Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Theodoros Modis


 * 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.  JGHowes   talk  23:15, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Theodoros Modis

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Article does not meet WP:GNG or WP:BASIC. Article does meet WP:1E. I looked for a suitable redirect target for the event, but couldn't find one. Content is unsourced so a merge is inappropriate, if the information was sourced, it could be merged into Theodore Modis or Yorgo Modis, but sourcing would be essential because these are BLPs.  // Timothy ::  talk  21:14, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions.   // Timothy ::  talk  21:14, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Greece-related deletion discussions.   // Timothy ::  talk  21:14, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Macedonia-related deletion discussions.   // Timothy ::  talk  21:14, 17 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Comment I have added five references and a link to another language page. Will that do it? Coachaxis (talk) 14:04, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Two of your references (and an external youtube link) have been removed, because there were not reliable sources. The main question is the following: besides blogs and e-mails (!), are there any reliable sources to support the claim that "His assassination signaled the beginning of armed conflicts in Monastiri referred to as the Macedonian Struggle" ? Douglas Dakin in his classic The Greek struggle in Macedonia doesn't mention him at all. ǁ ǁǁ ǁ Chalk19 (talk) 08:14, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
 * All three references support this claim. The last two are in Greek but the first is in English. You can get some idea in several paragraphs at the end of the kindle sample of Fortune Favors the Bold by Theodore Modis in Amazon.com describing his initiating armed involvement in 1903. The official beginning of the Macedonian Struggle is 1904. Therefore I made the above statement.  I have slightly modified it now. Coachaxis (talk)
 * Theodore Modis' book: i) Is not a third-party, independent source. ii) It's not a secondary academic source, a historian's account, but fiction, based as it seems on some evidence or eyewitnesses' testimonies known to the author, written by a famaily member who holds "a Ph.D. in High Energy Physics". So, there is no in-depth coverage of the subject by relable sources (so far). ǁ ǁǁ ǁ Chalk19 (talk) 14:47, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
 * PS. Your contributions to WP are related almost exclusively to several members of the Modis family. Do you have any relationship with them, because this looks like conflict of interest ? ǁ ǁǁ ǁ Chalk19 (talk) 14:53, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
 * No, I am not at all related to the Modis family but I was fascinated by Modis’s book Fortune Favors the Bold. So when I came across the page of Theodoros Modis in the Bulgarian Wikipedia I thought that he deserved an entry in the English Wikipedia.  It is true that the author of Fortune Favors the Bold is a physicist but I trust his sources, which include two bona-fide historians: his uncle Georgios Modis who has published dozens of books on the Macedonian Struggle, and Stamatis Raptis who published historical books on the subject as early as 1909, all in Greek.  Both historians treat the assassination of Theodoros Modis as one of the important violent acts at the beginning of the Macedonian Struggle, which influenced the tone of my original text. Of course, Modis was not as important as Pavlos Melas, but they were both killed within a month from each other and their wives commiserated (there is a letter from Modis’s wife to Melas’s wife in the Greek edition of Fortune Favors the  Bold that I just read.)  If you find that my modified text still overstates things, you can edit it; or delete the page altogether if you think that it brings no real value. Coachaxis (talk)
 * Thank you for the answer Coachaxis. It's not a matter of bringing "real value", but whether this "value" is based -in accordance with WP's policy- on third-party, independent (from the subject) reliable secondary sources or not -like a book or an essay by an academic historian, or by a well-known, reliable researcher etc. Georgios Modis was both related to Theodoros, and "a participant in the Macedonian Struggle", so his writtings are primary sources actually, perhaps valuable to historians, but not scholarly accounts. And Raptis' pamphlet on the Macedonian Struggle is not a trully historical essay, but a very early "journalistic" approach, propagandistic, with no sources or references cited, more of a narration for the "wider" Greek public, than a proper historical account. ǁ ǁǁ ǁ Chalk19 (talk) 12:15, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the clarifications Chalk19. I understand and appreciate the high standards of WP’s requirements for documentation, but how often are they held to the letter? I’ve seen too many entries with much lesser documentation that the page we are discussing. In my opinion, if someone has fought in the Macedonian Struggle and has extensively documented it in publications, he can be considered a reliable reference when he talks about those who died during that conflict, even if it concerns a relative of his. As for the reference by Raptis that I give, I wouldn’t call it a “pamphlet” because it is a formidable volume of 943 pages full of names, events, authentic photographs, and other documents; you can download it here: https://anemi.lib.uoc.gr/metadata/2/f/8/metadata-475-0000014.tkl. Granted he wrote in the language and the style of the time, i.e. archaic Greek and patriotic expressions. I’ll go along with “early journalism”, but calling it propaganda is taking sides. No historian is absolutely impartial, and some are less so than others. Finally, I also know that WP’s primary concern is objectivity and non-biased reporting, and for the sparse objective information given on this short page, I consider the quoted references as entirely adequate. Let your conscious be your guide when you decide on the fate of the page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Coachaxis  (talk • contribs) 11:26, 21 September 2020 {UTC) (UTC)
 * You're right, it's not a pamphlet like I thought in the first place. It is still a "story", with supposedly accurate dialogues among the participants etc. Anyway, I am not going to decide on any article's fate ! ǁ ǁǁ ǁ Chalk19 (talk) 17:04, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
 * PS. Prof. Dakin in his abovementioned book he is once referring to Raptis' book, and notes about the very misleading account given by [him] while dealing with a subject in chapt. I. ǁ ǁǁ ǁ Chalk19 (talk) 21:04, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Dakin can not be referring to Theodoros Modis because Raptis treats him in Chapters B and Γ.
 * Dakin, as I have allready said in my very first comment (08:14, 19 September 2020), doesn't mention Th. Modis at all; it has to do with Raptis, his book as a reliable source, not Modis. ǁ ǁǁ ǁ Chalk19 (talk) 07:14, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for all your inputs Chalk19. Unfortunately, new demands on my time do not permit me to continue this discussion. Keep up the good work! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Coachaxis  (talk • contribs) 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Weak keep As a conclusion of my above comments, and the addition of sources to the article. Although some of these sources are not what we may call suitable bibliography, some hints of notability emerge. ǁ ǁǁ ǁ Chalk19 (talk) 10:14, 22 September 2020 (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.