Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Grand Masters of the Grand Lodge of Scotland (2nd 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   keep. There doesn't seem to be a question of the notability of the list (per this discussion as well as the previous one), only its verifiability. After this discussion, it seems that only the verifiability of part of the list is in question. So, the answer is to challenge and remove any parts of the list which cannot be adequately verified. If there is a desire to merge the list, then please start a merge discussion on the talk page. -Scottywong | gossip _ 15:45, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

List of Grand Masters of the Grand Lodge of Scotland
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This article now fails WP:V due to a citations issue (cited source for a "complete list" through 2012 was copyright 1987 with said material not viewable, and the webpage this was actually sourced from is gone), the content of this article is no longer verifiable. I'd also note the article creator was indef blocked for copyright violation, so I'd take a CSD on this as well. MSJapan (talk) 22:17, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep The topic is notable per WP:LISTN, being documented in multiple sources. Such sources are not required to be online as WP:V explains, "The principle of verifiability implies nothing about ease of access to sources: some online sources may require payment, while some print sources may be available only in university libraries.". Warden (talk) 23:15, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep Most of it is sourced, and should definitely be kept, even if the last few entries are not. In other respects it passes WP:L. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:05, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete - a perfect example of a list that consists of (mostly) notable people, combined into a potentially non-notable grouping. I might change my mind if the intro discussed and substantiated what makes the position of Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Scotland notable.  I am not sure that it is... There are several thousand Masonic Grand Lodges in the world... each has its own Grand Master (so at any one time there are thousands of Grand Masters).... most are elected to preside over their Grand Lodge for no more than a year or two.  ie: Masonic Grand Masters are dime a dozen... so what makes the Grand Masters of this particular Grand Lodge notable?  That said... as an alternative to deleting, consider merging into Grand Lodge of Scotland.    Blueboar (talk) 12:18, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Question Looking through List of Masonic Grand Lodges, I get the impression that the Scottish grand lodge is far older than most grand lodges. Doesn't that give it a status distinct from the Grand Loge du Bénin and the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Wisconsin?  Nyttend (talk) 12:36, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Reply - Not in any way aside from the "historical interest" sense. Every Grand Lodge is sovereign unto itself, and only unto itself, so it does not legislate others.  As an example, the United Grand Lodge of England (which is the oldest) recognized Prince Hall Freemasonry as legitimate after the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts did, which affected nothing as far as Massachusetts was concerned, and also did not cause all Grand Lodges to recognize Prince Hall by default. MSJapan (talk) 16:30, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 13:13, 21 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment. I note that the nominator makes the absurd claim that the fact that the main source for this article is not available online means that it is not verifiable. It can, in fact, be verified at any of these libraries. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:50, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Reply Then let me clarify - The Cyclopedia makes no claim to list all the GMs of the GL of Scotland, and if it did, it would only hold a list until its publishing date, which was 1987 (but not really; see below). The list stretches to 2012.  Now, the article author who claimed the information was in the book was indef banned for copyright violation.  It is my belief that the information was taken as a cut and paste from the GL of Scotland website, not the Cyclopedia.  That GL webpage is now gone, and only has a page for the current Grand Master.  Furthermore, on searching further for the 1987 MacKenzie book, it is in fact a reprint of this, which is by the same author and dates from 1877, and would therefore not have a list of GMs past that point.  Hence, the source is faked.  So, one faked source and one now-disappeared source.  I did not claim that the source didn't exist; I claim it does not contain the information it purports to contain.   The Amazon blurb for Part 1 of the Cyclopedia says:  "1877. Other volumes in this set include ISBN number(s): 0766126110. Volume 1 of 2. (This description is for both volumes.) Extremely scarce and fervently sought after, this book rates as one of the most prized sources of Masonic research available to the sincere student of Freemasonry. H. P. Blavatsky constantly refers to this work throughout her Secret Doctrine. Unlike other Masonic encyclopedias, this is noted for fully exploring the esoteric roots of Freemasonry. Interestingly, Mackenzie and this work were consulted by leading esoterists of that time. Mackenzie may have even produced the Golden Dawn Ciphers. Replete with Masonic wisdom, this is one of those rare gems that truly offers "More Light in Masonry." So, no, I don't think the contents wrt to this article are either verifiable or accurate. MSJapan (talk) 03:02, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * There is no copyright in a list of this sort, as it has no creative content. There are multiple sources for this data and Gould's History, for example, covers the list from 1736 through to 1933 - a period of two hundred years and some 81 masters, all of whom seem to check out.  