Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/William Herbert Kemp (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 speedy keep. The nom hasn't even bothered with searching for sources as these have all been nominated within seconds of each other. No objections to speedy renomination by anyone except the nom. (non-admin closure) –Davey2010^Talk 01:36, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

William Herbert Kemp

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Failed parliamentary candidate. The claim that he was one of the founders of Keele University is not backed up by a reference, and during a quick search I was unable to find sources which validate or lend credence this claim. Uhooep (talk) 03:13, 12 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: I'm not sure how or why this nomination has resurfaced. It was previously nominated and the decision then was keep. Neither the article nor wikipedia policies have changed in the meantime. Graemp (talk) 08:20, 12 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The decision on Kemp was not "keep" the first time — it was "No consensus, with no prejudice against speedy relisting". Bearcat (talk) 18:08, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: For clarification, the Administrator said no prejudice against speedy re-listing as he felt discussion around three different articles at once had been confusing. There was no speedy re-listing, perhaps because the nominator visited my talkpage to indicate that they were happy with the article but instead sought improvements which were duly made. Graemp (talk) 09:12, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. /wiae /tlk 13:29, 12 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. /wiae /tlk 13:29, 12 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

His best shot at includability is his term as Lord Mayor of Stoke-on-Trent — but because most mayors in England are not directly elected by the general public, but instead the position rotates on a ceremonial basis among the councillors, most mayors in England are not eligible for automatic inclusion per WP:NPOL unless they can be reliably sourced well enough to pass WP:GNG. But the sourcing here is not adequate to give him a pass on that basis — it's not to media coverage about him, but almost entirely to primary sources and simple namechecks of his existence in directory lists. And as I already noted above, he did not get a "keep" result the first time — he landed "no consensus, NPASR". Delete, without prejudice against recreation in the future if somebody can do better than this. Bearcat (talk) 18:15, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Your points about most mayors in England not being directly elected and them being ceremonial are irrelevant. There is no reason why someone who is not directly elected or someone who has a ceremonial role should not be accepted; The British Prime Minister is not directly elected and the Queen is ceremonial. What is important in assessing notability is not how someone acquired a position or how long they had it, but what that position was and what responsibilities it had. As with most city Mayors of the time, Kemp had a ceremonial role as the leading figure in the community and also the role of being Chairman of the Council, presiding over the meetings of the full council, the prime municipal policy deciding body. Wikipedia gives us additional help by valuing strategic and regional significance. Stoke's regional significance as the centre of the UK pottery industry led to its status and that of its civic head being elevated in 1928. The article covers various aspects of his life, but the only one we need to concern ourselves with is him being Lord Mayor of Stoke-on-Trent as that is what determins notability. Therefore as far as sourcing is concerned we only need to satisfy ourselves that he actually was Lord Mayor of Stoke-on-Trent. Here The Times comes to our rescue by confirming the fact with an in-line citation. Graemp (talk) 07:12, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You're entirely missing the point of what I said. For national officeholders like the Prime Minister or the Queen, the role is automatically notable and it's irrelevant whether they're directly elected or appointed or executive or ceremonial — the Queen is a national head of state (not just of the UK but of numerous other countries worldwide including mine), and the PM is the national head of government. However for mayors, and other people whose notability is more localized, our inclusion standards are deliberately much more restrictive than the ones for national officeholders. A mayor only gets automatic inclusion under WP:NPOL if he or she is the directly elected (not appointed, ceremonial or rotational) mayor of a major city (not a small town), and if they fail either of those criteria then they become eligible for a Wikipedia article only if you can show a volume of sourcing that's sufficient to satisfy WP:GNG — for an appointed/ceremonial mayor, one citation confirming the mere fact that they held the role of mayor is not, in and of itself, enough to get them kept, especially when that one citation doesn't even give enough detail for us to be able to tell whether it's a substantive reference about him or merely the appearance of his name in a directory list. Per Lord Mayor of Stoke-on-Trent, for example, the city has had 88 Lord Mayors since 1927, of whom just two besides Kemp actually have articles and even one of those two got it for being a federal Member of Parliament rather than for being a Lord Mayor of Stoke-on-Trent. Bearcat (talk) 20:13, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You are getting confused. There is absolutely nothing in WP:NPOL that says a Mayor has to be directly elected. You can't just make stuff up. Even if he had been directly elected he still would not have passed WP:POL as Mayors are not covered by this policy. As I said, the position had regional significance which is specifically referred to in WP:POLOUTCOMES. Graemp (talk) 09:12, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not getting confused at all. For one thing, mayors