Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Florentina Mosora

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. Meets WP:PROF as pointed out. Most references are valid. Obviously, non-US/UK actors will not obtain same level of notoriety, but that does not make them notable. Arguments for Keep are far stronger than those for delete. (non-admin closure) (talk→ Bwilkins / BMW ←track) 11:06, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Florentina Mosora

Florentina Mosora (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Fails both WP:ENTERTAINER and WP:PROF, the fields for which notability is claimed for her. There is no evidence she was a "movie star" (of the three roles listed for her at IMDb, the highest billing she received was third), and in any case, the sources relied upon to make these claims are self-published and violate WP:RS. There is also no evidence her scientific work has had a significant impact, or that she meets any other of the necessary criteria. Biruitorul ^Talk 17:15, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

• Keep It's not an overwhelming case of notability to be sure. But when the movie career is combined with the history of leaving Romania (I believe it was) to pursue a career, the academic achievements, and the documentary and coverage of the this individual's career choices and the sacrifices involved, I think there is enough notability. There is a strong indication of additional sources being available in other languages. The article does need some clean-up, but seems well worth keeping according to guidelines. ChildofMidnight (talk) 22:58, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Without addressing the other points in depth (except to say that the film career was not much, and that many people emigrated from Romania, with some ending up in universities), let me just note that the documentary is at a self-published site violating WP:SELFPUB & WP:RS. - Biruitorul ^Talk 01:26, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
• Keep. Besides being a poorly written article, it's an interesting story--and the lady seems notable enough to me, more as a scholar than as anything else, I reckon: here's Google Books and here's Google Scholar. Like Child said, it may not be overwhelming, but it's there. Drmies (talk) 00:18, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:27, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
• KeepNeutral If the claim that she was a member of the Belgian Academy can be sourced, that would mean that she passes WP:ACADEMIC #3. Changing my vote to neutral for the moment: given the discussion on the talk page of the article it is highly doubtful that she was a member of the Belgian Academy of Sciences. If no better evidnece turns up her, I'll go to delete. The article is currently rather horrible and needs major cleanup and pruning. --Crusio (talk) 09:34, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

• Comment The Web of Science lists 54 publications (a bunch of them are only abstracts, though) that have been cited 819 times in total, h-index of 17. The most cited article has 86 hits, but Mosora is only a minor author in that paper. Among the 17 highest cited papers, there is not a single one on which she's last author. I assume that the word "académicienne" in the article simply is the female form of "academic" and that she was not a member of any national Academy of sciences (the link given in the article was to the Flemish Academy of Sciences, being French-speaking, I would not expect her to be a member of that Academy anyway). Taken together, this means to me that she does not pass WP:ACADEMIC. However, she also appeared in 4 Romanian movies (I don't think there is much doubt that the actress is the same person as the scientist) and that is indeed an unusual combination. The movies don't seem to be very notable themselves, so I don't think Mosora would pass notability as an actress. However, perhaps an argument can be made that borderline notability as an actress combined with borderline notability as an academic amounts to notability per WP:BIO. --Crusio (talk) 15:59, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

• Strong delete Subject fails notability criteria for the relevant areas by much, and the only claims to some notability to be deduced from the article are highly dubious. The arguments presented here in support of keeping the article are two, both of them faulty: 1) so you find the article interesting. Supposing it is, that is still irrelevant. Relevantly, the only info that would make the article "interesting", and, in fact, the only source to go into any detail about her life is a personal, promotional and atrociously edited webpage (i.e. linkspam, which promotes not just Mosora, but also itself); 2) Florentina Mosora's name is mentioned by google books etc. And? did you check the context for that? Because it appears to me that the only thing they proclaim is her being the author or co-author of articles which are used as bibliography by niche works. So far, the only source to go into any detail about her supposed significance is the aforementioned linkspam. Dahn (talk) 10:33, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
• Weak keep. There is a combination of factors that serve as a basis for my weak keep recommendation: (a) the searches by Drmies; note that the Google Scholar search shows an article published in Science, although the subject is the second author on that one; (b) the subject has at least one edited book, Biomechanical transport processes, currently in more than 120 libraries worldwide according to WorldCat; and (c) the book in question seems to be a compilation of a NATO workshop, and the subject is the only editor and apparently the main organizer of the workshop. On the other hand, this is not a clear cut keep because: (a) some of the claims in the article fail WP:V; and (b) while the life story is interesting, there is practically no independent media coverage of it.--Eric Yurken (talk) 16:09, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

