Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nicolò Giraud


 * 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   no consensus to delete, default to keep.  Sandstein  18:03, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Nicolò Giraud


Hi, I'm nominating this article for deletion because Giraud falls far short of historical notability in any sense. If only known for his relationship with Byron (and even not among Byron's well-known relationships), then he is not notable. He's a relative by marriage to an assistant of Lord Elgin and that he was one of Byron's lovers (and not even the famous or infamous ones like Lamb). Just being a lover is not notable. Did he influence Byron's writing in a meaningful way? Did he have an impact on culture or history? This is not sufficient for including in an encyclopedia. Just mentioning him in a couple lines in the main Byron article should be sufficient. There are many famous people who have relationships with others, homosexual or otherwise with non-significant people. We don't need an article for everyone of those non-famous people unless they have a meaningful impact.

Please let me know if there is anything else I should mention or comment upon since I'm unfamiliar with this process.--Nocturnalsleeper (talk) 18:24, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * keep he is perhaps the best documented of his homosexual affairs, and as a key figure in a very notable person's bio an article is appropriate. Included in at least one of t he standard encyclopdias. DGG (talk) 05:40, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * keep He is notable as there are plenty of sources on him. However, I believe that the POV language, the lack of technical terms, and inuendo need to go. We should be exact here and make direct claims to what scholars say what. There is a lot that goes unattributed. I have a clean up of Byron's biography for this matter pending for September, so I can accomplish this later with an expansion. However, if anyone else can do it first, please do. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:40, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment I'm currently undecided about this. It feels to me like a bit of a stretch for there to be an independent article on Giraud, when he could be covered in a few sentences in the article on Byron.  Does Giraud have some independent notability outside of being Byron's lover, of a level that warrants an article?  Nandesuka (talk) 02:25, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete entirely unnotable. The article is also terribly written.  Peter Damian (talk) 09:53, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete Having sex with a notable person does not make you a notable person. Edward321 (talk) 14:15, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Would saving their life and being bequeathed 7,000 pounds (at a time when you could easily live off 50 pounds a year) in their will make you notable? Ottava Rima (talk) 17:07, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Very witty 'delete' comment, though. Peter Damian (talk) 17:55, 11 August 2008 (UTC) [edit] also, being given large sums of money by a notable person does not make you a notable person. Peter Damian (talk) 17:56, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Appearing in multiple books and sources over it may suggests otherwise. Byron scholarship is vast, and an individual who happened to be largest in his will, a potential lover, a guy who taught him Italian, and saved his life tends to come up often. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:59, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It's clear that he is notable in the context of Byron's life (and thus discussing him in Byron's article is completely appropriate). The interesting question to me is whether he has any indepedendent notability.  That's what (in my mind) should determine whether he warrants his own article. Compare, for example, what we know of Giraud to (say) Zelda Fitzgerald, of whom there exists a significant body of criticism:  she is tied to F. Scott Fitzgerald, just as Giraud is tied to Byron, in the sense that you hardly speak of when without speaking of the other, yet the mass of material that establishes an independent notability (wrote books, was written about contemporaneously, etc) is quite different.  Nandesuka (talk) 19:43, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I offered to fix and expand the page. If consensus goes against it and doesn't want that, so be it. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:09, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I think that making sure the material about Giraud is appropriate and well-written is a great idea, regardless of whether it appears in this article, or in Byron's, and your offer is and should be appreciated. Nandesuka (talk) 19:44, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Nandesuka. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:56, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Strong keep. Notable historic figure. Easily passes the requirement for coverage in multiple sources. I am astonished it was nominated. This kind of valid but less mainstream knowledge is exactly what wiki can and should be doing to make it an unbeatable reference work. Having a "meaningful impact" is not a requirement of WP:N.  