Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cyril Samuel Townsend


 * 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. The "keep" opinions that consider that officers of a certain rank or position are automatically notable have no basis in policy and must be dismissed. But even without them there's rough consensus that a combination of high rank, the decorations to go with it, and coverage in the sources provided by Atchom among others are sufficient for notability in this case.  Sandstein  14:20, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Cyril Samuel Townsend

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Naval officer, fails WP:BASIC and WP:ANYBIO. Retired admirals are not inherently notable. Was a captain of the HMS Constance (1915) at the Battle of Jutland in 1916 (he gets a passing mention in this book ). Highest rank while in service, according to the "Dreadnought project wiki" (which bases itself on a primary source), seems to have been rear-admiral. He was promoted vice-admiral the day before he was put on the Retired List in 1929, and promoted to admiral while on the Retired List in 1933. Who's Who was unanimously classified as a generally unreliable source in a 2022 RfC, and the Dreadnought Project is a user-generated source. The other sources are all primary and searches for Cyril Samuel Townsend do not return anything close to an independent, reliable, secondary source with significant coverage. Therefore, none of the sources can count towards passing WP:BASIC. Seems to have received an obituary in the Daily Telegraph (to which I don't have access), but so do most civil servants and military officers. Pilaz (talk) 05:10, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. Pilaz (talk) 05:10, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Greece-related deletion discussions. Pilaz (talk) 05:10, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. Pilaz (talk) 05:10, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep notable as a foreign naval advisor to the Hellenic Navy holding the rank of Hellenic Vice-Admiral. Buckshot06 (talk) 06:17, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Foreign naval advisors are not inherently notable. Pilaz (talk) 07:18, 14 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep I am the creator of the page and feel the need to give some background. I ran afoul of Pilaz during an AfD discussion and I guess this is his way of getting back at me, even though I specifically requested he abide by WP:CONRED which he hasn't. Be that as it may...


 * I think the article as it currently stands speaks for itself, but in case it doesn't, I submit this article clearly meets WP:BASIC (there are literally hundreds of articles about him in the standard newspaper databases, some of which is cited in the article. As a Companion of the Order of the Bath he also meets the additional criterion of WP:ANYBIO. He wasn't a run-of-the-mill officer: he was highly decorated for his part in two of the Royal Navy's most important engagements during WWI, and he was the head of a naval mission which was dismissed in highly publicized circumstances. In 1925, a national UK newspaper could write the following about him: "A well-known gunnery expert, he first came prominently before the public at the end of 1906..." (Daily News, 1 April 1925)


 * As a matter of fact, Pilaz admitted as much when he said "Seems to have received an obituary in the Daily Telegraph (to which I don't have access)" - anyone with an obituary in one of the UK's national newspapers can be presumed to be notable, absent compelling circumstances (although I appreciate his frankness in admitting he didn't actually read it). His claim that "most civil servants and military officers" get an obituary in a national newspaper of record is obviously wrong on even a second's reflection.


 * Two final points for the record: The Dreadnought Project is not an open-edit Wiki but is regularly used by reputable scholars in the secondary literature. There was a recent request for comment which ended somewhat inconclusively, but I am happy to revisit the issue in an appropriate forum. As to the UK version of Who's Who, on another AfD discussion several commentators expressed some incredulity that a badly advertised and very recent RfC, initiated by Pilaz himself, upturned years of consensus around that particular source, which is part of the Wikipedia Library. I fully intend to reopen the issue at some later time in a community discussion, but for out present purposes it suffices to say that this article stands even without either of those sources. Atchom (talk) 06:39, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Several points and questions:
 * You claim that I did not do WP:BEFORE, despite providing my personal evaluation of sources found in Google Books (since newspaper sources are lacking given that the subject died in 1949). On what grounds?
