Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Khushboo Mirza


 * 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  لenna  vecia  16:24, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Khushboo Mirza

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Notabilty is not established, appears to be just one member of a team. Speedily deleted 06:40, April 2, 2009 and recreated. Accurizer (talk) 01:02, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions.  -- TexasAndroid (talk) 01:22, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions.  -- TexasAndroid (talk) 01:22, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete Wikipedia is not a place to post one's CV. --Gimme danger (talk) 02:06, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete WP:BLP1E at best, even that is subjective as she was part of a team of 12 handling one part of the operations. The Indian Express reference, though patronizing, probably explains the reason she got some individual coverage. -SpacemanSpiff (talk) 04:27, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete No assertion or evidence of meeting WP:N. - Running On Brains (talk page) 04:33, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. Being a part of Chandrayaan-1 does not make onself automatically notable. True that this young scientist got some coverage in the media; mainly becuase of her background. Salih  ( talk ) 04:45, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete Non notable. --Deepak D'Souza 17:39, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Living people-related deletion discussions. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 00:00, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep meets WP:N as she was covered in non trivial fashion by multiple RS. how many Muslim female rocket scientists are there ?  the info in the article which is not verifiable needs to be removed.Wikireader41 (talk) 03:20, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment WP:N does not define being a Muslim female rocket scientist as a criteria for notability. Besides, she is just a junior scientist, nothing more. There are probaly 5000-10000 junior scientists at ISRO. Being notable in a subset(which can be anyone's own definiton) does not make them notable. For instance if I create a subset called "male Konkani Christian Wikipedia editors with roots in Mangalore" I become part of a very esteemed set of just 2 people out of 8 billion. --Deepak D'Souza 05:08, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment she is not notable because she is a junior scientist. but because of the media (in at least 2 countries) coverage she got ( rightly or wrongly) as a poor muslim girl from Amroha who worked for ISRO on Chandrayaan . multiple independent reliable sources have done detailed articles on her.  most junior scientists at ISRO probably dont even get a mention in their school magazine.  agree the article is written poorly.  I have improved the lead.  if this article survives i will work on it.Wikireader41 (talk) 23:28, 18 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete Despite a local profile or two, an obvious vanity article of non-notable person.Sylvain1972 (talk) 19:34, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment I have made several improvements to the article as sugested by some editors. please take another look at the article and reconsider your voteWikireader41 (talk) 03:00, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The article looks better, but, there were 24 organizations/groups involved in this, and her team of 12 was one of many teams within one of these 24 groups. Also, just check the other people on nav bar/ Category at the bottom, APJ Kalam, Vikram Sarabhai, Rakesh Sharma, Homi Baba et al comprise the remaining 16 people. What Kushboo Mirza has done is commendable, not notable. -SpacemanSpiff (talk) 05:34, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * agree Notability is some what weak. however I still feel it meets the minimum threshold of Notability required for inclusion.  she is clearly no Wernher von Braun.  But she is a member of a handful of the millions of organizations that exist which is capable of getting a satellite to orbit the moon. And likely not everyone in ISRO got to work on this project.   Again She has had significant coverage in multiple independent RS of atleat 2 countries where the subject is her ( not Chandrayaan-1).  I think WP:N is deliberately left a little ambiguous and does not have any 'bright lines' to confirm notability and leaves us editors with some leeway on what gets included and what does not.  That her story is a positive heartwarming tale  reminiscent of Homer Hickam and the beautiful movie October Sky IMHO is the icing on the cake.  It will be sad if "Welding" Kumar survives the AfD and this article does not.  Right now that article has more 'Keep' votes.Wikireader41 (talk) 15:46, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is sad that if "Welding Kumar" survives (it appears that he might survive). But the survival of a totally independent article does not have any bearing on this article. Khushboo Mirza is just one among the thousands of engineers/scientists who have participated in Chandrayan project. In that sense she is not even a distinguished person in her own organization, ISRO. To me it looks like she received a little media hype because of her background, nothing more. Salih  ( talk ) 16:51, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I would argue that only a handful of ISRO scientists got write ups like hers in the press. You are right her background is probably why she is notable.  still whether the notability was for a 'legitimate' reason or not ( who decides ?) should not detract from the fact that she did achieve a degree of Notability. clearly WP:V and WP:NPOV are not an issue here. Notability (people) appears to be satisfied.   maybe an alternative would be to merge this info into another article on related subject.Wikireader41 (talk) 17:39, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * If the subject is not notable for her contribution to Chandrayaan project, then the coverage she received becomes a case of WP:BLP1E. Salih  ( talk ) 18:36, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * well her notability is for her rise from a poor background in a small town as a muslim female. her colleague doing the same thing for the same project but from a 'better' background would probably be completely non notable.  And likely that is the reason her other 11 colleagues did not get similar coverage. WP:BLP1E only applies if she is 'likely' to remain non significant.  I dont think that is reasonable assumption to make about a 23 year old individual ( who already has 4 publications about her in RS and works for one of the top space agencies in the world).  