Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Leon S. Talaska

:{{la|Leon S. Talaska}} ([{{fullurl:Leon S. Talaska|wpReason={{urlencode: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Leon S. Talaska}}&action=delete}} delete]) – (View AfD)(View log)

:({{find sources|Leon S. Talaska}})

Fails WP:BIO and WP:GNG: doctor did not receive any notable honor or award and did not make any significant contribution to obstetrics as can be verified by publications from the relevant field. Of the sources provided:

:*one is from a family/personal website on a domain name maintained by the author of the article (Talaska's great-grandson)

:*another is a short death notice about the topic's son from a local newspaper

:*one other is Talaska's obituary, and

:*the others (Memoirs of Lucas County and the City of Toledo and Toledo and Lucas County Ohio 1623 - 1923, a scan of which is displayed in the article) are just a short biological pieces that refer to him as "successful" and a "good citizen" with a "large private practice", but nothing suggesting that he made major contributions to his field or was the recipient of any major award or recognition.

I can't tell the quality of the other reference because I don't have a copy of the book and I can't find an electronic copy, but I wouldn't expect "History of St. Anthony's Parish" (a book about the church where Talaska was the choir director) to provide notability-giving coverage of an OB-GYN. Google web and scholar searches for "Leon Talaska Obstetrician" yield no results. — DroEsperanto (talk) 04:36, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

::—Keep This biography should not be deleted because: The not notable claim conflicts with five reputable independent references that cite Leon as the equivalent of notable. The citations are substantial for that time period of the late 1800's and very early 1900s. There is nothing wrong with providing additional references to a personal website by family of the subject so long as there are other reputable independent references of which are a sufficient supply of them for that time period. Additionally, the family website passes the test of being quite unbiased, neutral and factual. Information in Google is scarce regarding this because the references are very old and not archived online yet by their source. However there is one notable reference online with the Toledo Blade as referenced. -Unbiassed (talk) 16:21, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

:::I disagree that the existing sources are high-quality enough to establish notability. The fact that a few sources call him a "prominent doctor" means very little, especially since it seems that only Toledo-related sources seem to think so. His other claim to notability is the fact that he was the first Polish doctor in Toledo, which is thus far only supported in passing by an appositive statement in a short article in a local paper (an article which wasn't even about Leon S. Talaska), and which seems somewhat trivial to me. Should we likewise have an article for whoever was the first Italian doctor in Scranton or the first Catholic lawyer in Tallahassee? Maybe if he was the first Polish doctor in the United States, or even in Ohio, but not Toledo. As far as I can tell he wasn't a groundbreaking figure of medicine or in breaking down anti-Polish prejudice, so he remains non-notable.

:::(Regarding the family website, assuming it is reliable, it does nothing to establish notability since it's just used to provide evidence of a medical degree, which isn't in and of itself notable, and isn't independent of the topic. Also, just as a note, in AfD discussions it's customary to precede your "vote" with Keep, Delete, etc. and a bullet point.)— DroEsperanto (talk) 03:05, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. —John Z (talk) 20:19, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

::::This point is well received. However I leave it up to medical experts in Wikipedia to contribute their opinions on whether delivering over 5,000 babies in the late 1800s and early 1900s without a single loss of child or mother is notable or not as the main notability theme. Not all facts need to be notable. There are many non-notable facts all throughout by far most notable persons' biographies on Wikipedia. This is no different. The personal website made by a family member is not provided to establish notability, but rather provide images, etc. that would otherwise clutter the biography.--Unbiassed (talk) 03:14, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

:::::Of course articles can include facts that don't make the subject notable; it would be ridiculously incomplete without them ("Sonia Sotomayor is the first Hispanic Supreme Court Judge" would be a terrible article). I was just stating that that particular reference (as well as the other references listed) didn't establish notability, which is the case I'm making. I apologize if I was unclear. — DroEsperanto (talk) 03:58, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

::::::It should also be noted that the 5,500 babies/no deaths claim is cited to an obituary, which doesn't seem like a particularly reliable source for such a grandiose claim, especially considering that obituaries are often written by the family/friends of the deceased (although I can't tell since there's no info about authorship in the citation). It would also seem to me if the claim were true and truly notable and important in the field of medicine, he would have garnered additional coverage or would be recognized as a major contributor to his field, which doesn't seem to be the case. — DroEsperanto (talk) 04:14, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

