Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Minister of State for Middle East and North Africa


 * 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 speedy keep. Nomination withdrawn. (non-admin closure) FollowTheTortoise (talk) 15:20, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Minister of State for Middle East and North Africa

 * – ( View AfD View log )

I first started a discussion about deleting all "Minister of State for..." and "Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for..." articles earlier this year here. While I understand that commendable effort has gone into these articles, they are all effectively a summary of the office holder's responsibilities and a list of past incumbents. At best, these articles reference gov.uk and parliament.uk for this, though they sometimes don't. An example of this is Minister of State, Ministry of Justice. As well as including original research, I also don't think that the articles pass WP:NOTE, particularly significant coverage that is independent of the subject. After reading a comment from ninety one, I have now come to the conclusion that these articles should be just deleted and that there is nothing of note to merge into any other articles and, indeed, as they said, nothing that cannot be easily found on gov.uk or parliament.uk. As well as Minister of State for Middle East and North Africa, I am also nominating the following related pages for deletion together: Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (United Kingdom), Minister of State for Asia, Minister of State for South Asia and the Commonwealth, Minister for Security, Minister for Policing, Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, Minister of State for Health (UK), Minister of State for Social Care (UK), Minister of State for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety, Minister of State for Business, Energy and Clean Growth, Minister for Disabled People, Minister of State for Universities, Minister of State for Schools, Minister of State for Housing, Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, Minister of State for Media and Data, Minister for European Neighbourhood and the Americas, Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Prevention, Public Health and Primary Care, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science, Research and Innovation, Minister for Children (United Kingdom), Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Arts, Heritage and Tourism. FollowTheTortoise (talk) 18:47, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2021 June 30.  —cyberbot I   Talk to my owner :Online 18:42, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Roller26 (talk) 18:50, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. Roller26 (talk) 18:50, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Africa-related deletion discussions. Roller26 (talk) 18:50, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Middle East-related deletion discussions. Roller26 (talk) 18:50, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. Roller26 (talk) 18:50, 30 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Procedural keep, without prejudice to individual renominations. This is an enormous list, and it seems to me that at least some of these positions have probably received substantial coverage. In any event, there are too many differences between the articles to make this a valid bundle: each article ought to be assessed on its own merits. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 05:47, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the feedback! I can absolutely sort individual nominations. FollowTheTortoise (talk) 08:16, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Procedural keep per Extraordinary Writ. Far too many to consider all at once, and even the nomination statement makes it clear they are a disperate set (some cite... some don't). I also suspect that if any are found not notable individually that merges and redirection will be appropriate but the targets are going to be different. I strongly recommend spacing out individual nominations over a couple of weeks to avoid overloading AfD participants and allow each article to be fully considered on it's own merits (there is going to be a limited pool of interested editors with subject knowledge). Thryduulf (talk) 08:49, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Will do. Thanks for the feedback! FollowTheTortoise (talk) 09:19, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * (after edit conflict) Isn't "a summary of the office holder's responsibilities and a list of past incumbents" exactly the type of information that we would expect to be in an encyclopedia? The nominator seems to have the idea that we shouldn't have information that can be found elsewhere. That is a complete reversal of our notability and verifiability rules. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:23, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I absolutely understand and agree with that point. The two grounds that I am arguing under are WP:NOR and WP:NOTE, sorry for not explaining that clearly enough. FollowTheTortoise (talk) 09:33, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Procedural keep, without prejudice to individual renominations. As per others, I think the merits of the individual articles varies too much to be considered together. Could you re-nominate separately please? Bondegezou (talk) 10:58, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the feedback - I will do, when I've got a bit of time. FollowTheTortoise (talk) 11:42, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment, Is it considered ok to just delete this many articles all in one go? Editors have spent many hours editing them so I don't think its very courteous. I have probably spent the most hours creating and editing these pages so this is my comment: 1. These lists can ONLY be found on Wikipedia. I know this because I made many of them. Researching these lists were very difficult, so the idea that the lists can be easily found is just wrong. The government website does not have historic lists of these officeholders and it wasn't easy writing them up. 2. There's clearly things of note in these articles and the links work. The ministerial offices were being searched for, and the original redirects to the department was misleading I thought. And the one example you use, Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, is the only article which has had a name change and has a sentence referring to the government website, so I think it's a bit unfair to single that one out. 3. These articles were made in the style of the Cabinet Ministerial roles, (Secretary of State (United Kingdom)), some of these ministerial offices have even been members of the cabinet; so why are they less notable? The Offices exist just as much as the other ministers. 4. These lists are probably more notable than the civil servant lists in the agencies and departments of the US Federal Government. These articles are in a similar style, with the history of the role, the responsibilities of the office, and the holders of office listed. Moondragon21 (talk) 14:29, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Hey @Moondragon21. I meant absolutely no disrespect to you or any other editor in making this nomination. To avoid mass deletions, to be courteous and to hear the views of others (to name just three reasons) is why we have a nomination process and why I also started a similar discussion several months ago, but I now understand that these were too many articles to nominate at once. I am going to withdraw this AfD and will think very carefully about what you have said before making a decision to renominate any article. I only singled out Minister of State, Ministry of Justice because it was an article that I have edited and so I know it well. I mentioned that in the linked discussion on the WikiProject, but didn't here. Thank you for replying and I am sorry for any offence caused. FollowTheTortoise (talk) 15:18, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi FollowTheTortoise. No worries, thanks for replying. Moondragon21 (talk) 16:23, 1 July 2021 (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.