Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John F. Ashby


 * 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. Consensus has been trending towards keeping the article Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  10:35, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

John F. Ashby

 * – ( View AfD View log )

The only source on the article is the webpage of the organization he was head of. Beyond that, this is a church with less than 2,000 members. The fact it is a multi-congregation church does not change the fact that it is very small. There is nothing to show this guy is notable, and if we consistently made everybody who was a religious leader with the amount of organization under him and impact this guy had notable, we would probably at least double the size of Wikipedia creating articles on very low profile religious leaders. John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:32, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Kansas-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone  21:07, 9 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep I'm having a hard time thinking of a case where an article about the head of a diocese of a major denomination was removed... normally we keep these. It's a stub, but an appropriate one.  A lack of online sources doesn't surprise me.  I'd say either WP:IMPACT would suffice.  BTW-the current membership is reported around 2,000 members, but the Episcopal Church membership may show a different amount for 1981 to 1995--it looks like the denomination in general has lost membership since then. --Paul McDonald (talk) 23:21, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
 * verrifiability means you need to find the sources, not baldly assert that they exist in the face of a lack of such. Keeping this article is absurd considering how small this diocese is.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:56, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
 * We just plain cannot keep articles sourced only to the website of a church organization a person was a leader of. If the "all bishops are default notable" standard leads to that, it needs to be scrapped. Such notability standards are not supposed to justify keeping articles that lack any 3rd-party coverage. Note that I did not even have to speficy reliable or indepth third party coverage, we have just plain none here.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:04, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Then I'm going to go with the policy ignore all rules and say that keeping this article makes Wikipedia better. The fact that it is difficult to find online news sources for someone from this time period is not surprising and insisting that it be accomplished during an AFD is unnecessary.  When we have the time to complete such research, those who have the ability come up with the coverage you request.  Until then, there is no reason to believe that there is any bad faith in the existence of the article and no reason to believe the information is not correct. Deleting the article just means that it will be put back later and seems disruptive to the process.--Paul McDonald (talk) 12:59, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not made better by this article. It is just made into a mirror of the diocesan website, which is not the purpose of Wikipedia.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:31, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Episcopal Diocese of Western Kansas. All of the what little info there is, except his birth and death year, is repeated there, and redirects are cheap. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:59, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment For the record we lack an article on the current bishop of this diocese. Also, the 2016 membership for the diocese was 1426. 2000 is a far too generous over estimation of the membership. It would have had to decline very steeply of late to be anywhere near a number that is impactful.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:09, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 00:49, 11 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep. We have always held diocesan bishops of major denomination to be notable. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:27, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
 * How can you argue to keep in the face of absolutely no sourcing that is at all independent?John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:11, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Easily. He's an Anglican bishop! Common sense decrees that we keep Anglican (and Catholic, Lutheran, Orthodox, etc) bishops. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:37, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
 * No it does not. Wikipedia is built on verifiability. That means sourcing to show someone is notable beyond the organization they were a part of. The only source in this article is from the organization he was head of. which as I mentioned has under 2000 members.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:40, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
 * No, that's not what verifiability means! That would be notability! The organisation he's part of is the American Episcopal Church, which I think you'll find has far more than 2,000 members! -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:40, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment I personally don't agree that bishops SHOULD be considered notable. Archbishops yes. But they *are* considered notable. It would be nice if someone would just find an article or two on the man so we could at least pretend he meets some reliable secondary etc requirement. Wikipedia should not just mirror a website and serve as a directory. DiamondRemley39 (talk) 03:21, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Or we could just argue that there is a resasonably large minimum for archdiocese size. Consider that the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dodge City that covers the same area has 60,000 Catholics in it. There are a few dioceses with over 1 million members. Treating all bishops as if they are the same makes no sense.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:03, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Treating all time periods as if they were the same also makes no sense. The Episcopal Church has gone through changes in membership size during the time period from when this individual served to today.--Paul McDonald (talk) 17:49, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
 * The changes are not large enough that this truly dinky diocese was anything than truly minor and insignifcant.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:28, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
 * It's beyond clear that you don't like it and the lack of civility through your name-calling against the organization clearly indicates that. WP:IDONTLIKEIT is not a reason to delete.  This source reports membership at the national level dropping from 2.5 million in 1980 to 1.6 million in 2019.  It's reasonable to assert that similar trends likely occurred in this geogrpahic area.--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:57, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Which would at most give us 4000 members in the diocese. That is still not the size of an organization that justifies having an article. This is purlely about our policy being against having article that are sourced only to the internal website of an organization someone is a part of. This is consistently against the policy for creating an article on any individual. There is no special pleading on my part here. There are still no independent sources at all.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:10, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
