Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Archibald Leach

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 per Snow/Speedy Keep - Non-Admin Closure . Fosnez (talk) 12:45, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Archibald Leach[edit]

This is a misuse of a disambiguation page—no one looking for Cary Grant would enter "Archibald Leach", an option which, in any event, would always be available via "Search". As for the other two entries on this page, the architect whose name is Archibald Leitch does not belong here—Wikipedia cannot strive to provide disambiguation and redirect pages for every alternate spelling of every name contained therein. Even the celebrity performer Donovan Leitch doesn't (and probably shouldn't) have a redirect to "Donovan Leach"—again, that is why Wikipedia has the "Search" function. As for John Cleese's character in A Fish Called Wanda whose archly-chosen name is "Archie [not "Archibald"] Leach", there is no point in including him in a disambiguation page, unless there are a number of other individuals with the same name. Celebrity names facetiously given to fictional characters only create visual clutter under these circumstances—Roman Spinner (talk) 23:35, 3 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Redirects are cheap, disambiguation pages slightly less so, but this seems like a reasonable dab page to me. Of course "Donovan Leitch" shouldn't be redirected to "Donovan Leach", but it should be the other way round. You say that's why Wikipedia has a "Search" function, but Wikipedia's search function is absolutely rubbish and will not pick up phonetic differences or minor/common spelling errors, hence why the use of redirects and disambiguation is necessary. Wikipedia does not need to strive to cover every phonetic redirect or disambig, but there's no need to delete those that already exist. --Canley (talk) 00:02, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep, for reasons stated by Canley. --Orlady (talk) 00:34, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Perfectly valid disambiguation page. --Eastmain (talk) 05:47, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, an encyclopedia exists in no small part to explain confusions such as this. No policies violated. Obviously this could be taken too far, but this does not seem to be one of those cases. --Dhartung | Talk 07:33, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as a valid disambiguation page. RFerreira (talk) 18:04, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep It is ridiculous to suggest that this page should be deleted, as a perfectly valid disambig page. So ridiculous that it seems the only reason for its nomination is to assist with justifying this nomination. Random Fixer Of Things (talk) 03:16, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Nomination update Having read the above comments, I feel that I should have been more specific in discussing the purpose and use of Wikipedia disambiguation pages which, we can all agree, are first and foremost there to enable users in distinguishing among same-named individuals whose biographies appear in Wikipedia. Similarly-named individuals are not combined—there are separate pages for Elliott, Elliot and Eliot as well as for Green and Greene. There are also, of course, individual articles listing notables named Leach and Leitch. The only "legitimate" Archibald Leach on Wikipedia was, in fact, named Archibald Leitch and this disambiguation page with its alternate spelling can be converted into a redirect. As for the remaining two "Leach" entries, while pointing out that "Gladys Smith" and "Bernard Schwartz" are the birth names of Mary Pickford and Tony Curtis may be popular in playing Trivial Pursuit, trivia is discouraged in Wikipedia. The "banal-sounding birthname of a glamorously-named celebrity" inclusion may be acceptable on the Bernard Schwartz disambiguation page if there are at least a couple of other notables with that name, but to create an "Archibald Leach" page solely on that basis is a misuse of disambiguation. Finally, John Cleese's "Archie Leach" in a A Fish Called Wanda is completely indefensible because, while Wikipedia includes many fictional characters in its disambiguation pages, opening the doors to every minor or trivial character in every form of media, would overwhelm all listings. In essence, this disambiguation page consists of one "alternately spelled" but, in actuality, "misspelled" name of the architect and two Trivial Pursuit entries for Cary Grant—hardly encyclopedic.—Roman Spinner (talk) 10:31, 5 February 2008 (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.