:::::::The reference of the 5,000+ babies/no death fact is written in: History of St. Anthony's Parish, Toledo, Ohio Anno Domini, Diamond Jubilee of St. Anthony's Parish 1882 to 1957, not the obituary. As stated, it is not necessary to provide a large amount of references for a notable fact of this time frame being the turn of the second to last century particularly for something notable, but not highly notable. Perhaps there should be a voting system on how notable a fact is such as on a scale of one to ten or "completely not notable, somewhat notable, notable, very notable". This could be on the article where users/visitors can vote once based on IP address. In this case, I would say this would be a 4.5 on a scale of one to ten with 10 being most notable, and a 4.5 being the minimum qualifier for Wikipedia, so, this means "barely notable", but nonetheless, notable. As state, I'm most interested in those with relevant medical backgrounds to sound their opinion on this. --Unbiassed (talk) 04:33, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

::(outdent) On the contrary, statements that that are challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to reliable sources as per WP:ATTRIBUTION, especially facts upon which an article's notability are based. In the article, the 5k babies statement is attached to a reference pointing to the obituary, which is why I thought that. The source you now say wrote the statement still doesn't seem reliable to me for what you are citing it for: how likely is it that the authors of a book on the history of a church went to great lengths to verify the number of charity births their choir director had administered, and that none of those 11,000 mothers/babies died, especially considering the book was written decades after Talaska had already died? I think it is more likely that the number came from his estimates/stories, and the book just reported that. — DroEsperanto (talk) 04:57, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

:::It is extremely unlikely the source referring to is inaccurate. The source is third party / independent and credible. Nobody should come to the conclusion that it is unreliable without facts. This is a contradiction to say the source is unreliable without pointing to some source that proves it is unreliable. The statement it's unreliable is speculative and speculation has no place in Wikipedia. However, it is true the source is not very specific and it would help if there were more sources, but as stated, due to the time frame it is normal not to have ten major sources particularly regarding nobility that merely meets minimum requirements. So I would say the sources and nobility are not strong, but rather just meet minimum standards to qualify. Here are some more details about the source: "St. Anthony's Parish history is the story of an oppressed, immigrant people building a new life of freedom; of a church preserving and embellishing a Christian heritage; of a school training an industrious, thrifty, and self-sacrificing citizenry. It is, in miniature, the story of the building of America". --Unbiassed (talk) 13:32, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

---

:Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, JForget 22:10, 14 August 2009 (UTC){{#ifeq:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Leon S. Talaska||}}

::::Regardless of that source (about whose reliability I still have doubts, but which I don't want to discuss anymore), the fact that he has not received any attention from the relevant field, and only from his family, town, and church, indicate that he is not notable for his work as an OB-GYN. Doctors who make breakthroughs or discoveries in medicine publish papers and are cited heavily, or have their work written about later by people in their field. Talaska has none of these things: he is reported on by his family, his local newspaper/archives, and in his relationship to his church. — DroEsperanto (talk) 22:50, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

• Delete - a Google search which excluded Wikipedia returned exactly one hit: genealogical material on a broken website. Mangoe (talk) 06:27, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
• Weak keep In current terms, he would probably have been Chief of Obstetrics at a major hospital, and thus probably qualified. In extending our view of what we consider notability to times before the professions had their current degree of organization, we have to take into account what the standards were at the time. Whether he had received recognition from the professional field can be determined only after making a search through the appropriate paper journals and indexes. And in any case, whether or not he achieved professional notability, he still could attain notability under the BIO guidelines for civic notability in general. This is a nice example of the inherent problem with the GNG--there is no real question he meets that rule as written , but the difficulty is that this gives a degree of inclusiveness at which many of us are very uncomfortable, so we increase the requirements for what we wish to call significant coverage and reliable sources on an ad hoc basis for that particular article. (I have used similar arguments when I did not think a local figure ought to be considered notable, even though there were sources). The argument for whether the sources are in fact significant will succeed or not depending upon whether people like the overall result. Regardless of what we say we do, in practice we almost always use GNG as an excuse, not a reason. The GNG goes by sources, but that was really intended as a surrogate for the only actual meaning of notability that makes sense, one that would by the subject itself. I give the GNG another year before we realise its contradiction to the actual meaning of suitable for encyclopedic coverage. DGG ( talk ) 18:28, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

