Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ellen Hambro


 * 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. Stifle (talk) 15:51, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Ellen Hambro

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Fixing incomplete nomination for User:82.153.29.35. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Punkmorten (talk • contribs) 22:11, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Speedy keep, a previous PROD rationale claimed "appointments of this civil servant mentioned in official Norwegian sources, but no secondary sources and insufficient notability", but this is wrong, wrong and wrong. 1) The sources are not official by any means, they are independent/RS. 2) Two secondary sources already in the article, one of which is a paper encyclopedia. 3) This adds up to sufficient notability. Notability should be intuitive anyway. 4) By the way the article was prodded by a new user and afd'd by an anon - who in the world has a grudge against Ellen Hambro? Punkmorten (talk) 22:11, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep — this stub easily meets the minimal requirements for notability via reliable sources. MuZemike  ( talk ) 22:53, 30 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete

Reliability of sources is not at issue. There is insufficient citation of secondary sources to establish sufficient notability. There is certainly no 'grudge' against anybody! I would respectfully refer Punkmorten, the original author, to WP:AGF. On issuing the prod, I put a courtesy PRODwarning on PM's talk page, but on removing it, PM did not issue a Deprod tag on mine in return. Let us all show mutual respect, please. (To avoid confusion: I forgot to sign in before posting as 82.153.29.35, for which I apologise! Also I found the above contributions posted here before I saved this. It has been taking me some time. Sorry for any confusion caused). Case for deletion follows.

Original article cites two sources:


 * the Norwegian news agency's report of the official government notice of the individual's appointment to a civil service post (paper source). Whether to call this a secondary source is open to debate, because the news agency reports appointments of almost all office-holders of a certain seniority. In that sense, the source is not intellectually independent of the original government notice, even if it is formally independent. (Ref. WP:BIO, note 4).


 * an entry in the Great Norwegian encyclopedia. This is wikilinked to a site requiring registration, and is therefore comes under WP:LINKS TO AVOID. Whether to call this a secondary source is also open to debate, because (as with reports by the Norwegian national news agency) entries are published in the encyclopedia for all or almost all office-holders of a certain seniority. Given that the editors did not consider the individual's CV or biography to be worthy of any discussion or analysis, this source is therefore not intellectually independent of the original government notice.