Ty  22:59, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd echo Nandesuka, here: Can we see any indication that this is a "notable" figure outside there relationship to someone notable? While there is large scope for the material to be present in an article there is currently nothing in this article to suggest it should stand alone.  This should be redirected. -  brenneman  02:32, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * There is no requirement for someone to be notable for a particular reason, such as having achieved something. This is introducing a new concept into the debate, not established by consensus in guidelines, such as WP:BIO, where the definition of notability rests simply on the extent to which they have received coverage by independent sources. It doesn't matter how or why someone has achieved that coverage. There are 263 books in which Giraud appears, according to Google books. There would be no quibble with any contemporary figure, who had that amount of citations available. There is interesting and valid material about Giraud, which merits inclusion. There is a good reason not to do this in the article on Byron, as it is already a very long one, and in such cases Summary style applies, so that aspects of the subject can be examined in more detail.  Ty  04:22, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Ahhh, I'm having a hard time parsing this response...
 * Looking at the guideline Wikipedia:Notability (people) which is linked above, it says right there in green and black that "* The person has received a notable award or honor, or has been often nominated for them. * The person has made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in his or her specific field." are reasons to hae your own article.
 * The second link you've provided probably does not have the effect you intended. It in fact supports the claim that this article shoul be re-merged somewhere, since none of these appear to be about the subject of this article seperate from Byron.  I examined the first five pages of results, everything is " Letters and Journals of Lord Byron" or "Byron's Greece" or their ilk.  (By the way, if you remove the multiple copies of Moore's Letters and restrict yourself to English, you only get 99 hits.  A large number of them are extracts from letters as well, so we're falling way short of this being some "big number= keep" argument.  Really, analysis of the quality of these sources is better than simple counting the google hits.)
 * There are indeed constant "quibbles" with contemp. figures with high levels of mentions in reliable sources. "Family of B. Obama" is just one such recent debate.  The overwhelming consensus, as established across a huge number of very similar debates and as codified in the guideline you linked is that "That person A has a relationship with well-known person B is not a reason for a standalone article on A."
 * Again, while there is little doubt that there does exist material on this person that is encyclopedic, but an unmerged stand-alone article is not justified.
 * brenneman 05:22, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I guess that depends on the value one puts on historical information. To my mind the ability of an encyclopedia which is NOTPAPER to explore a subject in great depth should not be squandered. There will undoubtedly be reader interest in this, and that is what we are here to serve, not rule books. However, if we are to look at them, then WP:BIO in a nutshell is:
 * The topic of an article should be notable, or "worthy of notice"; that is, "significant, interesting, or unusual enough to deserve attention or to be recorded.
 * And the introduction is:
 * A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject."
 * Giraud meets these. Other things follow from the basic criterion to show ways in which it may be met. Your "notable award" etc quote is from "additional criteria", not "basic criteria", which specifies "multiple independent sources". Even taking your reduction of sources (and I don't see why you omit letters) 99 is still adequate. I am not merely counting: I have accessed and read a number (also in press articles), and seen that cumulatively there is a reasonable amount of different material on Giraud available. It is not merely that he had a relationship with Byron that qualifies him, but the specific nature of this relationship and the way it has been commented on since, not just in studies of Byron but also, for example, in studies of sexuality. The bottom line is that he is notable, not top-league, but certainly passing the wiki bar. There are different reasons, as I have pointed out, why material may need to be in its own article. In this case WP:SUMMARY is a pressing one, as a convenient way of organising information. It is primarily a sub-topic of the Byron article, but of enough worth to expand beyond the space available in the main article. This is where the system undermines the purpose it was set up to maintain. The need for WP:N was to stop wiki turning into MySpace or family genealogy, not to exclude topics which anyone in academia would regard as perfectly legitimate.  Ty  06:38, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Poetry-related deletion discussions.   — Ty  04:26, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - reliable sources exist to establish notability. Speculation as to whether he has done anything to be notable are subjectove opinions. -- Whpq (talk) 15:13, 12 August 2008 (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.