Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of heads of Hong Kong by education


 * 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 delete. Randykitty (talk) 12:57, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

List of heads of Hong Kong by education

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A companion case of WP:Articles for deletion/List of heads of Colonial Singapore by education. Largely unreferenced, and the lone source does not discuss the educations of these people as a group. The list fails WP:LISTN and serves no encyclopedic purpose. Huon (talk) 22:48, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. Huon (talk) 22:48, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Education-related deletion discussions. Huon (talk) 22:48, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Hong Kong-related deletion discussions. Huon (talk) 22:48, 28 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete As per normal process as it fails notability and no encyclopedic purpose. Flipchip73 (talk) 07:09, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep "When discussing an article, remember to consider alternatives to deletion." According to Wikipedia rules, deletion should not be sought if the article could be improved. If the lack of references is the issue, then that is clearly a way to improve it. Alternatively, a merging action could be suggested. However, in order to observe the change - or the lack thereof - of educational influences from the handover, it cannot be simply merged with the governors' page, but to be a standalone page. The 'arguments' on 'encyclopedic purpose' have not gone any further beyond the simple assertion that it doesn't serve it. Without an actual argument without any elaboration whatsoever, it's uncertain how one is supposed to debate on that. Rather than looking at the ultimately subjective and unsubstantiated 'encyclopedic purpose', Wikipedia guidelines should be consulted. For example, almost every entry on the list satisfies the notability requirement, with standalone pages for those entries. Of course, both the subjects of education and leaders of Hong Kong have been deemed notable, not to mention the University of Oxford, which tops of the list for educational background among Hong Kong leaders, has its own extremely extensive lists of alumni, with numerous standalone pages dedicated just for that. These suggest the notability of this list itself. There are likewise other lists of leaders by education in existence, meaning the nature of the list is notable. So the debate is on whether leaders of Hong Kong are notable enough. It would be rather ironic to suggest that they are not, when people such as Carrie Lam and Chris Patten are on the news all the time, with the latter even occupying the office of chancellor at his alma mater. In the early days of the extradition protests, it was also a focus to have petitions from educational institutions Lam used to study at, once again showing the notability of the topic of the educational background of Hong Kong leaders. I have added numerous references to demonstrate how easily it could be improved. Many more can be added, of course. Clh hilary (talk — Preceding unsigned comment added by Clh hilary (talk • contribs) 14:02, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete indiscriminate list. -Zanhe (talk) 06:07, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete for much the same reasons as the Singapore article. I have carefully read the arguments of the article creator but none of them are convincing.  The issue is not that the article lacks sources; I don't doubt that each entry on the list can be sourced and that every person on the list is notable.  The issue is that it lacks sources discussing the subject of the page – that is, the education of the heads of Hong Kong as a group.  Wikipedia totting up the alma maters of the heads and making something of it is WP:SYNTH.  Without sources on the subject, there are no viable alternatives to deletion.  It cannot be improved or merged or redirected without such a source.  This is not a subjective decision as claimed, it is based entirely on the objective existence or otherwise of such sources. SpinningSpark 08:47, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete following largely the analysis previously outlined in the Singapore article. Please note that criteria for inclusion should factor in encyclopaedic and topical relevance, not just verifiable existence, the fact that the references can be found is not sufficient for a list article to survive AFD, see WP:LSC. Additionally, this particular convergence appears too specific to warrant a list per WP:SALAT. Further, recall that it is not sufficient for notability that the separate subjects of the list be notable on their own for a cross-categorization lists to be viable. There is no evidence so far that this cross-categorization list has been independently covered as a group or set by reliable sources, see WP:LISTN and WP:NOTDIR, and the fact some similiar lists exist is not particularly relevent when they do have independent coverage (e.g. List of bridges in Toronto is a good list but List of bridges in Whitehorse is not). Criteria such as these must be met because Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information WP:IINFO. There is no need for a merge because the educational and other data can be independently retained on the article for each listed individual. If you have further objections, or think this an insufficient justification please respond below so I can reconsider, thanks. Tinkering Gnome (talk) 15:50, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Weak delete. I know the East highly values education to a high degree so the article could potentially be interesting and of use to many people - especially people in Hong Kong or interested in Hong Kong politics. But to Westerners, I think the article will have low interest. People in the West care more about what you do with your education and not as much as how much you have. In other words, credentialism is less prevalent perhaps. Of course, if you fake your education via diploma mills or claim to have education you never achieved, then Westerners are definitely interested in that (see Wikipedia's articles on Denis Waitley and Kent Hovind concerning educational attainment battles/controversies). According to Wikipedia's page view statistics the article has had 1,927 pageviews in the last 60 days.  Is that enough public interest in the article to merit its non-deletion? I don't know. I do know that Hong Kong gets a lot of world attention and that is not going away anytime soon.Knox490 (talk) 01:39, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
 * We don't use "interesting" as a criterion for inclusion for the very reason you raise – it is subjective. It would be entirely wrong to exclude a topic just because no one in the West is interested in it.  Our primary criterion is "notability", which in these discussions is established by reliable sources discussing the topic.  It does not matter whether those sources come from the West or the East, so long as they are reliable and in-depth.  We don't use our own pageview statistics for notability (too easily manipulated), but in any case, the pageview number you give is very low.  That's mostly the noise caused by bots and wikignomes. SpinningSpark 08:27, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
 * For reference, WP:INTERESTING is directly on point as to why interest, or lack thereof is not a valid reason to keep or delete an article. Tinkering Gnome (talk) 12:47, 1 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Weak keep - this is a parallel article to List_of_presidents_of_the_Philippines_by_education, List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States_by_education, etc. If we have articles on similar heads of state/government for India, United States, United Kingdom, and the Philippines, why not Hong Kong? We need to find a consensus. Bearian (talk) 16:41, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep - actually it is a pretty useless article IMHO! However, I am very taken by Bearian's argument. There is no point in knocking this page off and leaving others that are effectively identical. What we have here is a distinct class of articles on which we should find consensus. The optimum way forward would be to nominate all the pages in this class as a group to enable an overview discussion and decision. 2A02:C7F:4481:8300:90DC:E235:5074:54B0 (talk) 18:07, 5 September 2019 (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.