Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aina Muceniece

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. Sandstein 07:59, 28 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Aina Muceniece[edit]

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There are almost no actually RS about this person. The internet is full of garbage about her spewed by a company marketing a putative cancer drug See this SBM piece for this context. This page was created by a SPA account promoting RIGVIR and is full of unsourced promotional garbage about that putative drug and this person. I merged this to the RIGVIR article and had a bit of sourced content about her there; that was reverted and promotional unsourced garbage was restored here. We should delete and salt this so this dead woman's bio cannot be used to shill quackery any more. It is really disgusting, what is going on here. Jytdog (talk) 19:29, 20 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. Jytdog (talk) 19:32, 20 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Latvia-related deletion discussions. ^Talk/♥фĩłдωəß♥\^Work 19:49, 20 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. There is enough RS to write a decent biography. I have rewritten the article to get rid of the advertisement style. Thanks to the links provided above, I managed to find Zinātne un mana dzīve: 69 emeritēto zinātnieku atmin̦as un dzīvesgājums, volume 1 - a book in Latvian on 69 emeritus scientists and their biographies, amongst them the biography of Aina Muceniece. I agree that it is disgusting to mooch profit of Aina Muceniece's good intentions. RIGVIR as it is called, was developed during the Soviet occupation of Latvia, and in communist states there was no such thing as royalty payments. "Dr. Muceniece’s will states that melanoma patients should receive Rigvir at no cost, which means the state grants (buys from Rigvir representatives) this medication". ^Talk/♥фĩłдωəß♥\^Work 23:45, 20 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, a Latvian Wikipedian here: Muceniece's will legally has nothing to do with the state compensating this drug, the peddlers simply use the will for PR (cancer patients being treated for free sounds good). Latvian version of NHS decides which drugs to compensate, normally - based on efficacy and risk/benefit evaluation, but in this case it is not clear how this evaluation came to be positive, as there is very little research behind this drug. Source in Latvian about professional organisations who requested to remove Rigvir from the list of compensated drugs/drug register: http://www.delfi.lv/bizness/uznemumi/vairakas-arstu-organizacijas-prasa-izvertet-rigvir-kompensesanu.d?id=48494303 A shorter article in EN: https://eng.lsm.lv/article/society/society/latvia-to-review-state-compensation-for-rigvir-anti-cancer-drug.a223586/KC LV (talk) 08:25, 21 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This article should be a biography on Aina Muceniece, and my point was her good intentions. The reference is not written by drug peddlers. Whatever concerns the drug should be added to the article on RIGVIR. In my humble opinion. ^Talk/♥фĩłдωəß♥\^Work 10:03, 21 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree regarding intentions and biography, just thought I'd clarify the issue with the will, in case this subject is ever mentioned in the article by any wikipedians.KC LV (talk) 10:07, 21 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

We have no idea whatsoever what her intentions were. This is exactly the kind of unsourced promotional garbage that led me to nominate this.Jytdog (talk) 15:55, 21 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep She appears to qualify under WP:NACADEMIC #2 for receiving a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level and under WP:GNG for significant independent coverage. Her biography is a separate issue from how the drug is used by other people (although any controversy can be mentioned). Note also that Wikipedia does not censor content just because something is not accepted by experts, instead significant opinions are given on the subject per WP:FRINGE, and any concern raised about the subject can be dealt with in the RIGVIR article. Hzh (talk) 10:11, 21 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Of course we don't censor. Nothing is being censored. The question is whether this person is actually notable and if we are able to keep this article neutral. With the lack of high quality independent sources her notability is marginal at best. With the blatant promotional editing about RIGVIR it will be ongoing drain of community resources to keep this article decent and not disgusting promotionalism. So we should delete it. Jytdog (talk) 20:36, 21 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The biography is a separate issue from the drug, and I'd suggest that the arguments be kept to the notability guidelines for a biography. At the moment there is no indications why you think the arguments present about her notability are wrong, or indeed how the sources would not qualify under GNG. Your arguments at the moment are essentially WP:IDONTLIKEIT arguments. Whether someone is trying to promote RIGVIR or not is irrelevant as far as her notability is concerned, otherwise you might argue that any person with any controversy attached should have their biography deleted, apparently it's impossible to keep such article neutral. If you want to present argument against RIGVIR, do it in that article, not here. Hzh (talk) 01:26, 22 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

