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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 no consensus. Purely in terms of numbers, I count 9 keeps and 6 deletes (including the nominator).Though the "keep" !voters are in the majority, the relative scarcity of the sources and the arguments advocating bending the notability guidelines make me hesitant to close this as a straight "keep". However, there is certainly no consensus to delete at this time. — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 10:46, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Richard Tylman[edit]

AfDs for this article:
Richard Tylman (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • Stats)
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Fails WP:POLITICIAN. Tylman was mayor of a small town in England, Faversham, which has a current population of 17,000. According to the article he served for one year only. All the sources provided are genealogical websites and there is no explanation why he is considered notable. Oddly, the author of this article, Poeticbent, who identifies himself as "Richard Tylman", had earlier created another article with the same name, but about an obscure 21st Canadian graphic artist. That article was deleted based on unanimous consent except for Poeticbent (actually a sockpuppet he created called Dr. Loosmark). TFD (talk) 02:37, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The accusation of sockpuppetry is false - the link between Poeticbent and Dr. Loosmark was a mistake.VolunteerMarek 16:07, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
How do you know that? TFD (talk) 16:19, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Seriously? - So the original article was about an artist and was deleted? And has now been "re-created" but about someone else with the same name? But it has been recreated by someone who (IRL) is the artist who was the original subject of the original (deleted) article? So the artist creates an article about himself, it gets deleted (after a number of AfD and some ArbCom stuff) and then creates a new article about a different guy with exactly the same name who (per the nom) is also not notable? Seriously? Stalwart111 (talk) 03:14, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete from Wikipedia and Move to the genealogy wiki called WeRelate. This article is perfect for WeRelate, but not notable enough for Wikipedia. Please allow editor time to move or better yet, have it moved to his sandbox. Jrcrin001 (talk) 05:47, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - I concur with Jrcrin001 that this is an interesting piece of family and local history, nicely researched via ancestry.com, that would grace a family website or a genealogy site. Unfortunately it's not notable enough to pass WP:GNG. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:17, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]


  • Keep - I am not following the politics of who wrote it- the test is "Is it useful" and it passes that. Firstly this is referenced so is not a stub but Start/C class. Secondly Faversham in the 1500s was an important town, and anyone studying mediaeval history or doing studies on Kent, mediaeval transport will find it a useful case study. Talking about notability of a sucessful merchant when we cover so few. Look at the dross that we have to police in Chatham, Kent#Notable people (30 miles away) and compare that with a BIO of a man who fed London, under Elizabeth the First.
Yes it is a C/start, but could be used as the basis of school projects in UK curriculum stages KS2, KS3, KS4. Is there more work to be done. Yes. More articles are needed on provincial Tudor merchants and Kent- but finding good content providers is tough. Encouraging genealogists to come over and share their work is one method- all we do is accept their work and wikify it- and pull it up the quality scale. WP:GNG should not be used to prevent content. The guidelines are guidelines. It is the subject not the article or the author that should be judged.
