Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2021 May 24

Princess Maria Cristina Amelia of Naples and Sicily (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

The page was deleted as hoax, based on assumption that "this person likely never existed". However the follow up discussion in Russian Wikipedia showed that the person did exist. Here is an example of source: [1]. See also a more detailed comment (in English) in a more recent discussion. Alexei Kopylov (talk) 15:19, 24 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Closing admin comment: To be clear, the AfD conclusion I summarized was that it was probably a hoax, but even if she was a real person "there is a lack of acceptable sourcing to support an article". If the older genealogies cited in the ru-wiki discussion mentioned her, then that would cover the hoax question (at least as a Wikipedia hoax). Whether there is enough sourcing to justify an article is a different matter, which belongs with folks in the community who are familiar with sourcing for this type of subject. So I am neutral on the question of recreation. --RL0919 (talk) 16:33, 24 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. It is not only about old genealogies. This girl is listed in Burke's Royal Families of the World Vol. 1 (1977) edited by Hugh Massingberd. it:Gaudenzio Dell'Aja in his Il pantheon dei Borboni in Santa Chiara di Napoli (1987) discusses her gravestone at Santa Chiara, Naples. Her mother Maria Carolina of Austria mentions in the diary of 1781 (published in 2014) that this girl as well as her brother Prince Giuseppe of Naples and Sicily were seen before by the famous physician it:Angelo Gatti (medico). So, some additional information exists about this person. Andrei Romanenko (talk) 01:49, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I said "older genealogies" – meaning older than Wikipedia, which shows this was not a Wikipedia hoax. The rest I leave to those who care about the particulars of the subject matter. --RL0919 (talk) 02:52, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment This is a tough one - I'm tempted to overturn since only two of the six participants in the discussion really mentioned her not being notable on GNG grounds, and the rest of the participants appeared to vote on hoax grounds. This temptation does not suggest anything about the close was improper - in fact, the "not notable on GNG grounds" anyway shows that the petitioners here have to show that she somehow might pass GNG and this was missed. From the sources above, I'm not seeing a GNG pass. If enough comes out of this discussion to show she might, then I'd be happy to support vacating the AfD and sending back to AfD for a new discussion not based on hoax grounds. Otherwise, a good close. SportingFlyer T·C 08:47, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Temp undeleted for DRV WilyD 10:42, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse None of the AfD participants found sufficient sources. None of the sources above are sufficient for the debate to be reopened. ----Pontificalibus 13:04, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Petitioner's comment I'm neutral on GNG. The article was nominated as a hoax, and was deleted because of "high probability of hoax" and the "lack of sourcing". This is not the case anymore. If the article is deleted, it is important that the correct reason for deletion is shown in the logs. If the article is deleted as a hoax, then wikidata element should be also deleted. If the article is deleted for not passing GNG, then wikidata element should be kept. It also should be removed from Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia#Extant for 8–9 years. I believe the appropriate action would be to restore the article and then maybe relist it on GNG grounds. Alexei Kopylov (talk) 15:18, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse two issues were presented in the AfD: that we couldn't verify that the subject existed, and that if she did exist then she wouldn't pass the notability guidelines. Addressing the first point doesn't address the second. The sources presented above aren't at all close to the kind of thing which would show that she meets the GNG, they all just mention her in passing. I'd be surprised if there was much coverage given how young she was when she died, which wasn't very unusual at the time. Hut 8.5 17:47, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Question - I have a question about the timing of the alleged hoax, and I think it does matter. Is it being claimed, first, that she never existed, and that Wikipedia was used to create a false record of her existence? Or is it being claimed, second, that she never existed, but that twentieth-century sources reported that she had existed (and died)? In the first case, a hoax was perpetrated on Wikipedia. In the second case, Wikipedia should report that there had been an existing hoax. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:23, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I think this question does matter for the broader matter of how we deal with hoaxes and how we treat this matter on WP:HOAXLIST, but in the absence of reliable sources covering the hoax, I don't see it as important for deciding what fate the article will receive in this DRV. In any case, the references provided by Андрей Романенко show that at least some of the key claims made in the deleted article predate Wikipedia, but that leaves the matter open of whether we've been embellishing. — Charles Stewart (talk) 08:43, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment - In my opinion, if there were questions as to whether a child member of a royal family existed, that controversy is itself sufficiently notable to be worth reporting in Wikipedia. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:45, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - Since the matter came up on talk, this is a good example of a worthy appeal to point #3 of WP:DRVPURPOSE: RL0919's close was sound, but because of new material that has arisen concerning sourcing, it makes sense to look at the AfD discussion again here on DRV. I'm curious about the picture, Ferdinand I and His Family: Wikidata Q19985096 has a list of the subjects of the painting, but does not give a source for believing those to be the subjects. There should be something like a gallery/museum catalogue with this information, but so far I have found nothing. — Charles Stewart (talk) 08:43, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse, per common sense. If someone if so obscure that their very existence was highly doubtful, then it's obvious that the person is not notable. One does not have to utter the magic word "GNG" or "notability" here and we should not require them to simply for bureaucratic reasons. Nsk92 (talk) 10:58, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • However, in fact this person is not so obscure that her existence was highly doubtful. Someone (not a historian) spread some doubts at Twitter (!) and then some Wikipedians for some reason decided that this Twitter thread is a reliable source. There are no doubts about this poor child among professional historians. Andrei Romanenko (talk) 11:33, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Of course the person was and still is so exceedingly obscure that her existence was correctly questioned by the AfD participants, mainly because the absence of the sources that indicated otherwise. Even now we are asked to overturn the perfectly valid AfD conclusion simply because somebody somewhere did some deeper research and decided that the person probably did exist, not because the person is notable and received significant coverage. Their existence was not at all apparent during the AfD. Even now, if, hypothetically speaking, the AfD was relisted, I am quite sure that the article would still be deleted. The new sources that are mentioned above provide only extremely brief mentions of the subject. It's still unclear where all the info present in the article that was deleted at the AfD came from, and it's quite possible that some of that info was made up or based on WP:OR. Nsk92 (talk) 22:42, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Relist the basis of the original deletion wasshown to be in error, so another discussion is needed. I cn not predict what the reult of that discussion would be. There should be more than genealogical sources available. DGG ( talk ) 10:06, 28 May 2021 (UTC) DGG ( talk ) 10:06, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Relist, it is clear she is not a hoax which invaluidates the argumentation at AfD, but she is likely not notable, which still needs to be investigated.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:41, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Relist Not fair decision ! So let decide AfD. I did not participate in the previous AfD. So I will participate when relisted the AfD. Thanks VocalIndia (talk) 16:44, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse but relist - the closer decision was obviously fair, and while it would not be unreasonable to go from the small number of notability-oriented !votes, or even to infer notability-related from the hoax reasoning (though that has been challenged above) I still think that the comparative cost of relisting and letting editors know that they need to reassess their !votes is far less problematic than deleting. When in doubt, try to avoid deletion. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:03, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]