Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alexandra Paressant

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 keep. Stifle (talk) 09:08, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Alexandra Paressant

Well, at least there won't be any "delete per nom"-ing on this particular one… A can-of-worms one; those of you familiar with a certain other person who recently flooded Wikipedia and multiple other sites with "photographs of herself" may find this sounding oddly familiar. This is a Very Strange One, so apologies for the long story.

In 2006, Paressant received fairly significant media coverage as "a model and girlfriend of Ronaldinho" (see [1] for example). In 2007, similar allegations were made regarding her and Tony Parker. Parker then took legal action regarding the allegations about himself, which have since been retracted. However, I'm unable to find any similar retraction regarding the Ronaldinho allegations, despite coverage in the UK press (see the Sun link above, for example), despite Britain's notoriously strict libel laws.

In late December 2007, it was alleged (note the emphasis) that the photographs of "Paressant" were in fact German model Hana Nitsche, that the story had been fabricated by bulk-spamming blogs and wikis, that Paressant had never met Ronaldinho or Parker, and that a possible motivation for Paressant's self-promotion could be found here.

Googling Paressant's and Nitsche's names together throws up a lot of allegations, but not one of them seems to be from a reliable source – and I would have expected a case involving such high profile people to have far more significant coverage.

So, what do we do with this? As I see it, the possibilities are:

Paressant is exactly who she claims to be, and the article may need cleaning up but is viable. A Google image search does bring up the volume (and type) of pictures consistent with a genuine model, and this story was covered in reliable sources, while the allegations against her seem to come mostly from blogs and chat sites.
Paressant is exactly who she claims to be, but (as notablity is not inherited) she isn't successful enough as a model to warrant an article.
This is a hoax and should be deleted as such.
This is a hoax but the hoax itself has received enough media coverage that she warrants an article as a notable hoaxer.
This may or may not be a hoax, but either way is problematic; if we're not sure, than "her version" is a potential BLP violation against Ronaldinho and Parker, while the "she is a hoaxer" version is a potential BLP violation against Paressant, and unless/until we can be sure of the truth the whole thing is causing more trouble than it's worth.

Over to you… Given the nationalities of the persons involved, there may well be far more reliable sources in French and Portuguese, if anyone is in a position to dig them out. – iride scent 15:14, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Conditional delete provided no one drags up some foreign-language RSs to corroborate exactly who she is and what's true or a hoax; otherwise, the BLP issues make this an exception to the "improve, don't delete" argument; no prejudice against recreation in the event that RSs emerge. TheMolecularMan (talk) 16:11, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep You probably made the right choice by bringing the problem up here, or anywhere for that matter. I think it's best to keep the article because the person is notable, and I would say keep the article as a hoax. As I told you I'm part of the fashion wikiproject and a brief search at the right places proved me that she uses photos not only from Hana Nitsche, but from various other models to publicize herself (sent to journalists and on her myspace page as well), such as Zoé Duchesne (1, 2, 3), Bianca Balti (1), Alexandra Kabi (1), Adriana Lima et caetera. She also claims to have been part of the Victoria's Secret fashion show and the most reliable source I could find online (the imdb) shows no sign of her anywhere (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). Finally, no model agency she claims to be part of is listing her. Problem is, very few journalistic sources even bother to investigate her claims and maybe it's not our job at wikipedia to take sides but all the elements are here. By the way I'm french and I don't think keeping the article as it is now is a good publicity not only for my country but for wikipedia as well. I say keep because given the notoriety of this person/avatar, the article is at a high risk of being re-created anyways. Thiste (talk) 22:25, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Your evidence that this is a hoax is pretty convincing. Problem is, we can't keep the article as is, since it appears to be substantially false and lacks reliable sources for claims about living people; and I don't think we can -- yet -- rewrite the article to say this person's claims are a hoax, because your evidence (while convincing) is original research as far as Wikipedia is concerned and that would probably violate WP:BLP. Now if a reliable publication picks up the story of this hoax and writes something suitable for citing, then that would be an appropriate source to use for a Wikipedia article, but does such an article exist now? If not, I think this has to go for BLP concerns. TheMolecularMan (talk) 01:32, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Well maybe these articles would do : two from PEOPLE magazine (1, 2 (scroll down a bit)), this one from the Huffington Post (1), and this one in french -- the first one chronologically (2006) -- from football magazine SO FOOT (1, 2, 3, 4). I probably could find more if I did more searching but that's probably enough. Thiste (talk) 10:39, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Living people-related deletion discussions. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 00:01, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fashion-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:45, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of France-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:46, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Stifle (talk) 09:20, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom. Just kidding. Ok, I'm french so I tried to dig up some stuff about this, it appears to be a hoax that has been the subject of *some* coverage. TF1 (#1 french TV channel) ran a (in depth) story about it in the TV programme 50 minutes Inside [2] (link is a blog, but hosts a recording of TF1). Le Figaro (major national newspaper) has a story on this [3] presenting it as a hoax as well. Both reliable sources (well as far as TV/newspapers go), and there are probably more out there. So basically, that leaves option 3) or 4). No doubt it's a hoax, but it seems to be a notable hoax as it's all over the Internet apparently, and we have decently reliable sources to write an article that is not original research. I'll go for a keep (and rewrite/expand). Equendil Talk 10:44, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and re-write as a notable hoax. The sources listed above seem to me to both show that this is a hoax, and point its it's (somewhat weak) notability. The new article probably should contain a line that the subject (or a woman who claims to be her) maintains that her version is the truth, but that no independant verification has been forthcoming. I'm slapping the hoax template on the article in it's present form. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 13:17, 24 September 2008 (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.