Even if both of these sources were to be accepted as secondary, they do not, on their own, establish notability. Multiple independent secondary sources would be necessary, given that no secondary source has so far been cited which has any significant depth of coverage. That is what is stipulated in the basic criteria Naggie34 (talk) 23:27, 30 November 2008 (UTC) *delete The sources would be sufficient if the appointment is notable, but I do not think it is. DGG (talk) 06:41, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Please read the WP:LINKSTOAVOID policy before you try citing it in your argument. In the section "Sites requiring registration", it says "A site that requires registration or a subscription should not be linked unless the web site itself is the topic of the article or is being used as an inline reference." (emphasis mine). Sites requiring registration are perfectly acceptable sources for determining notability and verifiability. Wikipedia is not only an encyclopedia of things you can find freely on the Internet in English. Sjakkalle (Check!)  07:56, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Not to mention that the encyclopedia will be freely available from 1 January 2009. Punkmorten (talk) 15:08, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * If another encyclopedia already his this person listed, there's good reason to assume the person is notable. We also copy article topics from Britannica (we do need the sources to back up the content we have). Did you check Norwegian sources? Can anyone weigh in on the authority of the said encyclopedia? - Mgm|(talk) 23:53, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Living people-related deletion discussions. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 00:00, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Store norske leksikon (SNL) is currently the most comprehensive contemporary Norwegian language (bokmål) encyclopedia...  That's from wikipedia ;) SNL is the encyclopedia in Norwegian, and if anyone is notable for SNL I would certainly consider them notable for wikipedia. Finn Rindahl (talk) 00:04, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep I for some reason didn't correctly perceive the equivalence of the position last night--this is the equivalent of the head of he Environmental Protection Agency, and therefore notable. The source are then, as i said sufficient. DGG (talk) 17:21, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * She is now in an important government agency, and was previously a high-ranking bureaucrat. Punkmorten (talk) 15:08, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Strongest possible keep. Blatantly notable and encyclopedic in the most literal sense possible; she is covered in a paper encyclopedia. Any notability criteria which deem the subject of an encyclopedia article "not notable" or "unencyclopedic" is nonsense and should be scrapped or ignored. Sjakkalle (Check!)  07:40, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete I agree with the arguments put forward by Naggie34. Listings of appointments in official journals of record on their own do not provide sufficient content, context, analysis or criticism to indicate that the subject is notable per se. In my view, this article may fail WP:NOT or WP:NOT, as such announcements are commonplace in official circles, and any infference of notabililty must be taken with a pinch of salt. --Gavin Collins (talk) 10:18, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * And how about coverage in a paper encyclopedia? Sjakkalle (Check!)  10:26, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep (ok, this is not a vote but I'm still adding keep) and a question to the would be deleters here: Does an entry in Britannica count as reference that a person is notable in Wikipedia? Finn Rindahl (talk) 11:53, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong keep person in question has an entry in a general-purpose, paper encyclopedia. This is the gold standard for notability, and removes any doubt as to notability of the person in question. Arsenikk (talk)  14:01, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * If anyone is still in doubt, I added a reference to the book Hvem er hvem (English: Who's Who), a 662-page book with profiles of the 1000 most important people in Norwegian society. This should effectively end this discussion. Punkmorten (talk) 16:43, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * we have never accepted Who's Who as a reliable source. Perhaps the standard of the Norwegian one is higher than the English and US ones, where the people in effect wrrte their own articles. DGG (talk) 17:34, 1 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment'For The EB, we cover everyone about whom there is an article, not everyone they may mention. For the ODNB we cover everyone for whom there a full article or sub-article, but not everyone they mention. An encyclopedia might also contain directory type listings, and it was in this case challenged whether the listing was of this nature. How long is the article devoted to her? It would help to quote it, perhaps on the article talk page. As also challenged there, how far down the level of seniority do they go? do they include her assistants, for example? Not everything that calls itself an encyclopedia is limited to encyclopedic content. DGG (talk) 17:36, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Hvem er hvem is largely, but not solely, based on questionnaires sent by the publisher to the subject. The subjects therefore give wide input to what winds up in their biography, but they don't write the biography themselves. How good this is of a source I'm not sure, but it should probably be regarded as a primary source. Store norske leksikon is a completely different animal. This is a paper encyclopedia published by two of the largest publishers in Norway (Aschehoug and Gyldendal, the former of which wrote one of Norway's best known, and most well-respected encyclopedias in the 1970s), and anyone who knows it will call it an encyclopedia, the same way in which Britannica is called an encyclopedia, albeit with a Norwegian rather than anglophone focus.
 * The SNL entry on Hambro goes over three lines, and would be called a stub by Wikipedia's article assessment standards, but keep in mind that this is in the "for paper" space-saving abbreviated sentence format, with words like "she was employed" replaced with simply "employed". While we would write "Hambro has studied law and holds the Candidate of Law degree", SNL simply writes "cand. jur.", not even bothering to make a full sentence.
 * Regarding the inclusion standards for SNL, I have looked for people further down in the SFT hierarchy (in particular, leaders of SFT sections), and none of them have an entry, Hambro is the only one I have found in SNL. The inclusion standards for Norwegians in SNL are probably slightly more lenient than the inclusion standards for Englishmen in Britannica. Norway is a smaller country and the encyclopedia has therefore more room to cover the Norwegians it wants to cover. However, their standards are tighter, I would say much tighter, than the usual WP:BIO guidelines we use at Wikipedia. For example, most legislators in the Storting do not have entries in SNL.
