Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cynfyn ap Gwerystan


 * 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 merge to Bleddyn ap Cynfyn. There's quite the discussion here, but after reading through, it seems that nobody is opposed to merging the content. Points made about the reliability of sources (or lack thereof) are convincing, and the arguments that there isn't enough coverage for a stand-alone article are the strongest and therefore given the most weight. While there's some talk about the best merge target, Bleddyn seems to be by far the more prominent son, and the better target. Eddie891 Talk Work 15:02, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Cynfyn ap Gwerystan

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This is entirely a genealogical entry. Lloyd, in his Dict Welsh Bio article on the man's son, says, of him that he is "otherwise unknown" (beyond his genealogical placement as Bleddyn's father). The closest things we get in the article to claims to notability are the statements that he is principally known on account of his son becoming a king, that his supposed grandfather derived from older royal families (something Lloyd implicitly disputes), and that he married the widow of someone notable. None of this establishes notability for him: WP:NOTINHERITED. Then we have an unreferenced recapitulation of the traditional list of children: WP:NOTGENEALOGY. And that is the whole article.

This was just 'some guy' who married the widow of a usurper, by which his son would successfully claim the crown, and that centuries later pedigrees were propagated that gave him some noteworthy ancestry. This is not the makings of notability, no matter how famous the son was. Agricolae (talk) 16:41, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Agricolae (talk) 16:41, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Wales-related deletion discussions. Agricolae (talk) 16:41, 26 October 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep Notable enough Omniscientmoose42 (talk) 17:12, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
 * How so? Do please elaborate. Agricolae (talk) 17:16, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
 * His son was king of Wales, and WP:NOTINHERITED would not apply in this case as being the father of the king of Wales would give him a public position that is notable in it's own right (nobleman). Omniscientmoose42 (talk) 17:30, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
 * This is groundless supposition. We don't have any chronology, so there is no reason to conclude he held any status other than corpse at the time his son was king - this is exactly NOTINHERITED, assuming notability based on being relative of someone, without any basis whatsoever in his own right. Lloyd's characterization of him, "otherwise unknown", is an accurate summary of the entirety of the non-genealogical information known about him - sweet fanny adams. Agricolae (talk) 19:28, 26 October 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep. Interim king of Powys, father of two kings of Powys / Gwynedd. Discussed by various online sources. This one is the most complete. There is a Burkes Peerage entry. He is mentioned in the The Life of Saint Brychan, Life of Saint Raymond etc. Various snippets like this one or this one. Certainly a notable subject that may interest our readers. Aymatth2 (talk) 18:33, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Except this impressive list of sources is not anything of the sort. He wasn't 'Interim king of Powys' - that is just completely made up.  The Ancient Wales Studies site cited as giving the most complete account bears a seemingly academic .org name, but is just one non-expert enthusiasts' private website for posting their own personal speculation pieces - nothing there is WP:RS.  The Life of St Brychan is not a near-contemporary hagiographical saint's life, it is just someone's else's self-published genealogical compilation, and the grand total of what it says about Cynfyn is: "16 Cynfyn Ap Gwerystan b: Abt 982 d:1023 + Angharad Verch Maredudd b:982" and then in the next generation, "17 Cynfyn Ap Gwerystan b: Abt 982 d:1023 + Angharad verch Maredudd b:982" - yes, this high quality source indeed makes him his own son.  The Life of Saint Raymond is just the follow-up book by the same self-published author, with the same text just copied and pasted in (still insisting that Cynfyn was father of himself). Setting aside source quality issues, it takes more than just being someone with a marriage and wild guesses for dates to be notable.  Burkes, calls him "a Noble of Powys" - that is the grand total of non-genealogical, non-absurd  information given and Burke (he does ludicrously give him a coat of arms, more than two centuries before coats of arms came into existence, so we can't exactly call this work of mid-19th century antiquarianism a reliable source for anything it claims, and 'being a noble' is insufficient anyhow).  As to the snippets, they are both the same, just genealogy.  One shows him in the same genealogical context - 'Bleddyn and Rhiwallon were sons of Cynfyn ap Gwerystan, Cynfyn ap Gwerystan had married Angharad, widow of Llywelyn - that is all it says about him.  The other says 'Angharad had two sons, Bleddyn annd Rhywallon by Cynfyn ap Gwerystan.' No biography at all, just the act of progenation.  There no there there, as is usually the case for entirely genealogical entries such as this. This fails WP:GNG, and WP:BIO - there is no significant coverage by a single reliable source. Agricolae (talk) 19:28, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
 * This book discusses the subject in some detail, piecing together what is known or can be deduced about Cynfyn ap Gwerystan. Taken with Burke it clearly establishes notability. Darrell Wolcott's research, which cites various other sources, is also relevant. There is a shortage of hard facts about the subject, but considerable interest by historians of Wales. Aymatth2 (talk) 20:12, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
