Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Isaac Fanous

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This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was Keep. Jerzy(t) 03:00, 2005 Jan 29 (UTC)

[edit] Isaac Fanous

Final tally: Keep 13; Del 2. --Jerzy(t) 03:00, 2005 Jan 29 (UTC)

[This debate has now had the 120 hours that may have been contemplated by the 5-day standard, and at midnight it will have had the de facto standard, i.e. the day of nomination plus 5 calendar days counted on UTC. I have let slide my promised removal of a personal attack, mostly to discuss it with the IMO reasonably innocent editor who made it. I shall do that removal and annotation, for the sake of the permanent record, not too long after midnight, and call the result if no one else has done so. It would contribute to good order if other VfD-closers would delay so that i am not forced into a violation (no matter how technical) of the requested forbearance from editing after the calling of the result. --Jerzy(t) 19:18, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC)]
[Multiple reformattings w/o individual sigs, made by Jerzy(t) 05:26, 2005 Jan 24 (UTC)]

Vanity page with very little information. Probably self-promotion by artist himself or family member; as he is not known enough to be encyclopedic. Omar Filini 15:23, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC) Note nominator has voted below, and do not count nominator's implicit Del vote. --Jerzy(t) 05:26, 2005 Jan 24 (UTC)

  • Keep - the most basic Google check on his name reveals 195 entries that seem to support the information supplied. Saga City 16:34, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. References that are clearly to this person dominate the first several pages of Google hits on his name, and a spot check of these pages support the claims made on the page. —Kelly Martin 17:40, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. Even though google finds many pages about this artist, the man is virtually unknown in Egypt and to call himself "The Father" of Coptic art is VANITY in the first degree. The "Father" line was added by user afanous which could be a son, wife, brother or even the artist himself. Omar Filini 01:55, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. If Isaac Fanous as an artist is not known to the majority of Egyptians, by virtue of them being Muslims, there is hardly any of the 15 million Copts around the world who does not know Isaac Fanous. He has travelled around the world to paint Icons for Coptic churches. He has a whole school of his own to teach modern Coptic iconography, and where hunderds of apprentices are currently learning the art of painting Coptic icons. I am the one who added the article and I am not of the same family of Dr Fanous (that's to answer the claim that it might be a self-promotion from my side). I vote to keep the article.
    • This was written by user Afanous who shares the same surname as the artist in question. [Personal attack removed by Jerzy(t) 23:50, 2005 Jan 25 (UTC)] well I guess the majority of wiki people are christians and might sympathise with the coptic plea, but really this artist is not notable at all in Egypt Omar Filini 01:51, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • The fact that I share the same last name with Dr Fanous does not mean it is a religious issue! If you as an Egyptian Muslim do not know who Dr Isaac Fanous is, that does not discredit the fact that 15 million Copts around the world do! He has become for us, Copts, the symbol of modern Coptic Art. afanous 21:16, 23 Jan 2005 (EST)
    • Dont assume that I am Muslim Egyptian because I am not Omar Filini 14:25, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC) the guy is simply Not notable!! [The text between the timestamp and here is all part of the same edit at 14:25, 2005 Jan 24 by Omar.]
      • [[Personal attack, by illogically supported and presumably unsupportable contradiction of previous denial, removed by Jerzy(t) 23:50, 2005 Jan 25 (UTC)] how do you know that this artist is not notable at all in Egypt??? Please clarify. Sincerely, afanous
        • Are you trying to make this about religion? because if you are then it is [personal attack removed by Jerzy(t) 23:50, 2005 Jan 25 (UTC)]. I am a catholic who has lived in Egypt for the past 20 years!! That is how I know that [Personal attack, by unsupported and presumably unsupportable contradiction of previous denial, removed by Jerzy(t) 23:50, 2005 Jan 25 (UTC)] is not Notable in Egypt (maybe only in a few coptic churches) Omar Filini 19:23, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • This is not the place for a personal or sectarian feud between the two previous participants in this particular thread of this VfD page. Both of your votes stand and will be weighed when the time comes. Nothing relevant to this VfD process remains to be said between you, and in particular no one else cares which of you is the more injured party. Neither of you should add further arguments, and if you think of further information, of an NPoV nature, that you think will be seen as relevant by undecideds, i urge you to preview it with someone who seems reasonable to you so far, either among contributors on this VfD page or among the admins, before posting it.
    At the rate this is going, it could easily end up with either or both of you barred from editing this page, or even blocked from editing for the duration of this debate. Wise up, guys.
    --Jerzy(t) 23:50, 2005 Jan 25 (UTC)
  • Delete, not notable, possible vanity. Megan1967 02:11, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • I must start this comment by noting that i have no idea what to make of this editor, and therefore this represents no position on her role in this vote. On the other hand, i have no idea what to make of this editor who has been registered a month (since Dec.23), and accumulated 1229 edits. About 1000 of those appear to be a nearly solid block of VfD votes. (BTW, on a hunch, i looked and found she voted
