Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tuti Yusupova

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. Whether a claim is true or even believable is not the question for AFD, only whether the subject is notable for having made it. In this case the consensus of the discussion is that she is. RL0919 (talk) 18:33, 28 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Tuti Yusupova[edit]

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This is winding down, but I did find another one of these awful longevity myths articles. My first and primary argument is that the coverage of her is not at all meaningful. More than half of the news articles about her report this with an effusive degree of credulity that a serious reference work should not replicate, and all of them have little meaningful coverage of her. The parts that might actually count towards notability are conspicuously unsourced. Being a local celebrity is not itself notable, and per WP:PAGEDECIDE there's nowhere near enough for an actual article. Furthermore, the state of this is appalling; all kinds of irrelevant filler material (fully 1/4 of this is a huge long quote from her, which has ridiculous wikilinks in a failed effort to puff it up), and the infobox is a leftover from the worst days of the GRG. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:15, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Uzbekistan-related deletion discussions. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 08:54, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Tentative Keep per WP:GNG. It does not matter whether the editor finds these reports credible. I matters only that there was WP:SIGCOV from reliable sources for a significant period. Gazeta probably qualifies as such, as would the filmed documentary mentioned in the article which appears to have been made by a professional film studio. The policy does not require that we have that source to hand, just that we know it exists. FOARP (talk) 09:11, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
No, Wikipedia does not uncritically report obvious falsehoods simply because what are ordinarily reliable sources fell for something hook, line, and sinker. WP:OTTO. And that's before even considering whether a few bits of local coverage and a couple places on a slow news day ran this is anything approaching significant coverage, and whether there's enough here for a page. Clearly, I think the answer to both is a resounding "no". The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 14:34, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Wiki does most definitely report falsehoods if that's what reliable sources say. If reliable sources say this woman was 17 feet tall and pale green, then that's what goes in the article about her. To do otherwise is to engage in WP:OR. You need to read WP:THETRUTH FOARP (talk) 18:46, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That is a...frightening...view of Wikipedia. We are not transcription monkeys. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:38, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Tentative Keep per WP:GNG. I am not in a position to examine the non-English sources, but it appears that she passes the GNG test of "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".

The veracity or otherwise of her claims is a wholly separate issue. Veracity determines how we write the article, but notability determines whether we write the article.

The nominator @The Blade of the Northern Lights relies heavily on WP:OTTO, as they have done in other similar discussions. However, WP:OTTO is an essay; it is not a policy or guideline.

The nominator also addresses the current state of the article, but that is not an issue for AFD. This is a deletion discussion, to decide whether we should have any article, whereas the content of the article is a matter for the usual editorial processes to improve the article in accordance with policies and guidelines.

The current lede is actually not a bad summary of her status:

was an Uzbekistani longevity claimant. At the alleged age of 134 years, 270 days, she was claimed to be the oldest living person in the world and oldest person ever, her claimed age exceeding that of the currently recognised claimant Jeanne Louise Calment by 12 years.

Note that at no point does the lede support the veracity of her claim. It repeatedly notes notes that the claim has been made, without passing judgement on its veracity. It offers a comparison with the oldest verified person, which illustrates the extraordinary nature of her claim ... but in the absence of either verification or disproof, it correctly offers no editorial comment on the claim.

Note that each point of act in the lead is qualified by "claimed" or "alleged", rather than asserted as truth

"longevity claimant", not long-lived
"alleged age", not age
"claimed to be", not was
"her claimed age", not her age

So @TBOTNL's assertion above that this is a case where en.wp uncritically report obvious falsehoods is a bogus accusation; in TBOTBL's own words,TBTOBL states an "an obvious falsehood".

The lede as as currently written seems to me to be entirely in accordance with the relevant policies: WP:V, WP:RS, WP:EXCEPTIONAL, and WP:NOR.

At the bottom of the article, there is a mention of a submission to the Guinness Book of Records. It would be helpful to know whether the GBOR has published any assessment of her claim, but unless and until there is a WP:RS which judges the veracity of the claim, any editorial commentary is pure WP:OR.

I have to agree with User:FOARP that the nominator's stance is pure WP:OR/WP:SYN. Like so much else emanating from WP:LONGEVITY, it has a strong whiff of WP:THETRUTH about it, and the nom's repeated reliance on essays such as WP:OTTO and WP:MONKEYS rather than on policies and guidelines is alarming, and it contravenes WP:ACDS#Expectations.

The nominator's stance is based entirely on their own personal assessment of the likelihood that the claim is true, rather than on sources. TBOTNL's stance is indeed reasoned, but it amounts to original research and/or synthesis. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:29, 15 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 23:22, 15 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

PS I checked the assertion by the nominator @The Blade of the Northern Lights|TBOTNL that fully 1/4 of this is a huge long quote from her. That doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

There are actually two quotes from her, which amount together to 115 words out the total word count of the DYK-check wordcount of 562. That's 20%, which is not fully 1/4.

