Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Elizabeth Bishop (Burns)


 * 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 Elizabeth Paton. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 19:57, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Elizabeth Bishop (Burns)

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

Notability is not WP:INHERITED, I don't see how this person is notable. Being a child of Robert Burns does not automatically make someone notable, per WP:INVALIDBIO: That person A has a relationship with well-known person B, such as being a spouse or child, is not a reason for a standalone article on A (unless significant coverage can be found on A); relationships do not confer notability. There is no significant coverage as far as I can see. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:38, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I would support a Merge to Elizabeth Paton, per Cielquiparle below. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:21, 2 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Women, History, United Kingdom  and Scotland. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:38, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Merge to Elizabeth Paton. This is easily a merge candidate, as it offers both content and sourcing that isn't captured in other related articles. The question is: Where should it go? I would propose a straightforward merge to Elizabeth Paton for now. Some additional information about Elizabeth Bishop (Burns) should also be incorporated into the Robert Burns and Agnes Broun pages later. Cielquiparle (talk) 08:59, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

The article about Elizabeth Bishop (Burns), the daughter of Robert Burns, should not be removed. Why not? Stillbusy (talk) 15:40, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) In the reasons for deletion within the deletion policy of Wikipedia, no convincing argument can be found to delete this article. It is true that in the section about inherited notability it says: "The fact of having a famous relative is not, in and of itself, sufficient to justify an independent article." However, this is not only contradicted by the general notability guideline ("A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.") but by the reality in Wikipedia itself. This is not an oddity or oversight; it just clearly is in line with one of the five pillars of Wikipedia: "Wikipedia has no firm rules" which, among other things,  says: "Wikipedia has policies and guidelines, but they are not carved in stone." It matters for our actual discussion here because there are very very many examples in Wikipedia where articles about people exist for the only reason that they were relatives of somebody famous – like William Shakespeare's grandfather Richard Shakespeare, his parents John Shakespeare and Mary Shakespeare, his wife Anne Hathaway, and his children Susanna Hall, Judith Quiney and Hamnet Shakespeare; Rembrandt's son Titus van Rijn; Martin Luther's wife Katharina von Bora and three of his children Elisabeth Luther, Magdalena Luther and Paul Luther; or Charles Dickens' parents John Dickens and Elizabeth Dickens, and many more members of his family including ten (!) dedicated articles about his children. There are even two separate articles in Wikipedia about Barack Obama's dogs Bo and Sunny. Mentioning these examples here is by no means done to belittle them, rather the opposite; they certainly show at least two things: firstly, that a clear-cut policy in Wikipedia to remove such articles doesn't exist and, secondly, that these articles enrich Wikipedia. Of course always, and importantly, under certain conditions, e.g. that reliable sources are added.
 * 2) Many other dedicated articles in Wikipedia have been created about people who were in one way or another associated with Robert Burns. If he had not become a famous poet, we most likely wouldn't know anything about these people. The following Wikipedia articles simply wouldn't exist: about his wife Jean Armour; his parents William Burnes and Agnes Broun; his siblings Gilbert Burns, Agnes Burns, Annabella Burns, William Burns, John Burns, Isabella Burns; his father-in-law James Armour; several of his children Robert Burns Junior, William Nicol Burns, James Glencairn Burns, Francis Wallace Burns, Betty Burns; his friends or lovers Jean Lorimer, Frances Dunlop, Jessie Lewars, May Cameron, Jean Gardner, Nelly Kilpatrick, Nelly Blair, Alison Begbie, Peggy Thompson, Elizabeth Paton, Ann Park, Mary Campbell, Jenny Clow, Agnes Maclehose. Would anybody seriously consider to delete all those articles as well?
 * 3) The suggestion to remove the article about Elizabeth Bishop could imply that she is regarded as a less worthy child of Robert Burns because she was illegitimate, maybe also because she was a girl. Such attitudes, of course, should not have any bearing in Wikipedia. It also doesn't stand up to the facts. Robert Burns not only acknowledged her as his Love-begotten Daughter with a poem but also secured her financially later with the profits from the 'Kilmarnock Edition' of his poems.
