Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Henry Varnum Poor (Yale dean)

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. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:14, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Henry Varnum Poor (Yale dean)[edit]

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Poor lacks any claim to notability. Determining this took a lot of effort, since there are two other people named Henry Varnum Poor who clearly were notable, one was a 19th-century business journalist and lawyer who founded what eventually became Standard and Poor's. The Other was a painter, frescoest and potter who is clearly notable. This Henry Poor does not seem to meet any notability guidelines, and to make things worse before I started editing the article it was at best misleading if not downright deceptive. He was describe as "the dean of Yale", in fact he was associate dean of Yale Law School. The former description didn't make sense, since universities have presidents, deans head sub-units in a university. However Poor was a coadministrator of the law school at Yale. This is not in any way enough to pass academic notability, and his contributions to the study of law were not significant enough to make him notable on those grounds. To go through the rest of his life, being vice counsel is not enough to be notable, even being ambassador does not make one default notable. Being a defeated major party nominee for US house is not enough for notability. His two New York state government positions do not seem to either rise to the level of notability. Lastly, a resident of Long Island getting a New York Times obituary in the early 1970s is just not enough on its own to show the level of notability we require to create an article. Nothing here suggests notability. John Pack Lambert (talk) 05:28, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. power~enwiki (π, ν) 06:28, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Connecticut-related deletion discussions. power~enwiki (π, ν) 06:28, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions. power~enwiki (π, ν) 06:29, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. This is mistitled — his Yale associate dean position does not appear to be what is notable about his life — but I think with two major obituaries (NYT and Associated Press) and an entry in a dictionary of national biography he passes WP:GNG. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:23, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- PS possibly this could make a good test case for those who think we should still have source-based notability criteria (GNG) rather than significance-based notability criteria (most relevantly WP:POLITICIAN and WP:PROF in this case). I agree that he doesn't pass the politician and professor criteria; nevertheless his life is well-documented enough to pass GNG. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:13, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep -- well-sourced article + two obits in major papers + entry in dictionary of national biography. K.e.coffman (talk) 22:02, 4 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Withdraw Poor actually seems to be more likely to meet notability by author or military standards than politician per se. On the other hand his work with the Republican Party in 1950 might not have resulted in election to congress, but it seems to have been central to the direction of the Republican Party for the next 18 years, at least the next 12, although he is one of many people in that movement. To be fair this

 "Henry Varnum Poor (January 7, 1914 - October 10, 1972) was a dean of Yale University.[1]
  Biography
  He was born on January 7, 1914. He was dean of Yale University. He died on October 10, 1972.
  References
  "Henry Varnum Poor, Lawyer And Former Yale Dean, Dies". New York Times. October 11, 1972. Retrieved 2015-09-18."

is all the text in the article when I first found it. I did read through the obituary and incorporate much of it into the article before the nomination for deletion, but other than his role in 1960 as head of the New York Housing Finance department, nothing seemed to even lend toward notability, and that alone I am still not sure would pass him. However I think that, plus the broad coverage, does. His I believe second counsin of the exact same name as well as his great-grandfather of the exact same name produce a lot of results. I question a few of the sources as adding to notability, such as the wedding anouncement. However I think points like his getting an obituary in a San Francisco Newspaper are enough to show notability and that this was not just the NYT covering a local figure. I think once this discussion is finished the article should be renamed, most likely to Henry Varnum Poor (politician). The fact that Mr. Eppstein was able to find more sources shows the inadequacy of google as the only place searched. However when I did full google searching for both Henry Varnum Poor and Henry Poor, in that I went all the way to the end of the search results in both cases, processing through well over 200 results, it was hard to think I had not scatched the surface well.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:53, 6 March 2018 (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.