Talk:Sir John Dick-Lauder, 8th Baronet

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[edit] Notability

Junior officer in the army, magistrate and deputy lieutenant. Does this man really meet the notability thresholds of WP:BIO? Precedent at AfD suggests not. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:55, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Come on. Are you now pursing the User:Vintagekits line or just attempting to display your evenhandedness?

What is really going on here. You know as well as I do that there are thousands of pages/articles on Wikipedia where there is not a single source for pop singers and absolute nobodies. Yet there is this everlasting concerted attack on baronets etc. Please don't sit back on the laurels of the vagaries of 'notability'. There has to be a proper intelligent answer to these assaults.

Here we have someone who was clearly notable. He was a Deputy Lieutenant for a major shire in Scotland, not a Crown Commission handed to every Tom Dick and Harry. He was also a sitting Magistrate, a position of obvious importance. Sir John served for two years in the Portuguese liberating army, something rather exceptional, to say the least, and he was in the Honourable East India Company's Bengal Army, for twelve years and was in 1845 a lieutenant and adjutant in their Bundelkund (cavalry) Legion. This must by anyone's standard be exceptional service. He wasn;t just on garrison duty at Edinburgh Castle! I mean, how many others do you know who had careers like this? He was later a Knight of Justice of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, a very select band, and the oldest of the most prestigeous Military Orders still extant.

The thing is, we are not going to contribute to Wikipedia projects if we are going to be treated so shabbily. There are, as I've said, thousands of absolutely lousy and crappy WP articles without a scrap of merit. It seems to me this is a question of priorities. David Lauder 13:06, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I tend to agree.--UpDown 13:32, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll ignore the angry tone of David's reply, and agree that there are other poor articles on wikipedia, but per the frequently-cited essay WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS, that's no reason to keep articles on subjects identified as non-notable.

As to why I'm doing this, it's simple: in view of the concerns repeatedly raised at AfD and elsewhere, I made a proposal for a tidyup of the Baronets articles. I read somewhere a suggestion that that there was a possible CoI over the Lauder Baronets, so I looked through the articles to assess their notability, a task which I now think should be done for all baronet articles through an importance-assessment process, as has been done for other wikiprojects. As you will have seen, some of these articles look to me very notable (e.g. the 1st and second baronets), while the 6th baronet looks very non-notable. Others looked uncertain, so I asked questions about some of them, because the significance of some points was unclear to me.

Now to the 8th baronet. First the military career: twelve years military service at junior officer rank doesn't seem exceptional, and neither the article at Venerable Order of Saint John#The_Order_in_the_United_Kingdom nor the order's website suggests that it's a stunningly important role. However, I'm unclear about the "Portuguese liberating army". I know nothing about that, but can you explain what it was and why it's so significant?

No hurry. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:37, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

If I may offer my opinion, I think he is notable for one reason - namely Deputy Lieutenant. To me that clinches it, whatever the merits or otherwise of his career. I would also say that Order of St John does not mean much in my view. - Kittybrewster (talk) 23:10, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I have been meaning for a few weeks to open a discussion on the significance of Lord Lieutenants (and thus of deputy Lieutenants), because it seems to be to be role which has changed substantially over the years, from organising crucial militia in the 16th century to an obscure ceremonial function today. However, its significance in the 19th century seems likely to have been, in most cases, quite minor, so in the absence of any evidence about its importance I don't see that post making much difference. Similarly, a magistracy is an important local role, but few magistrates have a sufficiently enduring significance to pass the notability tests. Most crucially, though, he doesn't meet WP:BIO's generalised and NPOV tests.

The issue here is not whether details of this man's life be removed from wikipedia, but simply whether he merits a stand-alone article. It may be that further research will reveal more, but for now there is no sign of (for example) a "credible independent biography", or non-trivial coverage multiple independent sources. I don't suggest that the info here should be deleted, just that it should be merged into Lauder Baronets. If more info emerges to establish notability, then the material can be split out to a stand-alone article.--BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:22, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Again this is all a matter of opinion. My personal view is that it is not for people on Wikipedia to make personal decisions as to whether one of Her Majesty's Deputy Lord Lieutenants is a notable position. By British standards it is. Public opinion doesn't enter into it. If he were just a DL it might be borderline. But if we add the magistrature, plus his military activities, then put together I would argue he merits a minor entry. David Lauder 12:39, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

But David, there is no need for anyone to rely on their personal views. We have a much more objective test available, per WP:N: "whether people independent of the topic itself (or of its manufacturer, creator, author, inventor, or vendor) have actually considered the topic notable enough that they have written and published non-trivial works of their own that focus upon it". However any of us judges the significance of baronets or magistrates or Deputy Lieutenants or junior officers in an army, he in an incidental character in the sources listed, so notability is not established. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:29, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I cannot add to what I've said. I am worn out. David Lauder 19:09, 28 August 2007 (UTC)