 * A little better, but not much, given the degree to which almost nothing in this section austensibly about Cynfyn is actually about Cynfyn. It has five paragraphs about Bleddyn's collective ancestry, including Cynfyn.  Paragraph 1 is about Bleddyn's claimed grandfather (only mentioning Cynfyn to transition) and concludes with the statement that Bleddyn's ancestors are 'little more than names in a pedigree' - a ringing endorsement for notability. The second paragraph says that the grandfather had multiple children but Cynfyn would be the 'crucial piece on the genealogical jigsaw' - not personal notability, just a indicating this is the person the line goes through.  Paragraph three talks about the likely geographical of the family - the family generically, not Cynfyn specifically. In paragraph 4 we get the sole sentence that is actually biographical - that he was probably a supporter of the man whose widow he married (because, well, just because), and that the marriage was a personal coup for him, then the rest of the paragraph is about other things.  Finally, a paragraph addressing the fact that he may also have had children by anonymous other women.  So, the grand take other than generalities about the family as a whole, is that the man made a good marriage so he must have had a certain status, he may have had multiple spouses, and he had several children including the book's subject.  This is far short of clear notability, and to say that 'this plus Burke clearly establishes notability' is like saying that between Clint Eastwood and myself, we have several Oscars.  Burke's contribution to notability - what, two sentences as part of a genealogy, one of them being utter nonsense? - is so minuscule that 'Source X + Burke' is insignificantly different than 'Source X' alone, and source X alone isn't that good.  Agricolae (talk) 21:35, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
 * To put it another way, there is nothing about Cynfyn in this source that couldn't be summarized on Bleddyn's page with a single sentence! Agricolae (talk) 21:39, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Merge into Bleddyn ap Cynfyn, expanding the Background section. Cynfyn gets a couple of mentions in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Otherwise I'm not seeing non-speculative material about him. Charles Matthews (talk) 03:41, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Speculative material is valid if it has a reputable source and is identified as speculative. The biographical part of the article on Homer is mostly speculative . The sources provide enough material for a stand-alone article. Aymatth2 (talk) 21:55, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
 * You're a bit of a way from showing that Cynfyn is as notable as Homer, as a topic. Charles Matthews (talk) 05:18, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Not as notable as Homer, but the subject of a fair bit of informed speculation by historians. I suppose we could use Davies, Burke, Wolcott etc. as sources to pump up Bleddyn ap Cynfyn, making this article a redirect to that section, but the result could be rather unbalanced. Aymatth2 (talk) 12:05, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
 * That is my preferred way. If the coverage starts to look disproportionate, there would be an argument to undo the redirection. Charles Matthews (talk) 12:08, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Burke says four usable words about Cynfyn, and the grand contribution of Davies is that Cynfyn must have been important enough to marry the king's widow, but not all that important that it wasn't still a personal coup. Throw in the details Davies gives about about the general family geography and earlier ancestry (Gwerystan) and you may have as much as three whole sentences, which is not going to imbalance anything. However, were we to use Wolcott, that would be a problem: a self-published essay by a historical amateur enthusiast that consists of his personal speculation is entirely non-WP:RS. We shouldn't use Wolcott under any circumstances, whether Cynfyn has his own article or not. Agricolae (talk) 12:35, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Wolcott is useful as a guide to sources on the subject, some of which are not available online, such as Brut y Tywysogion, Mostyn Manuscripts, Achau Brenhinoedd a Thywysogion Cymru, Lewys Dwnn "Hist Powys Vadog" and Jacob Youde William Lloyd "History of Powys Fadog". Aymatth2 (talk) 18:16, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
 * There is no 'get out of jail free' workaround whereby original research by a non-expert miraculously becomes acceptable simply by laundering it via a self-published website. We can't tell if this person without any relevant qualifications can even be trusted to summarize the material being reported. Any such amaterur essay placed on the author's own web page or blog is inherently unreliable, even as a guide to sources. Agricolae (talk) 19:02, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I am confident that Brut y Tywysogion, some of the Mostyn Manuscripts, Achau Brenhinoedd a Thywysogion Cymru, Lewys Dwnn's "Hist Powys Vadog" and Jacob Youde William Lloyd's "History of Powys Fadog" discuss the subject, so Wolcott has proved useful. Now it is a question of tracking down what these and other sources said. Aymatth2 (talk) 20:54, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
 * However useful you find them, for the purposes of Wikipedia, Wolcott's self-published web essays are not WP:RS. Agricolae (talk) 00:41, 29 October 2020 (UTC)


 * At least Weak keep -- If Walcott is right, Cynfyn was at least regent of two Welsh kingdoms. While Walcott may fail WP:RS, the sources which he cites should qualify.  Peterkingiron (talk) 14:44, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
 * And if Edgar Rice Burroughs was right, Mars is inhabited by humanoid life forms. The problem with User:Peterkingiron's conditional, If Wolcott is right, is that there is no reason whatsoever to think that Wolcott is right, certainly his conclusion does not come from the sources he cites:
 * "", citing absolutely nothing for the whole paragraph.
