Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Manchester councillors

 This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was no consensus (keep). Eugene van der Pijll 21:55, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Manchester councillors
This is a joint nomination for the following articles: Liaqat Ali, James Ashley (UK politician), Simon Ashley, Faraz Bhatti, John Bridges, John Cameron (British politician), Abid Chohan, Abu Chowdhury, John Commons (politician), Basil Curley, Iain Donaldson, Paul Fairweather, Helen Fisher, John Grant (British politician), Wendy Helsby, Eric Hobin Rodney Isherwood, Bernadette Newing, Sheila Newman, Tony Parkinson, David Royle, Mohammed Sajjad, David Sandiford, Paul Shannon (UK politician), John-Paul Wilkins, Lynne Williams and Joy Winder. The articles have in common the fact that they are all local government councillors in Manchester, the articles are stubs, and the people concerned are not notable in any other way, save for Commons and Donaldson who have stood for Parliament unsuccessfully (we are told that Shannon "drives a distinctive car"). Most of them are Liberal Democrat councillors. These articles are quite simply not notable and probably just there to increase the political profile of the subjects and of the Liberal Democrats in Manchester. David | Talk 21:48, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete NN. David | Talk 21:48, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep the fact that they have been elected to public office says they are noteworthy. Simon Ashley is the leader of the Liberal Democrat group on Manchester City Council.  If we are going to delete all these articles, why not delete all Councillors entirely - such as David Boothroyd.  I know his article is comprehensive showing his political career to date, but surely that started as a stub....
 * If you are arguing that anyone elected to public office anywhere is notable, then I disagree. Do you really think an article on every member of Abbots Langley Parish Council (to take one at randon) would be useful? Or perhaps I should create a page for Henry Luttman-Johnson, elected unopposed to represent Hamlet of Knightsbridge Ward on Westminster City Council on November 1, 1912, died on November 20, 1912. Councillors are not notable in themselves but they are notable if there are other reasons. If you're referring to Votes for deletion/David Boothroyd, then check: it survived because I am a published author and compiler of election results. PS please sign your contributions. David | Talk 22:10, 19 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep Manchester City Council and Abbots Langley parish Council do not compare. I would draw the line at the legal level of a "Principal Council" - but not a parish council. The stubs can either grow, or be merged in to a "Manchester Councillors" page. DKB
 * Interested to know why user David does not want to delete Labour councillors .... Eric Hobin, Basil Curley, Sheila Newman, David Royle etc.
 * Because I went through all the wards I could find linked from Manchester. I'm happy to add them. David | Talk 22:14, 19 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep we had quite a lengthy discussion of this issue at Deletion policy/Local politicians, which found there was no consensus to delete these articles. For several of our better covered cities we now have articles on all present and many past councillors, for instance see Category:Toronto city councillors. At the moment the Manchester ones seem to all be short stubs, so we might consider merging them into a single page on Manchester City Council. - SimonP 22:21, August 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * Can I enquire how many people the Toronto City Councillors represent? (clue: 55,000) San Francisco's Supervisors have districts as large as UK Parliamentary constituencies. Would it surprise you to know that these Manchester City Councillors represent an electorate of about 3,000 each? David | Talk 22:25, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
 * It would certainly surprise me! Which ward in Manchester has only 3,000 electors???? Harpurhey ward has over 10,000 electors!
 * There are three councillors per ward. David | Talk 22:41, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
 * That may be so, but the councillors do not apportion a third of the electorate each, the councillors still represent all 10,000 or so electors in the ward!!!
 * That is a sophist's argument. In my experience most councillors in three-member wards do apportion them out. While all three may speak collectively for the ward, it is normal in measuring the level of representation to take the number of electors per councillor and not number of electors per ward. Please sign your contributions. David | Talk 23:10, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
 * What rot this person is spouting - being a councillor in a three-member ward I cannot not represesent someone who may have been "allotted" to another ward colleague. We represent all electors in the ward.  The practice of allotting a third each might operate in Westminster, but no-where else to my knowledge.  Also what happens where councillors in a ward of differing political parties?  Who decides who represents which third is those circumstances?  Utter rot to suppose that wards are divided by three.

Alert: Caught red-handed. This edit was made by 62.252.192.8 (see ) who was the same user, using this IP or 62.252.192.7 who created most of the biographies of Manchester councillors. And here he says he is a councillor. This is a blatant case of Autobiography. David | Talk 22:00, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I didn't say I was a councillor in Manchester! I am not! Nor did I say I was a Liberal Democrat councillor! This David Boothroyd seems to have a desire to be always right - even when he isn't!
 * I have only a desire to make a better encyclopaedia, which includes deleting biographies of non-notable people, and abiding by our no personal attacks policy which you should read right now. You do know that anon votes are often not counted in deletion debates, don't you? David | Talk 22:47, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Oh is it a personal attack to describe you as having a desire for always being right, but not a personal attack on me saying this is a blatant case of autobiography when it isn't. No-one is launching personal attacks but when you grasp at straws to put forward your arguments you can expect them to answered robustly!


