Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Coat of arms of the London Borough of Haringey

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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. There is a majority of "Keep" comments, but many stray too far towards WP:OSE and WP:ITSNOTABLE. If the article is to be merged, that is a discussion that should not be carried out at AFD. Black Kite (talk) 14:30, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Coat of arms of the London Borough of Haringey[edit]

Coat of arms of the London Borough of Haringey (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Apart from the extended quote, all information on this page is also available on London Borough of Haringey. All the sources are either tangential to the subject (Burns), self-published (Heraldry of the World, Civic Heraldry) or copyvivo'd from LBH's website. Initially I proposed a merge or move to draft, but apart from the quote there's nothing worth merging here since London Borough of Haringey already includes just about everything we can use from this page. I propose that this article should be merged or reverted to draft until the problems with sourcing can be resolved. I'm proposing this AFD because we do not have enough reliable sources to attest that this is a sufficiently notable subject (separate from the organization whose coat of arms this is).Salimfadhley (talk) 02:09, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep This is a no-brainer. Of course the arms of a London borough is relevant for its own article. The article could be improved, but that's no reason for deleting it. Arms Jones (talk) 02:16, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • You keep saying that, but the notability of municipal coats of arms is obvious and doesn't cease to be just because you continue to say so. If the borough is notable enough for an article, then the same goes for the arms. The coat of arms of a town is the visual equivalent of its name. Arms Jones (talk) 04:26, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • You have stated that the notability of this kind of article is obvious but is this your personal opinion can you cite Wikipedia policy which attests to the inherent notability of all civic heraldry? I suspect that you are allowing your personal point-of-view to bias your view of this subject's notability when it currently does not pass WP:GNG. I still maintain that this is an interesting detail about LBH, but not of itself an sufficiently distinct topic. --Salimfadhley (talk) 11:42, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some things are so obvioulsy notable that noone has even thought of the need to write anything about it, such as the arms and the name of a municipality. Do you think the name of a municipality fails on notability? If not, your claim that the arms fails on notability fails on logic. Arms Jones (talk) 14:53, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The quality of an article is no reason for merging it, but I appreciate that you do not agree with the idea to delete it. Arms Jones (talk) 04:26, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please cease misrepresenting me. The typo in what I wrote is obvious (and now corrected) and I am not defending keeping the article. I simply see that the arms belong with the main article unless there is alot to say, which there is not. Mangoe (talk) 23:08, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm sorry, I did not atempt to misrepresent you, bu of course there is a difference between merging and deleting. E.g. if you merge articles, you leave a redirect, which you don't do if you delete. Arms Jones (talk) 11:28, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not necessarily. It depends how useful the article's title is for a redirect. In this case, I think the odds of somebody typing in "Coat of arms of the London Borough of Haringey" to the search box are approximately zero. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:38, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, remove anything duplicated in the borough article and provide a summary if necessary. This reflects the treatment of coats of arms for other English towns. Ivanvector (talk) 05:30, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note that a parallel debate about merging this article into the borough article is/was going on at the borough's talk page. Ivanvector (talk) 05:30, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Arms Jones and Ivanvector. It is a thing; it has interesting detail; it is not the same as the borough. If there is too much duplication (and please note that WP does have the occasional bit of duplication which is generally well tolerated!) then this is an editing issue, not a deletion issue. DBaK (talk) 12:29, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question -- Why are we not talking about the sources? Unless we decide that all civic heraldry is inherently notable (in which case we can speedily close this AFD), the criteria of notability is whether reliable sources attest to this subject's importance. At the moment we have the following:
  • HeraldryWorld: A wiki site, hence self published source
  • CivicHeraldry.co.uk: A personal home page, hence self published source
  • LBH Website: Definitely a WP:RS, however not significant coverage of the subject.
  • Burns, R.W: A reliable source as to the history of TV, probably not as to the history of heraldry.
  • Sheila Peacock: A home-page belonging to a former politician, borderline self published source but from an obviously notable individual however does not significantly cover this subject.
  • Lindsey Clarke: A "Community Blog", arguably a self published source that does not significantly cover this subject.
  • Haringey Borough FC: Probably a reliable source as to the origin of the football club's coat of arms, but not a WP:RS for the historical details of LBH's original.
  • Jonathan Dixon: An obviously self published personal home page.
In summary, none of the sources above are the kinds of site we'd usually consider to be strong or relevant enough to justify keeping an article. As I stated before, unless we can come up with any pressing reason that heraldic topics should be an exception to WP:GNG then please explain the justification for keeping it? So far the most convincing keep argument seems to be from Ivanvector, whose argument is that other stuff exists. --Salimfadhley (talk) 18:32, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Self published souces may be strong enough when there are many which say the same thing. They are not as good as books published by well renouned scholars, but you have to judge each one of them by itself. A site is not a self published source just because it uses wiki software. Flags of the World is often seen as a reliable source because it takes a scholary approach to vexillology. Arms Jones (talk),
Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:58, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Send to draft - Salimfadhley has explained the problem with the sources, but I'd like to add that chunks of the article (such as the BBC Alexandra Palace transmitter or the football club) that are reliably sourced are actually nothing to do with the coat of arms whatsoever. Therefore the subject fails WP:GNG. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:14, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The source about the football club, which you find reliable, tells us that the football club uses a logo which is identical to the arms of the borough save for the colour and some text. You say this source has "actually nothing to do with the coat of arms whatsoever". Would you care to explain? Arms Jones (talk) 14:53, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like you to read WP:BLUDGEON and then concentrate on editing the article rather than this debate. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:02, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, unless you think the articles on the different boroughs should also be merged - or articles of i.a. different national coats of arms, different car manufacturers or different planets. Dagrqv (talk) 14:11, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment regarding WP:OSE and my argument above: my point was that if we decide this is notable, then it makes sense for it to be its own article, rather than merging to the article for the borough. That would contribute to making the page quite large, and it would likely be broken out again eventually anyway, so keep per WP:SNOW. I didn't at all mean to argue "keep because other stuff exists" but I see how it sounded like that. As for the sources, this isn't my area of expertise by any means but it seems that the authoritative sources on heraldry are ones that are not kept online. They exist but someone's going to have to go find them. The projects like Civic Heraldry UK and Heraldry of the World are ones which are trying to compile that info online; they are self-published but may be nonetheless authoritative on this topic. Problem is they don't cite their sources. Someone in the Heraldry project might be able to help with better ones. Anyway, it seems like the references that are there are enough for a weak keep. Ivanvector (talk) 16:58, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I've copied the important details from this article (everything but the football club stuff) into the main LBH article. I think it works better than the text that was originally there. My concerns remain about the quality of sources - but used in that context they are for reference rather than notability. --Salimfadhley (talk) 09:05, 24 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or merge as appropriate. The nominator has convincingly laid out that this topic isn't covered by reliable independent sources, as required by WP:GNG and, if it comes to it, WP:V.  Sandstein  09:58, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Municipal coats of arms are inherently notable with coverage in published sources. MRSC (talk) 13:55, 30 December 2013 (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.