 * "" - so, no record whatsoever of Cynfyn or his supposed reign, and his conclusion about what was happening during this period is drawn from the fact that there is no evidence of what was happening.
 * "" so again, Wolcott is explicitly stating the source says nothing whatsoever regarding Cynfyn or any of his suppositions about what was going on.
 * "" And yet again, this is his own supposition (using his 'royal we').
 * "" Pure conjecture on Wolcott's part, clearly stated as such.
 * Wolcott's sources may qualify as reliable, but Wolcott is citing them in this essay to document the fact that they don't actually say anything whatsoever about Cynfyn, thereby freeing him to speculate whatever the hell he wants. He is making up the whole scenario of Cynfyn serving as regent, so for the standing of this article, it is irrelevant what the consequences would be were he right. We don't (or at least shouldn't) make decisions predicated what on what notability would be conferred if entirely unsupported wild speculation appearing on an amatuer self-published web page were true. Agricolae (talk) 16:23, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Davies notes that Cynfyn married King Llywelyn's widow Angharad around 1023, when her son Gruffudd was about 10 years old, and says she was likely looking for the protection of a powerful noble who would not threaten Gruffudd's claim to the crown. Aymatth2 (talk) 17:16, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
 * ... which in addition to being speculative and vague, more importantly says absolutely nothing about him being regent, Wolcott's pet theory upon which Peterkingiron hung his potential notability. Agricolae (talk) 18:07, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a regent to me. Aymatth2 (talk) 19:15, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
 * You might want to get your hearing checked. Being protector of a child with (only) a claim who is only known to have succeeded to the crown over a decade later is in no sense the same as ruling a kingdom as regent (and even this 'protectorship' is entirely speculative). We should assiduously avoid reinterpreting sources like Davis to conform with what we want them to say. Agricolae (talk) 20:33, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   12:12, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment -- Accepting the criticism of Walcot as propounding a theory and that we know nothing of the man, but the bare fact of his existence (as recorded in genealogies), his wife Angharad ferch Maredudd constitutes a significant genealogical link in the descent of Powys. This concerns a period when the kingship of Powys was the subject to conflict between other Welsh rulers.  The problem is ultimately that there are only very minimal sources.  At remote periods, when we depend on chronicles, we do not (and cannot) know who was actually administering Powys, as opposed to exercising suzerainty over it, probably from afar.  I think on the whole that the right solution might be  merge/redirect somewhere, but we have articles on two sons, each of whom might be the redirect target.  This would mean that we would be left with the equivalent of a dab-page.  One son's page has a link to Angharad but that is a dab-page for every one of the name.  On reflection I think that Walcot's theory (which I interpreted above as regency) is going too far, but we might still keep this as a fairly minimal article.  There is a tendency to tag such articles as stubs, but that is highly undesirable where we know that nothing is known.  Peterkingiron (talk) 12:10, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Merge - the nom seems to be of the WP:CRUFT variety, although I am in agreement with that there is some useful material that could be merged easily. FWIW, my patremal grandmother was born in Wales. Bearian (talk) 19:42, 12 November 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.