Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marion Kozak

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 no consensus. Mark Arsten (talk) 05:01, 9 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Marion Kozak

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Mother of two, spouse on one, notable persons. Notability is not inherited, nor born. No stand alone WP:NOTE criteria met. Ditch ∝ 05:03, 2 August 2012 (UTC) Ditch ∝ 05:03, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - she isn't notable for anything at all apart from all the coatracking of other associated notable things.. - Youreallycan 05:16, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Because: 1 Firstly this article was created less than 24 hours ago and has not been reviewed and read by more experts in this field to get their input, so this nomination is far too hasty. 2 Some users are involved in all sorts of ongoing disputes about the Milibands and seem to be conducting a campaign (vendetta would be a better word) on WP against the Milibands, often getting into disputes about the levels of their "Jewishness" or not, for unknown reasons in violation of WP:NOTSOAPBOX and WP:POINT. 3 The article cites plentiful independent WP:RS and WP:REF that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the subject is obviously by now the matriarch of a British political dynasty, especially since the 2010 rise of Ed Miliband to become leader of the UK Opposition. Since then, from all the media scrutiny and press coverage of her it emerges that she was very clearly a full partner with her famous husband Marxist scholar Ralph Miliband and has played a key role in the lives and political development of her two famous sons, Ed Miliband and David Miliband, who are at the apex of the leadership of the UK's Labour Party at the present time. 4 It's facetious and absurd to say, oh la-dee-da, she is just a "mother of two, spouse on one" as if she was the lowly washerwoman or maid. One could say the same thing for Napoleon's mother Letizia Ramolino that she was "just a mother and wife." Same goes for Sara Roosevelt FDR's mother, all she was was just a "mother and wife" -- until FDR rose to fame -- but she gets an article no matter that she did "nothing more" than support FDR to the hilt, and as later researchers have uncovered, her role in directing his political career as long as she lived. So Letizia Ramolino, Sara Roosevelt, and other such "mothers and wives" -- eventually recognized and acknowledged as matriarchs and progenitors -- eventually get WP articles about themselves because with closer scrutiny and research (today, good journalism does in days and weeks, what used to take scholars centuries to uncover and admit ). 5 Thus it becomes very clear she has and does play an absolute key role in the life and career of her family's (mostly Marxist and Socialist) ideology, politics and impact on British society and the world (her son David was the British Foreign Secretary in the previous Labour government), that anyone can see for themselves by just reading the articles cited in the article's references, and there are are many more like this devoted to her role and influence. 6 There are other factors that make Marion Kozak Miliband WP:NOTABLE by virtue of her status as a, by now well-known Holocaust survivor, political activist for radical causes that by simply adding her name and support to them gives it a "Miliband seal of approval" (her sons are complicit in her causes) that could not be understood without knowing more about her. 7 The fact that she chooses to remain private and mysterious makes scholars more curious about her and not less, because there is still a lot more to discover about this woman who with her family, has come into the public eye by taking more mega political power and clout for themselves, and therefore she has risen to fame whether she likes it or nor and whether anyone else likes it or not. In 2012 it's become a provable and verifiable fact. IZAK (talk) 07:53, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Poland-related deletion discussions. IZAK (talk) 07:53, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. IZAK (talk) 07:53, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. IZAK (talk) 07:53, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. IZAK (talk) 07:53, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletion discussions. IZAK (talk) 07:53, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Marion Kozak is the head matriarch of a British political dynasty.. ^{[citation needed]} - Youreallycan 08:07, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See the article Marion Kozak#Influence and stance towards her sons and please click on all the sources that are cited therein and READ them. Her two sons have been a dominant if not domineering force in the Labour Party, and hence on the British political scene for at least twenty years rising in power every step of their careers from the early 1990s. What kind of "citation" are you looking for in any case? The Encyclopedia Britannica has just gone out of print, in any case it only had about 80,000+ articles, and who knows how long it will take them to make up their minds and write an article like this. In the meantime WP, with 4 MILLION+ articles and tens of thousands of willing and well-informed editors, is closer to the action to report on reality and facts far quicker...again, just read the sources based on good journalism in the article, all from reliable British papers that know their subject intimately. IZAK (talk) 08:20, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Notability is not inherited, in either direction. Just because her husband and sons are notable does not mean she is. Claiming that editors who wish this article to be deleted are conducting some sort of vendetta against the Milibands is childish. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:35, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Sorry Necro, it's not "childish" to point out that the Milibands' Jewishness has been a hot button issue on WP for years on various forums. It keeps on coming up over and over again. Just take a look at the current debate at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Ed Miliband to see the ongoing yo-yoing about the Milibands' "Jewishness" -- what do editors want already when they wage into that aspect of the Milibands' lives? Makes one wonder. As for your first point, indeed notability is not inherited I agree fully, but once research reveals significant connections, beyond just being a "wife and mother" the story becomes important and must be told. IZAK (talk) 11:06, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - Whether the Milibands' Jewishness is or is not a contentious issue, it is utterly irrelevant to whether an article on their mother should be kept and you should not be linking the two issues, which implies this nomination was due to some sort of vendetta. Nominating the article for deletion was prefectly acceptable given our notability guidelines. You simply cannot compare the Milibands with Napoleon or FDR, both of whom were heads of state and both of whom are vastly more notable than any of the three Milibands who have articles (and personally I'd even be on the fence about the notability of FDR's mother). My opinion stands. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:24, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    - Necro, I respect your opinion but beg to differ. Napoleon lived over 200 years ago and FDR died in 1945, so that's a long time ago, and at the time few scholars would have focused on their mothers as being notable for encyclopedias, something that was put into writing much later by researchers and scholars. But we have come a long way since then. Responsible journalism combined with the Internet have put important information at our disposal at lightning speed. The Milibands are young and are still rising stars in British politics. David has been Foreign Secretary and Ed is now leader of the Opposition, and they have held other powerful posts for the last 20 years in Labour politics, and they are still at center stage going strong. Their Jewish ancestry is a big deal in the public and scholarly eye and this article, among many other things, would shut off that debate on WP once and for all, as well as transmit a far more complex and multi-dimensional side to the entire Miliband family, father, mother, and sons. You cannot have or know any of them without knowing all the other components as well. IZAK (talk) 22:59, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to Ralph Miliband#Personal life, this person is not notable enough to have a separate article here, but the content itself is good. I propose that the content be merged to Ralph Miliband#Personal life, where it would be within that articles scope. Quasihuman (talk • contribs) 09:40, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - fails WP:BIO and WP:NOTINHERITED. ukexpat (talk) 13:58, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Beyond the rush to judgment here, the coverage in multiple reliable and verifiable sources about here and her experiences, as in The Telegraph article cited here title "The miraculous escape of Marion Miliband", make it clear that the subject is independently notable. Whether her husband or children have inherited her notability should be addressed at those articles. Alansohn (talk) 16:04, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Whether her husband or children have inherited her notability should be addressed at those articles? - her husband was a notable Marxist and both her children are notable politicians, they did not inherit notability from her in any way - When all the content about other people and other events is removed there is/will be nothing left - she is not a notable holocaust survivor at all - she was seven when she left to Belgium - she has been written about due to her sons being notable but there is absolutally nothing notable about her. - If this biography is kept I will edit all the content about other people and events she was not involved in out of it and there will be almost nothing left - Youreallycan 18:00, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - Youreallycan: Threats of WP:VANDALISM in the future are not a good argument to delete it now. Children of the Holocaust who rise to fame, no matter how young they were at the time are also known as Holocaust survivors, they don't have to have been notable during the Holocaust itself necessarily, unless you know that's the rule, which it isn't. Just to be clear, in light of all the lengthy and repeated discussions that have arisen on various WP forums about Ed and David Miliband's "Jewish" status over and over again, just for that this article about their mother would be WP:N because it clarifies once and for all that she was and is Jewish, had deep Jewish roots and definite Jewish parents in Poland, she went through the Holocaust in Poland, her large family was murdered by the Nazis, she was somehow saved by nuns in Warsaw, and then came as a Jewish refugee to England in the 1950s. Thus according to all the criteria as explained in Who is a Jew? Ed and David Miliband are Jewish by birth, full stop, regardless of what else they have done with their lives and there is no need to judge or question that issue over and over again on WP as this article would authoritatively close off that ongoing wasteful debate. In addition to the fact that her being a prominent Jewess of very left-wing political persuasions and lends her name and efforts to left-wing causes is important, as described in the article, because it therefore explains where her sons are coming from and why they too are such die-hard left-wing politicians, and why they identify with left-wing causes. Much