Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert Blair, Minister

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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-- keep AdamBiswanger1 03:24, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Robert Blair, Minister

User:Tony164 has added this article and several other ministers to Wikipedia recently. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem very important, with no real achievements other than "having been a minister." I think this falls under WP:NOT, as Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information or a geneological record. -Elmer Clark 00:20, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I am also nominating the following pages on ministers for the same reason:
See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Robertson, Minister below. -Elmer Clark 00:28, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Please keep as I have checked WP:NOT The only criteria that might possibly apply is the one forbidding formless collections of information. These all relate to the the sometimes tempestuous history of a significant parish in Scotland (meaning the people and events are well in the mainstream of Scottish history and not replicated elsewhere). In that, they give exemplary life to broader treatments elsewhere. John Robertson and James Meek wrote siginificant historical documents - still consulted today. Others to be added have had similar significant impact on the history of Scotland in turbulent times. The others you mention (Blair, Houston, Calderwood) are I admit there to fill in the historical record, but this is not formless or meaningless. I have not yet tracked down the criteria for "notability" and will have to take your advice on this, but I would have thought that the sharing of this sort of well established historical knowledge is just what Wikipedia does best. I appreciate not everyone is interested in history, especially local history, but loads are. It's not all pub quiz material! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony164 (talk • contribs)
  • Keep and cleanup as these appear to be referenced. Or maybe a merge somewhere might be an interesting thought. JYolkowski // talk 00:56, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak delete Why is he notable? Could this be a hoax? Arbusto 01:14, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete alll None of them seem to be notable. TJ Spyke 01:42, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete all per nom and WP:NOTABLE. Hello32020 03:02, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete all per above. Ultra-Loser Talk | BT sites 04:46, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep but move to Robert Blair (minister) and do that for all the other nominated articles (or failing that, Redirect/merge) - Certainly wouldn't delete all. Not entirely sure how notable this minister is but I certainly think the general subject matter is of historical and encyclopedic interest. The page is linked to from Cambuslang clergy, and it looks like the user may be trying to eliminate redlinks one by one? Work seems to have started only a couple of weeks ago, and although it's stalled since then, I'd like to give the editor (User:Tony164) more time to expand it. If nothing comes of that, I'd merge the content back into the main Cambuslang clergy page. --DeLarge 09:37, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete all - random Scottish Vicars are not notable. --Mnemeson 11:43, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete None of it meets WP:BIO, as far as I can see it lists 7 lines telling about his life, and then one line saying he translated a bible. Not notable. Khukri (talk . contribs) 12:42, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep (and perhaps move as per DeLarge): The guy was not a random minister, but an author and translator and theologian. Read please the article to the end before voting :-) --Ioannes Pragensis 12:47, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Hi there. I did read the articles, and researched them. Robert S Calderwood has his notability asserted as publishing. Googling (which is almost certainly not the best way to research this, but the only simple way) the Patriotism coronation address for which he was apparently known turns up one single result - the WP article. James S Johnstone's big thing was introducing gas lighting to his Church, and riding around "in a large black cloak". I personally don't feel that hymn translation is a notable activity. Bible translation potentially is, but Robert Blair wasn't doing it alone, and I doubt it had a very large effect on the number of people who could access it. At best, give him a line in an article about translation of the bible. Ergo, my vote. --Mnemeson 13:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Robert Blair, and move per DeLarge. Being a part of the team that translated the Bible into Scottish Gaelic strikes me as a significant enough achievement, and per WP:BIAS translating the Bible into a small minority language is no less significant than translating it into English or French. Weak delete on the other two unless a further case for their notability is made out. - Smerdis of Tlön 13:59, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Blair per Smerdis of Tlon, Delete Johnstone & Calderwood. The Cambuslang clergy page is also suspect; this is just a history of ministers in basically one parish, not a history of Christianity in Scotland. I could see individual churches in Cambuslang being notable, individual clergy being notable, but I don't see the global view in having a local church history. --Dhartung | Talk 14:11, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak delete unless it is shown that role in translation of the Bible into Gaelic was big. Otherwise, it appears his contribution was a collaboration. Jcam 14:36, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete all per above. Eusebeus 16:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak Delete per Jcam; the only notable thing about him is his bible translation; without some showing that he had some major role in that, he's just another non-notable priest. Carlossuarez46 00:41, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
