Wikipedia talk:Deletion review/Log/2007 December 24


 * Proposed merger to Spinka (Hasidic dynasty)
 * Moved here from Deletion review/Log/2007 December 24

As the alleged crimes were committed on behalf of the Spinka yeshivas and other associated organizations, I would like to suggest that the contents of the deleted article be merged into the article for the Spinka (Hasidic dynasty). The sources in the article clearly satisfy WP:RS and WP:V, and embedded in to an article about the organizations that were the intended beneficiaries of the alleged scheme, there would be no issues with WP:BLP or WP:NOT. All we need is one admin to volunteer to take this on, or I would be more than happy to take the necessary steps if the deleted article was userfied into my user pages. Alansohn (talk) 00:36, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * This suggestion is made without prejudice to the future recreation of an article for Naftali Tzvi Weisz with additional material added to support the clear claim of notability as Grand Rabbi of the Spinka Hasidim at any point in the future or if there is consensus that the deletion was inappropriate and should be overturned. This proposed compromise restores the information to Wikipedia: the question of whether it belongs in a standalone article on Rabbi Weisz exists separately. That the information should exist somewhere stands regardless of the result of this DRV. Alansohn (talk) 02:23, 26 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Support, though I think that the possibility of restoring the article should remain firmly on the table. I certainly see no sustainable objection to this compromise. Lobojo (talk) 01:02, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose as it would be very unencyclopedic because then what would we do with all the articles in Category:Hasidic rebbes -- just merge them into the dynasties they head? In any case, articles in Category:Hasidic dynasties preferably deal with the over-all histories and issues of their group and movement but when an individual leader stands out, as now this one does, it is pointless and counter-productive to flood the article about the dynasty, that may go back a far longer time, with "current events" items about its living head. We should not create precedents for creating chaos after so many years have been spent in carefully constructing Category:Hasidic rebbes as well as Category:Hasidic dynasties just as no-one would suggest merging biographies about Category:American university and college presidents with articles of Category:Universities and colleges in the United States or similarly merging articles about Category:Politician stubs with more detailed articles about the parties they lead in Category:Political parties, because one is about people and the other is about the movement or group, two very different criteria and methods of organizing and categorizing information that should not be confused or merged as a cop out for a bad mistake. IZAK (talk) 06:56, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose as it has nothing to do with the other Spinka rebbes (over a dozen of them).--Shmaltz (talk) 18:39, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletion discussions.   IZAK (talk) 09:39, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

From Deletion review/Log/2007 December 24
1. CONSENSUS ISSUE IN GENERAL:  I hope we are not simply counting votes here, because that is inconsistent with Wikipedia policy as stated. I did not see anything wrong with writing multiple Keep entries since I labeled each one clearly as coming from the same source. The fact that individuals (above) express concern about my multiple entries (each one progressively addressing additional matters of substance, occasionally with some frustration) ''belies the dangerous attitude that "consensus" is a vote. In my opinion, the matter should be decided by a consensus of valid and convincing opinions, not simply by votes. This is indeed the Wikipedia way.

I do not see why any impartial individual should find the multiple comments (above) "endorsing" the deletion as being of "consensus" convincing. To me, frankly, they come off as simply "piling on" in a kind of Wiki-peer-pressure manner that may be the worst feature of Wikipedia. There seems to be no accountability, whatsoever, for incorrect deletions.

2. CONSENSUS IN THIS CASE: It honestly seems to me that to be valid a consensus approach to determine WP:Notability must take into account the fact that notability of a particular topic may, as in the case of Daniel Malakov vary significantly among different communities. There ought not to be any penalty if, as in the case of Daniel Malakov, a large majority of persons does not consider the article to be notable. The issue is whether there is a legitimate constituency for which the article in question is ''notable."  I believe that indeed Daniel Malakov is of significant interest to such a constituency, as discussed in the next numbered paragraph.

I think the real issue here is whether readers of Wikipedia are going to be served by an article about the murder of Daniel Malakov or not. Obviously all the folks who have argued for deletion or upholding deletion feel very comfortable in denying users of Wikipedia of any intelligence regarding this unique murder. Maybe they feel that someone else will write another article but that's not guaranteed after you drive me away from contributing to this very (IMHO) notable article.

3. NOTABILITY OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE PERPETRATED AGAINST HUSBAND BY WIFE OR WIFE'S FAMILY: Spousal abuse/domestic violence perpetrated by husbands against wives or children (however heinous it may be) are "Dog bites man" stories. Such a story is accordingly unlikely to be sufficiently notable to merit an encyclopedia entry. But the case of Daniel Malakov is of acute interest to those men and their advocates who are abused and victimized by their wives or families of their wives. This is a "Man bites Dog" story. ''Are the Wikipedia Editors who argue for deletion sufficiently familiar with, or sympathetic to, the plight of abused husbands? I think not. Daniel Malakov described a very rare clear-cut case of domestic violence against a husband.

