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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paramount Sultan Ibrahim Q Bahjin Shakirullah II

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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 merge to List of sultans of Sulu#Claimants as Sultan of Sulu from 1980 - present.  Sandstein  06:29, 18 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Paramount Sultan Ibrahim Q Bahjin Shakirullah II

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Paramount Sultan Ibrahim Q Bahjin Shakirullah II (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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I'm nominating this for a wider discussion. I have to somewhat explain the history of this nom. I initially came across it via the proposed deletion articles, where the biggest concern was that it was a hoax. I initially thought this was the case, but the person does exist and the limited media attention he gets uses a slightly different spelling. What makes me see him as non-notable is that he isn't the focus of any in-depth coverage in reliable sources. He's mentioned as an afterthought or an aside in most news articles and there doesn't seem to be any other type of coverage about him that can be used to show notability. His main claim to fame as far as Wikipedia goes is that he is an heir to the Sultanship of Sulu and North Borneo, and I think he's actually second in line to the throne if I'm reading this correctly. I know that occasionally the first heirs to major thrones will pass notability guidelines on this basis alone, but I'm not sure that this really falls under that criteria. The additional difficulty in this is that in the article about the Sultan of Sulu, the Philippine government hasn't actually formally recognized an official Sultan. The Sultanate of Sulu article also confirms this. So what we have here is an article about a person who claims to be an heir to a position that hasn't been officially recognized since 1986. Everyone after this point has been seen as "pretenders to the throne", regardless of birth or any other claim, legitimate or not. Part of me thinks that this could potentially be usable as a redirect, but then I have to wonder if this is really appropriate to list and redirect for every person who lays claim to the throne. The article isn't helped out my by its original format, ([1]) which served more as a platform to argue that Bahjin Shakirullah II is a more legitimate heir than the others. I just don't know what the best solution is for this. He's not notable enough for an entry in my opinion, and I'm not sure that a redirect would be the best course of action here since I have no way of knowing how many people are claiming to be heirs to the Sultanate or whether or not it's appropriate to redirect for each person. I was going to let the PROD lapse, but I felt that an AfD would be the best course of action in this case. The more eyes looking at this, the better. I'm not really arguing legitimacy of his claim as much as I am notability. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:50, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • On a side note, I'd also like to state that although there was a recognized Sultan in the 1980s, the Sultanate was dissolved in 1917. In other words, the title is just a title and doesn't officially hold any power as far as the government goes. So again, the Sultanate has been dissolved for almost 100 years and the government stopped formally recognizing any title holders about 27 years ago.Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 18:25, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philippines-related deletion discussions. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:57, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:57, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Have you tried searching for Tagalog sources? This being a Filipino "Paramount Sultan" in question. (As well as Melayu sources maybe) I'd suppose per general notability guidelines, this man would be marginally notable for his case as a disputed heir, as reported here and also [2] For time being I'm going to say Weak keep. ☯ Bonkers The Clown \(^_^)/ Nonsensical Babble ☯ 07:51, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not sure that this is really a notable enough title to warrant it passing that threshold of notability. You've got to remember that there have been no official Sultans of that region since the 1980s and what I can find is rather vague on how he came to have that title or who exactly inferred it on him. I've gotten the impression that there are multiple people that are claiming to be the Sultan of this area or, as the children of those people, claiming to be the heir apparent. It's not exactly like William and Harry, as there are currently six people claiming the right to be the Sultan of this area and I'd presume that of those, at least 2-3 of them have children that could claim something similar. I had some difficulty in finding sources for him in general, which is why I'm bringing it here. The coverage here is so light that I honestly doubt that he merits his own article, as his sole claim to fame is that he is one of several people claiming to be the heir to a position that hasn't been legally recognized in about 26-27 years. I'm thinking that at best this should redirect, but I'd like to verify more about him and that he's actually a serious contender for the title of heir, as again, I've gotten the impression that of the heirs themselves, there's at least a good 2-4 of them. Not including the people claiming to be the Sultan. I'm willing to accept a redirect and merge of some details, but I don't know if that's appropriate. Remember, none of these people are really recognized by the government. I've seen similar cases such as this one from last month, this one, and this one, where the article was deleted or redirected because their relation to royalty wasn't enough to show notability in and of itself. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:33, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • There have been multiple similar cases, which is why I'm arguing that being a claimant to a throne isn't necessarily enough. He doesn't seem to be the main contender for this either. ([3], [4], [5], [6]) I'm not trying to be hardheaded, just saying that there's a lot of precedent for redirect or deletion when it comes to cases of people that have received little to no coverage about themselves specifically and have their notability extend from a tenuous link to royalty.Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:43, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
