Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thomas Westbrook Waldron (Canada)

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 delete. Sarahj2107 (talk) 10:57, 7 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thomas Westbrook Waldron (Canada)[edit]

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Delete as the subject fails all notability criteria. Most of the "sources" cited are self-published and unreliable; ~~including~~ the book John Wentworth wrote is about his own family. The author, RWIR has been abusing Wikipedia for genealogy and this is one of many articles he's written which should not exist. I encourage you to look in the article history at the cruft this article had before I removed it. Chris Troutman (talk) 13:33, 27 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Chris Troutman (talk) 13:37, 27 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. Chris Troutman (talk) 13:37, 27 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of New Hampshire-related deletion discussions. Chris Troutman (talk) 13:37, 27 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom. This is indeed a genealogical profile of a person whose only claim of encyclopedic notability is that he's an ancestor of other people, and which is sourced almost entirely to genealogical sources like Ancestry.com and census records and LDS microfilms. WikiTree exists for what this user seems to want to do, but this is not what Wikipedia is for. Bearcat (talk) 12:55, 29 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:03, 29 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

DElete Obviously NN. Peterkingiron (talk) 18:12, 30 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete NN. Personal genealogy. nerdgoonrant (talk) 20:11, 31 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your feedback, though I was a little surprised at the word "abuse" and disappointed that Wentworth's three volume work, published by Little and Brown of Boston was considered self published or not reliable. Many have written about their own families, including Obama's Dreams from my father, and Ignatieff's Russian Album, and not just the Hon. John Wentworth. I will not object to the deletion of the Thomas Westbrook Waldron (Canada) article and thank everyone for the several years it has stayed on wikipedia without any challenge. Would be interested in learning what other articles are considered not notable?RWIR (talk) 09:08, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that someone's own descendants may have written about them in a book is not in and of itself a reason why a person gets an encyclopedia article. Obama's father was a notable government official who would have had an article regardless of what his son did or didn't achieve, and did not get an article because of Dreams from My Father in and of itself — and most of Ignatieff's relatives covered in Russian Album do not have their own separate articles at all, with the exceptions of the ones who were already notable anyway regardless of that book. Nobody's discounting the existence of Wentworth's book; the existence of that book simply isn't in and of itself a reason why everybody named in that book qualifies for a standalone encyclopedia article of their own. Each person still has to actually pass a specific notability criterion for their own specific achievements in life, and if they do that then that book can be used for some supplementary sourcing of their family background where appropriate — but that book does not, in and of itself, make every individual person named in it notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia just because that book exists. If "named in a family genealogy book" is the strongest notability claim you can come up with, because the person lived an entirely normal and unexceptional and not-noteworthy life otherwise, then the book is not a valid reason for an encyclopedia article in and of itself. (Hell, I could get 20 or 30 of my relatives into Wikipedia if "named in a published genealogy work" were all it took — but with the exception of one great-uncle who actually held an WP:NPOL-passing position and thus has an article on that basis, all of the rest would boil down to "he was born, he bought a farm, he had children, he died" with no particular reason why an encyclopedia article about those facts was warranted at all.) Bearcat (talk) 16:28, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry if I was not clear, I have said that I would not object to this article's deletion. What I was commenting on was the assertion that Wentworth's book was self published or not reliable. Thanks again.RWIR (talk) 06:29, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@RWIR: Wentworth isn't an independent source, which is what I meant to say. In my haste I overstated the case. The book he wrote was published by Little, Brown and Company although the conflict of interest makes me doubt reliability. The fact that it's about his own family is why I don't trust the source. Chris Troutman (talk) 13:03, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:MEMORIAL; no indications of notability or significance. K.e.coffman (talk) 17:04, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, trivial history and WP:Memorial applies. Kierzek (talk) 19:09, 5 November 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.