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Can we stop pretending that mentioning the fact that she's a Bulgarian Canadian is a big issue?
Don't know why this is such an issue. She's proud to be Bulgarian, which is not only her ethnicity but also her NATIONALITY she's DUAL NATIONAL, so why erase that part of her wiki article? it's not either or, and wiki is about sharing information.
Quenreerer (
talk)
10:19, 25 February 2020 (UTC)reply
Because
WP:BLPLEAD is clear on the issue, and the consensus at the article is that there's no reason to deviate from it here. You also claim that it's her "nationality" but offer no proof that she still maintains Bulgarian citizenship. --
IJBall (
contribs •
talk)
13:27, 25 February 2020 (UTC)reply
Bulgaria allows dual citizenships. As you can see here [1]. She is a Bulgarian citizen by birth and has not renounced her citizenship. She even stated she resides for a time in the country every year. She's a dual national. Consensus was made on faulty information, therefore needs to be updated.
Quenreerer (
talk)
22:43, 25 February 2020 (UTC)reply
You're wrong, regardless, as this is not how this is handled as per
WP:BLPLEAD, and you have failed to prove any of this as per
WP:BURDEN, and the consensus is against you, but I'm not going to keep "re-litigating" this, so I'm going to leave it to other editors to pick this up. --
IJBall (
contribs •
talk)
02:38, 26 February 2020 (UTC)reply
"You're wrong" - yeah... great burden of proof, dude. I just provided a link where you can find Bulgarian citizenship laws, where it states a Bulgarian national is someone of Bulgarian ethnicity, born in Bulgaria. She checks both those requirement. Another thing you can learn is that Bulgaria allows dual citizenship. Meaning She didn't have to give up her Bulgarian citizenship to become a Canadian citizen. Furthermore there is no proof that she ever renounced her citizenship. At this point the burden of proof is on you to prove she's NOT a Bulgarian citizen.
Quenreerer (
talk)
03:04, 26 February 2020 (UTC)reply
Exactly. And all her notable works were as a Canadian, so the Bulgarian is irrelevant. Which is the long-standing consensus at this article. Note to
Kay girl 97 – We've had long-standing
Disruptive editing, also possibly involving
Socking, at this article on this very issue, so we may need Admin support on this eventually... --
IJBall (
contribs •
talk)
19:56, 28 February 2020 (UTC)reply
This is quite pointless, as it's clear you are taking up the same
WP:POV-pushing as the previous editor, but we've explained this to you multiple times – Dobrev is NOT NOTABLE AS A BULGARIAN. She has done no notable works as such. All of her notable works are as a Canadian (or in the U.S.). This is all directly from
WP:ETHNICITY, as per above. If you keep this, and continue to ignore the clear consensus that has been established on this Talk page over years, I will report you for edit-warring, and you are very likely to be blocked. --
IJBall (
contribs •
talk)
03:21, 29 February 2020 (UTC)reply
No one ever said she isn't a big deal in Bulgaria. That has literally nothing to do with anything. The Wikipedia guideline is clear, she achieved notability as a Canadian, not as a Bulgarian.
SQGibbon (
talk)
18:55, 14 April 2020 (UTC)reply
Not to mention, Dobrev's family moved to Canada to escape Communist Bulgaria and became citizens of Canada shortly after. They basically severed their Bulgarian nationalities for a while. And as mentioned above, even if she still has it or regained said nationality, she gained her notability in Canada first and was always presented as such.
Kay girl 97 (
talk)
03:48, 29 February 2020 (UTC)reply
that's you opinion. Dobrev never publicly rescinded her Bulgarian citizenship. And given Bulgarian citizenship law, as you can see in the link i posted above, the burden of proof is on proving Bodbrev not being a Bulgarian citizen, not that she is. As
WP:ETHNICITY, it doesn't apply here, since that is referring to a persons ethnicity, example, we don't specify someone being a hispanic america or african america in the lead, we just write american. Same applies here, only there is an issue of dual citizenship, which apparently is not a problem on any other article, besides this as I gave the example off
Sienna Miller being both British and American.
Quenreerer (
talk)
03:57, 29 February 2020 (UTC)reply
@
IJBall:@
Meters: Why can both Bulgarian and Canadian not be listed in the citizenship parameter in the infobox? There is no source stating that her Bulgarian citizenship has been rescinded. Past discussions have been in regards to referring to her as "Bulgarian-Canadian" in the lead, which is not the edit I made.