 * You claim that this is for "getting back at you", but as it turns out, I found this article by using, as I am trying to implement the unanimous consensus found at RSN regarding Who's Who. Your claims that I am WP:HOUNDING you are not made in good faith, especially since you are probably aware that you've been creating permanent microstubs with two citations, one of which is always to Who's Who, for a very long time now. If you start a search using the search parameter above, and sort by creation date, 4 out of the last 20 pages created are yours: Laurence Eliot Power, Francis Murray Austin, Herbert Arthur Buchanan-Wollaston, and Marshal Llewelyn Clarke. Your Wikipedia stubs do not have immunity from community scrutiny.
 * "Several commentators at another AfD expressed some incredulity" is just you and another editor, which you conveniently omit to mention (link to the AfD in question, probably worth not omitting either).
 * Content on Dreadnought Project is user-generated and is therefore not acceptable to demonstrate notability. It also doesn't link to secondary sources, but to primary sources.
 * Do the articles you've linked to provide WP:SIGCOV? Since you seem to have access to them, could you copy the relevant passages to this discussion? Pilaz (talk) 07:48, 14 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep based on his leading the naval mission in Greece alone, that would make him the de facto co-head of the Greek navy at the time (which is why he was given an elevated rank), responsible for most organizational matters. Constantine  ✍  07:37, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not completely clear what guideline/policy "the de facto co-head of the Greek navy" would fall under, given that WP:SOLDIER is deprecated (WP:NPOL doesn't strike me as the obvious choice to follow either) but if you have any WP:RS describing him as such that would presumably be helpful for establishing that WP:SIGCOV exists. -Ljleppan (talk) 08:16, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Because we routinely include heads of navies - Chiefs of Naval Staffs - as notable. We have huge lists of them. Buckshot06 (talk) 08:20, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, other stuff does indeed exists. I was trying to understand what the relevant policies/guidelines for this specific case would be. - Ljleppan (talk) 08:34, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Vice Admiral is the highest rank a Greek navy officer can normally achieve until the present day, unless becoming CHOD or being a royal prince, and was a very rare achievement in the past. Even the chiefs of the naval general staff during Townsend's tenure had lower ranks, being captains or rear admirals . This was deliberate practice, so that the head of the naval mission be hierarchically superior to all Greek officers and face no obstacles on that account. So during his service in Greece, he was the hierarchically senior Greek navy officer, de facto equivalent to the chief of the service. Constantine  ✍  10:05, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * He was not vice-admiral but rear-admiral while in Greece (1925-1926; he became vice-admiral in 1929). He was at any rate outranked by "admiral" (in reality vice-admiral) Miaoulis, who was also the Minister of Marine of Greece. The British mission was composed of only 7 officers, and Townsend never held a prominent role, since his assignment was to set up the Staff College of the Navy, which was shut down a year later. At any rate, it doesn't matter because we don't have a subject-specific notability guideline for soldiers, but we do have the GNG. So let's try to focus on that instead. Pilaz (talk) 10:40, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Sigh, yes, please lecture me on the history of my country... Miaoulis died in 1835 (!). The Minister of Naval Affairs under Pangalos was first Alexandros Hatzikyriakos, who was a retired rear admiral. His successor, Botasis, was mostly a diplomat, having served in embassies as naval attache. And the Ministry did not hold command over the fleet, it mostly handled personnel matters, funding, etc. And oh, look! The school Townsend helped establish still exists (under different name of course)! Which of course, as you say, is neither here nor there concerning notability, but just for the sake of setting the record straight... As for notability, if any national-level MP or ambassador is notable, then any head of a national navy or foreign person who has held equivalent position is also notable. He definitely appears to have been in the news enough... Constantine  ✍  17:33, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * My apologies,, I was careless and linked to the wrong Miaoulis: I meant to link to Athanasios N. Miaoulis, not Andreas Miaoulis. Athanasios Miaoulis is described as Admiral here, serving from November 1924 to June 1925 (source). Regardless, it is incorrect to state that Townsend was the de facto co-head of the Greek Navy (no source makes this assertion). And do not worry, ambassadors aren't inherently notable, nor are any head of a national navy or foreign person who has held equivalent position. Members of national legislatures only benefit from WP:NPOL, since WP:SOLDIER and WP:DIPLOMAT have been removed. All must strive to meet the WP:GNG to be considered notable. Pilaz (talk) 07:42, 15 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Comment : as you seem to be knowledgeable regarding the topic, could you give a brief description of the WP:SIGCOV status, perhaps along the lines of WP:THREE?-Ljleppan (talk) 08:12, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi! Of course:
 * 1) Fotakis, Zisis (2010). "Greek Naval Policy and Strategy, 1923-1932". Has several pages' discussion about Townsend and his naval mission to Greece (normal run-of-the-mill military missions are not necessarily noteworthy, but there is a fair bit about this particular mission in contemporary sources; the dismissal of the mission was reported fully in several UK newspapers in some detail; the Times ran several full articles about it.)