it might be if she was 70 years old and retiring or dying nowWikireader41 (talk) 22:11, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Please understand that the whole Chandrayaan project was not entirely handled by a 12 member team of which the subject was a member. There were thousands of people (see SpacemanSpiff's comment above) involved in the project and she is just a junior member of one of the teams. As of now her contribution is not sufficient to have an independent biographical article in Wikipedia. I have no doubt that she will become a Vikram Sarabhai or an Abdul Kalam or a Satish Dhawan one day. But in ISRO it will take a long, long time! Also, I don't think being a Muslim girl and having a poor background (in fact, she has not risen from the slum, and I suppose she hails from an educated family) give her a special status. Salih  ( talk ) 05:00, 20 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep Weak Delete - WP:BLP1E was new to me, and it does seem to apply, as she will only be the 1st, and only in a narrow area, one that will grow. However, gathering and keeping the knowledge of 1sts for a female breaking into a heavily male profession seem to me to be just the sort of thing that Wikipedia is for.  That said... notability is weak.- sinneed (talk) 21:09, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * weak notability but sufficient to include in WP :-)Wikireader41 (talk) 22:11, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Wikireader, It can be... but it is a matter of consensus. I have waffled on this, from weak delete to weak keep to keep and back. If the New York Times covered it, I would swing to Strong Keep.  If the weekly newspaper in my old hometown was the only newspaper that covered it, I would say Strong Delete.  This falls in the middle, for me.  Reading the responses to my note, looking again...weak delete.- sinneed (talk) 01:47, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * To Sinneed, please explain what 1st you are referring to. Salih  ( talk ) 07:06, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Salih, Sorry for the slow response. The 1st Muslim female in the young and small India program...accepting the statements of the (weak) sources.- sinneed (talk) 23:29, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
 * You mean to say that there were no female rocket scientists before Khushboo Mirza? Wow! We'd like to see some proof of that claim, please. The article states that she is "the first Muslim space scientist from India" 9sourced. If that is true then it means that A. P. J. Abdul Kalam was either not Muslim or not Indian(khusboo should know better than that, after all she has something in common with the former President of India) . I also find the subject's self description of herself as a "Muslim scientist of ISRO" in the lead as funny. Does ISRO recruit people according to their religion? If true then it is a violation of India's constitution. And arent scientists supposed to be irreligious, at least at work? And lastly Wikipedia is not a list of things you like. --Deepak D'Souza 10:09, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Deepak, I would encourage not using irony in these discussions, as it is an escalation technique, and there is enough wikidrama in the world. No, that is not what I meant, and no, it did not deserve a "Wow!", etc.- sinneed (talk) 23:29, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Deepak, reading your responses again, I encourage you to focus on the content, not those of us with opinions on the content. I am sorry you do not wp:LIKE my post.  My opinion on this article is in no way based on whether this is a thing I like... it is based on how I interpret the rules and guidelines of Wikipedia on notability.  wp:AGF.  Are these AfD's often focused on the poster rather than the article?- sinneed (talk) 01:47, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I apologise for my conduct. But I hope you understand that it was becasue you had made a claim which even the article does not. --Deepak D'Souza 05:02, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I am sorry I was not clear. I intended to make no claim whatever.  And thank you for your apology, which I accept and appreciate.- sinneed (talk) 05:08, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * And I think you have misunderstood what 1E means Let me quote the important line "If reliable sources cover the person only in the context of a particular event, and if that person otherwise remains, or is likely to remain, low profile, then a separate biography is unlikely to be warranted." Which means if this person is notable for only one event, they do not deserve an article.--Deepak D'Souza 10:18, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
 * It is not clear as to whom you think has not understood BLP1E. Salih  ( talk ) 15:42, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Deepak the key sentence in BLP1E is 'and if that person otherwise remains, or is likely to remain, low profile'. not neccesarily a correct assumption in her case considering she is 23 years of age.  how does is matter whether ISRO recruits based on religion ( or caste for that matter - which I am sure they do).which part of Notability (people) does this article not satisfy ?????  regarding the 1st muslim space scientist that is from ARYoneworld reference and is quoted as such.Wikireader41 (talk) 15:51, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Salih, my message was meant for Sineed; she has said that she was seeing BLP1E for the first time. 1E simply says that you cannot have an article for a subject who is known for only one event. In such a case you either delete or merge the article into the article about the event. Wikireader 41, if you say that I am assuming that the subject will not be notable in the future, aren't you implicitly assuming that she will become notable in the future?:-) So, on what basis can you say that my assumption is necessarily incorrect and yours is correct. And if you are basing the notability of the article on an assumption that she will become famous in the future, it is a violation of WP:CRYSTAL. We cannot keep a non notable subject assuming that it will become notable in the future. Just because there is a reference it does not mean it is true. Abdul Kalam was a scientist at ISRO and DRDO. He is a devout Muslim too and has been at ISRO long before Khushboo was even born . So Aryworld.com simply cannot be correct on that count. Personally I am not surprised that Aryworld has forgotten Kalam. When he was made President of India, the Pakistani media derided him, unable to digest the fact that a Muslim in India could rise to a high post on merit alone. The basic notability criteria states multiple reliable sources. So let me see the reliability of the sources in this article:

So, all in all, only two of your refs are reliable. Articles with much larger number of refs and g-hits have been deleted for lack of notability. --Deepak D'Souza 18:21, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Merinews is a citizen journalist newssite; a user-contributed site like Wikipedia itself. The reporter happens to be from Amroha itself.
