Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Consuls-General of Australia in Houston

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. Will be renamed to Australian Consulate-General, Houston. (There is no one consistent way of naming consulates general here, but this is the format currently used for other Australian consulates.) MelanieN (talk) 00:46, 20 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

List of Consuls-General of Australia in Houston

List of Consuls-General of Australia in Houston (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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procedural nomination - should have been a separate AfD rather than a joint one nomed by @LibStar: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_Consuls-General_of_Australia_in_Mumbai JMWt (talk) 11:35, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Comfortably passes WP:GNG, randomly nominated with a more questionable one. The Drover's Wife (talk) 13:45, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• delete fails WP:GNG. The sources are about the office of the consulate, not the people that are consuls general. There is a distinct difference as a list of these people have been nominated. LibStar (talk) 14:56, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • This strikes me as wikilawering. This is the only article about the consulate, and the fact that simply retitling it Consulate-General of Australia in Houston would obviate your argument shows that it is not a substantive one. postdlf (talk) 17:22, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Agree with above. A change to Australian Consulate-General, Houston would make the page more in line with notability guidelines.Siegfried Nugent (talk) 05:31, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not really convinced by this argument. Let's say that we could prove that the job titled "Consul-General" for any given country in any given place was notable. That we have high quality sources talking about the job, the current holder and so on. I'm not sure it then follows that the previous holders of the job are therefore notable in the sense that we could assume that the list of the people who previously had that job were notable. That'd be like saying that CEO of Walmart is notable and therefore a page called "list of CEOs of Walmart" would be notable if it was renamed "CEO of Walmart". I'm sorry if that sounds silly, I'm struggling to process this or explain it. JMWt (talk) 11:04, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with JMWt, for what it's worth. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:41, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it does sound silly. If the position of CEO of Walmart were notable, we would not delete an article because it contained a list that (let's assume) was inappropriate for some reason; we'd remove the list. Here by advocating for deletion on the grounds that there shouldn't be a list, you're effectively saying that there shouldn't be any article on the position regardless of whether the position is notable.

But we need not even get to that point because people don't need to be notable to be listed in an article on a broader topic, such as a notable position. As WP:N makes clear, notability guidelines do not restrict article content.

We also have here a "list" of one person, which makes the deletion positions all the more absurd; "sure, you can have an article on the position, but it's taboo to say who holds it!" postdlf (talk) 18:03, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. GabeIglesia (talk) 14:29, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bilateral relations-related deletion discussions. GabeIglesia (talk) 14:29, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Australia-related deletion discussions. GabeIglesia (talk) 14:29, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Texas-related deletion discussions. GabeIglesia (talk) 14:29, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. GabeIglesia (talk) 14:36, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm !voting delete. It seems to me that we have a few brief notices that a certain person has fulfilled the role/job of Consul-General, but I think that could be accommodated by having a page for the Consul-General, but as I mentioned above, I still am not convinced that even if that page existed, it would have to be more than just a list of present and past holders of the role. On that basis, I don't think there is sufficient information to write a useful page (beyond that which is already published online by the Australian government about their Consul-General) and I can't see that we have sources which show that the job-holders of Consul-General are always notable. In fact it appears that the role is only really noticeable when particular individuals are appointed to it. JMWt (talk) 11:11, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is it too much to ask that people actually read the sources before voting? "A few brief notices that a certain person has fulfilled the role" might be what this editor might expect an article on a consul-general to have, but critically in no way describes the actual sources cited in this article. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:40, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

1. Source 1: Archive of the Australian gov website
2. Source 2: Press release about the opening of the consulate from Aus gov
3. Source 3: News article about the opening of the consulate
4. Source 4: News article about the opening of the consulate
5. Source 5: Archive of Australian gov website about appointees to the consulates
6. Source 6: News article about appointee Alastair Walton

Sources 1,2 and 3 are hardly independent secondary WP:RS. Source 3 is not about the incumbent, but is hardly a long and significant piece. Source 5 is a short section of a longer article about the incumbent. - wrong, see below

At best we have two three independent WP:RS, neither of which actually help determine whether or not the person who holds the office, or the office itself is noticeable. It is possible that the Consul-General is notable in his own right. It is possible that the job is notable. But this is pretty thin ground to show either. But either way, neither help much with the determination as to whether a list of the past holders of a minor diplomatic role are notable IMO. JMWt (talk) 12:41, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Funny that there are were more than five sources cited, and more than two of them from indisputably independent sources. As I said, this seems to be people making up their mind based on the subject and then getting creative about arguing around the sources to try to justify it. The Drover's Wife (talk) 13:08, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You are right, I made a mistake and have corrected the above list. Sources 3 and 4 are short and about the establishment of the consulate. Source 6 is about the incumbent. I don't think this makes a substantive difference: they're two short articles about the consulate and one about the incumbent, which is still not enough to show that a list of incumbents of the job are notable, even if the sources are used to show that the job itself is notable. JMWt (talk) 13:28, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So you can admit that the subject is notable, as long as it gets moved out of sync with all the other consul-general and ambassador articles because you dislike the name of the article. Helpful. The Drover's Wife (talk) 13:51, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

no, I do not believe the subject is notable as I do not believe that a small number of mentions meets the standards of the WP:GNG. It falls outside of the notability standards for ambassadors and for politicians. But even if the subject itself was notable (ie the position of C-G), that doesn't make this list notable. JMWt (talk) 14:00, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete as still questionable for the needed notability improvements. SwisterTwister talk 04:55, 27 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep but rename official foreign embassies and consuls general are usually notable, and the holders of the office are sufficiently notable however, here, there is no article for the one holder so I would suggest a rename to: Australia General Consulate in Houston which seems the real topic of the article. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 17:23, 27 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

official foreign embassies and consuls general are usually notable no. There is no inherent notability of embassies and even less so consuls. LibStar (talk) 22:39, 27 April 2016 (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.