:BIO (WP:BASIC + WP:ANYBIO). Non-notable noble figure from Wales England with no significant coverage. Inherited his title in 2000, so never got to sit in the House of Lords. He ran unsuccessfully for a seat five times [1]. He is also an officer in the Order of Saint John (chartered 1888)since 2011 [2], which as impressive as it sounds is the 18th lowest rank of the order, and we have previously deleted similar or higher-ranked members of the Order (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Terence John Arbuthnot (2nd nomination), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Prince Oskar of Prussia (b. 1959)). The peerage and Who's who entries are either deprecated or unreliable per WP:RSP. Other coverage of this person is published by the subject [3] or consisting of passing mentions [4], [5]. Pilaz (talk) 11:25, 3 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Royalty and nobility-related deletion discussions. Pilaz (talk) 11:25, 3 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Wales-related deletion discussions. Pilaz (talk) 11:25, 3 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, marquess is a high rank in the peerage of the United Kingdom (the pecking order is Duke – Marquess – Earl – Viscount – Baron). There are only 34 current marquesses, and we have articles on most of them. UK dukes and marquesses should probably be treated as automatically notable. Verbcatcher (talk) 11:55, 3 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Marquesses are not inherently notable. See WP:MONARCH for outcomes of past deletion discussions regarding titles. Pilaz (talk) 11:57, 3 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. "Nobility" is not an SNG, nobles must meet GNG via multiple pieces of SIGCOV like most other subjects. I do not see that being the case for this individual. JoelleJay (talk) 18:40, 3 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, he was made Deputy Lieutenant of East Sussex in 2011, Category:Deputy Lieutenants of Sussex, I've added the ref. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 18:49, 3 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Deputy lieutenants are county-level ceremonial figures. To quote a comment from a 2012 AfD: A Lord Lieutenant is the Queen's representative in a county. They might open buildings or appear at parades. If the vice lord-lieutenant is unavailable as well as the Lord Lieutenant, Deputy Lieutenants (DL) fill in. As it is unlikely that both will be ill etc the appointment as DL is usually just an honour recognising your contribution/importance to that county. There are also a lot of DLs, maybe 30, so compared to being Lord Lieutenant its just a nice thing to have after your name. In East Sussex alone, there are can be up to 49 DLs. AfD has lots of precedents for deleting DL articles: see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sir Charles Stronge, 7th Baronet, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sir James Stronge, 2nd Baronet, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Richard Birdwood, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jane Williams, Baroness Williams of Elvel, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thomas Hext, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dr Paul Knapman, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Commander Herbert Roff Newton, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sir Philip Grey Egerton, 11th Baronet, etc. Pilaz (talk) 20:27, 3 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. There is an article solely about him and his political ambitions titled "Marquess loses out in the country's most exclusive election" published in the Times of Tunbridge Wells here; there's more on that election (and at least mentions of him) from The Independent here, though I'm unable to access it due to registration. He was made a Deputy Lieutenant of East Sussex in 2011. He also made the Times of Tunbridge Wells Power List at number 5 in 2015, viewable here. --Kbabej (talk) 22:49, 3 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:POLOUTCOMES: Candidates who are running or unsuccessfully ran for a national legislature or other national office are not viewed as having inherent notability and are often deleted or merged into lists of campaign hopefuls. The Times of Tunbridge Wells is a local weekly newspaper with no credited journalists in the articles you linked, so I doubt it's a RS. The Indy article has a single paragraph about the marquess, and the actual coverage of the marquess is almost exclusively about his genealogy. Pilaz (talk) 12:08, 4 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Clearly passes GNG per the sources provided by Kbabej. Best, VocalIndia (talk) 03:40, 4 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Politicians and England. Pilaz (talk) 13:08, 4 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per Kbabej’s analysis. I’m satisfied this passes GNG on the evidence. - dwc lr (talk) 14:41, 5 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per Pilaz's detailed analysis of the available sources: we have standard coverage of a losing political candidate (which, by WP:POLOUTCOMES, does not establish notability) and a non-notable local position with only hyper-local coverage. The article text itself runs afoul of WP:NOTGENEALOGY. --JBL (talk) 15:01, 5 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Per Kbabej's excellent analysis. Atchom (talk) 22:59, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 19:40, 10 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Since the publishers of Who's Who (A & C Black/Bloomsbury Publishing/Oxford University Press) consider him notable enough for inclusion in their publication which is considered "the world’s most prestigious record of the great and the good" Piecesofuk (talk) 16:00, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Piecesofuk: A 2022 RfC classified Who's Who UK as unreliable, and therefore cannot count towards meeting the GNG/BASIC. On top of that, peers are included automatically, so inclusion is not an indication of notability. I wrote this in the nomination - did you gloss over it, or do you think it could have been written more clearly? Pilaz (talk) 16:36, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I checked in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources#Who's Who (UK) and it doesn't state that Who's Who can't be used to establish notability, compare with Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources#Daily Mail Piecesofuk (talk) 17:08, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Piecesofuk Please see WP:GUNREL which states (in part): "Outside exceptional circumstances, the source should normally not be used, and it should never be used for information about a living person." While I agree with your "Keep" !vote, Who's Who has been determined to be unreliable by the community. --Kbabej (talk) 17:13, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  By "the community" you presumably mean a handful of editors completely uninvolved in editing in the field, none of whom thought it a good idea to make the existence of the RfC more widely known among those who did actually know what they were talking about! -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:35, 18 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  It doesn't take familiarity with "the field" to recognize a source that collects tens of thousands of self-submitted promotional "biographies" with apparently zero editorial fact-checking is no better than any other user-generated source. JoelleJay (talk) 17:09, 18 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  