• Comment The Science article has never been cited, not even once... So it obviously has had no measurable impact on the field. 120 libraries for a subject like that is not huge (and as far as I have been able to find out, she's for certain only a co-editor of this book and unlikely to have been the organizer of the workshop; Worldcat lists her as only author, Springer lists only Baque as an editor...) --Crusio (talk) 18:07, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

• Eric, see below, I've meanwhile changed my stance to "weak keep". However, I mistrust Google Scholar. I have articles of my own in there that shown huge citation counts whereas I know for a fact that they have never been cited even once. Web of Science does not give even a single citation, so even if Google picks up some that WoS misses, many of the Google citations must be miscounts or doubles. As for the editorship, I'm not convinced. Why would the publisher itself be so wrong about this? That Amazon and other book sellers might get it wrong, I can see (although, they all list more than one editor and Mosora not as the first one). Someone should look the book up in a library and see what really is going on... --Crusio (talk) 18:24, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
• The Science article shows over 60 citations on Google Scholar. This Library of Congress entry shows her as the first editor of the book.--Eric Yurken (talk) 15:20, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

• Delete She did not write even a single book in her lifetime (she is the co-editor of just one book, and the co-author of a few articles). She was not a member of the Belgian Academy of Sciences as it was alleged. So she is not notable as a scholar, I guess. As an actress: she acted in three movies. But then again, if we added all the actors who acted in three movies, Wikipedia would be awash with articles on actors.--Mycomp (talk) 05:50, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

• Comment Of course, if she had played for just 1 minute in an American football game, she'd be notable, but the fact that the jocks can't get their act together doesn't mean that we should do the same. --Crusio (talk) 08:00, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

• Additional comment As for "she did not write even a single book in her lifetime", that would indeed be highly unusual if she had been working in the humanities. However, writing a book is much less common in the sciences and most academics working in biology, physics, and such never write (or even edit) a book, so that is not really a negative point. According to this (bottom of page), she was one of three co-organisers of the NATO workshop, which is nothing to spit at. It is not entirely clear who edited the resulting book, though. Some sources mention only Mosora as editor, but the Springer website (now linked to in the article) lists the peple indicated in the article as editors. However.... If you go to the Springer page and click the book title, you get to a page specifically for the book and then you don't see Mosora at al... Looks like somebody will have to go to the library to check this. However, the fact that she was one of three chairpersons for this NATO meeting sways me to change from neutral to weak keep.--Crusio (talk) 08:16, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Crusio, I don't think anyone here is discussing their feelings about the notability of American football players (in fact, at least two people commenting on this page have repeatedly called for those notability standards to be revised - plus, it seems that all of us who have so far voted "delete" are Romanian, just like Mosora and unlike the vast majority of American football fans). The point I was making (which echoes those made by others who voted the same way) is that this person has no real claim to notability, and that authoring articles, chairing a meeting etc. do not supplant this, nor the fact that the only source who goes into any non-directory sort of detail about her life is a spamlink. Let me ask you these: is any review of her work (in science or cinema) available? is there any biographical detail from a reliable source available? once you remove all the dubious, self-promotional material from the article, and add instead the various patches mentioning her in various places, is there any chance we'll have something remotely resembling an encyclopedic article on a notable person? I think the answer to all three is "no". Dahn (talk) 10:27, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

