Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Richard Neville, 11th Baron Braybrooke (3rd nomination)


 * 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 and redirect‎__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__ to Baron Braybrooke. There seems to be consensus that an article at this point is not warranted, with even the "keep" !votes mostly arguing that the subject is notable because of his positions, but fail to present convincing coverage. A redirect to Baron Braybrooke seems harmless. However, given the history of this article I am also deleting it. If ever substantial sourcing becomes available, any admin could undelete the current article. Randykitty (talk) 17:20, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Richard Neville, 11th Baron Braybrooke
AfDs for this article:


 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

This article was recreated in May 2023, but it still fails WP:BASIC and WP:ANYBIO. British peers are not inherently notable. Neville was also never elected to the House of Lords, so WP:NPOL is not met either. I wonder if WP:SALT is worth considering here.

On top of the source assessment of the previous AfD (which closed as delete), I am adding my personal source assessment for the new sources below.

Sources 1-10:

Sources 11-21:

Pilaz (talk) 00:35, 12 July 2023 (UTC) Please add new comments below this notice. Not eligible for Soft Deletion. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 00:37, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Businesspeople, Royalty and nobility,  and United Kingdom. Pilaz (talk) 00:35, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete per source review tables above, zero RS; and props for doing two of them. I just did one for another AfD and it's quite laborious... I find nothing for this individual. Oaktree b (talk) 01:28, 19 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Redirect per WP:ATD to Baron Braybrooke - absolutely no reason not to. Ingratis (talk) 09:54, 19 July 2023 (UTC) - amplified below. Ingratis (talk) 05:35, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment: I would actually prefer (but pointless to !vote for it) that this and all comparable peerage articles should be kept, firstly because peers up to and including current ones are perennial subjects of enquiry, regardless of the current Wikipedia orthodoxy, and secondly because it's illogical to give articles (or as a bare if not substandard minimum, links) to some members of a series and not others, thus creating little gaps everywhere without obvious reason and creating an inept moth-eaten appearance, but that's the consequence of following "the rules" without any further thought. Not doing the reader any favours though. Ingratis (talk) 09:54, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I understand your point, but the truth is that many other NPOL-compliant peers don't receive significant coverage either. For consistency's sake, one could also nominate those NPOL-compliant but GNG-noncompliant articles, which would result in a GNG vs SNG ideological split at AfD like always. Personally, I find it more useful and less intensive to the AfD community to go after the NPOL-noncompliant, GNG-noncompliant peers. Pilaz (talk) 15:06, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Relisting comment: Deja vu. I closed the 2nd AFD nomination for this subject nominated by the same editor. I still think we could use additional input on sources and the possibility of a Redirect. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 00:44, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep: I created the third incarnation of this article as it came to my attention that the subject probably does have a role that satisfies notability. The subject is the Visitor of Magdalene College, Cambridge and is arguably therefore the most senior academic administrator of the college, and is a role that comes with real responsibilities (although these responsibilities have been eroded throughout the years). I believe the fact that the subject is the visitor satisfies WP:NACADEMIC, specifically point 6. I raise the point that all visitors of the Cambridge colleges (and indeed Oxford) have their own WP pages see List of college visitors of the University of Cambridge, and based on this alone it would therefore be anomalous for there not to be an article about the subject (although I acknowledge that other visitors in the list generally derive notability in other ways). Perhaps this is a case where the article needs improvement to clarify why exactly the subject is notable. The role of visitor is little understood, but it is by no means insignificant. The subject is also somewhat notable in the context of hereditary peerages, and the inheritance of landed estates, as his predecessor (10th Baron) had eight girls, but no boys (a chance of 1 in 256), and therefore the subject (distant cousin) inherited the title, but the estate went elsewhere. There was significant coverage in the UK press and legal firms at the time of this inheritance, making the case for the perceived injustice of primogeniture. The article did originally include a large amount of this information. DMEVB (talk) 18:55, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * @DMEVB, how high does a college visitor rank in the United Kingdom? Because from the University of Cambridge article, it seems to me that the highest-level elected or appointed administrative post described by WP:NACADEMIC #6 is the Chancellor or Vice-Chancellor. The word "visitor" doesn't even appear in that article. Pilaz (talk) 20:33, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
