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 redirect to De Warenne family. Anything that might be worth merging is still available in the article history. Randykitty ( talk) 16:24, 10 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Ralph de Warenne

Ralph de Warenne (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)

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Fails WP:GNG, WP:BIO. Subject has not received significant coverage. The article has a lot of references, but this is by way of WP:SYNTH, spinning a story out of family context and scant instances where the subject has been mentioned in passing when describing grants made by other family members, plus a convoluted discussion of the origin of a branch of the family that may or may not be his descendants. All that is really known about him is that he existed and he patronized Lewes priory, and that is not enough. There is nothing noteworthy about him and he has received no substantial coverage. All of this information about him already appears on De Warenne family, and there is no good reason to have a separate article on such an obscure person just because he was son and brother of notable people ( WP:NOTINHERITED), and arguably ancestor of a junior branch of the family ( WP:NOTGENEALOGY) that itself is not independently notable and is covered on a page about the whole family. This should be Merged/Redirected to De Warenne family, which already contains all of the relevant information as a result of implementation of a prior AfD.

Previous AfD closed as as merge, but was problematic because the selected target was a disambiguation page, William de Warenne. Following discussion, closing administrator indicated they would "not mind changing it to 'no consensus'," [1] but no change was ever made. A year later, after I tried to implement the spirit of the decision by merging to De Warenne family, an involved party (not the closing administrator) changed the close retroactively to "no consensus", [2] citing the never-implemented comment by the closing administrator. Agricolae ( talk) 17:08, 16 April 2018 (UTC) reply

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Agricolae ( talk) 17:14, 16 April 2018 (UTC) reply

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. Agricolae ( talk) 17:14, 16 April 2018 (UTC) reply

• Keep. Do we really have to do this again? A historical figure does not have to do something noteworthy to be notable. There doesn't have to be a lot known for significant coverage to exist. Case in point, the rather undistinguished Ralph de Warenne has received significant coverage in the multiple reliable sources cited in the article, mainly because of his potential connection to the Whitchurch Warennes. There is no WP:SYNTH. The main secondary sources cited (Farrer 1923; Farrer & Clay 1949; Eyton 1859) are specifically about Ralph de Warenne and the article summarises what they say about him. The more tangential mentions in other secondary sources, and the few primary sources, are used appropriately, to clarify points of fact and make what is, as you say, an obscure and convoluted historical topic a little easier to parse.

Regarding the previous AfD, you have neglected to include a crucial diff, where I confirmed with MBisanz that we could proceed with "no consensus". I assume he forgot to update the AfD hatnote, which is what I rectified recently, but that is neither here nor there: the discussion did not result in a consensus and the closing admin agreed. It wasn't simply a technical obstacle; that so many participants in the last AfD proposed a merge with a disambiguation page with a completely different name is a sure sign that they didn't read the page properly, and is exactly why their !votes should have been given little to no weight in the close. Attempting a merge with an article that didn't even exist when the last AfD was closed therefore doesn't reflect the "spirit" of its consensus at all.

And to make another correction to the nomination: most of this information is also in De Warenne family because you copied it there a couple of weeks ago. I don't have a problem with that, but it's absurd to argue for deletion on the basis that the content is redundant to a merge you have just done yourself with no prior consensus. In any case, we can keep De Warenne family as a summary style parent article. The fact that there is some overlap doesn't mean that we have to delete Ralph de Warenne or any of the other independently notable members of the family. –  Joe ( talk) 18:22, 16 April 2018 (UTC) reply

Yes, we have to do this again. The previous AfD concluded he was not really notable - that you managed to lobby this into a 'no consensus' that you yourself implemented doesn't miraculously conjure out of the ether additional sources that actually give him significant coverage. I apparently did not make it clear enough if you think the nomination has anything to do with redundancy - it is about NOTABILITY and NOTGENEALOGY. I only mentioned that the information is on the family page to indicate that we are not going to be losing any worthwhile information about this obscure person were this article to become a redirect. Yes, we could keep both articles, but we shouldn't because this person has not received any coverage except in passing when discussion something else entirely, his father's and brother's grant and the fact that the first Warenne of Whitchurch had a father named Ranulph who may be this man or may not be this man. Even the 'significant coverage' you claim the sources addressing the latter give him, amounts to the fact that he existed, and he had a son William who confirmed a grant he made. That is passing reference, not significant coverage, not notability. Agricolae ( talk) 20:20, 16 April 2018 (UTC) reply