 * Actually, Hambro has more coverage than what is given in the article. The large Norwegian engineering publication Teknisk Ukeblad has this interview with her, her position is one which is of great interest to Norwegian industry as is evidenced in this article, and her position brings her into the media's spotlight very often, see these results restricted to the major Aftenposten newspaper. That is just a start, and sources are very widely available if we want to expand this biography. Even if she did not have an SNL entry, she would pass WP:BIO rather easily. I deliberately refrained from adding this yesterday, because a separate article in a traditional paper encyclopedia really ought to have dispelled any illusions of Hambro being "not notable". Sjakkalle (Check!)  07:49, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * as you see, there is still question, so please add these sources. In general it is good practice on the English WP to add all RSs that are pertinent, because we rely very heavily on press mentions. This is unlike practice in some other WPs, where for people in a biographical encyclopedia, only that ref. is given. DGG (talk) 14:29, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I find it outright depressing that I have to go on a source hunt to save an article where it should be blindingly obvious that she is notable. But I have gone ahead and expanded the article anyway. Sources are, among others, from Aftenposten, Dagens Næringsliv and Teknisk Ukeblad. Sjakkalle (Check!)  15:21, 2 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Strong delete. We need to draw the line somewhere. Someone mentioned the Environmental Protection Agency, without saying of which country. Let's assume the US. The US has a population of about 306 million, Norway about 5 million. Let's say the heads of the US EPA and its equivalent in Norway are the 100th or 200th most senior or influential public servants in those respective countries. We would expect their appointments to be covered in government press releases, and intellectually non-independent sources (e.g. Who's Who-type publications, or local crypto-official paper encyclopedias) to report their appointments.
 * Now let's continue the analogy. The US population is about 60 times as large as Norway's. Norway's is about 60 times as large as Andorra's.
 * So someone is appointed as the head of the Andorran equivalent of the US EPA. They are about the 100th or 200th most senior or influential public servant in Andorra. Their appointment is covered in a government press release. Intellectually non-independent sources (e.g. an Andorran Who's Who-type publication, and the local crypto-official paper encyclopedia) reports their appointment. Should an entry be made for the person in the English-language global Wikipedia?
 * I do not ask this sarcastically, with disrespect for anyone or any culture, or rhetorically. I am Norwegian and my husband is from Luxembourg! I'd be interested to hear people's answers.
 * I would also suggest that Hambro's listing in SNL is due to the family she is related to, a connection that I and other Norwegians posting here will be well aware of. I still think we need to draw the line somewhere, and here is as good a place as anywhere. No objection of course to the creation of a page for Hambro on the Norwegian-language Wikipedia. In fact I am surprised no-one has yet created one!Brittaadland (talk) 09:54, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure, the line needs to be drawn somewhere, but it cannot be drawn anywhere. Drawing it in a way which makes Wikipedia less comprehensive than a traditional paper encyclopedia is simply a non-starter.
 * Second, the English Wikipedia is not only the Wikipedia of English things. If you support an article on the Norwegian Wikipedia, there is absolutely no reason why an article cannot exist on the English Wikipedia either. In fact, lots of the people who use the English Wikipedia are Norwegians.
 * Third, you make some very bizarre accusations against Store norske leksikon, calling it a "local crypto-official paper encyclopedia" and accuse it of listing Hambro because of the family she is related to. Both are, for lack of a better word, complete nonsense. I am trying to wrap my head around your assessment of "local crypto-official", and still cannot fathom why you would call Norway's best and most comprehensive encyclopedia something like that. The second accusation, that Hambro is only covered because of her family, is your personal speculation, and is simply refuted by simply looking at SNL; if you do so you'll see instantly that having the surname "Hambro" is not a criterion for inclusion in that encyclopedia at all. There are, at present, 60 people with the surname "Hambro" in Norway . SNL has a total of eight biographies over people with the name Hambro, six of which are deceased, which means that there are currently 58 Hambros (that is all except two) in Norway which did not wind up in SNL. Clearly, having the surname "Hambro" is in no way sufficient to get into SNL or Wikipedia. In addition, the former director of SFT, Håvard Holm has an entry in SNL as well, so clearly it is the SFT directorship which SNL has deemed as the grounds for notability, and not the surname "Hambro".
 * Fourth, you sit around making strange comparisons with Andorra. Do the Andorrans have an Environmental Protection Agency? I cannot see that they have one, and I suspect the biggest reason we don't have an article on the leader of the Andorran Environmental Protection Agency is that such a position doesn't exist. Sjakkalle (Check!)  10:38, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. Holder of an important national government post is an encyclopedic bio.  Article has reliable sources. Quale (talk) 21:32, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - the notability bar is set pretty low as wikipedia is not paper. The very fact that a paper encyclopedia deems the person is notable enough for an entry means that there is enough notability for a wikipedia entry. -- Whpq (talk) 21:40, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. Being head of a national government agency is enough to satisfy WP:BIO.  Peacock (talk) 17:14, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The article has now been padded out with section headers on Hambro's "education" and "private life". This strikes me as ridiculous, and to take up Britt Aadland's point, the line has to be drawn somewhere - and would we think this sort of information on a government official of this sort of seniority was justified if the country in question was Andorra? Wikipedia is not a clippings library.Naggie34 (talk) 18:01, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Reply - the material in question is referenced material and not at all unusual for a biography. I fail to see how that has any bearing on whether the article should be deleted or kept.  As for Andorra, that is a hypothetical question.  When the equivalent person from Andorra has an article on Wikipedia that is put up for deletion, it will be discussed then. -- Whpq (talk) 18:46, 4 December 2008 (UTC)


