Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Janet Pilgrim (British Army officer)


 * 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. –Juliancolton Talk  ·  Review  18:31, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Janet Pilgrim (British Army officer)

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No disrespect whatsoever to Major Pilgrim, but award of the Royal Red Cross is not sufficient for inclusion on Wikipedia. It is a lower precedence award than the Distinguished Service Order and Conspicuous Gallantry Cross, neither of which would qualify someone for automatic inclusion. This is a disputed prod. There is a claim that the RRC is the nursing equivalent of the Victoria Cross, which is, I'm afraid, utter rubbish. Yes, a journalist did make that claim, but we all know that journalists are often uninformed and frequently make things up to make subjects seem more notable than they are. Military nurses are as eligible for the VC as any other military personnel and would be awarded the VC if their gallantry was up to that level. At the end of the day, Major Pilgrim is a relatively junior officer who has been decorated with a medal not uncommonly given to military nurses for doing a fine job, but is not sufficiently notable for her own article. If she was awarded a bar to the medal then I would wholeheartedly support her inclusion, but I'm afraid a single award does not merit inclusion without further proof of notability. If so, then every one of the many thousands of recipients of the DSO is also notable enough for an article! -- Necrothesp (talk) 19:20, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - nominator's reasons for deletion ("too many articles") are not a valid reasons (see WP:NOTPAPER). His argument for deletion is summed up by WP:IDONTLIKEIT. The nurse, Janet Pilgrim, is notable. This fact is demonstrated by her being awarded the Royal Red Cross. Esasus (talk) 21:18, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
 * If you are claiming that she is notable purely for being awarded the RRC then you must by definition accept that everyone awarded a higher award (e.g. DSO or CGC) is also notable, which has not generally been considered to be the case. For decorated military figures, we have generally held that everyone awarded a "1st level" award (e.g. VC or GC) is inherently notable. Everyone else has to be assessed on individual merit, which is what we are here to discuss. I see no reason this officer is notable for anything other than being awarded a single decoration. -- Necrothesp (talk) 22:42, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete Half the article is concerned with the award, and the other two sentences do not give any reason to support the inclusion of the nurse, nor do they suggest that she a recipeint of the nations highest military honor. Unless some other factor of notability emerges, or unless the article gets real long, real quick, I do not see any reason to keep it. As an alternative, I would be ok with merging the information into an article on the battle in which the nurse earned the award, assuming its on here. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:42, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect to Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps. I agree with Esasus that we rely on significant coverage in reliable sources to tell us who's notable.  The Telegraph is an important British daily newspaper and certainly counts as a reliable source; the coverage on Major Pilgrim cited in the sources is certainly significant; so Major Pilgrim is notable.  QED.— However, I feel that WP:BLP1E applies here, and I also think there's not enough material there (and not enough sourceable material could be found) to warrant a separate article for Major Pilgrim.  So I think we should merge this to a short section in Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps.— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  22:51, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. I have no problem whatsoever with the creation of an article on RRC recipients in general. In fact, this would be the best option. But I do not think we need a separate article on each recipient. -- Necrothesp (talk) 23:22, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. Since 2000, 7 RRCs and 29 ARRCs have been awarded. This compares to two VCs and three GCs. Since the VC is open to all military personnel and the GC to anybody and the RRC and ARRC are only open to the relatively small constituency of nursing staff, I hardly think you can compare the awards. While the RRC is technically higher than the ARRC, it is notable that every single RRC has been awarded to a senior officer and almost every ARRC to a junior officer or NCO, which suggests that the difference in gradation is solely due to rank and that the RRC/ARRC should really be considered for notability purposes as a single award. 36 awards among military nursing staff only (there aren't that many of them) does not make it a particularly rare award. -- Necrothesp (talk) 23:09, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Fortunately, we don't have to decide if the RRC makes someone notable. We only need to worry about Janet Pilgrim. :)— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  23:27, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed. However, since Esasus's argument is that she is notable solely because she has been awarded the RRC, the notability of RRC recipients in general is relevant to this discussion! -- Necrothesp (talk) 03:08, 22 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Living people-related deletion discussions. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 00:01, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:ONEEVENT. A Google search of 'Janet Pilgrim Royal Red Cross' returns only a handful of reliable sources, all of which only cover her being awarded the Royal Red Cross (eg, and ). As a reminder, WP:BIO and WP:BLP are the relevant notability policies, not what editors think about the importance of the medal (people who win the highest level of medals are considered to be automatically notable because there's always lots of reliable sources available on them, and not because the medal is important per-se). Nick-D (talk) 02:17, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep If it is the highest award in their service, she's notable. Rare or common is not relevant. To say that although this is uncommon there is a analogous award that is common, and therefore this one is not notable, is getting a little paradoxical.  