Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Florescu (2nd nomination)


 * 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   delete. Seraphimblade Talk to me 04:16, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

John Florescu
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Two reasons to delete. One, the subject hasn't really done anything notable. I mean, sure, he's had an interesting career, but at a fairly inconspicuous level in whatever he's dabbled in - politics, business, journalism and television; nothing stands out. Two, the sources don't back up a claim of notability, as defined by WP:BASIC. I may be missing something among the forest of cruft, which really isn't helpful to his case, but things like this or this or this or this do nothing to advance the idea he may be notable. (Evidently because they aren't independent.) Same goes for things like this (passing mention) or this (editorial written by the subject). As for the royal decoration: one, of course the Romanian royal family is going to decorate someone who makes a glowing documentary about one of them; two, Romania hasn't been a monarchy since 1947, so it's a fairly meaningless private honor.

Anyway, to sum up, I'm simply not seeing significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject. - Biruitorul Talk 00:32, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete a non-notable individual.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:48, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
 *  Tentative Delete. My gut feeling from reading the article is that this is a puff piece (probably by a paid publicist) about a non-notable person.  There's a carpet-bomb of references.  I spot-checked two of them from the NY TImes:
 * CAMPAIGN-TECHNIQUE EXPERTS SEE DIFFICULTIES FOR CONSENSUS. Passing quote from the Florescu, in the 5th paragraph, in an article on another topic.
 * The NY Times, Steve Knoll (February 19, 1984). "Candidates weigh the uses of cable". This is a broken link.  Searching for the title in google, and in the NY Times own search engine both failed to locate the article.
 * I'l make the same offer I make in all these cases. If somebody can pick the two or three (but no more) best sources to demonstrate notability, I'll take a closer look.  But I'm not going to grovel over 46 references, most of which look dubious on the surface, and the best two of which I did examine and turned out to be sub-standard.  -- RoySmith (talk) 16:12, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I've struck the tentative part of my not-a-vote-bolded-sounds-bite above. Nothing I've seen here over the past few days of discussion has demonstrated any useful sources.  -- RoySmith (talk) 12:50, 1 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Note This was also discussed at Deletion review/Log/2017 February 19. To be fair, the nominator there was encouraged to write a new article, so this isn't really forum shopping, but I will note that they were selective about which suggestions they acted on (i.e. writing a new article) and which they didn't (i.e. supplying the new information which they asserted had come to light).  -- RoySmith (talk) 16:17, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete the article creator tried to put this up at DRV, claiming "significant new information" had come up since the prior consensus to delete, but not bothering to state what this new information was or how they intended to source it. All available evidence points to this being a vanity/spam article for a non-notable person, almost certainly created by someone with a conflict of interest. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  20:49, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

To John Pack Lambert, RoySmith. John Pack Lambert: This is info regarding the links you are mentioning above:
 * The NY Times, Steve Knoll (February 19, 1984). "Candidates weigh the uses of cable". - THIS here should be the link (it is a scanned article, added because Florescu, president of VPI back-then, is telling some info in respect of using cable -this is the '80, big thing back then, I believe http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mIV_cJPYBqQ/TaMPoWOWBnI/AAAAAAAAAAk/_nGnaOXU3BA/s1600/New+York+Times-+Article+about+John+Florescu.JPG
 * The second article you mentioned, I added to back up the claim "he pioneered the use of cable television to broadcast political commercials" [considering that the mention in the article from 1982 saying "John Florescu, a cable television expert from Boston, told of using cable to reach Massachusetts people interested in local government, to get voters to caucuses, and of using a Portuguese language channel to reach fishermen in Fall River. He predicted that Democratic Presidential hopefuls would use cable in Iowa and New Hampshire in 1984, saying it had particular value in primaries and caucuses where turnout was small." might back that up].

Mention: I can definitely say that there is no interest (financially or others similar) and I do want to shed some light, giving you some context, to reconsider your suspicions of being a puff piece. I am involved in a research, along with Matei Cazacu (Romanian historian), about Florescu family (the Romanian boyars), and the subject of this article is part of the livings that are still with us today (and apparently he is receiving more screening time starting last year). I took many of the info collected in the first deleted article and tried to source those (I considered the discussion started there to harm this individual -making him look like a villain who wanted to brag online about himself with undocumented info. I personally found that discussion searching the name "John Florescu" on Google, and I found that is a bad thing to have online for someone that is fairly reputable). And this is what I tried to fix (you can go back in the Deletion review/Log/2017 February 19 to see that these are the thoughts that I tried to express there as well. This is the reason so many sources do appear in the bottom of this article (for trying to undo the things said in the first article about "getting a vanity page with unbacked info"). Going back, I realise this is maybe not the best way to write an article about this living individual; would you agree that is a good way to take out all the old descriptive facts and stick with only the notable ones? This is my first article on wiki and I spent a lot reading the rules, and, no doubt, I definitely missed some. I look for some guidance in making the correct editorial decisions since I am convinced you are all acting in good faith and only wanting to keep this encyclopaedia clean, even if it is user generated.

