Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Clerk of Tynwald

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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. No support for deletion apart from the nominator Davewild (talk) 18:12, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk of Tynwald[edit]

Clerk of Tynwald (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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This position seems to be an insignificant support position in a rather small government body. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 03:44, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Strong keep - as far as I can tell, the Clerk of Tynwald's position in the Isle of Man's government is equiviliant to that of the Attorney General's in the United States government. Now, if additional info can't be found for the article, the merge to Tynwald that's apparently been proposed on the article's page for some time might be in order. - The Bushranger One ping only 05:38, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. The Bushranger One ping only 05:40, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. The Bushranger One ping only 05:40, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This article has been nominated for rescue. The Bushranger One ping only 05:40, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Clear keep. Head of administration of a national parliament (however small). Of course he's notable. -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:44, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The nomination appears to be the result of a misunderstanding. This is not an 'insignificant support position' but the most senior. As for it being 'a rather small government body' the Isle of Man is self-governing, not a constituent part of the United Kingdom, and the Tynwald is therefore the governing body of a rather small island, which is an entirely different thing. The Tynwald, incidentally, claims to be over 1,000 years old. --AJHingston (talk) 09:28, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment On the talk page I summed up why I thought this position was unimportant. Please give it a read. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 12:39, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Wikipedia's purpose is to inform. It does not favour one country over another because it is bigger. The fact this official only heads an office of about thirty is immaterial, since he is the chief administrator of a national legislature. The fact you, as an American, are confused as to the meaning of clerk or Tynwald is also immaterial. If you read the article and follow the links you will be in no doubt as to their meanings. Clerks are not important? I think you may have misunderstood the meaning of the term. In the UK and its associated countries, a clerk may be a very senior administrator. The Clerk of the Parliaments, for example, is almost invariably knighted for his service in that office. Your generalisation about clerks could just as well apply to secretaries, who are often even more junior than clerks, yet that term is also used for very senior officers in the US Government. Do we now only write articles about positions and nomenclature understood by Americans? The fact that none of the officeholders yet has an article is immaterial - it just means nobody has yet got around to writing one (remember that nobody, not even the Presidents of the United States, had an article until one was written about them). Your argument seems to be largely based on "these aren't terms I understand so it can't be important", which really is a very weak argument for deletion. Using your logic, presumably Secretary of Agriculture should also be deleted because it sounds like a minor functionary in a rural town!? -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:58, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • That was a really nasty response. I posted that on the talk page so that knowledgeable people could improve the article to better state the position's significance. My point is that the article as it existed very poorly stated the importance of the position. It was a guide to those who wish to improve the article. If I was a more sensitive person, I would just give up on the whole project after responses like this. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 14:23, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • You were the one who nominated it for deletion instead of just suggesting it should be improved! This is not the place to get articles improved; it's the place to get them deleted because they're not notable! I'm sorry if you thought it was, but as far as I'm concerned it wasn't a nasty response. It was just that you seem to have nominated a perfectly good article for deletion without trying to determine its notability, based on the fact that people from another country may not understand its significance. Is that not what Wikipedia is for? -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:45, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep trout nominator Francis Bond (talk) 14:13, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Historical depth rather than size is what makes notability. So, the administrator of a small legislative body of one of the realms of the British crown is notable; the Tynwald itself has been around since 979. FWIW, the most senior judge of the Old Bailey is the Recorder of London, and the second in command is the Common Serjeant of London. To American ears these too are unimpressive sounding titles. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 15:02, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't doubt the historical depth of Tynwald, but I don't know if the Clerk has the same historical depth. The office holders listed only goes back to 1987 and my source search failed to find any earlier officeholders. Do you know more about the history of the clerk? D O N D E groovily Talk to me 15:09, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I went looking for sources to get a better idea of what this position is about, and my initial beliefs are confirmed by the sources. Aside from providing legal advice, the sources to me indicate that this position primarily assists the House of Keys with menial scheduling and organizing. A Google News search, in particular, demonstrates that this position has almost no news-worthy role in the governance or law-making on the Isle of Man - a search for news on Tynwald produces pages and pages of very recent news about Isle of Man, but all that comes up for a news search on the clerk is a total of 6 news article, four of them merely asking people to submit something to the Clerk and the other two simply mention clerk and Tynwald on the same page. Thus, the Clerk of Tynwald is not equivalent to attorney general (those people get in the news), not like a secretary in the US (they get in the news, too), not like a clerk elsewhere in the UK (they also get in the news) and not the chief administrator (the Chief Minister has this role). D O N D E groovily Talk to me 15:06, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Also, a google news search for Roger Phillips (the current Clerk) only a single news article about his presence at a historic church service. Again, an important officeholder in a parliament gets in the news. