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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pupienus and Balbinus

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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 redirect to Year of the Six Emperors#Pupienus, Balbinus and Gordian III. There's consensus that we should not have three articles about two emperors. But the "delete" opinions don't make clear why we should not create a redirect for a likely search term. Sandstein 20:43, 24 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Pupienus and Balbinus

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Pupienus and Balbinus (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Both Pupienus and Balbinus have their own articles. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 04:45, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 09:25, 6 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 09:25, 6 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Similar to Presidency of Donald Trump in relation to Mike Pence and Donald Trump - just that Pupienus and Balbinus were titular equals and didn't write anonymous columns in the New York Times. The 3 month administration as co-emperors is independently notable from either individual.Icewhiz (talk) 10:12, 6 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. A search for "Pupienus and Balbinus" and "Balbinus and Pupienus" etc in GBooks etc indicates that a sufficient quantity of suitable sources treat them as a single topic for that topic to be notable independently of either of them. Some sources do speak of them as having an "administration" together, using that word exactly. An argument can also be made based on the inscriptions on the coinage they issued. They were elected together as joint Augustii (each of them was an Augustus), whereas Gordian III was only Ceasar until after their deaths. I don't think the fact the disliked each other or didn't co-operate or split the military and civil sides of the government between them is enough to get rid of this article. The Empire wasn't divided into East and West until Diocletion, so that is not an issue. James500 (talk) 01:03, 14 September 2018 (UTC) Keep per Icewhiz. The 'administration' of the two co-emperors is independently notable. James500 (talk) 13:54, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    @James500: I seriously question that metric as a measure of the worthiness of a combined topic. Points where their history were the same, thus creating a plausible "Pupienus and Balbinus" wording: Both were on senator council which appointed emperor. Both were appointed emperor. Both were rioted against to appoint Gordian III. Both were assassinated by Praetorian Guard. Just because the same events happened to both does not mean the two are being treated as a seperate topic of the two, just that both were involved in the same event. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 18:34, 15 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, KCVelaga (talk) 02:23, 9 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Redundant. Srnec (talk) 04:41, 9 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete !Voting here primarily to counteract the anti-historical !vote from Icewhiz (and possibly James500 if he unstrikes his above !vote after re-evaluating). Citing Presidency of Donald Trump is one of the worst cases of WP:OSE I've ever seen, as a lot less can be written about Roman emperors than about contemporary American presidents simply by virtue of a lot less being known about them, and a reasonable case could be made for most Roman emperors that they are only notable as Roman emperors (definitely not the case for Trump, who had a standalone article for years before he even entered politics), so having a separate article on the emperorship of this or that emperor would make the biographical article named for them redundant. No one would have ever heard about most Roman emperors more than a century or so after their deaths had they not become emperor for however short a time. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:43, 9 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    Trump (and every single other US presidential term we have an entry for) was but an example. Many Roman figures are known despite not being emporers - in great detail. However, you actually make my point above - the adminstration of a large empire is more notable than the biography of the fellow(s) who happen to hold the title. In this case we have a 3 month periid of Roman adminstration that is more notable than the named individuals.Icewhiz (talk) 09:42, 9 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Many Roman figures are known despite not being emporers Umm ... citation needed? You are saying we know as many Roman businessmen (or military generals, or senators, or ...) as modern American ones, adjusted for change in population size? That's ridiculous, and I'm sure you know it is. For the vast majority of Roman emperors, we have no reason to believe their names (let alone anything else about them) would have come down to us had they not become emperors. See Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist? for a very readable account of how we hardly know about anyone who lived in the ancient Mediterranean world. The fact that our individual articles on Pupienus and Balbinus include as little as they do about their lives outside of their emperorships is further evidence of this. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:15, 9 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. The reason we know less about people from the ancient history than contemporary people is because sources from that period have been lost because they were written on perishable materials and were too difficult to reproduce without printing. Per WP:NTEMP we cannot use the loss of sources as an argument against notability. If they once existed, we have to take them into account. Both of these individuals satisfied WP:POLITICIAN before becoming emperor because of holding national public offices such as consul. Many emperors would have satisfied POLITICIAN or SOLDIER before they became emperor. A Roman emperor is far more notable than an American president for various reasons, not least of which is that an emperor had much greater legal powers. The argument that contemporary sources have been lost also fails because the lost sources have been cited, quoted, paraphrased and otherwise used by later extant sources that did have access to the lost works. The names of a significant number of non-emperors have come down to us from all sources. Even William Smith's biographical dictionary, for example, confirms this. Had these two not been emperors, I can see no reason to assume their names would not have come down to us anyway for other reasons, such as being consuls. The reason I struck my !vote is not because I doubt that an 'administration' would be notable, but because I am not certain that there was an 'administration' that you could label as such. James500 (talk) 14:47, 9 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The reason we know less about people from the ancient history than contemporary people is because sources from that period have been lost because they were written on perishable materials and were too difficult to reproduce without printing That's ... a very questionable interpretation of the problem, especially as it relates to WP:OSE and the "Presidency of Foo" articles. The reason we know less about people from the past is more likely that fewer sources were produced in the first place. There were no 24-hour news networks or YouTube or blogs, and the majority of the population (which was much smaller in the first place) could not even read or write. Even if every contemporary or near-contemporary source about P and B had magically survived, they would still be dwarfed in volume by the number of sources covering Trump. (And even among the probably relatively small number of works that don't survive, a lot of them were probably entertainments not meant to be taken seriously; I doubt any of our voluminous articles on Trump include an "in popular culture" discussion that mentions that on one episode of Friends Monica and Chandler both lied about their whereabouts by coming up with a story about how they saw Donald Trump waiting for an elevator. And if they do, I think they probably shouldn't.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:58, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, gidonb (talk) 18:01, 15 September 2018 (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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