Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hubertus, Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (3rd nomination)


 * 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 no consensus‎__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__. Owen&times; &#9742;  22:12, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Hubertus, Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
AfDs for this article:


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

This was deleted 3 1/2 years ago, and while this may not strictly be recreation of deleted material, the reasons for deletion then still apply. By German law, he is not actually a prince, and there are thus no noble houses; and that seems to be his only claim to notability. Mangoe (talk) 20:24, 27 March 2024 (UTC) Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Doczilla  Ohhhhhh, no! 09:24, 4 April 2024 (UTC) Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Shadow311 (talk) 14:35, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Keep - head of a defunct royal house is still notable. This was just on the "Did you know" part of the Main Page. Bearian (talk) 20:32, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Comment: Technically, he's not the head of a defunct royal house, he's the son of the head of a defunct royal house.
 * 2601:249:9301:D570:A899:3E2B:BB8C:AE49 (talk) 23:50, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Got it. Bearian (talk) 14:30, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Comment - is this some kind of infinite loop whereby the page is recreated every few years and then sent to AfD where the same participants make essentially the same comments? JMWt (talk) 20:57, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Delete. Classic example of there being sources, but no significant coverage more than an inch deep.  As already stated, he is not actually a noble, which might have justified such an article, but the German nobility have been abolished for over 100 years.  Yes, CBS has a bunch of pictures of their wedding, but this is essentially the equivalent of those "human interest stories" newspapers sometimes run where they give a deep dive to someone but not really due to any direct importance.  To quote AFD2: "The rest of the article is utterly trivial (was born, went to school, got a job, got married, had kids, that's it.)".  Not notable.  SnowFire (talk) 21:22, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Keep. I see that this article survived a deletion discussion years ago, failed another a few years after that, and now is up for deletion again. Definitely odd that it should get through the DYK process, only to be potentially deleted. My thoughts -- if he were the current head of the house, I'd be more keen on notability, but he's the heir, so whatever. The article as-is doesn't have great sourcing but I'd say there are sources to be found. The sources related to his marriage are fine sources. Might be a close-run thing, but given the choice to delete or keep, I say keep. The article doesn't need to be perfect right now, and I'm reasonably confident it will improve in the future. RexSueciae (talk) 21:53, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Delete. Fails SUSTAINED, sources restricted to breathless human interest crud, zero presumption of notability for being the "head" of defunct noble family. JoelleJay (talk) 21:53, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Royalty and nobility-related deletion discussions. JoelleJay (talk) 21:53, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Keep as there is some coverage and I have expanded this article from when it was deleted the first time. By the nominator's logic, a Prince from a defunct royal dynasty does not deserve an article on Wikipedia. Okay, so does that mean the articles of Pavlos, Crown Prince of Greece, Duarte Pio, Duke of Braganza, Vittorio Emanuele, Prince of Naples, Jean-Christophe, Prince Napoléon, Franz, Duke of Bavaria, and many more should be deleted also? Therealscorp1an (talk) 22:09, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * 1) See WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. It is true that there is a nest of borderline-notability members of former noble families that could probably be deleted, although your examples aren't them.  2) Vittorio Emanuele is a bad example; he really was a noble when he was a kid, so he'd be judged under actual noble standards.  3) Most of your example articles involve people who have done notable things that would merit their inclusion regardless of their nobility - Franz von Bayern (who is not a Duke of Bavaria, for the record, there is no such position) would merit an article if he was simply a wealthy philanthropist with a backstory about his family having opposed the Nazis and been locked up by them.  That's actually the more relevant hypothetical to think about: suppose that there was some parallel person to Hubertus who was not a noble, not a pretender, but was born into wealth and lived an identical life to Hubertus.  Suppose we also had "high society" news that talked about all the wealthy friends that showed up to this scion's wedding.  Is that enough for an article?  Because that's the standard that needs to be met.  We have this situation crop up all the time elsewhere for non-noble rich people, and we generally demand a little more than just "they exist" to get an article - they need to do something, anything.  Sponsor a Formula 1 team, be a philanthropist, be a political donor or advocate, etc.  Take a look at, say, Mellon family - you'll note that while there's plenty of bluelinks in the family tree, there's plenty of non-linked articles, too.  Not everyone born into wealth gets a Wikipedia article, and that's okay.  SnowFire (talk) 23:18, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * These cases are not all equivalent anyway. I note first that the last's article is under his actual name, and that Vittorio Emanuele is probably notable fo all his escapades if nothing else. The Greek fellow presents something of a different issue since he was once crown prince but hasn't been such since he was seven or so, but all the business about a Greek royal house has been nonsense for half a century at least. The Portuguese and French pretenders likely should be deleted on the same grounds as this, namely, they seem to have no notability beyond supposedly being in their nonexistent positions. Thee's still time. Mangoe (talk) 05:01, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Germany-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 22:23, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Comment. If it is indeed true that the subject is not in fact a hereditary prince because such titles have been abolished, I would have to suggest that even if he is notable (I'll not offer opinion on that until I've looked into the matter further), it is a gross violation of WP:NPOV to describe him as such, either in the article title or anywhere else. Wikipedia is not (amongst very many other things) a platform for advocacy for the restoration of German aristocratic ranks. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:48, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily, because the common name of a thing is not necessarily the same as its legal name. Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex is not his name legally. Jahaza (talk) 23:18, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Are you suggesting that Wikipedia policy permits demonstrably false assertions of hereditary rank in article titles? That would appear to me to constitute a violation of WP:BLP policy amongst other things. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:57, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Per WP:COMMONNAME we use the names commonly used for people. And, like it or not, members of royal families, whether or not their country is still a monarchy, are generally still referred to using the titles which they claim. We don't make a special exception to COMMONNAME for them. Arguing we should just sounds like WP:IDONTLIKEIT. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:50, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Keep: Passes WP:GNG. Besides the coverage the article subject got for his wedding back in 2009, he has been receiving coverage satisfying WP:SUSTAINED: Bunte, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Gala, Neue Presse, inFranken, Bayerischer Rundfunk, and L'Éventail. Also, whether or not the article subject is actually a prince or a noble has no bearing whatsoever on notability and getting a standalone page and neither does the content of the article itself. --StellarHalo (talk) 05:11, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I've looked at these, and they appear to be WP:RUNOFTHEMILL sources to "society blotter" type sources. I can't speak to the interview as it's paywalled, but IMO the most significant event in these articles that isn't "he got married" or "he baptized his kids" (neither of which really speak to notability) is https://www.np-coburg.de/inhalt.parkplatz-am-schloss-gesperrt-prinz-hubertus-greift-durch.b8c8c916-2a78-414e-9454-ee36d6482fe0.html, which talks about how a parking lot on his private property near Callenberg Castle that had previously been open to the public is now closed.  That...  might be worth a single line in Callenberg Castle...  but isn't enough for notability IMO.  SnowFire (talk) 01:21, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Having regional news sources cover a person's multiple life events, as in this specific case, is not WP:RUNOFTHEMILL. Only notable people get their wedding and their children being born covered in news sources. And this is expected, since his father is a public figure in Coburg and its region. StellarHalo (talk) 08:41, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Delete When there is significant coverage, why is there only trivia in the article? As discussed above, there is no notability from the sources. A redirect to his father or his family would fulfill any encyclopedic needs. --Theoreticalmawi (talk) 07:50, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Keep. He does appear to satisy WP:GNG. That's all that matters. Any other claims are mere anti-monarchist POV WP:IDONTLIKEIT. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:50, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, as an American I suppose I am supposed to an anti-monarchist, but whether or not Charles III ought to be king of the United Kingdom, the fact is that he does hold that position. Meanwhile I go back to this fellow's great-grandfather, who was the last man to actually be the duke, and I find he lost both his British and German titles as fallout from WW I. Everything since then is pretense. This man is not a prince, and it's rather difficult thing to work with sources which are playing along with the pretense, and even if one appeals to WP:COMMONNAME we are now culpable of participating in the fraud by calling him a prince. If he's notable as fake nobility, so be it, but I am dubious about that, and in any case, it is in that fake nobility which his only possible notability can lie. Mangoe (talk) 02:28, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * There is no fraud or pretense. People can call themselves whatever they like. A state may strip hereditary nobles of their titles for political reasons but that does not invalidate those titles, particularly since that state didn't give them the titles in the first place (these titles long predate the Federal Republic of Germany, or indeed any other version of Germany). And if reliable sources generally use those titles then COMMONNAME is satisifed. As I said, your argument is no more than IDONTLIKEIT. As to Americans being anti-monarchist, I think many of your compatriots would disagree with you; many of them seem to be utterly obsessed with the British monarchy! -- Necrothesp (talk) 18:52, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I think we're getting a bit side-tracked here. COMMONNAME is maybe relevant if we decide the article is keep-able for how it should be titled.  It's not relevant if the article doesn't meet the notability bar.
 * Obviously where the line is drawn will differ from person to person, but I'll say the same thing as above: if there was an article with the same level of sourcing and same degree of notable events on some rich scion but who had no recent-ish noble blood, should that article be kept? If people !voting "keep" here say yes, then fine, that's just differing notability standards, although I'm personally not a fan of articles mostly sourced to fawning society blotters.  But I suspect that the result for such an article would generally be no, it'd get deleted.  And if that's the case, then this article has the same exact issue, because objectively speaking Hubertus is just a scion of a wealthy family, at least according to current German law, like it or not.  SnowFire (talk) 16:39, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Relisting comment: Final relist. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Shadow311 (talk) 14:57, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Comment Could anyone who claim, that it passes WP:GNG, explain how the coverage constitute "significant coverage". From what I checked, it appears really trivial to me. I asked already above and as by now nobody answered, I want to clarify my question. Whoever claims that WP:GNG is satisfied should be able to explain, what is significant about the coverage per WP:SIGCOV. --Theoreticalmawi (talk) 21:17, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep look, titles or no, CBS News thought this fellow was relevant enough to publish their wedding photos. Official aristocracy or unofficial, clearly the name carries some weight. This is in-depth coverage, and no it doesn't make a difference that weddings are common.
 * https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/american-woman-marries-royalty/14/ BrigadierG (talk) 15:51, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * If his notability arrises from the WP:ONEEVENT of his marriage with Kelly Rondestvedt, one could propose that this article is merged into his wife's, as there is no necessity for a standalone article. That is a compromise I could agree to. --Theoreticalmawi (talk) 12:13, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
 * It's pretty clear that the notability works the other way around. The marriage is covered because of the perceived prominence of the individual. There was nothing special about the wedding except the people it was between. BrigadierG (talk) 15:50, 20 April 2024 (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.