Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Richard de Morville (Conquest)

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. – Joe (talk) 16:49, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Richard de Morville (Conquest)

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Non-notable individual only known from witnessing a small number of donations. I recently removed a confused and uncited bit about him often being given the wrong name. The remainder was a direct quote from the one cited source which I have paraphrased. It basically provides a lot of context written about the family (not the subject) and one passing reference to the notable Constable being perhaps son of this guy named Richard found in a few charters. There are other sources in the References section but they make no contribution to the three sentences of text, and without a page number who knows what they are supposed to be documenting? WP:GNG, WP:NOTGENEALOGY Agricolae (talk) 22:07, 6 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Agricolae (talk) 22:09, 6 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 01:03, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Nobility, which implies the possession of land and the political power that went with it. It is necessary to search for Ricardo as well as Richard, "of" as well as de, and Moreville, Moreuille, Moreuil, Morevill, Morevil, Morvil, Moruil etc etc etc. The books, such as this one [1], which appears to mention "Richard de Moreville" on nine pages, are available in snippet view and libraries. I suggest actually looking at them, in hard copy if need be. James500 (talk) 14:21, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This is based on two flawed premises. First, we don't actually know that the subject owned any land or had any political power, only that his speculated son did. Second, there was a much more famous Richard de Morville (the son of Hugh de Morville, Constable of Scotland, speculated to have been son of the subject of the article here, Richard de Morville (Conquest)). Thus a simple Google search for Richard de Morville will tell us nothing of the notability of this specific Richard de Morville, amidst the other. In the source you specifically link to, most references appear to be to this famous (perhaps-)grandson. Of the subject, it says, in a footnote no less, "It further seems probable that the father of William and Hugh I de Morville was the Richard de Morville who witnessed charters of Richard de Redvers for Montebourg and the church of St. Mary in the castle of Nehou in the early twelfth century." That is not an indication of notability, when all that can be said is that he witnessed a few documents and he may be the father of a notable person. Agricolae (talk) 15:22, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete -- An individual known only from having witnessed a few charters is clearly NN. I would not object to a merge/redirect to a more prominent relative. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:47, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hugh de Morville, Constable of Scotland would be the obvious target, but that page already has the sentence "His parentage is unclear, but according to Barrow his father was probably Richard de Morville who in the early twelfth century witnessed charters made by Richard de Redvers relating to Montebourg and the church of St. Mary in the castle of Néhou" - it effectively has the entire content of this article already incorporated, while the page name here, Richard de Morville (Conquest), with its incorporated disambiguation, is not an obvious search term needing a redirect. Agricolae (talk) 16:59, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Agricolae: But doesn't that actually argue for redirecting to the other article? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:50, 9 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Umm, no. There is no point in having a redirect from the namespace "Richard de Morville (Conquest)" because this is not by any stretch of the imagination a search term or syntax anyone would use who might be interested in this man. Just one of the reasons being that there is no evidence this man had anything to do with the Conquest, nor has anyone claimed such outside of this Wikipedia page. There is a long story about how this arose, but the fact is, he is only known from witnessing those grants ca. 1100, and indeed if he really was father of Hugh, d. 1160, he was at least a generation younger than the Conquest men. Were this AfD to end in Keep, the page would need to be renamed anyhow, as the namespace is completely invalid. Under other circumstances I might say it wouldn't hurt to have a redirect simply from Richard de Morville to the Hugh, Constable page, but we already have a page entitled Richard de Morville that points to the son of Constable Hugh, and that is much, much more likely to be the desired target of someone coming here interested in a Richard de Morville. The only way I see around this would be to create Richard de Morville (disambiguation) that includes a line reading:

Richard de Morville, Anglo-Norman nobleman suggested as father of Hugh de Morville, Constable of Scotland.