Abbyjjjj96 (
talk)
20:02, 28 July 2020 (UTC)reply
Discussions on whether to call her Bulgarian have been going on on this page for seven years Many of the editors supporting Bulgarian were eventually blocked as socks, and you are attempting tho make the same argument as they did. Are you the same editor?
This was a controversial unsourced edit that probably should not have been made without discussion, and certainly should not have been restored. If a new consensus is reached to add it to the infobox I'm fine with that, but we actually need a reliable source. The old argument that it should be included simply because she was born there and Bulgaria allows dual nationality doesn't convince me. She was all of two-years-old when she move to Canada.
Meters (
talk)
21:56, 28 July 2020 (UTC)reply
I don't know. Some of them date back to 2013. Note that the now-blocked
user: Quenreerer was making the same argument on this page and was blocked for edit warring on this article just a few months ago, and was eventually indefed without any mention of possible socking.
Meters (
talk)
22:09, 28 July 2020 (UTC)reply
I have to apologize. I see that I posted to that SPI and it's listed in my aide-memoire of sock cases
User:Meters/SPIs . I was going to check when I got back but you beat me to it.
Meters (
talk)
23:14, 28 July 2020 (UTC)reply
@
Meters: No, I'm not the same editor. For the fourth time, it's not even the same edit. Previous discussions have been about whether to call her Bulgarian in the lead. The argument against this is that she became known as an actress in Canada. Fine. However, the "citizenship" infobox parameter is meant to list all of the person's citizenships. Dobrev was born in Bulgaria to Bulgarian parents – she was born with Bulgarian citizenship. She later became a Canadian citizen, but no one can provide a source to state that her Bulgarian citizenship was rescinded. Ergo, it stands that she is a dual citizen, and the citizenship parameter should state as such. If you want to claim that she is no longer a Bulgarian citizen, the onus is on you to provide a source.
Abbyjjjj96 (
talk)
23:24, 28 July 2020 (UTC)reply
This is the identical enlargement again, and the response is the same.as before. You need to provide a reliable source to show that she is a Bulgarian citizen. We do not need to prove that she isn't. You are simply making an assumption.
Meters (
talk)
23:30, 28 July 2020 (UTC)reply
@
Meters: It's not identical given that the previous argument was around the usage of the lead while this is an infobox parameter. You can't claim her citizenship was rescinded without a source. The article currently appears as if she was never a Bulgarian national; do you think she was stateless for the first two years of her life?
Abbyjjjj96 (
talk)
23:39, 28 July 2020 (UTC)reply
Please stop pinging me.
Info box vs lead paragraph... it's exactly the same issue. You want ot assume that she is a Bulgarian citizen. We have asked for verifiable proof. If you don't have anything new, then we'll just wait for other editors to comment.
Meters (
talk)
23:48, 28 July 2020 (UTC)reply
Agreed – it stays out until it is explicitly sourced to something Dobrev herself says. And I also agree with Meters that we've already been over this, and there is no point in rehashing the same old arguments again. --
IJBall (
contribs •
talk)
23:52, 28 July 2020 (UTC)reply
@
Meters: In a podcast interview from 2019 she states that if she were to become American, she would have to give up one of her other two passports. Presumably, those would be a Canadian and a Bulgarian passport, so could this be considered an acceptable source?[1]— Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Coconutyou3 (
talk •
contribs)
18:37, 24 June 2021 (UTC)reply
@
Kay girl 97: nationality does not need to be included in Dobrev's infobox. If anything, Wikipedia has given the following as an example of nationality: "An example of nationality is Italian to a person with Italian roots born in the United States". Additionally, I don’t quite understand what you mean by "she only identifies herself as Canadian and is only loyal to Canada. People who don't know her well would think she's loyal to both Canada and Bulgaria". I have followed Dobrev for years, and she has mentioned, and continues to mention, that she is Bulgarian in practically every interview of hers (including in 2021, multiple times). Even her boyfriend Shaun White has referred to her as Bulgarian, rather than Canadian. If you can not provide a source where she explicitly claims to be "only loyal to Canada and not Bulgaria", then this shall remain.
