Gonzalo Lira 5th AFD

[journo]

https://archive.is/VDwdK#selection-1917.182-1921.1

5th time some Wikipedians try to delete [[Gonzalo Lira]]. Lira was an American who was recently notable for smack talking Ukraine, while in Ukraine, seemingly trying to get himself arrested. Including, but not limited to, widely publishing videos of himself announcing he is going to cross the Ukranian border to escape prosecution *before he tried to cross the border*.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW274f8s-ws

Lira was predictably arrested again by Ukrainian authorities for smack talking their country and, according to his father, recently died in custody. Rumors are he died of something related to pneumonia, and was in hospital treatment. Lira has been recently promoted by Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson as an example of Ukrainian authoritarianism, perhaps giving political motivation for the delete votes yet again.

This AFD is 2 delete votes to 0 keep votes so far.

User:scope_screep gave no reason for the AFD other than "been here before"

User:Oaktree_b 's reason for his delete vote is "no RS has covered him", which is a plain lie.

The Wikipedia article as it stands has numerous WP:RS sources, some of which are exclusively on Lira, including at least 2 Daily Beast articles. Other RS includes an NBC News article, a Newsweek article, a The Independent article, and many foreign language articles.

https://archive.is/E7bjn
https://www.thedailybeast.com/gonzalo-l ... in-ukraine
https://www.thedailybeast.com/gonzalo-l ... ting-coach
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 62324.html
https://www.newsweek.com/who-gonzalo-li ... il-1860496
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/ ... -rcna32343

[journo]

User:scope_creep now wants the article salted because, "being murdered for your political beliefs is a common occurrence", paraphrased, He bulldozed past mentioning any of the many WP:RS articles on him and just asserts he is non-notable, which will be a theme here if more vote against.

Would have been better for him to say it's not clear Lira was actually murdered. Ukranian hospitals are hardly even hospitals. It's likely he was tortured though, and he says he was at least.

[journo]

Keeps started to outpace the deletes from active users. Then a swarm of WP:SPAs came in with Keep votes. I can see scope_creep and oaktree_b trying to utilize that for their side to falsely paint the rest of the keep votes as WP:SPAs.

Sure it'd be kinda fun to see some smug, pathological narcissist like Gonzola Lira get his vanity page taken away. But the reasons for doing so are political, not anything to do with Wikipedia rules.

[journo]

One of the reasons they don't want to use the Daily Beast source is:

"If you include it then we will call him a Putin shill on the page, and you won't like that will you?"

The page already calls him a Putin shill so it's a weird argument.

[journo]

Some veteran challenged scope_creep's dismissal of the Lira-exclusive Yahoo News, Daily Beast and Independent articles. After this, scope_screep threatened to revert anyone in the AFD coming from the "Wikipedia Article Rescue Squadron". He also threatened to take to WP:ANI anyone who *would* come to the AFD from the "Wikipedia Article Rescue Squadron".

If the Keep people, who are the overwhelming majority, even outside WP:SPAs, just removed some of the more vanity and primary source stuff from the article I don't think there'd be much left to argue about.

For example, I've never heard of that guy's film stuff and I can't even find any record of it beyond the citation in the WP article, that part seem wholly unnecessary.

[ericbarbour]

Welcome to WP's "AFD Follies". Insiders decided years ago that Lira was a toxic manchild (well, he was, but that's not an "excuse" to pretend he isn't notable) and should be ignored out of "existence". And his death apparently makes the Ukrainians look "bad" so that's a double reason to "un-exist" him.

Can guarantee that "scope_creep" is a tool some well-known nut is using to abuse AFDs. "His" obsession with Joseph Lister, spying during WWII, and the Red Orchestra indicates we have a real kook on our hands. NINETEEN YEARS of grinding content to look like a "good Wikipedian" and "make friends" and all that.

One "friend" being Elinruby, a pro-Ukraine account also with an interest in WWII dirty tricks.

He's blowing it this time. Once the ARS gets wind of something like this, full-blown editwarring usually results. Such High-Quality Wikipedia Debate!

This editor is a WP:SPA, who has no understanding of the WP policies. scope_creepTalk 01:18, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Dick. 73.27.57.206 (talk) 04:09, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

And you've just proven the point, we don't name call here please. Oaktree b (talk) 04:58, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

[journo]

admins just extended-protected the AFD despite no edit warring

[ericbarbour]

admins just extended-protected the AFD despite no edit warring

HA HA HA HA

BTW, that AFD is up to 111k bytes. One of the longest I've ever seen. "Assume Good Faith" lol.

Did Lira edit his own bio? Maybe?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dorfpert
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gonz ... The_Charts!

[ericbarbour]

PS I have a Ground News account--it's a news aggregator that tries to show political biases in sources.

This is what the Lira death story looks like.

groundnews-Gonzalo-Lira-20jan24.png (104.5 KiB) Viewed 20623 times

[journo]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrobat_(novel)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterparts_(novel)

Those book articles by User:Dream_Focus might be pushing it.



Ah yes the promising bestseller that subsequently only got 12 Amazon reviews since the 1990s


https://www.amazon.com/Counterparts-by- ... B01HC0N4SA