Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Princess Irina of Romania

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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. This is a BLP for whom no independent, reliable source coverage apart from the cockfighting, her family has been identified, and as such we cannot keep it. There is "sourcing" but not of the BLP complaint variety to address BLP1E issues. Given sourcing concerns, I am deleting but have no objection should someone create a redirect to either of the options Star Mississippi 02:11, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Princess Irina of Romania

Princess Irina of Romania (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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No notability except for being her father's daughter, and a possible claimant to the currently non-existing throne of Romania. Most sources currently in the article are self-published by the subject's family. Third-party sources only refer to her among her father's daughters. The only other independent sources mentioning her are related to a petty crime she committed, which does not warrant a separate article per WP:CRIMINAL. Desired outcome is merging salvageable info into Michael I of Romania#Family or Romanian royal family#Descendants of King Michael. Anonimu (talk) 21:05, 1 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: regarding the claims that there are many independent sources regarding the subject of article, if you believe this to be the case, please indicate at least a few of them and indicate how exactly they "addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material".Anonimu (talk) 16:33, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Which is the policy that says so? And no, it doesn't meet GNG, as most sources are NOT "Independent of the subject" and the independent ones do NOT have "Significant coverage".Anonimu (talk) 11:28, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
WP:COMMONSENSE, an elaboration of WP:IAR, which is a policy. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:25, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There are tons of descendants of royals out there, should we have an article for each of them, against WP:GNG?Anonimu (talk) 15:08, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
How did "children" suddenly morph into "descendants"? -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:40, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
How are children of non-reigning monarchs different from "descendants"? Could you point to the policy that says we should apply WP:IAR only to children of non-reigning monarchs, but not to other descendants? Anonimu (talk) 16:11, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Children are descendants, of course, but descendants covers far more people than children does. Most people are probably descended from a monarch somewhere along the way. You comment was There are tons of descendants of royals out there, should we have an article for each of them... No, we shouldn't and I didn't say we should. We don't need a policy about a policy! -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:55, 3 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Anonimu: A friendly reminder to not WP:BLUDGEON the process. It is not expected that you reply to every !vote in this discussion. Also, what you consider "family drama" has been reported in RS, as shown in the article linked above about getting her titles back (and also when she was stripped of them). --Kbabej (talk) 16:15, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As the main argument seems to be that there is in-depth coverage about here in RS, I will keep replying to such arguments until actual proof is provided.Anonimu (talk) 16:17, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Anonimu: Certainly you did a WP:BEFORE on this before nominating? There's her arrest as reported by the BBC here; there's not attending her mother's funeral here; there's her regaining her titles in Bunte here; the coverage continues. As a member of a royal family, she is high profile individual and gets coverage as such. --Kbabej (talk) 16:25, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Should we discard WP:CRIMINAL then? BTW, Bunte is a gossip magazine, not a WP:RS.Anonimu (talk) 16:33, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
So is People, and it's on our list of good sources per WP:RSP. Can you show where Bunte isn't considered a RS? --Kbabej (talk) 19:35, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: I think Bbabej has made the case. The illegal cock-fighting incident was covered in significant detail by the BBC and the Oregonian. Ficaia (talk) 09:14, 3 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per WP:MONARCH. VocalIndia (talk) 03:42, 4 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @VocalIndia: The only sentence of WP:MONARCH relevant to this article is "The descendants of monarchs or nobles, especially deposed ones, are not considered notable for this reason alone." --JBL (talk) 23:24, 4 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • @JayBeeEll: Check it again WP:MONARCH, — But persons who are active in their capacity as a member of a royal house or as a holder of a title of nobility will often receive media coverage for it, which may help establish their notability according to the general notability guideline.. Thanks VocalIndia (talk) 20:12, 5 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      @VocalIndia: Yes, exactly: such people must "establish their notability according to the general notability guideline", i.e., no special considerations apply to them. --JBL (talk) 20:49, 5 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per above discussion, and my own standards. ("Spouses and minor children of deposed royalty could be notable, because their businesses, charity work, attendance at relatives' notable weddings, or a notable scandal often provides them with media attention.") Her charity work, her own jobs, and the cockfighting scandal make her notable. Bearian (talk) 20:56, 4 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep There are basically two questions that need to be asked. Is there coverage in third-party sources? Yes; whether it be because of her position or her criminal activity. Does she have the same level of notability as her sisters? Yes. Usually we establish notability on a case-by-case basis, but with royalty their whole claim to notability is based on their ancestry and relations. That is why it’s absurd to claim that she’s not notable but her sisters are. Keivan.fTalk 16:09, 6 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Nobody claimed that. As a matter of fact, once this is done I am going to follow with AfD on each of her sisters, except Margareta, as none have notability on their own.Anonimu (talk) 16:41, 6 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Then you’ll most likely be wasting a lot of editors time. There’s not a single delete !vote on here, and her sisters are even more involved in royal affairs and patronages. —Kbabej (talk) 23:52, 6 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep -- Pretenders to thrones and their families are an interesting subject. BTW she is in the line of succession to the British throne, but too remote to be notable as such. Peterkingiron (talk) 19:18, 6 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is a real shame that the !votes above are so incredibly poor quality, and I hope that the closer takes note of the complete lack of a compelling policy rationale in them. I have just taken a quick look at the article and its sources. After removing a section sourced only to obviously non-RS pages (some random self-published monarchy fan-site), there are 9 footnotes that point to English-language sources. Of these
    1 is a dead-link to people.com, whose title suggests it is only incidentally about Irina, and
    the remaining 8 all concern the cock-fighting story.
