Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Julia Murdock Smith


 * 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. Since nobody has strong feelings about this article, I think a well-done merger may not be objected to. Sandstein 09:00, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Julia Murdock Smith

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

WP:Notability concerns. There apparently has been a published biography, but main source of notability seems to be that she was adopted by Joseph Smith, Jr. and Emma Smith. Google gives tons of hits, but most seem to mention her simply as a child of Joseph Smith. By visiting the cited link I was unable to come up with any other source of notability that we could use to keep article. SESmith 05:00, 6 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Unless she is more notable than LDS movement historians seem to appreciate, this genealogical stub should be deleted and replaced with a redirect to John Murdock (Mormon). Cool Hand Luke 07:43, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete unless she's found to be notable for anything other than being Joseph Smith's daughter Corpx 15:12, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep It appears that she is a notable historical person, but the stub has been neglected for some time. Perhaps this nomination will encourage somebody to expand the article. -- wrp103 (Bill Pringle)  (Talk) 17:01, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak keep per wrp103. Lack of current progress is not a reason for deletion. --xDanielx Talk 23:19, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment (nominator). My concern is that there may be nothing notable to make progress on. I searched around for notable information on the person and could find nothing apart from being an adopted child of Joseph Smith. Granted, I haven't read the biography, but many biographies in the Latter Day Saint movement are simply family history compilations by genealogists that contain nothing that makes the person notable by WP standards. wrp, I am curious as to why you said "she is a notable historical person". –SESmith 00:33, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that there may not be anything independently notable about this person apart from her relation to Joseph Smith (not that I have any expertise on the subject). Still, I think that that relation alone, and the resulting attention that Julia has received, is enough to merit a weak keep on notability grounds. We can add biographical information about Julia -- the biographical information itself is (based on my limited knowledge) not notable enough to justify an article for Julia, but I don't think it needs to given that her relationship with JS already does so (in my opinion). See for example, the articles for Barbara and Jenna Bush. They focus on the personal lives of those individuals, and although 90% of the information does nothing in the way of establishing their notability, the notability already exists. (I don't think Julia has as much spillover notability as the Bush sisters, I just thought it was an interesting comparison.) --xDanielx Talk 08:43, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Notability is not inherited. The Bush twins have articles because they are covered in the press and in other reliable sources, whether or not we think their antics are "really" notable. Notability is objective on wikipedia. It seems she has only been written about in a low-volume book, which was almost certainly produced by and for her descendants. It should be noted that her twin brother, also adopted by Smith, has no article. If he did it would be a similarly anemic stub with no reliable sources. This is why it would be sensible to combine both of them on a heading at John Murdock (Mormon) where they are already mentioned. Cool Hand Luke 07:44, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * John, that's an essay, not a policy. In any case, I'm not saying that spillover notability is automatically inherited. Julia Smith's spillover notability is pretty evident -- just do a couple searches yourself. As per WP:DP it's the responsibility of the pro-delete voter to demonstrate a lack of sources showing notability, not the opposite. (Though, again, I think her notability is rather evident.) The article being a stub is a temporary issue which can be remedied with a few clicks and some letters, and it's not a reason for deletion. — xDanielx Talk 10:05, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * One can't really prove the lack of sources. One can, however, show&mdash;as SESmith has shown&mdash;that sources only mention her as an adopted daughter with no independent notability. Of course, you agree she probably has no independent notability, so such evidence falls of deaf ears. All relatives of famous people should have their own articles, I suppose.
 * At any rate, I think it's telling that editors involved in LDS issues, including SESmith, myself, Tom Hawstrom, and WBarden believe that this should be a redirect at most. Only wrp103 disagrees. Like SESmith, I'd like to know his reasons. Cool Hand Luke 21:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that the nominator (and those favoring deletion) can't really prove that no sources exist. The particular clause I was thinking of was "All attempts to find reliable sources in which article information can be verified have failed". It has not been demonstrated that serious attempts have been made unsuccessfully at finding such sources. I think that the link already contained in the article is pretty decent already, and a quick search shows that there are some other decent ones. I agree that she is notable primarily because of her relation to Joseph Smith. However, I think there's an important difference between asserting that there is adequate spillover notability without reliable sources to confirm and asserting the same thing with reliable sources. Given that there are reliable sources, WP:N doesn't care why those sources are interested in the subject; what matters is just that they are interested in the subject. Don't pick on the article -- it won't do any harm! :) — xDanielx Talk 22:27, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Please don't jump on me for making a WP:WAX argument, as what I write here is not meant to be a convincing reason for deletion. This is more of a general observation of the spill-over effect a decision to keep this article could have if used as precedent for other similar topics, and it may be relevant to what Cool Hand Luke is getting at. Latter Day Saints are notoriously good at doing true family history and creating massive published biographies of ancestors and people they are related to. There are many, many Latter Day Saints who are notable for similar things as this person—i.e., they are a child of someone who is notable. These "children of the notable" often have published sources about them not because they are a child of the notable but because some Latter Day Saint has done their family history and would have done it whether or not the person was a child of the notable. We could end up with a ton of these stubs about children of notable people. Perhaps that's OK, but I find it a bit strange that this could be the result with Latter Day Saints but not others merely because Latter Day Saints are extra diligent at family history. –SESmith 22:53, 8 August 2007 (UTC) (nominator)
 * Indeed, I have two ancestors with book-length treatises about them who I don't believe should have articles. Hundreds of Mormon pioneers are like this, particularly polygamists with many children. These people were often closely connected to important individuals. I consider descendant genealogical books to be de facto self-published. Cool Hand Luke 02:21, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I think this really just comes down to the stringency of the notability standards we decide to impose. There's really no brightline test. I still favor a weak keep based on the link in the article and a small handful of other links easily found on Google (I didn't notice any that particularly stood out, but many are okay), but if you (you plural, as in you folks) are still leaning on the side of delete, I can understand that. — xDanielx Talk 03:48, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I think we (LDS editors) might make it a redirect after AfD, but if anyone shows this individual some TLC in the future, I would not oppose a separate article. I just dislike the over-fragmentation of wikipedia. We have so many unwatched pages... Cool Hand Luke 07:13, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
 * To follow up on my original comment, I believe that she is notable because a quick google finds her name on several search. While it may be true that her only claim to fame is that she was adopted by JS, my guess is that there is a lot more information that could be placed in the article.  My inclination is to give the article a grace period and if it is still a stub, to merge it into her father's article and add a redirect.  If somebody later can expand that section into an article, then great!  That is why I said "weak keep."
 * I have personally taught a number of lessons on LDS church history where she is mentioned (well, more accurately, it is mentioned that her brother died.) There are many people in LDS history that only LDS would be interested in, but I don't believe that makes them less notable.  The same can probably be said by pretty much any group. -- wrp103 (Bill Pringle)  (Talk) 16:33, 9 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Weak keep per wrp103. Mathmo Talk 21:28, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak delete. I did find this comprehensive biography on the web, which comes from a published biography of Julia, making this a philosophically interesting question of what it means to be notable.  Does it satisfy notability simply to be noted?  There's certainly an argument for a straightforward objective test: the existence of independent reliable sources creates notability, but that argument has been rejected elsewhere as neither necessary nor sufficient.  As long as subjective considerations come into it, I don't see what is added encyclopedically by this entry.  THF 23:52, 8 August 2007 (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.