The entire matter is of extreme interest to those looking into cases of unscrupulous women pursuing a legal campaign against their husbands. Unfortunately this is not possible to be expressed in a gender-neutral manner because such women prey upon the presumption in our society that men are ca. 10:1 more likely, statistically, to be perpetrators of domestic violence than are women (see below). I must emphasize that nothing that I write here is intended to impugn the characters of the vast majority of women who are of fine upstanding character and not unscrupulous.

I wonder how many Wikipedia editors and administrators are aware of the real significance of custody issues today? It is not, simply, a matter of who takes care of the children! While the Malakov family only had one child, there are many divorces, obviously, with multiple children. To understand the dynamic, one should understand the finances of divorce in traditional single-income families in which an ex-wife is the custodial parent, and the ex-husband who was the breadwinner in the marriage must support the family after divorce, even neglecting alimony (which may or may not pertain). In such a case, child support payments to an ex-wife by an ex-husband can easily reach $50,000 per annum in a suburban U.S. community in, e.g., the northeastern U.S. or California, and the marital home can additionally be ordered to be maintained by the ex-husband for the benefit of his children, while at the same time housing the ex-wife. Therefore, the cost of maintaining the ex-wife and children can amount to $75,000 to $100,000 in those regions. This cost must typically be borne by the ex-husband who must earn a salary sufficient to pay income and FICA tax and simultaneously support his own residential and living expenses. These expenses signficantly in toto exceet $100,000. Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that only 5% of Americans earn such salaries. Consequently the economic effect is to prevent any possibility of accumulating wealth to provide for college funds and retirement and, rather, to promote poverty. Divorce is a wealth-destroyer.

The aforementioned should not be news to those knowledgeable regarding divorce in the United States; nor should be the division of marital assets and retirement funds.

While the case of Daniel Malakov, as a murder, does not seem ostensibly to point to a financial motive -- since firstly, a dead ex-husband cannot generate wages, secondly the Malakov-Borukhova marriage was a dual-income marriage, and thirdly, there was only one child -- nonetheless the court order providing temporary full custody to Dr. Malakov six days prior to his murder is highly relevant to the balance of power in marriages across the United States, relating to the at-hand subject of WP:Notability of Daniel Malakov as I shall explain. First of all, it is the assignment of custody to the ex-wife in single-income divorces that triggers an enormous burden of financial support that is placed upon ex-husbands when there are multiple children. If he is awarded custody, the ex-husband can typically afford to support himself and the children, and the ex-wife can develop her own proprietary career and begin to support herself independently of the ex-husband. There have been many reports substantiating the devastating financial impact of divorce upon a husband. For example, a 2007 report in The New York Times describes a father in Roslyn, NY living on subsistence in a motel room while supporting his ex-wife and children in the nearby family home by court order in a divorce decree. Clearly the matter of custody has much more far-reaching implication than simply who spends time with the kids in the evenings.

Since men are statistically 10:1 more likely in our society to be the perpetrators of domestic violence or spousal abuse than women, an unscrupulous ex-wife (desperate for financial reasons alone to obtain custody) is, realistically speaking, typically able to convince a court that she is a victim of domestic violence or spousal abuse -- when she is not. In our society, patrolmen are trained to presume that the woman is the victim whenever summoned to a residence. (Not incidentally, spousal abuse by husbands is known to be associated with immigrant populations in the United States.) Knowing that (or being advised by an unscrupulous attorney seeking to bill in the subsequent divorce proceeding), an unscrupulous woman can simply provoke a verbal domestic argument, escalate it to screaming at the top of her lungs, cause neighbors to witness violent screaming, and then call the police. Yet, even though men may be 10:1 more likely to be responsible of domestic violence, the vast majority are innocent, nonviolent. (Certainly there are no reports that the majority of men are violent in the home.) The significance of Daniel Malakov, notwithstanding the particulars of the Malakov-Borukhova marriage and its unraveling, is that it provides a convincing counterexample tending to show that there are indeed instances where the ex-husband is a victim rather than perpetrator of domestic violence. One important ramification of the Malakov case is that it may help in establishing a more appropriate legal standard for domestic violence cases.

But much more significantly, the fact that married women across the United States (and elsewhere in the world) understand the outcome of unscrupulously accusing a non-violent husband of domestic violence and subsequently pursuing custody is a very serious destabilizing force in many marriages today. Either partner may feel that he or she has compromised too greatly. Marriage and child-bearing has always been based on trust, but today it is the man who must trust the woman to refrain from leveling accusations of domestic violence (in yesteryear, the woman was forced to trust a man to support her during many years while rearing the young ones). Rather than resolve these feeling productively within the marriage, the existence of a mechanism for escaping from the marriage with essentially the preponderance of all collective assets and earning potential amounts to an unfair escape of responsibilities, and may amount to theft by unlawful taking if pre-meditated, for the wife. This does not apply to a marriage of equals, in which both parties are able to support themselves. However, as the distribution of income in the United States has become increasingly more unequal (as discussed, e.g, on the Jean Chatzky show on the XMRadio Oprah Channel No. 156 last Thursday evening December 20, 2007 from 6:00 to 7:00 PM, Transactional Marriages) there is actually a trend towards marriages between individuals who are highly unequal in earning potential and a tendency for one spouse to view a marriage as a temporary arrangement. Of course, to reap the financial benefit of the marriage, an unscrupulous woman in this position merely needs to wait until she has borne a few children and then accuse the husband of domestic violence and demand a divorce complete with custody and child support. There are variations on this theme, but that is the basic script.

