Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Her Majesty's Government frontbench


 * 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 SPEEDY KEEP. Reason: withdrawn by nominator. RGloucester (talk) 03:57, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Her Majesty's Government frontbench

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  Stats )

There is no reason for this article to exist. The information provided here is already listed at Cameron ministry (the standard naming for British ministry articles), which also provides a more detailed look at the government. The title is awkward (because it doesn’t really exemplify what is in the article), and the article is hard to find. It should therefore be deleted, in my view. RGloucester (talk) 00:33, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2012 May 30.  Snotbot   t &bull; c &raquo;  00:46, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 01:15, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 01:15, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 01:16, 30 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Oppose:
 * There is a reason for this article to exist, and the "awkwardness" of a title is a nonsensical reason for deletion. Similarly, various articles and at least one template link to the page. If nominator thinks the article is too hard to find, the answer is to link to it, not to delete it. In truth, RGloucester gets nothing from it, so it isn't wholly shocking that he doesn't see links at articles he enjoys. All the same, the fact that he gets nothing from it does not mean it has no value.


 * The article was created in September 2009 to mirror Official Opposition frontbench, which has been in existence since May of 2006. It makes no sense that it would be perfectly acceptable to have a list of the current members of the Shadow teams, but not a list of the current members of the actual Departmental teams.


 * Nominator says this information is duplicated at Cameron ministry. There are two important facts there. The first is that Cameron ministry is a list of all people who have served as ministers or whips during Cameron's premiership. The article at issue is a list of only the current members of the ministry, just as it was during Gordon Brown's premiership. As reshuffles happen, Cameron ministry is going to become an almighty mess. As it is, it would be tedious to try to get a picture of exactly who is currently serving in ministerial office in Westminster from Cameron ministry, but once we've been through one major reshuffle, let alone more than one, it will be impossible. Despite nominator's refusal to comprehend at a discussion elsewhere, separate lists like this are common. For instance, there is 28th Canadian Ministry, which details all ministerial positions held since Stephen Harper became Prime Minister of Canada in 2006. There is also a list at Cabinet of Canada that lists all ministers except Parliamentary Secretaries. A similar situation exists for Queensland (see Newman Ministry and Cabinet of Queensland) and various other Westminster-system governments. Similarly, various lists are kept of members of each two-year United States Congress, and there is a corresponding list of current members for each. For instance, List of United States Representatives in the 112th Congress by seniority and List of current members of the United States House of Representatives by seniority. It may somehow offend RGloucester to have a list of the current members, but it is not unique and not useless.


 * The other key fact to do with Cameron ministry is that it is unusual. Until that article, all such articles had only included a list of members of Cabinet, with luck reshuffles were reflected. There is no guarantee that Cameron ministry will continue to exist in the form it does (which copied the article at issue here) as it becomes more complex, nor that the next ministry's article will follow the format. Even if Cameron ministry could perform the function of just showing ministry as currently constituted (which, again, it doesn't), that would at best be an ancillary consideration that could easily be swept away if consensus supported going back to a Cabinet-only format. There is simply reason to believe that an article whose purpose has nothing to do with the purpose of this one will somehow serve as an adequate replacement.


 * I think RGloucester needs to take a step back. First, he nominated the article for speedy deletion despite the fact it didn't meet any such criterion. Then, he waited a few days and turned the page into a redirect to Cameron ministry. I don't know why he has such a personal hatred for the article, but its presence doesn't harm him in any way. -Rrius (talk) 01:40, 30 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I apologise if I came off as a “hater”, but I’ve been working heavily on British ministry articles at late. If you’ve not noticed, me and a few other editors devised a scheme of conventions for the British ministry articles (whereby each article contains a cabinet shortlist and a junior ministers list), merged some, renamed some, added information to them, and so forth. See Talk:List of British governments and List of British governments. This has been a heavily time-consuming clean-up which has removed alot of the former barebones articles that did not serve any purposes, and created fuller ones in their place. This has been completed for all ministries from the Liverpool Ministry onward. In doing that, I came across this article by chance, and didnt’ see the use of having a seperate page for information that was already listed at Cameron ministry. I do, however, now understand where you are comming from and would like to close the deletion nomination. I am not trying to be destructive, just efficient. I apologise for any stress I may have caused. Sincerely…. RGloucester (talk) 02:44, 30 May 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.