 * A fair view might be that: a visitor is to a constituent college as a chancellor is to a university. The visitor's main role is to be the last resort to adjudicate in college disputes (except where recent law has superseded-particularly in relation to student disputes). If, for example, there were a disagreement within the fellowship (academics who are senior members) of the college that the governing body could not resolve, the visitor would be the last internal member of the college to adjudicate on the matter, and normally they have absolute authority on matters they are asked to step-in to resolve and might seek their own independent legal representation if the matter is not straightforward.
 * The role of visitor is not a university position (at least at the universities concerned), but a college position, which is why you won't find it mentioned on the University of Cambridge article. The colleges are entities legally autonomous from the university and have their own governance as prescribed in the individual college statutes. If a visitor is not able to resolve a dispute, the next level-up is probably the Lord Chancellor or the legal system itself, and not in fact the university governance (although another complication is that the Chancellor of the University is in fact the visitor of a number of colleges).
 * To further answer your question of ranking by asking another question: if you were a current academic, member of staff, or student at Magdalene College (of which there are probably 500-1,000 at any given time, plus 10,000s alumni) would you want to know who the nominally-highest ranking member of the College is? I think the answer is an unequivocal yes. I believe the 10th Baron (previous) did step in to adjudicate certain matters, one being about reinstating a student who had been expelled for alcohol-related reasons. If you were in this situation, you would want to know who the person who might be able to help you is! But these are internal disputes, so you won't find information about them online. There was recently a high-profile dispute at Christ Church, Oxford, where I believe the visitor (The Crown) was asked to step-in to resolve, resulting in the Dean (head) of the college stepping down in 2022.
 * Some of the reasons you can't find much information about the visitor are:-
 * - Governance of a college is (historically) deliberately opaque and intractable to outsiders without intimate knowledge of its function, although this is becoming less common.
 * - The optics in the "age of meritocracy" of having a hereditary peer who is nominally the most senior member may not be desired by the college, and they may not want to draw attention to this fact. It quite frankly looks a bit odd when the college is undertaking "access to university" initiatives to deprived/poor areas of the country, when the college has a hereditary British Lord sat at the top in a hereditary role. It is not surprising that the visitor is not included in the online college directory, which is why one reference is a link to the online college directory to demonstrate absence of the subject.
 * - The subject does not appear to be a notable individual and so there isn't much specific information available about the subject online. But given the subject has inherited an important academic role at an academic institute (and despite their currently being no evidence of his attending university himself as of 2023) that's exactly why there should be an article about the subject! The case of how this inheritance has occurred is an interesting one. Previous Barons Braybrooke (as in some of the previous holders in title) have been longest-serving Master (head) of the college, alumni themselves, and have had very strong links to the college (and yes, therefore simultaneously visitor as well), and suddenly by fluke of inheritance, someone with no known association to the college, and is otherwise in contrast to other college visitors completely undistinguished, is visitor! The subject is notable because of these circumstances. Although individually some of the references in the article might be weak, the body of references taken as a whole, I believe provide sufficient verifiability for the subject's notability, which I claim only under WP:NACADEMIC #6. The references do provide sufficient evidence as to why the subject is notable under WP policy. DMEVB (talk) 22:28, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep – I can see the point that Braybrooke was never in the Lords, so he doesn't get that free ride, and it seems his only claim to distinction is the odd one of being the hereditary Visitor of a Cambridge college. But WP:N is not remotely about importance, the nitty gritty of it is verifiability, and we have that for almost everything. Unlike a print encyclopedia, Wikipedia has no practical limitation on its coverage, and its aspiration "all human knowledge is here" does