Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ligia Filotti


 * 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 Mandsford 00:17, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Ligia Filotti

 * – ( View AfD View log )

This person, however respectable, does not fit whatever notability criteria are required for biographical articles, under any definition. The "references" cited in the article are laughable - other than a few primary and self-published texts, they include a passing mention in a full list of all RFE contributors and, get this, a guy's post in a forum (here). Dahn (talk) 14:15, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment This is just one of the questionable notability articles started by User:Afil, most of which have to do with the Filotti family (an article which is itself of questionable notability). What makes it difficult is that Afil has mixed such articles with (poorly-written) ones on arguably more notable people, such as Eugen Filotti (who is notable) or Gheorghe Taşcă (ditto) or Maria Filotti (ditto). But have a look over the provincial nobodies, who are arguably here only because they are part of the Filotti clan - I submit Mircea Filotti, Ion Filotti, Traian Filotti, Victor Filotti, Liviu Filotti, Ion Filotti Cantacuzino, Nestor Filotti, Eugenia Filotti Atanasiu - and this is probably just the tip of the iceberg. The plethora of personal archive photos, the addition to wikisource of this non-relevant text, and so many other issues (including the even more ludicrous proliferation of Filotti articles on Romanian wikipedia) may point to a serious POV/conflict of interest that wikipedians might wish to look into. I want to make this a centralized discussion about all those articles and the user's conduct, but I have no idea of how to best approach this. Dahn (talk) 14:57, 13 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Totally against deletion The subject of each article should be discussed on its own merits. This is in any case not the place to discuss articles in Romanian Wikipedia (who has only three articles on members of the Filotti family, which is hardly a proliferation) or in Romanian Wikisource.


 * The objection regarding the Filotti family is difficult to understand. There are many articles on families of importance in various countries. While many of them may be aristocratic, there is and should not be any rule to limit the articles related to families only to aristocrats or royalty. Actually Wikipedia includes rightfully so articles on less notable families which could present some interest to some readers or researchers. Some of these articles present only a list of members of the family which are considered important, others present the genealogy, which also has some importance. There is no reason why the Filotti family should be considered less important or more important than the Rebreanu family, the Hrisoverghi family, the Schaechter Gottesman family or the Orvitz family.


 * The term of provincial nobodies just to indicate that some persons have been important mostly in their own countries and not at the top international level is incorrect and unfair. I will not go through the entire list to justify every article, however, just to present some examples. Ion Filotti Cantacuzino was the most important romanian film critic and producer in the era before WWII. Mircea Filotti was also a film producer and his productions are mentioned in IMDB. Sava Dumitrescu was not exactly a nobody, as he was rector of the University of Medicine and Pharmacology of Iaşi. Nestor Ignat was a romanian writer and journalist, chairman of the Union of Journalists and member of the National Council on the Romanian State Radio and Television Networks. He was also dean of the Faculty of Journalism of the University of Bucharest, not exactly a nobody.Gheorghe Pohrib was the organizer of the firefighters in Romania after WWI - maybe Dahn is not interested in firefighters, however it is an important activity even if less covered in Wikipedia. Ion Manolescu-Strunga was minister in various romanian governments. Eugenia Filotti Atanasiu was a well known painter in Romania. Vasile Atanasiu was a romanian general active in WWII. Liviu Filotti is professor at the Oil and Gas University of Ploieşti - maybe not the greatest univesity in the World but still the most important university preparing petroleum engineers in Romania. Victor Filotti was an active politician in the years after WWI. They all have their merits and their importance, even if Mr. Dahn does not know it. I do not see any reason why Wikipedia should limit the number of persons who are part of a family, when they have had achievements at the national level in their countries.


 * As far as Ligia Filotti is concerned, she was one of the leaders of the anticommunist student movement in Romania in 1956. Maybe that for Mr. Dahn, this movement was less important than the Hungarian uprising. However the student movement in Romania in 1956, even if unsuccessful, was the first attempt to change the communist regime in Romania. It is important that the participants to this movement be remembered.


