Laodice (wife of Mithridates II of Commagene) ( talk| | history| logs| links| watch) ( XfD| restore)

Closed as "redirect and merge" despite nobody in the discussion finding evidence that this person ever existed. There was never any "Laodice" who married Mithridates II of Commagene, the whole thing was the invention of a single user who misread a source (so it was claimed in the nomination). Nobody at all rebutted this: there were two voters (1 keep and 1 merge) who took verifiability for granted and mistakenly assumed that the discussion was about notability, but they showed no evidence that WP:V was met, and 5 other participants (not all of whom voted delete) found no evidence that this person existed either. So, shouldn't topics who can't be verified to exist be deleted on the spot, or am I missing something? Avilich ( talk) 19:33, 18 February 2022 (UTC) reply

I have asked the closing administrator for an explanation. It was established (without dispute) in the discussion that no Laodice is known to have been married to Mithridates II of Commagene, and so I cannot see what possible good can come from redirecting Laodice (wife of Mithridates II of Commagene) to Mithridates II of Commagene. Surtsicna ( talk) 19:54, 18 February 2022 (UTC) reply

It's baffling that he reached the exact opposite conclusion: from my reading of the AfD everybody seemed to assume that she was indeed the king's wife. Avilich ( talk) 20:01, 18 February 2022 (UTC) reply

I am... surprised... that anyone can interpret my comments in that AfD as "assum[ing] that she was indeed the king's wife". Caeciliusinhorto ( talk) 14:37, 20 February 2022 (UTC) reply

• Overturn to delete. Nobody even attempted to refute the nominator's assertion that the subject doesn't exist. The fact the person doesn't exist means it's not an appropriate search term and any merge would be a very bad idea, and core policy places the burden of proof on those who claim the subject does exist. I don't see how you can possibly read that AfD and conclude that everyone thought the subject existed and was the king's wife. The article only cited this source, which does not support the assertion that the subject existed: The first family member named in the inscription is Mithridates, son of Antiochos (line 4)... The names of Mithridates and his father recall those of king Mithradates II and of his father Antiochus I. Furthermore, Mithridates’ wife Laodike (line 6) carried the same name as the mother of king Antiochus I. This only says that Laodike/Laodice was married to someone called Mithridates, but that Mithridates wasn't king Mithradates II. Hut 8.5 12:50, 19 February 2022 (UTC) reply
  • I attempted it. But as I reported I kept turning up a different person instead. Uncle G ( talk) 10:37, 22 February 2022 (UTC) reply
    • OK, I meant more that nobody tried to argue in the AfD that the nominator was wrong and the subject does in fact exist. Hut 8.5 12:43, 22 February 2022 (UTC) reply
• Endorse and start a talk page discussion. There is clear consensus to not have a standalone article. There is an ongoing dispute about whether the Mithridates of the inscription is in fact Mithridates II of Commagene. Relisting would have been fine, although I'd think that an immediate RFD listing might be a permissible place to seek further consensus on the second issue. Jclemens ( talk) 18:53, 19 February 2022 (UTC) reply

There is an ongoing dispute about whether the Mithridates of the inscription is in fact Mithridates II of Commagene Uh, no there isn't? Point me out a single person who argued that he is, or there isn't. Avilich ( talk) 19:01, 19 February 2022 (UTC) reply

Jclemens, did you mean a scholarly dispute? Because I certainly do not see one among editors. Either way, please point it out for us. Surtsicna ( talk) 21:12, 19 February 2022 (UTC) reply

• Closer's comment: I was not notified of this discussion. In my view, the AfD resulted in consensus against keeping the article, but not in sufficiently clear consensus to delete it. If it cannot be verified that there was a wife of this king with this name, WP:RFD would be the next appropriate step. Sandstein 10:43, 20 February 2022 (UTC) reply

That is really not how it should work. A discussion has already found that the existence of the subject cannot be verified. Her (non-)existence was the very subject of the AfD. Not a single user in the deletion discussion argued (let alone proved) that she did exist. I do not see how this should not have resulted in the deletion of the article under WP:DEL-REASON #6 and #7. Surtsicna ( talk) 11:07, 20 February 2022 (UTC) reply

• ( edit conflict)As the closing admin you are expected to make sure your close is compliant with core content policies, which includes verifiability, regardless of the content of the discussion. THe verifiability policy is clear that the burden of proof is on those seeking to add or retain content. If the subject's existence hasn't been verified then Delete is the only valid closure. Hut 8.5 11:08, 20 February 2022 (UTC) reply

• In the AfD, Peterkingiron argued for merging because "we know next to nothing of her, only a name". That's an argument for her existence, and not a baseless one: the article cited a paper by de:Michael Alexander Speidel, a professor of classical studies, who makes reference to "Mithridates' wife Laodike" in an altar inscription on p. 9. It's only on a closer reading of the source that I agree with the AfD nominator that the source makes clear that the Mithridates mentioned in the source is not the king and therefore the Laodike mentioned was not the king's wife. As an editor, I agree that this means that deletion would have been the correct outcome, but that's an editorial assessment arrived at after reading the sources. Doing that and making editorial decisions based on it is the AfD participants' job, not the closer's. On this basis I still can't say that the AfD established consensus for deletion, even though that's only because the "keep" and "merge" participants didn't read the source. Sandstein 22:11, 20 February 2022 (UTC) reply

not a baseless one But it is baseless, since he based it on nothing (on a misunderstanding rather than an actual reading of the source) and was explicitly corrected by Caeciliusinhorto afterwards (that alone should've been enough). even though that's only because the "keep" and "merge" participants didn't read the source. But WP:DGFA and WP:NHC mandate that you discard arguments that show no understanding of the matter, or that contradict policy – obvious and straightforward. The consensus of those who read the source and understood the issue was unanimous, and nobody needs you to do the same thing now to arrive at the same conclusion. I also don't see how consensus is lacking with a supermajority of 3 delete votes against 1 merge "vote" (who evidently didn't spend any time understanding the discussion in the first place). Avilich ( talk) 22:51, 20 February 2022 (UTC) reply