Since we are already at it, the lead contains another misinterpretation, notably
MOS:ETHNICITY, which states: "In most modern-day cases, this will be the country, region, or territory, where the person is a citizen, national, or permanent resident; or, if the person is notable mainly for past events, where the person was a citizen, national, or permanent resident when the person became notable". In Dobrev's case, she has been a Bulgarian citizen since birth, therefore, she was a Bulgarian-Canadian at the time when she first became notable; the rules have been created for citizenships obtained post-factum, e.g. Angelina Jolie's Cambodian citizenship, Sandra Bullock's German citizenship and many more. Just to be on the safe side, I will also explain the following sentence: "Similarly, previous nationalities or the place of birth should not be mentioned in the lead unless relevant to the subject's notability", which refers to cases where the person has renounced their previous citizenship (e.g. Tina Turner).
The fact that Dobrev is Bulgarian-Canadian seems to have been a controversial topic here in the past as well. I don’t know what the reason for that is, and I do not want to speculate, but I do hope we can finally have a productive discussion and sort it out. --
Coconutyou3 (
talk)
05:41, 11 September 2021 (UTC)reply
If she's still a Bulgarian citizen that's fine. The point is that she's gained her notability as a Canadian as that's where she started her acting career. She became notable in Canada long before Bulgaria or the rest of the world.
People that have discussed this in the past agree that she's only notable as a Canadian. If you disagree go to the past threads and discuss it with them.
Kay girl 97 (
talk)
13:29, 11 September 2021 (UTC)reply
If there's a reliable source for her citizenship, then I think we can keep it, but we should also include the "nationality" parameter so people know she's primarily a Canadian, but I don't know
Kay girl 97 (
talk)
13:49, 11 September 2021 (UTC)reply
This
earlier edit is the source – I haven't checked it, but it includes a timestamp, so if Dobrev says it herself, it meets
WP:V and
WP:ABOUTSELF... On the other issue, as long as the lede continues to say "Canadian actress", I'm ambivalent anout whether 'nationality' is also needed in the infobox (IB). We don't list 'nationality' in the IB for the similar case of
Breanna Yde – I'm not sure it's strictly necessary here, as long as the lede continues to say "Canadian actress" and nothing else. --
IJBall (
contribs •
talk)
13:56, 11 September 2021 (UTC)reply
The issue at hand here is the description in the lead; the information about her citizenship has already been adequately sourced and is not contestable.
MOS:ETHNICITY is about including the citizenship that the person had when they became notable, which (as I explained in my previous comment) was both Bulgarian and Canadian in Dobrev's case. It is not about the "citizenship that they became notable for", as such concept does not exist, and the rules have been made for cases such as Angelina Jolie's, for example. As a matter of fact, Dobrev made her screen debut at age 17, which means she was not even a naturalized citizen of Canada at the time. --
Coconutyou3 (
talk)
17:17, 11 September 2021 (UTC)reply
She is, indeed, Canadian and disputing this is not at all what I am trying to do. The point I am trying to make is that she gained her notability as a Bulgarian-Candadian and should be referred to as such, per the guidelines set by
MOS:ETHNICITY. --
Coconutyou3 (
talk)
18:40, 11 September 2021 (UTC)reply
@
Kay girl 97:@
IJBall: I've asked twice that you please discuss this matter. I'm going to go ahead and make the change I've described above. If you revert without responding here, then I'm going to have to file a complaint against you at
ANI for
disruptive editing by reverting without discussing. --
Coconutyou3 (
talk)
07:20, 27 September 2021 (UTC).reply
The singular point that matters in this discussion and what it all hinges on is whether reliable sources discuss her heritage or discuss the subject detailing her heritage and birth place. If so then it belongs, if not then it doesn't. Consensus can change and we shouldn't automatically dismiss something brought forward to discuss just because consensus swung one way years ago. It should not be given undue weight in the article and only state what is found in reliable sources but shouldn't be dismissed wholesale without being given an opportunity to be researched by the community. The information was boldly added and then reverted. It should not be included until discussions have been had and sourced information scrutinized to form consensus. --
ARoseWolf15:22, 28 September 2021 (UTC)reply
No, in fact, that's not the point – the issue is not whether her "heritage should be reported": that is already done in the article. The issue is what belongs in the lede.