 * 4) Betty Burns was, like Elizabeth Bishop, also one of Robert Burns' illegitimate children, and also a girl. That article shouldn't be deleted either, should it?
 * 5) Is Elizabeth Bishop considered a person not "notable" enough to remain in Wikipedia because she is assumed to not have achieved much in life? How should this be defined? Not everybody can be a famous politician or accomplished artist or remarkable for some other reason. She simply is the child of Robert Burns which certainly is the only reason why she is known today and people might be interested in her. The closer it gets to our actual time the more examples can be found of people, many of them still alive, who are in Wikipedia only because they are the children of a well-known person. The reason that a growing number of such articles exists is the fact that a huge amount of information can be found in a variety of modern sources about these more recent people to justify their notability in Wikipedia, even independently of being a child of somebody famous. With such rich and detailed material it is possible to find something remarkable or noteworthy about pretty much anybody with a famous parent. But that simply isn't possible in the same way with Elizabeth Bishop. From that point of view, she is just unlucky that she lived such a long time ago, otherwise we also could supply many sources with minute details about her life which would make her "notable".
 * WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not an argument in favour of notability. The fact that we have over a dozen articles dedicated to questionably notable relatives/friends/lovers of Burns doesn't mean that they inherently deserve separate articles. Much of this could be consolidated into a single article, perhaps titled Family of Robert Burns? Much of what you have written in this wall of text is frankly contrary to Wikipedia's established notability policies, particularly WP:INVALIDBIO: That person A has a relationship with well-known person B, such as being a spouse or child, is not a reason for a standalone article on A (unless significant coverage can be found on A); relationships do not confer notability. However, person A may be included in the related article on B. For example, Jason Allen Alexander is included in the article on Britney Spears and the page Jason Allen Alexander merely redirects to that article. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:19, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Stillbusy I agree that there is a lot of confusion in deletion discussions about applying contemporary standards of notability to historical figures, often inappropriately or unfairly, and without much understanding of historical context or sources. That said, my impression is that over the last couple of years, Wikipedia standards have become more strict about standalone articles about family members of historical figures – to the point that there is a lot of consolidation of this type of biographical content, which may seem surprising at first. The fact that many "family member" articles currently exist for Robert Burns and other authors doesn 't mean they will all survive future deletion discussions. (Disappointing, I know.) To me, what is important is the actual content, and if quality information and sources can continue to reside on other pages, that is still a net plus for Wikipedia. In this particular case, it really doesn't help that even the Burns Encyclopedia doesn' t seem to offer a standalone entry for this Elizabeth, and that there is barely any information available about her, outside from the poem (which overlaps on the Elizabeth Paton page), and a few facts about her life. Cielquiparle (talk) 16:01, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Stillbusy OK, I've had another thought, which is: One way to save this as a standalone article might be to look for secondary coverage about the poem dedicated to Elizabeth Bishop. If there is enough analysis found about the poem itself, in additional sources, we could add more content about that and try to justify keeping the page (although we might need to reframe it more to be about the poem, with background information about her). The other thing I wanted to clarify is that after "merging" content, what typically happens is that Elizabeth Bishop (Burns) would become a redirect, so if there is in fact anyone looking for her by that name, they would still be likely to find content about her on Wikipedia on whichever page the redirect is pointing to. Cielquiparle (talk) 16:27, 2 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Merge - She is clearly not separately notable. A merger to her mother Elizabeth Paton looks like a good solution.  Peterkingiron (talk) 17:29, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge not individually notable. It's very possible that some of other the articles on people attached to Burns also fail notability standards. Best, GPL93 (talk) 19:04, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge to Elizabeth Paton.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 21:49, 6 January 2023 (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.