Per WP:LISTN, "The entirety of the list does not need to be documented in sources for notability, only that the grouping or set in general has been". Warden (talk) 14:24, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Having not seen the original list this was stolen from, how do you know? I'm tempted to think that the Acting GMs was stolen as such, by the way.Also, don't obfuscate the argument - I'm not contesting notability, I'm contesting verifiability.  The simple fact is that the article creator took the list verbatim off a website, lied about the source, and was banned for such activity, and I'm not sure what basis there is to claim otherwise.  By your reasoning, Warden, if a list only has to be partially sourced, I could add myself in as a Grand Master of whatever GL I wanted, and make an argument that that was OK because the list was sourced up to a point which did not include my information.  Oh wait, that's an unsourced BLP violation/vanity edit...which is why we have to source lists.  My point is that the notability of the list (which is what your little snippet refers to) has nothing to do with and does not abrogate WP:V.  The article as it stands does not meet WP:V, and as there is no source to verify the entirety of 1736-2012, the list should not be from 1736-2012.  Moreover, if it's in Gould, we don't need to be duplicating sources. Better yet, go look at Gould, as I did (vol. IV, ch. 9, pp. 376-406); the GMs are interspersed as throwaway references throughout 47 pages of text on "History of the Grand Lodge of Scotland", (not "The Grand Masters of the Grand Lodge of Scotland") and names the majority of the GMs by title only (which means one has to find who the Earl of Strathmore was in 1741).  At the very end of the article, there is a list of GMs up to 1933.  That doesn't sound like "discussion of the set", but let's deal with that while we are at it.  Contrary to your claim, WP:LISTN actually says the following, in its entirety: "A list topic is considered notable if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines; notable list topics are appropriate for a stand-alone list. The entirety of the list does not need to be documented in sources for notability, only that the grouping or set in general has been. Because the group or set is notable, the individual items in the list do not need to be independently notable, although editors may, at their discretion, choose to limit large lists by only including entries for independently notable items or those with Wikipedia articles."  All that indicates is that not all individual items in a list have to meet N, which means Steve Jones the NN accountant can be in a list with one of the Kings George for whatever reason in a notable list, not that lists can be unsourced (and we already have a question as to whether the list in N in the first place).  What we have so far is that the GL of Scotland seems to at one point have had a list on their site, but that's a) gone, and b) not an independent source.  Secondly, Gould talks about GMs of Scotland only to say they were elected in a certain year. They get one line each, followed by a brief list at the very end with no commentary.  Therefore, I'd say that the necessary "discussion of the set" isn't met either.  So shall we add a notability concern to the AfD as well? MSJapan (talk) 15:34, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * It is usually the case that Wikipedia is more up-to-date than such sources because we are able to continuously update the information whereas books are fixed as at the date of publication. We don't delete our articles for this reason.  As for discussion of the set, it is obvious from what you say that the Masters are discussed throughout the Gould's history of that Lodge, as one would expect.  There are plenty more sources which might be added to supplement this, should we wish, such as Laurie's The History of Free Masonry and the Grand Lodge of Scotland.  That was published in 1859 and so only covers the early period but is out of copyright and is so a good source for our purposes. Warden (talk) 16:58, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * No, I did not say "they are discussed throughout." I said they are mentioned by name only as part of the historical record, and that is all.  We have still not addressed the total lack of sources after Gould (and the resultant fact that there's 80 years of unsourced information in the list), nor the fact that the GMs are not really independent of their Grand Lodges.  Everything you have found as "sourcing" is not focused on the Grand Masters; their mention is incident to the fact that there are histories of their Grand Lodge. I also noticed you said "might", so again, look at the source first; existence of something is not proof of its usability.  In short, you're arguing to keep a list based on total conjecture and tossing out of titles of books instead of doing the work to find out if the material is suitable or not.  