• Sorry if my "football" remark irritated you, you are right that it does not belong here and I should vent my frustration with those notability guidelines elsewhere :-) As for Mosora, there are sources. For instance, there are websites listing the book she edited. Web of Science records the almost 900 scientific articles that make reference to her work. There must be sources about her movies (given the time those were made, those are unlikely to be online but rather in print). As they are likely to be in Romanian, you could perhaps be helpful in locating those. Wikipedia has no prejudice against sources in foreign languages or in print. We also have a reliable independent source that she co-chaired an important meeting (for these meetings, "chair" means "organizer", not just presiding a session or something trivial like that). To me all this adds up to passing the notability guidelines, albeit barely (hence the "weak" in my keep !vote). --Crusio (talk) 12:11, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Abrupt mentions in the various papers, mentions which appear to be mainly bibliographic, don't automatically validate either significance to the field or notability, and they do not compensate for sourcing in a bio article. What they say is that she exists and is a researcher, both of which no one doubts. On that level, basically every person who has a career in research will inflate in notability, since they are all required to publish (as authors or co-authors) a number of works and those works are likely to be cited. And the number of people who edited one book... Her career in cinema seems of even less interest. For one, I object to arguments based on the likelihood of something being attested, as opposed to verifying whether it is in fact attested. Google books produces one result for this aspect - what appears to be a passing mention in a listing of Romanian films produced between 1949 and 1975 (Cinematograful românesc contemporan, 1949-1975). Dahn (talk) 13:29, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

• I am not saying that the fact that she published makes her notable. As I mentioned above, the Science paper that she co-authored was not cited even once, so despite this being one of the most prestigious journals, that does not make her notable. You are correct that publishing and some citations to those publications do not make someone notable. It is the amount of those citations that indicates that her works mad an impact on the field. As for sources on her movies, I would have been surprised if a Google search would have rendered anything significant. What I contest is that this is the only valid criterium. What is the likelihood that movies produced in the late 50s/early 60s have significant coverage on the Internet? You will need to search for printed sources. As the world was much less interconnected in that period (especially given the political divisions of the time), I would expect those sources to be in Rumanian print publications. In fact, I'd be surprised if none of those four movies had ever been reviewed in a Rumanian newspaper of the time. Whereas it is perfectly reasonable to look for online sources for people living nowadays, this is not necessarily reasonable for things that happened 50 years ago. --Crusio (talk) 15:00, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I understood you, and what I said is that the number of casual citations of her name in the bibliography of various works does not validate a claim that she had an impact in her field of research - just that she wrote about a subject with some popularity. I have also said that those mentions could never replace what is actually needed in a bio article, unless we we're okay with the notion that articles work as bibliographic lists. The google search for her films was actually on google books, which, I do believe, is a good reflection of coverage in literature (it did yield the title I mentioned, which is as obscure as it gets). Her theoretical coverage in Romanian film magazines from the period is the sound of a falling tree. For one, there was only one such magazine in Romania (it was called Cinema, and it alternated communist propaganda with trivia; anyone familiar with the type of coverage films got in a film industry where everything was state-owned and centralized would make most such presumed coverage pieces hot potatoes); the most mention she has received since is this type of article, where she is mentioned twice for being beautiful - the focus is her partner Iurie Darie, who, as a virtual star of the industry in the 50s and 60s, is admittedly much more notable than her. As you can see, there is coverage of other actors from the period, and if I were to write an article on Darie, I would have no trouble sourcing it - cf. Victor Rebengiuc, to name just one article from the 60s on whom we already have an article. Dahn (talk) 19:07, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

