Talk:Gavin Buckley

Latest comment: 5 years ago by FourViolas in topic Australian-American

Australian-American edit

Hi there. Per MOS:OPENPARABIO, the lead should only include nationalities when introducing people. "Australian-American" is not a nationality. Shouldn't the correct phrase be "South African-born Australian"? If he doesn't have Australian citizenship or nationality, maybe he should use "South African" and of course keep the footnote. Thoughts? MX () 01:09, 22 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

I wasn't aware of the guideline before now, but WP:ETHNICITY (halfway through the section you link) states that previous nationalities or the place of birth should not be mentioned in the lead unless they are relevant to the subject's notability (my emphasis). His Australian ties have won him a lot of human-interesty coverage in Australian media [1] [2] [3], including an in-depth profile that was Exhibit A for the "keep" side in the recent AfD [4]. Exhibit B was a profile in the local paper headlined "Gavin Buckley: The Aussie turned Annapolitan who wants to be mayor (seriously)". Most other American media with more-than-passing coverage of him mention this more or less prominently as well Baltimore Times WYPR Business Monthly. His South African connection is rarely mentioned, and there's no parallel spate of stories about him in ZA media.
I felt this amount of emphasis made it WP:DUE to put "Australian-American" in the lead, and since he probably wouldn't have survived the AfD without the Australian-related coverage this fits with ETHNICITY's recommendations. I'm not married to my opinion on this, though. FourViolas (talk) 02:15, 22 August 2018 (UTC)Reply