• Merge/redirect As the first nominator for deletion (god knows I didn't anticipate all this), I still believe that subject is not notable. None of the arguments I have seen since then establish his notability. However, I am perfectly happy to see a redirect to the family article. Suggest we put everything else aside and do it. Rogermx ( talk) 22:09, 16 April 2018 (UTC) reply
• Weak keep - My feeling with genealogy articles on nobles from a long time ago is that there are a lot of pages with low standards on the internet which talk about figures like this. There is enough material in reliable sources to write a decent article with decenst standards about this person, and I don't see it as unencyclopedic. Coverage is in multiple sources, and thus is not NPOV. Everything is cited, so it doesn't fail V. I disagree that there is OR: concerns about SYNTH seem like a stretch to me as the sources are discussing this individual and uncertainty surrounding him, and this article doesn't, in my opinion, go beyond the sources in any way. Multiple sources independent sources discuss the individual and discussions extend multiple paragraphs and pages in Farrer & Clay 1949, so there seems to be a weak case for GNG. Just in case there is any confusion, Joe and I contributed heavilly to the article, and Joe posted about this AfD to my talk page, although I would have seen it and !voted in any case. Smmurphy^{( Talk)} 02:58, 17 April 2018 (UTC) reply
• Weak Keep the primary sources, based on the article, appear to be mostly trivial ones related to his relatives. There appears to be enough research about him in secondary sources to justify keeping the article, although if there's a case that the article is synthesis ("Antiquities of Shropshire" says Of Ralph little has been recorded except his name; if other sources are equally insubstantial I would be concerned), it might be reasonable to redirect. power~enwiki ( π, ν) 22:59, 17 April 2018 (UTC) reply

The concern raised by @Power~enwiki is exactly my reason for the nomination. Eyton says of him Of Ralph little has been recorded except his name. Clay says of him The details known about Ralph are are mainly confined to mentions made of him in his father's charters or as witness to charters issued by his brother the third earl. His name is invariably Radulfus, and never Ranulfus, a name which is usually quite distinct.(p. 37) Elsewhere Clay says he made donations with his brother, he witnessed donations of his brother, and he probably isn't the Whitchurch founder. Three sentences total (p. 10), one simply saying who he apparently isn't is not significant coverage. When the authors themselves treat him as obscure, why are we trying to turn him into a notable figure? (or is the argument that the act of these authors in calling him obscure imbues him with notability?) Agricolae ( talk) 00:22, 21 April 2018 (UTC) reply

• Delete (and I say this as the person who did the research/writing on his brother Reginald de Warenne). I just looked through everything I have looking for mentions of this person. There is one mention in my library of him - in Keats-Rohan's Domesday Descendants (p. 777) where his entry reads "de Warenne, Radulf II. Younger son of William II de Warenne and Isabel de Vermandois." and then it lists Clay Early Yorkshire Charters, Douglas Social Structure of Medieval East Anglia, and Dugdale for charter entries. No ODNB entry for him. Tellingly, Radulf is NOT mentioned in the various sources that discuss Reginald, his brother - which include all the biographies of the monarchs, various works on the Anglo-Norman aristocracy, a lot of clerical history and biography, Green's English Sheriffs to 1154, and Sanders' English Baronies. To be honest, I couldn't find any references to the William fitzRadulf who is theorized to be his son either - there isn't any listing for William in any of the sources I consulted either (and I probably have every source that would be expected to mention someone from this time period). There is a de Warenne, Willelm Filius Rainaldi mentioned in Keats-Rohan as the son of Reginald, but his entry is just "son of Rainald de Warenne of Wormegay". Ealdgyth - Talk 23:06, 18 April 2018 (UTC) reply
• Delete per Ealdgyth. Srnec ( talk) 00:26, 21 April 2018 (UTC) reply

• Either Keep or Merge/Redirect. De Warenne family#Whitchurch is a suitable target. The problem of who he was is dealt with there. PLain deletion ought not to be an option, where we have a substantial article. Peterkingiron ( talk) 17:37, 26 April 2018 (UTC) reply

To the article, yes, but not to that section. If one accepts the Clay reference, the most recent and most clearly thought out source, the current article is mixing accounts of two different people: Ralph, son of William the second Earl, always appears in the historical record as Radulph (the correct form of the name that became Ralph in modern English), while the ancestor of the Whitchurch line always appears as Ranulf, a distinct name at the time. Thus the namespace 'Ralph' doesn't refer to the Whitchurch ancestor at all and shouldn't redirect to the section. However, the Earl's brother is named earlier in the article, wo the De Warenne family article as a whole would be a legitimate target. To send it to the section that it doesn't relate to just perpetuates the 19th century confusion that Clay dismisses (and that underlies some of the arguments about notability here). The current article is a memorial to this mistaken identity. Agricolae ( talk) 20:53, 26 April 2018 (UTC) reply

WP:NPOV. We don't base articles on single views just because they are the most recent source. Joe Roe (mobile) ( talk) 09:29, 4 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Right, instead we base it on dated, poorer-quality work dismissed by more recent scholarship. No POV in that. Agricolae ( talk) 15:58, 4 May 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.