 * 2) "Obituary". The Daily Telegraph. 5 April 1949. p. 3.. On the short side (paper being rationed in the UK the time) but the longest obituary the Telegraph printed that day. It also mentions two episodes - his reorganisation of the Plymouth barracks after a highly-publicized disciplinary incident and his chairmanship of a famous court-martial against Capt Dewar of the Royal Oak. I will incorporate those in the article when I get around it - both episodes received a lot of coverage at the time.
 * 3) "English Admiral for Greece". Daily News. 1 April 1925. p. 8. Not all admirals are notable, but this article shows he had an unusually high public profile for an officer of his rank: "A well-known gunnery expert, he first came prominently before the public at the end of 1906..." (the 1906 incident is the reorganisation of the Plymouth barracks, referred to above.) Even his departure from the barracks was thought to be important enough to merit an article in one of the national newspapers at the time, so not a routine appointment/change of guard news item. Atchom (talk) 17:41, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I found a pdf of #1 and will check it out. Is there a place to read #2 and #3 online? - Ljleppan (talk) 19:28, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * They are available on subscription databases (Gale for The Times and British Newspapers Online for the Daily News). Not sure how to share them given copyright concerns... But both give accounts of his career and focus on different aspects of it, which to me is a strong indicator of WP:SIGCOV. Atchom (talk) 20:28, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * You posted a few snippets below, thanks for that. I get the copyright concern, and won't push for a full copy, but could you give a brief description of how long those newspaper stories are (e.g. a word count) and how prevalent the subject is in them (e.g. "discusses him as part of a naval mission, with approx. 50% of the prose talking about the subject specifically")? I expect for the obituary the latter answer is naturally "it's all about the subject", but for the other story it's not completely obvious. The reason I'm asking is that I'm trying to figure out to what degree these sources are talking about the article subject as a person, and to what degree about the naval mission he lead. I appreciate that the distinction is somewhat nuanced, so thanks for bearing with me here :) - Ljleppan (talk) 08:28, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * , could you kindly share a complete quotation about Townsend as found in #2 and #3? You can add them as quotes to the article, if you prefer. Because I find #2 and #3 to be extremely lacking, and #1 barely says anything about Townsend. It talks more about the British naval mission to Greece, which it refers to as the "Townsend mission". Pilaz (talk) 07:47, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
 * For #2. English Admiral for Greece" from Daily News (1 April 1925, p.8) reads: "It is expected that Rear-Admiral Cyril S. Townsend, who has been chosen as head of the British Naval Mission to Greece, will have the rank of Vice-Admiral in the Greek Navy. A well-known gunnery expert, he first came prominently before the public at the end of 1906, when he was appointed to the Royal Naval Barracks at Portsmouth as commander for special service, to reorganise the disciplinary system in the gunnery department. This was in consequence of the famous "on the knee" episode, which created a sensation at the time." Pilaz (talk) 08:59, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Since you've gone ahead and copy pasted the whole text, this whole article is about Townsend. It talks about several aspects of his career, and describes some of his claims to public fame. How is this "extremely lacking"?
