Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lady Jean Cochrane

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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. Malcolmxl5 (talk) 12:50, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Lady Jean Cochrane[edit]

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Lady Jean Cochrane (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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This is a clear instance of WP:NOTINHERITED / WP:NBIO: the artlcle is about a woman who inherited a title and gained two others by marriage - and that's all. The creator (owner) has reverted a redirect to the article of one of the husbands, which wd have been a reasonable move, on the grounds that the possession of a title must mean notability. Ingratis (talk) 11:54, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

All sources cited are run of the mill, so no significant coverage - see below. Ingratis (talk) 22:40, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Ingratis (talk) 11:54, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. Ingratis (talk) 1:54, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Withdrawn by nominator - (I assume I can still do this? the only !vote in favour of redirecting was subsequently withdrawn). I've thought further about pburka's reminder that some people are just "famous for being famous" and there is (just) enough low-grade social press coverage from before the war to support that, even though she actually did nothing notable at all. It would have saved a lot of time if the article's creator had included the references straight away. Ingratis (talk) 13:17, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Spiderone(Talk to Spider) 13:11, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Royalty and nobility-related deletion discussions. Spiderone(Talk to Spider) 13:11, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment/Question - It seems there are two articles on this person, Lady Jean Cochrane created on August 31, 2021 and Jean Alice Elaine Cochrane created today Oct. 16 just after the Lady Jean Cochrane article was nominated for deletion. Both articles were created by the same editor. Not sure what that is about, Hogyncymru did you have some insight to share with the community? Netherzone (talk) 13:28, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Netherzone: the person who nominated the original page for deletion argued about her 'lady' status, so I created a new page with just her name without the 'lady' attached, so I thought it'd be easier to just start another as a fresh, there's no question why she shouldn't have a page made about her seeing as she was incredibly well known between 1900 & 1920 who even featured on the cover-page of Sketch magazine (which would be equivalent to 'Hello magazine' today, I've mentioned who she is, who her parents were who she married, who her child was (all of which were importand people), these people were in the royal circle, not just in Britain, but in Europe too, so I'm happy for the first to be deleted as long as this one remains, however, I won't be replying further to Ingratis, as he's lost his temper previously. also.. what's the point of redirecting a person's page to her husband? seems disrespectful to lower her status in that way. Hogyncymru (talk) 13:39, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    • Comment - User:Hogyncymru continues to miss the point that the title of "Lady" does not make a person automatically notable. If someone else can get this through to him/her/them, that would be helpful! Ingratis (talk) 14:51, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

*Comment either Peter_Macdonald_(Conservative_politician) or Herbert Hervey, 5th Marquess of Bristol would do as a redirect target. The problem for Lady Jean is that her entire life's work appears to have been launching one ship, acting as a nurse during the war (which many others did) and supporting her two husbands. The only other information about her in this article is her parentage, which could be merged into the articles on either of her husbands. Elemimele (talk) 14:05, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Elemimele: You could say the same with the majority of celebrity pages on wiki, being famous because of their connections with other notable people, such as Michael Jackson's friend David Guest who became famous for going on reality tv show and bragging about Michael Jackson, Jean was famous, yes the page is a little bare, but she was in the limelight throughout her life, how can you ignore that?Hogyncymru (talk) 14:16, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Jean was a famous figure in her time, throughout her life, she was featured within prominent publications to which, she made it to the cover of The Bystander[1], Tatler[2][3], Country Life[4], & The Sketch[5]. but sure, she wasn't 'notable'.Hogyncymru (talk) 15:09, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Scotland-related deletion discussions. Spiderone(Talk to Spider) 14:12, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Wales-related deletion discussions. Spiderone(Talk to Spider) 14:12, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
{re|Hogyncymru}} by all means make the case! If she's got more references indicating notability that aren't currently in the article, then by all means write what she did, what she meant, and reference it. That might convert the article into something that stands on its own, and that is no longer appropriate to merge. The references you found are potentially perfectly valid, but they're not things that everyone here is likely to find, as they long predate the internet era. If she was an influential socialite, that might qualify her as notable for an article. What she needs is something in the article independent of her husbands, something that shows she did more than get married and launch a ship. Elemimele (talk) 16:54, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hogyncymru, did you find these on an online source? That would really help with verification. It's OK to use offline references, but it will help your case if other editors can evaluate if these are significant coverage, or trivial coverage. If you can provide links that would be really helpful. Sometimes scans are available for old publications such as newspapers and magazines. On Newspapers.com I was able to find [1], the short story and photo from 1913 seems to have been picked-up as a news release by a number of newspapers in the U.S. (they all have the exact same wording). I also found this photo of her in a Spokane, Washington 1915 article [2]. I saw a couple other mentions of her, but they were single sentences about her attending other people's weddings. Netherzone (talk) 17:19, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Netherzone: For the references, I used www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk so they can be tracked down online, if people have trouble accessing them, they could look on https://archive.org or even https://trove.nla.gov.au/ as for finding her name, it alters a lot, she may be addressed as;

