Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia/Ruda Real (2nd nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the discussion was: delete. ✗plicit 23:35, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia/Ruda Real[edit]

This is the second MFD for Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia/Ruda Real. Editors can view text in the history. (The page is blanked because IMO it was a violation of Wikipedia policy on WP:BLP and has continued to violate our policies for responsible caution in biographies of non-notable persons.) A search of primary sources shows this was an actual person -- the individual's actual name, dates, and places of birth and death as written in the article is a real person and not a hoax. Please note that some links are available only by subscription.

This person is found on the US Social Security Administration death claims index [1],, [2], [3], and SSA death index [4]. The person’s name, birthdate and place of residence is listed in two indices pf U.S., Public Records [5], [6] as well as in US Phone and Address directories for New Orleans from 1998-2002. [7] And their obituary posted in the New Orleans The Times Picayune on February 7, 2006. [8]

Ruda Real has only been found on non-reliable youtube and discog sources. But there has been no source of any kind linking the real named person in this article to a rapper known as Ruda Real or evidence of their “best known” rap song. It is noted that the original AFD did not determine the page to be a hoax. And a number of editors subsequently doubted that this was a hoax, here and here.

Whether this actual person was also known as the individual Ruda Real and the page was a badly sourced article or it was created as a possible disparagement of them is unknown -- but the actual person was real and this article should not be kept. Wikipedia's policy for exercising caution when creating/keeping possibly disparaging pages about non-notable real persons outweighs any desire to keep an article for curiosity sake. — CactusWriter ^(talk) 02:00, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Delete based on this discussion the situation is a John Seigenthaler analogue, in that a person with that name, DOB, and place of residence existed, but the rest of the article was fiction. Articles that follow that pattern today are routinely deleted as G3 or depending on content G10, maybe A7 or G11 when the portrayal is positive and the fictionalization is not recognized. Unlike the Seigenthaler incident this never garnered outside attention and leaving this bit of vandalism around does not serve any purpose I can discern. Obscure blank pages that are not linked from anywhere usually draw less views in a decade than this has from any one of the many discussions around it since its archival, but what's done is done. 2601:5CC:8300:A7F0:8CB4:BC44:610C:7775 (talk) 04:30, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete and also baffled by the DRV decision. I'm not a fan of out-of-process deletions either but "very obscure, non-notable people who died young" is like the classic case of stuff that shouldn't be on Wikipedia, and it wasn't in the article space, so there's no assumption of "uh oh wait don't delete a real article casually." So I disagree with the DRV, this is the classic bury it in the shed and forget about the embarrassment deal. We don't need to drag his name through the mud as a hoaxster. This was discussed in entirely too much detail already at Wikipedia_talk:List_of_hoaxes_on_Wikipedia/Archive_3#Ruda_Real and other sections within that same talk archive. There is zero indication that the independent obituary and the like were hoaxes - as noted, Wayback Machine confirmed the obituary was uploaded long before. Finally, even in the 1% chance of something really weird going on, there's nothing to learn from this in that case. We already know that people can lie / exagerrate on the Internet. Maybe Real or a friend of his exaggerated his accomplishments. Who cares. Just delete the article as non-notable and move on, we don't save any of the articles on non-notable garage band types with bad sources either. SnowFire (talk) 05:25, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with the outcome of the first MFD, but the DRV result was correct. A deletion was proposed with the same line of reasoning and rejected by the participants, and unilateral overrides of consensus are not appropriate. The options were to either courtesy blank and orphan, actually that should have been done when the issue was first noticed rather than having repeated meandering discussions, or to start another MFD, which has been done. But maybe it is best not to get too far off-topic. 2601:5CC:8300:A7F0:8CB4:BC44:610C:7775 (talk) 05:40, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Right? As I said on the List of Hoaxes talk page, I don't think this was a hoax. It was an article about a non-notable musical act, the sort of which are always popping up on Wikipedia and getting deleted without much debate, but this one wasn't deleted in a timely fashion. A decade later none of the minor sources that would have existed when the article was created are still online, so there's nothing in a Google search but Wikipedia mirrors. But absence of convenient sources doesn't make something a hoax, a hoax is something deliberately created to fool people. It seems wrong to list someone as that when it just doesn't seem to have been the case. For what it's worth I found this discussion because I was notified on my talk page. --Here2rewrite (talk) 13:42, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - in fairness this was my mistake - once I realized it, I owned up to it and tried my best to get the page deleted then forgot to renominate it once the first MfD failed. It is my firm belief that this was likely a case of non-notability and not a hoax. wizzito | say hello! 07:14, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Non notable due to lack of quality sources. This is irrespective as to whether or not the subject is a hoax. Frank Anchor 13:20, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment the content of the page was fully restored as is required at WP:DELREVD. Where the closer of a deletion discussion realizes their close was wrong, and nobody has endorsed, the closer may speedily close as overturn. They should fully reverse their close, restoring any deleted pages. (emphasis mine). Fully reversing can reasonably be interpreted to mean restorting the full text irrespective of any BLP concerns. Frank Anchor 13:26, 5 April 2024 (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 page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.