Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gisela, daughter of Charlemagne


 * 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 keep. Clear consensus that the subject is notable. (non-admin closure)  J 947(c) (m) 20:44, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Gisela, daughter of Charlemagne

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Too obscure to merit a stand-alone page - the infobox is larger than everything that can possibly be said about her. That she was child of her father and that she was baptized and perhaps educated (unreferenced claim), is no basis for notability, nor is the fact that this otherwise obscure royal daughter is sometimes confused with her more-noteworthy aunt. Changed to a redirect 5 years ago, but just reverted. Agricolae (talk) 14:27, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Agricolae (talk) 14:28, 28 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep or Merge somewhere, definitely don't delete. Probably too little for a standalone article, but the info is legitimate and significant, and needs to be kept somewhere.--Cúchullain t/ c 14:44, 28 September 2017 (UTC) Changing my vote after the new additions.--Cúchullain t/ c  15:11, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. I have (after the AfD, which happened while I was typing it out), included reliable sources for everything except her tutor, which is still in need of a citation. In popular culture at least 3 books feature her as a main character, there are numerous references to support the fact she was one of Charlemagne's better known daughters. I disagree with the original AfD reason since that was based on a incomplete stub. Notability is not temporary, a significant princess of the holy roman empire during its epoch is a relevant biography to have, even on the limited dozen or so sources available. NB. they are some older sources available as well, the information comes from somewhere, an expert could add to this article. A den jentyl ettien avel dysklyver  15:01, 28 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. If we are discussing (for almost a month!) a speculative 3rd yet to be born modern offspring to the grandson of the queen of a monarchy that has very little actual real power (Articles for deletion/Third child of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge) - we should definitely keep a non-speculative child of arguably the most influential monarch in European history if sourcing supports it. Following article improvement - there is both sourcing and more content - meeting GNG. I'll note that sourcing here is difficult as there were multiple Giselas in the Carlogininan line (including here co-contemporaneous abbess aunt), and that it actually seems possible (per some of the sources) that a few years after her aunts death (who was abbess of Chelles) this Gisela as well was appointed to be abbot of Chelles.Icewhiz (talk) 15:35, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. Looks like a decent, encyclopedic article after the additions. Rentier (talk) 16:24, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep - I don't buy the inherented notability of royal family, especially if they haven't done anything particularly astounding in their life, but this is well-sourced and meets WP:GNG. Not much can be said about Gisela but that is not a result of a lack of sources.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 17:26, 28 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Nominators Comment This article has been expanded since nomination, but much of the expansion is decoration, based on non-WP:RS (self-published material, non-notable trash-fiction), and references to a sister as if it was relevant to her, or books that don't have the information that is claimed (e.g. name, death). Further, it has plastered on multiple passing references to make it appear as if there is broad specific coverage, rather than just a single-sentence mention in these books - a bunch of passing references to an otherwise obscure girl not pass GNG. I have cleaned it up, but maintain that there is not enough here to ever have more than a stub, and a redirect to her father's page is more appropriate. Agricolae (talk) 21:11, 28 September 2017 (UTC) Added note: I tried to clean it up by removing the problematic material that wasn't supported by the citations, but my efforts were reverted.  I then tried to simply tag the problems, but my efforts were reverted.  This is not the way it the process is supposed to work.  If I can't even point out the problems, let alone fix them, it is impossible to have an open and well-informed discussion of the merits of this page - any page can on someone obscure can be bulked up with inappropriate citations to look like it is well-supported. Agricolae (talk) 23:01, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Nice to see how you claim there are no WP:RS sources after removing them all, I suggest you refrain from editing this page until after the AfD, but you are entitled to say the references are rubbish, I just disagree and will let others judge for themselves. A den jentyl ettien avel dysklyver  21:33, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Except what I removed were non-reliable sources and sources that didn't support the claim they were cited for. It is awfully ironic that you stuff the article with dubious material during the AfD period then say nobody should edit the mess until the AfD is over. Agricolae (talk) 21:55, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Nothing was sourced from trash fiction. Her portrayls in several trash fiction titles was noted, as we often do regarding portrayls in popular culture for bios.Icewhiz (talk) 21:25, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Let me get this straight - your defense of it is that it isn't bad sourcing, it is Original Research? Oh, in that case it's just fine.Agricolae (talk) 21:55, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Saying that a fiction book about Gisela daughter of Charlemagne is a portrayal of Gisela daughter of Charlemagne... is not OR. I think it is best you avoid editing the page concurrent to your afd advpcating.Icewhiz (talk) 04:17, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Original Research is when an editor reaches a conclusion not found in a source, when they collect information and draw their own conclusion. None of the cited sources says that there are several works of fiction on Gisela.  It is the editor's own research (a Google Books search, or perhaps their own bookshelf) that has led them to the awareness of such literature, and it is their own research that has led them to generalize about it.  If there are no secondary sources that mention this literary corpus, neither should we.  As to your other suggestion, . . . no.  The article has been stuffed with irrelevancies, unsupported assertions, excessive citation and false citation just to make it look pretty for the AfD, and now you suggest I just leave even the most egregious examples unchallenged.  You can't even get past the first citation, supposedly providing verification for the utterly ludicrous alternative name of Gisela Charlemagne Carolingian, entirely absent form the source.  Elsewhere a reference to the subject's birth is used as reference for their death, and there are two self-published lulu.com books paraded out there like thy are real references.  It is a mess and people here are basing their !votes on the highly-deceptive presentation, with its false-citations and flawed citations.  The whole AfD system doesn't work if all it takes to avoid an Deletion is to stuff an article full of dubious material and declare it all sacrosanct until after the process is over.  How about this?  We go back to the version when the AfD was proposed, removing all of the stuffing, and nobody edits it until it is over?  No, I thought not.  Indeed, part of the process is to improve borderline articles, but we don't improve them by waiving all standards of verifiability and preventing the removal (or even tagging) of unsupported, distorted, or undue material until after the votes are in. Agricolae (talk) 07:16, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Apologies for adding to a wall of text with a wall of text, I couldn’t summarize it.
