Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mark Sparnon

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 delete. NW (Talk) 20:22, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mark Sparnon

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This unsourced biography was prodded by User:Peripitus with the comment, "Unreferenced biographical article that makes a single assertion of notability that I cannot back up with a reliable source. Appears to be no sources discussing Mr Sparnon."

Prod was seconded by User:Graeme Bartlett, who added, "I cannot find any online sources either."

Prod was contested by User:DGG, who suggests, "What is asserted is sufficiently notable that a check for print sources would be required; Wikipedia is not limited to online."

I have therefore searched Proquest, LexisNexis Academic, and EBSCO Newspaper Source for print sources. I can find no recent (i.e. since 1985) news coverage for an engineer named Mark Sparnon. I do find several articles published between 2000-2003 on an Australian rower by that name. The rower, however, was 23 years old in 2003, while the subject of this article is said to have graduated from Adelaide University in 1979. Cnilep (talk) 18:01, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. When notability is incomplete, you must delete. --Quartermaster (talk) 18:14, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep-I have added a citation, a person who was cheif designer on the super airbus is imo wiki notable, looking around there was little to find but perhaps an expert on the subject could expand, or perhaps redirect or merge with the airbus article, seems strange that our notability guidelines support a porn actor that has been awarded a minor promotional award and yet the person who was chief designer on a massive project is on dodgy ground. Off2riorob (talk) 18:34, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Several Google hits (e.g., [1]) give his position as "Chief of Design" which is not necessarily "Chief Designer." The U of Illinois Study Abroad brochure cited in the article seems to be the only one that is trumpeting him as "designer of the Airbus A380." With the lack of other corroborating citations I suspect he was "a" designer, probably in an administrative capacity since the Airbus380 article itself talks about 4 teams of designers. I also double checked Cnilep's research and got the same (non) results. --Quartermaster (talk) 20:21, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. —Cnilep (talk) 18:17, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. —Cnilep (talk) 18:17, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Appears to lack significant coverage in multiple reliable and independent sources, thus failing to show notability. I do not agree that working on some particular notable product, even as chief designer, automatically grants notability, which is not inherited. Edison (talk) 18:47, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep -- if he is the sole or main designer, but not if he is merely a member of a large team. Unfortunately the article Airbus A380 makes no reference to him, so that his role is unclear to me. However, I assume that the description "designer" implies that he is the main one, in which case he must be notable. I suspect that the relevant sources will be in the aviation trade press, and possibly only in French. Peterkingiron (talk) 18:52, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: According to Airbus A380, the plane was designed by four teams, and the early design work was by a group headed by Jean Roeder. The book cited as source at Airbus A380 (Norris and Wagner 2005) suggests that Roeder was the group's lead engineer; it does not seem to mention Sparnon by name. Cnilep (talk) 20:49, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

delete, article exists since mid 2007, surely sources shold have been added by now. No sources, no notability, regardless how important the assertion sounds... WildHorsesPulled (talk) 19:04, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

delete clearly not notable with one ref everything else on the web is a mirror of the article, possible self promotion with a bit of imagination. If he had been chief of design his name would be well known, Robert Lafontan who as Senior Vice President Engineering is pretty close to being the chief engineer and he has won awards for it[2]. No mention of Sparnon. MilborneOne (talk) 19:39, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
delete Although he may have been a designer, (not THE designer) the article still fails the WP:BIO due to not having material on the topic published by multiple independent reliable sources. One involved source does not establish notability. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:03, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete- clearly fails our notability requirements. Reyk _YO! 00:09, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment the present discussion is the reason i deprodded--subjects with backgrounds of this sort need the wider exposure of an Afd, rather than the chance of someone looking at prods. I look forward to the remainder of the discussion--something has already been found, and something more might be. A few of the comments above, though, are quite unrealistic: "articles has existed for a while & someone would have found sources" is nor true, except for someone actually famous--our problem with BLPs is that the great majority of them do not get such attention. " When notability is incomplete, you must delete" is actually exactly the opposite--the balance of evidence to delete must be that the person is not notable. DGG ( talk ) 00:11, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Actually, the burden of proof is on the person making the claim of notability. Unsourced material can and should be challenged, and it is up to the people who add or defend the material to justify why it should be here. Reyk _YO! 01:23, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Australia-related deletion discussions. —Grahame (talk) 00:48, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Appears to fail notability. Orderinchaos 19:40, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I found one source on him, a college website which he graduated from. It had links to others, but not him.Rin tin tin 1996 (talk) 22:26, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - the sources found mirror what I saw as well. All we have is an indication that he graduated and was somehow involved in the A380 design (Chief designer of which bit ? ). Robert Lafontan appears far more likely to have that title (see Spiegel Online). There are insufficient references to even determine if the sole sourced assertion is true - Peripitus (Talk) 02:20, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: Norris and Wagner (2005) call Lafontan "A380 Senior Vice President for engineering". They call Roeder "Senior Vice President of product development and technology" and also "chief engineer", and they call Charles Champion "Senior Vice President of the A380 program". Each of these men seems to have a stronger claim of notability than Sparnon does. Cnilep (talk) 15:26, 19 February 2010 (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.