      Delete, vanity. Megan1967 03:30, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Marco of Alexandria (see my "Comment" bullet point below).) Of the remainder, nearly all are on pages whose titles begin List of songs by name. (I.e., they are part of a list which is analogous in structure to List of people by name.) These edits are all or nearly all in the earliest few hundred edits, and each either is summarized as
    Removed non-notable songs. See discussion Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/List of songs by name
    or appears to reflect collapsing, e.g., 7 pages covering W as first letter into a single W page, for most or all of the alphabet. I don't know what to make of this record -- or did i already say that? -- but having stumbled on it, it's too remarkable to not comment on. --Jerzy(t) 05:26, 2005 Jan 24 (UTC)
    Megan1967 responded (and Jerzy(t) reformated, in the face of chaotic formating that would have confused authorship),
    I voted delete, majority voted delete and Omar Filini voted to retain, so your point being?
    without affixing her sig or the timestamp, which would have been "23:26, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)".
    --Jerzy(t) 02:49, 2005 Jan 25 (UTC)
    • I suppose my choice of the word "hunch" fed the same odd bit of human psychology that tends to treat the unmodified word "coincidence" as ruling out the sense of "mere coincidence". Thus i invited the inference that i thought what i learned by following it was some kind of compelling "confirmation" of a hunch, despite the disclaimers before and after it -- and despite introducing it with "BTW", which i think is widely accepted as warning "Don't be distracted by this minor thing i am about to mention; it is an insignificant part of the whole." In fact, i had not so much a hunch as an estimate that since there are about 40 items a day added to VfD, M's VfD edits could be close to the number of new VfDs during her month of editing; if that were true, it would make it surprising if she hadn't voted on that at least peripherally related VfD. Indeed she had, and it seemed to me that leaving that small additional snippet out would undercut my more extensive effort to help anyone interested find a context for this exceptional vote (the only Del, then and still now, other than that of the nominator), and this remarkable history. As i clearly stated, i
    have no idea what to make of this editor
    and take
    no position on her role in this vote
    so IMO it should have been clear i intended no "point". If anyone inferred i did intend one, i'm sorry i was the occasion of that unsound inference, and i hope this clears up any doubt.
    In case there is any confusion about my phrase
    (see my "Comment" bullet point below)
    i considered it necessary to point out why i cited one particular VfD; the Comment states how that VfD may be connected with this one in some voters' minds.
    --Jerzy(t) 07:12, 2005 Jan 25 (UTC)
    • And [Personal attack removed here (see details, with this time stamp, subordinated to this bullet point) by Jerzy(t) 02:50, 2005 Jan 29 (UTC)] Jerzy has already been remarked upon. Go ahead and make personal attacks. It won't change the vote. Megan1967 23:26, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • I stated twice, without irony, that
        i have no idea what to make of this editor
      and i believe i am entitled, at least after my clarifications above, to the usual assumption of good intention, which IMO means i have clearly said that i don't know what point would be made by the information, and am simply presenting information. If it escaped anyone's notice that the irony on the third, paraphrased, repetition was self-mocking, in response to my being flustered by such a remarkable history, this is my clarification: No point. Just information. And thus, far less any personal attack.
      On the other hand, M, you refer not to the unsubstantiated statement by Omar that lies close at hand, that i "seem [emphasis added by Jerzy(t)] to [be?] vandalizing all [his] edits", but to "[my] record of vandalism" as would be justified only if you have knowledge that such a record exists. If you have knowledge of such a record, i think you are obligated to offer some evidence. If you have just chosen to believe in what Omar is apparently tempted to infer, because that being accurate would be convenient to your purposes, you have made a personal attack on me. In the absence of your either offering evidence of a record of vandalism by me, or disowning the personal attack, i will remove your personal attack and replace it by my summary of the matter.
      --Jerzy(t) 07:12, 2005 Jan 25 (UTC)
      • [Personal attack removed by Jerzy(t) 23:50, 2005 Jan 25 (UTC)]! why do you think you have the right to remove other people's words and replace them with a summary of your own!?!?!? [Personal attack removed by Jerzy(t) 23:50, 2005 Jan 25 (UTC)] Omar Filini 17:54, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • [Regarding the personal attack, to which this is subordinate by one bullet level, and which i removed above at 02:50, 2005 Jan 29 (UTC): The removed material, according to its author, "stat[ed] a claim by another editor which I took on good faith". Without suggesting that bad faith on her part was involved, i regard it as a personal attack for the following reasons:
      1. The thrust of that contrib is that my citation of her remarkable record (my terms) should be discounted because i submitted it; that is a textbook example of argumentum ad hominem AKA personal attack. While the context, including any inferred intent of the author, can be important in remediation and in the justification of the policy, the essential element of a personal attack is the focus on the individual, and the main target of the policy is the attack rather than the author. So one might stop at this point.
