Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Portobello House

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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.  Sandstein  19:19, 31 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Portobello House

Portobello House (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Not sure what prompted the creation of this article, cited mainly to a community website (the other sources do not seem to be directly about the house). The house/hotel seems unremarkable as a building, for example it is not listed. There must be plenty of notable houses and hotels in the Vale of Glamorgan but this does not seem to be one of them. Fails WP:GNG. Sionk (talk) 15:08, 23 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete Sources do nothing to establish notability and little to establish the text they are used to support.Pincrete (talk) 18:59, 23 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Architecture-related deletion discussions. North America1000 20:56, 23 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Wales-related deletion discussions. North America1000 20:56, 23 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment It is a location in google maps; it is a named bus stop. What type of location is it? In the U.S. pretty much any populated place is deemed Wikipedia-notable; does this fall in the same category?:Also it was a landmark before 1933 and may in fact be quite old. It is asserted above that the house is not a listed building but has that been checked?
Note: There are other Portobello Hotels, e.g. the historic Portobello Hotel in
Dunedin, New Zealand which appears to be wikipedia-notable:http://portobellohotelandbistro.co.nz/11201.html, and there is a Portobello Hotel in the Notting Hill neighborhood of London.(http://www.portobellohotel.com/location.htm). --doncram 21:58, 23 May 2015 (UTC)[reply
]
It's a house, a building, of no architectural merit. It's not a listed building and, while an 80 year old building may be of interest in the USA or New Zealand, it is unremarkable in Europe. Sionk (talk) 01:25, 24 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The New Zealand one dates from 1867 or earlier, so is 148 years old. A 148-year-old establishment in Dunedin is more notable than the same in U.K., sure, because Dunedin was not settled by Europeans until 1844. But is not merely 80 years old. The one in Wales that this article is about is referred to as a well-known landmark in 1933, but I assume it is much older. Do you know how old it is? For that matter, do you know if it has architectural merit? Are you local, have you been there?
And the St. Bride's Major webpage linked in the article asserts it is at least somewhat interesting and connected to the historic community. I would expect there is more information about it available off-line; there is going to be less on-line info than if it were still a commercial establishment.
I still am not sure what is Wikipedia policy/practice on populated places in U.S., and also not for the U.K.
I don't care, hugely, but it does not seem obvious that this is a non-notable topic, and when in doubt I would say it should be kept for the time being. I would defer to someone actively developing the listed buildings in Vale of Glamorgan and/or specifically knowledgeable about the relative importance of places there. Perhaps the article creator, Dr. Blofeld, could comment on why he saw that it had merit. Dr. Blofeld's user page indicates an interest in historic country houses, and he had been editing in Wikipedia for 6 or 7 years before he created this article in 2012. Hmm, I see Dr. Blofeld was not given notice of this AFD, an oversight that can be fixed if he doesn't notice the ping and come comment. --doncram 02:33, 24 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
True, I forgot to manually notify Dr B after my automated "Twinkle" failed. On the subject of notability, My rule of thumb is that something must have a reasonably strong suggestion of importance and, ideally, proof. Indeed, maybe Dr B can shed light on things. Sionk (talk) 18:45, 24 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
My house was built a long time before 1933, as were many thousands of others in my home town. For age to contribute to the notability of building in Britain you would have to be looking at several centuries. 82.9.185.151 (talk) 11:29, 28 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
N.B.: The Portobello House appears to have existed much earlier than 1933. doncram 16:32, 28 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I know, and that was the point of my remark. For age to be the deciding factor it certainly wouldn't be enough for the house to have been built in 1833, and probably not in 1733, because there are many buildings of those ages in Britain still being used for the same mundane purposes for which they were built without having attracted great attention. I'm not saying that this article should be deleted, but merely pointing out that age is probably not a factor in any potential notability. 82.9.185.151 (talk) 22:00, 28 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Article meets
    WP:N does it state that an article must be of interest to readers from all countries for it to be included in the encyclopedia. MarnetteD|Talk 20:35, 24 May 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Let's be more precise: I think it is marginally established or not established that the topic meets wp:GNG, but it is also not established that the building is unremarkable (it is hard/impossible to prove the negative, i.e. that there exist no sources explaining how it is remarkable). --doncram 05:18, 25 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
2008 photo of Portobello House
Comparison of the small 1947 photo of Star Cottage in the "community website" to the small 2008 photo of Portobello House (at right here) suggests to me that the two are roughly equivalent: both are country houses, both have end-stack chimneys. The Star Cottage is a mid-1700's (Mid-C18) building; it was listed as a Grade II building in 1999. My hypothesis for now is that the Portobello House dates from the same time, and is perhaps not listed because it has less well-preserved historic integrity (the article notes that it has been modernized). The Star Cottage's listing reason was: "Listed as a picturesque cottage with well preserved external detail, the retention of the thatched roof being of particular interest. / Group value with Ogmore Castle, and contributing considerably to its setting."