After second thought, if it can be verified that the individual is a claimant/pretender to the royal title, the article could be Redirected to List of sultans of Sulu#Claimants as Sultan of Sulu from 1980 - present. That being said I still have not found significant coverage of the individual, so a standalone article is not required at this time IMHO.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 14:25, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:23, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:23, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The issue isn't whether or not the concept of a pretender to the throne might be notable, but whether this specific person is. The existence of other articles doesn't really give that great of an argument when you figure that WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS might just mean that the article in question hasn't been nominated yet. Although if we're going to argue that way, I might add that almost none of the other claimants to the Sultanate have articles and don't seem to merit individual entries either. If you want to show that this person is particularly noteworthy, you should probably back it up with in-depth coverage in reliable sources. If this AfD shows that he's only notable for his claims, then perhaps this would be better as a redirect to the main article if anyone can figure out exactly how he relates to the other claimants or to the other Sultans. Also, please remember that this article was initially started extremely promotional in tone, basically being used as an advertisement to show how he's the only valid candidate for the Sultanate. I mention this because I don't know how much of the previous claims were actually legitimate. There's very little about this person on the Internet that wasn't uploaded or supplied by he or one of his camp, so take that into consideration. The more I think about it, the more this seems to be a case of Wikipedia:Vanispamcruftisement. I'm willing to compromise and add him to the list of people claiming to be the heir to the Sultanate, but I really don't think he merits an entry to himself. Other than a few articles listing him as an aside, literally as 1-2 sentence mentions, there's absolutely nothing out there about him. His claim to the Sultanate is pretty weak and I can't quite find who exactly named him the heir to the Sultanate. The article for the Sultanate of Sulu lists about four other people who claim to either be the Sultan or have a claim to the throne. I guess what kind of bothers me about this is that it means that by the standards above, anyone can make a claim to a throne and as long as you have one article mention you (even if it's just briefly), that means you pass notability guidelines. I'm really puzzled as to why people are arguing notability based on one person claiming that he's the heir when there's little to no coverage for him and nothing to show why his claim is honestly legitimate. I wish I'd just gone with one of my first thoughts and speedied this as spam and then just redirected his name to the Sultanate of Sulu. This is a very bad precedent we're setting here, saying that all it takes to keep an article is a random claim and some trivial mentions. If this is all it takes, then we need to revisit at least a good few dozen articles on royalty (real royalty, not just potential pretenders) that were deleted because their notability wasn't inherited and trivial mentions weren't enough.Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 18:25, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I found the whole issue of the Sultanate, before you stripped the article, to be rather interesting, but I agree that it needs secondary sources. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:14, 5 March 2013 (UTC).[reply]
  • The reason I stripped the article was because none of it was sourced and because it was all highly promotional. If you want me to return all of the previous stuff to the article, I will. I'm wondering if that's the only way to hammer home how non-notable this guy is and how spammy the entire mess is. It was more of a promotional resume than an actual encyclopedic article. If it's the whole pretender to the throne thing that's interesting, all of that is currently summarized in the article for the Sultanate. The big question here is that if someone is only known for making the same claim as about 4-7 other people (this includes the ones that actually claim to be the Sultan and not in line to what is now a non-existent position), you have to ask yourself: are we really doing Wikipedia any good by having a stub article in this case instead of deleting and/or redirecting it to the article that best summarizes all of this? This is one of those cases where the only information about him that's actually been backed up in RS (even if just trivially) is that he's a doctor that claims to be the heir to a Sultanate that's been dissolved for almost 100 years and the title has been unrecognized by its government for about 1/4th of that time. This isn't to say that someone claiming to be something can't be notable, but that's simply not the case here. Since all he's known for is making this claim, I'm willing to compromise and have him added to the people claiming to be in line for what is ultimately a non-existent position, but he's not even very well known when it comes to that. He's just not notable enough for his own article. While I know that being a spam magnet isn't a reason for deletion in and of itself, you need to remember that the original editor used this as a spam page to promote this person and this will continually be a spam magnet. I really and truly think that the best case scenario in this instance is to delete everything and maybe create a redirect to the appropriate page. We've had multiple AfDs where people with real and proven ties to a throne/royalty were shown to not be notable outside of their heritage and were redirected to the parent article. I know I'm being verbose, but that people are willing to argue keep for what is, at best, a tenuous and rather unproven connection to the Sultanate really bothers me. If he'd had more coverage then that'd be one thing, but he hasn't. It's stuff like this that makes me understand why so many people are getting frustrated with the notability and deletion processes here on Wikipedia and just jump ship rather than to try to argue their case. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 04:47, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The only problem is the article is a BLP of an individual whom I couldn't find any significant coverage from non-primary reliable sources about. Non-verified content is subject to WP:GRAPEVINE specifically, and WP:BURDEN generally.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 03:55, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect per RightCowLeftCoast. A pretender with insignificant levels of coverage in secondary sources isn't really notable. Such notability as exists accrues purely to the title and is not, in this case, inherited by the person pretending to it. RayTalk 01:15, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge and redirect as above. In time sources may appear to prove notability, but they're a long way from there so far. Stuartyeates (talk) 04:25, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, —JmaJeremy✆✎ 21:07, 10 March 2013 (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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