  • So as far as the English-language sources go, this could not be a more clear-cut case of WP:BLP1E. I do not have time right now to attempt to assess the Romanian-language sources, but if this has not been closed (and really, despite the lop-sided vote, it should be relisted, given that none of the Keep !voters have articulated anything that resembles a defense of notability based on community norms) I hope to return tomorrow to thoroughly dissect them. --JBL (talk) 15:51, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • People only has this to say "Irina, 36, who raises horses with her husband, John Krueger, in Oregon, just returned from a two-week visit with her parents." That's all.
    Romanian sources are mostly self-published by Irina's family ("Royal family of Romania"), with two exceptions:
    -Adevarul - This is the most detailed independent source regarding Irina. Note however that the article, published in August 2013, includes a word-by-word translation of the Marriage section of the Wikipedia article as of July 2013. The rest is about her criminal venture and her visiting her parents.
    -Romania Libera is exclusively about the criminal proceedings, and has only this info unrelated to the crime: "Principesa Irina, în vârstă de 60 de ani, s-a născut şi a crescut în Elveţia şi s-a mutat în Oregon în 1983." ("Princess Irina is 60 years old, was born and raised in Switzerland and moved to Oregon in 1983").
    Anonimu (talk) 16:46, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: While the response so far has been overwhelmingly "Keep", an opposing editor asked for a relisting and for those advocate Keep to comment on the quality of the sources, specifically, both those in English and those that are not.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 22:17, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep New to this AfD. Clear notability as evidence by extensive coverage. Also, WP:SNOWBALL. Atchom (talk) 23:18, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Extensive coverage must be proven. As it stands know, we have coverage mostly limited to her criminal convictions. Please indicate the sources where we can find such extensive coverage.Anonimu (talk) 08:08, 9 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • delete We have a strong precedent of deleting these royals-in-pretence, especially the more collateral they are. The legal issues are sourced from relatively local media, and I'm inclined to draw the curtain of WP:BLP over them. Mangoe (talk) 03:33, 9 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Thanks Liz for allowing more time to do a proper source analysis. I'm going to refer to the sources in this (perma-link) version of the article, before I removed some content, to be maximally inclusive. Here is a detailed analysis:
Detailed analysis collapsed for readability
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
  • Footnotes 1, 2, 5, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22 all concern the cockfighting charges
  • Footnotes 3, 23, 24, and 25 are to casamajestatiisale.ro/, a website that is apparently controlled by the subject or her family
  • Footnote 4 is about her father; I confirm Anonimu's statement that there is exactly one sentence of the article about Irina.
  • Footnotes 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 are to romaniaregala.ro, a website that is apparently controlled by the subject or her family
  • Footnote 15 is "Queen Victoria's Descendants (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1987), page 190", used to source the parentage of her husband; I think we can be confident that it doesn't have anything substantive to say about Irina without needing to drag a copy out of the library.
  • Footnote 16 is a ridiculous self-published hobbyist page of royal genealogies, which is not RS and has nothing substantive about Irinia
  • And footnote 8 is titled "Who is Princess Irina, arrested in the USA for organizing illegal cockfights?", and whatever substantive things it has to say about her are plagiarized from Wikipedia.