To RoySmith getting back with what you requested to get "two or three best sources to demonstrate notability" please take some time to read these hand picked below.
 * 1. Producer (last movie got him decorated by Crown Princess Margareta of Romania *IMDb LIST HERE* (Biruitorul the documentary is not making glowing mentions about the Royal House, it just presents facts from the western perspective)
 * 2. Filmography (2004-1986) http://www.hollywood.com/celebrities/john-m-florescu-58402708/
 * 3. Trump vs Clinton -last documentary made in late 2016 READ ARTICLE *HERE* PLEASE (this is a piece in Romanian; this producer is getting more screen time in the past months being the Romanian-American that is analysing the impact of the US elections for Europe)

Thank you all for keeping this a safe place and looking forward to get some guidance. MariaOlteanu
 * Thank you for supplying those. Unfortunately, the first two (IMDb and holywood.com) don't meet our requirement for reliable sources.  You should read WP:RS to understand better what we're looking for.  The third one, as you point out, is written in Romanian, which I can't read (and, unfortunately, the automatic translation services don't seem to handle Romanian).  The fact that it's in Romanian doesn't disqualify it as a source, but as a practical matter, it makes it difficult for me to evaluate it.  It would be useful if you could produce a translation so the reviewers here could read it in English.  -- RoySmith (talk) 01:47, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Can you please check this video here RoySmith. It is faster than translating the Romanian text, and it is easier for you to get a better grasp of the documentary production and role in the Romanian news. I will read the WP:RS, thanks for the link and suggestion. ---[MariaOlteanu 20:52, 27 February 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by MariaOlteanu (talk • contribs)
 * Pro TV advertising a segment produced by Florescu for Pro TV doesn't count as "significant coverage [of Florescu] in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject". You might wish to ponder the meaning of those words, and come back with sources that fit the description. - Biruitorul Talk 22:05, 27 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Biruitorul it si not just Pro TV covering the latest production of Florescu "Trump vs. Trump". You can also see it here on Digi 24, here on Mediafax, here on Hotnews, here on RFI. This is one of the documentaries Florescu produced in 2016 (not a segment as you said above, but a stand alone piece aired by PRO TV), and, just like the rest of documentaries made by Florescu, it is significantly covered in press in multiple reliable independent sources, as you can see here. User:MariaOlteanu 00:08, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

—Preceding undated comment added 22:56, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
 * First, let's address the elephant in the room here: are you John Florescu or someone being paid or compensated to attempt to get this article created? Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  23:33, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
 * And, while we're at it: no one's going to bother responding to that wall of text, but I'll address just one aspect. Commenting on the recent American presidential election, even producing a half-hour segment on it, isn't really indicative of notability. Not only did thousands of American journalists do some version of that, even in Romania, it wasn't exactly unusual; see e.g. here and here and here and here and here and here and here. - Biruitorul Talk 23:48, 26 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Your examples above, (n.n. listed by Biruitorul), are examples of articles on the U.S. election subject. Florescu made a documentary about the impact of the U.S. election in Europe (covered here on Adevărul, or here in Capital. It is largely covered by independent reliable sources. It is a documentary of significant importance, since it is covered by so many notable Romanian publications. User:MariaOlteanu 00:08, 3 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Texas-related deletion discussions. Marchjuly (talk) 00:51, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. Marchjuly (talk) 00:51, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. Marchjuly (talk) 00:51, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Marchjuly (talk) 00:51, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Romania-related deletion discussions. Marchjuly (talk) 00:51, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Journalism-related deletion discussions. Marchjuly (talk) 00:51, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Andrew Lenahan Addressing the elephant. No, I am not. I do not search to argue the Wiki rules. If this person does not meet the criteria, then, of course, a page mentioning him is not needed and one should not try to push that. I do care for your time as well as mine, and I understand how enormous amount of resources are invested in moderating all these. It looks like I made all the incorrect decision following the last advice received here. Trying to fix the info that comes up on this page triggered a complete new avalanche of issues. I am searching for advice on how all the mentions that are potentially harming this individual can be deleted. If you can direct me to read some sources here it would be much appreciated. As I said above, I search this individual's name on Google and found a wiki page mentioning him as a pusher for a "vanity page" -this page. Whomever did this page, did nothing but harming a living individual that is respectable and in no case would try to create a page like this and exposing himself. This is what I tried to correct. Is there any way you can have a piece of advice for me knowing all the history behind this? ---User:MariaOlteanu —Preceding undated comment added 12:14, 27 February 2017 (UTC) ::Weak keep, leaning towards deletion.... Article would need severe work to warrant staying, though.RudyLucius (talk) 19:47, 28 February 2017 (UTC) ATTN RoySmith: is the source above compliant IYO?
 * Hi RudyLucius, can you advise if I should start editing the article just now? | RudyLucius can you advise on the new editing pls?(talk) 22:13, 4 March 2017 (UTC) blocked as sockpuppet.E.M.Gregory (talk) 11:28, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
 * What does IYO mean? -- RoySmith (talk) 13:18, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

In Your Opinion. Just an acronym. User:MariaOlteanu (talk) 12:47, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I answered that question already. My offer was for you to suggest the two or three best sources for me to look at.  You gave me three sources.  I looked at them and didn't think they were good enough.  I've done my part.  -- RoySmith (talk) 17:10, 3 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete - nom couldn't have put it better. WP:OVERCITE suggests possible WP:COI.   Dr Strauss   talk  12:57, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Dr Strauss can you advise on the new editing addressing the WP:OVERCITE?


 * 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.