Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service


 * 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. -Scottywong | spill the beans _ 15:52, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service

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Content forking/link farm. This list duplicates a section of the article on the Secret Intelligence Service and has little chance of being meaningfully expanded. Wiki-Ed (talk) 22:21, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Secret Intelligence Service. It's a bit long, but there's a chance someone might type "Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service" into the search bar. Agree with nom about there not being much chance of expansion. —  Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 22:30, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep. I take back my words. Squeamish Ossifrage has done an excellent job of expanding the article, and has left me feeling rather embarrassed about saying there was not much chance of expansion. —  Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 20:34, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep or redirect. This is the wrong venue. If you felt the duplication was unnecessary you could just have been bold & merged and redirected the article to Secret Intelligence Service. Also, duplication is not a deletion criteria (although it may be a merge criteria). Only lack of notability is criteria for deletion. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 23:38, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I have not cited duplication as a reason. This article is either (a) an attempt to fork content which was never developed or (b) a link farm, both of which are relevant criteria for deletion. The information does not need to be merged because it's already in the parent article (verbatim). I'd disagree that a redirect is the right solution - most readers would search for the head of an organisation by looking at the organisation article itself or by searching for "head of x". The term "Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service" is highly unlikely to appear as a search term (I hate to use it, but Google says 46,000 for head agaisnt 2,000 for chief). Wiki-Ed (talk) 12:17, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Linkfarm refers to links to external pages. This is not a link farm, it is a List. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 14:43, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
 * No, try rereading what you just linked to, specifically the second bullet point. But yes, it is supposed to be a list, but it doesn't appear to meet any of the criteria for a stand-alone list article. Wiki-Ed (talk) 19:47, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 14:44, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 14:45, 30 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep. It is entirely reasonable to maintain an article about the leadership position of a nation's intelligence agency separate from one about the agency itself.  Compare this to the American Central Intelligence Agency/Director of the Central Intelligence Agency or the Soviet KGB/Chairman of the KGB.  The content and formatting of the article under discussion can likely be improved (and the tabular information removed from the parent article accordingly), but none of that is cause for deletion. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 17:06, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
 * It isn't an article, it's a list which doesn't meet the criteria for retention as a separate stand-alone list. How can the content be improved? There's nothing here that isn't said on the SIS article and nothing that can be added that shouldn't be on that page first and foremost. If you can provide something original and informative that demands a separate page then please do so. Wiki-Ed (talk) 19:42, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
 * First, even were we to consider this topic as inherently limited to a bare enumeration of office-holders, how could it not meet the criteria for stand-alone lists? Looking at the expectations for lists of people and the entry selection criteria, we see that each member of this list is themselves notable, and is in fact notable in whole or in part for holding the office whose membership is summarized in this list. Furthermore, the topic itself does lend to development beyond a bare list, just as do the articles for the heads of many other government agencies worldwide.  There are no shortage of references to the position, including at least one book dedicated in its entirety to the office and those who held it.  With all that said, I'm not averse to doing some cleanup work on the article's appearance myself over the next couple of days. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 20:04, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I was thinking more of what Wikipedia is not - i.e. not a directory or repository of internal links . Anyway, I'll be interested to see what you can do to add content to this "article". NB the book you referred to is listed on Google books as fiction so please make sure you use reliable sources (iirc there is only one and it only goes up to 1949). Wiki-Ed (talk) 10:30, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I too could see us having a List of chiefs of the Secret Intelligence Service or similar, and I see that this is what has happened in the case of the KGB. I don't really see the need for creating such a list if it is going to be exactly the same as the one in the Secret Intelligence Service article though. I still think redirecting would be the best solution, although I think it would be a redirect with possibilities. If the Secret Intelligence Service article starts to get too large, we can split the "chiefs" section off into a new article/list. I don't really buy the argument that the article should be kept as it is because of the possibility of future expansion - this is just as true for Secret Intelligence Service as it would be for Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service. We may as well keep the information in one place, unless there is a compelling argument to do otherwise. —  Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 13:05, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
 * No one ever reads the whole thing. From WP:NOTDIR: "Wikipedia encompasses many lists of links to articles within Wikipedia that are used for internal organization or to describe a notable subject. In that sense, Wikipedia functions as an index or directory of its own content." postdlf (talk) 19:47, 6 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Redirect/merge to Secret_Intelligence_Service until somebody wants to write an actual article about the position that goes beyond the existing list.    Sandstein   08:08, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't consider this a finished product (I'd like to find photo thumbails and exact dates, where possible and to make the section on the secrecy and revelation of the position both more readable and more comprehensive), but I've updated the article to a first-draft example of how this is expansible beyond a bare list (not that, as postdlf, the alternative is necessarily a problem either). Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 20:22, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Good work, now keep per expansion that demonstrates that this can be a standalone topic.  Sandstein   11:30, 7 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep significant office, historically important. Cagoul (talk) 14:54, 7 April 2012 (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.