We also haven't addressed where the information is to be updated from - GL of Scotland doesn't maintain a list for public consumption, so are you telling me OR is OK for a list?  I think not, and I'm not going to continue this train of inquiry, because all it's serving to do is derail the whole process. MSJapan (talk) 18:21, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment - While the issue of verifiability (or lack thereof) is important... I think we need to establish Notability first. Is this list topic notable?  WP:Notability states: "A list topic is considered notable if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources"  So... the first thing we need to do is establish that the Grand Masters of the Grand Lodge of Scotland (as a group or set) has been discussed by independent reliable sources.  Has it?  (Note: the Grand Lodge of Scotland's website website would not be "independent" for this topic.) Blueboar (talk) 23:13, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, sources have been listed above and every time the nominator tries to wikilawyer them away, I go off and find another one. For example, Coil's Masonic Encyclopedia contains an extensive entry on the Grand Lodge of Scotland which yet again details the Grand Masters from William St Clair on.  Compared to other lists that I have had to defend at AFD, this one is quite well supported by sources.  Our current draft needs work, as usual, but that's just a matter of ordinary editing not deletion. Warden (talk) 13:22, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Every time you find a supposed "source", it's about the Grand Lodge, not the Grand Masters, and that is the key. You're saying that GMs inherit notability by association with the Grand Lodge (you yourself have established multiple times that they only appear in articles about the Grand Lodge), and that's clearly contrary to WP:NOTINHERITED. That is why LISTN says what it does.  Very simply put, a list of the Grand Masters ("the topic") in an entry about the Grand Lodge ("another topic") is not "discussion of the topic" as required by LISTN.  Put another way, you're saying that anything that appears in an encyclopedia entry is fair game for a list, and policy prevents that.  Moreover, "every source" you have found contains no information later than 1933.  So anything from 1933-2008 is wholly unsourced, and we need to be editing per policy. MSJapan (talk) 14:38, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Such lists obviously relate to the parent organisations but that doesn't mean that we delete them. See List of Grand Masters of the Knights Hospitaller, List of Presidents of Venezuela, List of kings of the Picts, &c.  These are all just WP:SPINOFFs from the main articles about the bodies that they led but that's not a reason to delete any or all of them.  The key point is that the sources presented contain detailed lists of the GMs and so it is reasonable to do so here too.  Recent information can be found by going to recent sources such as this and so we are able to satisfy both WP:LISTN and WP:V. Warden (talk) 15:03, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Misleading statements again. "Recent information" meaning "the current GM only." This link was already addressed earlier, and it still doesn't address 1933-2008 (the inclusion thereof is therefore BLP violation).  Having read SPINOFF, it applies to articles, not lists. It's part of content forking, which is article-based.  If you want to cite policy, use one that actually applies.  Also, just as an aside, if I'm the one wikilawyering, why are you the one introducing a new and different policy in every statement and then complaining when somebody actually reads it and finds out it doesn't apply?  Merely posting WP link caps doesn't make you automatically right, and as much as I hate to go after editor behavior, you do this all the time whenever someone doesn't agree with you. Frankly, this AfD should not be this long or involved.  The issues at hand are very simple. MSJapan (talk) 15:35, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The issue is indeed very simple. This topic has been at AFD before as you have nominated it before.  The result on that occasion was a clear Keep but yet you have nominated it again.  Your ostensible grounds for doing so was a WP:DEADLINK but that is not a satisfactory reason to delete as that guideline states "Do not delete factual information solely because the URL to the source does not work any longer. WP:Verifiability does not require that all information be supported by a working link, nor does it require the source to be published online.".  This has been explained to you by multiple editors above but you have just shifted to nitpicking about recent entries or the context of the sources, neither of which are reasons to delete the entire list.  You haven't got a leg to stand on and so your persistence in this matter seems disruptive per WP:DEL, "It can be disruptive to repeatedly nominate a page in the hopes of getting a different outcome.".  My role in this matter is to be the only editor actually prepared to roll his sleeves up and do some real work here, finding and citing multiple sources.  Let's recap what I've listed so far:
 * The Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia
 * Gould's History of Freemasonry throughout the World
 * The History of Free Masonry and the Grand Lodge of Scotland
 * Coil's Masonic Encyclopedia
