Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arthur Tolkien


 * 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 of the debate was NO CONSENSUS. Owen&times; &#9742;  00:39, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Arthur Tolkien
Notable only as the father of J. R. R. Tolkien; otherwise just a bank clerk not suitable for inclusion per WP:BIO TCC (talk) (contribs) 02:19, 23 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Delete, being related to a famous person is not a suitable notability claim. Andrew Levine 02:26, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Verifiable and of interest to readers. - SimonP 03:06, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Redirect to J. R. R. Tolkein, where I believe he is mentioned. Attendant fame = a redirect (same with spouses, children, bastards, and family pets).  Geogre 03:19, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Redirect per Geogre. Although those last two beg the question of where we should redirect Tony Blair. (Had to be said.) --Last Malthusian 10:08, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Redirect to J. R. R. Tolkein. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 04:13, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Redirect as per Geogre - he is not independently notable other than as Tolkien's dad and he died when Tolkien was three. Capitalistroadster 04:19, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Redirect per above. PJM 04:22, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep whilst the subject is not intrinsicaly notable, it is verifiable and of interest to a significant number of people. The information will be in print in a number of biographies. Normally, for family members, I'd say 'merge and redirect', but there is too much info here to merge, and I see little to be gained by losing that info with a simple redirect (effectively a delete in this case). --Doc ask? 09:34, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I am in two minds here, either to Redirect or Keep. On one hand, he is only notable as the father of J.R.R. Tolkein and hence could be included in his page.  But on the other hand, how he brought JRR up likely influenced his books, and henceforth knowing about him provides useful background information about JRR and why he wrote like he did.  Therefore, I think that it should be a Keep. 203.122.225.241 17:42, 23 November 2005 (UTC) (sorry forgot to sign before.  didn't mean it to be unsigned so i will just sign it now)
 * He didn't raise JRRT; he died when he was 3. JRRT was raised by his mother, and then by their parish priest after she died. Of course it's useful background information, but that's no reason to have a seperate article. IMO it belongs in J. R. R. Tolkien, not on its own. TCC (talk) (contribs) 17:55, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep It's factual information. Just because it's a short article is no reason to get rid of it.  TotalTommyTerror 16:02, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
 * This is a strawman argument. No one is arguing that it should be deleted because it's short or because it's non-factual. TCC (talk) (contribs) 06:55, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:BIO. Gamaliel 18:26, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Although questionable in terms of WP:BIO, his main contribution to society being fathering one of the grestest authors of the modern era, there is enough verifiable information here to support an individual article. Merging to Tolkien's article could possibly hurt the format of that article and a mere redirect would mean a lot of info is lost. Saberwyn 19:49, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
 * redirect per Geogre and others. Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 00:01, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Weak keep per Saberwyn unless all the content can be cleanly merged into J. R. R. Tolkien. We're not trying to save paper here. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 01:16, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
 * What's surprising to me is that someone decided to add all this information about JRRT's father, who had little to no influence in his life, yet relatively little (and no article) has been written here about his mother who was an enormous influence on him. (Indeed, he always considered himself more of a Suffield than a Tolkien.) All this niggly background on his father's family indeed has a place in the main article IMO -- if correspondingly detailed information is added on his mother's family. TCC (talk) (contribs) 06:55, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete The question should be asked: Arthur died when J.R.R. Tolkien was 3; if J.R.R. died when he was four and never created LOTR, would anyone seriously argue that Arthur belonged on this page? Jtmichcock 03:23, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:BIO, and the fact that he did not, apparently, have any formative effect on his son. Do we add an article or redirect for every author's relatives? Turnstep 16:00, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, per Doc; verifiable and of interest to readers, but an uncomfortable merge. Kappa 13:09, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete nn.  Grue   12:28, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
 * KEEP. The Wookieepedian 04:20, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep - my personal basis for criteria is simply "Is it likely somebody will google this character in two years, wanting to find out information about him, whether for a school project, personal interest or anything else?" The answer is simply yes, and merging him to JRR's article would make JRR's article prohibitively lengthy.  That's why we suggest if a particular subject is taking up too much room in an article, we give it its own article.  Sherurcij 11:18, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. He's the father of someone famous -- that's it. If it's important to the background of the famous son, but that info in HIS article. --Calton | Talk 23:59, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete his son was a small child when he died - he's notable enough for one sentence in his JRR's article, but that it. CDC (talk) 18:12, 28 November 2005 (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.