They are not IDONTLIKE it - that is a misrepresentation. Her notability is marginal (this article depends almost completely on the hagiography at the Latvian Academy of Sciences which is all focused on her invention of RIGVIR) and this page has been hammered by promotional editing by people here to promote RIGVIR. RIGVIR is an unproven cancer treatment that is being promoted around the world and here in WP. Those are policy issues. Do not misrepresent me again. Jytdog (talk) 12:23, 22 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You argument is that what a prominent national organization says about her is wrong, but that argument is not relevant when establishing notability. That they think she is notable however is relevant. A quick search would also reveals plenty of sources on her - e.g. [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], unless you are inclined to dismiss all Latvian sources as unreliable. Your argument is therefore still essential about the drug, and not based on notability guidelines which do indicate that she is notable according to a few criteria. Given that there are still recent science journal articles on the drug - [6], I'd suggest that you argue about the science on the RIGVIR article, and keep the argument out on the notability of a biography article. Hzh (talk) 19:14, 22 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The first one from Diena is a standard obituary mostly about RIGVIR

We already cite the 2nd link you put there.

the dzeltenais ref is hilarious - pop music gossip about some group named Colt writing a song about her (because of RIGVIR)

the ekonomika ref is not about her at all, but about a new guy taking over the foundation at the request of her family

the rekurzeme ref is, like the first one, a standard obituary mostly focused on RIGVIR. It is actually word for word, exactly the first one, published on another website

You have supported my argument with these refs and your behavior here, even down to citing the same reference republished elsewhere to make the subject seem more notable. It is going to be a tremendous time suck to keep this article neutral and the subject is marginally notable at best.

and btw the relevant pubmed search for MEDRS sources about RIGVIR is this - and yields one ref from a marginal journal. Jytdog (talk) 19:30, 22 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Since when has obituary been considered unreliable sources? I thought the song one is amusing too, but then when someone unrelated writes a song about you, you have probably achieved some kind of significance. You haven't really address the notability issue, unless you want to rewrite WP:NACADEMIC and WP:ANYBIO, or suggest that Latvian national awards should be disregarded. It's odd that you suggest there is only one review, since I have found others, e.g. [7] which says Rigvir has been approved for treatment of melanoma in Latvia since 2009 (other reviews however merely cite the references). Given that two of latest journal articles were published in February 2018, it would be surprising if you can find review article on those. These articles do suggest research is still ongoing, therefore it's not something on which opinion is settled as you seem to think it is. Nevertheless, whatever the scientific opinion may be, it has nothing to do with the biography. Hzh (talk) 20:39, 22 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You have misrepresented me again. I never -- never -- said that an obituary is an unreliable source. I am not responding to you further as you are just cluttering this discussion with nonsense.

