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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Princess Anita of Orange-Nassau, van Vollenhoven-van Eijk

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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 no consensus. Most of the keep arguments are spurious: there is nothing in WP:BIO or WP:OUTCOMES that says titled nobility are inherently notable. However, there is no clear consensus even if those keep arguments are dismissed. It may be sensible to start a discussion on merging or redirecting the article on its talk page. A Traintalk 06:54, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Princess Anita of Orange-Nassau, van Vollenhoven-van Eijk

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Princess Anita of Orange-Nassau, van Vollenhoven-van Eijk (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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This woman is not a public figure. She performs no royal duties. She is unknown to the Dutch public. The article is almost completely unsourced. What little coverage she receives is by blogs and forums. Nothing indicates she is notable, and it is clear to me that she is not. She is just someone with a courtesy title, married to a cousin of a king who does not have any succession rights. Surtsicna (talk) 10:04, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support I fully support deleting this article (and similar others) for the reasons given by the nominator. The person is not a public figure in whatever manner and lacks in-depth coverage (excluding passing mentions). There is few information to add than what has already been written.--Re5x (talk) 10:44, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Although she has attained her status through marriage, Princess Anita is a titled member of the extended Dutch Royal Family. Examining other articles on European royal families indicates that titled grandchildren of monarchs (and their titled spouses) are generally considered notable in their own right. Eloquai (talk) 12:49, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • With all due respect to Eloquai, this argument deserves no consideration whatsoever as it is a textbook example of WP:NOTINHERITED: "Inherited notability is the idea that something qualifies for an article merely because it was associated with some other, legitimately notable subjects." The reason why grandchildren of monarchs are generally considered notable is that they have an official role and are in line to become monarchs. This woman does nothing noteworthy and is not married to someone who can become a king. Just having a title means jack shit. This article fails WP:GNG, and it fails it hard. Surtsicna (talk) 14:32, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      • I can understand your argument, but there's a strong case for why WP:NOTINHERITED does not apply in the case of royalty - namely, Princess Anita holds a noble title and is recognised as a full member of the Dutch Royal House, regardless of the circumstances in which that status was acquired. As a result, she holds a public constitutional role under Dutch law as, to quote the website of the Government of the Netherlands, "Under the Constitution, the monarch is ‘inviolable’, which means that the Ministers are politically responsible for the actions of the head of state and, to a lesser extent, of the other members of the Royal House.". For that reason, we are not talking about an individual whose title means "jack shit" and I respectfully maintain my vote to Keep the article. Eloquai (talk) 14:49, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
        • She is not a member of the Royal House, Eloquai. The Royal House and the royal family are two very distinct groups in the Netherlands. Anita is not a member of the Royal House and she never was. This means she has no "public constitutional role" under Dutch law. So yes, we are talking about a woman whose title means literally jack shit; it was not even granted by a royal decree (unlike Máxima's princely title) but simply assumed per custom, meaning it's a courtesy title rather than something of legal significance. Finally, we should not even be discussing her title; she is either prominent in reliable sources or she is not. Surtsicna (talk) 15:28, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
          • My apologies - many thanks for the clarification! That'll teach me about the dangers of diving head-first into Dutch constitutional law unprepared... However, I still maintain my vote to 'Keep' the article per the reasons outlined in my first comment: Princess Anita is a titled member of the Dutch Royal Family. While she doesn't appear to be a particularly active member of the family, there is a long-standing precedent across Wikipedia that titled members of reigning royal families (especially at the degree of 'prince' and 'princess') are notable by virtue of that title and status. I would agree if we were discussing an otherwise non-notable spouse of a minor aristocrat, but given that the subject in question is styled as a princess and is classed as a full member of the Dutch Royal Family, I'm afraid I cannot agree that the subject is non-notable. Eloquai (talk) 16:34, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
            • She is not active at all. She is a private figure. I am not attempting to change your mind, but I am pointing out that your argument for keeping this is WP:NOTINHERITED. Basically, you are saying that she is notable for having married someone's relative, even if she has not received any significant coverage by independent & reliable sources. Surtsicna (talk) 17:02, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
              • A minor point: I'd say my argument is that she is notable by virtue of her royal title and style, regardless of the means by which it was attained. When it comes to royalty, Wikipedia tends to treat individuals as notable if they are officially recognised as a member of a reigning royal family, which is the case here. For that reason, I would say the question of her (in)activity does not override her status as a member of the Dutch Royal Family for the purposes of notability Eloquai (talk) 17:23, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
            • Actually, I'll attempt to influence your opinion one more time, Eloquai. This woman is so unknown (and irrelevant) to the Dutch public that the Dutch Wikipedia has no article about her. Surtsicna (talk) 17:14, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 15:45, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Holland-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 15:45, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, J947(c) (m) 22:41, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, J947( c ) (m) 04:05, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Surtsicna, thank you for this question because it illustrates a problem MUCH wider than this unjustified nomination. These documents from daily national newspapers clearly underwrite the notability of Anita van Oranje-Nassau: Refdag (daily national newspaper), and ND (daily national newspaper). These articles are valid sources for her activities, not or borderline for the overall notability: AD (daily national newspaper), Metro (daily national newspaper), Trouw1 (daily national newspaper), Trouw2 (daily national newspaper), Geschiedenis (legit website), Trouw3 (daily national newspaper), and Trouw4 (daily national newspaper). Especially in the second category there are many more articles, likely also in the first.
From the details to the implications. We have a problem because these items do not show up under Google News or Books. Nominators and delete sayers mean well; both aim for better quality. But they cause huge damage. Currently there is an avalanche of unjustified nominations, people do not have sufficient tools or knowledge of the world around us to make the claims that they make in the intros and many of these AfDs culminate in totally unjustifiable deletions, simply because the nomination and respondents lack knowledge and tools. As a longtime Wikipedian this hurts because important knowledge gets lost, while people have invested so much in writing, formatting, categorization, and more. The info is somewhere but often not even readable in edit histories because badly informed deletions have become the norm. More and more Wikipedians are engaged in deletions rather than creation. gidonb (talk) 18:26, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It is not true that these links do not show up in the search. They are all right there, in the search results I linked to, for everyone to see. What are you talking about? Thank you for the links, however, because they perfectly illustrate the lack of notability of this person. I kindly ask the closing administrator to take a look at the links Gidonb gave us. I'll provide the translations:

  1. a photo caption mentioning Anita (nothing about her "activities" at all)[1]
  2. an article reporting their wedding and noting that she wished to "return to anonymity" (!) (keren in de anonimiteit); think about this please, let it sink in along with the otherwise complete lack of coverage[2]
  3. an article actually covering something she did (paint a wall) - bravo![3]
  4. an article about her being in a new hotel suite [4]
  5. an announcement of her pregnancy [5]
  6. something not mentioning her in the text at all - I am perplexed by you citing this, to say the least [6]
  7. an announcement of Pieter-Christian's marriage [7]
  8. article announcing the birth of a daughter [8]

This is not an unjustified deletion. The woman has expressed a wish to remain a private individual. That's literally the only thing she is reported as having said in all of these links you came up with. No "important knowledge" will be lost because this individual is not encyclopedically notable. Deleting an article about me would not result in a loss of any "important knowledge" because I am not an encyclopedically notable individual. The fact that the Dutch Wikipedia has no article about her should be telling, but hey. You complain about Wikipedians becoming engaged in deletions, but some articles simply should be deleted. Surtsicna (talk) 23:18, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and allow me to stress the numbers once again: 35, 48 and 139 search results for different forms of her name. Surtsicna (talk) 23:22, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry but I do not see a clear relationship between my reaction and yours. The numbers you format in bold are meaningless and not all blogs after all. Members of royal families are going to show up in blogs. That information is trivial and meaningless for our discussion. What matters is if there are sufficient sources that are valid for our encyclopedia and what is in them. You managed to extract none. Claimed it's all blogs and forums. I found more than 8 very valid sources, 7 of which were in national newspapers. That's where I stopped copying and pasting. As I mentioned, ONLY 2 of these sources were important for the general notability of Ms. van Vollenhove-van Eijk. The others are totally legitimate sources to be used for writing the biography, while not or almost not contributing to the general notability. Your reaction mixes apples and oranges and is not a serious reaction to a solid mapping of sources. With all folks before me (and in a comment right above) you passionately pointed out that you only want to see the sources by which Ms van Vollenhove-van Eijk is significant. I showed you these. In reaction you did not (yet) withdraw your nomination. gidonb (talk) 02:12, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have merely pointed out that the sources you cited did not prove the notability of the subject. A photo caption and an article not mentioning her at all do not illustrate significant coverage; neither do announcements of weddings and births. Surtsicna (talk) 21:17, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete for lack of sources that discuss the subject directly and in detail. This is a low profile individual and the article is not suitable for inclusion. Her husband is not in the line of succession; in fact, because of his marriage, he has no chance at all. So this is basically a WP:INVALIDBIO and should be deleted. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:15, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question: If the few reliable sources on the subject that we do have stress the subject's desire to lead a low-key life, out of limelight and public roles, does having an article about her (mostly unsourced!) private life not constitute a breach of WP:BLP? Specifically, WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE, which tells us to "include only material relevant to the person's notability". In a case when the subject is not notable on her own, this would suggest a deletion, would it not? Surtsicna (talk) 21:25, 17 October 2017 (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.
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