Talk:Marquess of Headfort

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"Present peer" section

User:Moonraker, as per your suggestion to open a discussion on the talk page , here are some questions regarding the "Present peer" section. How do you justify the following edits:

• Change of redirect to the present peer section, instead of the article as a whole as per AfD consensus?
• Inclusion of children of the present peer. How does this information improve the article (WP:ONUS), especially in light of the policy WP:NOT, where it is stated that Wikipedia is not a directory, and that Wikipedia articles are not genealogical entries? I can understand the present non-notable peer being mentioned, but who they are married to is not noteworthy, and who their presumptive heir is reminds me of WP:CRYSTALBALL. I would suggest leaving it to specialized publications such as Debrett's and Burke's to deliver such genealogical information to the reader.

As an aside, the WP:BRD cycle stands for Bold, Revert, Discuss; reverting a revert without opening a discussion is usually not good practice on Wikipedia. It is your responsibility to build consensus for controversial changes, and it is better done on the talk page than in edit summaries. Pilaz (talk) 17:39, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

FYI, I have also rolled back the redirect to the AfD closer's version. Also FYI, redirects are not articles and most should not be sorted into mainspace content categories, per WP:RCAT. Pilaz (talk) 17:55, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Pilaz, I hope we agree that peerages are notable – I don't think anyone has suggested there can be such a thing as a non-notable peerage. A present peer, even if not notable in his or her own right, is inherently an important part of the history of the peerage, so needs to be covered in the article, so far as there is information which is verifiable. My own view is that that is also true of the existence of an heir (whether presumptive or apparent). You may of course disagree, but my guess is that most people interested in peerages would agree with me, let's see if anyone else comments. On the matter of Wikipedia:NOTGENEALOGY, what that takes us to is "Family histories should be presented only where appropriate to support the reader's understanding of a notable topic." A peerage is exactly that. You may see an inherent conflict with the WP policy, but it seems to me that that does take this specialist area of Wikipedia into account. Genealogy is built into it, just as water and rain go together. Hereditary peerages and genealogy cannot be separated.

On "Change of redirect to the present peer section", where the present peer has no separate article, such a section is almost essential, and very convenient for navigation, as many users coming to the page will be looking for just that information. So long as such a section exists, it is surely the best target for the redirect, whether that was considered in another context or not. You say "...instead of the article as a whole as per AfD consensus", but that was not a point considered in the AfD. I do not know where you could take up that point, other than here.

On "Inclusion of children of the present peer. How does this information improve the article...?" I can't agree that a presumptive heir is WP:CRYSTALBALL: that says "Wikipedia is not a collection of unverifiable speculation, rumors, or presumptions. Wikipedia does not predict the future." Heirs to peerages can be verified from reliable sources, and where there is no heir the peerage is heading for extinction, which any reader interested in it would surely wish to know. I am inclined to agree that it is not necessary for other non-notable children to be named and look forward to seeing what others have to say on that.

On your idea of "leaving it to specialized publications such as Debrett's and Burke's to deliver such genealogical information to the reader", you may not know that most readers have no access to either of them. Moonraker (talk) 23:13, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Peerages are not inherently notable, but they are notable as long as they meet the general notability guideline. You write: A present peer, even if not notable in his or her own right, is inherently an important part of the history of the peerage, so needs to be covered in the article, so far as there is information which is verifiable. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of everything. WP:ONUS makes that clear: just because an information is verifiable, it does not necessarily justify inclusion. Inclusion must be weighted against other guidelines and policies, such as WP:NPOV, WP:BLP, and of course WP:NOT, which severely restricts WP:NOTGENEALOGY. The balance to strike in an article like this is between the actual history of the peerage (i.e. possessions, political influence, wealth, notable events, and people) and the required genealogical information, which WP:NOTDIRECTORY suggests should be kept at a minimum. There are also plenty of peers who were unremarkable in the broader history of the peerage, so no, they are not inherently an important part of the history of the peerage: they are if they are notable, ergo if their actions have received coverage. The idea that Hereditary peerages and genealogy cannot be separated. is reductive, because peerages, as titles, confer(red) wealth, status and possession to their members, so an article about a peerage that covers only the genealogy of the peerage is very much incomplete.

On redirects, the proper venue is WP:Redirects for discussion. The present peer section already existed, and yet it was always decided to link to the main article rather than a subsection, so I disagree that it is the most useful target.

Heirs to the peerage have not contributed to the peerage, since they haven't inherited the titles as of yet, so it seems premature to include them in an article about peers. Again, Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of genealogical information. The case for including them is even weaker than for the present peer, who even if unnotable has at least has inherited the title that the article discusses. WP:CRYSTALBALL applies, because to have them included means that they will with certainty inherit the title, which is not a given. This list has quite a few examples of designated heirs who did not inherit their titles.

And with respect to Burke's and Debrett's, they already constitute well-sourced tertiary sources (and Debrett's went fully online in 2019, making it possible to subscribe remotely). If your goal is to democratize access to those two resources, I recommend taking a look at WP:ALTERNATIVE to see if there isn't a better place to detail exhaustively genealogical entries, which Wikipedia does not allow.

So, in the interest of moving things forward, can we agree to remove the following information: 1) children who are not presumptive heirs; and 2) the ancestry of the spouse of the current peer? Pilaz (talk) 12:07, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

I do not think any other WP editor has ever suggested that a peerage created in the British Isles can be non-notable. Thousands have been created, can you give an example? On your "There are also plenty of peers who were unremarkable in the broader history of the peerage", we can agree on that, but it is a non sequitur to go on to say "so no, they are not inherently an important part of the history of the peerage: they are if they are notable, ergo if their actions have received coverage." Your theory here seems to be that the history of a peerage can leave out any non-notable holders of the peerage. That just seems to me an absurdity, and I look forward to hearing from anyone who agrees with it. You say WP:NOTDIRECTORY suggests that required genealogical information should be kept at a minimum, but it does not say that. It does say "Family histories should be presented only where appropriate to support the reader's understanding of a notable topic." They are entirely appropriate in the context of an article about a peerage.

You ask me to agree that "children who are not presumptive heirs" should be "removed", I see that you have not understood the difference between an heir presumptive and an heir apparent. When it comes to "the ancestry of the spouse of the current peer", I see you reject the concept of links between families mattering. I might agree that the "ancestry" of a spouse is usually not important enough to include, but the parentage is often significant. You seem to be trying to make two new one-size-fits-all rules which I would not support. Moonraker (talk) 02:29, 27 September 2023 (UTC)