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. – Joe (talk) 10:01, 28 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Peter Hood Ballantine Cumming[edit]

Peter Hood Ballantine Cumming (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Another non-notable mayor. He was mayor for one year and none of the businesses he ran seem to be notable. He certainly doesn't inherit notability from his great-grandfather. Fails WP:POLITICIAN Rusf10 (talk) 03:04, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Merry Christmas! ^{Babymissfortune} 03:28, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of New Jersey-related deletion discussions. Merry Christmas! ^{Babymissfortune} 03:28, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per nom for the article fails WP:POLITICIAN. Notability isn't established as there are no indication of notability or significance (or any contributions) of the mayor. Ernestchuajiasheng (talk) 10:42, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• As per the lede of WP:N, Wikipedia's notability is not based on fame or importance.  Nor does a topic need to be notable to be covered in the encyclopedia, see WP:IGNORINGATD.  Unscintillating (talk) 03:46, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Strawman argument. Nowhere in Ernestchuajiasheng's comment do the words "fame" or "importance" appear at all. Bearcat (talk) 17:05, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• WP:N and WP:Deletion policy are not strawmen, they are widely accepted standards.  From the WP:N lede:

Determining notability does not necessarily depend on things such as fame, importance, or popularity—although those may enhance the acceptability of a subject that meets the guidelines explained below. A topic is presumed to merit an article if: It meets either the general notability guideline below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline listed in the box on the right; and It is not excluded under the What Wikipedia is not policy. This is not a guarantee that a topic will necessarily be handled as a separate, stand-alone page. Editors may use their discretion to merge or group two or more related topics into a single article.

Unscintillating (talk) 00:03, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The strawman issue isn't about whether those words are present in the notability guideline or not — it's about the fact that you attacked Ernestchuajiasheng for saying something he didn't say. Bearcat (talk) 01:32, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Bearcat: Please provide a diff.  Unscintillating (talk) 20:06, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Why would I need to provide a "diff" when the comment in question is sitting right out in the open on this very page? Bearcat (talk) 20:09, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The request was for my protection, but your declination is a de-escalation, which is even better.  Thanks, Unscintillating (talk) 02:43, 18 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep and expand Generally a New York Times obituary is a defacto mark of notability. --RAN (talk) 21:44, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Having an obituary in the New York Times is not an automatic notability freebie, actually — the subject was a past mayor of a town inside the NYT's local coverage area, so having an obituary in the NYT is nothing special. Mayors always get obituaried in the local media when they die, so it's a type of source that any mayor of anywhere could always show. If the NYT graduated its reporting on his death to its news section, then there might be a stronger case for notability — but if it's just a blurb in the obituaries column on the death notices page, then no. Bearcat (talk) 21:42, 14 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Nor is there a "deletion freebie": a careful reading of this !vote shows that it makes no deletion argument.  Unscintillating (talk) 03:46, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Who the hell ever said anything whatsoever about a "deletion freebie"? Bearcat (talk) 17:04, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete The usual cabal of advocates of turning Wikipedia into an indiscriminate collection of knowledge are coming out to challenge the well accepted guidelines on notability for politicians. These guidelines are not in any way, shape, means or form met for this article, and so it needs to be deleted.John Pack Lambert (talk) 05:53, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• A failure of the guideline notability is not by itself a deletion argument, as notability is not a requirement for inclusion of Rumson mayors in the encyclopedia.  See WP:IGNORINGATD and the policy WP:ATD.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:24, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Notability may not be a requirement for having his name appear in articles where his name is relevant to mention. But it most certainly is a requirement for him to qualify for a standalone biographical article. Bearcat (talk) 17:04, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• And notability is not required for a 100% merger.  Unscintillating (talk) 00:03, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge what to where, exactly? We do not expand list articles into omnibus compilations of biographical miniarticles about people who didn't qualify to keep their own standalone proper articles — lists of mayors are maintained as lists of the mayors' names, not extended biographical dictionaries of the mayors' lives and wives and kids and deaths. His name can be mentioned in the list, if it doesn't get deleted too — but if he doesn't qualify to keep a standalone article in his own right, then he doesn't qualify to have the entire content from the standalone article maintained as a subsection of a bloated list article either. Bearcat (talk) 01:32, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Regarding, "If he doesn't qualify to keep a standalone article..., then he doesn't qualify to have the...content...maintained as a subsection [of another article]", this is 100% incorrect.  WP:N has an entire section explaining that notability is not a content guideline:

==Notability guidelines do not apply to content within an article== Shortcuts WP:NNC WP:NLISTITEM WP:NOTEWORTHY The criteria applied to the creation or retention of an article are not the same as those applied to the content inside it. The notability guidelines do not apply to contents of articles or lists (with the exception of some lists, which restrict inclusion to notable items or people). Content coverage within a given article or list (i.e. whether something is noteworthy enough to be mentioned within the article or list) is governed by the principle of due weight and other content policies. For additional information about list articles, see Notability of lists and List selection criteria.

