Wikiquote:Votes for deletion/Fausto Cercignani

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 following amendments.--Abramsky (talk) 10:51, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Fausto Cercignani

Quotations in this article are from an unreliable source:  these are just somebody's self-published collections of unsourced attributions. Note also citations to these vanity press ebooks wallpapered on numerous theme pages, which should also be removed. — Ningauble (talk) 16:56, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

• Vote closes: 17:00, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

• Delete as nom, without prejudice to creation of a reliably sourced article on the noted philologist and sometime poet. ~ Ningauble (talk) 16:56, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
• Keep · Following links and citations which were at the Wikipedia article, I have now sourced the material which had been from secondary sources without citation, to "self translation" exercises of Cercignani posted at the the University of Milan, with a link to that online source on the page. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 18:53, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
• Keep, now that Kalki has made improvements. ~ UDScott (talk) 19:42, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
• Keep, now that Kalki has given us good reasons to do so. ~ Bernardbonvin (talk) 07:14, 20 September 2014 (UTC) — Bernardbonvin (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• Comment: Thanks to Kalki for identifying what appears to be the primary source. I still have a couple issues with this:
  1. The present article reproduces half of the "Adagio" and the entire (100%) collection of "Quotes", far in excess of what is contemplated at Wikiquote:Limits on quotations.
  2. The source is a personal userpage hosted on an academic website. It is customary for academic institutions to host personal pages for their faculty, but most are hardly more notable than their student's FaceBook pages. I see no indication that the good professor's "Examples" page is notable enough to be included in the author page, much less to be scattered in some ninety (90) theme pages. (Past experience with this type of source being wallpapered on theme articles has been problematic.[1])

Even though Kalki's research moots criticism of the previously cited source, I am not inclined to change my vote to delete the page because Wikiquote is not a mirror for user pages from other websites. I am also still inclined to strip the wallpaper from theme articles, unless any of the professor's aphorizations are shown to be independently quoted in noteworthy sources. ~ Ningauble (talk) 13:27, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

• Keep: Thanks to Kalki for his improvements and for identifying the primary source, which I consider to contain notable work, certainly notable enough to be included in a Wikiquote page. But perhaps the "Adagio" lines should be removed. ~ Karlhillmann (talk) 16:14, 20 September 2014 (UTC) — Karlhillmann (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

  Can you provide certain evidence of that notability? E.g. is the userpage quoted or otherwise noted in any reliable sources? ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:06, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

• Keep: Many thanks to Kalki! I agree with Karlhillmann and I must disagree with Ningauble: Cercignani's userpage cannot be considered a sort of Facebook page! ~ Pierre Abbé (talk) 16:26, 20 September 2014 (UTC) — Pierre Abbé (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

  I am not sure what other sort of thing it is like. Was it an assigned reading for one of his courses? ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:08, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

  The question seems to be sarcastic or at best rhetorical, but I will treat it as simple one. The material published by Cercignani on his userpage is offered to the general public, to translators, and especially to scholars who investigate the discipline known as "self-translation". The fact that the page is hosted by an academic institution without any indication with regard to copyright implies that its contents are freely available to the general public. ~ Pierre Abbé (talk) 17:07, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

  No sarcasm was intended by this rhetoric. I would draw a distinction between personal userpages and other publications of his that the university indexes in its public-facing search engine.

  I don't know the particulars of Italian law, but where I live posting on the internet does not implicitly waive copyright. Just because access is freely available does not mean it is free to adapt and republish. ~ Ningauble (talk) 19:57, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

• Comment: Now that I've read Ningauble's comments, I'd like to confirm my vote to keep the page. My reasons:
  1. I strongly believe in the principles of the Wikimedia Foundation and I never forget that "Wikiquote is a free online compendium of sourced quotations from notable people and creative works".
  2. Cercignani is undoutedly a notable person and his aphorisms are clearly original irrespective of the value we attribute in general to personal userpages hosted on academic websites or, for that matter, to a self-published ebook. By the way, the work in question (edited by Brian Morris) is freely offered to the public under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Should we always prefer those who sell knowledge and creative works? ~ Bernardbonvin (talk) 14:25, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