 * In this respect I would like to make a comparison with the series of articles on the Stauffenberg family, which also has a lengthy genealogy of the family. Some of the members of the family have their own articles:Karl Friedrich, Prince of Hohenzollern who's only merit, apparently, was that he was head of the House of Hohenzollern, which may be important but I hardly think that it is more notable that being a general or a minister. Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg co-conspirator against Hitler, Alexander Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg professor of ancient history in Munich Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg who was the leader of the plot against Hitler Franz-Ludwig Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg german politician.


 * There is no reason to consider that, as far as Wikipedia is concerned, Romania is less worthy than Germany and that the Filotti family which has approximately the same length of ancestry as the Stauffenbeg family should not have an article. There is no reason why Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg who was member of a group who organized an uprising against the german nazi government, should have his own article and Ligia Filotti who was member of a group which organized an uprising against the romanian communist government should not deserve an article.


 * Therefore, I consider that Mr. Dahn's objections have a double standard, which is not acceptable in Wikipedia. It is also unfair to accuse a person who has studied certain subject - in this case a certain family - to write several articles on various related topics. For instance, as a water expert I have written many articles about rivers in Romania. Is there any reason for limiting the number of articles on this topic which I can write. So why limit the number of articles which I can write about a the members of a certain family. Afil (talk) 03:17, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Other than subjective epithets such as "most important", misleading comparisons with other articles (on royal families, or on articles I haven't suggested should be deleted), what we have above are arguments which do not really suggest good faith. For instance, in addition to "sourcing" articles with forum comments, Afil opens the issue of IMDB bios - not only is this not an indicator of notability on its own (see past debates about the use of IMDB), but the Mircea Filotti IMDB bio referred to above is contributed by an Andrei Filotti. I trust others editors will note what is being attempted here. Dahn (talk) 07:06, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, to clarify this for uninformed users: the articles I mentioned are not non-notable subject-wise because they relate to Romania, as Afil would have you believe; they are so because they relate to people of little significance in their respective national context: artists whose work is not covered in Romanian academia; military men who never rose above the rank of colonel, and were not otherwise known for acts of heroism, theoretical contributions etc.; politicians who either never had a national role or never rose above a sub-ministerial position (no, not "ministers", as Afil claims); actors with cameos; and so on. The articles, if at all sourced, were generally compiled using contrived sources, primary sources, generally unreliable sources (publishers with no standing or credibility) and (I'm guessing) unpublished personal accounts. Don't be fooled by the rhetoric: wikipedia by now has many properly sourced articles on secondary characters in Romanian politics or letters, who are contextually relevant but may be rather unknown internationally (my own contributions include, for instance, a D. Iacobescu or a Ion Sân-Giorgiu). So this is not an issue of wikipedia's cultural bias, it is an issue of Filotti family promotion. Dahn (talk) 08:48, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete - while I respect Mrs. Filotti and commend her role in the 1956 events, I must look at this objectively and ask: where are the sources &mdash; reliable sources that are independent of the subject &mdash; linking her to a leadership role there? WP:V and WP:N require us to consider this. We can't simply have articles on people we think are important; we need verifiable sources confirming their notability. And as far as I can see, those are lacking. - Biruitorul Talk 04:58, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Keep Biruitorul you are unfair and incorrect. She is mentioned in the Who's Who which was published in Cambridge. Cambridge University considered her notable and worth mentioning. You consider her not notable. Don't you think this is rather presumptious? In any case this reference proves that she was notable as art critic and historian. And this is not a reference published by some unknown tabloid in Romania.

