Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abigail MacBride Allen


 * 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. There is agreement here that the article should be deleted. Malcolmxl5 (talk) 21:49, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Abigail MacBride Allen

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This is the extreme in one-event notability. 3 of the references are incidental mentions in coverage of a political campaign by her father. The article does not do justice in putting her "appearances" with her father in that campaign in perspective. She turned 6 some time in the year he ran for president. Then we have mention of her in her father's obituary. Then we have coverage of the lawsuit over the literary rights she inherited from her father. That case was settled in her favor 19 years ago, yet we have absolutely nothing about her since. Based on her fahter's name and her name, I assume she is or was at one point married, but no one seems to have cared about that. Being heir to a literary fortune is not a sign of notability. Keep in mind that the fortune is that of her adoptive father's some sort of pseudo-mother mentors, mother. In the time Ms. Allen has been the holder of the Laura Ingalls Wilder literary legacy, Mrs. Wilder had a major literary award unnamed after her in an example of cancel culture, yet it appears that no one in that debate thought that the holder of the Wilder literary fortune was someone worth consulting about the matter. Actually on further inspection it appears her father was chosen as the heir by Mrs. Wilder's daughter because he was his political disciple. Her father actually did things with the legacy at least, producing a TV show for example. There is no evidence Mrs. Allen has done anything with it. Any mention of her we can just include in the article on her father, but I see no reason to include much since almost nothing is known. Most of what I can find in a web search is Wikipedia mirrors, some of it demonstrating just how much influence Wikipedia having an article can have and how we need to be more deliberative about the article creation process. A show of how non-notable even in the lawsuit by the Laura Ingles Wilder Library to get control of the literary estate Mrs. Allen was, it took 10 praragraphs into the article to even name her. Beyond this, Mrs. Allen has actually turned over the control of this legacy to the Little House Heritage Trust, which may or may not have her as the sole controller. This New York Post article says a little bit more about Mrs. Allen, but it says nothing about her by any normal standard, she had been the controlled of the estate for 4 years when the lawsuit was brought, yet there is no evidence she had done anything with it. We do get this short line "Miami-based MacBride suffered a fatal heart attack on March 5, 1995, at age 65, but his daughter Abigail MacBride Allen has overseen the publication of her father’s unpublished manuscripts, starting with The Other Side of the Hill (1995), Little Town in the Ozarks (1996), New Dawn on Rocky Ridge (1997) and On the Banks of the Bayou (1998). The books take Rose up to age 17 when she’s off to follow her dreams." from this source http://libertarianstvo.org/en/personalities/item/72-rose-wilder-lane, but overseeing publication of a few works is not a sign of notability, especially when they were largely written by someone else. I am reduced to scrapping up things like this Amazon review of a book attributed to her father, but published under her perview, and the agreement here is her role in the work makde it worse, although this is a random Amazon review with no indication they even know what Mrs. Allen's actual role in the work was, so not a reliable source. We do here learn the fact that she wrote an intro to a collection of travel diaries by Mrs. Wilder, and for whatever reason she is referred to in this reference as Abigail MacBride. There is no reason to have a freestanding article on Mrs. Allen John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:46, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Redirect to her father, Roger MacBride, per nom. Unlike her father, who ran for President of the United States, Allen seems to be a private person who has neither sought, nor really received, the public spotlight. There is not enough here to warrant a separate article about her. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 15:43, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * For what it is worth, I am less than convinced that Mr. MacBride would merit notability just for being a 3rd party candidate for US president. His clear notability pass comes from having served as a member of the Vermont Legislature (as a republican though, not a Libertarian). He was also a faithless elector, but I am not as convinced as some people are that those are notable.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:16, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Lightburst (talk) 15:50, 4 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. Lightburst (talk) 15:50, 4 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete. Her connection to Laura Ingalls Wilder seems more relevant to notability than the one to Roger MacBride, but I think this is a WP:BLP1E case and the current contents of the page are a bit stalker-like (e.g. speculation about her location and appearance). She's not a public figure. pburka (talk) 16:35, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Definitely delete this as notability is not inherited. Trillfendi (talk) 16:56, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment The following comment was added to this discussion's talk page: pburka (talk) 19:26, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * As the original author of the article, I saw it as an essential piece related to the history of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Because the settings of Wilders' books are in the 19th century, there is strong cross-interest by her readers in genealogy and Midwestern history. Every year new fans ask if Laura Ingalls Wilder has any newly-living descendants. Abigail MacBride Allen is the only "descendant" in any sense of the word, since there are no actual descendants. As such, and due to legal reasons, she is the sole heir of the Laura Ingalls Wilder's literary estate. Wilders' books have sold 60-100 million copies over time, and annual sales are still very high for books published nearly 100 years ago. The TV series based on her books, "Little House on the Prairie," shows in 140 countries--even though the last episode was filmed in 1984. With this level of attention, I do not believe any "family member" (even if by legal connection) is irrelevant--especially since there is only one. In addition, this article makes Wikipedia especially valuable. There are no other sources online that have any information on Abigail MacBride Allen.