Lady Jean Cochrane, Lady Herbert Hervey, Lady Macdonald, Lady Jean Macdonald, Jean Alice Elaine Cochrane or even Jean Baillie Hamilton. Hogyncymru (talk) 17:36, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

https://imgur.com/a/9QkGbzz here's a link to screenshots of her in popular magazine articles (which are all accessible through britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk Hogyncymru (talk) 17:44, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep - She has had sustained coverage over a period of years in multiple independent sources, thanks to the research of Hogyncymru; it would be great to add those links to the article to establish WP:V. Subject of the article meets WP:NBASIC and WP:GNG for notability. I don't think it matters at all if she is a "Lady" or not, as there is enough evidence that she was a prominant woman and notable socialite of her time. Netherzone (talk) 20:01, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm happy to strike my concerns and treat her as a keep too, based on Hogyncymru's efforts. Elemimele (talk) 22:22, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - WP:GNG requires significant coverage in sources. This is absent here. Have the two Keep !voters actually looked at the articles? they are all run of the mill references: she attends a party, does war work, gives a wedding present. Like hundreds of other upper class young women she is photographed once or twice. Once she's invited to launch a ship. In some later ones she attends functions as an MP's wife. There is nothing there to support any claim of independent notability, even as a socialite. The claim above and in the duplicate article created out of process - what is happening about that, by the way - that she was famous, is untrue. Ingratis (talk) 22:37, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Ingratis: there are literally thousands upon thousands of other articles on Wiki of people who have done nothing compared with Jean yet you choose to target her because she was rich and had connections? even if she just 'attended parties' as you put it, she was still well known across the commonwealth. (btw my question was hypothetical, I shant be replying to you again).Hogyncymru (talk) 22:48, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That makes any kind of discussion rather difficult then, doesn't it? please try to get beyond the playground. For the rest, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a good argument. Ingratis (talk) 23:06, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Ingratis:you used aggression from the get go, letting your emotion get the better of you instead of editing accordingly without signs of (mild) personal attacks;

"For crying out loud, read the blasted links"

"exasperation at your stubborn refusal to follow the guidelines"

"If someone else can get this through to him/her/them"

and then you question other editors when you don't get your way, and this is why I don't want to continue talking with you, because you're taking it too personally. Hogyncymru (talk) 23:23, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I really don't see those wordings as aggressive (take a look at some of your edit summaries reverting my edits), just as exasperated because you keep on, with dispropprtionate reverence, about her nobility, which does not make her notable. And Pburka below may well be overvaluing the importance of a daughter of an earl.Ingratis (talk) 00:17, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"She, like many other beautiful women of the peerage has been doing splendid work for our wounded heroes" - Daily Mirror, Thursday 19 October 1916. Definition of 'Peerage'; 1. peerage - the peers of a kingdom considered as a group. baronage. aristocracy, nobility - a privileged class holding hereditary titles.Hogyncymru (talk) 23:14, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • I don't see the point of that, unless you are still trying to say that she is notable because of her peerage connections. Ingratis (talk) 00:17, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. This is a misunderstanding of WP:NOTINHERITED, which isn't a guideline or a policy, but rather an argument to avoid. It means that someone isn't presumed to be notable just because they're associated with a notable topic. That someone inherited a title of nobility doesn't mean they're automatically notable, but it's often a very strong indicator. People with such titles tend to be wealthy, powerful, and well-connected. Even if they're simply famous for being famous, they're still notable. Obviously, given the time, we might expect that many sources about Cochrane are off-line, but Hogyncymru appears to have access to such sources. pburka (talk) 23:36, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Indeed, I have updated the article to reflect these articles to show that she was a notable person (regardless of her title), these articles are easily searchable on many newspaper archive websites, to which I used 'BritishNewspaperArchives'.Hogyncymru (talk) 23:43, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • If the sources are on-line, please consider including URLs in the references. You may wish to use Template:Cite news. pburka (talk) 23:46, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:NOTINHERITED means that someone cannot be deemed notable simply because of their parents or husbands, which was exactly the argument that Hogyncymru was using initially, which was why I brought this article to AfD. My point about the sources is not that there are none but that there are not enough of them of sufficient depth, online or offline, to demonstrate that this subject has her own notability despite her title, so I don't think they amount to significant coverage - and despite all the genuflection up above, she was "just" a daughter of an earl and the wife of another, by the way, and there is nothing magic about that. What Hogyncymru is accessing is mostly standard gossip column material, which does not need to be treated with excessive reverence just because it's old. It still looks as though no-one has actually read any of it - I have: it's pretty trivial. Can you all please not judge without seeing the material for yourselves? And there is no evidence so far that she was "famous", whatever Hogyncymru intends that to mean. Ingratis (talk) 00:17, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

How would one define a model? because she became famous because of her modelling work, she was paid to appear on these popular magazines so she had to model in order for those images to appear, so technically even if her status is in question, modelling is a valid reason to have her page stay up.Hogyncymru (talk) 00:44, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

She seems to have been a society beauty, but a paid model? you have not brought that up before. Where are you getting that from? and if you think that makes her notable, why have you not mentioned it earlier? and anyway, not all models are notable. Ingratis (talk) 09:32, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep They choose notable people to launch warships. Victuallers (talk) 08:28, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. People who launch ships are obviously also often notable, but especially in the past they were not celebrities but dignitaries or their wives (for example, the wives of shipyard owners) and despite the way this particular AfD has gone it is still true that not all dignitaries are notable: many of them just belong to the establishment. I notice that you have added her frail claims to notability to the lede of the article (since Hogyncymru didn't): if the best you can come up with is "she launched a ship", it's not convincing. Ingratis (talk) 09:32, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So the consensus is to keep (3 against 1), is anyone able to remove the warnings on her page please?Hogyncymru (talk) 18:03, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The nominator withdrew the nomination. Some uninvolved editor will be along to remove the discussion and notices in a while, I'm sure. There is a process to follow. pburka (talk) 18:24, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Pburka: Thank you. Hogyncymru (talk) 18:49, 18 October 2021 (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.
  1. ^ The Bystander - Wednesday 20 October 1909
  2. ^ The Tatler - Wednesday 02 August 1916
  3. ^ The Tatler - Wednesday 07 November 1906
  4. ^ Country Life Magazine 12 April 1919
  5. ^ The Sketch - Wednesday 06 February 1918
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