Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paul Brummell

This discussion was subject to a deletion review on 2014 June 30.
For an explanation of the process, see Wikipedia:Deletion review.

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 policy is that ambassadors are not inherantly notable and there is no detailed sourcing to meet the GNG, On that basis the only policy based argument is to delete. Spartaz ^Humbug! 21:56, 29 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Paul Brummell

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fails WP:BIO. ambassadors are not inherently notable. an unremarkable career. I could only find routine coverage confirming he was an ambassador but nothing in depth. and there's trivial coverage reporting what food he ate based on his twitter like this. LibStar (talk) 06:54, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Ambassadors are senior enough for inherent notability, in my opinion. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:18, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Only in your opinion: WP:POLITICIAN explicitly excludes them. --Colapeninsula (talk) 13:31, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, in my opinion. This is an Afd; opinions count. Since they're not usually politicians and have never been elected to their post, WP:POLITICIAN is not relevant in any case. The note in it is therefore a fairly pointless one. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:07, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, opinions don't count for anything if they're not backed up by any actual policy. Bearcat (talk) 20:14, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tell that to the admins who have closed many thousands of Afds as keep due to opinions that the articles should be kept! Whatever "rules" (which aren't, of course, since we have none) you may like to quote, practice is (and should be) most definitely that opinions do count at Afd. How do you think we establish consensus if not by discussion? And what is discussion if it isn't people expressing their opinions? This idea that opinion isn't valid or that consensus can only be formed via policy or guidelines and not on Afd is a fundamental misunderstanding of what Wikipedia is all about. If this was true then we wouldn't bother having Afd discussions at all - admins would simply be able to delete at will any article which did not conform to the "rules". -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:42, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

To be fair, Cola, WP:POLITICIAN's exclusion of ambassadors is irrelevant to the question of whether ambassadors are notable enough or not — it merely means that WP:POLITICIAN isn't the yardstick by which we measure their notability or lack thereof. There was formerly a separate guideline for determining the notability or lack thereof of ambassadors and diplomats, located in the same parent document that also contains POLITICIAN, but it was removed from that guideline pending resolution of a dispute about its wording — in the meantime, an ambassador does still have to get past WP:GNG by virtue of coverage in reliable sources, and is not entitled to keep an unsourced or poorly sourced article just because he exists. Bearcat (talk) 20:14, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

please point to the actual notability guideline which says ambassadors are inherently notable. Did you look for any sources to establish notability? LibStar (talk) 13:22, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Let's not go through all this again. Your opinion against my opinion. Just leave it and stop worrying at it. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:07, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So you admit there is no actual notability guideline that grants inherent notability. You can only have inherent notability if a guideline exists. LibStar (talk) 15:23, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You really do not get the concept of an opinion do you? "If it's not covered in detail by a guideline then it's not valid" seems to be the basis of your stance. As I've pointed out many times, Wikipedia does not work this way. Never has done. Hopefully never will do. It works on discussion. And that's what we're having. -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:31, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And consistently recycling WP:ITSNOTABLE never works. Never has done. Hopefully never will do. You need to develop better arguments for keep than that. LibStar (talk) 14:46, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Given the opinions below, which largely disagree with yours, I think you'll find that's not true! -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:00, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 13:18, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bilateral relations-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 13:18, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 13:18, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I agree with Necrothesp: ambassadors should generally be assumed to be notable. Here's some significant coverage of the ambassador in a reliable source: [1]. Pburka (talk) 14:05, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

that article is trivia and WP:ROUTINE coverage. LibStar (talk) 14:19, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

and the source doesn't look an established news source as per WP:NEWSORG LibStar (talk) 14:20, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note that he does have an entry in Who's Who. Not proof of definite notability, but a good start. He has held three ambassadorial posts (Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan & Kyrgyzstan, Barbados & Eastern Caribbean) and is about to take up a fourth (Romania). I reiterate, in my opinion that makes him notable. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:07, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

He's also a travel author [2][3]. Here's another recent article about his experiences in Romania[4] and some older ones [5][6]. Also some older articles about his career in the Caribbean: [7][8]. Pburka (talk) 00:23, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I would hardly call indepth and in this article Brummell is reporting the UK government position, and the article contains no information about Brummell except that he's the high commissioner. That kind of article is like when a police spokesperson informs the media of a crime, it doesn't make the spokesperson notable. LibStar (talk) 14:40, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I believe that there are sufficient third party sources to justify notability for this individual. However I also find it frustrating that wikipedia doesn't have more specific guidelines vis a vis members of the diplomatic service (including UN permanent representatives). Some people (like me) think that Ambassadors and UN permanent representatives should be considered inherently notable, others argue they are just mouthpieces for national governments and have no real power. Flaming Ferrari (talk) 17:45, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Definite keep -- A series of diplomatic poists where he was head of mission is quite enough to make him notable. The fact that this is a poor article, in need of expansion is no ground for deletion. Peterkingiron (talk) 18:36, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Ambassadors are not automatically notable just because they exist. They can be notable, absolutely, but only if they're actually the subject of enough real, substantive coverage in real, reliable independent sources to get them past WP:GNG — the mere fact of holding an ambassadorship does not grant a person an automatic entitlement to keep a Wikipedia article that is unsourced or relies on primary sources. This article, as written, does not cite sufficient coverage in properly independent sources to confer notability — so delete unless the sourcing can be properly beefed up. Bearcat (talk) 20:08, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Bearcat. We have not agreed upon the concept that ambassadors are presumed to meet Wikipedia's GNG. I am not convinced that as a rule, ambassadors are the subject of enough real, substantive coverage. Certainly an ambassador might pass other notability guidelines, especially if they are "knighted." I continue to support keeping lists of ambassadors from one country to another country. --Enos733 (talk) 05:16, 24 June 2014 (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.