Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Martin Hill (councillor)


 * 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. postdlf (talk) 14:41, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Martin Hill (councillor)

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Non-notable per WP:POLITICIAN, no significant coverage online in WP:Reliable sources. Proposed deletion contested by article's creator. Gurt Posh (talk) 14:33, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions.  —Gurt Posh (talk) 15:33, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions.  —Gurt Posh (talk) 15:33, 25 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. As the leader of a county council I think he definitely satisfies notability criteria. Also recipient of an OBE; although that is not in itself a high enough honour for inclusion without other good reason, it does add to his notability. Remember that online coverage is not a requisite; any coverage, including print, is acceptable. There are plenty of mentions online in any case. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:46, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * "Leader of a county council" makes notability more likely, but it is not one of the criteria so the general guideline must be used. Peter E. James (talk) 22:20, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * No, nothing must be used. We are urged to use common sense and remember that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. There are no rules here. -- Necrothesp (talk) 22:59, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe, but this is a BLP, and you haven't provided a good reason to ignore the rules. I'll stay neutral unless more coverage is found, or guidelines are changed. Peter E. James (talk) 00:04, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Um, "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it"! I think leaders of county councils are every bit as important as mayors of mid-sized cities, as cited in WP:POLITICIAN. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:05, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Weak keep. Although WP:POLITICIAN doesn't make any particular allowances for the leaders of councils, Lincolnshire is quite a big county, and the OBE pushes things in his favour. The coverage is mostly stuff of the form "Martin Hill says ...", but I'm prepared to give benefit of the doubt. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 18:45, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Significant coverage is needed, and there isn't evidence of this in the article. Of the coverage I can find, most is only quoting something he has said, only two of the mentions are about him. Peter E. James (talk) 22:20, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep - Lite bio of a rural English politician. He's elected, fair enough. Carrite (talk) 01:38, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment Please allow to me to expand a bit on the rationale for deletion. WP:POLITICIAN says "Just being an elected local official, or an unelected candidate for political office, does not guarantee notability, although such people can still be notable if they meet the primary notability criterion of "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject of the article". I'm not quoting rules, but rather trying to stick to what seems to me the spirit of the guidelines. County councillor articles are very thin on the ground on Wikipedia. That's certainly not proof of non-notability, but it's a clue. There isn't even an article on Lincolnshire County Council yet: it redirects to Lincolnshire, which is rather short. As elected leader of the county council he certainly merits a referenced mention in Lincolnshire, but notability sufficient for a separate article does not seem to me to have been established here merely by virtue of being elected. Press coverage, as mentioned above, is limited to fleeting mentions, rather than significant coverage. If there is offline coverage of him, then let's by all means userfy this article and take the time to add evidence of notability. But if we include every article on every elected English politician, then where is the boundary of notability?  Should we include elected district councillors and elected parish councillors as well?
 * No, we shouldn't even include most county councillors. But he is the elected leader of a county council. That's a bit different. It means he's effectively the head of local government of the county. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:05, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep as he is leader of the county council. Many of the Wikipedia policies and guidelines have been drawn up with the US in mind and mayors and members of citywide governments in major metropolitan areas do qualify, for example. Recent deletion arguments have concentrated on the size of the community they represent rather than GNG. It is simply irrational to say that mayors who hold office for a year and with largely ceremonial duties should be in, the leader of the council who holds executive responsibility usually for some years should not. US politics are different and built around personalties, but the very poor coverage of UK public affairs and the public sector in Wikipedia is something that should be of much greater concern. Too often the attempts to create such articles are attacked with but nobody else is interested (which is actually what many of the notability arguments really are) and is not a sensible approach for an encyclopedia. --AJHingston (talk) 11:26, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment It is both inaccurate and unhelpful to characterise an AFD discussion as an "attack". I ran across this article while doing WP:New pages patrol, and it didn't seem to me to meet the guidelines as currently defined, so I took it to AFD.  In reply, I've been treated to this foaming, swivel-eyed rant on my talk page, accused of engaging in pissing contests and singling out articles on Conservatives for deletion on a related AFD, and now accused, via a straw man argument, of "attacking" an article. Nobody here is arguing "but nobody else is interested".
 * If this discussion helps to clarify the (currently quite fuzzy) guidelines on notability of office in WP:POLITICIAN by defining county council leaders as generally notable, then that will be a fine thing and a useful outcome to this AFD. But how about a bit of WP:AGF while we debate the policy and arrive at a consensus? Cheers, Gurt Posh (talk) 23:35, 29 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep On this talk page User:Bridgeplayer notes that a leader of a unitary authority or county council meets the criteria required for inclusion. I wouldn't say that was always true, but that they are at least able to be included if required; not every county council or unitary authority leader by any stretch needs to be included. Martin Hill, with chubby-cheeked Carl Minns, is regularly featured on the local BBC news - at least once every two weeks, if not once a week sometimes. I don't even know the names of the leaders of North Lincolnshire or North East Lincolnshire, and I can't remember seeing them on the news. Nearby the leader of Leicestershire CC has a high profile, but is not often on the news, and the leader of Nottinghamshire CC is featured often on the local news, if merely because her name (Kay Cutts) is somewhat unfortunately topical.


 * It is worth also mentioning the fact that well-before the 2010 general election, I set out to radically update all the articles on current MPs, if only because there was a lot of information sitting quietly on the BBC's 2001 election site that needed full airing. It was not always a pretty picture. We now know that many MPs are not the most trustworthy individuals with regards to their relationship with HMRC, but I spotted a few peculiar inconsistencies well before then. Even to this day, quite a few Labour MPs keep their early backgrounds under wraps, as they have had a more privileged life than they would want us to think. I know a bit about notability of our glorious humble representatives, and how they keep it to themselves. DinosaursLoveExistence (talk) 07:13, 31 July 2011 (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.