Looking at Wikipedia:Notability (people) This guy was a significant merchant, in a significant town of the period, serving significant royal, a successful politician having achieved a notable honour and is still known for his work 500 years later. We are talking about 1540- and by those criteria he rings all the bells.--ClemRutter (talk) 09:13, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Surely "is it useful" is very definitely not the criteria for encyclopedia status? And, by contrast, WP:GNG very definitely is the basic rule we look at to work out whether we have an article or not? And the suggestion that schools should be looking to WP articles as the basis for research projects, even as a starting point, fills me with horror. N-HH talk/edits 17:23, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. ClemRutter convinces me; I had looked it over only very quickly and failed to notice previously that this guy is not the mayor today but was the mayor several centuries ago. First off, that makes the 17K population completely irrelevant; if we had an article on someone who was the mayor of Kaskaskia, Illinois back when it was the state capital and a flourishing city, it wouldn't be right to object to the article because he was the mayor of a village that has nine residents today. Secondly, our notability criteria for biographies are meant largely to exclude your run-of-the-mill people who are active today or were active recently (that's where we have a surplus of biographies that don't belong), or people from the farther past about whom we can't write anything substantial. The fact that we even know something about this guy's activities nearly half a millennium after he lived is a testimony that he should be judged notable, passing the spirit of WP:BIO. Finally, if you object to everything that I just said, please note that there's substantial coverage in at least two reliable sources (citations #4 and #5), so the letter of WP:BIO is passed as well as the spirit. Nyttend (talk) 12:55, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, that's quite something, both of you. These feel like persuasive arguments despite what do look like rather minimal sources, but then, what would we expect from so long ago. (We certainly needn't worry about BLP...) Guess I'm not used to remembering that the second G in WP:GNG is just "Guideline"... well, if it's OK to be a little more flexible in accepting a nicely-written article about an interesting guy from 5 centuries ago, then we should Keep. Is that all right for the WP: rules and standards experts out there? If so, I'll change my vote. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:48, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless of the significance of Faversham, there are just no reliable sources for this subject. Richard Tylman is mentioned only once (in the appendix) in Edward Jacob's The history of the town and port of Faversham: in the county of Kent (1774). Mayors were selected for one year terms. Similarly, he is not mentioned at all in the other secondary source used in the article, "The Historical Development of the Port of Faversham, Kent 1580-1780". Otherwise the article is built on genealogial records from non-reliable sources. If Richard Tylman is that interesting, then perhaps someone will write an article about him that could be used as a source. Until then, this is just original research. TFD (talk) 13:55, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please reread the Wilkinson article; the citation mentions five pages from the document, and the first one (11) alone gives this guy a substantial mention. Remember that there are spelling variations, so you can't rely on a computerised Find feature; you'll have to look it over yourself. Nyttend (talk) 15:15, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I now notice that there are a scattering of mentions of a "Richard Tillman". There is no evidence that this is the same person. Odd that when describing Tillman as a merchant in 1580 it would omit that he was also mayor. He might have been a relative or unrelated. Odd too that the source would use the spelling "Tylman" to refer to another person of that name. Even if we could establish that the merchant and the mayor were one and the same, it does not establish notability of either. TFD (talk) 15:34, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Odds are you are incorrect. It was common for profitable merchants to become mayors of the community; given the varieties of spelling in a given time, if we find records on two people from a given time and location with a similar name, one an officeholder and another, a merchant, they are more likely the same rather than not. However, any alternative spellings should be added to the article, and it may be a good idea to note that the references to the merchant are based on a source with a spelling variation. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 15:43, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
TFD, there is absolutely no guarantee of consistent spelling in the primary sources of the period. In such a situation, it's likely that Wilkinson would be following the spelling used by the sources he's examining without worrying about the spellings appearing in other primary sources. Meanwhile, Wilkinson is looking primarily at commercial development, not political matters, and as governments of the period often didn't interfere so greatly in commercial matters as they do today, one's involvement in politics might well not be seen as relevant to one's involvement in commerce. Nyttend (talk) 15:54, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. - The subject was once the biggest exporter of grain to London from an ancient port city during the reign of Elizabeth I of England. The published sources of info seem reliable to me. But please, take a closer look at the actual rationale for this nom, because there's a little lie in virtually every sentence there. Most importantly though, the nominator here, was also the AfD nominator at the previous nomination for an entirely different set of reasons, linked to ArbCom shenanigans more than anything. This is not a simple coincidence. Poeticbent talk 15:11, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • 1) Do you have a source for "once the biggest exporter of grain to London"? 2) Yes, I do agree there is at least some bad faith in this nom (including a false accusation of sockpuppetry, a rather low blow, tsk, tsk), but let's try to stay civil and focus on the article, rather than editors. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 15:24, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • See Poeticbent's Block Log: "14:32, 15 September 2011 Future Perfect at Sunrise (talk | contribs) blocked Poeticbent (talk | contribs) (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite (Abusing multiple accounts: Please see: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Loosmark)".[1] Now kindly strike out your false accusation against me. TFD (talk) 15:42, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • As far as I know, this was a mistake, and Loosmark was never a Poeticbent's sock. You may be able to obtain more information from the ArbCom, as far as I know not everything has been made public regarding this issue, and in any case, this is not the right place to discuss it (irrelevant, stale, poisoning the well, etc.). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 15:46, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • How does that justify me of making false accusations? I certainly was not aware of ARBCOM determining that this was a mistake. Note that the unblocking administrator said, "Unblocked following appeal to ArbCom on condition only this account is used".[2] TFD (talk) 16:02, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • While you are right that you are not to be faulted for the confusing block log entry, there was and is no reason for you to bring it into this discussion. Discussing editors, instead of articles, is not helpful, to say the least. I am certainly willing to refactor and remove my comment, if you do so as well (remove all unnecessary comments related to Poeticbent). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 16:54, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
