Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/N. Balasubramaniam
Notability, for Wikipedia purposes, is defined by the depth and breadth of |reliable source coverage that the topic does or doesn't receive in media — no topic, for any reason, ''ever'' gets a "so important that it's exempted from having to be referenced normally" pass. And Shankar2001 is incorrect, as well, about how easy it is for diplomats in "first world" countries to get over GNG: even with many more news outlets to help support notability, diplomats in Canada, Australia, the United States and the UK ''do'' still ''frequently'' get ''deleted'' for ''not'' actually receiving the necessary degree of coverage. (Speaking as a Canadian, trust me: even in Canada, the ''only'' diplomatic postings that are ''guaranteed'' to ''always'' have a GNG pass are our ambassadors to the US, the UN and France, and our high commissioner to the UK — and even ''then'' it's got more to do with the way those plum positions are typically used to reward retiring politicians who had ''already'' passed  ''anyway'' than it does with actually getting very much coverage ''as ambassadors''.) Furthermore, Wikipedia's sourcing rules do ''not'' restrict us to ''English'' language sources — if you can find Sinhalese or Tamil language RSes that properly support notability, then you ''are'' allowed to use them. So Wikipedia's reliable sourcing rules are ''not'' causing a systemic bias issue in favour of anglophone nations when it comes to the notability of diplomats, because Wikipedia's reliable sourcing rules do not limit us to anglophone sources.The references present ''here'', however, are not ''about'' Balasubramaniam, but merely provide glancing namechecks of his existence in coverage about other things. Accordingly, I'm willing to withdraw this if somebody ''can'' source him over , but there is not, and correctly should not ''be'', any automatic notability freebie for diplomats in the ''absence'' of sufficient sourceability. Diplomats are still |real people whose lives and reputations can be ''harmed'' if we eff up, which is ''precisely'' why we ''can't'' grant them a special exemption from having to pass GNG on the sourcing
— User:Bearcat, 22:14, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
Stance: delete
Cited policy: WP:RS||WP:NPOL||WP:GNG||WP:BLP (Wikipedia:Reliable sources)