Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Domitia (sister of Longina)

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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 delete. Whilst some arguments about merging or redirecting have been made, I think the overall consensus trends to deletion. Stifle (talk) 16:10, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Domitia (sister of Longina)

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Domitia (sister of Longina) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Avilich (talk) 01:44, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply
]

unlikely search term due to disambiguation, and no appropriate target
Avilich (talk) 14:11, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply
]
So you could literally just have nominated the redirect for deletion instead if you think its somehow harmful (despite
talk) 15:03, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply
]
The prod was rejected, that is the reason. And exactly, there are multiple relatives, and thus no obvious target.
Avilich (talk) 15:13, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply
]
What PROD? What does that have to do with deleting a redirect? Also, its complete nonsense to say someone can't be redirected if there are several relatives.
talk) 15:22, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply
]
I only shopped in a single forum, so there's nothing irregular from that angle.
Avilich (talk) 16:24, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply
]
  • information Administrator note I have restored the article while this AFD goes on. While it may seem "disruptive" to restore an article just to AFD it, I can see where the nominator is coming from - if the page is simply redirected, that leaves the door open for someone to recreate it in the future with no consensus needed. However, if the page is deleted/redirected at AFD, it requires consensus to recreate which is more enforceable. Primefac (talk) 16:19, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    That being said, I do see how this AFD could have been held at a later date if the redirect was reverted by someone other than the nominator, but such is life. Primefac (talk) 16:22, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
WP:RFD. gidonb (talk) 16:24, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply
]
This is the WRONGFORUM to complain about past blocks of mine
Avilich (talk) 13:38, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply
]
Primefac, you can also ask the assistance from an admin who is better acquainted with the history of the nominator's behavior. Note that I do not have an opinion on whether a redirect should or should not exist, only address procedural wrongs. A little support would have been constructive. gidonb (talk) 16:24, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Procedural issues aside, this fails WP:GNG, WP:BIO, and any other criterion for notability. Mere existence is not enough. This is a genealogical placeholder, nothing more, and the namespace is not a natural search for which a redirect would serve any purpose. Agricolae (talk) 18:35, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as a redirect (i.e. keep at the correct version). We have procedures and these need to be followed. No awards should be given for forum shopping and disruptive behavior. Note that I propose a procedural keep, NOT a spite keep. The nominator is invited to make their case in the relevant forum! gidonb (talk) 19:01, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: merger is almost always the right solution when an apparently non-notable person could properly be discussed somewhere else—and it doesn't matter whether all of the useful content has already been added to other relevant articles, because merger is a process by which a) the article in question is reviewed to make sure that anything helpful to readers has been copied, b) the original authors still receive credit for their work, and c) the original title becomes a redirect for anyone who might come looking for it. Yes, there are cases where nobody is likely to search for something—but those are more the exception than the rule in cases like this, where the title is a logical one for an article about a historical person; and as correctly noted above, redirects are cheap. Yes, the article could be recreated in the future—but that would be the case whether or not the title is deleted, and the new article would still be subject to review for notability. Occasionally new information emerges that would justify an article about someone previously deemed non-notable; but if that's not the case, then returning the title to a redirect with appropriate explanation or discussion on the talk page of the article/redirect and/or the talk pages of the participating editors is fine. But the bottom line is, deletion is not a substitute for merger, and redirects don't need to be deleted unless there is no probability that anyone will search for them—if they're needed for another article, someone can simply redirect them there and leave hatnotes on appropriate pages. P Aculeius (talk) 13:00, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we need to give credit to every original author who merely restates a family tree in prose form and provides no reliable sources whatsoever. This is exactly the sort of thing that should not be merged.