The alienation of children from the husband by the wife becomes an inevitable secondary effect of an unscrupulous divorce campaign. (Alienation is by no means a necessary an outcome of an ethical divorce in which the spouses simply part ways when they grow apart.) For, once an ex-wife conspires to accuse the ex-husband of violence against her, it is all but inevitable that the child becomes polarized as the husband is obligated to defend himself and accordingly in effect accuse the ex-wife of deception and lies. The love of one's children being at stake heightens the desperate nature of the campaign since family relationships are both commonly and scientifically known to enhance health and well-being. Once the non-custodial parent becomes deprived of a long-term relationship with his or children, the damage on both is irretrievable and real.

Sadly, an unscrupulous woman today may think nothing of violating a marriage for financial gain; the legal system (in attempting to place the interests of the children first, and to protect woman from abuse) has created an unintended consequence of incentivizing women to break up their own marriages. Again the Daniel Malakov murder highlights the role of men as victims of abuse by women, victims who need to be protected by the legal system and that is its importance. The fact that Malakov was, and Borukhova remains, licensed medical professionals highlights the extent to which men's rights need protection at all socioeconomic levels of society.

In short, the incentive provided by the dynamic of what can be called the "divorce-custody-domestic-violence allegation" is a dangerous trap waiting for altrusitic, law-abiding, peaceful, wage-earning men who enter into marriage (with the best intentions) with women of few means who may be unscrupulous while representing themselves prior to childbearing as, equally, having the best intentions.

Inter alia, it is interesting to speculate on the specific motive of the murderer, and in which way he (or she) may have intended to promote the interests of Dr. Borukhova. This may be premature at the present as, indeed several editors have pointed out. Nonetheless, the issue of alienation of the Malakov child's affection from the non-custodial parent is clearly present in the Daniel Malakov - Mazoltuv Borukhova divorce. There may also be financial issues at stake, and in an immigrant foreign-language-speaking community, where, traditionally, individuals bind together to provide free loans enabling each other to establish small businesses, it is unlikely that a true financial disclosure may ever emerge. But there is no need to posit the financials of this particular case for it to be of importance to jurisprudence and family law affecting perhaps millions of other marriages.

4. CONSISTENCY OF WP:Notability? I, as maintainer, have argued for the application of a consistent WP:notability criterion. Of the various remarks above, the only one add ressing the objective criterion for not deleting, or not deleting, Daniel Malakov is that of User:Stormie which cites WP:BLP1E. Quoting from that source: "When a person is associated with only one event, such as for a particular relatively unimportant crime or for standing for governmental election, consideration needs to be given to the need to create a standalone article on the person. If reliable sources only cover the person in the context of a particular event, then a separate biography may be unwarranted."In this matter, then (manifestly) the question is whether the crime is relatively unimportant. This issue needs to be discussed more fully by others. I have clearly laid out my reasoning above for claiming notability of Daniel Malakov in that his case tends to support revision of juriprudential standards relating to custody, divorce, and domestic violence matters. 5. POSTING ON USER PAGE If I trangressed by posting the final page on the User Page, that was my error. I thought I understood that it was appropriate to do so during the discussion. Mea culpa!

6. INAPPROPRIATE USER ID? As for the inappropriate userID, that is just an userID I chose randomly for this article because I anticipated, firstly, possible danger in highlighting the crime of a murderer and, secondly, because of the controversial aspects that I suspected it would raise. I didn't realize that the use of the name of an iconic historical figure, known for pursuing peace, was not appropriate but perhaps should have. In establishing a new userID for this I hoped that the reverse spelling serves eliminate any concerns as few people if any should be able to decode it forthwith. 7. EDITED VERSION OF Daniel Malakov The final version of Daniel Malakov prior to deletion addressed many of the issues which administrators had cited in the AfD discussion.

8. HOT HAND IN DELETION RECORD OF User:DGG Prior to alleging a hot hand for deletion, I checked the record for deletions. Both User:DGG and User:Coredesat have a record of multiple deletions in the same 24-hour period, and multiple such 24-hour periods over several days preceding the deletion of Daniel Malakov. The attempt by User:DGG to disarm this observation, to the effect that he frequently argues for keeping rather than deleting articles does not address my contention. Once, again (similar to the statistical nature of the consensus process which I have criticized above) mere statistics as to being even-handed (in terms of keep vs. delete) does not prove that User:DGG is correct in arguing for deletion of Daniel Malakov. A statistical argument is a fallacious argument. Eileivgyrt (talk) 22:03, 26 December 2007 (UTC)