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. merge can be discussed further on talk. Scott Mac (Doc) 20:39, 20 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Shadow Minister for Cornwall

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No other pages exist for other specific UK shadow/opposition front bench posts, and this one is not even a "real" shadow post, in that there is no UK government minister for Cornwall, and the creation of the post has been for the most part criticised as being a party political move by David Cameron. Whatever material here that is not deleted altogether can - and should - be moved in some form to any of Mark Prisk, Official Opposition frontbench or Constitutional status of Cornwall, with this name itself probably simply a redirect to the second of those, as Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs is. Nickhh (talk) 16:12, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Delete/merge with Mark Prisk per nom. Poltair (talk) 19:55, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Tim Song (talk) 03:25, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, at least for the moment. Although most if the info contained within could be merged with other articles mentioned, I envisage that the reader would then want to refer to a unified article on the subject outlining why the position came about, roles and responsibilities etc, especially as there is no actual equivilent government position - this also makes it somewhat notable by default.
I think this is all the more important as this is a UK election year - as people become more aware of politics, policies and positions on all sides, they will ask questions and some undoubtedly will turn to wikipedia for answers. Also as it looks somewhat inevitable that the Conservatives will be forming the next government, this article and content could be useful should this be turned into a ministerial position. Zangar (talk) 14:21, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
~~Speedy Delete~~ Merge and redirect to Mark Prisk - The article is a clear breach of WP:NPOV. With no minister of Cornwall to actually shadow the post (and the article) appear to be simple electioneering. - Galloglass 15:03, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Merging the better elements with Mark Prisk as Warofdreams suggests is probably the best solution. - Galloglass 11:29, 20 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Would you be able to clarify how this article is in breach of WP:NPOV please? As I read Section 2 "Achieving neutrality", it would appear that the article could only really be in breach of Undue weight due to a large section being dedicated to controversy of the position (and is not really a reason for deletion, rather a need for clean-up). But I think the inclusion of this section counter-acts any undue weight given to the Conservative Party and therefore could not be seen as electioneering (especially as this article was started well before any election). Zangar (talk) 11:21, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Zangar simply this, only one of the 3 main parties have an 'minister for Cornwall' the fact that the party (LibDems) who hold all five seats within the county have not made any such appointment demonstrates this was done by the Conservative party for electoral purposes and we on wiki do not engage in support for one-sided, decidedly non-neutral electioneering. I hope this makes things clearer. - Galloglass 11:31, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your argument sounds more like it is based on Not a soap box than NPOV. NPOV is a policy on presenting the facts of a case in a neutral way; that the Conservative Party created the office is a fact, that the Conservative Party was criticised for the creation and their motives questioned is a fact. NPOV is concerned with presenting a neutral blend of those facts.

What you are saying seems to be that because the Conservatives most likely created the office in a cynical attempt to win votes then our reporting of the facts of the case is a soapbox for Conservative propaganda/campaigning. Is that an accurate assessment of your argument? (Road Wizard on a mobile connection) 82.132.136.199 (talk) 19:26, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - the nominator's rationale is incorrect. Other Shadow front bench offices have articles; Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Shadow Home Secretary, Shadow Foreign Secretary, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Leader of the Opposition (United Kingdom). The redirect at Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs mentioned in the rationale is only a recent creation and I have taken the liberty of redirecting it to the more appropriate Shadow Foreign Secretary article. As there is precedent for having Shadow minister articles, the only arguments left are sourcing and neutrality; the media sources seem to provide sufficient references to support the existence of the article and the article clearly states both the Conservatives' justification and the criticism about it being a shallow, vote-grabbing exercise by the party. Unless a stronger argument is presented, I can see no reason to delete. Road Wizard (talk) 15:43, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I stand corrected on the existence of the other pages - I'd noted that typing in "Shadow Minister .." in the search box, the foreign affairs one was the only one that came up as an actual page or redirect title. Also, I checked the main Shadow Cabinet page, in which all the wikilinks attached to the individual Shadow Cabinet posts are to the pages for the actual Cabinet position that they shadow, which implied to me that pages for the individual shadow posts themselves did not exist.

However, two issues remain - 1) the pages that do exist are for Shadow Cabinet posts, where the post-holder shadows the Secretary of State, not for every junior shadow ministerial position, none of which, per my research, have their own pages here, other than currently this one; 2) this is also a (junior) position for which no official government equivalent exists.

There's a better reason for keeping now, but it still seems weak to me. --Nickhh (talk) 16:26, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that this office was created in the absence of an equivalent government post is probably more of a reason to keep the article than delete it. While the average junior Shadow office rarely raises enough attention to be notable, this one appears to be somewhat unique.

The Shadow Cabinet page did link to the correct articles in the past, but they were removed without explanation by an IP-editor in June 2009.[1] Road Wizard (talk) 16:38, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that definitely makes it broadly more notable/interesting (speaking in a non-WP sense) in terms of UK politics and UK news, especially for the brief moment of its creation, but I'm genuinely not sure that this means an encyclopaedic treatment of UK government and opposition posts would see this position having its own page, when no other - long-established - junior shadow posts have them. All sorts of policy statements and political appointments gather media attention of course, but there's always WP:NOTNEWS, and information about them is often much better placed anyway in context on other, broader pages. --Nickhh (talk) 18:31, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As an alternative, I would be willing to support a merge to a 2007 equivalent of British Shadow Cabinet 2001–2003. Merging to Official Opposition frontbench or any other general opposition article would not be a good idea, as it would be giving undue weight to a minor role as compared to the other Shadow offices; a date specific article would allow the creation of the office to be placed in the political context of the time. Road Wizard (talk) 21:25, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Merge and redirect to Mark Prisk, its only holder - there are a whole series of these Shadow Minister for [area] posts, barely anyone knows who they are, and there isn't enough material to write a reasonable article. Beyond things published by the Conservative Party and perfunctory mentions, the only coverage of the post I can find is coverage of the occasional criticism of it. Still, someone might search for the titles, so a redirect makes sense. Warofdreams talk 23:09, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
~~Keep~~ Merge. I don't think there are really any NPOV or notability problems - the article appears to be presented neutrally, ie. not pushing any party's line on the appointment (whether the appointment itself is neutral or just "electioneering" is irrelevant to WP:NPOV). If "the creation of the post has been for the most part criticised as being a party political move by David Cameron", that seems like enough to make it notable in itself. Although the content could be merged with other articles, I don't think it should be, as the post itself is separately notable from any of the other suggested pages - it is specifically the creation of this post, and the ensuing controversy, that has led to the notability -- Boing! said Zebedee 09:37, 20 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but as noted above, WP:NOTNEWS, and the fact that all policy or political statements or announcements create brief notability. Following the logic that this post is (vaguely) notable in so far as, and because, it represents such an announcement (which I don't disagree with, indeed it was precisely my point), it should be renamed to "Shadow Cornwall Minister appointment/controversy", and we should also have pages on "Conservative party April 2008 arts policy statement" and "Dispute over Labour government 2009 benefit uprating" etc etc. One certain fact is that the actual post is not, in itself, a notable thing of any substance. Or certainly less notable than the other junior ministerial shadow posts that have existed for years and had hundreds of post-holders but do not - probably correctly - each have their own individual page. Any usable or relevant content here can, as suggested, go to the page on Mark Prisk himself or to Constitutional status of Cornwall. N-HH talk/edits 10:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, good points, you've changed my mind - I now think some of the content should be merged elsewhere, and the article deleted. Should the post itself become notable in time, it can be recreated -- Boing! said Zebedee 10:29, 20 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.