I understand that the outcome in this case is unsatisfactory, but I must reject on procedural grounds an obligation for the closing admin to read and analyze the sources of an article for themselves and to determine who among the AfD participants has read and understood the sources correctly. This would be a massive amount of work, and it would also oblige the closer to cast a supervote - to determine the AfD on the merits for themselves. That's not a closer's job; they are there to determine rough consensus in a discussion. Thats why I as closer limit myself to evaluating the prima facie plausibility of AfD opinions, without necessarily reading either the article or its sources. This will sometimes lead to the wrong outcome, as it did here, but in this case a new discussion can always be had at XfD. Sandstein 09:44, 21 February 2022 (UTC) reply

That's all true, but it's completely irrelevant to this AFD because you didn't have to do it. No editor opining for an outcome other than deletion of this article addressed the nominator's arguments in the least. And no editor suggested a merge or redirect or anything of the sort to Mithridates II of Commagene. We can't "merge/redirect to her husband" as Peterkingiron suggested because, as even the most superficial reading of the nomination shows, we don't have an article on him. This isn't even a close call. If this isn't a correctable error, then we should stop falsely claiming in DRV's header that discussions that resulted in outcomes other than "delete" are reviewable. — Cryptic 11:14, 21 February 2022 (UTC) reply

No, only reading the actual source made clear that Peterkingiron was mistaken in their "merge" proposal, but as I said it can't be the job of the closer to engage in source analysis. For the reasons mentioned above, I don't think I would be procedurally correct in reverting my closure: deleting this mistakenly created article is an editorial decision, not an administrative one. But I've now done what the DRV filer should have done to save us time: submitted the redirect to a forum authorized of making such editorial decisions, at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2022_February_21#Laodice_(wife_of_Mithridates_II_of_Commagene). Sandstein 17:50, 21 February 2022 (UTC) reply

No, only reading the actual source made clear that Peterkingiron was mistaken Anyone who reads the discussion can see that is flat out untrue, not only from Peterkingiron's failure to meet WP:BURDEN (this in itself should already have been enough), but also from this comment which explicitly pointed out how he was wrong. Did you even bother reading the discussion? Your statement at the beginning (from my reading of the AfD everybody seemed to assume that she was indeed the king's wife), and your refusal to acknowledge the other relevant parts of the discussion which make the central point clear without need to recourse to the source itself, pretty much shows you didn't. Avilich ( talk) 20:26, 21 February 2022 (UTC) reply

Yes, others pointed out Peterkingiron's mistake in the discussion, but, as a closer, there was no way for me to determine whether what they said was a mistake was indeed a mistake without reading the source at issue - which, again, is not a closer's job. Avilich, you are coming across as aggressive and uncollegial both in the AfD, on my talk page and here, which are not good qualities in a Wikipedian. I advise you to drop the stick and accept that you will not always get what you want in AfDs - and that your chances to do so will increase if you follow process (in this case, a follow-up RfD) and try to convince colleagues rather than to bludgeon them. Sandstein 20:59, 21 February 2022 (UTC) reply

No, but taking into account both Peterkingiron's and Moonraker's opinions (very poorly argued though the latter was), I concluded that this specific discussion did not quite reach the required consensus for deleteion. WP:DGFA instructs administrators: "When in doubt, don't delete" (bold in the original), and in my view there was sufficient doubt to let further editorial process determine the existence or not of the article subject. And that's quite enough of this badgering for me; I'll not respond further here. Sandstein 21:34, 21 February 2022 (UTC) reply

• Overturn to delete I gave the closer some crap earlier, but I'm inclined to cut some slack here. It wasn't clear from the discussion that there really is no debate that this isn't a queen, but rather someone else with a husband who had the same name as the king. Closing as a redirect was plainly in error IMO (and you won't hear me say that too often) but it's an easy error to have made. And if the target article said even a bit about the error made by the historian, then this would be a fine redirect. But it doesn't. So until it does, this redirect shouldn't exist. Hobit ( talk) 02:35, 22 February 2022 (UTC) reply
• Overturn to delete. There was no need to go to the article's sources, all the relevant information was already given in the AfD. The argument was made that the subject of the article doesn't exist, it wasn't countered by anyone, and it was in fact missed by some of the participants. And the fact that the argument was missed by those arguing against deletion was in turn missed by the closer (and as far as I can see, by one DRV participant as well). Even the most experienced editors make omissions like this one. I think that out of this I'll take a note to myself to make the effort to be absolutely sure I know exactly what is being talked about before closing or participating in any discussion. – Uanfala (talk) 14:26, 23 February 2022 (UTC) reply

• Overturn to delete- I gave this a bit of thought as I think Sandstein makes a lot of good points. However, ultimately I am against writing articles, or even redirects, based on misreading source material. I think the delete !voters therefore were correct. When you get down to it this is just an elaborate variation of the Stupping Ton. Reyk _YO! 00:28, 1 March 2022 (UTC) reply
• Comment. I've just realised that the article should be archived at WP:HOAXLIST, as an inadvertent hoax that survived for over 13 years. – Uanfala (talk) 00:41, 1 March 2022 (UTC) reply