Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Petrarch's testamentum

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 the numerical result would be "Delete". The arguments for deletion are a challenge to notability, and suggestions that the content would be better as part of other arguments, and an implicit suggestion of "undue weight". The notability arguments are refuted by the mention of the scholarly account, if not by the fame of the people involved. What remains is a good argument for merging, but not for deletion. but since no one was arguing for a merge per se that can not be the consensus result. So i am closing this as No Consensus. Note that a merge and redirect can be done at any time without an AfD. DES ^(talk) 17:04, 11 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Petrarch's testamentum[edit]

Article is about Petrarch's last will and testament. Doesn't assert notability, and I don't think the will of a famous person is automatically an encyclopedic subject. First paragraph is copied verbatim from this website, without attribution; the rest seems to be copied from public domain sources, but I must admit some anxiety as to whether any text is copied from the Mommsen edition listed in the "reference" section. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:24, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Anything notable in this is already covered in other articles. Is there no way to persuade this guy to stop cobbling together snippets of Web sites, books, and other WP articles to create unnecessary new articles? Deor 12:01, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. While the will of a famous person may not automatically be an encyclopedic subject, when the will names Giovanni Boccaccio as one of his heirs, Petrarch's disposition of his property marked the foundation of a major library, and the will was apparently the subject of a scholarly book, it seems notable enough to get by. Adding this back into Petrarch would make that article much longer, and a separate article on the will may well be justified. FWIW, I looked at the website, and if anything was copied, it was the date of the document and the list of the heirs. These are uncopyrightable facts. - Smerdis of Tlön 14:04, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

take a look at the entry for 1370 on that website. It's the same as the first paragraph in this article, with the exception of the phrase "besides his son-in-law Francescuolo da Brossano as the executor of the estate". The date and identity of heirs are uncopyrightable, but the individual wording of these facts, such as "His heirs, among others, are Gherardo (his brother), Boccaccio..." are copyrightable. The point is that the creator of this article makes a habit of taking snippets from other websites, altering the text superficially, and copying it into Wikipedia.

As for merging back into Petrarch, I think it would be easy, because Petrarch's testamentum includes very little significant material that's not already covered in other articles. Let's go paragraph by paragraph:

- - Paragraph 1 tells us that "Petrarch wrote his will on April 4, 1370." I'm not sure this is significant, but it might be. The rest of the paragraph lists people named in the will; of those, only Boccaccio and Francescuolo da Brossano are worth mentioning.
  - Paragraph 2 is about da Brossano; but he's got his own article, so we don't need to cover him extensively in Petrarch.
  - Paragraph 3 is about where Petrarch wanted to be buried; interesting, but not necessary material for an encyclopedia, and doesn't have to go in Petrarch.
  - Next is a list of items left to his heirs. Most of this we don't need; simply mention that he willed "memore of his ristrettezze" and fifty florins to Boccaccio (why didn't whoever wrote this translate the Italian?). If you want to add "Francescuolo da Brossano was the executor of his estate and got most of the swag," fine.
    - This omits the clause, in Morris Bishop, that half of Brossano's share was left to him on the understanding that it should go to Petrarch's natural daughter Francesca; what is the point of this detail if Petrarch's actual wishes are omitted? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:05, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Paragraph 4 is about the fate of Petrarch's library, which already gets its own article. There should be something about it in Petrarch already--yep, there's a sentence.
  - Paragraph 5 is about where Petrarch lived in his last years. This material is already in Petrarch, at the end of the "biography" section.

So, I think it would be simplicity itself to take the useful content from this article and put it in the biographical article where it belongs. After that I would delete this article, because I don't think it's a useful redirect--will many people search for "Petrarch's testamentum"? --Akhilleus (talk) 15:23, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

However they would quite likely search for Petrarch's Will or Petrarch's Last Will, or Petrarch's Last Will and Testament, or maybe even Petrarch's testament - redirects already in place.--Doug ^talk 22:39, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And as part of the deletion, these can be amended to point to Petrarch. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:05, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Library-relevant references can go in Biblioteca Marciana, anything else in Petrarch, but creating separate pages for wills -- even of people far more famous (and with far more to dispose of) than Petrarch -- is very much out of the ordinary. RandomCritic 15:22, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note Petrarch's library. --Akhilleus (talk) 15:23, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per Deor and RandomCritic. Wareh 15:45, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - First I will have to say that I believe this is not a good faith election to delete an article. Akhilleus is not working in good faith to actually delete an article he feels should be deleted (since he never brought it up before), but just nominated this (along with several other articles I started) after an undesirable outcome from a decision of a highly disputed article. This article Akhilleus knew about before, but only elected it because he did not approve the decision of the outcome of another settlement. Now I will try to answer the objections of the article itself (which mostly are nit-picky minor points). First I will have to say, Why didn't any of these objections come up prior to the outcome of this other settlement. Many items can just be edited like any other article, if the objections are brought up like in any other article. For example:

I also am confused on the listing of the names, which I feel also are uncopyrightable facts. If it is in fact just the objection of the wording: ""His heirs, among others, are Gherardo (his brother), Boccaccio..." - it so happens if you look closely at the article, this wording is not used. The actual wording is "His heirs, among others besides his son-in-law Francescuolo da Brossano as the executor of the estate, are Gherardo (his brother), Giovanni Boccaccio..." This wording certainly can be reworded, if it is a good faith dispute.

- Additional reasons to keep this article of "Petrarch's testamentum" are:
  - The Will names Giovanni Boccaccio as one of his heirs - a very notable person in his own right.
  - Petrarch's disposition of his property marked the foundation of a major library - the Biblioteca Marciana.
  - Should be a seperate article so that it doesn't make the Francesco Petrarch's article even more lengthy .
  - It speaks of Petrarch's son-in-law Francescuolo da Brossano, which happens to be another article.
  - The Will was the subject of Theodor E. Mommesen's 1957 book Petrarch's Testament.