 * As to your characterization of the other source, Townsend's activities are discussed in some details over two pages; "Townsend mission" appears only twice, the second time in a section discussing another naval mission. This is simply a dishonest characterization. Atchom (talk) 15:50, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Some quotes:
 * "the Greek Minister of Marine confided to Rear Admiral Townsend";
 * "Anticipating further Greek naval tenders, Cheetham discussed with Townsend"
 * "But before these were made Pagalos intimated to Townsend"
 * "Townsend protested energetically against this and had interviews with the President of the Republic"
 * "Coundouriotis appeared greatly upset and begged Townsend to remain on" Atchom (talk) 15:52, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete fails WP:BASIC. An unexceptional career, most of the sources are promotion and posting notices which don't count towards notability. His short stint as an advisor in Greece doesn't make him notable either. If he actually did anything noteworthy there'd be at least a few paragraphs in a few books, the fact that there aren't means he isn't notable. Just being an Admiral doesn't make someone notable. Mztourist (talk) 08:32, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Weak keep, a fairly high-level and interesting career. The who's-who stuff is a complete red herring. The major reason why who's-who has been declared unreliable is because in recent times it has been publishing autobiographical self-promotion. Townsend died in 1949; I think it unlikely that he's been adding autobiography to his who's-who article in recent years. Elemimele (talk) 11:31, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep. Companion of the Order of the Bath, which has easily been held in the past to meet WP:ANYBIO #1 (see here. And an obit in a major national newspaper has also always been held to make someone notable. Oh, and editors need to read the definition of "Generally unreliable sources". It does not mean they cannot be used: The source may still be used for uncontroversial self-descriptions... Too many suggestions recently that Who's Who should never be used. This is not the case and appears to be being used as a reason to delete articles for no good reason. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:02, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Being only the 4th-most senior order, and with over 2000 members, it's not quite obvious to me that this passes WP:ANYBIO#1. Do you have examples of AfDs/discussions where this was established as consensus? - Ljleppan (talk) 13:10, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. User:Necrothesp/List of AfD discussions for individuals with a CBE or above. Almost complete consensus. And he had the CMG too, also considered to meet ANYBIO. The CBE and above always has. And I'm afraid an understanding of the British honours system is preferable: the fact it's the fourth most senior order is totally irrelevant. The higher orders are very rare indeed (it's the level of the award that's important in any case). And the Order of the Bath most certainly does not have over 2,000 members at the same time. Only a handful of people are appointed to it every year. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:12, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, this new reply function is a bit annoying since there's no warning that the message being responded to has changed during the drafting of the response. I see quite a few of those have resulted in a deletion, so this appears to not be quite a categorical. As was my assumption based on WP:ANYBIO anyway (...meeting one or more does not guarantee that a subject should be included). So the imperative question seems to be whether this is a case of WP:BIOSPECIAL or not. I'll wait for a response to my query regarding WP:SIGCOV before !voting on that front. - Ljleppan (talk) 13:21, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * There have been several articles discussions that resulted in deletion or no consensus because editors believed that CB was not sufficient to demonstrate notability, especially given the fact that thousands were awarded to the members of the armed forces in the wake of WW1. See, for example, Articles for deletion/Lionel Dorling, Articles for deletion/William Arbuthnot (cavalry officer), Articles for deletion/Henry Thomas Arbuthnot (2nd nomination), Articles for deletion/Lionel Dorling. There is no Wikipedia-wide consensus on what constitutes a significant award under WP:ANYBIO #1, so relying on precedent isn't really ideal either. And according to your own list, it is incorrect to say that CMG "always has" guaranteed notability - Articles for deletion/Alexander George Arbuthnot (British army officer) was deleted despite the CMG. And if you look at the list of people who received the lowest rank of his order in June 1918, that is the CMG, you can tell he was still only captain and that 300 other people not necessarily notable people did receive the same award. I suspect that in 1918 alone, you around 1,000 people getting the award between the Birthday Honours and the 1918 New Year Honours (700+ CMGs in 1918). Pilaz (talk) 07:24, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