  • CommentPlease note that I have started a discussion topic at Wikipedia talk:Notability (people) to create a standard for notability of religious leaders. Some should have articles, if, for instance they are an official of their denomination churchwide, or they started some important movement, wrote widely used hymns, or were notable in ways special to religion. They probably should not have an article if they were just a typical priest, rabbi, or mullah serving a local group. We have such standards for Porn actors and sports figures, and it would save a lot of argumentation. I have also started a discussion for standards of notability for individual churches, also seen all the time in AFD. We have a standard for schools, so why not for churches. Edison 20:23, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep. To English speakers Blair's work might not seem particularly important, but it sounds like he made some important contributions to Gaelic literature. He held some fairly important posts and wrote for a newspaper. I wouldn't say that any one thing is particularly notable but overall it seems enough to be worth keeping. RickReinckens 08:53, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak keep - This article's nomination for deletion should be a lesson in writing good articles. The article simply presents Robert Blair using a series of bland general statements about his life that fail to convey the importance of his contribution to society. The article needs to be rewritten to highlight Blair's contributions (his editorial and translation work), to explain the importance of his work, and to de-emphasize the bland biographical information (such as the exact dates of when he got married, when he moved to Edinburgh, etc.). Otherwise, it is going to look like the biography of an unimportant minister. George J. Bendo 12:27, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete all per Mnemeson. --Buridan 23:48, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete does not meet WP:BIO criteria. -- moe.RON talk | done | doing 01:27, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete James S Johnstone, Minister. Non-notable. Not encyclopedic. (Also, middle initial needs a period.) RickReinckens 08:59, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep, all articles are properly sourced and thus verifiable. WP:Notability alone is NOT a criterium for deletion. Wikipedia is also NOT a paper encyclopedia. The articles are encyclopedic and verifiable. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 12:42, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment: I am extremely confused by this and a couple similar comments at the AfD for the other minister I nominated. Since when is the rule "if it verifiably exists, it's in??" A huge proportion of the deletions at AfD are non-notable bands, vanity pages, etc - these people/bands do verifiably exist, but they are so obscure that there's no real benefit to having them. Do you support keeping such articles? Would you support keeping an article about me, a humble and insignificant student, were I to create and source it? I realize WP:NOTABILITY is not official policy, but the idea of having no notability standards whatsoever is pretty bewildering... -Elmer Clark 20:24, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
      • Reply: First of all, there is a big difference between an article about an obscure band with its only source being a Myspace account and an article about minister which is sourced from a reputable book about ministers. In the first case the source is created by the band itself, in the second case a secondary source already considered the minister important enough to include him in the book. Secondly, I am no big fan of the whole notability concept (which, I keep saying, is not official policy), mainly because it introduces a big bias towards American topics. I've seen people nominate very well-known asian artists for example, and even vigorously defend their AfD when confronted with evidence. All because this person was not "notable" (meaning they never heard of it). So, im my book, notability alone is a too slippery slope to be the only reason for deletion, ever. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 07:47, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Robert Blair, Minister. Ministers were more important further back in history than they are today. Gaelic translation activities may be sufficiently noteworthy to meet WP:BIO, and in my eyes, for now are adequate reasons to keep. Delete James S. Johnstone, Minister and Robert S Calderwood, Minister - no assertion of encyclopedic notability. GRBerry 03:47, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Blair for his literary contributions (but cleanup the article); deletethe other two for failing to meet WP:BIO. Sandstein 07:56, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete all, as failing WP:BIO. If we could verify the idea that he was a major factor in the Bible translation, I might be inclined to reconsider. - TewfikTalk 17:27, 10 October 2006 (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.