 * There is no original research in saying several works of fiction feature her as the main character, and then supporting the claim with reference to three books with her name clearly on front cover, you don't need to have a reference which says it, it is incredibly obvious, it like needing a reference to prove people can walk, even though sources say people walk.

Its my own research which informs me of everything i write, not everyone blindly copies a single source, and Wikipedia would be pretty useless if that were all that was allowed. Research to discover information, putting the information into proper sentences with sources to show its verifiability is fine and not original research, which is where something is a theory or hypothesis not directly supported by sources. a set of facts is not original research. You say we should not mention that she is relevant in popular culture, yet most articles have sections devoted to that purpose, with heading lie 'in popular culture'. The article has not been 'stuffed with irrelevancies', the article simply gathers all the limited information on a historical figure that has survived the last 1200 years, and uses books that focus on a whole set of people to illustrate what is known about her, if this was a price then it would be alot easier, but hey this came from the systemic bias against women biography worklist, women have less written about them in historic sources than their male counterparts. You got the name wrong, it is not 'Gisela Charlemagne' is it 'Carolingian' which is the surname of her royal house, which was stated in the source, someone has helpfully put this into a royalty infobox now. You clearly misunderstood the 'death reference', as that was infact a reference for a her birth, as is stated in the article, her death date is not clearly recorded. Self published books should be judged on the merit of the author, neither are being used to support anything of note anyway. Regarding your long winded way of excusing why you nominated an article for deletion whilst it was being edited, I obviously disagree that leaving it in its improved state is unduly influencing anything, people do look at the references and check the content, I cannot see any problem with presenting all that is available and letting people judge all the aspects of this article, rather than saying there is not mention of her and its an irrelevance. The material in the article is there for people to judge, I am not the only person to work on it, and others have made various changes and comments as well, so I don't feel like this is a personal battle between my version and your version (which was my unreferenced stub framework anyway). A den jentyl ettien avel dysklyver 10:38, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * A lot to answer: 1) I see bears at a zoo, so obviously there are bears at that zoo. That doesn't mean I am justified in adding to a Wikipedia article on bears that they can be seen at said zoo.  It would be both WP:UNDUE and a conclusion based on personal observation - Original Research.  Having a few non-notable trash-fiction books does not make someone notable in popular culture.  'In popular culture' sections exist but are highly controversial, particularly since they tend to become a dumping ground for every obscure pop-culture reference.  Most pages that have not removed the section entirely maintain a strict requirement that to be included, a pop-culture reference need not only exist, but have been proven noteworthy by mention in some secondary reference, which then avoids both the UNDUE and OR problems. 2) Wikipedia is not a WP:SOAPBOX.  If there is insufficient material for someone to be notable, that is unfortunate but "The mass of [women and] men lead lives of quiet desperation".  Past biases of historians are unfortunate, but no excuse for statements that are unsupported by the cited references, just to have more to say.  3) Gisela Carolingian is equally preposterous.  You say it is the family surname of the royal house, but surnames didn't exist in Carolingian Francia, and the family never had one (genealogical websites and self-published books notwithstanding, the first French monarch to have had a surname was 1000 years later, when the blade dropped on Citoyen Capet).  Equally important, you made the claim look authentic by adding a citation to a source that said nothing of the sort.  4) You say that I misunderstood as a death reference a citation documenting her birth and not her death.  It was given at the end of a sentence that only mentioned the lack of information about her death, so if you agree it has nothing to do with her death, there is not one problem but two: it shouldn't be attached to a sentence it does not address and no reference actually documents the statement made.  Likewise, if neither self-published book is "being used to support anything of note anyway" why are they there at all?  The role of citations is to document the verifiability of claims being made, not just as decoration.  5) You are not presenting all that is available and letting people judge, you are going well beyond what is available, playing fast and loose in a way that makes it look like there are more sources, better sources and more detailed sources, than there really are, exactly the point at issue in an AfD. Agricolae (talk) 16:20, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * The self published books were being used to support that old latin thing, but since a reliable republication has been found now, that is no longer needed. the sentence about her death was added by Icewhiz, who has resourced it now. I have found references to support the sentence on pop culture now also. Considering what I was able to find with a half hour search I am surprised this was nominated at all. Dysklyver  23:10, 1 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. It is appropriate that thresholds for inclusion of minor historical persons be generous. Reliable information has to be collected from snippets. A redirect to her fathers page is not appropriate because sufficient information doesn’t belong there. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:21, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 07:31, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Europe-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 07:31, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Coolabahapple (talk) 07:31, 29 September 2017 (UTC) oops, already there. Coolabahapple (talk) 07:32, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * keep but rework. I've just looked at the sources and what they are supposedly supporting and have left a long comment on the talk page. See Talk:Gisela, daughter of Charlemagne. But ... this is clearly not well researched and is indeed full of sourcing problems. Use of any work from lulu.com is a serious problem. Stating that a daughter of Charlemagne has a surname " 'Carolingian' which is the surname of her royal house, which was stated in the source, someone has helpfully put this into a royalty infobox now" is so wrong that it's not even funny. Surnames do not appear in the historical record for Western Europe until the 11th or 12th century. Charlemagne did NOT have the surname "Carolingian" ... that's the name that later writers/etc gave to his family but its still not a surname. There isn't any doubt there was a daughter of Charlemagne named Gisela, but this article as it stands with the current sourcing does not meet wikipedia policies and guidelines. Ealdgyth - Talk 11:50, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Having looked at your comment on the talk page I am in agreement with most the suggested improvements, however I feel the problem is mostly based on the lack of sources for things like the death date, as opposed to the birth date, which is surprisingly easy to source, inclusive of baptism. It is definitely stated somewhere she never married, as none of Charlemagne's daughters married. I will try to locate a reliable source for that. Whether royal surnames are technically correct or not is not supposed to be funny, it is a name many people seem to use (and are used in modern genealogy by laypeople), despite royalty never having surnames. Any assistance in the improvements is of great help, I am not a historian, I don't think anyone else working on this is either. A den jentyl ettien avel dysklyver  12:41, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Those aren't improvements, those are serious serious problems. That many problems with sources not supporting the information given is actually enough to have the article deleted, since nothing that's accurately sourced in the article is really enough to establish notability. To recap, over 3/4ths of the article is not supported by the references that purport to support it. Some acknowledgement of that being a problem would be nice. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:44, 29 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Strong delete The current article is full of unsupported speculation, false claims and poorly sourced or not sourced statements. Not enough is known about Gisela to justify an article, and in the creation of this article not enough care was taken to distinguish her from other similarly named individuals.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:35, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I know you always vote delete so I won't try to change your mind, but did you actually bother to read anything here? I doubt that you could back up anything you claim, there are no false claims, no unsupported speculation and just because you say nothing is known about her doesn't mean its true, . And great care has been taken to distinguish her from the other Gisela's (there is traditionally one in every generation of this royal house). Dysklyver  19:43, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Your claim that I always vote delete is false, I at times vote keep when it is justified. I base my claims about the problems with the article itself on the well reasoned explanations of these problems and the false claims as put forth on the talk page.John Pack Lambert (talk) 05:24, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Ok I take that back, you have voted keep in <1% of you AfD votes, 3 times infact. I 'would love' to see you further justify the Cambridge University Press being called a self-published source btw. Dysklyver  23:10, 1 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep: WP:NOPAGE may apply here but the article, in its current state, has valuable information that could be merged somewhere. Some of it is poorly sourced but the good stuff needs to be put somewhere.  Maybe have an arbitrary time period between AfDs and if we've merged it somewhere then we can redirect it.    Dr Strauss   talk   14:25, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Agree. The article contains valuable information, albeit “uncertain” as is common for most of that time period. Charlemagne is already a large article, merging to Charlemagne makes for too much unfocused material. Charlemagne‘s children might be a good new subpage to merge and a edirect to. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:58, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * It could feature all six of Charlmange's legitimate children, or perhaps just five, and leave Louis the Pious separate. It could also mention the other 14 illegitimate ones. . A den jentyl ettien avel dysklyver | Dysklyver  15:28, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * There is now a significant amount of discussion on the sources on the articles talk page. various new sources are there and not on the article, and a set of sources are also available in the edit history after being removed. Dysklyver  22:35, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep: Adequate sources to demonstrate notability. May not be a lot of detail, but the individual has coverage in the historic record and suitable for an article.  If someone felt that merging all of Charlemagne's children into a single article, that is a different discussion after concluding this AfD.   Montanabw (talk) 07:38, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
 * If not kept, merge to her mother Hildegard of the Vinzgau and amend the article on her father to point to the section in her mother's article. However, I would not object to keeping an article on a child of a king as notable as Charlemagne.  Peterkingiron (talk) 22:19, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I am against a merge to the mother, only 16% of our biographies are on women, and merging them together is not my favoured solution. especially as more sources are available. Dysklyver  23:10, 1 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment. All Charlemagne's other legitimate children have articles. Dysklyver  23:23, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep Meets WP:GNG, this does need some retooling but I think this does meet our criteria for inclusion. --Cameron11598 (Talk) 16:15, 4 October 2017 (UTC)


 * 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.