 * There is another aspect that concerns me with Johnpacklambert's challenge to this article. The talk discussion is a roundabout of ideas on why this person is not notable enough. One is, it is hard to find information on Abigail MacBride Allen. This is true, making the fact that Wikipedia identifies her all the more valuable. She is not notable because of her father's presidency run, he states. Also true, but the Laura Ingalls Wilder connection is. The connection to McBride the presidential candidate is an interesting aside.
 * A final point I would like to make is that I am concerned about Johnpacklambert's motives. I have had resistance in the past from Abigail MacBride Allen about identifying her. Is he related? Has he been asked to challenge this? We must not let Wikipedia be altered due to editors being unduly influenced to protect/anonymize a particular person. And I am certain Wikipedia would not stand for any kind of censorship. The article should remain as is. Chuck Mall 19:15, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The above fails the rule of assume good faith. My closest connection to Abigail MacBride Allen is that when I was little (up until maybe age 7, but I might not have been that old), my neighbor kitty corner across the street was a Mr. Ingalls. He was somehow related to Laura Ingalls Wilder, descending either from a brother or a cousin of her father. He had been on the local County Line School Board, covering parts of both Troy and Sterling Townships, in 1941 when they voted to consolidate with some other local school boards to form Warren Consolidated Schools. That was about 25 years before Sterling Heights, Michigan was made a city. My best guess is that Mr. Ingalls was born about 1905, and was about 80 when he died, which as I said was when I was about 6. So, no, I do not have any close connection to Mrs. Allen. However I would note that Wikipedia does respect the desires of non-public figures who did a few things of very minor note when they want to not have an article on Wikipedia. However as I have said I never have communicated with Mrs. Allen. I did not know she existed before I stumbled upon her article doing a review of all articles in the 1970 birth year category, mainly with the intent of removing those articles in that category for no good reason. Wikipedia is built on reliable, secondary coverage. The purpose of Wikipedia is not to make people notable who are not, and we do not have the topic specific expertise to ourselves determine who is and who is not notable, so we follow published works in this manner. My dad read most of the Little House on the Praire Books to us while we were children, mentioning how they connected to our neighbor Mr. Ingalls, I do not think we ever actually made it through "The First Four Years". I knew before today that Mrs. Wilder had a daugther, and I knew that there had been another series written fictionalizing the life of her daughter. Before today I could not have told you who did that, who held the rights to this literary estate, if anyone held the rights to it, if any of these 80-90 year old books were still under copyright, in part because as I mentioned before when a Library Association removed Mrs. Wilder's name from one of their awards, no one in writing articles on it felt a need to hunt down Mrs. Allen and ask her what she thought of the removal of her pseudo-great grandmother's mother's name from the award.Assuming good faith in nominations is wise. I have never had contact with Mrs. Allen (I am not ever sure why her last name is Allen), I created this nomination because Mrs. Allen is not a public figure on a level that would constitute meeting any of the guidelines on notability that Wikipedia has.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:46, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I would also note that on the official Little House on the Prairie website at, I can't find one mention of Abigail MacBride Allen anywhere. I would expect that if she, the rights-holder, wanted to publicize herself to Little House fans as the heir, she could do so. But the fact that she doesn't publicize herself there, nor do the people who run the Little House website discuss her on that site, suggests to me that she is a private person and we do not need to have an article about her on Wikipedia. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 23:40, 4 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete for lack of notability of the subject. While I am not one to shy from questioning Johnpacklambert's motives or calling out shoddy work, this nomination is a good one. To address points made above: People are interested in the Ingalls and Wilder genealogies and living descendants, but the Macbrides are heirs and passing them off as the holy descendants of the mother of American children's literature and her hack writer daughter as this article tried to do is ludicrous. Rose was eccentric and "adopted" a number of adolescent and young men when she wasn't off having other adventures. In terms of there not being other descendants, that is unencyclopedic and incorrect. There is a slew of collateral descendants of the Wilders, plus the stepchildren of Carrie Ingalls who she raised from ages c. 4 and 8. They were actually raised by an Ingalls, unlike Macbride, who came to them later. So if you're going to write fancruft or whatever they call this, get it right. I just edited the article down so it wasn't a mess of fawning over some gorgeous, mysterious heiress. The woman wishes to keep a low profile and rightfully so. The article read as stalkerish and creepy. I don't see anything wrong with citing some of these articles in relevant Wikipedia articles, but please no redirect. It's bad enough this article existed for as long as it did and will doubtless be backed up somewhere. DiamondRemley39 (talk) 02:00, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete, does not meet WP:ANYBIO, has not done anything wikisignificant, looks like a case of WP:LOWPROFILE, as for the article creator saying this article being the only place on the internet with this info and makes wp valuable, editors need to remember WP:NOTFANSITE. Coolabahapple (talk) 01:57, 6 September 2020 (UTC)


 * 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.