              • I brought the block log entry into the discussion because you accused me of making false accusations. The relevance is that Poeticbent was the only editor who voted in favor of keeping this article on the 4th AfD. TFD (talk) 17:15, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                • I don't see how somebody's past action are relevant; and if you care about this you should've disclosed that you were the nominator of that AfD which IMHO seems more relevant. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 17:40, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Per Nyttend on the politician angle (I think that historical mayors should be notable by default). Unless more info is provided, I am not sure if he is notable as a merchant, but the office holder part, given the historical context, should be sufficient. PS. I suggest moving the article to Richard Tylman of Faversham to avoid any confusion with other Richard Tylmans. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 15:24, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Here's the requested source (5): Paul Wilkinson, PhD, MIfA, FRSA. "The Historical Development of the Port of Faversham, Kent 1580-1780" (PDF direct download, 749 KB). The Kent Archaeological Field School, p.104, http://www.kafs.co.uk/pdf/port.pdf. Quote: Richard Tillman [of Faversham] (p.89) was the corn merchant for all 16 voyages [emphasis mine] with wheat in the Blackeleeche of Faversham and on other ships... (p.104) Poeticbent talk 16:00, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
How do you know that "Richard Tillman" who is described on that page as being listed in the "Port Book of 1580" is the same person as "Richard Tylman" listed in the History as being mayor in 1580, and not a related or unrelated person with a similar name? Why does this source not mention he was mayor, and why would it use the spelling "Tillman" when it mentions a "Humphrey Tylman" on page 40? And why is this passing mention to one of many merchants mentioned in the source notable? TFD (talk) 16:17, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per the well reasoned argument of ClemRutter. In terms of history and economic history, most certainly a notable individual.VolunteerMarek 16:09, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 16:10, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 16:10, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. WP is seriously afflicted by recentism, not least because of course written sources - let alone accessible digital ones - are far rarer to start with for historical figures. For that reason too, it's always hard to make judgments or comparisons about notability between eras. However, the fact that we are basically relying on genealogy websites as sources is not a good sign. If he was notable by any standards, couldn't someone find a history book that mentions him, however briefly, in a substantive way in relation either to his business or political career? Ultimately, surely, the only objective way to look at this, while making allowances for the lack of sources, is to ask - would we have an article about a local, moderately successful small-town businessman who served for a year as mayor of that town? I'm not sure we would. N-HH talk/edits 17:12, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If he was notable by any standards, couldn't someone find a history book that mentions him, however briefly, in a substantive way in relation either to his business or political career? - Sure: [3] and [4].VolunteerMarek 17:24, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the first of those doesn't bring up any content or text for me; the latter is more promising but doesn't say much other than that he bought some commercial premises and traded in grain. I was thinking of a history of Kent that explicitly asserted something, say, about his role, status or lasting contribution, even just locally. I'm still not sure we would have a WP page for someone from this century who bought a warehouse and sold some corn. N-HH talk/edits 17:32, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Probably not - but he was also a mayor, and holding such office IMHO makes him notable. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 17:41, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
WP:POLITICIAN suggests otherwise .. N-HH talk/edits 17:46, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Right, because according to the strict reading, no local politician before 18th century or so should be notable, because no could receive the required "press coverage" before the advent of the press :> --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 18:00, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The qualifications there are why I only said "suggests". Although wp:politician doesn't simply ask for "press" coverage - at point 3 it talks about "significant coverage in reliable sources". Allowing for a pro-rata downgrade of the quantity/significance threshold there, we're still back to the proposition that this guy would need some substantive mention or analysis beyond him having bought and traded a few things. N-HH talk/edits 18:08, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. The article is well-written and sourced to multiple primary sources and a couple of secondary sources (see discussion above). I do not think that such person would be less notable than, for example, individual historical houses, such as this one. My very best wishes (talk) 20:14, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move or Delete - given I didn't actually give my opinion on the article itself. I would be in favour of a Move to Richard Tylman of Faversham (as suggested by Piotr) - I think that helps with some historical context. I also think some of the WP:LINKSPAM'd genealogy and ancestry.com links need to either be consolidated or removed. Perhaps moved to External Links or something. Stalwart111 (talk) 23:24, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. TFD (talk) 17:25, 14 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments
    • Faversham had a book entirely about it written in 1776: The History of the Town and Port of Haversham: In the County of Kent by Edward Jacobs. The book lists our subject as a mayor for a year. See page 122.