Avilich (talk) 14:07, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply
]
Deletion is an appropriate substitute for merger when there is nothing worth merging, and when the namespace that has been chosen for disambiguation purposes is inherently unnatural as a search term. Both appear to be the case here. Agricolae (talk) 23:14, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Nobody seems to be seriously arguing that Domitia deserves a standalone article, so the question is whether she should be redirected or deleted. As far as I can make out, there are three possible targets for a redirect which mention Domitia (
    unnecessary bureaucratic timewasting. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 21:04, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    The problem is that of recidivism and maintaining a fair playfield for everyone. I have submitted deletion requests to both procedures in the past. The likelihood of requests to be approved at the AfD is much higher. We should not allow disruptive behavior to happen time after time. User was just blocked indefinitely for a similar digression in the same subject area. The fact that this bad procedure has nevertheless been able to continue is (how do I put it gently?) remarkable. Fairness for fellow editors should always come before someone's content-based position. gidonb (talk) 01:15, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    If we're talking about fairness to fellow editors, we should probably talk about the fact that Avilich wasn't sanctioned for misusing deletion processes, they were sanctioned for personalising disputes, casting aspersions, editwarring, and inability to drop the stick. Their behaviour in this AfD has been perfectly fine, and as far as I can see they have avoided doing any of the things that they were recently sanctioned for. Sanctions are not a scarlet letter or a reason to oppose an editor's actions in a completely different dispute. I agree that Avilich should probably have RfDed this rather than AfDing it, but that's in no way comparable to the actually sanctionable behaviour that they were recently at ANI for.
    As for I have submitted deletion requests to both procedures in the past. The likelihood of requests to be approved at the AfD is much higher. Your gut feeling is not useful data about this. Even if you are right that more stuff taken to AfD is deleted than stuff taken to RfD, that doesn't mean that it's because some of the stuff deleted at AfD should be kept. Personally my experience would be the opposite – RfDs are less likely to be closed as "keep" – but even assuming that you are right, there are a bunch of confounding variables (the one that springs to mind first is that RfD noms often don't argue for deletion in the first place; many discussions are held at RfD where the nominator explicitly proposes retargetting, whereas move and merge discussions are not held at AfD, even if those are possible outcomes). And even if you are right that more articles are deleted at AfD, and the effect is still measurable after controlling for confounding variables, my experience is that AfD has a much broader audience and more varied participants – which would suggest that to the extent there is a difference between the two, AfD is the one where the consensus is likely to be closer to that of the community more broadly. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 08:14, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 09:14, 17 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Royalty and nobility-related deletion discussions. Spiderone(Talk to Spider) 09:26, 17 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete For the reasons given in the nomination. Doesn't seem notable, no citations, no obvious place to direct to. CT55555 (talk) 00:19, 18 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge and Redirect, as correctly stated above. There is useful content here that may or may not have been added to the articles on her father, a notable general, her sister, a Roman empress, or her husband, a notable general and conspirator. The lack of citations is irrelevant—we have sources and clear indications that this is not a hoax, and nobody has argued otherwise in this discussion. If all of the contents can be found in the articles about her notable father, sister, and husband, and is there cited to the sources mentioned under this title, then the title probably should redirect to one of them—likely her sister, since that's how the title defines her: "sister of Longina". That doesn't mean that's the only way someone might search for information about her, but anybody searching for this title is more likely to be thinking in those terms. That's it—merger complete; no need to do more. If the content and sources haven't been added to the three relevant articles, do that, and then redirect this title—and merger complete. It's that easy. As for the argument that the title should be deleted outright, it doesn't seem like an implausible search target—the subject should be mentioned in at least three articles about notable persons—and I know of a fourth that ought to do so—and someone might want to know if there's anything more to learn. Redirecting it would at least indicate where some of the relevant information can be found. Plus it would preserve the page history—at least twenty different editors, some regular members of WikiProject CGR, not including those using bots, have contributed to this article since its creation fifteen years ago. Redirects are cheap, and there's no disadvantage to keeping this one, since it's not needed for any other purpose. P Aculeius (talk) 12:27, 20 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You're covered already, there's no useful content here that doesn't exist elsewhere, and the article only cites unreliable sources anyway. If you insist on making a big deal out of some passing mentions in unreliable sources then I'll point out that neither of these sources seem to actually mention "Domitia" by name, so this can technically be classified as unverifiable/OR/hoax by your standards regardless of the likelihood that a person matching the description actually existed. If the name is not directly attested then it's unlikely someone will search for it before searching for the relatives.