MOS:ETHNICITY and
WP:BLPLEAD are clear – "Bulgarian-Canadian" does not belong in the lede, and is inappropriate to include. The consensus has never changed on this point. --
IJBall (
contribs •
talk)
15:32, 28 September 2021 (UTC)reply
MOS:ETHNICITY is, indeed, clear on the subject, which is why I feel ridiculous for bringing this sentence up for the nth time, but it is inevitable (and the major point of our discussion): "The opening paragraph should usually provide context for the activities that made the person notable. In most modern-day cases, this will be the country, region, or territory, where the person is a citizen, national, or permanent resident; or, if the person is notable mainly for past events, where the person was a citizen, national, or permanent resident when the person became notable." There is an extensive list of Wikipedia pages that have followed this policy, with most of the cases being similar to Dobrev's. Some examples of this are
Lupita Nyong'o,
Lana Condor,
Mischa Barton,
Phil Hartman,
Antoni Porowski,
Anna Paquin,
Olga Kurylenko,
Christiane Amanpour,
Genevieve O'Reilly, etc., all of whom were dual citizens at the time when they gained notability (just like Dobrev) versus cases like
Angelina Jolie,
Sandra Bullock and
Jim Carrey who all acquired their second citizenships post-factum. I would have agreed that her Bulgarian heritage would not be relevant to the lead section had she not been an actual citizen of the country (in addition to having been born in it as well). --
Coconutyou3 (
talk)
18:14, 28 September 2021 (UTC)reply
Semi-protected edit request on 21 July 2023
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
Well,
consensus can change, especially since the one above was established 8 years ago and long before the recent MOS overhaul. Nowadays
MOS:NATIONALITY refers to every citizenship the subject has as of the moment they become notable as 'relevant' to their notability.
This has already been discussed numerous times. Her notability was made while she was in Canada and only Canada. If she had also been acting in Bulgaria, then we could add it, but she didn't.
She became notable while being a dual citizen, which means that being both Canadian and Bulgarian is relevant to her notability, just as outlined in the manual of style.
I read the previous discussions and from what I understand, the initial argument was that there were no reliable sources stating that Dobrev even was a Bulgarian national, which doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Then it shifted to her dual nationality not being relevant to her career in order to justify the already established consensus. If that's the case, I would argue that none of her nationalities are relevant, since she seems to mostly act in American productions anyway.
Besides the obvious argument that her most notable role (arguably) is as a Bulgarian character on The Vampire Diaries, even her last film The Bricklayer was shot in Bulgaria. One would assume she doesn't go out of her way to get a work visa every time she works in Europe, no?
Anthony Whitaker (
talk)
11:26, 5 May 2024 (UTC)reply
When discussion has
ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.
How should Nina Dobrev's nationality be described in the article's lede paragraph?
Nina Kamenova Dobreva is a Bulgarian and Canadian actress.
Nina Kamenova Dobreva is a Canadian actress.
Nina Kamenova Dobreva is an actress.
This RFC aims to resolve a long-standing debate. Some argue that Dobrev's dual nationality should be mentioned in the lede while others insist that her Bulgarian nationality is not relevant to her acting career.
Anthony Whitaker (
talk)
14:36, 28 June 2024 (UTC)reply
That is completely not in line with
MOS:NATIONALITY. Dual citizenship (not seeing sources she has it, but even if she did) is not how we determine how we describe a subject's nationality in the lead. You should go back and re-read the guideline. —
Joeyconnick (
talk)
19:43, 29 June 2024 (UTC)reply
Very strange comment since the example at
MOS:NATIONALITY is Schwarzenegger who became notable in the US and not his native country. It appears that you're mistaken and so is the logic you've used in your comment below.
Nemov (
talk)
03:22, 30 June 2024 (UTC)reply
If we do revisit
MOS:NATIONALITY as you've suggested, we'll see that the "context" of what made the person notable is tied to their nationality at the time they gained notability. I'm surprised to see a different reading so I'm curious, how do you interpret the second sentence specifically? As a side note, Dobrev's dual nationality is referenced in the article's
personal life section.
Anthony Whitaker (
talk)
16:44, 30 June 2024 (UTC)reply
BMOS:NATIONALITY says that "The opening paragraph should usually provide context for that which made the person notable." Her career does not span both nations, I do not think that using both nationalities is relevant.