And I'll point out that almost everyone whose won such awards as the VC has won it for a single event. As a reminder, the whole policy of notability=numbers of RSs is a stop gap measure because we can;t really determine exact notability in many cases. When it comes to a nation's highest award,we can. The sources arent basic, they merely reflect the notable accomplishment. DGG (talk) 02:50, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. It's not the highest award in their service. QARANC is but one corps of the British Army. The highest award in their service is thus the VC, just as it is for any other British soldier. Military nurses are eligible for any military decoration. Technically the RRC can be awarded to any nurse, not just a military one, although in recent years it has tended only to be awarded to military nurses. Many civilian nurses were awarded it during the two World Wars. If recipients of the highest award awarded only to a single service are automatically eligible for articles, then we should have articles on the dozens of police officers awarded the Queen's Police Medal every year. But that would be silly, since like the RRC it's usually awarded for exemplary, but not unique, services. We therefore need to decide whether Janet Pilgrim herself is notable. So far, the only argument put forward for her notability is that she has been awarded the RRC, the fifth highest military/gallantry decoration for which she is eligible (after the VC, GC, DSO and CGC). I do not believe that meets our notability threshold. -- Necrothesp (talk) 03:02, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * High enough. i urge you to write articles on those dozens of police officers. NOT PAPER. DGG (talk) 17:02, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Even as a British police officer myself and with the utmost respect for those who have been awarded the QPM, I do not consider it a high enough award to be a sole criterion to merit an article. Same with the RRC. Worthy, but not sufficient on its own to establish notability. -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:38, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment That seems to be WP:ILIKEIT. WP:NOTPAPER isn't a way to avoid notability requirements, and states that "This policy is not a free pass for inclusion: articles must still abide by the appropriate content policies, particularly those covered in the five pillars." This obviously is very much the case for articles like this where WP:BLP also applies and the subject has a right to privacy. Nick-D (talk) 08:15, 26 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete - per WP:Bio and WP:ONEEVENT. The Royal Red Cross is not the nursing equivalent to the Victoria Cross, and the subject does not hold any other form of notability; no disrespect to Ms Pilgrim of course. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 09:43, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - per WP:Bio and WP:ONEEVENT. She seems to have a somewhat notable reason to have a page. It should undergo a major expansion though should it be kept. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 21:35, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment Could you please explain how WP:ONEEVENT justifies keeping this article? Nick-D (talk) 06:51, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Answer - To suggest that the Janet Pilgrim article is based on just one event is ridiculous. The article is based on a notable person, being Janet Pilgrim. The Royal Red Cross is evidence of such notability. She would not have been given such award had she not been deserving. To suggest that she is notable for one event would be like saying that an Olympic gold medalist should not have an article because he is notable for just the one event of winning in the Olympics. The Royal Red Cross award the result of her well deserving achievements. It is a symbol of her significance, not the event. Esasus (talk) 17:49, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment Notability is determined by the availability of reliable sources, and not editors' subjective views about whether a person is admirable. Could you please find some sources which cover other achievements by Major Pilgrim as required to meet the requirements set by WP:BIO and WP:BLP? It is clear that Major Pilgrim is a hero, but if the media hasn't covered her beyond a single event in her life, she's not notable and her right to privacy over-rides the case for having an article on her. Nick-D (talk) 08:21, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * A gold medal winner would have a shoe deal and commercials and his or her face on a wheeties box and an invote to the next olympics and tv movie deal and, well you get the idea. I doubt Ms. Pilgrim will have any of that, which justifies ONEEVENT. TomStar81 (Talk) 17:53, 25 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete - per WP:Bio and WP:ONEEVENT. Some sloppy work by the journalist in question, leaving that aside, it seems a textbook case of what ONEEVENT is intended to cover. --Cameron Scott (talk) 19:15, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - passes WP:N is a straightforward manner. Baseless slagging of a journalist is not a convincing argument, and I'll trust the judgement of professionals over anonymous online avatars on what's notable. Wily D  13:57, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. Bear in mind that there is a world of difference between a professional journalist and a professional expert in any field. Journalists are employed to write copy to sell their papers and do not always get their facts right or check their facts sufficiently. In fact, journalists these days frequently rely on Wikipedia for their "facts" - I know this since I have seen material I have written on Wikipedia appear verbatim under a journalist's byline! This doesn't particularly bother me, but it does show that it is not always wise, given some of the rubbish that appears on Wikipedia, to take what journalists write as gospel truth. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:24, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - not truly notable under WP:BIO, just another WP:ONEEVENT flash in the pan. -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  14:09, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Weak delete - obviously a fine officer, but she credits her staff more than herself for the award. (Of course, that adds to the notion that she deserves it. :-) ) Without more evidence of notability beyond running the busiest British field hospital since the Falklands, I don't think it's up to our inclusion levels -- but not blatantly so.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:01, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - based solely on the fact that the article has only one reference. If there were more refs from reliable sources I would vote keep Kernel Saunters (talk) 14:51, 26 March 2009 (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.