• Question regarding licensure of ebooks by Brian Morris: are these derivative works (which I have not viewed because I do not have, or want, an account at Lulu) published with the express permission of professor Cercignani to adapt the userpage in question, which does not itself contain a general release? ~ Ningauble (talk) 15:41, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
• Regarding licensure of ebooks by Brian Morris: Replying on Sep 22 to my email of Sep 21, Brian Morris confirmed that his "ebooks containing quotations from writings by Fausto Cercignani are derivative works published with the express permission of Professor Cercignani to adapt his userpage posted at the University of Milan (users.unimi.it/austheod/adagio3l.pdf)". Brian Morris "will add the information on the copyright page of the latest edition". ~ Bernardbonvin (talk) 16:33, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

• Keep. Wikiquote does not generally second-guess Wikipedia about subject notability. So the subject may be considered notable, and thus the page is allowed. (It's possible that the WP page would not survive AfD, but that has not been tested. It is what I'd call a fan page, and these are often inadequately sourced. The real question would be if it can be sourced adequately to remain hosted on Wikipedia. This is not normally a matter to be determined here.) To use or not use specific quotations is not a VfD/administrative decision, and is handled through the normal editorial process. There was no attempt to improve this page in its history, no discussion on the Talk page. I saw this VfD mentioned on meta.[2]. The three users mentioned there, and tagged here as SPAs, are not experienced users and should be handled with care and kindness. But they are not new users, they are apparently fans of Cercignani. They may need support in understanding what the Wikipedia article needs. --Abd (talk) 16:23, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
• Comment. Arguments above are largely focused on the content of the page, and largely on the notability of quotes. Wikiquote:Notability (an essay) is clear that generally if there is a Wikipedia article on a person, the person is notable enough to have a page here. Wikiquote:Quotability, a guideline, confirms that. The guideline points out that quotability can be difficult to determine, but quotability of individual quotes is not determined here. This is only a request for deletion of the page. If there is a single quotable quote, by Wikiquote standards, the page should stand if the author is notable. As matters stand today, there are quotes on the page and there is a Wikipedia article, so the assumption would be that the page should stay, and that is the only decision made here. However, if the Wikipedia article is deleted for non-notability, and if all the quotes are removed and that sticks, by consensus, then deletion would become appropriate and, if that situation is stable, the page would easily be deleted.

To those who have worked on w:Fausto Cercignani, that page looks vulnerable to deletion there. It will take work to find reliable sources for that article, and what is not reliably sourced should be removed, and if there is much that is not reliably sourced, it can make the page more deletable, whereas, as a short article with a few sourced facts, it might otherwise stand. The style of that article is not encyclopedic (i.e., what Wikipedians expect). Fans of topics, Single Purpose Accounts, often have no clue what is appropriate and what is not, it is not about "truth," and primary sources don't work (such as the author's own statements about himself), and a list of publications does not establish notability. Secondary reliable sources do. Good luck, I suggest trying to find help on Wikipedia. I am banned there, so I can't help you directly, but anyone can email me, I can anticipate what the objections may be to that article, and can point to possible solutions. --Abd (talk) 18:49, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

• Regarding ABD's offer to help those who have worked on w:Fausto Cercignani: Many thanks for your kindness and readiness to help! How can I email you? ~ Karlhillmann (talk) 10:49, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

This applies for any user who has email enabled: if you are viewing my User or User talk page, and if you have email enabled yourself, which I think you do, click on Email this user in the Tools menu. --Abd (talk) 17:27, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Notability of the author is not in dispute here: the article was nominated "without prejudice" to the topic. However, it does not appear that userpage exercises are what he is noted for. Suitability of specific quotations or sources most certainly is a VfD decision when they comprise the entire content of a page. Removing unsuitable content, if it is found to be such, to leave a "stub" with no quotations is not an option at Wikiquote.

The Wikipedia article could definitely stand some improvement. Interested contributors might ask for advice at the Wikipedia:Teahouse about encyclopedic style and other issues. (It is a bit of a distraction to bring it up here.) ~ Ningauble (talk) 19:31, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

• Regarding Ningauble's statement "it does not appear that userpage exercises are what he (F. Cercignani) is noted for": F. Cercignani is certainly notable as a creative writer and his userpage examples contain his own aphorisms, not mere exercises. ~ Bernardbonvin (talk) 16:46, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Bernard, these are not matters to be argued here, and notability is not established because an editor says so. I will explain some details on your talk page. --Abd (talk) 17:36, 23 September 2014 (UTC)