    • There is then this: [5] An obviously reliable source says: "Richard Tylman of Faversham, yeoman, allowed a badger by Michael Sondes, knight, Richard Sondes, and George Waller, esqs" on July 22, 1600. That throws most of the genealogy references into question, assuming any one accepted them to begin with. A badger is the right to trade food or grains.
    • There is an article "Notes from the records of Haversham, 1500-1600" by J.M. Cowper in the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Volume I, here: page 218 which lists the number of houses in Haversham as roughly 200, and population at most 1400 in the time period we are interested in.
    • The book "The Historical Development of the Port of Faversham, Kent 1580-1780" does mention a Tillman from Haversham who was a trader. Since the time and place match, and since the place had just 200 houses (and 200 heads of households), it is reasonable to take this Tillman as Tylman. The place couldn't have had two traders of grain at the same time with such similar names.
    • Per this link [6] the guy seems to have been involved in a court case, with the type marked "concord," against John Cok and his wife, Maria. I don't know what "concord" means here.
    • In the article of the Royal Historical Society mentioned earlier, [7], on page 169 is a listing of the property of Nicholas Tylman, our subject's father (again, there couldn't have been two Tylmans there at that time heading two different households), at the time of the father's death. Richard Tylman is mentioned nowhere in the text (there is an index at the end, with the Tylman page visible in Google Books preview). Churn and change (talk) 04:59, 15 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Nicholas Tylman mentioned in the Royal Society article[8] could not have been the father of Richard Tylman, since Nicholas lived from 1516-1568[9] while the Royal Society article is about a Nicholas who died in 1577.

The Richard Tylman who was sued over a "concord" could not be Mayor Tylman because the case occured in 1484, 62 years before the future mayor's birth in 1546.

Since the Tylman family had settled in Kent since at least 1225 and several branches of the family had settled in Faversham,[10] it is not reasonable to assume that the Richard Tillman mentioned in the article as living in Faversham in 1580 was the same person as the mayor of Faversham in 1580. It is not uncommon btw for cousins to have the same christian names. In any case that is original research. We would need a source that put this together.

TFD (talk) 05:52, 15 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So you are using unreliable genealogical sources to argue against identification from a reliable source (for the Nicholas Tylman case; I do agree about the court case)? All identification in any source requires some interpretation. I don't understand what cousins having the same given name has to do with it. We are talking of Haversham in particular, not Kent in general. We need two traders of food/grains from a place with 200 households, at the same time, with similar given names and slightly different surnames. Excluding that may be OR, but is subject to debate; it is not obviously WP:OR. After all no source is going to say: "This is XYZ who is the subject of the article on XYZ on Wikipedia"; we always infer that from context and a set of circumstances (name, place, date, other referential associations). Whether the inference rises to WP:OR depends on editorial discretion. Churn and change (talk) 06:49, 15 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
None of the sources providing lifespans used in the article are reliable. However common sense tells us that a person who was mayor in 1580 could not have been involved in a court case in 1484 and that a former mayor would not be described as a yeoman. The only source that a Nicholas Tylman was the father of Richard Tylman is a non-rs family tree. While it may seem strange to us today, there was a time when families remained in the same location for centuries, so it would not be unusual to find people of the same surname living in the same town. Also, since most corn from North Kent was shipped through Faversham, and trading corn was one of the main industries in Faversham ("The Historical Development of the Port of Faversham, Kent 1580-1780"), there would be many people involved in the trade. To conclude that the mayor and the trader were one and the same person cannot be supported by the sources provided. We do not even have a source that the mayor was involved in the corn trade. TFD (talk) 09:08, 15 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments on discussions

Most comments would me more valuable on the Talk:Richard Tylman.