Avilich (talk) 13:46, 20 April 2022 (UTC)[reply
]
If you're going to argue that Tacitus and Suetonius are unreliable sources, then you might as well nominate all our Roman history articles for deletion—even modern writers base most of their writing on what Roman historians have to say. But that's not going to happen, so perhaps you should try another argument. The claim that the article is a "hoax" or "unverifiable" can be proved or disproved by checking to see if she's mentioned by Roman historians—even in passing. If she's mentioned—whether or not by name—then this article isn't a "hoax" or "unverifiable". Although as you know well, her name could probably be inferred from the fact that her father was Gaius Domitius Corbulo, and her sister Domitia Longina. Did you check other sources that are likely to mention her? I did, and found her listed as "Domitia" in PIR—with the notation that the sources don't name her (so her name is inferred). Tacitus, Annales, xv. 28 and Cassius Dio, lxii. 23 mention that Annius Vinicianus was Corbulo's son-in-law. She's also listed as "(Domitia)" No. 92 in PW. I'm sure there are other sources—likely Settipani, since Anriz based a lot of articles on his work, which is not technically unreliable or unverifiable, even though it may be very difficult to access and review.
WP:BEFORE expects you to check the sources mentioned in the article—and look for other sources (you can be excused not checking in sources that you can't readily access or review, if they're not cited by the article)—before nominating articles for deletion. Evidently that wasn't done here; it is not appropriate to nominate articles for deletion and then demand that other editors are responsible for doing this background work, or else the article will be deleted. That's the responsibility of the nominator. And we still come down to this: this is a plausible search term for someone who should be mentioned in three or four other articles—so it should at minimum be a redirect, perhaps to Longina, perhaps to Corbulo—but in either case, not deleted. P Aculeius (talk) 16:44, 20 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Ancient authors are not reliable sources, and any articles based on their testimony alone, without backing from secondary sources, shouldn't exist. All of the sources you mention contain zero biographical details on "Domitia", and anything that can be written about her – including the name, as the sources show – is artificial and worthless from an encyclopedic standpoint. There is no reason to think anyone would feel the need to search for her to begin with (let alone that the present title is the best redirect for this): her existence will only be evident after someone reads 'son-in-law' or 'daughter' in someone's biography, and from that point onwards there will be nothing new to be searched for anyway.
Avilich (talk) 17:44, 20 April 2022 (UTC)[reply
]
Congratulations, you've just yeeted yourself out of Classics. P Aculeius (talk) 17:57, 20 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The first paragraph content is all on Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo. The second paragraph appears to be a Wikipedian's deduction from the fact that begins the next paragraph - that Annius appears as son-in-law of Gnaeus in 63, not anything based directly on a reliable source. The third paragraph info is all on Annius Vinicianus (condemned by Nero), and the concluding paragraph has one sentence with info on Annius' page, and one that just says we don't know her death date, not the kind of information likely to be explicitly stated by Tacitus or Suetonius (the third listed source is a dead link with no indication it once hosted a WP:RS). As I see it, the only unique information in the whole article is of dubious provenance. Perhaps you could specify exactly which 'useful context' from a reliable source would be lost to Wikipedia were the article deleted rather than merged. Agricolae (talk) 22:18, 21 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody mentioned the phrase "useful context"—only "useful content", which is essentially that this woman was the daughter of Corbulo, wife of Annius, and sister of Longina. And before someone brings up "inherited notability", that's not what this is about—the fact that Corbulo, Annius, and Longina were all connected via this woman is relevant to all of their articles, even if the lack of any other details mean that there's no need for an article about her on Wikipedia. It doesn't have to be "unique" content, in the sense of not appearing anywhere else on Wikipedia—that's not what merger is about. The merger process is about determining whether all of the useful, verifiable content has been added or moved to appropriate articles, doing so if it hasn't been done, and then converting the present article into a redirect to the most appropriate of them based on what anyone looking for it is likely to be searching for. If you find nothing to add to the other relevant articles because everything useful there is to say about the subject there, then you can skip to the last step—but of course by then you've already done the other steps.
