Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Mutton

John Mutton

John Mutton (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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WP:BLP of a person notable primarily as a municipal politician in Coventry. The city is not large enough to confer automatic notability on its city councillors, and it's one of the many English cities where the Lord Mayor is a purely ceremonial role that rotates annually among city councillors rather than having any executive authority in its own right — and the sourcing here consists of one reference in which he's only briefly named in a news article which is fundamentally about his successor as Lord Mayor rather than about him. So he doesn't get an automatic presumption of notability for either role under WP:NPOL, and the sourcing isn't strong enough to put him over WP:GNG either. Delete. Bearcat (talk) 16:19, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Bearcat (talk) 16:26, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. Bearcat (talk) 16:26, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• Comment - specifically to Bearcat (talk · contribs) who has created somewhat of a strawman by focusing on the "Lord Mayor" as councillor, and ignoring the fact that he was leader of the Labour Party group within the council. Because Coventry is an urban area, it has tended to favour Labour, so being far from being "Lord Mayor" on a rotational basis, he was "Leader of the Majority Party", and therefore the most important councillor politically, for a significant period and this does have something going for it that is conveniently ignored by the nomination. In terms of WP:POLITICIAN, the result is marginal, and may depend on sourcing to news articles; the result will be far closer than the open-and-shut case presented erroneously by Bearcat (talk · contribs). The presentation of such an argument doesn't really inspire confidence. Barney the barney barney (talk) 17:56, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

If a city isn't large enough to confer automatic notability on its city councillors, then being leader of the majority group on council doesn't make him any more inherently notable than any other city councillor — and if enough substantive coverage of him can actually be added to get him past GNG, then he'll get past GNG regardless of whether he was leader of a council bloc or just a regular councillor. So no, I didn't "ignore" or "strawman" the distinction — it simply doesn't make a difference either way. Bearcat (talk) 17:59, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

By an extension of that logic, the leader of a country is equally as notable as any old MP. This clearly is an argument that is anything but intelligent or logical. Barney the barney barney (talk) 21:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Unlike city councillors, all MPs are always notable enough for articles under WP:NPOL regardless of whether they were a Prime Minister or a backbencher — so that distinction doesn't actually impact anything either way either, and hence there's nothing unintelligent or illogical about it. Bearcat (talk) 22:31, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

But what you might be failing to grasp is that notability is not a dichotomy between "notable" and "unnotable" but a cline with grey areas (this does unfortunately seem to be a common misunderstanding). A leader of a dominant political group for a significant period is more notable than a councillor who isn't a leader or there for a significant period. Such leaders have been known to receive significant honours (e.g. as CBEs and knighthoods (although not in this case)), and such are in one of these grey areas. It would be better to acknowledge this than presenting the false (and patently ridiculous) case that "all councillors are equally unnotable". Barney the barney barney (talk) 22:51, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:33, 20 August 2014 (UTC)