Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Diana Babar

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 keep. (non-admin closure) TheSpecialUser ^TSU 04:06, 17 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Diana Babar

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Contested PROD. Fails WP:BLP1E as only notable for gaining a CBE. The entire article is repeated at 2008 New Year Honours so there is no loss of content. As a British civil servant it is very unlikely that her activities are covered in reliable sources and I have been unable to find any through internet searches. If there are additional sources to expand the article then that is great, if not, then the content can be retained in the 2008 article until we have more source material. Road Wizard (talk) 18:45, 10 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per WP:ANYBIO which states "The person has received a well-known and significant award or honor". Getting a CBE seems to meet that to me. Being a short, stubby article isn't grounds for deletion. Lugnuts ^{And the horse} 18:48, 10 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll be happy with whatever consensus comes out of this, but to put the award in context, there are up to 8,960 people with a CBE at any one time. If we assume that most CBEs are awarded to people in mid life we could be looking at 18k to 26k individuals each century as a very rough estimate. Admittedly many of those will have other reliable sources to support an article but we could end up with a huge number of stubs that repeat the same content that is in the honour list articles.

This is not an argument along the lines of other stuff does not exist but just an attempt to clarify the scale of the issue. Road Wizard (talk) 19:02, 10 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

that numerical estimate shows we can easily accommodate the material. 9000 articles is a mere 0.25 % of the size of Wikipedia, even assuming none are notable on any other grounds. The order only goes back to 1817, so it 100 years from now, we'll still have less than 50K. That'll be a similar proportion to the probable size of Wikipedia. Even a paper reference book could accomodate that. DGG ( talk ) 05:03, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not pointing it out in terms of Wikipedia's physical capacity to hold the data. My point is that we may end up with many thousands of single line articles that repeat word for word their corresponding single line entry in the honour list article. It is only a very small proportion of civil servants whose work puts them in the media spotlight (such as press officers or those who are called in front of a Parliamentary committee) and civil servants are discouraged from doing anything in their personal lives that would draw public attention to their status as civil servants. Other than people in high profile posts we won't find any source material unless they do something noteworthy (I was going to say notable but that has a loaded meaning here) before they join the civil service or after they leave.

If consensus is that we retain these duplicated single line data entries in thousands of articles then I will continue assessing them as stubs and hope that someday we may be in a position to expand them. My practical view though is to wait until we have material that doesn't duplicate their honour list article before creating the article. Road Wizard (talk) 05:23, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. It has always been my opinion that the CBE or higher counts as "a well-known and significant award or honor". Holders of such honours tend to hold senior positions and generally receive an automatic inclusion in Who's Who (which, for those who think otherwise, is not a vanity publication, although some publications with similar names are) and frequently obituaries in The Times and other significant papers after their deaths. While there may be legally up to 8,960 people with the CBE at any one time, the actual figure is far lower than this. About 200 are now awarded every year and, apart from the war years, fewer were generally awarded in the past (the average for the 1920s, for instance, was closer to 50 a year). Incidentally, the Order of the British Empire was actually founded in 1917. While it is certainly true that this particular article needs expansion, I am of the opinion that Ms Babar's CBE qualifies her for an article. She is not "only notable for gaining a CBE"; she received the CBE as a mark of the notability of her career, which is a very, very different thing entirely. This is certainly not a BLP1E issue. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:24, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 08:28, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 08:28, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The award of an honour is a mark of notability, not the notability in itself. Otherwise we would be saying that we honour a highly decorated soldier for the fact that they got a medal, not for the act of heroism that led to it. And a CBE is not awarded for a single event. The real difficulty in this case is that we do not really know why she was awarded the CBE; it does not simply go with the job. But notability is not about popular recognition and it is sufficient that the person is recognised as having achieved a special standing in their particular sphere of endeavour. Solicitors will not usually work in the limelight. Nor do we delete because an article is merely a stub. --AJHingston (talk) 08:58, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 12:45, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - per above on CBE, plus refs IPS wireservice, several GBooks hits, and a GScholar hit. GregJackP Boomer! 02:16, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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.