Merger differs from deletion, because in deletion, you don't care whether any of the content can be found anywhere else—it just gets deleted, along with the title, nobody checks to see whether the subject is mentioned anywhere else, and nobody searching for this subject will arrive at any of the articles that might contain the information they're searching for—there won't even be any hint that it ever existed, or that a couple of dozen editors created, modified, and curated its contents for fifteen years—which is not usually a desirable result. The fact that the article existed for that long without being deleted suggests that people might search for it, as does the fact that multiple reference works have entries for this subject; and that fact alone suggests that we ought to have something, if only a redirect to an article that does contain the information. Merger is the process by which a subject that is better treated as part of another article is converted into a redirect to an appropriate place, where the subject is discussed; deletion is the process by which a subject about which nothing encyclopedic can be said is erased from the encyclopedia without a trace. This topic is clearly the former, not the latter, which is why if we follow Wikipedia policy, it must be merged, not deleted. P Aculeius (talk) 03:00, 22 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the misread, but you have basically answered my question - you cannot identify any useful content that merits merging. The main reasons for merging are to preserve information and preserve attribution. When the valid information is already on the target page(s), there is nothing to be merged and there is nothing that needs its attribution maintained. Among the
explicitly listed valid reasons for deletion is "Articles whose subjects fail to meet the relevant notability guideline". While merging appears among a list of alternatives, there is no stipulation on that page of what must happen. And the whole 'the page has been here for a long time so people must be searching for this namespace' argument doesn't approximate reality. It has only existed under this namespace for 16 months, and in that time only one editor made substantive changes, immediately after editing her father's page so presumably led there by a blue link. No evidence anyone is searching for "Domitia (sister of Longina)". Agricolae (talk) 17:35, 22 April 2022 (UTC)[reply
]
You seem to misunderstand the purposes and procedures of merging—for purposes of determining whether the correct procedure is merger or deletion, it is irrelevant whether useful content already exists on other pages—that only becomes relevant once the merger process has begun. The contents of this page are useful—in fact essential—for other articles to be complete. An article on Corbulo that does not mention that one of his daughters was the wife of Annius would be incomplete, as would one about Annius that does not mention that he married a daughter of Corbulo, and was thus the brother-in-law of Domitian; and one about Longina would probably also be remiss if it did not mention her sister, the wife of Annius. You are correct that the article has only been under this title for a limited amount of time—but the number of editors who made changes after that move is irrelevant; this article has existed under three separate titles for fifteen years, and has some twenty distinct editors in that amount of time, and the entire page history under all titles will be lost if the article is deleted. You would also break the redirects from the old titles—that could of course be fixed, but experienced editors concluded that this was the best title, which strongly suggests that it is the most likely one to be searched for. Your reasoning amounts to, "this person is not important, therefore nobody will ever search for information about her, and thus it is imperative that there not be any redirect on Wikipedia—better that if someone goes searching for information, that they find no clue that an article ever existed." Why that would be better than being redirected to Corbulo or Annius or Longina, I have no idea. P Aculeius (talk) 21:19, 22 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No, I don't misunderstand, I just don't agree - the content is so essential that it is already on the relevant pages, making a merge just for the sake of being able to say there was a merge but not actually merging anything completely superfluous. Also, I never said nobody would ever search for information about her - an absurd thing to say, which is why I didn't say it. The same applies to the supposed description of what my 'reasoning amounts to'. Maybe you would be better served by sticking with describing your own position, rather than misdescribing mine. As to "experienced editors concluded that this was the best title, which strongly suggests that it is the most likely one to be searched for", this is a less-than-accurate rendering: one single editor unilaterally, without prior discussion, renamed the page 16 months ago and nobody else noticed or cared enough to comment one way or the other. That is not the same as consensus, plus the dictates of disambiguation often result in what would be exceedingly unlikely search terms, so it is unsound to suppose 'best title' equates to 'most likely search term'. (The most common search would likely be just 'Domitia' without further description, which will lead straight to the name disambiguation page and on to the information desired, wherever it happens to be.) Finally, the repeated decrial that "the entire page history under all titles will be lost if the article is deleted" - if nothing on the page is worthy of preservation (being already found elsewhere) then there is no useful purpose to preserving the record of the (unfortunate, but that's Wikipedia for you) wasted effort - the page histories are there to serve their pages, not the other way around. Agricolae (talk) 19:18, 23 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, the topic isn't notable, and there is nothing here that deserves to be preserved in some form elsewhere.Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:09, 22 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete there are not enough sources to justify having an article on this person.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:30, 25 April 2022 (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.
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