like it being impossible to understand Napoleon or FDR, as cited above, without understanding the early and ongoing influences these powerful mothers had on their sons. IZAK (talk) 22:25, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Merge & Redirect, after reviewing what sources I can find on the internet, the subject does not appear to pass WP:AUTHOR, as the four publications does not appear to pass the third criteria of said guideline. Additionally subject does not appear to pass WP:GNG; although the subject is mentioned multiple times in news sources, and mentions in books, none of them appear to meet Significant coverage. One possible exception is this article in the Telegraph, however it can be argued that the "piece together" nature of the article, as the article itself states, can mean it (the article) is more about the events around the subject and not the subject herself. All that being said, what content that can be verified can be merged with the article & section Ralph Miliband#Personal life, as suggested by Quasihuman. If the content regarding the subject of this present article increases to the point where the article regarding Ralph Miliband expands to the point where said article meets WP:TOOLONG this article can always be recreated as a subarticle.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 02:04, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep the woman is a Holocaust survivor. She escaped almost certain death at the hands of the Nazis. I am reading: "Marion’s story – a miraculous tale of survival against all odds – has never been properly told, and she is reluctant to speak about it publicly. But The Sunday Telegraph has been able to piece together fragments of her past; a past that shapes the characters of her two successful, competitive sons. Hers is a journey of survival through occupied Poland that relied on help from a German factory boss, nuns in a convent and other Jews and non-Jews alike."[1] The remainder of that article is equally astounding. She doesn't have to "inherit" notability from her sons or husband in order for Wikipedia to devote an article to her. Just her survival as a Jew in war-torn and Nazi-antisemitic Europe provides sufficient noteworthiness. Bus stop (talk) 13:17, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Hang on, are you really saying that every Holocaust survivor is notable enough for an article? Every single Jewish person who survived the Third Reich? Surely not? That really would be taking notability too far. Why not every single soldier who survived the Second World War? -- Necrothesp (talk) 18:14, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Necrothes—There is a technical reason why every Holocaust survivor would not be notable for an article: sources. If sources are lacking then how could we substantiate any of the material in such an article? But even the sparse details that we have indicate that Marion Kozak's was a harrowing survival ordeal. For a variety of reasons another individual's corresponding experience in similar circumstances may remain undocumented. In many cases there could not possibly be an article such as this. The theater of war and the mechanisms of extermination were hardly trifling dangers. This is an article on someone who somehow survived an ever-present threat to her life. Sources are documenting it, although admittedly with insufficient detail. But the details we have should probably establish that this is one of the many who passed through the mechanism of destruction that was the Holocaust. That is significant and in my opinion that is notable. Bus stop (talk) 19:02, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Clearly an influential person in her own right who has been in the public eye independent of her husband and sons. Insufficient grounds for merge with husband, seeing that she clearly has independent notability. JFW | T@lk 15:28, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Let some users edit the article for a few weeks, it certainly does not deserve a hasty deletion. --Yoavd (talk) 18:19, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I'm surprised nobody has remembered or seen reason to mention Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marion Miliband - it was only six months ago. Though I seem to remember that, even though it covered much of the same information, that article as being rather different from this on one, so I don't think we are in WP:G4 territory. Also, from a quick search back then and a quicker recap now, there are enough mentions of her (under both maiden and married names) on GScholar to suggest that she had scholarly influence that went well beyond just being her husband's wife and her sons' mother - however, there seem to be few if any explicit citations of publications by her, so (until someone, probably some years from now, researches that aspect of her life) it may not count all that much towards verifiable notability separate from that of her husband. I get the impression that that may be the way she wants it. PWilkinson (talk) 20:21, 4 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Biographical article on Kozak is a major source on her; plenty of other sources for independent information about her. As for all the "notability is not inherited" arguments: Sure, some of the media interest -- maybe a lot of it -- stems from her more notable family members but that doesn't mean she, herself, is not notable. While "notability is not inherited" in terms of Wikipedia articles (one notable thing does not mean that all subparts or related topics are notable) notability can, and often is, "inherited" in the real world -- and if sufficient scholarship and popular attention has turned on a topic, then it is per se notable, regardless of whether we here at Wikipedia think the subject deserved notability. --Lquilter (talk) 06:50, 6 August 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.