 * The question of where to draw the line regarding people of local notability is relevant to the suggested Hambro article. Asking the hypothetical question is highly relevant to the suggested article, given the reasons proposed for its deletion. Asking hypothetical questions is often very useful indeed. Articles create precedents. The problem is that Wikipedia could become excessively Ruritanian. We are already getting contributions by people who did not understand the US is to Norway as Norway is to Andorra argument, despite its being spelled out clearly and despite the fact that one might think it was extremely simple and straightforward.
 * We are moving towards a position where every local newspaper article that has ever mentioned this person has been used to fill out the Wikipedia entry! Is that normal in Wikipedia? Is it acceptable in Wikipedia? What other encyclopedias is that acceptable in?
 * The English-language Wikipedia is being used to promote a small country by people from that country who in some cases have not even bothered to write biographical entries for the given individuals in the Norwegian-language Wikipedia. Is this OK or not? We are talking about people who know exactly, not approximately, how many people in the given country have a stated surname!!!
 * Like it or loathe it, but English is a global language and Norwegian is not. Your mileage may vary, but to say a question is irrelevant because it is hypothetical is to adopt a viewpoint that is strange in the extreme.
 * (Aspects of the SNL discussion could probably be taken elsewhere, but it might be interesting to know what proportion of government servants of Hambro's rank are included therein. Of course, even if it is 100%, that would be no support in itself for Wikipedia running biographical articles on any of them. But if we knew the proportion, we might get a better handle on the suggestion that her family connections may have been significant in deciding she should have an entry in the country's encyclopedia).Naggie34 (talk) 21:28, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Reply - to answer your question as to whether it is acceptable to have an entry on the English Wikipedia when there is none on the Norwegian: Yes. It is perfectly acceptable.  And it would be perfectly acceptable to have an article on somebody from Andorra so long as the requirements for notability and verifiability are met.  Wikipedia is not paper so the notability requirements are set very low. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Whpq (talk • contribs) 23:36, 4 December 2008


 * Keep head of an important government agency. Reasonably sourced. Icewedge (talk) 07:01, 5 December 2008 (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.