 * These all cover the topic in detail and so establish its notability. The only detail which seems to require attention is re-establishing sources for the masters in recent years.  From what has been said, this information was previously published on the Grand Lodge's website and so we might accept the current version based on that in good faith.  Should we require further confirmation then this can be done by consulting the yearbooks of the Grand Lodge which will be reliable sources for the relevant years.  Q.E.D. Warden (talk) 16:50, 24 May 2012 (UTC)


 * if this list is indeed a WP:SPINOFF... then I really must repeat my above suggestion and suggest that we MERGE this list into/back into the Grand Lodge of Scotland Article. As it happens, the Grand Lodge of Scotland article is quite short, so there is no real need to split off a list of its leaders into a separate list article.   Merging would satisfy the concept of WP:PRESERVE... the information would still be available, just in a more logical location.  I don't think anyone would question that the GL of Scotland is notable as a topic, and I would think that in the context of an article on the Grand Lodge, listing its historical leaders makes sense (after all... that's how the sources seem to deal with it).  If we do this, then the notability of GMs of Scotland as a set or topic on its own is no longer an issue...  they would be covered by the notability of the Grand Lodge. The WP:V issue for post 1900 GMs would still be a problem... but that isn't an issue for AfD. Blueboar (talk) 21:13, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

(outdent)::::::::*Question 1: what's the topic? That's really the crux of the issue. Warden's sources are all about the Grand Lodge of Scotland, wherein the Grand Masters get a mention as related items (and I do mean a mention - I wasn't exaggerating about the "one line per GM" statement). However, those sources are not about the Grand Masters in particular, and the policy for list notability is discussion about the topic, not the topic it is a subset of. Put another way, a list of apple cultivars is not notable because there's a list in an article on apples in general; it is notable if there is an article on apple cultivars in particular that talks about those cultivars in detail (which there is). Similarly, if Warden's sources were specifically focused on Grand Masters, sure, but they aren't, and I have a real problem with it being asserted otherwise. So that's one item. The issue with merging is that we do not want to have lists of Grand Masters for every Grand Lodge in the world, because 99.9% of them are really not notable at all, and the Freemasonry WikiProject is pretty much dead-set on Grand Mastership in and of itself not being notable, precisely to prevent this sort of thing. As an example, Roger W. Pageau was deleted as NN a few years ago, because he was a recent GM of Massachusetts who was simply an accountant outside of that, with no other assertion of notability outside being Grand Master for a whopping three years. We simply can't write quality articles on these people, because they just don't meet GNG. Yet that is an issue that is opened up if we merge this list as opposed to deleting it outright. There is also a huge potential for BLP issues and vanity edits, with no real way to hunt a lot of it down other than looking through proceedings for every Grand Lodge worldwide, and there are probably upwards of 600 in the US alone in all the different streams, bogus or otherwise. So it's not even manageable. However, if we strictly limit the list to only what we have reliable sources on, that's fine. We have ascertained that we do not have reliable sources past 1936 until the current GM (who started in 2008), so those in-between absolutely should not be kept until we can get a source for them. MSJapan (talk) 04:20, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
 * But we do have a list of apple cultivars. That seems to be quite uncontroversial and the chances of it being deleted or merged away are just about nil, in my experience of AFD.  Separate lists of that sort are common when the number of entries is large and the entries in the list are mostly blue links, as in this case.  The list then functions well both as indexes and a source of structured information.  A list with 100+ entries does not seem suitable for inclusion in a main article because its length will tend to make the page too long, requiring the reader to scroll too much.  Our readership increasingly uses mobile devices with small touch screens and no keyboard or mouse.  We don't want to be wearing their fingers out and so the current structure seems best. Warden (talk) 10:10, 25 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Have you looked at the Grand Lodge of Scotland main article? It is extremely short (five paragraphs... but most of them are one sentence long).  Merging the list of GMs into it will not make that article "overly long".  We have a lot of articles that are longer than a merged page would be.   As for the "scrolling issue"... a little creative thinking can resolve that... for example we could re-structure the list so it is presented in two (or even three) columns... which would shorten the length of the merged information as it appears on the page, and resolve the issue of those with mobile devices needing to wear their fingers out as they scroll down the page.   Blueboar (talk) 12:33, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. Northamerica1000(talk) 13:19, 26 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The obvious answer here is merge to Grand Lodge of Scotland p  b  p  13:33, 28 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.