• Keep as both an academic and as an actress. A sufficient number of citations to scientific or academic work in peer reviewed books or journals meets WP:PROF, because it shows that a person is an authority in the field. This is exactly how one becomes recogized as an authority. (The need for a special rule. WP:PROF, is because otherwise citation counts of two could be taken as meeting the GNG, which makes no sense. Before this was clarified, it was necessary to argue each time that such a trivial count was not in substance significant, and higher counts were.) How many is sufficient is determined by comparison with others, and by judgement here. Using Crusio's citation count, this is clearly sufficient in this subject. I note that at least two of her articles were published in first rate journals, Science, and Diabetes, the physiological journal with the highest impact factor. But as an actress, or entertainer, one is judged by the standards oft he field of entertainment. If she was prominent in her national film industry had a leading role in multiple films, she's notable. Some day google books may possibly get to cover material published in postwar central europe in an exhaustive way, but it won't be soon. The significance of such material not being in G Books presently, is zero. DGG (talk) 21:48, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I can't begin to count the ways in which the above arguments are faulty and misinterpret or glance over the points made on this page while claiming to address them. One becomes recognized as an authority provided the source who cite you say something about your work - whereas here the only thing proven is that articles she co-wrote are simply mentioned as generic bibliographic references. As I have asked a couple of times by now: who could ever claim that an article can be written from such mentions, given that these are the only mentions she gets in reliable sources? The rest of the claims, including all those on her academic positions, relate to a non-reliable source, or are simply uncited (copypasting the whole sentence might have led you to the yet unaddressed "citneeded" tag). I have brought up google books to show that there is coverage of even an obscure subject as this there, and, no, it doesn't point to anything significant about Mosora's career. I happen to have edited tens of articles on Romanian subjects, Romanian actors and scientists included, many of them from scratch, and in the process found google books a thorough database for "postwar Central Europe" (the only thing limited in this respect being availability of individual texts, not the overall coverage of this area). No, she did not have "leading roles in multiple films", she was (as pointed out a number of times by now) a secondary character in four films - none of which is particularly notable. Theories about how "she may have coverage", which conveniently glance over the fact that three native speakers of Romanian found no such coverage, are wishful thinking, and conveniently ignore the fact that evidencing a claim relies on the person who makes it, not on those who dispute it. Dahn (talk) 03:19, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

• Keep per DGG.Nrswanson (talk) 01:50, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
• Keep per DGG's excellent analysis.Broadweighbabe (talk) 02:58, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
• Comment This is perhaps not the place for this, but I need some help with this article. The article's creator User:Bci2 keeps inserting unsourced and plainly wrong information into the article. I have reverted already twice today and won't do that again. I have commented on the user's talk page, but to no avail. In addition, it seems to me that the copyright information given by this editor for the portrait on the article is erroneous. Some help here would be appreciated. --Crusio (talk) 14:37, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
  • I see what you mean, going through the history. I can't go through and undo two dozen changes, but I did remove the one "Oceanography" statement and its three "sources," and have explained why in the edit summary and on the author's talkpage. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 15:29, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
• Weak delete. I'm inclined to think that the subject of a half-hour documentary (inaccessible and in Romanian as it may be) and with as unusual a combination of activities as hers should be at least marginally notable. But there's a serious problem with verifiability, her film career is obscure, and it seems clear she doesn't pass WP:PROF (unless the Belgian academy claim can be resurrected with reliable sources). And even what little we can read about this documentary mentions mysterious gaps in our knowledge of her life, and is verifiably inaccurate (it calls her the author of a book she merely edited). —David Eppstein (talk) 04:37, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Comment:Reading the article creator's reply to you, Crusio, on his/her talk page ("...actual facts that I know first hand, and you obviously **do not**, and..."), makes me wonder whether he/she knows that according to Wikipedia, reliable sources are secondary sources not primary ones. Saying "I know it for sure because I knew her" f. ex., is not good enough.--Mycomp (talk) 06:22, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. Particularly since it seems to indicate WP:COI. I also note this post, also on that talk page:

"Please also note that the main proposer for the deletion seems to be "politically motivated", and also initiated by someone who'd apparently like to turn the clock of Romanian history to the time period before 1989, by erasing pieces of history such as Florentina Ioana Mosora's biography simply because she emigrated to Belgium before 1989... thus signalling indirectly her discontent with the dictatorial govt. before '89. If she was not as succesful as she was in Belgium, and contributing much more than she ever could have at home, she "might have been forgiven" by the deletion petitioners, but as it is, she is a succesful dissident on which "Stalinist scissors" of history are being now attempted on Wikipedia by those two politically motivated characters who proposed the deletion of this entry, as if she never has existed as an important person, both Romanian and Belgian. Being succesful both as an actress in Romania--a real symbol of feminine beauty on the movie screen--like for instance Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, Sara Montiel, Lolobrigida, etc. were--as well as being very successful as a scientist in Belgium, seems to be quite unbearable to such revanchard characters! There is more here at stake than just the correct referencing, etc. required by the wikings..."

