Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Randal McDonnell, 10th Earl of Antrim

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. The two "keep" opinions do not address the detailed analysis of the sources undertaken by the nominator and Agricolae. Sandstein 07:37, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Randal McDonnell, 10th Earl of Antrim[edit]

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Fairly run-of-the-mill businessperson who is also a nobleman, but who never sat in the House of Lords because they inherited their title after the House of Lords Act 1999. The sources on this person do not help confirm that the person is notable; only genealogy websites pop up, and the rest is not significant coverage, reliable, or independent from the subject.

Source assessment follows:

Source	Independent?	Reliable?	Significant coverage?	Count source toward GNG?
Source assessment table:
Peter W. Hammond, ed., The Complete Peerage or a History of the House of Lords and All its Members From the Earliest Times, Volume XIV: Addenda & Corrigenda (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1998), page 31		? No consensus at WP:RSN on this issue. Certainly better than self-published peerage websites.	?	? Unknown
Marie Louise McConville, Earl of Antrim's funeral to take place in Glenarm next week , The Irish News, 6 August 2021, accessed 17 August 2021			Passing mention	✘ No
Burke's Peerage, vol. 1 (1999), p. 90		~ Only reliable for genealogy, per WP:RSP. However, family histories should be presented only where appropriate to support the reader's understanding of a notable topic, per WP:NOTGENEALOGY.		? Unknown
The Earl of Antrim, highcouncilofclandonald.com, accessed 17 August 2021	Subject of the article is part of the council and the publication is therefore not independent	self-published website		✘ No
"New Members appointed to the board of The Royal Parks". DCMS. Retrieved 28 August 2021.			No mention	✘ No
This table may not be a final or consensus view; it may summarize developing consensus, or reflect assessments of a single editor. Created using {{source assess table}}.

Pilaz (talk) 00:02, 29 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Given the fact that some editors seem confused about the deletion rationale, I'd like to make the last sentence explicit: it fails WP:BASIC. Pilaz (talk) 21:33, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Businesspeople, Royalty and nobility, United Kingdom, and Northern Ireland. Pilaz (talk) 00:02, 29 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
On balance Delete. In another time someone in his position would have got enough coverage for an entry even if they had not had a seat in a national legislature; before 1963, not all Scottish peers could sit in the Lords, so they were all eligible only for a relatively brief period (certainly in this context) of 36 years, but if any such articles on here were up for deletion, sources probably could be found. But not in this case, I would suspect. His class does still have significant power and privilege at various levels, but much of their power and status has been ceded to larger-scale, global capitalists, and our policies should reflect that. RobinCarmody (talk) 02:36, 29 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: Notability is not about importance, or power, or privilege, and it does not treat a seat in the House of Lords as an acid test, although quite oddly that would have settled the question. The policy just requires a certain level of coverage in sources independent of the subject, and we have that. (A bit hard to see how all the sources can be called genealogy websites, as not one of them is that.) Moonraker (talk) 07:29, 29 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The sources also need to be secondary, reliable and provide significant coverage. All of this is covered under WP:BASIC. Pilaz (talk) 21:38, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking of which, can you perhaps provide more details as to which sources help the article meet WP:BIO, Moonraker? Pilaz (talk) 21:39, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Very little coverage of him specifically. Also delete the equally unnotable 7th, 8th and 9th earls. The previous title holders already redirect to Earl of Antrim#Earls of Antrim, second creation (1785). Clarityfiend (talk) 11:29, 29 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What an extraordinary thing to say. The 8th earl, e.g. was the chairman of the National Trust and has an article in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. This doesn't seem like a policy-based vote as much as a class-based one. Atchom (talk) 02:14, 1 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Additional sources have been added:

Source	Independent?	Significant coverage?	Count source toward GNG?
Source assessment table:
Debrett's People of Today	WP:RSP - "There is consensus that Debrett's is reliable for genealogical information. However, their defunct "People of Today" section is considered to be not adequately independent as the details were solicited from the subjects. Editors have also raised concerns that this section included paid coverage."		✘ No
Agriland		Passing mention	✘ No
This table may not be a final or consensus view; it may summarize developing consensus, or reflect assessments of a single editor. Created using {{source assess table}}.

Agricolae (talk) 14:51, 29 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment on peerage sources that seem the primary coverage for this individual. By their nature these are prosopographical, an attempt to give information on everyone belonging to a specified class, with the only inclusion criteria being whether someone falls within the Venn diagram defining that class (an analogy would be a school yearbook or membership directory). The lack of editorial judgment determining inclusion renders such sources (Burke's and Hammond in this case) less weighty in contributing to WP:GNG than a source where an editor or author has selected a specific individual as more worthy of personal coverage than other individuals. Agricolae (talk) 14:51, 29 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that analogy necessarily stands. If the category of people is notable in and of itself, there is no reason why a book about all of them shouldn't contribute to notability. For instance, a lot of French political biographies use the standard biographical dictionary of French legislators as a source, biographies of US judges commonly use material from the biographical dictionary of US judges, and so on. You get the idea. Atchom (talk) 02:12, 1 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. As a previous editor has said, not having a seat in the Lords is not the one-step test to deletion. The article as it stands is sources to the requisite level for notability to be established. Some of the previous votes (including the editor who suggested deleting an article about a man who has an ODNB entry) do not seem to be based on policy as much as a certain sort of politics. Atchom (talk) 02:16, 1 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
In the deletion rationale, when I wrote The sources on this person do not help confirm that the person is notable; only genealogy websites pop up, and the rest is not significant coverage, reliable, or independent from the subject., I was referencing WP:BIO. I thought that was obvious, but I'm glad you brought it up, and I have added a subsequent comment to my nomination to reflect that it wasn't. Pilaz (talk) 21:35, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As for the fact that they never sat in the House of Lords, I referenced it because it avoids people incorrectly claiming that it meets WP:NPOL as member of a national legislature. See this list for post-1999 AfD on British noblemen who never sat in the House of Lords. Pilaz (talk) 21:47, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Pilaz, I agree with you about WP:NPOL, but that is simply a policy which overrides WP:N when the GNG is not complied with, which it is here. All the sources seem reliable and independent, with a slight blur about highcouncilofclandonald.com, which has an editor called Macdonald who may well turn out to be a tenth cousin of the subject. When you say “only genealogy websites pop up”, I see none. If you mean The Complete Peerage, that is a huge printed source with editors. May I ask which other sources you are challenging? Moonraker (talk) 00:47, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
My source assessment is in the nomination; and you haven't addressed the lack of significant coverage, which is integral to the GNG, for the two news articles. As for the The Complete Peerage, it is likely a tertiary source (a compilation anthology) and therefore probably can't satisfy the GNG (due to secondary source requirements). I also wonder if this Earl gets more than a passing mention in there. highcouncilofclandonald.com is definitely not independent from the subject, and is a WP:SPS, hence not reliable. And Burke's is insufficient, since Wikipedia is not a genealogy website. Pilaz (talk) 01:20, 5 May 2022 (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.