- 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. § FreeRangeFrog croak 06:05, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
Yasmin Bevan
- Yasmin Bevan ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)
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DBE, being the most junior (and numerous) award of Britain, is not sufficient in itself to establish notability. Zero depth-of-coverage in any third party reliable source. Prod was disupted. OhNoitsJamie Talk 00:36, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
Delete per nom - The creator somewhere even admitted being affiliated with her, that aside, There is no evidence of any notability at all, The only thing she appears to be known for is being the head of a school which again isn't notable – Davey2010 • (talk) 00:41, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
Delete. The article about the high school seems to be sufficient to describe her. Gdfusion ( talk) 02:13, 24 June 2014 (UTC)Retracted as of 15:17, 24 June 2014 (UTC).
Delete per above. An article about a non-notable person who works at a non-notable school with the only source being one of her acquaintances. That's not how Wikipedia works.Palmsandshells ( talk) 06:51, 24 June 2014 (UTC)- Keep. She's a
Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, for crying out loud. Of course she qualifies per
WP:ANYBIO #1. The nominator clearly has no understanding whatsoever of the British honours system. A dame is the female equivalent of a knight. It is most certainly not "the most junior (and numerous) award of Britain". The
Order of the British Empire is the commonest British Order of Chivalry, but it has five grades. We have always held that the three highest grades (GBE, KBE/DBE, CBE) are sufficient for notability, whereas the two lower grades (OBE, MBE), to which the vast majority of those honoured are appointed, are not. Although the Order of the British Empire is the most junior order overall, Knights and Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire outrank anyone except knights and dames of other orders, including members of other orders who hold honours below knighthood/damehood. They even outrank knights bachelor, which most British knights are. Knighthood/damehood (in all orders, not just the Order of the British Empire) is only conferred on about sixty people every year - if she's notable enough for the United Kingdom (a country of 60 million people) to give her such a high and rare award then she's easily notable enough for a Wikipedia article. "There is no evidence of any notability at all"? I really cannot believe someone said this about someone honoured with a damehood! What, pray, is notability? Playing a single professional football match? Appearing in a few films? Singing a moderately popular song? All these would get you an article. Or contributing so much to your profession that you were considered worthy of being awarded one of the highest honours your country can give (one of only eight women awarded the DBE in that particular six-monthly honours list)? Unbelievable! --
Necrothesp (
talk) 13:11, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
- Reply To quote from
Order of the British Empire: "... is the most junior and most populous order of chivalry in the British and other Commonwealth honours systems."
OhNoitsJamie
Talk 14:28, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
- Please reread what I wrote. It really is a good idea to have a proper understanding of the system before you comment on it. And it is complex. Just because an order is more junior than another does not mean all the grades of that order are more junior. Both the seniority of the order and the grade of the honour must be taken into account. A Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire is outranked by a Dame Commander of the other orders, since those orders are more senior, but she outranks a Companion or Commander of the other orders, since those grades are more junior. DBE is the normal honour given to a British woman who has been accorded the equivalent of a knighthood, since Knight Bachelor, the commonest knighthood (and by common, I mean about thirty are awarded every year!), can only be awarded to men. Very few damehoods are awarded in the other orders (maybe half a dozen every year). In addition, note that the other orders are awarded for specific things: the
Royal Victorian Order for service to the Royal Family, the
Order of St Michael and St George for diplomatic and overseas service, the
Order of the Bath for civil and military service. The Order of the British Empire is the only one that can be awarded to anyone. The other orders are basically only more senior because they're older, not because they're awarded to more deserving people. A DBE isn't promoted to a DCB; if a senior civil servant, for instance, gets a damehood she'll get a DCB instead of a DBE. --
Necrothesp (
talk) 15:40, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
- Comment: I suspect that this confusion might have been avoided if the DBE in the biography had been linked to
Order_of_the_British_Empire#Current_awards rather than the head of the article. The way the postnominal template plays out is going to create confusion in any reader uneducated in British awards.--
j⚛e decker
talk 22:49, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
- Sorry, but what would be even better is if editors didn't rush to nominate articles for deletion unless they had done a bit of research. It takes work to write an article; it takes no time at all to nominate for deletion someone else's work in a field in which you're unfamiliar. If it's too much trouble to follow links properly and read around the subject (i.e. by scrolling down to the first section in the article) then maybe editors should stop to think whether they should really be nominating for deletion. -- Necrothesp ( talk) 19:10, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
- Comment: I suspect that this confusion might have been avoided if the DBE in the biography had been linked to
Order_of_the_British_Empire#Current_awards rather than the head of the article. The way the postnominal template plays out is going to create confusion in any reader uneducated in British awards.--
j⚛e decker
talk 22:49, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
- Please reread what I wrote. It really is a good idea to have a proper understanding of the system before you comment on it. And it is complex. Just because an order is more junior than another does not mean all the grades of that order are more junior. Both the seniority of the order and the grade of the honour must be taken into account. A Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire is outranked by a Dame Commander of the other orders, since those orders are more senior, but she outranks a Companion or Commander of the other orders, since those grades are more junior. DBE is the normal honour given to a British woman who has been accorded the equivalent of a knighthood, since Knight Bachelor, the commonest knighthood (and by common, I mean about thirty are awarded every year!), can only be awarded to men. Very few damehoods are awarded in the other orders (maybe half a dozen every year). In addition, note that the other orders are awarded for specific things: the
Royal Victorian Order for service to the Royal Family, the
Order of St Michael and St George for diplomatic and overseas service, the
Order of the Bath for civil and military service. The Order of the British Empire is the only one that can be awarded to anyone. The other orders are basically only more senior because they're older, not because they're awarded to more deserving people. A DBE isn't promoted to a DCB; if a senior civil servant, for instance, gets a damehood she'll get a DCB instead of a DBE. --
Necrothesp (
talk) 15:40, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
- Reply Thanks for the info, Necrothesp. I retracted my statement above. Just keep in mind that most of us are Americans who aren't familiar with British orders of chivalry.