  • In summary, the article is a gross violation of WP:BLP1E: aside from the cockfighting, it includes a total of 0 sources that are reliable, independent of the subject, and substantive. Meanwhile, the arguments offered by the Keep !voters consist entirely of unsupported assertions, not in keeping with any established Wikipedia consensus, guideline, or policy -- a trout to all of them (except Bearian, who is at least honest about it). Deleting this article will make Wikipedia better. Incidentally, if this article is kept (which it absolutely should not be), it must be retitled: the only RS sources are the news articles about the cockfight, which call her "Irina Walker", and per WP:NCROY we should "not use hypothetical, dissolved or defunct titles, including pretenders (real or hypothetical), unless this is what the majority of reliable sources use." --JBL (talk) 12:33, 9 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • This article does not meet the third condition for exclusion in WP:BLP1E. The significance of an event or the individual's role is indicated by how persistent the coverage is in reliable sources. In this case, there are multiple articles from reputable news sources that go into quite decent detail about the cock-fighting affair (1), (2), (3), (4), etc., which combined with her status as the daughter of a former monarch make her notable as a quirky "royal crim" whose unusual crime received coverage by the BBC, HuffPost, Bunte, and the Oregonian (plus Romanian sources). Ficaia (talk) 07:54, 10 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    No, this is utterly standard crime coverage: anyone accused of a moderately unusual crime will have a few small waves of coverage, at arrest, trial, and conviction. That's still one event (the crime & trial; in Irina's case, it includes the incredibly silly spectacle of her sister removing her from a non-existent line of succession), and that's all we're seeing here. To make the case for a non-BLP1E, you seed a piece of significant coverage that is not primarily about the cock-fight and its immediate aftermath. (It would also be nice if people who edited "monarchy" articles cared at all about the quality of sourcing -- I haven't gotten into it too much because it's not the reason this article should be deleted, but people leaning in heavily on gossip magazines and HuffPo should really be re-evaluating their life choices.) --JBL (talk) 11:56, 10 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Also I think it's really telling that (as you point out) the sources go into much more detail about the crime itself ("the cock-fighting affair") than they do about Irina herself -- that's because she is not independently notable of this story. --JBL (talk) 12:13, 10 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
People can become notable for committing a rare or unusual crime in combination with an unusual background. In this case, both the crime and criminal were unusual enough for the media to consider her notable and produce quite a lot of coverage. Therefore, the subject does not meet the third condition for exclusion in WP:BLP1E. Ficaia (talk) 06:16, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a rare or unusual crime, it's bog-standard. Rare or unusual crimes get more than utterly routine crime coverage, which is what this is. There are 0 in-depth sources about her in the entire pile. --JBL (talk) 12:30, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The BBC source in particular tips this over the line for me. It's not a passing reference; it's multiple paragraphs in a British article about a foreign event. There is definitely not "relatively local media" as one editor above argues. Ficaia (talk) 14:18, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the nominator is wrong in that the original story from the Oregonian also got re-published by a few other news sources, not all of which were local -- but it's not separate reporting about her, it's a piece about the same crime. This is extremely common with crime stories that have a mildly salacious aspect -- and it does not do anything to move it past BLP1E. --JBL (talk) 14:30, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep She easily meets WP:GNG. Don't forget about Romanian newspapers. GorgonaJS (talk) 10:02, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Checked Romanian newspapers, still couldn't find anything to support her notability per GNG.Anonimu (talk) 11:58, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hi GorgonaJS. This is a bare assertion; you might as well have written "She easily can fly to the moon" as far as providing an argument is concerned. Please see Ficaia's comments to see what form an argument "She meets GNG" should have, namely, you should point out which criteria of GNG are met by which sources. (Of course Ficaia is wrong about their assertions, but I point you to them because they are the only Keep so far who has attempted an argument that this person / article meets a community standard for notability, rather than make an unsupported assertion of it.) --JBL (talk) 12:35, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      DWC LR and Kbabej both make sound arguments too, as I hope the closer will recognise. Ficaia (talk) 14:23, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      DWC LR's argument is literally "look some non-RS gossip rag wrote a piece about her", it doesn't come close to addressing any of the points of GNG (and it certainly doesn't rebut the BLP1E problem). --JBL (talk) 14:30, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Articles from the BBC, HuffPost and others mean the subject doesn't meet the third condition for exclusion in WP:BLP1E. The subject has to meet all three conditions to be excluded. Ficaia (talk) 14:59, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It is extremely common for an article of a mildly salacious crime to be reprinted in several different outlets (for example because of syndication through AP); that is not what a "significant event" is for the purpose of BLP1E. --JBL (talk) 15:53, 11 March 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.