It seems possible that Portobello House is one of the 42 residences of "major landowning families built between ca. 1540 and 1760" that are described in Volume IV Part i "The Greater Houses", and otherwise it is quite likely covered as one of the "secondary residences of those families, as well as houses of lesser landowners, ...[plus]... the houses of minor gentry and the tenant farmers, yeomen, and husbandmen, effectively the 'middle class' of rural society" (1,136 - 42 = 1094 houses) that are covered in Volume IV Part ii "Farmhouses and Cottages" (my quotes here are from the blurb within the 1988 book's description). Either way I expect it has been remarked upon.
Thus I currently believe that the Portobello House is or was a significant landmark and that sources to develop the article are available off-line, and I vote "Keep" for now. I would defer to person(s) who actually consult the Glamorgan Inventory book and/or who have more local/specific knowledge. --doncram 05:18, 25 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This is now beginning to get ridiculous. It's not your job to decide a building is noteworthy based on the fact its chimneys look similar to a nearby building that is listed. That is the job of Cadw or some other official body. You have no evidence that Portobello House is listed in this book, so the fact no-one here has read it is irrelevant. If Portobello House was listed, that could be easily proven by looking on Britishlistedbuildings.co.uk (and it isn't).
Quite the contrary to what you say, notability has to be proven. I've never ever participated in an AfD before when the primary argument is that it is "not established that the building is unremarkable". Sionk (talk) 10:37, 25 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate your having that view in good faith, but IMO it is not ridiculous at all. I pointed out an extremely relevant and acceptable off-line source that is very likely to have coverage of the topic, a building/place. It makes sense to decide Keep based on just that. Also this article did not appear among the first edits of a newbie; the author, Dr. Blofield, actually has contributed to 74 Featured Articles and more than 173 Good Articles per their user page now, and was already very experienced back when xe started this article. Also it would be far better to post a question about the article at the author's Talk page, rather than opening an AFD. If one is using the AFD process to force development of the article (and/or identification of sources within the AFD) by the author or others, i.e. demanding that notability be "proven", that is wrong:
WP:AFDISNOTFORCLEANUP
.
I hope you will understand that I mean this cordially, but, in the same spirit, one could say "it's not your job" to decide the topic of an article about a place created by an experienced editor fails to meet Wikipedia notability standards. One could say such an AFD nomination about a place is either going to waste multiple editors' time or possibly cause a valid topic to be deleted only by bad luck. Bad luck would be:
1) if no one far away (like me) happens to be interested and is successful (one can argue whether I was successful or not) in delving around in on-line records,
2) if the author happens not to be available, and
3) if no one else local with access to off-line material about the place, at local libraries, is available to defend the article.
