Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Smith (BBC)

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 of the debate was keep. Mailer Diablo 19:04, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] John Smith (BBC)

Delete - Notability not established. Mais oui! 21:47, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

• Delete Per nom. Dp462090|Talk |Contrib| 21:51, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep You cannot be serious. We keep articles about newscasters from local stations in Boise, Idaho, but you want to delete one of the top few people at one of the main media organizations in the world!!!!???? According to his BBC profile he is the chief executive of the BBC's commercial arm, which made profits last year of £145 million (about US$ 260 million), so it must have had revenue of many times that, and that is only part of his responsibilities. Sumahoy 03:12, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

• Oh no! So now every middle manager on the planet is going to have their own Wikipedia article??? Lord preserve us. What are our criteria of notability for managers? Chief Execs of FTSE100 companies: yes. But head of a division of a public company - in effect a civil servant - I need convinced. --Mais oui! 05:46, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
• I don't feel all that strongly in this particular case, but being one of the top movers and shakers in a mega-major public organisation like the BBC seems to me a lot more notable than being some bunch of kids who've done one or two obscure CDs but admittedly with a genuine commercial label, or being some obscure writer who has nonetheless had a few (not-very-well-known) novels from reputable commercial publishers with reasonable print runs. Then there are all the articles about relatively obscure fictional characters in the better-known comic books (I've created a few article stubs like that myself). All of those are uncontroversially notable. As for civil servants — civil servants at the highest levels of the administrations of sizeable countries wield vast power and influence, and should certainly be considered notable IMHO. This is not directed at you, but a comment about the Wikipedia culture in general — don't you think we sometimes judge things too much from the viewpoint of what is important to adolescents, rather than from an adult perspective on the world? That said, this article can stand or fall on its merits, and I won't lose sleep, but your comment got me thinking. Metamagician3000 06:22, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep per above. Metamagician3000 04:39, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per Sumahoy. He's not a middle manager! --Eivind^t@c 06:16, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, Sumahoy's info should be added to the actual article, though. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 06:25, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep! Let's put these septics in their place! User:Sumahoy and User:Metamagician appear to be two of the few wikipedians with a sense of perspective. --die Baumfabrik 07:22, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep or merge with an established article on notable figures in the Beeb. I might add Sumahoy's info later, but would encourage others to do it first, as I'm rather hungry and not up for merging info into articles right now. Captainktainer 09:34, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep I think we have room to the, occasional, civil servant. -- GWO

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.