Unscintillating (talk) 04:27, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Regarding, "lists of mayors are maintained as lists of the mayors' names", it would not be a good edit to delete sourced biographical prose with the edit comment, "we can only post the mayor's names".  Unscintillating (talk) 04:27, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, assuming the list of mayors articles stay, you can put the mayor's name and a brief summary (maybe a couple sentences). You wouldn't put the guy's entire life story.--Rusf10 (talk) 04:39, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There is no such standard.  Just the opposite, as it is fundamental principles that we are here to write an encyclopedia and that editors don't need permission to edit.  The essay WP:Notability vs. prominence identifies this logic as a conflation:

Some editors will go as far as to say that because a subject is not "notable" that it should only be discussed in an off-handed or extremely summative way. Such arguments are actually conflations of notability with the undue weight portion of our neutral point of view policy....

WP:V and WP:DUE are the applicable policies for inclusion.  Unscintillating (talk) 13:56, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Is it you contention that all mayors are notable? Because WP:POLITICIAN does not support that.--Rusf10 (talk) 15:43, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A mayor is inherently part of a larger topic covered on Wikipedia, so the policy WP:ATD prevails over WP:DEL8.  To repeat, WP:V and WP:DUE are the applicable policies for inclusion.  Unscintillating (talk) 19:17, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If a mayor does not pass the standards needed to qualify for his own full standalone biography, then any amount of material about him beyond his name is undue weight. Bearcat (talk) 05:20, 27 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That would be a baseless restriction declared inside an AfD forum.  We are here to write an encyclopedia.  Unscintillating (talk) 12:16, 27 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep or Merge  GNG notability is satisfied.  This is a topic who as mayor in 1950 is a subtopic of the history of Rumson, NJ, and who lived before the era of the internet.  I have no problem if content contributors want to merge this article to suitable topics, including List of mayors of Rumson, New Jersey and Local government of Rumson, New Jersey and History of Rumson, New Jersey.  As per WP:ATD, there is no policy-basis for a deletion.  Unscintillating (talk) 00:22, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - Announcing the death of a mayor in local coverage is routine and the NYT has never been considered the "defacto mark of notability". What matters is multiple cases of WP:SIGCOV, preferably nationally or even internationally.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 16:49, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Then why can't I find them for the other 20 mayors of this town? And why can't I find them for any of the other 564 New Jersey mayors for this time period? --RAN (talk) 05:09, 18 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• delete Mayor with no serious claim to notability. As a rule, mayors of large cities do notable things as part of the job; small town mayors, not so much. Mangoe (talk) 14:57, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• What is a "serious claim to notability"?  Isn't that authorizing inclusion in Wikipedia to be decided by the preferences of Wikipedia editors?  What is wrong with using our existing notability guidelines to base your arguments?  Have you considered the policy WP:ATD?  Unscintillating (talk) 03:49, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

1. Produce it.
2. No.
3. There's nothing wrong with them, assuming there's nothing wrong with them. It had not come to my attention that guidelines on politicians had been altered according to the subjective opinions of editors to elevate mayors of minor towns to presumed notability. Mangoe (talk) 21:39, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - I have no problem with many (most? all?) mayors having pages, given that enough is known about their lives that an article can be written with citations making the article verifiable, with citations independent of the subject and from different sources ensuring as much as possible that the article does not overly represent a single point of view, and the connection between citations used to outline the individual's life is clear enough that original research is not necessary to write the article. This article does, in my opinion, satisfy these core content policies. There are multiple citations in the article about the subject, so the golden rule/notability guidelines seem to be satisfied. I think that most US mayors from the past 100 years and many from before that period will satisfy our policies and guidelines, but I don't think NPOL should change to make these figures qualify, as I agree that there could be mayors where the coverage isn't sufficient to create a page which satisfies our policies, but this page clearly does satisfy them. Smmurphy^(Talk) 15:13, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep' It's the scope and breadth of media coverage about him that meets the notability standard, not merely being a mayor. Alansohn (talk) 19:28, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete -- does not meet WP:NPOL and there's nothing better; just a mayor with no serious claim to notability. I also note that he was a mayor of the city for less than two years. If it were 20 years, then maybe. Not notable as a businessman either. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information on nn subjects. K.e.coffman (talk) 20:38, 26 December 2017 (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.