Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jeffery Dench

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. (non-admin closure) Tim Song (talk) 01:30, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Jeffery Dench[edit]

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Actor who is the brother of Dame Judi Dench, but being related to a notable person in itself confers no degree of notability. He has a handful of minor TV and stage appearances, but I don't believe there's enough to confer notability per WP:ENTERTAINER Wine Guy Talk 08:15, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

keep Fulfills WP:ENT criteria 1. Has had significant roles in multiple notable, stage performances. This can be seen because as an actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company mention of his appearences in stage performances from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s can quickly be found in gnews here from coverage in newspapers such as the New York Times, The Independent, Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. Polargeo (talk) 13:42, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Several more gnews hits if you use the alternate spelling of his name given at the beginning of the article, see Jeffrey Dench Polargeo (talk) 13:46, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please note the wording of the criterion Has had significant roles..., as far as I can tell, his appearances in notable performances have been in minor roles; Richard Scroop in Hamlet, Robert Shallow in Merry Wives, chorus member in Henry V, etc. Had he played the role of Prince Hamlet, Horatio, Falstaff, Mr. Toad, or other significant roles, I never would have considered nominating this article. His TV appearances seem similarly insignificant. Regarding the Gnews hits, the vast majority are trivial, i.e. his name in a cast list. Others are when he is quoted or mentioned in articles about his sister, including several when he was acting as a family spokesman after a man committed suicide over unrequited love for, again, his sister Judi Dench. Wine Guy Talk 07:35, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is a one sided summary. It ignores the fact that he is clearly mentioned in roles in his own right and not just in listings. He is also mentioned in several local news stories, which on their own may not confer notability but summed together show this guy has notability as an individual over the course of his career. Polargeo (talk) 10:46, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also, not that this is a strong argument but it sways me firmly to a keep vote, is that for anyone to have coverage over this many decades "online" suggests that we are clearly seeing the tip of the iceberg. How many sources from the 1960s,1970s,1980s and 1990s are actually available per a quick google search? Yet Jeffrey Dench comes up consistently in gnews sources from each decade. Polargeo (talk) 11:00, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

keep Someone has taken the trouble to type in and source a good article. The subject of the article has self evidently left a mark on the world over and above his family relationship to another person. As far as I can see the only reason this article is marked for deletion is because the subject of it doesn't meet the nominating editors personal internal scale of importance. If enough deletions like these slip by then at some point Wikipedia will consist of only Hollywood A-list movie stars and world leaders and then everyone can get down to deciding which of those aren't as important as the others. The nomination did make make me actually do something on Wikipedia finally, this is probably the only thing to be said in it's favour.Amentet (talk) 00:38, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to AfD, and thanks for your input in this discussion. Just to let you know, my nomination is not based on a "personal internal scale of importance", but on the Wikipedia notability guidelines, specifically this guideline for actors and other entertainers. We use these guidelines to help us determine what topics should be included in the encyclopedia. When there is a question of whether or not a topic meets the guidelines, an article may be discussed here so that the community's consensus can be determined as to keeping or deleting an article. Regarding the editor who "has taken the trouble to type" this article, that editor has a conflict of interest. Wine Guy Talk 08:06, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your welcome and thank you for pointing me to the notability guidelines. I first read the article in a woozy frame of mind after having returned from recovering from a general anaesthetic in hospital, rereading it now it doesn't seem like a "good" article, but it does seem to be a properly referenced one in need of some work.

I'm not sure this is the place to say this, but since this is the first time I've actually got involved in Wikipedia I'd like to briefly explain why. I've been using Wikipedia casually as a reference for a number of years, a few weeks ago I looked up an entry I'd previously referenced, only to find out it no longer existed and now redirected me to to another article that had almost no information at all except for a couple of words. I began wondering why something that many years ago had seemed like the idea of the sorely missed Douglas Adam's HitchHikers guide to the galaxy made real, something that seemed to be striving to contain the sum total of human knowledge, now had less information in it than it had previously. Curiosity over this is how I came to be looking at the articles for deletion page.

Why I noticed the name Jeffrey Dench in particular is because I remembered many years ago seeing him play Andrew Aguecheek in an RSC production of Twelfth Night, this is by no means an unimportant role, though it doesn't seem to be one of the roles referenced in the article. (I just found a source for this which I've now included in the article, in the process of which I've had to learn to edit Wikipedia, though I don't quite understand how to properly provide the reference, so if someone could possibly tidy that up I'd be grateful, otherwise I'll do it myself at some point when I've learned how to.) As a coda to this, I'm sure that if I look more on the RSC site that I could find other roles, I don't quite understand their site navigation system, having arrived at that page by googling Jeffery Dench Andrew Aguecheek.

As I said, Thank you pointing me to the notability guidelines, having now read them and the ten pages of archived discussion about them I note that these are only guidelines and not the policy of Wikipedia and that even the concept of notability seems to be a contentious issue. Personally I think that even if one person from now until the end of time would like information about something, and that something is properly referenced, then it as good enough reason to be in something that once aspired to be the sum total of human knowledge. However that is just a personal viewpoint and I understand the point that Wikipedia is arrived at through consensus between everyone working on it.

I'd like to apologise if my remark about a personal internal scale of importance was perhaps a little terse, nevertheless after reading the guidelines it does seem to be true to an extent, in that anyone nominating an article for deletion for reasons of notability is making a judgement call about what they consider to be important. For instance it seems to be a rule within those guidelines that someone is notable for possessing breasts and having shown those breasts in the pages of the magazine Playboy as a "playmate", and having done this only once, and is notable for doing this even if they have done absolutely nothing else in their entire lives.

As the above is part of the guidelines then I don't think it unreasonable to think that someone who has spent sixty odd years as an actor, contributing a lifetimes body of work to the theatre, is probably more notable than someone who has shown their breasts once in a magazine. I'm sure there are people whose sole claim to notability would be being related to someone "famous". From the Sunday Times article linked Jeffrey Dench is described as having "built a reputation as a respected character actor". If someone has spent 23 years in the Royal Shakespeare Company I think that fact would be notable in itself, no one is going to spend 23 years only playing fourth spearman from the right.

As for someone not be included because they're less famous than their relative, I think the words of the relative in the same article sum up the judgement call of not being notable nicely.

"For me, acting was like catching measles. I caught it off Jeff. That’s why I hate it when somebody says to him: “Are you anything to do with Judi?” Because acting was his idea in the first place, so I think that kind of comment is very unkind"

Amentet (talk) 18:47, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Actors and filmmakers-related deletion discussions. —Wine Guy Talk 08:10, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Tim Song (talk) 03:16, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep true he's not as notable as his sister, but with the sourcing we have he's noatble.--Cube lurker (talk) 16:00, 12 February 2010 (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.