Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michael Hanson


 * 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. Missvain (talk) 03:48, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Michael Hanson

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Non-notable civil servant and businessperson. Fails WP:GNG / WP:BIO. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 12:28, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone  12:32, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Hong Kong-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone  12:33, 24 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete - does not meet our notability guidelines for biographies; people creating such articles need to remember WP:NOTLINKEDIN; reads like a CV with mentions of his annual bonuses and unnecessary detail about his career Spiderone  12:36, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment by creating editor - As a top-level politician in the final colonial years of British Hong Kong who oversaw the handover of Hong Kong, he regularly features in news, books and documentaries whenever the topic is about Colonial Hong Kong or Chris Patten's governance. A google search of his Chinese name "韓新" combined with "彭定康" (Chris Patten) yield significant Chinese-language results.Lovewhatyoudo (talk) 13:01, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Question: Okay... so, if there are such "significant results", as you claim, why haven't you (as the creating editor) added them to the article? --DoubleGrazing (talk) 13:08, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I've quickly searched under the Chinese names but I can't find anything that gives more than a passing mention to Hanson. Please remember that notability is not inherited from Chris Patten. Spiderone  13:19, 24 November 2020 (UTC)


 * See the SCMP news sources I added to the article. Lovewhatyoudo (talk) 13:44, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete He was a press secretary 20 yrs ago, has gone back to a ho-hum business executive since. Oaktree b (talk) 15:54, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep I completely rewrote the article as I just discovered a full-length interview of him by South China Morning Post here. The content of the interview should justify his notability. Besides, the BBC 5-hour documentary The Last Governor also features him throughout. Editors voted before my rewrote at 16:09, 24 Nov 2020 please kindly have a second-look of the article. - Lovewhatyoudo (talk) 16:22, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not able to access the Ming Pao article. Is it available online? Spiderone  16:48, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * The Ming Pao article is reprinted here. I would rather not recommend it given I found the much more relevant full-length interview by SCMP here. Lovewhatyoudo (talk) 17:01, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * The SCMP ref is good, but it may not be enough. It's a pity that it's an interview, but the publication is/was solid, so we can probably assume they've done fact-checking before going to print. Just need a couple more RS refs now. On a side note, it's amusing that we can't narrow down the year of birth to anything closer than 20y, for someone with a claim of notability. :) --DoubleGrazing (talk) 17:05, 24 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete- As above, not notable. Deathlibrarian (talk) 12:56, 26 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Comment by creating editor The fact that he is responsible for the game-changing 1994 Hong Kong electoral reform and being remembered for the first official to bring political PR into the government made him an important figure in the political and journalistic history of Hong Kong. Lovewhatyoudo (talk) 13:44, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources.  The book's index notes: "Hanson, Mike, 182, 184, 199, 202-3, 208, 283; appointment as Patten's spokesman, 91; on erosion of morale, 282; and Hurd's exchange of letters, 171, 172, 174"  The book's index notes: "Hanson, M., 36, 46, 53-5, 61, 65, 76, 161, 164, 167, 168, 174, 201, 202, 211, 217, 218, 219, 220, 223, 224"   <li></li> </ol>

