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. Although there are some reasoned arguments in favour of deleting the argument, the strongest arguments provided all favour keeping the article. An IAR appeal to a special situation is generally the argument made for deleting the article. However, many have pointed out that this person is notable because of their achievements, and that the contentious material is reliably sourced. There might be scope for removing some contentious content, but that would require a much wider content discussion at another venue. This the consensus, based on the arguments and policies used, supports keeping the article. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 18:36, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Daniela Georgieva[edit]

Daniela Georgieva (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • Stats)

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I'm nominating this article for deletion in my capacity as an OTRS volunteer on behalf of the article subject (re: OTRS Ticket#: 2012012510010846)

Dear Wikipedia Foundation,

My name is Daniela Georgieva I am writing to you because I want to request that my Wikipedia page please be deleted because it is badly informed and is causing me and my family to suffer emotional distress. Also I would not like for my personal information (date of birth and place) to be available to anyone. So I would like to ask you to please delete my page. Here is the link to my page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniela_Georgieva

Thank you for your time. Best Regards,

Daniela Georgieva

Ocaasi ^{t | c} 17:06, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Neutral I am tempted to suggest honouring the request, out of politeness and out of the fact we don't like causing distress. At the very least, I have redacted the specific biographical details, per policy. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 17:17, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To respond to the points below, it doesn't matter if it's on the IAAF or whatever, it's just beneficial to be nice sometimes - and remember, it being on the IAAF weakens the case for keeping it here in other respects. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 19:28, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Its a very strange thing to want to deny date of birth when the IAAF and many other sports websites list it anyway. Would the IAAF censor her birthdate too? She appears to meet WP:ATHLETE. We cannot bow down on a whim to people who want to deny people the right to knowledge. Anything "badly informed" can be fixed. We should not delete articles like this. It comes down to pure embarrassment in front of her pupils that she was banned for doping and obviously wants to get on with her life and put it behind her which is fair enough but I think it would be wrong for wikipedia to hide it. If Marion Jones contacted wikipedia asking the same thing should we delete her article too? How about Jennifer Capriati? Should the German and French wiki articles also be deleted?