It is easy for all 3 elements of that bad luck to happen. And it is automatic that an AFD is going to consume the attention of multiple editors. But it is extremely rare for a very experienced editor to have made a mistake in assessing the notability of a place topic that they choose to write about. And if one does wonder whether the author has made a mistake, and in retrospect could see that the topic was not valid, it would be far better to just contact the author at their Talk page. Again, I do understand that some could have a different view. Where I am coming from is different. My view is informed from my experience especially with place articles mostly in the U.S., and my experience with AFD which I think is much too costly in terms of editors' attention (and also costly with its effect on authors ... less an issue for experienced authors, but still a mildly negative experience). --doncram 00:22, 27 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, but no thanks. I don't appreciate the lecture. I'm an experienced local editor too and I don't write articles about buildings in my area based on vague beliefs, but on at least some hard proof. Rather than try the "I'm a more experienced editor than you" personalisation, lets stick to the subject at hand. No-one, aboslutely no-one here has come up with one shred of hard evidence that this building is notable. Sionk (talk) 18:20, 27 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't mean to be patronizing. In the same way, I don't appreciate the lecture from you. On topic: given context, given one very relevant source identified but not obtained, and given the judgment of at least two editors (author and me) that there exists documentation to develop the article further, a reasonable person can conclude that, more likely than not, if the further research steps are taken, the notability of Portobello House will be conclusively established. You say it hasn't been proven, meaning 100% proven, or you simply are dismissing the identified two volumes of RCAHMW work. One volume is available to purchase for 10 Euros. We both appear to value our time poorly, that we don't take that step of further research which could resolve the issue (but might not). How about this: S and I agree to buy the RCAHMW volume for Dr. B, either of us paying upfront, based on a coin flip. Note Dr. B and wikipedia would benefit from Dr. B having that book. If it turns out that Dr. B finds "pretty good" evidence (i.e. material to develop the article that would seem pretty good to an uninvolved party), then S reimburses me if I paid or S absorbs the cost if S paid. If it turns out there's evidence pretty good evidence contrary to notability (i.e. it's pretty clear to uninvolved parties that the Portobello House ranks really far down in terms of notability of buildings in the area), then I absorb cost or reimburse S. If it's inbetween then the payer gets reimbursed for half the cost. Seriously I suggest we do that. Seriously I mean that AFDs like this implicitly value people's time at near-zero value. (By "AFDs like this", i mean: about places, where a local and experienced editor once judged the place notable and reiterates that later when asked to reconsider, rather than acknowledging a mistake.) Either way, right now we have to agree to disagree: I think the evidence presented here (informed opinions, identification of promising very relevant source, etc.) suggesting it is notable, you do not.  :::::sincerely, --doncram 03:11, 28 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The RCAHMW publication is a red herring. There's nothing anywhere to suggest this building would be covered in it ('Glamorgan' covers most of South Wales and Portobello House doesn't seem to be either a cottage or a farmhouse). Even you have said yourself, it is impossible to prove a negative i.e. that Portobello House is not notable. The point of an Afd is to provide conclusive, positive evidence that the subject is notable. Sionk (talk) 23:10, 28 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I live in the Vale of Glamorgan, and no, there's not plenty of notable hotels and country houses here. Not many at all. I'd say compared to some of the ones I've started it's not as notable and not listed, but I still believe it's a notable house on the western perimeter of the Vale. The main reason I believe is that historically it was a residence of notable landowners in the area, in fact I'm sure I've seen a Sheriffs of Glamorganshire list at it being cited as the seat. There should be material on this house in the Welsh library, those monuments books should have something on it. At worst a landmarks section in Merthyr Mawr Sand Dunes mentioning the house should suffice. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:47, 25 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Great, thanks, I am glad you were available to comment. Per my comments above, I interpret your statement as a credible assertion that this topic is notable, by your judgment as an experienced Wiki-author and as an informed local. Per above, you are revisiting it and saying it was not an obvious mistake. Thanks. About the building not being listed, I surmise that it must have been modernized too much to remain eligible. I have imperfect understanding of the listing process in the U.K., but I understand buildings can be listed with or without owner's approval, unlike the corresponding process in the U.S. The building could have been notable in the past, as the "seat" of a sherriff or otherwise (and then covered in sources that continue to exist now), and
"Notability is not temporary". It would be good, though, if you could plan to add more to this article, e.g. to get better pics whenever you might be nearby, or e.g. to resolve to get to a library, since this article has been questioned. Despite my replying to the AFD nominator above, they do have a point. :) --doncram 00:22, 27 May 2015 (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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