::The GNG ensures a criteria for notability that is neither based on original research ("I think this guy sounds important/I find his work to be really interesting, so we should have an article on him") or unverifiable or doubtful claims (e.g., "so-and-so was the first person to invent X") or hoaxes. If a person is truly important, then several reliable third-party sources will have written about their accomplishments. Regardless, the GNG is accepted consensus for now, so we should go by that. That being said, as far as any of us can tell, Talaska does not pass the GNG. The one claim to notability he has (having delivered 5500 babies as charity cases with no fatalities, which could confer notability either as a doctor or as a philanthropist/humanitarian of sorts), as succinctly stated by User:Abductive, is insufficiently substantiated, and that he might have been more notable in today's day and age is therefore irrelevant. — DroEsperanto (talk) 00:07, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

• Delete. This case saddens me, because delivering 5,500 babies without any deaths would be a remarkable achievement. Taking Singapore's modern infant mortality rate of 2.31 per 1000, the odds of this happening now are 1 in 334,267. Since the source is not contemporaneous, it is likely to be a family legend, and an untrue one. One would think that the other doctors would have noticed after a while, and given him an award or some other mention in sources at the time. His 1935 obituary would have mentioned it. All other claims to notability in the article are not enough. Abductive (reasoning) 03:08, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

::Using today's US infant mortality rate of 6.31 deaths for every 1,000 live births (which is probably lower than it was in the early 1900s), the chances come out to about 1 in 1,469,774,150,000,000 (about 1.5 quadrillion, [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS332US332&q=((1-(6.37/1006.37))^5500)^-1&aq=f&oq=&aqi= calculation]). — DroEsperanto (talk) 00:07, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

• Keep. I agree that the claim of 5,500 deliveries without a single death is questionable. However The Toledo Blade just about qualifies as a reliable source. Axl ¤ [Talk] 19:01, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

::If you're referring to the article "Soft-spoken doctor made house calls", that wasn't about Leon Talaska (the topic of this AFD), it was about his son Frank. Leon was just mentioned in passing in it ("Son of Leon Talaska, Toledo's first doctor of Polish descent...") — DroEsperanto (talk) 19:35, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

::: I know that the "Soft-spoken doctor" was Leon's son, Frank. I'm referring to the obituary from 1935. Axl ¤ [Talk] 20:04, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

:::: An obituary may be reliable for some facts (e.g., date of birth, occupation, date of death, etc.), but I don't think they can be used to establish notability. An obituary in a local paper doesn't mean that they were important, it means that they lived there and that they died. Most likely, the obituary was written by the family or a staff writer who got all their facts from the family, which doesn't seem to confer notability to me. — DroEsperanto (talk) 20:15, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

::::: I respectfully disagree with your opinion on the use of an obituary to establish notability. Axl ¤ [Talk] 07:31, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

:::the mere presence of an an obit ,unless in a very selective source like the NYT does not itself establish notability, though the information it provides may do so. We routinely use ithem for uncontested information. I agree that the no. of successful births seems a little high for the period, and I can not see accepting that without some collaboration. DGG ( talk ) 08:15, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

::::The point is to ask whether he is notable or not according to the mentioned references. When I read "General notability guideline" in WP:GNG ("If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article.") and in WP:BIO "Basic criteria - A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has been the subject of published secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject."I draw the conclusion, that the article does - so there is no reason to delete (according to the rules). Greetings Redlinux (talk) 13:00, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

:::::The consensus is that one of these sources is not reliable, and the obituary is not independent, as it had family input. Here's what probably happened; dad comes home from work every day, having delivered 98% living babies and preserving the lives of 99% of the mothers. Over dinner, he is not going to tell his children that a little baby died, nor that a first-time mother bled to death while her husband wept. He lied, said everything went fine. Abductive (reasoning) 13:55, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

:::::It would be grasping at straws to look at the sources and say he has "substantial coverage in reliable, third-party sources". Of the six, two are self-published, two just give basic biographical details (in a book that seems to just be a collection of genealogical/biographical info about Toledo, Ohio families, perhaps also self-published/self-derived), one barely mentions him, and one is non-authoritative and unreliable for what it is claiming. So what we're left with is three very local sources verifying that he was, in fact, a doctor, and a family legend saying he did something that is fantastically unlikely. Disregarding that last fact, we have someone who two local sources verify was a doctor. Not notable. — DroEsperanto (talk) 16:42, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

:::::::The references are not linked, that's true, and no ISBN-Number is listed, hmm. - That also holds true for the "non-article" Bernhard Göpel. - The "advertisement-link" to [http://www.ecowhale.com/eric.html] (under "relatives") I personally think, should be removed. But according to the rules here it's IMHO hard to find a reason. Greetings Redlinux^···→ 11:44, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

: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.