In all fairness though there isn't an abundance of sources about her, but the bronze medal at the 1995 IAAF, being a national record holder and being an Olympic competitor I think make her notable and it would be wrong to delete an article on a Bronze medal contributor. I sympathise that she wants to hide her past, but the information is present on the Internet anyway. At the very worst we could remove the mention of the doping and keep the info on her career intact but that would be censorship?♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:43, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep absent a more specific, reasonable request identifying inappropriate content. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 17:48, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak keep Not hugely notable per WP:GNG. There are also signs of WP:ADAM as the biographical detail is rather thin. As for the date/place of birth issue, there is a source here which seems OK. Possibly there is a dislike of the failed drug test in 1996 being mentioned, but if anything is outright wrong in the article, it should be mentioned clearly as a reason for deletion. Attempts were made to blank the page in January 2012 [1], leading to suggestions of a conflict of interest.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:13, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per Dr. Blofeld.--В и к и T 19:09, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
•  Question: Can someone explain why our policy on biographies of living people does not apply here? In particular the section which states "If the subject complains about the inclusion of the date of birth, or the person is borderline notable, err on the side of caution and simply list the year"? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 19:12, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Because its a silly request when you are just one click away from finding her birthdate on the IAAF or sports reference website..♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:15, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It is standard practice for athletics websites to give a person's full DOB, so there is no great intrusion of privacy here. It is rather like Jim Hawkins (radio presenter) telling his radio listeners and Twitter followers when his birthday is, then complaining when Wikipedia mentions it.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:21, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That policy doesn't say "if the subject complains about the inclusion of the date of birth, and the person's birthdate doesn't appear on other websites". You're reading a limitation into the policy that's not there. It just says if they complain, period. Ken Arromdee (talk) 19:45, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No. That's not what it says, period. It says "err on the side caution," which means we can choose to not err at all, where such is publicly verified. (That said her exact date is fine to remove, as far as I'm concerned, although "neutral" would really be my position on that, here). Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:22, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You apparently misunderstand the idiom. It does not imply a choice. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 01:48, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No. I understand the idiom. Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:21, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. This is borderline-notable and there's been a request from the subject. Policy allows removal in such cases, and human decency requires removing it. Ken Arromdee (talk) 19:45, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment This AFD is a rerun of Jim Hawkins (radio presenter). Factually correct statements that have appeared in reliable sources are not a major cause of concern, although there are notability issues.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:52, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. The subject of the article easily passes WP:NSPORTS as she "has competed in the Olympics or senior IAAF World Championships"; the page should be kept despite her request for deletion as there are no notability concerns. Our guidelines allow for the exact date of birth to be removed if the subject requests it, whether or not it's easily available elsewhere is irrelevant; we should leave out the full date and protect the page. Dylanfromthenorth (talk) 19:55, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, pretty notable when it comes to athletics, and I'd say that career info is pretty central to the biography of an athlete ("Adam" comment). Geschichte (talk) 20:34, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - clearly notable and it makes no sense to remove the date of birth when it's already in the public domain via the IAAF website. It seems to me that this is more about the subject wanting to control what is written about them than about any problems with the article itself. Prioryman (talk) 22:59, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 23:27, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Note to closing admin: This AfD was linked on Jimbo's talk page (diff) about 35 minutes after it began, which probably explains the high participation rate. ‑Scottywong| spout _ 23:50, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Olympians qualify for WP:ATHLETE, and there's no good reason to censor a publicly available and reliably sourced birth date. Nyttend (talk) 01:49, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment The date of birth and place is already publicly available information and the article appears to pass WP:NSPORTS. None of the independent sources appear to be in English so it's hard to see their reliability, but if the referencing is accurate, I don't see how the article is badly informed. IRWolfie- (talk) 08:59, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep as Olympic athlete. Birthday is a content issue. Agathoclea (talk) 09:25, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Her athletic accomplishments make her notable. If by "badly informed" she means there is incorrect information in the article, let her say specifically what it is and it can be dealt with as a content issue, depending of course on what the reliable sources say (or don't say.) As for the birth-date issue, personally I think we should routinely grant these requests for removal of that information, at least for people who are not "very famous," however we would choose to define that. Neutron (talk) 14:08, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The only valid point I think she has it that an article which mentions she was banned for doping could be ruining her professional life and students using it against her. For somebody teaching athletics it must be a terrible thing her students knowing she cheated and used performance enhancing drugs and could taint her whole career. Especially as the doping is mention in extremely few sources and very briefly, none apparent in English. If it is literally having a negative effect on her life I think we could remove the part about the doping but beyond that even the date of birth I see no valid argument.♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:54, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I understand that the ban for doping could be "ruining" (or otherwise adversely affecting) her professional life, but if it is adequately sourced, it certainly seems relevant to an article about an athlete, and therefore there is no good reason to remove it from the article. I personally can't say whether it is well sourced or not, because all three sources for that information are in languages that I can't read. (The first seems to be in Italian and the other two are in a language I can only identify as "probably Slavic," and given her nationality, most likely Bulgarian. The first "Bulgarian" source seems to be some sort of error message, though that is just a guess based mainly on the graphic. Now I know we accept non-English sources, but only an editor who knows these languages can really say whether the sources support the text, are reliable, etc.) Of course, this is really a subject for the article talk page, not an AfD. Neutron (talk) 16:40, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• [2] is from an Italian newspaper on 5 April 1996, and says that she failed an anti-doping test at a meeting in Budapest. [3] is in Bulgarian (registration required, 15 July 1996) and says "Даниела Георгиева бе наказана наскоро за 4 години, след като бе спипана с допинг по време на международен турнир" (Daniela Georgieva recently received a four year ban after failing an anti-doping test at an international meeting). [4] says "1996: В Будапеща на елитния турнир “Самсунг” от веригата на Международната федерация (ИААФ). Спринтьорката Даниела Георгиева побеждава на 400 метра с републикански рекорд. След награждаването е повикана да даде допинг проба. В пробата са открити 4 нанограма от забранения препарат метанолон." (at the Samsung meeting in Budapest, she tested positive for four nanograms of metenolone). I could not find the part saying that the four year ban was reduced to two, but it is probably there somewhere.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:32, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - definitely falls within our definition of notability for athletes. Remove birthdate, however silly that may seem to some of us, since it's within our parameters; reject her desire to cover up embarassing parts of her earlier career, per WP:NOTCENSORED. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:50, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - notable subject. I hope that the scrutiny this deletion discussion creates can address the concerns about the content being "badly informed" GabrielF (talk) 19:27, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep: I'm one of the editors who's had to fight with anons trying to remove parts of this article. Please note that from past editing history it is more than clear that the subject's complaint is about the doping scandal. While it may be sad to people not expecting it, the Internet is the end of forgetting. This case is fundamentally different than the Jim Hawkins case, in that there is no question of notability--having won a medal at a major international sporting event meets our current notability requirements. I do agree with removing the date of birth per our policy. Qwyrxian (talk) 21:49, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep: not marginally but clearly notable. I can live without the date of birth, and we can semiprotect too. Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:24, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete of course and merge name into sports lists: This is another example of one person being "targeted" as an orphan article, when Wikipedia should have full lists of Bulgarian runners and their awards, not an isolated sprinter article here or there. It is akin to having 80,000 articles about American Congressmen, rather than 112 list articles (of the form "95th U.S. Congress") to cover all the various men and women who have served in the U.S. Congress during the past 220+ years (since 1789). There should be personal bio-page articles only for the exceptional cases, and avoid marginal-notability cases when the person objects very strongly. The same type of lists should be created for Olympic medalists for every 2 or 4 years of Olympiads, rather than have 810,000 articles about people who once entered into one Olympic event and lost. This obsession in thinking Wikipedia needs a separate bio-page, for everyone who ever kicked a ball or ran 200 metres, is just flooding WP with haphazard articles, when we need full lists of record holders in each sport, in each nation, without bias to an occasional Bulgarian sprinter and omitting all others. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:25, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Daniela Georgieva meets WP:NTRACK, but the reason why I voted "weak keep" is that articles of this kind are not biographies in the strict sense of the term. They are likely to be too short and are basically summaries of a person's sports career.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 07:25, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete As per request by subject doktorb _words^deeds 08:08, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong delete or at the very least merge to a sports list. Sure, she marginally checks some of the boxes at WP:NTRACK, and sure, if you look hard enough you may find some reliable sources, but it is extremely shocking to me that an AFD for a BLP would get such a high number of outright keeps when the subject of the article has issued a personal appeal for the page to be deleted because it is causes her and her family to suffer. Has the Wikipedian community lost its sence of common sense and become a box-checking machine? Do the benefits of keeping this article really outweigh the harm we are doing to one person and her family? I expected some discussion, but to see so many "keeps" is both extremely surprising and very sad. Perhaps I've spent too much time away from Wikipedia to notice this change. Let throw out some quotations from our own policy pages and essays:

• WP:COMMON: "Being too wrapped up in rules can cause loss of perspective, so there are times when it is better to ignore a rule."
• WP:COMMON: "Similarly, just because something is not forbidden in a written document, or is even explicitly permitted, doesn't mean it's a good idea in the given situation. The principle of the rules is more important than the letter."
• WP:WIARM: "The spirit of the rule trumps the letter of the rule."
• WP:LIVE: "Editors must take particular care when adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page.[1] Such material requires a high degree of sensitivity"
• WP:BIODELETE: "Discussions concerning biographical articles of relatively unknown, non-public figures, where the subject has requested deletion and there is no rough consensus, may be closed as delete".

On my part, there's no question on the right thing to do here. Delete this article, or at the very least summon up some human decency to merge it away. -Well-rested^Talk 08:32, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes we understand why she might have a problem with the article and I would reluctantly remove the mention of the doping if it was really causing her life problems but at the end of the day we are an encyclopedia and it is ridiculous to delete an article on an Olympian, a national record holder, a three time European cup champion just because she says so. If every BLP contacted wikipedia to demand it be deleted. If Marion Jones contacted wikipedia and said "Look I want to wipe the slate clean with my basketball career, please delete my article" would that be reasonable? Knowledge is the most important thing to wikipedia. If you really examine the article what do you think is really the reason for causing the distress? The record of her achievements or the doping? For sure its the mention of the doping which she is surely upset about. I see nothing in the article which could possible cause her family real distress except for the mention of the doping. There would be something very wrong about wikipedia deleting an article about a Bulgarian record holder in terms of knowledge and what we stand for and if you genuinely think the entire article is causing her distress I think its wildly exaggerated. Its the doping she is obviously very embarrassed about and we can remove that if needs be out of human decency, not the whole article which is obviously not the real problem. We can modify it at worst case scenario but the information is present on the other wikipedias and her birth dates on all the athletics stats sites..♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:25, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Quick reply. Hello! Just a quick reply. :) The argument that every other athlete will suddenly ask for their articles to be deleted is a slippery slope, and what exactly she's concerned about in the article is entirely irrelevant because it's a pointless exercise to speculate on what she's thinking. The fact is that (1) she's expressed that the article is causing her and her family distress, and (2) the article or a summary of it can easily be merged into a list without loss of significant information. This is an encyclopaedia yes, but we don't cause suffering just to to ensure that a little information has its own article. Well-rested^Talk 10:06, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Jim Hawkins (radio presenter) complained that the article was causing him distress too. I think anybody who doesn't want to have an article about themselves is likely to exaggerate. An article on wikipedia cannot really literally harm a family at the level you describe unless it contains private information or is defamatory or blatant lies and negativity and reveals something about an individual which could literally affect their life. In Daniela's case I understand fully that the mention of the doping and her noe being an athletics coach could do just that and I could accept removing it. But information about her athletics career and even birthdate which is available on IAAF and other websites I see no credible argument that it could harm her family in any way whatsoever.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:18, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@>Dr. Blofeld "I think anybody who doesn't want to have an article about themselves is likely to exaggerate. " WOW Note that you have just called two living people liars WP:BLP applies here too. -- The Red Pen of Doom 11:08, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Daniella is clearly concerned about the drugs thing so I have no doubts it is causing her problems. But to say the whole article is and information about her athletics career is damaging is practically impossible. Its obviously the doping she is concerned about. Jim Hawkins also claimed the article was distressing to him and when confronted couldn't identify any real flaws in it. Its not so much lying, it just comes down to not wanting an article about themselves.♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:31, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep If the figure was marginal then I would probably lean towards deletion because I believe that the benefits to Wikipedia of complying with a borderline notable person's request not to have their personal information and mistakes on one of the world's most popular websites outweighs having an article on them - a great use of WP:IAR. In this case, however, the subject not only meets the word of the relevant notability guideline WP:ATHLETE, but the spirit as well. If she met WP:ATHLETE just by having appeared once in a world championship or edition of the Olympic Games, I would probably suggest that it be redirected to a list in this case, as we wouldn't have much to say other than what could be represented in say Bulgaria at the 2000 Summer Olympics and there would be no need to have a negative article for an article's sake. Once you get to the point of someone having won a medal at a major international competition, however, I think there's no question that Wikipedia's coverage of important topics suffers from leaving out the article. I can see the argument that, particularly if the doping offenses have not been reported in English, that Wikipedia may actually be causing her stress by making the information more accessible (even if it had/has been reported in English, Wikipedia would almost certainly draw more attention to it). If we don't believe the information on doping has a clear foundation, then I have no objection to dropping it, but that's no reason to discard the entire article. If the doping information is based on verifiable information, however, then at the end of the day, Wikipedia is supposed to be a neutral encyclopedia and it cannot be that if it chooses to overlook verifiable negative information at the behest of its subject. Canadian Paul 14:43, 30 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Wikipedia Foundation, Thank you all for spending time to discuss my request for deletion of the article about me. I read all your comments and honestly all of you are right. I have decided to give you some explanation about my request. Let me start from the beginning because if you want to judge me you have to know me a little bit better. I love sport it is my life I started practicing track and field in middle school with my teacher in physical education. It was a special excitement, I was so proud, getting excited over every little medal that I won. I loved to run we had no fancy outfits, no running shoes, I had to bike about 2 miles to get to the place where I could train where the track was made of cinder. I was full of dreams- watching sports and dreaming. My family is the classic united Bulgarian family my parents were hard working people, quietly and steadfastly my parents taught me hard work, discipline, responsibility and honest only by letting me experience their working everyday lives. I know they are with me and would withstand the storms and challenges of life. I have been married for 18 years and I have a 15 year old son. Today I work in sports and really enjoy it. A person comes to this world, lives, educates himself and realizes his dream. There are ups and downs during this journey, successes and failures, joys and sorrow. I know most of you will say, “what does she want?” and you are right my request was because of the negative information causing me and my family to suffer emotional distress, that is the reason I am asking you to just delete all my achievements even though they are not too many. First the information you have is not exactly correct, about the date of birth I asked you because that information in Bulgaria is very important, in Bulgaria the DOB is the first 6 numbers in your SSN. I said that negative information is ruining my professional life and I live every single day in pain because of that. I respect and I really like Wikipedia it is my favorite site, and I still want to use it 100 times per day. That information appeared in Wikipedia on November 2011, 16 years after that incident. I am asking you is that the right time for me to pay for my past, but believe me I am thinking about that every single day I am never going to forget it, everybody makes mistakes but I think that we have to forgive and forget, that is the reason we are humans. Why did that information show up 16 years later? I am asking you, do you think it is good for my son, my husband, my mom, or my brother to answer questions about me at school, at work, or so on? I assure you I feel very bad, all my life I want to be a good person, a role model, and a good example for my son and my students but this is keeping me from doing that. I am really sorry about what happened in my past but it has already happened and we can’t change it but life is very short we have to go forward. I know most of you want to keep the article that is your right but please take a look from my side and decide if that is important after 16 years, for that nightmare to come back in my life. I am asking you to understand me and to take a second and feel with your hearts I don’t want to be famous I just want to have my job which I love. Last but not least I will die but I don’t want my family to suffer and feel bad because of me. Thank you for your time. Best regards, Daniela Georgieva — Preceding unsigned comment added by Georgieva1996 (talk • contribs) 21:50, 30 April 2012 (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.