Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Evelyn Mase

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. L Faraone 20:07, 3 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Evelyn Mase

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Not independently notable per WP:NOTINHERITED. Her only "claim to fame" is that she was married to Nelson Mandela. Their marriage ended before Mandela became notable. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:37, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as nominator. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:49, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of South Africa-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:50, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:50, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: As the creator of the page, I really have to disagree. The assertion that her marriage was her only claim to fame is simply erroneous. She was not merely the wife of Nelson Mandela, but the mother of three of his children (two of whom, Makgatho Mandela and Makaziwe Mandela, also have their own Wikipedia pages), thereby being a senior member of a historically important dynasty, akin to Jackie Kennedy. Her relationship with Mandela and with her children would prove to be a significant influence on them as they grew up and achieved their own success. Throughout the 1950s, she was also associated with a number of other highly significant figures in the anti-apartheid struggle, such as Walter and Albertina Sisulu; she was therefore at the heart of the action at a very important part of history. Besides, many other sources identify her as being notable. She is discussed in all of the biographies devoted to Mandela, and also made various appearences in the South African media throughout her life, during which she became a voal critic of Mandela. On her death in 2004, international news outlets like The Guardian published her obituary, with her funeral being reported on far and wide, including in the China Daily and the Daily Mail. You only need to type her name into Google to look at the extensive number of references that pop up. Collectively, this illustrates that she was a significant figure in modern South African history, and is undoubtedly worthy of having a Wikipedia article of her own. Midnightblueowl (talk) 17:06, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Makgatho Mandela and Makaziwe Mandela do not appear to be independently notable either. --ukexpat (talk) 19:00, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I'm not sure Mase can be said to have independent notability based on that single interview where she criticized Mandela after his prison release, and the China Daily coverage I see isn't so much an obituary as it is coverage of Mandela's reaction to her death (Mandela attends first wife's funeral). I may just be missing the obit in question, though. Still, Nelson Mandela is an article that's already packed to the gills; it's not practical to add more information about Mase to it, even though there's plenty of secondary sources that discuss this relationship in detail. What if this article was simply restructured or reimagined as a subarticle of Nelson Mandela--would that be a possibility here? There doesn't seem to be a dispute that many secondary sources discuss Evelyn Mase in detail, and there's no other logical place to put this detail. -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:06, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Thinking about this a little more, this seems to me to be a case where WP:NOTINHERITED gets overruled by the level of coverage. Sara Delano Roosevelt is famous only being FDR's mother; Elliott Roosevelt I is famous only for being President Teddy Roosevelt's brother and Eleanor Roosevelt's father; Chelsea Clinton is famous only for being Bill's daughter; Anne Hathaway (Shakespeare) is famous only for being Shakespeare's wife; Tad Lincoln and William Wallace Lincoln (who died age 11) are famous only for being Abraham Lincoln's son, etc. Judith Quiney, a Good Article, is famous only for being Shakespeare's daughter. None of these individuals have the stand-alone accomplishments mandated by WP:NOTINHERITED, but their article serve as useful subarticles to the main topic. I would argue that this serves the same function. At worst, perhaps Mase's article and the articles on the children could be refactored as Family of Nelson Mandela, comparable to Family of Barack Obama. -- Khazar2 (talk) 19:04, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

~~Delete~~ the only reason she is notable is because of her kids and ex-husband. Per policy, notability is WP:NOTINHERITED. And while there is WP:V and WP:RS available on her, those in themselves do not make her notable. In contrast to Jackie Kennedy who has established notability outside of simply having inherited notability due to the Kennedy Family. Tiggerjay (talk) 18:49, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete or Merge - upon reading Khazar2 post, I would agree that refactoring and merging into something similar to Family of Nelson Mandela or perhaps Wives of Nelson Mandela maybe an appropraite way to keep this content. However I still believe that, as the article is today, it cannot stand alone. Tiggerjay (talk) 19:57, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: while I still support the retainment of this article, I would be willing to work on something along the lines of Family of Nelson Mandela as an alternative. Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:05, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment a "Wives of Nelson Mandela" article isn't really a viable option because it would still basically be all about Mase, the other two are definitely independently notable. A Family article is an option, while a few familiy members are definitely notable, a few more of the children and grandchildren have had some limited media coverage and the family dynamics and relationships as such have had significant coverage. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:09, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - no independent notability, WP:NOTINHERITED. ukexpat (talk) 19:01, 25 April 2013 (UTC). She has received coverage in sources only because she was Mandela's ex-wife. She is not notable for any reason in her own right.--ukexpat (talk) 13:43, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per WP:PAGEDECIDE. - "Independent notability" is an ill-defined concept, and "notinherited" is an argument to avoid. What matters is that the person has enough direct coverage in sources to write an article. Diego (talk) 21:32, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per User:Midnightblueowl. For pete's sake, there's a whole article on Cynthia Lennon, who is non-notable other than the fact that she married John Lennon and thus was written about in the context of being married to him. Same situation here. ... discospinster _talk 22:37, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: might I also add to that such figures as Angela Bowie, Lucía Hiriart, Luo Yigu, Ekaterina Svanidze, and Eva Braun... all the female spouses of culturally or politically influential men who arguably did nothing in themselves to warrant "notability". If we're going to delete Evelyn Mase then we should probably delete that lot too... Midnightblueowl (talk) 01:03, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, especially per Khazar2 and Diego. Plenty of coverage and no compelling reason to delete; indeed, deletion would lessen the quality of our encyclopedic coverage of matters Mandela. --Arxiloxos (talk) 00:54, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Simply not notable. There is a scary amount of Wikipedia:Other stuff exists going on above.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:18, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. "In consideration of precedent and consistency, though, identifying articles of the same nature that have been established and continue to exist on Wikipedia may provide extremely important insight into general notability of concepts, levels of notability (what's notable: international, national, regional, state, provincial?), and whether or not a level and type of article should be on Wikipedia." — WP:OSE. ... discospinster _talk 12:33, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - The Guardian ran an obit. Obits like this aren't run for nobodies. WP:NOTINERITED would apply if coverage were sparse; but that simply isn't the case here. -- Whpq (talk) 15:56, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I agree that WP:OSE is being overused as a keep argument and it's not a strong defence. However multiple high quality independent sources have decided that she is notable enough for them to report on her in her own right. We on WP may have a view that they are only doing so because of who her former husband was, but this is second guessing the independent source's motives. The sources exist, they comment in depth on her, they are independent and multiple. It's not our job to tell newspapers etc that they are mistakenly according her inhgerited notability. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 09:03, 30 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Sorry if I opened a can of worms by looking at other articles of this type. As I said in my comment, I think we're all agreed that there are multiple, independent, in-depth reliable sources exist on Mase; the problem is the editors who argue that her article should be deleted anyway because Wikipedia banned articles on family members of the famous without independent accomplishments. It seemed reasonable to show from precedent that this wasn't a correct or logical interpretation of policy; if family members get enough written about them, they get a Wikipedia article like anyone else. -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:45, 30 April 2013 (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.