That being said, I can't stress enough how utterly obscure this person is. There is almost zero chance anyone is going to come to Wikipedia looking for this man without first reading of his existence on Hugh's page, such that we need to take elaborate steps to ensure that they will be led to Hugh's page. (And it perhaps should also be mentioned that the relationship to Hugh is one scholar's guess, not shared, for example, by Keats-Rohan writing in 2002.) Agricolae (talk) 14:26, 9 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

~~Delete~~ We have lists like List of Man'yōshū poets for people whose names are mentioned in historical chronicles but about whom we know nothing or next to nothing. (Actually every single entry on List of Man'yōshū poets probably is more likely to meet GNG than this, as we actually have at least 31 syllabic units of poetry composed by all of them that have survived into the modern era.) James's comment is based more on his personal philosophy of "keepism" than on a careful reading of sources, as demonstrated by Agricolae's response. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:39, 9 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy delete, then redirect to Hugh de Morville, Constable of Scotland. And I just noticed that, per the specific wording of the first sentence of Srnec (talk · contribs)'s comment below, this page technically meets WP:A7, which makes James's comment above all the more outrageous when one considers how experienced he is in article deletion. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:48, 9 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You must've meant "in article retention."

-The Gnome (talk) 13:13, 13 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. ~~Article has to demonstrate notability, which it does not.~~ Redundant. Hugh de Morville, Constable of Scotland contains the same information already. Srnec (talk) 04:42, 9 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. An article does not have to demonstrate notability. That is one of the arguments to avoid (ATA, ASSERTN), and NRVE says that notability depends on the existence of sources, not their citation in the article. Failure to assert notability is not a grounds for speedy deletion. A7 actually requires an article to assert significance or importance, which is a lower standard than notability. An assertion that he is a member of the nobility clears A7. In fact an assertion that he lived before the introduction of printing, and we know his name, clears A7. See for example User:Bearian/Standards#Notability of persons in premodern times and the precedent cited there. Further, I don't understand why a person would be witnessing a charter of that type in that day and age if they were not important. James500 (talk) 13:44, 9 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Bearian's personal opinions are not policy, and indeed are hard to square with actual policy. We do not have, nor should we have, an article on Some Guy Named Leofric (ca. 1164), who happened to witness one document about about whom we know nothing more. As to who would witness a monastic donation, they could simply be a relative of the grantor, or a vassal, or a hunting buddy, or the local parish priest, or a monk at the monastery receiving the grant, or a lay brother there, . . . . There is no basis whatsoever for concluding what the precise role or status was of someone known only as a name in a witness list, unless it is made explicit in the document. Agricolae (talk) 14:40, 9 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have altered my rationale. I do not agree with Hijiri88 that the article meets a CSD because, as James500 correctly notes, "notability depends on the existence of sources, not their citation in the article". An article has to demonstrate notability eventually, but it is true that a one-line stub (i.e. "Waltheof was an Anglo-Saxon nobleman") should not be deleted speedily. Rather the article should be deleted as redundant to Hugh's article. If there is significant coverage in reliable sources it can be recreated later. As of now, though, the article serves no use and no evidence of RS for expanding it has been provided. That he signed a charter demonstrates a certain amount of importance in his day, but it does not signify notability by our standards since there are many individuals known to us only as names at the end of charters and there is nothing more to be said about them. Srnec (talk) 18:02, 9 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You're missing the point of my argument. I think the page should be deleted and redirected as redundant (same as you) but I think CSD also applies, and that has nothing to do with "the existence of sources, not their citation in the article" -- if the article doesn't make a claim to notability, it can be speedy deleted, as long as it falls within one of a number of categories that are quite poorly defined but, ironically, definitely cover this article. (Note that the closing admin took my side in that debate, and I personally think my interpretation of the applicability of A7 was weaker than it is here. But it doesn't matter, because we actually agree on what to do with the page in this case, and this AFD is hours away from having been open, with effectively unanimous consensus, for a full seven days, so while it sucks that speedy deletion didn't happen by default, it won't ultimately make a difference.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:13, 13 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nomination and Agricolae's subsequent, detailed, and strong arguments, as above. -The Gnome (talk) 13:13, 13 September 2018 (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.