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. Walton ^{Need some help?} 09:17, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nadia Morris Osipovich[edit]

Nadia Morris Osipovich (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

non-notable - Google has 0 for Nadia-Osipovich, 125 for Nadia Morris Osipovich, virtually all of them a copy of this article DeanReed 15:54, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete with analogy to WP:HOLE. YechielMan 23:03, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached
 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 02:00, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• SPEEDY Delete Holy crackers! Per BLP--this Verona papers list that she's apparently extracted from is WP:OR and fails WP:V, WP:RS, and a number of others. It should be speedied as well--pretty much defames . Yipes! Wysdom 18:55, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - she's most likely been dead since 1992, so relax. She's not going to sue anytime soon. (Of course we shouldn't be writing falsehoods about the dead either, but this information is quite reliable.) Biruitorul 05:01, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, by a different interpretation of her presence on the list. She is one of those mentioned in this and the other books. As there has been considerable comment about the Verona project, it seems likely that some of it will be about her, and that the article is sourceable, though i will require printed sources. I mentioned in the discussion of the list (see below), it is advisable to have articles on the individuals to give the available information so readers can judge for themselves (some were self-admitted spies, some mere prospects). As for BLP, the information is derived from government documents, and the article just reports it. DGG 00:11, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• A compromise then--because, I'm sorry, matters of libel and defamation re: living people are far too serious to just take your (or anyone's) word for it: The list and all little bios associated with it need to be blanked, and can be restored as they're verifiably sourced. That would be my solution. I'm not comfortable just letting this sort of thing "hang out there" waiting for you to add sources which might not exist as clearly, reliably, or verifiably as you seem to believe they do--or be easily accessible. This is going to be a huge project and every day these potentially defamatory, unverifiable statements stay up without citation is a day too long. Can we agree? Wysdom 00:56, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong Keep. This is a well-referenced article, on an important historical topic. I do not see anything "defamatory" here, just sourced information, from two well-respected historians (both with their own wiki pages), from a book published by the prestigious Yale University Press. Let's add content to articles, not spike them! Turgidson 01:48, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I reply on the AfD for the List, as most of the discussion is there. I'll just mention here that i myself do not have any intention of working on this article. DGG 02:06, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• • Comment Turgidson, do you really believe that? People from WWII are still alive in abundance. So this is a potentially living person (BLP) there "extraordinary claims require extraordinary sources". A single source that's not cited to any part of the text above (what came from the source? How much of it?) is NOT "well sourced"... not even if this were a stub about Ben-10 would that be considered //good// sourcing. If you want to do the work and correct this, do it. But it has to remain blanked until you've sourced it. Once again, that is the only acceptable alternative to deletion, in my eyes. I'm not lobbying to have the content removed/deleted/canned--just /sourced/. If we can't agree to do that, then it has to go. --Wysdom 02:14, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong keep - referenced, and notable, as she engaged in subversive activity against the US Government. Moreover, the phantasm of BLP is inapplicable here, as, according to the SSDI, a Nadia M. Osipovich (and really, how many can there be?) has been dead since 1992. Biruitorul 03:53, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is everybody who "engaged in subversive activity against the US Government" notable? I'm not sure of that. This is someone who is mentioned in ONE decrypted Venona transmission; almost nothing seems to be known about her but that, whether personally or in terms of her alleged subversive activity. Furthermore, the article has but one source, and this is a source whose conclusions have been disputed in terms of the surety of identification of some of the people it names. No detail is given as to why Haynes and Klehr believe that she was "Watchdog" in the Venona decrypts. As to looking her up in the SSDI lists, isn't that the very definition of original research? I have no way of being sure that the person named in this article is the same person you found in the SSDI lists, and neither have you. In summation, I believe that there are not sufficient sources nor sufficient known information to have this article. So, Delete Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 08:07, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • No, but her subversion was particularly damaging. And actually, SSDI is a valid source - certainly not OR. At least I've used it to supply a number of dates. Anyway, your argument fails Occam's razor: the chances that there were two women in the US named Nadia M. Osipovich who were in their mid-40s during WWII is negligible. Biruitorul 08:36, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • My two cents. Not just in the US, but in the State of Oregon! (That's what the SSDI records indicate, and that's what the Venona papers indicate, too). Turgidson 14:50, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • If her subversion was particularly damaging, it is not listed in this article. If there are good claims to notability such as that, it would be useful to actually have them here (provided they can be specifically sourced, of course). As to the SSDI, I still consider it OR to use it unless it is wholly confirmed it's the same person in an independent source. I have no idea how common that name might be, but duplicate names aren't that uncommon. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 04:56, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • Well, in a pinch it'll do, and there aren't a ton of sources on her. Plus we can use a footnote indicating where we got her dates. But let's be realistic - duplicate names of John Smith are very common. However: Osipovich is a South Slavic name, and there aren't that many South Slavs in the US (now or in the 1940s). And Oregon had only a million people then, and isn't particularly known as a Serbian or Croatian haven. So the chances that two people would be named Osipovich in Oregon, much less Nadia M. Osipovich, are indeed trivial. Biruitorul 14:02, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I can answer the question raised above, "No detail is given as to why Haynes and Klehr believe that she was "Watchdog" in the Venona decrypts." Well, the details are now in the article. To wit, the actual transcript of the Venona intercept (available from the Venona web site, operated by the National Security Agency), says, and I quote: "ZhUChKA: i.e. "WATCHDOG," Nadia Morris OSIPOVICH, a naturalized American citizen living in PORTLAND". This was established at the time by the people from the Signals Intelligence Service. Harvey and Khler do not simply "believe" that, they record what they found in the archive, which by the way is now open to everyone for inspection. Turgidson 14:53, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks for looking that up - that level of sourcing I think is a minimum. I still believe that most of the people identified in VENONA are not notable, however, and that too little is known about them for a biographical article. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 04:45, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong delete. This is not a biography, this is a mention of a name in a decryption. This belongs on a list, not in an article of its own. Delete unless there is some other source of biographical information. Gamaliel (Orwellian Cyber hell master) 19:40, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Insufficient sources to warrant an article, delete unless more are forthcoming. --Michael Snow 06:27, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - For one, even though she may or may not be living, we can't call her a Soviet spy because she's never admitted to or been convicted of anything, nor is there any overwhelming historical evidence or information which tends to implicate this person beyond any and all reasonable doubt. So what we're left with is a permanent one-sentence subsubsubsubstub about someone who may or may not have been connected with Soviet intelligence 60 years ago. FCYTravis 00:27, 2 May 2007 (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.