      2. While to some extent "meaning no harm" and having acted with reasonable caution is irrelevant (neither protects an attack from removal), i address that area to demonstrate the attack is not de minimis in terms of the policy's intent to protect individuals. Her accepting the claim "[based] on [assuming that User:Omar Filini so claimed in] good faith" (if that is what her reference to "good faith" means) is not in this case compliance with "assume good intent", since concluding i had engaged in vandalism meant assuming i had acted with bad intent. (In fact, whether or not Omar received her assumption of good intent, i did not.) And if there were a need to decide which of two colleagues more deserved that assumption, she had reason not to choose the one who (the day before) had 23 edits since registering 17 days earlier, and had been "prominent" (as i described it) in a troubled VfD: She had reason because of the post that immediately preceded, and provoked, the one she says she relied upon in inferring that a "record of vandalism" existed; if she was reasonable enough to read it, she knew that those things had been stated about him, read by him, and not contested by him. And she had further reason: if she had an impulse to believe his vague charge, and his audacious claim to judge so quickly what vandalism means here, consider the fact that she had (if she acted reasonably) seen a link to Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Marco of Alexandria in that preceding post. On that other VfD, a reasonably acting editor could easily have evaluated the behavior of each the nine other IP or newly minted editors allied to Omar, and have estimated the number of independent voters among them, as an aid to evaluating his claim to the benefit of the usual assumption. (Checking exhaustively there for vandalism of Omar's contribs by me would have of course demanded a little more Wiki sophistication.)
      3. While falsehood is not a necessary element of a personal attack, it is IMO another aggravating circumstance that can reinforce the need for removal, in support of the protective role of the policy. The claim was "you seem to vandalizing all my edits and trying to discredit all my actions here!" i.e., (even allowing for inserting the word "be" to make it grammatical) literally not a claim of vandalism but of a subjective sense of it probably having occurred. On the other hand, the removed material was "your vandalism is on record", literally asserting not that the record includes charges of vandalism but that vandalism by me existed, and is "on record", and the circumstances indicate in two ways that the author intended to assert that substance:
        1. the statement is irrelevant to its context unless (in addition to ignoring the ad hom fallacy) the claims are at least credible
        2. presumably understanding that (while avoiding the literal statement can help excuse the intimations to the same effect) authors are responsible for their literal statements unless the intimations are clearly to the contrary, she chose "your vandalism is on record" where either the free inference "a vandalism charge against you is on record" or the literally true "a suggestion of vandalism by you is on record" was an easy substitution.
  • Comment: Nominator & Del voter Omar Filini has 23 edits starting Jan 6, and was prominent in defending Marco of Alexandria against deletion on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Marco of Alexandria, nominated Jan 1 and called Jan 7, a disorderly and IP-ridden process. It was suggested Omar and Marco are one person. Those voting may want to consider whether this nomination is abuse of WP to prove a point by contrasting or comparing Marco's and Fanous's verifiability of notability. --Jerzy(t) 05:26, 2005 Jan 24 (UTC)
    • Jerzy Do you have a specific problem with me???? you seem to vandalizing all my edits and trying to discredit all my actions here! and no I am not Marco of Alexandria, and by the way since you brought it up. Marco of Alexandria is more notable than Isaac Fanous and it is not the question of being a Muslim or Christian because they are both Christians as far as I know; but I don't think Marco was Coptic, maybe Catholic or Protestant otherwise he will be called Morcos and not Marco. Omar Filini 14:25, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC) The reason I was Supporting Marco is because I am very much into the art scene here in Egypt and I know much about it; I did add a few names to the List of Egyptian Painters page and plan to write articles about a few. And that is why I nominated this article for deletion because I know that this person is not nearly as notable as anyone on the list; regardless of his position in the coptic church; as an Artist he is not notable at all. [The text from the red link to a non-existent article sharing my username, to here, is all part of the same edit at 14:25, 2005 Jan 24 by Omar.]
  • Keep. Isaac Fanous seems to be a notable person in Coptic religious art. In my view, this makes him notable enough for Wikipedia.Capitalistroadster 09:30, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Seems borderline notable. Wouldn't hurt to have some pictures of his work, or at least descriptions of where it might be found. I would urge my fellow editors to limit particularly verbose commentary to appropriate talk pages. Remember to be civil, avoid personal attacks, and practice WikiLove. --TenOfAllTrades 17:06, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Pages linked by Google seem to establish notability for reviving an art form. Could certainly use expansion, though. --Carnildo 20:14, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep, since as the chair of the institute he has some notability -- Chris 73 Talk 00:03, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep, this figure establishes notability in his field. Perhaps not "encyclopedic" but certainly and easily notable enough for Wikipedia. GRider\talk 18:07, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Notable enough. Page could use some work, but keep. Bacchiad 08:26, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. I'm Egyptian and I'm aware of the work of Isaac Fanous. The page needs much work, however. --Alif 22:37, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. While the debate seems to centered around the artist's fame, I believe the article should remain and the content being edited to remove any unfounded assertions. ItisIAnonymous 20:26, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • keep! Dwain 22:32, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
  • keep based on basic google research Mozzerati 22:56, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.