Talk:Alphius (martyr)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article. [FAQ]
WikiProject Saints Alphius (martyr) is part of the WikiProject Saints, an effort to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Saints on Wikipedia. This includes but is not limited to saints as well as those not so affiliated, country and region-specific topics, and anything else related to saints. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
Stub This article has been rated as Stub-Class on the quality scale.
Low This article has been rated as low-importance on the importance scale.


[edit] Proposed Deletion

This is clearly highly objectionable - neither of the reasons given have any value. The article (which I have not contributed to) clearly states in the first sentence that he is a saint in the Byzantine tradion, ie (let's spell it out) he is mainly (now apparently exclusively) an Orthodox saint. The absence of a Catholic Encyclopedia entry etc is therefore irrelevant. The argument that the details of his life are "unreliable" is a joke. Johnbod 18:02, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I don't find the fact that the details of someone's life are likely legendary to be "a joke" in the context of an encyclopedia, in fact I think it is quite relevent. The prod was about notability - in deleting the prod you did nothing to assert notability. The paucity of sources (and the lack of mention in Catholic sources was used as example) leads me to believe that Alphius is non-notable - that is, no authors or historians really take note of him.
It could be that an article titled "Lentini, Alphius, Philadelphus, and Cyrinus" would be slightly more notable, as these martyrs are considered together in the named sources (and in the Eastern Orthodox calendar. However, even in that case the article should note that the story of Alphius, et. al., is considered "legendary" (the word used in the french source cited). Pastordavid 20:53, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
By joke I meant that the details of the lives of all or most saints from that period can be considered "legendary", if you choose to use that term. I prefer the more nuanced wording in the article, which conveys the point perfectly well to my mind. But in any case doubt about the historical accuracy of an account does not in itself have any bearing on notability. There was nothing in the notice about lack of detail in Catholic sources being an "example" - no doubt Buddhist sources are very short of information also. But what about Orthodox ones? Johnbod 21:39, 23 January 2007 (UTC)