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. Joyous 02:17, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

Francis Sant-Cassia[edit]

Reasons for deletion:

This page is not written in the style of an encyclopedia. It is largely written in the first person and gives personal opinions about the outcome of a the investigation into the murder of said Francis Sant-Cassia, which makes it an opinion article.

Quote: "Who and why he was murdered in such manner. Were there many high positioned peoples involved perhaps in Government and the Church who had been involved in a cover-up? The Courts of Malta and the Police, including Scotland Yard unable to pinpoint the real reason of his murder?

Those I have meet have all found the late Count to have been generous in all manner, so why and who murdered such a man of high privilege? Now Malta has joined the EU, should it be taken up to be resolved? His descendants and relatives still suffer to this day and I pity them tremendously. The Noble family of Sant-Cassia suffer not knowing who murdered their family member and why should it be left unknown. Bring to justice all of those associated to his death and those who had something to benefit from his painful death."

The author also makes a personal plea for the beatification of this man, giving the article a lobbying slant in the bargain.

Quote: "Lets promote the cause of Count Francis Sant-Cassia’s beatification. A SAINT of Malta’s 20th century should be remembered for his good deeds and honors then his horrible departure."

This page should be thus be deleted because, as is, it has little place in body of encyclopedic knowledge. --80.58.20.235 15:29, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Here we have the typical case in which the decision to put an article on VfD is influenced by the article's poor style. Francis Sant-Cassia, as it stands, is an essay and thus completely unacceptable as an encyclopedia article. However, I would argue that baron Sant-Cassia himself deserves an article. He has a certain importance... Phils 16:40, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. I've rewritten the article, and tried to distill the facts from the former version, although this made it basically a stub. Unfortunately, there were not many facts in the previous version. At this point, the notability of the subject seems to rest mainly on his being the heir to a major Maltese title of nobility who was the victim of an unsolved murder in 1988. The original article mentions unspecified philanthropic activities, and the author made an unsupported appeal for his beatification, which I removed. What remains probably amounts to sufficient notability for an article, although I don't look forward to edit wars with people determined to restore the former hagiography. --BM 20:18, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Keep I am the original writer and did this article in such a manner mainly because this Count/Baron left a mark in Maltese society. His murder yet unsolved. It was best to leave such record in that manner, as people need to be reminded of who he was and remind those of what they did. If we expanded on who might have been involved, then wikipedia can easily be summonds to court on what it knows. Thats not fair. Maybe the Count should be remembered for his good deeds to society and his untimely death. Just a thought. Charles Said-Vassallo - www.maltagenealogy.com
• Comment. Charles Said-Vassallo removed the VfD tag, and I have reinstated it. There is no policy against an anon editor submitting a n article to the VfD process. As I thought he would, he also reverted to his own version, which according to the Talk page, he considers to be "perfect". I won't change my vote here since VfD hinges on whether the subject is notable, and not on the writing style or demeanor of an article's author; however, I am quite concerned about the neutrality and encyclopedic style of all these articles on Maltese nobility. They need significant cleanup and NPOV work. --[[User:BM|BM] 21:07, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • I second that. Phils 21:09, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Strong Delete, Abstain. This article is a platform for an underlying Maltese political agenda and needs massive cleanup, NPoVing. Wyss 21:56, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Can you say more? Are you saying that the subject is not fit for an encyclopedia article? --BM 22:02, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. He's notable enough. However, the version by Charles Said-Vassallo should not stand, as it is inappropriate for an encyclopedia. Shimeru 22:08, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)
  • As a side note, though, it seems most of the Maltese nobility articles could stand to be looked over. Shimeru 22:12, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep after the heavy cleanup from BM. And yes, Wyss, you do need to say more — mere POV is not grounds for deletion, for one, and certainly not Strongly (the latter is supposed to imply that policy clearly supports deletion (Wikipedia:Deletion phrases), which just isn't so. Deletion cannot be used as a stick to discourage POV pushers, if only for the reason that attracting only "neutral" persons to work on Wikipedia would leave us with a very thin user base indeed. :-) JRM 01:35, 2005 Jan 2 (UTC)
• Delete, non NPOV. Megan1967 03:32, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Keep it. Tsk, tsk, Megan1967. POV has never been a reason to delete an article, you should know better of all people. —RaD Man (talk) 11:25, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • One only has to look at other Vfds like Clitoris (censored), for example, to see that precedents have been set before and after on POV. Megan1967 00:50, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. As said, POV isn't a reason for deletion. Just needs fixing. Dan100 15:52, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. mark for fix. Cleduc 07:10, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. I am the author and have decided to have it removed. Charles Said-Vassallo

  No, you are not. You are the original author. The present version has little to do with your original. Even if it did, you already gave us permission to use it, and you cannot retroactively revoke it. I point you to the boilerplate at the bottom of the editing page: "All contributions to Wikipedia are released under the GNU Free Documentation License (see Project:Copyrights for details). If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, do not submit it." (Emphasis in the original). You are still free to edit the current version, and you are free to vote to have it deleted here, but you do not get a special say for being the original author. JRM 11:42, 2005 Jan 3 (UTC)

• Comment: This VfD was nominated by an anon. Why are we discussing this at this time? Shouldn't we wait for a valid VfD nomination to exist before we vote? Alphax (talk) 13:24, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

  Have you read BM's comment? He reinstated the VfD tag after it was removed, so that would make it "valid", no? More importantly, there is no policy that a nomination from an anon is "invalid", as far as I can tell: not on Wikipedia:Deletion policy, not on Wikipedia:Deletion process and not on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion. Why would anyone's nomination be "invalid" to begin with, if we have to judge the article on its own merits? If anons are disrupting VfD with obviously bad-faith nominations, that's another matter, but that's clearly not the case here. (It's true that the nomination was "invalid" in the sense that the original article was just heavily POV and nothing else, but I take it that's not what you're getting at). If anon nominations are a serious issue, then please make it explicit policy. I seriously object to all anons being "guilty by suspicion" on certain matters just because they're anons. You might have a case for claiming they can't vote here, though even that is iffy, but implying they can't even nominate here needs more justification. JRM 16:49, 2005 Jan 3 (UTC)

• Keep as re-written. Jayjg | (Talk) 17:44, 6 Jan 2005 (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 on the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.