Jytdog (talk) 20:51, 22 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Only that you appear to argue that there are not enough reliable sources - There are almost no actually RS about this person. There are enough valid sources already given in the article to satisfy WP:GNG. Hzh (talk) 21:03, 22 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - She appears to qualify under wp:anybio, with her cross of recognition of services to the republic of Latvia. BrxBrx(talk)^{(please reply with {{SUBST:re|BrxBrx}})} 01:30, 22 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Further comment - it appears the objectionable material on RIGVIR have been since expunged - since this article is not about RIGVIR, I propose we keep rigvir mentions out of it, and remove the article for deletion tag. BrxBrx(talk)^{(please reply with {{SUBST:re|BrxBrx}})} 14:17, 23 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 09:49, 22 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Muceniece received the Cross of Recognition, so to Latvians she is not marginal. Whatever happened to RIGVIR after Muceniece died is irrelevant to her biography (articles on the Foundation and it's President). The article has four RS, two of them in English and two in Latvian (actually three, when counting LAoS). The one from Zemgales Ziņas is an obituary, so we got that covered. The other one from Dienas Bizness is an interview with Muceniece. The latter confirms many of the statements from the Latvian Academy of Sciences' website, and has some more material to expand the article on her career. I think one should be very careful identifying RS from Latvia, since some of the "tabloid" websites have no scruples. ^Talk/♥фĩłдωəß♥\^Work 20:11, 22 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it is clear she is lionized in Latvia and that appears to be entirely because of RIGVIR - and nobody knows if that is a real cancer treatment or not. The company shilling RIGVIR has absolutely pinned the drug to her and mythologized her. Her actual notability by Wikipedia standards is very unclear. Jytdog (talk) 20:14, 22 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It may appear so in hindsight. Muceniece did fieldwork through her entire career, and she was a wellknown and respected scientist/medical worker in the former USSR. She worked as a consultant at the most well established hospitals in Riga, hospitals that had high reputations in the former Soviet Union. This was most likely also taken into consideration when she was awarded the Cross of Recognition. Even though it will take me some time to find a RS on that. ^Talk/♥фĩłдωəß♥\^Work 20:42, 22 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

We have no perspective other than hindsight. She is a historical figure now and reliable, independent, high quality sources about her are sorely lacking. Jytdog (talk) 20:51, 22 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

She was awarded the Cross of Recognition in 2005. The perspective was different then. We have four sources on her life, sources that are accepted on any other biography of Latvians. ^Talk/♥фĩłдωəß♥\^Work 21:17, 22 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

We have some sources that are mostly hagiographic, weak, focused on a drug that may or may not work, and very very local. N is not slam dunk. In my nomination I said that N is marginal. If it were not for the promotional pressure i would not have nominated this; it probably would have been OK. But a subject this marginal where we have a continuous history of efforts to skew it, is not worth maintaining. That is the deletion argument. I get it that Latvians who see her as a hero would not see it that way. Jytdog (talk) 03:34, 23 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It is not marginal as far as WP:NACADEMIC is concerned. You are still arguing based on something unrelated to the biography, and appear to be pushing a point of view, given that the drug is still being studied with the recent published journal articles. Any other issue raised is essentially surmountable per WP:LIKELYVIOLATION. Hzh (talk) 08:36, 23 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I will respond to you one last time. 1) Please be aware that people get emotional at AfDs, and you are obsessing over my responses here and behaving in ways that may have consequences for you. Do not misrepresent me again. If you misrepresent me again, I will seek an IBAN. You have provided all the diffs that I need to get it. 2) With regard to health and medicine in Wikipedia, you have now written twice that it " is still being studied". If a drug has not been shown to be safe and effective, that is the status in Wikipedia. Period. We don't hype drugs in development - -we don't say anything like "it might work but more research is needed and is being done" or edit along those lines - MEDMOS specifically says that we do not say "more research is needed" as this is true of everything in medicine. My editing about health and medicine is dead-on mainstream in Wikipedia; i am not pushing any POV but rather following the norms about medicine in Wikipedia. Many people come here to try to hype drugs, (many!) and when they do we revert them and if they persist they end up indefinitely blocked for PROMO. Bottom line: we differ on whether this article should be kept or deleted. That's OK. But back off from me already. Jytdog (talk) 16:08, 23 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This is a biography article, judged on criteria for a biography. Hzh (talk) 22:27, 23 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep -- the Cross of Recognition on it's own should be enough. Her prodigious scholarly output and her recognition by the Latvian Association of Oncologists bolster the case. -Kenirwin/(talk) 15:33, 23 April 2018 (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.