 * Keep I agree with SimonP - Manchester is a major city in the UK, and Manchester's councillors should be included - perhaps David would agree a compromise and allow them to be listed on the Manchester City page??? We already have Westminster and Birmingham councillors (perhaps not all, but some) in Wikipedia - submitted by Colin Armstrong.
 * We do not have any significant number of Westminster councillors. That's completely wrong. Discounting those who were also MPs there is only Shirley Porter (notable for the scandal), Ben Summerskill (notable as journalist and campaigner), David Boothroyd (notable as author and election researcher), and Murad Qureshi (notable as GLA member). I won't object to a single article on Manchester City Council members but it won't take any significant information from these biogs because they are substubs. I almost speedied them they were so poor. David | Talk 23:00, 19 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep. Factual and verifiable article can be written. Trollderella 23:22, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
 * There's a difference between biography and prosopography. David | Talk 23:32, 19 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep all. Why not work to fix them up if they are poor? Clair de Lune 00:04, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete all UK local councillors are not inherently notable. If we include them, simply because they are 'elected' then we'd need to include community councillors and school boards too. We have to draw a line somewhere. Besides, there are literaly thousands of councillors changing seats every few years – who will update all these records? No-one is that sad! Delete all - and if anyone wants, they can list them --Doc (?) 01:49, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete Tiny stubs on people elected to 10,000 population wards. Who, other than friends and families is ever going to look at this? --Porturology 03:12, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete or merge all of them into a list of Manchester councillors. Uppland 05:23, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
 *  Keep  SchmuckyTheCat 05:41, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep per SimonP. Ground Zero 11:47, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete all. Being elected as a councillor alone is not enough for notability, else all 20,000(?) or so would be eligible for a WP entry. Qwghlm 15:26, August 20, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Useless trivia. Gamaliel 18:25, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete (1st choice) or Merge (2nd choice), per Uppland. Xoloz 20:31, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep - Principle Local Authorities (and that includes Mets) should be included. However a question: how come Basil Curley, David Royle, Paul Fairweather and Sheila Newman are on the Lib Dem page?  Unless a mass defection has gone entirely unreported in the media, they're all still Labour Councillors.
 * I thought I read the David Royle had joined the Liberal Democrats?
 * They are not 'on the Lib Dem page'. David | Talk 22:00, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Did David Royle join the LibDems? Or did I misread that?

Keep - There are a number of other Lib Dem politicians listed whose only elected office is as a Councillor on a Principal Council. Also, at least one other (Jackie Pearcey) has also been a parliamentary candidate. Colin Rosenstiel, Deputy Leader, Cambridge City Council Lib Dem).
 * Delete. Not notable enough. Nandesuka 23:21, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete - I'm gonna go for delete on this one. How many local councillors can you name?  I'm not sure about systems in other countries, but in the UK, local councillors just do menial bureaucratic tasks.  They do have influence on the local area, and have some local notability, but it's on a too small scale.  When local council elections take place, the news channels never look at specific election battles, or even bother naming any individual candidates.  It's just used as a popularity poll for the major parties, and can help people guess the outcome of a general election, when people vote for MPs, actual notable people. - Hahnchen 02:47, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment Having too much time on my hands I have looked up the election results. Not only do the wards have only 10,000 voters on average but the turnout in 2004 was about 30%. Each voter has 3 votes i.e. the total number of votes in each ward was ~9,000. but as far as I can tell none of these councillors got more than 2000 votes. Obviously if you have enough friends and relatives (about 500 will do) and join a voting block in Manchester you can become a councillor. These stubs are only to increase the notoriety of nn officials.--Porturology 06:06, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete or Merge as per Uppland. Oldelpaso 10:55, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, as above. --Agamemnon2 14:42, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge, per SimonP's Manchester City Council idea.  -maclean25 19:50, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep, there may be some notables in the list, it is wrong to delete everyone at the same time. Some of them have been Lord Mayors - surely they are worthy of being in Wikipedia.Rhyddfrydol 01:25, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Just a thought. If you are going to publish details about us for an encyclopedia online, then perhaps the first thing you should do is contact us to ask us to funish you with information you are interested in publishing.  The entry about me (for example) would appear to have been taken directly from a summary list that was created for the Manchester Liberal Democrats website, and certainly does not cover my political career, nor does it give any mention of my personal philosophies and/or achievements.  The difficulty you would appear to be having here is that some person has, unbeknowned to me (and certainly at least one other councillor who drew my attention to this site)  taken copyrighted material out of context and posted it here, leaving you in a most unnecessary quandry as to what to do with it.  I believe that if you are looking to produce an online encyclopedia that perhaps the most productive approach would be to create a basic summary of the local work of the three parties elected to local government in Manchester - 57 Labour, 38 Lib Dem, and 1 Green.  This could then be linked to the appropriate local Government and local party websites for further information.  Our local party website, just for the record, is WWW.manchester-libdems.org.uk.  Sorry about the poor editing btw, couldn't quite work it out.  Iain Donaldson
 * Question - is this a case that if one goes, the whole lot have to go? Certainly the article on Iain Donaldson cannot be classed as a stub now, and I would vote that his entry stays.Rhyddfrydol 20:10, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge into single city council article. --fvw *  20:10, August 23, 2005 (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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.