Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Royal descendants of John William Friso, Prince of Orange

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. If this were a vote, it would be a close thing. However, it is not a vote, but an assessment of the strength of arguments in the light of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, and it is not a close thing. The "delete" arguments are based substantially on Wikipedia policies, particularly lack of reliable sourcing and original research. The "keep" arguments, however, were essentially "this is exactly the sort of information we do well for our readers", "I don't see why not", "this is useful", none of which is based in any Wikipedia policy. Quite simply, content which is not supported by reliable sources, but which is the sort of thing which would be useful if it were supported by reliable sources, does not satisfy Wikipedia's inclusion criteria. The only editor in the "keep" camp who made any attempt at all to address the issues of sourcing and original research, namely Bearian, merely stated that "is certainly not original research", without saying why, and said that the issues "could be fixed" by finding beter sources etc. Simply saying that other sources "could be" found, without providing any, is not good enough: we need actual verifiable sources, not just an editor's speculation that there may be some somewhere.

This AfD discussion was previously closed by a non-administrator as "no consensus". I am reverting that closure, not only because I think that was a mistaken conclusion, as in the terms of Wikipedia policy there is a clear consensus, but also because non-admin closure is acceptable only in a limited set of circumstances, and this is not one of them. This is certainly not a "clear keep outcome" or a "speedy keep outcome", nor is it an AfD "with little or no discussion". JamesBWatson (talk) 09:36, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Royal descendants of John William Friso, Prince of Orange[edit]

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This complete original research. There are no reliable references. It would be more appropriate on a genealogical database. All info can be summarized with a sentence on John William Friso's page saying he is the ancestor of all monarchs today. The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 23:14, 22 July 2013 (UTC) (categories)[reply]

Delete more or less per nom. I'd suggest a merge but there's really nothing to merge here that's not already in the article on John William Friso, Prince of Orange (and the redirect a merge would create would be ludicrous, but that's a side note). The genealogical tables are, as nom asserts, simply not encyclopedic and are a blatant violation of Wikipedia not being a directory. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 23:35, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:17, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:NOT. Since all European royals are related to each other, you can construct any number of interrelationship articles showing how they all connect. DrKiernan (talk) 09:45, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - while WP is not a directory, it is the best-known website that aggregates miscellaneous facts, and this is exactly the sort of information we do well for our readers. It is certainly not original research, although I do see some synthesis. The issues raised could be fixed through the normal editing process of cutting down, finding better sources, creating boxed lists, merging, etc. Given enough time, say a couple of weeks, I could do it myself. I would even be willing to userfy it to a sandbox in my user space, so I could work on it at my leisure. I think I have a good reputation of rescuing horrid articles, but this will take more than a few minutes' editing time, and final exams are bearing down on me. Think of how helpful this would be to students. :-) Please get back to me. Bearian (talk) 16:07, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I personally don't have much of a problem with a merge, but I have no idea what to actually merge. The genealogical tables are explicit violations of WP:NOTDIR, although I absolutely agree they are interesting. Notability is obviously not a concern. So...if I can add to my vote, I'm personally fine with a userfy to Bearian's space if he thinks he can make something workable out of this. I think the article as-is -- meaning the concept itself, not just the content (I tend to agree with the nom's assertion that the non-genealogical-table portion of the article could basically be summarized in 1-3 sentences in the article on Friso) -- is very problematic, but there's useful information in here.

Uh, that was a lot of words to the effect of "look, I'm fine with anything but keeping this topic as-is." :) ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 00:18, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My problem with it is if this a legitimate topic any scholars other of royal fanatics would even care about. Are there any reliable sources or books that takes this topic seriously? The only place I can see it would be a brief mention on a biography of John William Friso.--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 02:58, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As mentioned, "everyone knows" that the European royals are related to each other, but this article shows how. It's the first google hit for "common royal ancestor", and I was certainly very happy when I found this article. Wikipedia contains plenty of family trees for noteworthy families. A family tree for all european royalty (what this article is) certainly has a place in an encyclopedia. Keep. 77.175.87.201 (talk) 08:54, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Everything about this topic would be found on blogs and genealogical databases edited and created by royal fanatics doing original research. Reliable sources state that royals are related but don't go into details with tables and graphs like we do here. Everybody knows European royals are related but how they do not and most reliable sources, other than a genealogy depository, would not touch about the how because it is impractical and unnecessary. --The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 16:07, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Very significantly, if you googled "common royal ancestor" and ended up at the article on John William Friso, wouldn't you be just as happy? That's the answer you were looking for. Wikipedia is not a place for genealogical tables -- that is a matter of policy -- and the fact that Friso is a common ancestor of all current royals can be (and, in fact, already is) covered in the article on Friso. WP:NOTDIR doesn't exclude all genealogical tables, of course (including brief tables in a broader article is completely fine!), but this article is basically a genealogical table. That's different. I completely support Bearian if he thinks he can modify this into something more appropriate, hence my being fine with a userfy, but as-is this runs rapidly afoul of policy. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 00:05, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mark Arsten (talk) 16:47, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Europe-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000^(talk) 14:41, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I just notified the creator of this article. Perhaps Andrei Iosifovich would have something useful to add to the discussion. Someone else might want to notify Cladeal832; both of these early contributors to the article are still active editors. For now, I'm leaning toward userify on the basis of WP:NOTDIR but this is not yet a !vote. - tucoxn\^talk 04:23, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - I don't see why not. We have Royal descendants of Queen Victoria and King Christian IX. Surely it's worth listing the descendants of the most recent common ancestor of all the royal houses in Europe, if only for purposes of DNA tracing in the future.Facts707 (talk) 07:09, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Only difference is the former is sourced and well written and not original research because historians have studied on Royal descendants of Queen Victoria and King Christian IX. But I don't think anybody except non-reliable sources, royal genealogy fanatics would link John William Friso to the apex of a royal family tree. If the article can be cited to reliable sources discussing John William Friso's descendants specifically then I agree it should be userfy, but if can't what is the point of keeping such an article. I can go back one generation to his father and create a article called Royal descendants of Henry Casimir II, Prince of Nassau-Dietz or even any royal figures in history, but they would all be original research and made by own genealogy digging.--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 19:27, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mark Arsten (talk) 02:41, 10 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep--this is a really useful set of information that anyone studying royal interrelationships should have conveniently accessible.--L.E./12.144.5.2 (talk) 14:57, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, but update--The page is useful because it ties together information that a reader would otherwise have to search many pages to find. However, it should be updated to give equal credit to his wife, Marie Louise of Hesse-Kassel. She too is the "the most recent common ancestor of today's European monarchs." RWB22 (talk) 15:34, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"It's useful" is not a very good argument but, more to the point, Wikipedia is not a hosting site for genealogical tables, and this is still original research unless some sources discussing Friso's issue as a group (topic) can be supplied. I'm very worried about the Google search results when trying to pin down the most recent common ancestor of European monarchy -- the results are basically this article plus a few Yahoo! Answers or forums type discussions. This is original research. I'm frankly not even 100% certain the article is correct -- based on what I've seen online the answer to "most recent common ancestor" of European royalty seems to be debatable.

Additionally, the only source in the entire article is a dead link. Just sayin'. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 18:23, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That link should work now. You may like to note, that it says nothing about a common ancestor or show the descent of the Luxembourger or Spanish monarchs from Jan Willem, although I can find other sources that show them. DrKiernan (talk) 15:11, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]