Writethisway (
talk)
18:53, 28 June 2024 (UTC)reply
A - She has duel citizenship and has lived in both places during her life. This is in line with
MOS:NATIONALITY. per Nemov, her nationality may be irrelevant to her career, but so is the nationality of many people. These are basic biographical facts, like full name and DoB which are recorded simply because they are true, rather than because they are demonstrably 'relevant' to any individual. That her career is solely in Canada will rapidly become apparent.
Pincrete (
talk)
04:20, 29 June 2024 (UTC)reply
B –
MOS:NATIONALITY clearly states that we only mention nationalities in the lead that are relevant to the subject's notability. Dobrev's career began in Canada: she was raised and became notable in Canada. If we have good sources that she actually has Bulgarian citizenship, of course the fact she holds it can be mentioned later in the article, but at Wikipedia that is not how we determine how we describe people's nationality in the lead. —
Joeyconnick (
talk)
19:42, 29 June 2024 (UTC)reply
B - She's not an actress in Bulgaria, regardless of whether she holds citizenship there. She's not notable for her Bulgarian citizenship either. As such, there's no need for it to go in the lead sentence, and is in fact misleading and confusing to do so.
Fieari (
talk)
04:18, 3 July 2024 (UTC)reply
To clarify, it would be a different argument to suggest it say "Bulgarian-Canadian" rather than "Bulgarian and Canadian". I'm not endorsing Bulgarian-Canadian, mind you (that would require
WP:RS to use that phrase) instead I'm clarifying that the two ways of phrasing it mean completely different things. "Bulgarian and Canadian actress" is grammatically equivalent to saying "Bulgarian actress and Canadian actress". But she's objectively not an actress in Bulgaria, so she's not a Bulgarian actress. If we said "Bulgarian-Canadian actress" that means an actress in Canada who is from Bulgaria... this might be more accurate, but again, we would require reliable sources to use this phrasing, and I don't think said sources do. That leaves only option B, reflecting what the sources say, and being accurate.
Fieari (
talk)
05:37, 3 July 2024 (UTC)reply
"Bulgarian and Canadian actress" is a shortform way of saying "Bulgarian and Canadian citizen, who is an actress" (the person could make films entirely in France for all we know). "Obama is an American politician" means he is an American citizen, who is a politician. It couldn't mean that he operates as a politician in America, but is quietly a Kenyan citizen! A person's nationality and where they exercise their trade are two distinct things.
Pincrete (
talk)
05:27, 4 July 2024 (UTC)reply
Just wanted to clarify here: no, actually we would never say "Bulgarian-Canadian actress" in anyone's lead no matter what the reliable sources might say, because
MOS:ETHNICITY explicitly says we use "and", not hyphenation, and the "and" is only if their career spans a subject's emigration. It also states that the hyphenated form delineates ethnicity ("Austrian-American"). The second example there, of Isaac Asimov, is why Dobrev is described as a Canadian actress, not a Bulgarian and Canadian actress, a Bulgarian-Canadian actress, or a Bulgarian-born Canadian actress. —
Joeyconnick (
talk)
05:48, 4 July 2024 (UTC)reply
I wouldn't strongly object to "a Bulgarian-born Canadian actress", it succinctly covers the basic facts, but implies she is no longer Bulgarian. Whether someone's 'given' citizenship is 'relevant' to their notability or not seems irrelevant, it's a fact about them like their born name/middle name/ DoB. We don't omit or alter those to more tidily record their notability. Unless 'given' citizenship is renounced, it remains a fact about them. A person may not be a person who acts in Bulgarian films, but they are still a dual citizen (Canadian and Bulgarian) who is an actress, which is the most obvious meaning of the phrase.
Pincrete (
talk)
08:04, 4 July 2024 (UTC)reply
B - As per
MOS:ETHNICITY, she achieved notability as a Canadian. That she was born in Bulgaria is irrelevant to this discussion unless her notability was established in Bulgaria or in both Bulgaria and Canada.
SQGibbon (
talk)
07:59, 3 July 2024 (UTC)reply
B per Fieari. With proper sourcing, mentioning the Bulgarian citizenship in the body would be sufficient—it may be helpful to put it in the infobox as well.
KyleJoantalk01:49, 5 July 2024 (UTC)reply