are covered by NPOL if they satisfy criterion #3, "major local political figures who have received significant press coverage", but what that means is that you have to actually show the coverage upfront to a much greater degree than you have to for an MP or a PM (although even MPs and PMs aren't exempted from having to be sourced — all they get is a "you don't need as much sourcing to start the article with", not "no sourcing required at all", and they still get flagged for {{refimprove}} until the sourcing gets better.) And it helps immeasurably to be familiar with the actual state of precedent on comparable AFDs, of which WP:POLOUTCOMES is not a fully accurate and up-to-date summary: "a mayor has to be directly elected to get an automatic NPOL pass just because mayor" is not a thing I made up myself. The real, established consensus at AFD, established by a lot of editors on all of the comparable situations to this one, is that appointed/ceremonial/rotational mayors do not get automatic inclusion because mayor, but rather must be shown as being the subject of a lot more press coverage than has been shown here in order to become includable per WP:GNG. Bearcat (talk) 15:52, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: WP:NPOL#3 is about "elected officials" and "unelected candidates". A non-directly elected Mayor who was neither can not therefore meet WP:NPOL regardless of press coverage. That is why it is all about WP:POLOUTCOMES, the only place where Mayors are specifically talked about. Here it says "Mayors of cities of at least regional prominence have usually survived AFD". It further says that an article needs to do more than state that fact. There is nothing here that goes anywhere near talking about the volumes of press coverage you say are needed. Your contention that there is an "established consensus at AFD" that Mayors per se require a lot more press coverage than in the Kemp article, looks particularly flimsy when you consider that this so called "established consensus" was completely ignored by the Administrator who considered this case when it was the subject of the first AfD only last year. The article cite's his position as Mayor from a reliable source and includes additional coverage of his career from both the national press and the specialist press. Graemp (talk) 10:07, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you actually read the closer's conclusion in the original discussion, he left Kemp as "no consensus" because the participants in the discussion failed to actually address him at all, and instead the discussion focused entirely on the other two articles that he happened to be batched with. So no, that close doesn't contradict what I said in the comment above at all — if a politician hasn't earned a clean WP:NPOL pass by virtue of his position being one that confers automatic notability, then a volume of reliable source coverage that is substantial enough to satisfy WP:GNG is his only other path to a Wikipedia article ever. Bearcat (talk) 15:28, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong, if you actually read the original discussion, numerous contributors actually did address Kemp and the issues surrounding him. There were many contributors in that discussion, some addressed all three subjects while some only addressed one. If you actually read the closer's conclusion in the original discussion, he left Kemp as "no consensus" "due to most participants here overlooking him" and did not say anything like "the discussion failed to actually address him at all" as you assert. So yes, that close completely debunks your "established consensus" assertion, because had that been the case, even without much discussion, the decision on Kemp would have been to delete, as it was with another subject who was also ignored by some contributors. Graemp (talk) 15:50, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd love to know where you perceive a distinction between "most participants overlooked him" and "the discussion failed to address him" — there's certainly not a substantive difference in what the words mean. Closers aren't allowed to impose a conclusion on the discussion that hasn't been supported by that discussion — so no, it's not the case that the existing consensus around non-elected mayors would have forced the closer's hand despite the lack of discussion about Kemp; the lack of discussion of Kemp forced the closer's hand despite the precedent, not vice versa. And you can't just look at one AFD in isolation anyway — you have to look at every past AFD about appointed/ceremonial/rotational mayors of places in England, and those have consistently been closed as "delete because not enough reliable source coverage has been shown to get around the fact that the position isn't a directly elected one that can confer automatic notability-because-mayor". So no, I'm sorry, but I am not wrong about this. Bearcat (talk) 16:03, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have just explained to you the distinction but I'll try it again in a numerical way; "most participants overlooked him"= between 50%-99% overlooked him; "the discussion failed to address him" = 100% overlooked him. That is a substantive difference. At least you are no longer asserting that "the participants in the discussion failed to actually address him at all" and that there was in fact a discussion on him. During that discussion on Kemp, the specific case you make for deletion was actually made. Therefore, the closer didn't need to impose, he could have referenced "established consensus", but this did not happen. I assume that the closer of that discussion may have "looked at every past AFD about appointed/ceremonial/rotational mayors of places in England" particularly with regard to how they meet WP:POLOUTCOMES which states "Mayors of cities of at least regional prominence have usually survived AFD". I would expect that closer, or any other to take more notice of something specifically stated in a policy, than a contrary assertion of "established consensus" made my an editor that can not be referenced at all. Graemp (talk) 16:45, 18 March 2016 (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.