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 15:13, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The first I already cited in the article, the second doesn't say anything about the clerk, and the third quotes the clerk, but says nothing about the office or the person. And that's the challenge here, finding an article about the clerk position, and not just about Tynwald in general. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 17:35, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Please use some common sense. The Tynwald is a top-level legislature, same as the UK House of Commons or the US House of Representatives. In top-level legislatures, there is no argument that all major elected and appointed positions have articles. The equivalent position in the UK House of Commons is the Clerk of the House of Commons, and there's no argument about deleting that. I have the say the argument for deletion is verging on WP:IDONTKNOWIT. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 21:00, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • No, the reason to delete is "there's no sources" D O N D E groovily Talk to me 01:05, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • No, the reason you gave was that it's an "insignificant support position", but if we disregard you changing your rationale for deletion in mid-AfD, that argument doesn't prove much. For a start, it's practically impossible to prove there's no sources, only that sources can't easily be found on the internet. All Members of Parliament of any top-level legislature are presumed to be notable (that's the individuals themselves, not just the position) whether or not sources are found about them. There's no reason why the same principle should be applied to the most senior administrative position of a top-level legislature. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 06:35, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • For a bit I was thinking I had the wrong idea with this nomination, then I looked at sources, and they confirmed my rationale. The sources indicate that this is an insignificant support position. The sources indicate that this is NOT a senior administrative position at all. Again, how is it possible that Tynwald could have 10 news articles a day and its senior administrator almost none in ten years? The answer is that it's not. If the clerk was really the senior administrator, there would be substantial news about him every day.
The Court of Tynwald itself suggests that this position is not very important. At their own website (http://www.tynwald.org.im/tynwald/today.shtml), he's barely mentioned and lumped in with the Chaplain and the Manx translator.
The Keep argument seems to be that other UK clerks are important therefore this one is too. Which is a flawed argument, especially with the Tynwald's different history compared to UK parliament. Another keep argument is Tynwald is old which makes it notable which makes the Clerk notable. Notability for the Clerk is not inherited from the parliament.
And how is it that I'm wrong when I'm the only one basing my argument on sources? When I'm the only one who's tried to improve the article during this discussion? D O N D E groovily Talk to me 12:19, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The point is that there's a lot more to notablity and importance than what you find on Google. To pick a couple of figures out an random, UK Welsh Secretary Cheryl Gillan currently gets 110 hit on Google. Lord Kerr gets 7. Does this mean Lord Kerr is an insignificant figure is public life? No - he's a Supreme Court judge, and Supreme Court judges have a huge amount of power. Not all third-party coverage comes from the internet - it can also be from printed media. Policy is not a rigid set of rules where one microdeviation is punishable by death. The are statements of principle which evolve over time using precedent and common sense. The majority of people in the AfD presumably believe there is more than enough precedent and common sense to presume the most senior administrative officer in the Isle of Man Parliament to be presumed notable the same way that MPs are presumed notable (which doesn't mean it's notable in spite of having no sources - it means it can be assumed the sources are out there.)
Please credit Wikpedians with the intelligence to talk about how their own countries are run with some degree of knowledge. When someone makes sweeping statements about the running of whichever US state you live in, you're welcome to use your own knowledge then. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 21:59, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, I don't think anyone who's commented here lives on the Isle of Man. And based on sources, I don't think the clerk actually is the chief administrator. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 23:49, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I think we may be getting somewhere. Do you think that somebody at Tynwald has a more senior administrative role? I don't see how you get that idea from the sources you refer to but perhaps you can explain. You may be confusing the elected members with the appointed officers. Or are you saying that he is not the most senior administrator of the government? That would be right, because he is an officer of the legisature, whilst ministers head their own departments which have their own staff. That is usual in a parliamentary system. This does demonstrate, by the way, why WP articles on such topics are genuinely useful because they can explain the nature and duties of offices such as this that might not be immediately obvious. --AJHingston (talk) 00:32, 20 October 2011 (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.
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