Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fanny Furner

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 no consensus. W.marsh 14:55, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fanny Furner

Fanny Furner (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

This may be a controversial case, but in my point of view this person fails WP:BIO. Secondary sources given are limited to coverage in a local Australian newspaper, The Manly Daily. While this might formally pass WP:BIO, I feel that coverage in such newspaper of only local or regional importance cannot constitute "substantial" coverage. -- Sent here as part of the Notability wikiproject. --B. Wolterding 13:37, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Comment 99% of stuff on Wikipedia is of only 'regional' importance. Does someone in Surinam care who the junior senator for Kansas is? If she formally passes WP:BIO then she formally passes WP:BIO otherwise you're just saying your personal opinion trumps Wikipedia policy and every article here is up for grabs. Nick mallory 14:20, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Reply: Maybe you misunderstood me: My concern is not that every topic should be of "global" importance. But it's a matter of how large the region is. There are so many local newspapers in the world (and have been more in the past) that being covered there does not mean much. I do not consider myself as notable for a Wikipedia article (by far not); but with a bit of work I could certainly show that I have been mentioned in the local newspaper 3-4 times (in the context of a sports event, a local competition, a school theatre play, ...). The same would apply to almost everybody in my family, and possibly to everyone in the village (haven't verified that, of course). And all of them are really not notable for an encyclopedia. I don't know much about Australian geography, but "the local government areas of Manly, Pittwater and Warringah" seems to be rather the lowest category to me. --B. Wolterding 14:30, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm English but, god help me, I live in Sydney, Australia at the moment and Manly, Pittwater and Warringah are all well known Sydney suburbs. It's a big city. I guess you'd rule out the 'Village Voice' as a source then in future? Nick mallory 15:00, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure regarding the Village Voice. But for the Manly Daily: It's distributed in 90.000 copies (today), not very impressive; covers local events and sports, among general news, as far as I can see. There's nothing wrong about that. But would everybody covered in that newspaper be automatically notable? Like, for example, Georgia Bainbridge? By the letters of the guidelines, the answer may be yes. By the spirit of the guidelines - no, I honestly don't think so. --B. Wolterding 19:26, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

• Keep I hear what you're saying Wolterding but if we're going to argue about the spirit of the guidelines, rather than what they actually say, then AfD is going to have 10,000 articles a day, rather than 100. If you want to change the notability rules, then argue for the rules to be changed, not the freedom to interpret them anyway you want to on an ad hoc basis. There's plenty of articles on wikipedia which don't have any sources at all so maybe they should go first. Nick mallory 02:01, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
• Weak keep She died decades before info started being put in online info bases, so someone would have to look at microfilm or newspaper archives to check for additional info.By Googling I found one more article in the National Library of Australia in Canberra per [1] entitled "'Fanny Furner JP 1864-1938' - P. Richardson" in Box 21 folder 111 of MS 9140, Papers of Edna Ryan (1904-1997). Perhaps someone there could take a look at said article and add it as a reference. Not everything from the early 1900's has been indexed such that it would show up in a Google search. Since she was apparently an early suffragette I would expect that there would have been more articles than writers of the Wikipedia article had ready access to. Edison 14:11, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Wikipedia is so full of people writing articles about themselves or some barely-notable contemporary, it's a relief to read about someone who is notable for actions they took long ago. I live across the globe from Oz, but I've heard of Manly. Sources could be expanded, but that's worth a references tag, not an AfD. Kim Dent-Brown ^{(Talk to me)} 16:11, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

• The "unsourced" tag has been on the article since October 06. --B. Wolterding 16:30, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Australia-related deletions. -- John Vandenberg 15:20, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - better sources needed, but they would be available - this is a historical figure of some note, even if local. Orderinchaos 23:13, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Notability not yet established. She is not in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. Furner wasn't the first female JP in NSW as the first group were appointed in 1921, and at any rate, they were honourary (as all JP's were then). One incidental reference in a local newspaper doesn't yet satisfy it either. The article in the National Library or the State Library looks promising but we don't know what it is yet. There is a lot of information in the article, so where did it come from. It should be sourced and that just might make it notable as per the guidelines. Assize 01:25, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. If she was of some notability in Sydney, the Sydney Morning Herald would have mentioned her at least once. Certainly if she was the first woman to stand for council she should have some coverage. Google News Archive which goes back that far has nothing on her. [2] The article claims that she had many articles in the Manly Daily but fails to cite any. Further, the article claims that there are no copies available of these articles available through the paper or the State Library of NSW. If she was of some note as a leading suffragist or feminist pacesetter, there would be at least some reference in Google Books or Google Scholar. There aren't. The Australian Dictionary of Biography which recently issued a supplement to better cover prominent women doesn't have an article on her. Our sources are a letter to the editor and a letter in the National Library of Australia and her claim to fame is that she stood for a local council once which isn't verified. In any case, being a candidate isn't in itself a claim to fame. Capitalistroadster 03:57, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
• Weak keep, (edit conflict) notable for first female to run in council elections in Manly, and possibly one of the first in Australia. Until more notable women are shown to have done it earlier, we should err on the side of caution and keep this article. John Vandenberg 04:06, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
• Weak keep essentially because of the likely difficulty of sourcing and the fairly good chance that what she did was notable. i'm not sure I would trust a local paper for the importance of current personalities, but a supplemental evidence for her it's just about enough. DGG 04:09, 8 June 2007 (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.