This is not only a bewildering and deceptive assumption, with more clues to the flawed motivations behind creating the article, it features strong personal attacks. Dahn (talk) 07:24, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

The horrible editing of the article's creator is not really helping either. He's continuously adding material that is either not verifiable (membership in Belgian academy) or patently false (chair of oceanography). I've tried to engage him in a discussion, but apparently my style irritates him even more and he seems to think that I have ulterior motives. Yesterday night, Drmies and I have done a lot of cleanup on the article and have pared it down (mostly) to what we really know. I think there's a verifiable source that she obtained her PhD at the university of Bucharest (just didn't get around to adding it) and the fact that a documentary was made on her life should somehow also be added (even if the abstract on the documentary maker's website is seriously inaccurate - but that often happens when academics talk with journalist/etc). I agree with David Eppstein that Mosora does not meet WP:PROF, but the movies push her just over the bar for me, so that's why I am at a "weak keep". --Crusio (talk) 10:08, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I second that, but with a note: Crusio gives me far too much credit, since I did only a tiny little bit of work. I also tried to discuss matters with that editor, but he deleted my posting. And I agree with the assessment that it's the combination of factors that make her pass the notability bar for me. Dahn, I understand your concerns, or some of them anyway, but I'm going to assume the best, that this stuff is true, that the TV program was there, and that someone soon will open up the Belgian archives. Now, if the above-mentioned editor wants to call me an anti-Stalinist freedom fighter because of that, that's fine but undeserved, and Dahn, if he wants to call you a Stalinist because you vote delete, well, you may have been, like me, called worse by more reliable sources ;). Drmies (talk) 15:58, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

The claim that there was such a documentary made relates to a personal web page self-published the person who claims to have produced it. The claim that such a documentary was made, and the notability of that documentary, is dependent on that source - which should it itself not be used on wikipedia (btw, the filmmaker herself does not merit a page, so it can't even be used in the article on itself, the only exception afforded by wikipedia rules). Btw: Technically, it is not a documentary, but a TV report, and I find it highly questionable that TV reports, particularly those from 1990s Romanian television stations, which may or may not have actually been aired, can validate anything about a person's contextual notability. Dahn (talk) 10:17, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

And, btw, the only mentions of her film career that don't trace back to imdb are from commercial links - video rental outlets such as videofil.ro and cinemarx.ro. Spam. Dahn (talk) 10:21, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

And I'm gonna ask again: is there a single fragment of prose that this article can use as a source? Her various mentions in web directories do not validate importance, and their addition as sources is borderline to WP:SYNTH (meaning there is an implicit editorial voice for the overall importance, while the entries themsleves actually say "your search yielded x results"). Dahn (talk) 10:28, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I find the existence of a report on TV about someone (if we can find better evidence than an obscure web page that this documentary existed and aired) to be quite convincing evidence of notability: someone publically noted her, hence she is notable. What it isn't helping so much is verifiability. —David Eppstein (talk) 14:56, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

While the argument you're constructing runs parallel to the "public access"-like quality of Romanian TV in the 1990s (it would transform into "notable people" the likes of NutraSweet distributors, skilled shoemakers etc.), and therefore fails us as a rule of thumb (even in other countries: should we start having articles on, say, regional executives once interviewed by Michael Moore?), let me note that there is yet no indication of the "documentary" ever being aired. Dahn (talk) 15:26, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

• Keep per the above keeps, DGG Crusio, etc. I added a prize she received from the Belgian Academy to the article, and noted she was also known as Florentina Stan-Mosora (or Mosora-Stan by one ref) after her marriage. This shows she was interested in oceanography.John Z (talk) 09:18, 22 March 2009 (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.