 * This AfD is from 2007; things might have moved on since then? Atchom (talk) 15:53, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment. Only five people with CBEs or higher have ever been deleted at AfD. Three of them were 15 years ago, before much consensus was established on Wikipedia! Claiming there is no consensus or that "quite a few of those have resulted in a deletion" is frankly laughable. It's a perfect example of claiming something is true because you want it to be rather than because it is. Although I can never quite understand why any editor would want it to be true in the first place! -- Necrothesp (talk) 22:24, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I also find it somewhat bizarre that anyone would believe that someone considered notable enough by the British government to receive such a high award should not be by default considered notable enough for an article on Wikipedia, an encyclopaedia that has articles on, for instance, many people "notable" just for posting puerile rubbish and uninformed opinions on social media. True notability is not determined by the size of your internet following, but by what you have contributed to society. In the real world, that is... -- Necrothesp (talk) 01:12, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Calling my good-faith attempts engage in discussion "frankly laughable" is not conductive for discussion and is in fact quite hurtful, I ask you to consider striking such statements. - Ljleppan (talk) 07:05, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * No personal offence was intended, but it is quite clear that five, three of them years ago, does not in any way constitute "quite a few". Clear consensus is being derided all too often at AfD by editors who seem to want to delete as many articles as possible. -- Necrothesp (talk) 00:36, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Frankly, I'm still not seeing how there's a way to interpret what you said without it sounding like a rather un-WP:CIVIL personal attack. I'm repeating my request for you to strike that part. - Ljleppan (talk) 08:21, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Maybe you'd like to strike your clearly inaccurate comment then? But in any case, it was hardly a personal attack. It was an expression of amazement that any editor could interpret a tiny handful as "quite a few". As I said, there have been too many examples recently of deletionist editors deliberately misrepresenting clear consensus to support their own agenda. I apologise if you are not one of them. -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:53, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * It seems that this conversation is not going to be conductive and so I'll just disengage on my part. - Ljleppan (talk) 18:04, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep Seems to be plenty of coverage of him in the British Newspaper Archive. Also a few other things not mentioned above. He was involved in the rescue effort at the Messina Earthquake for which he was awarded the Insignia of Commander of the Order of the Crown of Italy by the King of Italy. Recommended for Commendation for service at the Battle of Jutland, Mentioned in Dispatches at Gallipoli, he also presided over the Court Martial hearing of Vice-Admiral Kenneth Dewar, for Dewar's involvement in the Royal Oak Mutiny which was widely reported around the world eg Royal Oak Enquiry Piecesofuk (talk) 14:31, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment I find this a rather frustrating case. There are several references that are unambiguously about the article subject as a person. However, those newspaper articles that I have access to (i.e. The Times pieces) are rather short and/or passing mentions, and users with access to the paywalled texts are not forthcoming with details about their depth. Furthermore, I find it difficult to separate the article subject from the naval mission they lead in evaluating to what degree the most important non-newspaper sources support notability. Simply put, based on the evidence available to me, I'm unable to make a well-reasoned determination regarding whether the significant coverage aspect of WP:NPEOPLE is fulfilled. Others put out an argument based on WP:ANYBIO#1, but I find this unconvincing. First, in relation to military awards and honors, there was not even community consensus for the now-deprecated WP:SOLDIER which took the stance that the highest national award would give a presumption of notability. Second, ANYBIO is an additional criteria, and "meeting one or more does not guarantee that a subject should be included". If  (or anyone else with access to them) can describe the paywalled news articles (most notably the obituary and the Daily News piece) in a way that allows me to determine they fulfill the "significant coverage" requirement in relation to the article subject as a person I'll happily !vote for a keep. -Ljleppan (talk) 18:34, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep Senior naval figure with plenty of coverage in the newspaper archive. Dormskirk (talk) 09:27, 21 March 2022 (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.