Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Phila (daughter of Seleucus)

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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 speedy keep. Withdrawn by nominator Jan 5, but processed incorrectly so it's doing funny things to the AfD page. This is just a procedural re-close with an automated tool to make it work right. Original close statement below. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 16:20, 10 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The result was Nomination withdrawn, as more sources have been added. (non-admin closure) Avilich (talk) 18:19, 5 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Phila (daughter of Seleucus)

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Phila (daughter of Seleucus) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Non-notable royalty, the sole information available concerns the subject's relatives only. No specific acts or accomplishments are recorded, let alone significant coverage that would demonstrate non-inherited notability. Avilich (talk) 21:03, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is obvious enough that I don't need to say it, but if her importance derives exclusively from family relations, then this fact needs to be addressed in the articles of those relatives, and there is no need for this article in particular to exist. Notability is not inherited. Saying someone is important in its own context has no bearing on notability if no sources that discuss the subject exist. "We should not judge the notability of ancient characters in the same way as the notability of modern minor celebrities" is as meaningless a statement as it gets, since the complete abscence of coverage renders any subject, ancient or modern, non-notable. Avilich (talk) 14:07, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Don't badger me; you are right, you didn't need to say it. I can give a recommendation on any basis I like. You have given your opinion, I've given mine. There is no need to start an argument over it. And there is not a "complete abscence (sic) of coverage". Coverage might be poor, but it is not absent. SpinningSpark 15:32, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The article has 4 sentences, 3 of which simply list relatives, and the remaining one just details the circumstances of the marriage. That's nothing about the person itself. She is just a name mentioned in primary sources, and that's all that secondary sources are able to record. Avilich (talk) 16:14, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Spinningspark the best comment ever ... "We should not judge the notability of ancient characters (for whom we have lost most of the information)". VocalIndia (talk) 17:21, 5 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@VocalIndia: There is some precedent for this keep rationale succeeding at AfD – see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ulpia (grandmother of Hadrian), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tarquinia (mother of Lucius Brutus), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thymiaterium. It seems that the community generally supports it. It is unbelievable that a person who had an official statue, official holy precint, and official marriage poem by the official court poet did not have enough written about her to support Wikipedia notability. It is just that the passage of time has lost most of it, very possibly through Bishop Cyril inciting a mob to burn down the Library of Alexandria because the chief librarian had the wrong religion, and even worse, the wrong sex. Once notable, always notable, no matter how many books you burn. SpinningSpark 18:33, 5 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Nope, "No subject is automatically or inherently notable merely because it exists: the evidence must show the topic has gained significant independent coverage or recognition". Avilich (talk) 16:40, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
She did gain significant recognition: she was Queen of Macedonia. I'm no royalist, but I still believe that queens of major nations are inherently notable. pburka (talk) 22:08, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: new source: Women and Monarchy in Macedonia, ISBN 0806132124 has a page long biography of her pp. 182–183. On her ancient notability the source says "Phila, is virtually invisible in literary sources but surprisingly well attested in epigraphic sources", on her importance "she and her personal appointees played some role in the administration of the kingdom." I'll use this source to expand the article in due course. SpinningSpark 16:23, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Your source literally says "Little is known of Phila", "Phila played no significant part in her husband's reign". Checkmate? Avilich (talk) 16:30, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, the usual go-to source for these kinds of people, the Pauly–Wissowa, which is usually extremely straight to the point and tells you right away if a person is important, has nothing non-trivial to say about her either. Avilich (talk) 16:33, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You are, of course, selectively quoting here. The source is much more nuanced than that. That sentence is preceded by "Literary sources suggest that...", ie the very sources already stated from which she is "virtually invisible". That passage follows the description of the Cassendreia inscription which provides evidence that she did indeed have a political role. In other words her absence from literary sources does not prove an absence of power or influence. Your quoted sentence is followed by "her role and that of royal women may have become more institutionalized under the Antigonids but, perhaps because more defined, more limited." Whatever, it still remains a fact that the source found enough to write to fill a whole page and thus counts towards WP:N.
On Pauly–Wissowa, that work was started in the 19th century and took eighty years to complete. Presumably Philo is in volume 19 published in 1938. It is an untenable claim that nothing of significance has been found about the Classical world in the 83 intervening years. My source says that indeed new evidence has been "recently discovered" (2000). SpinningSpark 17:54, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not the one selectively quoting here -- it's not a whole page, it's a couple of sentences in a single paragraph (the first and second are about relatives, not her). So what if it's only literary sources? The book itself doesn't contradict their point ("whatever power Phila had", "not surprising or unprecedented"), and the recently discovered inscription offers no sustained, coherent, or even certain narrative that compensates the "virtual invisibility". A Wikipedia article that merely says "this person was the subject of dedicatory inscriptions and statues", or "this obscure person of high rank may have done something not surprising", is indicative of laughably bad standards and reflects poorly on the project as a whole. If you think anything in your source is worth including somewhere, then it makes much more sense to put it in the #Family section of Antigonus Gonatas (from whom she inherits all her notability), rather than in a permastub such as this. Avilich (talk) 18:47, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If you look on page 353, "Index of biographical essays" you will find that the author has defined that section as a biography with the title of "Phila 3". I don't care what you think counts as part of a biography, the reliable source says all of it is. SpinningSpark 20:50, 4 January 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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