take it to including some unimportant people, subject to verifiability. Having said that, when it comes to notable ancestors, we do not need much more than a simple link. Moonraker (talk) 05:34, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The "nitty gritty of it" isn't verifiability, it's whether the subject has received 1) significant coverage in 2) multiple 3)independent 4) reliable sources, which is why the lithmus test for WP:N is the WP:GNG. So let me ask the question: do you think that the subject of this article passes the GNG or not? Pilaz (talk) 20:27, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I stand by verifiability -- and the way that is delivered is by reliable sources that are independent of the subject. The GNG does not require "multiple sources". The crunch question is whether there is "significant coverage", WP:SIGCOV, and that depends on the biography in Debrett's Peerage, which you say is a reliable source, but not a secondary source. The WP:GNG does not make a distinction.  WP:Reliable sources prefers secondary sources, but I say Debrett's is a secondary source, and what it says about tertiary sources makes no sense.  I agree of course that Wikipedia is a "tertiary" source, being constructed from secondary and primary sources, but it is surely an absurd idea that "encyclopedias" in general are "tertiary". There could not be a non-notable person with a biography in Encyclopedia Britannica, in which each article is written by a suitable scholar.  On The Times, I do not have access to it where I am today. So I am erring on the side of caution. Moonraker (talk) 19:31, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The fourth bullet point of the GNG says that sources must be secondary. Besides, coverage in Debrett's is only a two-sentence passing mention, hardly SIGCOV. And to address your point that it is surely an absurd idea that "encyclopedias" in general are "tertiary", see WP:TERTIARY, which clearly lists encyclopedias. WP:SECONDARY is quite clear that a secondary source provides thought and reflection based on primary sources, and I'm not seeing any thought and reflection in the Debrett's passage. Pilaz (talk) 22:28, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Delete If this results in a keep result, there should be a one-year moratorium on renominating the poor fellow. Having said that, titles and all that apart, there are simply not the sources here to pass WP:GNG. The Telegraph announcements are small ads, the bottleshop coverage isn't about the subject at all. We are left with a single RS piece in The Times - and that just cutteth not the mustard. He's simply not a notable noble. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 14:42, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment - expanding on my above Redirect !vote: like it or not, peers - ALL peers - are plausible search terms, but this one especially so because of the circumstances, mentioned above by User:DMEVB, of his succession to the title. This may not be quite enough to warrant a Keep in the face of a rigid adherence to the "rules", but it's certainly enough to merit a redirect to the Baron Braybrooke article which cd usefully take up some of DMEVB's refs (the ones removed from this article by a SP IP editor). Ingratis (talk) 05:35, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * and when I say "Redirect", I mean keeping the page history, as I think it's possible that the article may be developed in future. Ingratis (talk) 11:38, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * (What is the SP acronym please?) The IP editor of the article removed a large number of references that would strengthen the Keep vote. The IP editor edited two articles only: initially Magdalene College, Cambridge, and then Richard Neville, 11th Baron Braybrooke. They seem to be an experienced user as they quote WP policy in their edits. DMEVB (talk) 15:05, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * SP = Single Purpose or SPA, single purpose account. Not generally regarded as a good thing at AfD, which would normally only attract participation from more experienced editors rather than those with no or very few edits under their belt. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 15:45, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Apologies for the acronym - as explained by Alexandermcnabb. Ingratis (talk) 11:38, 30 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Baron Braybrooke What did change since the last consesus? I can't see the point why this article was recreated. -- Theoreticalmawi (talk) 16:43, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Could it meet G4 of CSD?  Invading Invader  (userpage, talk) 03:39, 3 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Weak Delete, without prejudice. Maybe draftily and resubmit via AFC. I personally feel unconvinced by Moonraker's reasoning for him existing on Wikipedia, but if better evidence for notability could be brought to my attention, I would be willing to adjust my position, and while conditionally I am weak delete as of writing, I would endorse draftifying his article if I see better proof of notability  Invading Invader  (userpage, talk) 03:42, 3 August 2023 (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.