This seems to have degenerated from a discussion about whether a guy who lived 500 years ago is notable enough for inclusion in our revered pages to one on genealogical research and accuracy of mediaeval primary sources. Can I remind everyone of WP:OWN. There also seems to be a mistaken idea of what a mediaeval politician was-it was more a question of family connections than policies. In the FA about William Shakespeare who was actually more recent that Richard- doubt about the accuracy of the sources is treated in the article William Shakespeare#Speculation about Shakespeare

The question of title has been raised. Until we have another Richard Tylman article I believe it is policy not to disambiguate. Richard Tylman of Faversham would be wrong, as no such title existed. Richard Tylman (merchant) probably is the correct title. --ClemRutter (talk) 09:18, 15 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The difference is that writers of secondary sources have examined the historical documents and made judgments and other writers have explained the differences of opinions these writers have. We do not have Wikipedia editors pulling out records and trying to piece them together. And of course Shakespeare is notable not because he is mentioned in various records, but because of his body of work, which has survived. TFD (talk) 09:39, 15 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep -- I had my doubts about this article and wondered whether to vote "delete (with regret)". If we have dab-issues withg the name, moving to Richard Tylman (merchant) would be appropriate. I observe this is the 5th nomination, so that it has been kept four times. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:02, 17 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's a bit more complicated. — The AfD nominator here, was also the AfD nominator at the 4th nom (previously) during the EEML attack on this entry, and... due to mitigating circumstances, the article was actually deleted, except that the content was entirely different, as so was the subject of this article. This (already 5th) nom is the TFD's controversial rehash of an old ArbCom wrangle from two years ago. The actual article entitled "Richard Tylman" has been kept (not four) but three times. It was voted out only after a large group of concerned editors was formally prohibited from participating in these proceedings. Poeticbent talk 16:59, 17 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair, it's even a little more complicated than that... In the interests of full disclosure, the original article (nominated 4 times) was about Richard Tylman, a Canadian poet. The article was a COI BLP created by the subject himself. Consensus was against the original author at the last (4th) AfD (though, as above, there was some conjecture about involvement) and the article he wrote about himself was deleted. The "original" Richard Tylman (the subject of that original article) is alive and well and edits here as Poeticbent (above) - it's right there on his user-page; it is openly declared and he makes no secret of it. Having had the article about himself deleted, Poeticbent/Richard Tylman then created this article about a different guy with exactly the same name. It's very complicated and perhaps a bit strange (as I incredulously noted above) but I don't think any of that makes for a useful argument for or against the notability of this Richard Tylman. I also can't see how there could be a conflict of interest with the current subject, given their name is the only thing the author and subject have in common. I'm still in favour of move, if for no other reason than it gets us away from all the strangeness associated with this particular one. Cheers, Stalwart111 (talk) 00:25, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment—Nom and article creator should probably reach a consensus. This reliable source might help. Churn and change (talk) 17:30, 17 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - WP:POLITICIAN presumes notability for "Major local political figures who have received significant press coverage." The office of mayor is certainly a "major" office, meeting the "major local political figure" portion. I don't know what kind of "press coverage" this person received in the 1500s, but it's certainly inappropriate to apply modern day standards for press coverage to a 16th century figure, and the fact that enough published information remains half a millennium later to source this article as well as it is indicates that he received more than enough coverage in his own time to meet notability guidelines. Rlendog (talk) 18:28, 19 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep—subject is notable as both mayor and prominent trader, per the non-genealogical and undisputedly reliable sources. The nominator's argument the two are separate, based on assertions such as "a former mayor will not have been called a yeoman" invokes a subject-expertise I am not willing to grant, based on edit history alone (we have nothing else to check). That issue is anyway something to be discussed on the article's talk page first. If the consensus is to remove some material because of the issue, then after the material is removed, an AfD on notability might be appropriate. As things stand, the contents prove notability and the article should hence be kept. Churn and change (talk) 18:58, 19 September 2012 (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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