<ol> <li> The book's index notes: "Hanson, Mike, 182, 184, 199, 202-3, 208, 283; appointment as Patten's spokesman, 91; on erosion of morale, 282; and Hurd's exchange of letters, 171, 172, 174" The book notes on page 91: "The man he chose was an energetic and approachable government official on the GIS staff, Mike Hanson. Hanson had served as refugee coordinator during the critical period of 1989-91, when tension over the Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong was at its peak, and his experience had honed his natural flair for public relations. At first the chief secretary, Sir David Ford, looked askance at Patten's decision to appoint someone else to the task which had hitherto been his responsibility, but he soon came to appreciate Hanson's ability to promote the governor's cause. Patten himself was to judge that Hanson hardly put a foot wrong. As information coordinator, Hanson joined Dinham and Llewellyn in the inner circle surrounding Patten. They became a devoted triumvirate which helped to refine his ideas, protect his flank and articulate is case both privately and publicly." The book notes on page 202: "The governor's press secretary, Mike Hanson, one of his most loyal officials and himself a civil servant, was frustrated by the erosion of morale among his colleagues, some of whom complained to him that the governor had been too distracted by the conflict with China to address other important issues. They felt isolated from the policy-making process, and, they told Hanson, they no longer trusted Patten to act wisely in Hong Kong's interests. Hanson noticed that on a number of domestic issues they were becoming increasingly recalcitrant - one or two of them even failed to co-operate in the preparation of the governor's 1993 address to LegCo. Instead of identifying and exploring a range of alternative policy options, a few chose, in Hanson's words, to 'cut off the options in advance'."</li> <li> The book's index notes: "Hanson, M., 36, 46, 53-5, 61, 65, 76, 161, 164, 167, 168, 174, 201, 202, 211, 217, 218, 219, 220, 223, 224" The book notes on pages 160–161: "The Government has lacked talent. The necessary degree of vision has never emerged. A satisfactory outcome could not be found in the stolid, unimaginative, punitive responses of the Hong Kong Government, alternately pushed into action or encouraged to prevaricate by an embarrassed and equally impotent conservative administration on the other side of the world. The only exception to this lack of talent could possibly have been refugee co-ordinator Mike Hanson, who followed Ken Woodhouse and Nigel French. Regrettably, like his predecessors, Hanson had to remain in the shadow of lacklustre secretaries for security; and, just at the time when he might have been able to make a breakthrough in mid-1990 because of his personality and increasing experience in the task, he was transferred within Government service. Perhaps he was beginning to show too much understanding?"</li> <li> The article notes: "The bad feeling towards Mr Hanson appears to have been aggravated by his status as a British civil servant on secondment to the Hong Kong Government since 1985, and his close identification with Mr Patten. Despite coming from the working-class background of a northern English coal-mining family, and having previously been a member of the opposition Labour Party, Mr Hanson has become a close friend of the former chairman of the Conservative Party who is now Governor of Hong Kong, and an ardent supporter of his moves to build democracy."</li> <li> The article notes: "But in those early years the team closest to Mr Patten were ... Mike Hanson, Mr McGlynn's predecessor as information co-ordinator; ... Mr Hanson seemed at first to revel in the notoriety of being spokesman for a governor branded a man of guilt by China's director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, Lu Ping. Soon, though, he was saying he didn't like being in such a prominent job and wanted to be a backroom boy again. They put him in the CPU under Mr Goodstadt and he didn't like the back room either. But Mr Hanson was not a Hong Kong civil servant: he had been seconded from the Home Office in London in the 1980s. Late last year, he headed off to New Zealand 'and lived on a beach for six months', assured of a senior job in the British civil service."</li> <li> The article notes: "WE HEAR Governor Chris Patten may lose his voice before long, amid growing talk of his public relations sidekick, spokesman Mike Hanson, moving to pastures new. Mr Hanson, who has been in his present post - officially entitled information co-ordinator - for two years, has never been entirely at ease with a job that involves public relations rather than policy, and is said not to be averse to a move."</li> </ol>

There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow Michael Hanson to pass Notability, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". Cunard (talk) 01:54, 29 November 2020 (UTC)</li></ul> <div class="xfd_relist" style="border-top: 1px solid #AAA; border-bottom: 1px solid #AAA; padding: 0px 25px;"> Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Missvain (talk) 02:29, 2 December 2020 (UTC) <div class="xfd_relist" style="border-top: 1px solid #AAA; border-bottom: 1px solid #AAA; padding: 0px 25px;"> Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep agree with Cunard, and he is a major political figure as the head of political public relations of the British Hong Kong government. However, I think the multiple news articles fulfill WP:BASIC: "multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject." VocalIndia (talk) 15:48, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Missvain (talk) 01:24, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep Cunard has ably demonstrated notability per WP:NEXIST. Policy WP:ATD applies. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:20, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep As others have said, subsequent edits in November 2020 have added independent references which demonstrate notability. Threedotshk (talk) 09:20, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep: The South China Morning Post sources look good to me. — Toughpigs (talk) 14:30, 14 December 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> 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.