There is no text copied from this book, so this is just speculation from Akhilleus to make the article look bad. It so happens that I scanned all pages of this book when I was studying it. If anyone wants a particular page I will be glad to e-mail to them -or- they can get a copy at their local library (or through ILL) or at a large University library (most have a copy). It should be noted that the article has never been edited by any Wikipedian since its introduction in May. Petrarch and anything related to Petrarch is read daily by several Wikipedians as well as many scholars worldwide. If there was truely any objections to any of these nit-picky points, somebody would have said something before and certainly brought it up. This shows that it is not really a community consenses of the objection to the article itself, but just basicaly a venting by Akhilleus because of a previous outcome of an article he elected to be deleted. This now is even in dispute as some feel he has circumvented the AFD process by just redirecting the article rather than going through the recommended process.--Doug ^talk 17:43, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's really not civil to accuse other editors of acting in bad faith. I'd appreciate it if you retracted that accusation. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:47, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Let me point out that I am just interested in working on articles in good faith. I have no particular interest in trying to delete others articles or make any particular person look bad (as I personnally do not know them), however am interested in improving all Wikipedia article and policies. As a matter of fact I have never elected an article to be deleted. I would rather contribute in good faith to improve articles. However sometimes there may be a rule or part not quite right. Usually this is minor and it is always unintentional, since I am not trying to circumvent anything. I would even dare to say other Wikipedians make similar mistakes. Just edit in good faith, as I am doing just that. Then perhaps we wouldn't have all these hot disputes. I believe my points will stand, since the article that you didn't get a favorable conclusion on of that you wanted of being to Delete it, however it was an end result of Keep on 30 June. On 2 July then you decided that several of the articles I started should be deleted or completely reworked. Does that sound like good faith? Does wording like "I must admit some anxiety as to whether any text is copied from the Mommsen edition listed in the "reference" section" when you don't know that for a fact. When you make statements like that, please be specific as to which text you think I copied from his book. I have all pages scanned, so I could double check your accusations and implications. Which text are you talking about, page number please - or is that also just implications? Please keep to these particular subjects at hand, thanks.--Doug ^talk 18:22, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, in good faith, I think that Petrarch's testamentum, and many of the other articles you've contributed, aren't appropriate content for Wikipedia. Since I've already turned up one instance where you've plagiarized copyrighted text (on Genealogia deorum gentilium [1]), I think I'm in the right to worry that you've done it in other places, especially since the first paragraph of this article is a near-copy of text from another website. Only the phrase "besides his son-in-law Francescuolo da Brossano as the executor of the estate" breaks up what is otherwise a direct quote. Since the text is given without quotation marks and attribution, this is plagiarism. It's not very severe, but it is still copying someone else's text. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:32, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I've rewritten the first paragraph to avoid plagiarism. Anyone curious about the copyright issue will need to look at this old version of the article, and compare to this website (check the year 1370). --Akhilleus (talk) 18:37, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There, see what I'm talking about - excellent improvement. Now isn't that better to edit to make improvements like others usually do on all the other Wikipedia articles, instead of just nominating an article for deletion. So obviously you want to make this article better and that's why you made this great improvement. Thanks for the improvement, it looks good! Now that's editing in good faith and working with other Wikipedians. Improving on articles is far easier and I think the proper thing to do - instead of just electing an article for deletion. That edit took maybe 30 seconds, however nominating an article for deletion takes days of time (not only for you, but for many others including administrators). Did you find the page number for the text you thought I might have copied from Mommsen's edition of Petrarch's Testamentum? Let me ask you: Have you read this book? When? --Doug ^talk 19:25, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I hope that you are not going repeat the canard that by editing the article I have changed my vote to keep, as you did at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Birthday of alpinism. Rest assured that I edited the article from a belief that plagiarism is a bad thing, and it should be removed from Wikipedia as quickly as feasable. I still think the best way to "improve" this article is to place the few sentences that are relevant in Plutarch and then to delete Petrarch's testamentum. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:46, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Would that then go under Parallel Lives or Plutarch's influences?--Doug ^talk 21:46, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the additional improvements to this article of Petrarch's testamentum.--Doug ^talk 21:46, 2 July 2007 (UTC) And adding the word "among."--Doug ^talk 22:45, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I find Coldwell's claimed reliance on Theodor Ernst Mommsen's edition doubtful. If he had the book before him, he would not persistently misspell the name of the editor and translator. It is, as indicated, Mommsen, not Mommesen. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:58, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Checked my scans and you are exactly correct - I have misspelled his name. In addition, the front inside cover says "To Henry and Byba Coster" whomever they are. Would you know?--Doug ^talk 19:25, 2 July 2007 (UTC) This was just an accidental misspelling of a name. Sometimes other Wikipedians do that.--Doug ^talk 22:01, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~Merge and~~ delete per Akhilleus. The few statements of interest belong in Petrarch, and I will be adding them there. We don't have an article on George Washington's will although it is substantively interesting; this is not. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:50, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The testament that has perhaps been the subject of the most scholarly comment of all is Shakespeare's will, and WP doesn't have an article about that, either. Deor 00:33, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I have included all that seems to me of general interest in Petrarch, here. In the process, I have discovered that Petrarch's library has a truly bizarre emphasis. As Morris Bishop says, "the books did not go to Venice, but fell into the hands of Padua's rulers, and thereafter were scattered all over Europe, from London to Naples." (p. 366) It therefore spends a great deal of space, including the lead, discussing something that did not happen. I will be editing, appropriately. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:03, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  I wrote a new lead to the library article. It probably needs more work. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:20, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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.