But have you read WP:BASIC? People are presumed notable if they have received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject. If it's not reliable, it can't count towards notability. Pilaz (talk) 17:14, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I disagree with you on what you mean by reliable. Who's Who has a long history of being used as a reliable reference work for who is notable in the UK and around the world. The contents are autobiographical so may or may not be reliable. Their inclusion in my opinion is enough to pass notability. It's also a recommended reference work in the Wikipedia Library https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/partners/76/ Piecesofuk (talk) 17:29, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  You don't disagree with me, you disagree with the community's unanimous consensus. Pilaz (talk) 17:36, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes you are correct. If I'd known about the RfC I would have voted: reliable (with indication of notability) per WP:ANYBIO #3 (The person has an entry in a country's standard national biographical dictionary (e.g. the Dictionary of National Biography).) but to treat the entry per WP:ABOUTSELF If Wikipedia can't distinguish between the two then I think WP:IAR applies on this occasion. Piecesofuk (talk) 18:38, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  The problem with Who's Who UK is not only that it's not reliable, but that it's also a WP:TERTIARY source that contains WP:PRIMARY material (since, as the website indicates, all information submitted is autobiographical, and hence not independent from the subject). The GNG demands secondary sources to ascertain notability. You should feel free to challenge the consensus established at RSN, but this is not the place to do so. Pilaz (talk) 19:57, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  The 2022 RfC (which no one who edits UK-related biographies seems to have been made aware of) flies in the face many previous individual discussions where Who's Who was endorsed as an assessment point for notability (and it's a part of the Wikipedia Library, which Pilaz did not mention in the RfC. Atchom (talk) 02:57, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Who's Who is on its face an obviously inappropriate source for notability purposes, no one should have been using it even before the RfC and it's astounding that anyone would've been endorsing it (can you link to these discussions please?). As Pilaz said, the biggest problem is that it is not independent (because of self-submission), which is required of all sources used to determine notability. It's also ridiculous to equate inclusion in it with inclusion in a "national encyclopedia"; with 33,000 entries it's practically a phonebook and not remotely indicative of importance. JoelleJay (talk) 17:31, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Adding to this, since when does inclusion in the Wikipedia Library equal endorsement by Wikipedia's editing community? All this tells us is that the publisher (OUP) gave access to Wikipedia users, and that's it. Pilaz (talk) 18:32, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  The purpose of Wikipedia Library is to give people sources to use to improve the encyclopaedia, is it not? Atchom (talk) 03:35, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  And the reliability of said sources is determined by consensus at WP:RSN, is it not? Pilaz (talk) 03:55, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I said "an assessment point" not that it's determinative. Also, UK Who's Who is *not* like the American equivalent. It is extensively used as a source in, for instance, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, which as authoritative as it gets (they also link all of their biographies to their Who's Who entry). As I said, not a single one of the editors who answered the RfD Pilaz launched seems to have a background in UK-related articles, and the discussion shows. Atchom (talk) 03:34, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  This is not the correct venue to challenge the outcome of an RfC. --JBL (talk) 12:10, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Doesn't matter where else it's used or who was aware of the discussion or whatever the US equivalent is, it's obviously unusable for considerations of notability due to not being independent. JoelleJay (talk) 17:03, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  People do not apply (or pay) to be in it. They do not self select. They are selected by the editorial team because they are notable. While its fact checking may not be perfect (although, as has been stated, it's very odd indeed that the RfC was not made known to any appropriate forum and therefore only contributed to by editors who do not generally edit in the field), its selection criteria are not in doubt. Therefore it is a perfectly sensible statement that people in it are generally notable. -- Necrothesp (talk) 22:43, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  This is not the correct venue to challenge the outcome of an RfC. --JBL (talk) 23:02, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Self-submitted content, whether actively sought by the publication or not, is obviously unusable for determining notability. If you have a problem with that, take it up with WP:RS or WP:OR or WP:N. If there's a group of editors who apparently are not aware of or do not follow these basic tenets of Wikipedia then perhaps the wider community should intervene. JoelleJay (talk) 17:14, 18 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You really seem to fail to understand. People are selected to be in WW on the basis of their notability; they do not select themselves. The fact the content is self-submitted is irrelevant to their selection for inclusion. That's done by the editorial team. Non-notable people are not selected for inclusion. -- Necrothesp (talk) 01:34, 25 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The inclusion of peers in WW is automatic and is made irrespective of the individual notability of peers. See Friedman and Reeves 2020. Pilaz (talk) 01:42, 25 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Which wasn't the point I was making at all. My point was that it is wrong to conflate the content of the entry with the decision to select an individual for an entry. -- Necrothesp (talk) 00:44, 26 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep The sources unearthed by Kbabej demonstrate coverage and notability, and could be used to flesh out the article. Ficaia (talk) 08:23, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:18, 18 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete The forensic analysis by Pilaz is very convincing. Much of the arguments in favour of keep above are entirely based on falsehoods such as "automatic notability of marquesses" or his appointment to a county-level ceremonial post. That's not how our notability guidelines work. That's not how WP:NPOL works. This individual has never been subject to in-depth, substantial coverage in multiple reliable sources. A passing mention in a local newspaper is way, way below what meets our requirements. AusLondonder (talk) 15:05, 18 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to Marquess of Abergavenny, his peerage title, in lieu of deletion. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 06:22, 19 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Noting as a “delete” !voter that this would be acceptable to me (the target looks appropriate). —JBL (talk) 12:16, 19 March 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.