 * 2) tehelka.com is the website of a tabloid famous for its sensasionalism.
 * 3) indian express: reliable. But IMHO, the article title itself plays on the stereotype of Muslim girls only wearing burqhas and not being allowed to study beyond a certain age only to be pushed into early marriage etc.(Take a look at the reader comments!)
 * 4) arynews: has got at least one point wrong(see above), so reliability s questionable. Anyway, the article is simply a copy of twocircles.net's article.
 * 5) Hindustan times: reliable
 * 6) two circles,net is a blog: relaibility not assured.
 * well BLP1E only applies if we assume that the subject will not be notable in future. I dont think we can assume she will not.  I would consider tehelka reliable also.  the fact that ARYoneorld may have made one factual mistake in the article does not mean it is not reliable source and that subject is not notable.  It is undisputed and verifiable fact that it did carry an article on KM. I can quote any number of articles which do exist currently on WP and have less by the way of citations in RS.  anyway even going by your definition of RS ( assuming IE and HT never make mistakes in their articles)2 RS would also count as multiple RS for purposes of WP.Wikireader41 (talk) 01:44, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
 * So you are assuming that the subject definetely will be notable in the future. On what basis can you say that she will definetely rise above her 10,000 odd comaptriots all of whom are the cream of India's best institutions? Have you read WP:CRYSTAL. You cannot assume that a person will become notable in the future. The notability of the article has to be decided on the basis of their meeting notability criteria now. And she does not meet that criteria. Yes articles with lesser refs do exist,but because they are notable on their own basis. Notability is not directly proportional to number of refs. And the aryworld article is a copy of another article. Two reliable refs are simply not enough. --03:29, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
 * 'articles with lesser refs do exist,but because they are notable on their own basis' so you are implying that articles on subjects with one citation ( since you believe only 2 citations in this aticle are from RS) in RS can exist if they are notable on 'their own basis'.  care to point out which WP policy says that.  what exactly is notability 'on own basis' without being cited in RS.  I am not assuming she will be notable.  it is just that I am NOT assuming she wont be notable. subtle but important difference which decides if BLP1E applies or not.Wikireader41 (talk) 14:10, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Lest assume someone becomes a president of a country, and for some reason there is only one reference(the probabilities are rare but may happen in case of some small non-English speaking counrty). Are you going to say that the person is not notable? --Deepak D'Souza 04:43, 23 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment I came across the wiki-entry on Khushboo Mirza when she came up as a probable speaker for one of our events. There should be no doubt that her work at ISRO alone doesn't qualify her -- but given her background, more people may look her up entry in future.  User:rohitm_001  —Preceding undated comment added 15:24, 22 June 2009 (UTC).
 * that is exactly my point. Thank youWikireader41 (talk) 01:20, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Appreciate your concerns,rohitm_001. But this is what happens all the time: A lot of people come to Wikipedia and create articles about themselves or some relative without knowing the rules of Wikipedia. Some people come along expecting to find information about anything and everthing in Wikipedia and when they dont find it, they create an article. Some of them are deleted almost immediately. A good deal of them end up here. --Deepak D'Souza 04:43, 23 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete Based on the article, she was the most junior member of her team of 12. Just a Bachelor's degree, just 3 years experience in the field.  . I do not see how she can possibly be considered notable at this point. DGG (talk) 02:02, 23 June 2009 (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.