TBOTNL describes these quotes as irrelevant filler material. So take a look at them:

"During World War I, I had already had two children," she said. "I experienced the burden of those times. I remember it very well, and the period of collectivization. What can I say, our people suffered greatly ... But I have never been afraid of difficulties. I was busy plowing fields, paving ditches, picking cotton or selling fertilizer. I was always working and was always in motion. Perhaps that is why there was no need to see a doctor."

That's not irrelevant filler material. It describes her experiences of life through two major upheavals: the broader conditions, the work she did, and her state of health. It could be summarised more tersely as reported speech, but it is not Irrelevant and not filler.

"I lost count of grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren", she said before her death in March 2015. "I just say, 'May they be healthy!' Sometimes I confuse their names, but that's okay, as long as they are healthy"

That quote is less focused, and would probably better trimmed to the first half. But the fact that someone had so any descendants they couldn't count them is relevant, as is the fact she was alive after the birth of great-great-grandchildren: it's a consequence of longevity, which creates different familial relations to shorter lives. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:56, 16 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

PPS Unlike all the other AFD nominations I have seem by @TBOTNL, this one does show some signs of WP:BEFORE. However, it gives no mention any attempt to find more or better sources (as required by WP:BEFORE), and its assessment of the current sources is declaratory rather than analytical:

More than half of the news articles about her report this with an effusive degree of credulity that a serious reference work should not replicate, and all of them have little meaningful coverage of her
Which sources fall into which category? If TBOTNL has actually done the claimed checking, why not identify which sources have these problems?
Being a local celebrity is not itself notable. Indeed, but which of the sources listed does TBOTNL claim are local? None of them seem to me to be local news sources, unless we were to define a news source based on in her own country as "local" ... which would be preposterous, because it would mean that Fox News, NBC, NYT etc were "local news" for any United States-based topic and The Times/Guardian/BBC/Channel4 were all mere "local" news for UK-based topics.

It would be helpful if TBOTNL clarified those points. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:16, 16 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete no reliable sources back up this unsupported claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary sourcing which is fully lacking here.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:47, 17 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Meets WP:GNG through WP:SIGCOV for at least the last six years of her life. I agree that the article as written is balanced, and I don't see anything appalling in it. Whether her birth date is true or not, all the rest is plausible - someone dying in 2015 could well have had 2 children by the time of the 1914-1918 war. As for being a "local" celebrity: there are sources in Turkish and in Russian from China (russian.people.cn). Uzbekistan is not in either Turkey or China (nor Russia), so they are certainly not 'local' if that means 'from the same country' (though 'local' is usually distinguished from 'state' and 'national' in such things as politics, media coverage, etc, in Wikipedia guidelines - 'local' in that sense would mean the town of To‘rtko‘l, in this case). RebeccaGreen (talk) 15:21, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Thsmi002 (talk) 01:45, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Russia-related deletion discussions. Thsmi002 (talk) 01:45, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Johnpacklambert Does it really matter if the claim is unsupported by reliable sources as long as the claim is being COVERED in reliable sources? Got here via list of women-related afd valereee (talk) 13:16, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 11:57, 21 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - the amount of SIGCOV in RS makes the subject notable. schetm (talk) 21:34, 27 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources.
1. Selby, Jenn (2015-04-02). "Tuti Yusupova: Woman who claims to be the real world's oldest person died this week aged 134, government officials say". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2018-12-28. Retrieved 2018-12-28.
2. Connor, Laura (2015-04-02). "Is this the oldest person to ever live? Family says woman was 134 years old - and government backs claim". Daily Mirror. Archived from the original on 2018-12-28. Retrieved 2018-12-28.
  The article notes, "In a BBC video aired when Tutu was 128, the centenarian said her health was fine in general but her hearing wasn't what it used to be. In a Russian documentary about the woman's life, Tuti said she spent a lot of her later years watching TV programmes after decades of hard labour."
3. Trott, Russell (2009-01-29). "'128-year-old woman' in Uzbekistan". BBC. Archived from the original on 2018-12-28. Retrieved 2018-12-28.
4. "Uzbek is 'world's oldest woman'". BBC. 2009-01-29. Archived from the original on 2018-12-28. Retrieved 2018-12-28.
  The article notes:
  Turkey's Cihan News Agency says Tuti Yusupova's birth is documented as 1 July 1880, but there is no independent confirmation of her age.
5. "La anciana uzbeca que nació en 1880". ABC (in Spanish). 2015-01-20. Archived from the original on 2018-12-28. Retrieved 2018-12-28.
There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow Tuti Yusupova to pass Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".
Cunard (talk) 08:47, 28 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That the subject was profiled in a Russian documentary and a BBC video strongly establishes she is notable.
Cunard (talk) 08:47, 28 December 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.