If some other statements do not have sufficient support, the solution is to include a "citation needed" not a deletion. I would have expected a different reaction from your part. I agree that there are extremely few published information on the anticommunist movements in Romania in 1956, but to require a deletion of an article in stead of a citation is equivalent to denying the existence of an anticommunist resistance movement in Romania and an attempt to minimize the students who have risked everything in their attempt for an uprising. I must say that I am extremely surprised by this attitude on the matter. But you are free to have any opinion on the matter even to deny the sacrifices of a forgotten generation of Romanians. Afil (talk) 06:00, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Again, where are the sources? The article was published two years ago, and no reliable sources have emerged yet. WP:BURDEN says that "any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed". I might also add that this article falls under WP:BLP: "any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation". Like I said, I'm sure Mrs. Filotti acted heroically in 1956, and I also believe we need a well-developed article on the events in Romania that year (not just Bucharest, but also Timişoara, Iaşi and Cluj). But this does not imply we should have an article on someone whose notability remains unproven through independent, in-depth coverage in reliable sources. Please try and see the difference. - Biruitorul Talk 15:51, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Obviously, published in Cambridge does not mean published by Cambridge University. What that obscure book seems to be is one of those vanity "who's who" volumes, through which people give their bios some exposure - self-published, one would say. As for "denying the existence of an anticommunist resistance movement" for contesting that Filotti is notable - puh-lease; Biruitorul has written several articles which specifically cover events related to that movement, as have I (the specific events I linked to, for instance, in the article Perpessicius; this should also debunk Afil's claim that very few has been published on the 1956 movement in Romania - in reality, next to nothing has been published on Mrs. Filotti's involvement in said movement, which is a quite different matter). Incidentally, might I add that the other wikipedia article linking Filotti to the student movement, Bucharest student movement of 1956, with some of the same sourcing, coherence and POV issues, was originally the work of Afil? As for "outside sources": to be fair, Filotti's involvement in the student movement appears to have once gotten a passing mention in one academic magazine (see "Find sources: [...] books" link above); other than that, the only credit provided by Afil is to a forum post - not only is that not decent sourcing, but, given the IMBD precedent, what's to say that's not a post by, say, a Mr. Andrei Filotti? Dahn (talk) 07:17, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Update on the "Cambridge" source: as far as I can tell, we are talking about the 1972 International Who's Who in Art and Antiques, which is indeed published in Cambridge, by Melrose Press, that is to say the International Biographical Centre - we call that a scam and a spin. This is the quality of sourcing in this article ("some unknown Romanian tabloid" is preferable), and it is quite the same in many Filotti articles. Dahn (talk) 08:29, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * And Afil obviously needs to familiarize himself with wikipedia policies, primarily WP:N: the request for sources is made so as to establish the notability of the subject, based on outside, quality sources, not just to source unreferenced info that Afil has pushed into the article (distinctly: WP:OR). Since virtually no mention of Ligia Filotti is made in outside sources, it follows that Afil based it almost entirely on unpublished material, which begs the question of WP:COI. Dahn (talk) 08:38, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete: I am always bemused by Keep proponents at AfD who unleash a torrent of verbiage but fail to take the fundamental step which guarantees a Keep result: provide multiple, reliable, third-party sources which discuss the subject in significant detail. Shorn of all the chaff, it all comes down to the GNG in the end.  I see no evidence that this article meets it.   Ravenswing  17:39, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The problem is that when reliable sources are quoted, such as the Cambridge Who's Who, then there are objections which have been issued in Australia (which have no relevance to Romania) or to a spin. which refer to an American Institute not the British Institute who published the reference. There are other references which indicate Ligia Filotti's publications as an art historian and as a professor. These also are ignored by Mr. Dahn. Afil (talk) 17:45, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * To be clear: we are talking about the publisher - the publisher is a con artist, the "reference books" are crap, the material is highly dubious. There is nothing in there that would fall on the good side of WP:RS. And, incidentally, that is a source used for one thing in the article - the rest is WP:OR. Dahn (talk) 18:05, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you should glance at Who's Who scam for a notion as to what that reference is worth. Come to that, I was myself in Who's Who Among American High School Students in 1977; that scarcely means I'm notable.  Ms. Filotti's publications neither qualify her under WP:AUTHOR nor under WP:PROF.  What we are looking for are mainstream newspapers or academics citing her and her work.  If you cannot supply them, that would indicate she is not notable.   Ravenswing  19:02, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Delete per Ravenswing BE——Critical __Talk 21:31, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Romania-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 01:27, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Visual arts-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 01:27, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 01:28, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. Zero impact on GS and GB from links above. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:53, 15 January 2011 (UTC).
 * Delete. No evidence of significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject as required by WP:BIO, either in article refs or from web searches. Sounds like an interesting life, but not a suitable subject for Wikipedia. See Alternative outlets --Qwfp (talk) 08:23, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. Article full of WP:OR – may be nothing more than a vanity page. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 21:42, 18 January 2011 (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.