Still, the article needs serious revision; I would like to see specific, cited evidence of how she's contributed to education ("Dame Yasmin Bevan has been an influential figure within the UK education system having contributed to policy development through the Expert Group on Assessment and the Practitioners Group on School Behaviour and Attendance," is non-referenced and vague, and the rest of the document is a list of awards). Gdfusion ( talk) 15:17, 24 June 2014 (UTC)- Just bear in mind that anyone with the title of Sir or Dame has definitely done something very significant to earn it. Unless they're a baronet! -- Necrothesp ( talk) 15:40, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
- Reply To quote from
Order of the British Empire: "... is the most junior and most populous order of chivalry in the British and other Commonwealth honours systems."
OhNoitsJamie
Talk 14:28, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
- Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp ( talk) 13:11, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
- Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp ( talk) 13:11, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
- Comment While
WP:BIO does not mention titles, I did find
this discussion on the talk page for
WP:BIO, from which a consensus emerged that an MBE/DBE in itself does not automatically satisfy notability guidelines.
OhNoitsJamie
Talk 18:08, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
- Again, you're getting confused between two entirely different things. An MBE is the lowest grade of the Order of the British Empire. Thousands are awarded every year. I would entirely agree that it doesn't confer notability and have argued such many times. That's what that discussion is about. A DBE is the second highest grade of the order. No more than a couple of dozen are awarded every year. Unlike an MBE, it gives the recipient a pretitle (Dame) that they use for the rest of their lives. That definitely does confer notability. The two things are not the same. In fact, they're nowhere near the same. WP:ANYBIO does state that notability is likely to be conferred when someone has "received a well-known and significant award or honor". A damehood certainly counts as this. -- Necrothesp ( talk) 19:39, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
- I don't know anything about the person in question, nor do I have any strong opinion either way about her notability or whether the article should be kept or deleted. But to clarify, although the Order of the British Empire is the most junior British order, that doesn't mean that the most senior members (GBE: Knights and Dames Grand Cross) rank below the most junior members in the next order up (MVO: members of the Royal Victorian Order). Instead, the various degrees of the different orders are interlaced in a slightly more complicated way. In the United Kingdom order of precedence (in particular see the section on baronets and knights), a DBE or KBE ranks just below a DCVO or KCVO, and just above a CB. In the 2014 Birthday Honours list, only nine UK citizens were appointed DBE, so it's a fairly exclusive club, and I think we should therefore regard it as reasonable supporting evidence of notability. -- Nicholas Jackson ( talk) 09:32, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
- Strong keep Surely the fact that this person is a dame and is in this list List_of_Dames_Commander_of_the_Order_of_the_British_Empire is enough to confer notability. The nominator is obviously not from Britain as they do not have a good understanding of the honours system. This person certainly has a greater honour than just an OBE bestowed upon her as the nominator has suggested. Seasider91 ( talk) 21:51, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
- Keep being a Dame or Knight is notable and hardly a most junior (and numerous) award. Clearly the article needs work but that is not grounds for seeking deletion. MilborneOne ( talk) 09:36, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
- Keep I do not know of this woman, but I also do not know of most of the people with articles in WP. She is a Dame, that should make her notable enough for a Wikipedia page in her own right. Nford24 ( PE121 Personnel Request Form) 10:35, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
- WTF. Nominator should please familirisae himself with the British honours system, and not nominate with such needless aggression which seems borderline abusive. MBE is the lowest award from the Order of the British Empire; DBE is the second highest. FFS. Barney the barney barney ( talk) 18:42, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
- Keep as DBE. Xxanthippe ( talk).
- 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.