 * John Pack Lambert, you raise some good points. I think bishops should have to meet some level of citation requirement. If you ever seek to get the policy reviewed or changed, I'd certainly support it and have some thoughts I'd like to add. Won't say more here because I've digressed enough from Ashby already. DiamondRemley39 (talk) 14:43, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment Subject notabilty guidelines are meant to suggest that certain topics are generally notable. They are not meant to force a keep of an article sourced in a way that is totally and completely not independent.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:06, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Some of the comments above are misleading. It is not that there are few online sources. It is that no one has identified anywhere any source other than the website of the organization this person was the head of. To keep this article would be a basic violation of the principles of verifiability. If those wanting to keep could state any independent, 3rd party source that had ever said anything about Ashby we could consider keeping the article. They have shown no eivdence that such sources exist at all, anywhere.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:56, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Even with the new sources I still think this article should be deleted. They are very short passing mentions in a local paper. I have seen many religious leaders with more substantial mentions in the news leading organizations over 100 times as big as this diocese have articles on them deleted. The sourcing here is still not enough to justify the article.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:13, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Weak delete Redirect per Clarityfiend and per the subject-specific notability guideline, which includes: "[M]ore than just a church record of a Bishop existing is required to establish notability." Newspaper coverage establishes his existence, but not his notability. Secondary sourcing of Ashby is scant, weak, and from a single independent publication (I am the one who searched for and added them in the interest of showing that I did look into Ashby before voting--there isn't so much as an interview or a profile of him.). The coverage establishes very little other than his existence in the office--one is barely more than a name check. Consider that I am generally a pretty liberal inclusionist, but not when it comes to making Wikipedia a directory of mainline religious hierarchical office holders for the history of time. Not without sourcing. I hold no prejudice against spinning out an article if an interested historian is able to dig up some good resources to which I have no access and with which I'd be unfamiliar. Happy to change my vote if someone digs into the Episcopalian history and is able to find coverage of Ashby. DiamondRemley39 (talk) 16:40, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Note about my prev statement: I was under the impression that bishops were considered notable by Wikipedia standards until the past few days. I was incorrect. That's an essay specific to the Catholic WikiProject. It is not policy. So votes to keep per NBISHOP, which is about an essay rather than policy and for a different religious body altogether = not solid. DiamondRemley39 (talk) 20:31, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Weak keep per improvements made by Genericusername57. There is just enough in coverage and in variety of sources to cut it. DiamondRemley39 (talk) 12:49, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:GNG, WP:OUTCOMES, and WP:CCC. Bishops of a major denomination are almost always notable, and have generally been kept here. The consensus has been upheld this year. If necessary, please userfy to my user space, as I have experience fact-checking and finding sources for such articles. Bearian (talk) 19:30, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep per NBISHOP.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 05:41, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
 * WP:NBISHOP applies to the Catholic Church, and is only an essay. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:12, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
 * This is a good time to set a precedent that this website won't discriminate between members of different religions.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 20:57, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Which is a ludicrous view. Different bishops are different. Catholic Bishops are in general leading organization which are at least 10 times as big as Episcopal Bishops, so treating them as if they are the same makes no sense.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:02, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
 * In the UK, Anglican dioceses are generally considerably larger than Catholic dioceses, so this is not a worldwide view. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:58, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I got to wonder what the Episcopal population in Kansas is. Pew has it as 1% of the population of Kansas 1. That's got to be more recent and perhaps a bit different from what it was in Ashby's time, with mainline bodies typically losing members in recent years. FWIW, Catholic is 18% in Kansas. DiamondRemley39 (talk) 12:37, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
 * AfD is all about discrimination in the academic sense of the word. (Though this is not the place, I suppose the bishops of the various hierarchical mainline Protestant denominations could be viewed the same as the hierarchical Roman Catholic church, though I really don't know that a bishop in one = a bishop in another). DiamondRemley39 (talk) 20:28, 15 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Comment He does not meet the general notability guideline. Two sources from the same publication count as one. One of those pieces isn't significant coverage anyway. His employer's piece on him cannot be considered independent coverage. Biographical topics that don't qualify for specific notability guidelines should meet WP:GNG. For all the keep votes here, it seems I'm the only one who looked for/found anything since the AfD started. Someone else look now and make us look fools--make us want to change our votes. Until then, no reason to keep this as a standalone article. DiamondRemley39 (talk) 20:28, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I would be surprised if there are not three bios of him in print out there somewhere. Here is one: from The Living Church. Possibly an offline search of various Western Kanasas periodicals would do it.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 22:01, 15 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Merge - There's no content here other than his birth/death date that isn't on the diocese page, if there's no further detail we should just put that on the list and redirect.  is a slightly more thorough obituary, but I don't see much else (and The Living Church is an Episcopal publication that isn't independent). I'm hesitant to overturn precedent at WP:CLERGY (Common outcomes) without wider discussion - language of "may be notable" was added in 2011  and was changed to "usually notable" in 2013 .  If there is consensus not to keep, a follow-up discussion should be started at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes - other pages such as Rustin R. Kimsey would also likely be merged.  power~enwiki ( π,  ν ) 01:08, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep. I'd be very reluctant for us to start removing whole classes of articles--I think rather we should simplify AfD by increasing the number of types of things we do accept as presumably notable.   DGG ( talk ) 01:12, 19 November 2020 (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.