The result was Delete any unreferenced biographies. Dr. Blofeld has respectfully requested that these articles be deleted. Given the author request combined with the mandate to delete here, I'm closing this discussion. An admin, likely Juliancolton (possibly with help from others), will go through the list to ensure that any articles that have been improved since creation are not deleted. -- MZMcBride ( talk) 16:38, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
From the discussion here, 2798 biographies (some BLPs, some BPDs) were created in the past few days by one editor in good faith. These politician bios were transwikied from the German Wikipedia using AWB. They are each sub-stubs which include only the same introductory sentence and no actual references. The reference section links to the original German article, some of which are not referenced. So, in addition to this article, this nomination also includes the other 2797 articles listed here.
If this listing was done incorrectly, I apologize. I'm not sure how to nominate this many articles at once, and tagging them seems implausible. But, considering the circumstances, I think notification to the author and Dr. Blofeld is sufficient. Lara 06:45, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
I'm lost for words' - I can't believe this. These are notable biographies and should be expanded not deleted. Over half of them do not even violate BLP . This is really silly. I've expanded this nomintation and it is clearly notable and within guidelines this politician was one of the List of members of the Lower Saxon Landtag 2003-2008 a representative of regional parliament and you honestly think sources can't be found??. God give us a few weeks to expand a few of them. I DO NOT waste my time and neither does Albert in that we create articles we believe could reasonably be expanded immediately by anybody. You are all the lazy ones by taking the easy way out and deleting articles which in due course will become perfectly accpetable and much needed encyclopedia articles. This is the kind of ignorance I've come to expect from the shitty community (meaning editors give each other little support when most of us all have a common goal) that runs this website and forces away the decent editors . A bot could EASILY salvage all of these articles by adding a reference linked to the main website of the parties and reliable publication and just sheer hard work to fill them out. These articles WILL be started again so I think we should not waste time and just work hard at expanding them. If people here really care about content in the long term they would certainly not think deleting articles which can become acceptable within minutes would be the right answer. Dr. Blofeld White cat 09:27, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
Look I don't have a problem with everybody here. There some very kind and helpful editors on here who are a pleasure to know and discuss things with. It is just the way the general community responds and sees us in bad faith for trying to start the transfer of content that's all. I agree to a point that these articles will require a massive amount of work, what I hate about the general response given here is the snippy comments that we should somehow be heartily ashamed of outsevles for trying to start the prcess of transferring notable articles into English. I just think some of the responses to this have been quite mean. I differ from a lot of people in that I look towards our long term goals for wikipedia, I root out articles and believe there is a set task for every subject to work towards. The problem here may be that the task is a little big for us to take on at least within the next few months so if there are BLP issues then I se eyour views. I just wish more people would see why such articles are created and why we create small stubs because of the sheer amount to transfer. As normal this is a conflict between quality and quantity. Ideally I'd like both but given the few editors who seme willing to help is often beyond possibility. Can't we at least keep several hundred of these articles to work through?
Claus Peter Poppe as it stands is not deletable, it meets our content requirements. Several hundred of these articles could be expanded with a reference similarly within a few days. Dr. Blofeld White cat 09:48, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
Right so we've established that we definately think these articles have the potential to be good articles at least that's something. The problem is that nobody was bothering to start the articles. I think the best solution would be to remove the BLP tags with a bot. Then maybe delete the living ones using German wikipedia as a check until they can be started fully. We can at least work towards the deceased bios which do not violate BLP. Dr. Blofeld White cat 10:02, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
The way wikipedia has grown to date has revealed that if the article is created it stands a much better chance of being expanded. A lot of people ignore red links and will not create an article but if they come across a lacking article may wish to expand it. Dr. Blofeld White cat 10:06, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
Mmm that's why wikipedia has tens of thousands of articles on low league baseball and soccer players and lists of Pokemon charatcers rather than decent articles about national Greek museums. If that is the interest of wikipedians overwhlemingly I wonder what that tells us about the people who use wikipedia. Dr. Blofeld White cat 10:43, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
I agree, I do me best to try to overcome the bias and uneveness in articles on here but I can't force people to edit articles they are not interested in. I've created a lot of good articles about places all over the world but little in comparison to what could and should be written. This is why I create so many stubs is because I try to venture into poorly developed areas and try in the long term to make them produce results by relying on the sheer traffic and mix of interests this site has. A lot of my stubs have been expanded into really good articles, even the most seemingly "perma stub" type of stubs like Der Müller und sein Kind for instance and Xinjiang Medical University etc (which is what inspires me to create more) but there are also many of my stubs which have remained untouched. I am pretty certain a fair number of these German politicians will have fairly decent articles eventually. If you believe it is best to build it one at a time rather than building upon 3000 empty stubs then I respect your views people I just really hate the tone of some of the editors especially at ANI and how they react to an honest attempt to develop wikipedia. I am a human being, I have feelings. At least the nominator Jenna has not described me as "intellectually lazy" anyway.
Where editors like myself and Albert differ in our outlook on wikipedia is that we see a fixed amount of articles on any given subject and believe that we as a project are working towards providing a more complete coverage of each subject with a fixed amount of articles to work towards and build up. I believe it was exactly the same with these German politicians in that in order to catch up and work towards filling this field starting the articles however stubby was the first step on the path to a better future coverage of this area of the encyclopedia. Sure we knew it would take a lot of work but both Albert and I firmly believe that the articles were worthy of creation, however stubby because we believed the content exists on German wikipedia and the articles could have bene brought easily up to scratch. Luckily I managed to organize a bot to trasnfer articles on czech municipalities more efficiently it is a great shame I can't organize a project and bot to do the same thing here. I am thinking of proposing a new wikiproject dedicated to trasnwikiying articles properly and the use of a bot, judging how many people here seme to regard me I'm having second thoughts. I personally think this project would benefit massively from content translated form other wikipedias esepcially if supported by reliable sources. Dr. Blofeld White cat 11:15, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
Thankyou, I'm glad you've clarified that. I agree if there are BLP problems but remember the BLP tagswere wrongly applied to half the articles on people who died 30 years ago etc . The misconception is that I don't want the encyclopedia to be of the highest quality as other people, I do, as much as anybody here, but I also think in order to achieve our project goals of "the sum of all knowledge" which is equally as important we could not ignore 99% of the notable politicians in Germany. I thought at least starting the articles was the first step even if they were poorly started. Can you understand how I view wikipedia? Dr. Blofeld White cat 11:43, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
For the record I think Claus Peter Poppe should be kept now anyway. Christian v. Ditfurth too. I'm certain if they had all been started like this we would not be here now. It is a valid source about a clearly notable politician. If I was fluent in German I'd expand it to b-class. Can we please keep this article even if you delete the others? If I try to fill out a handful of articles when we come to delete the mass can we at least keep the ones I've sorted a little bit? Dr. Blofeld White cat 12:21, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
I would be willing to go through the list and seperate the BLPs from the ones which are not. After all the BLP tags were applied wrongly to many many articles on deceased politicians which is partly what the problem was. I just need some time to be able to sort out the BLP vios. If you are going to delete the lot anyway I will not bother to at least try to salvage a few of them if you are adament they should all be deleted even if some of them are expanded to start class with references. Well. I'm probably wasting my time here. Dr. Blofeld White cat 12:38, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
That is exactly how I feel about it actually. Especially what you said about the experiences we know of on many articles which have been expanded very well by IPs and we would not have had that content if it wasn't for them. So I do not think that view is WP:BOLLOCKS as was claimed above. Dr. Blofeld White cat 13:12, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
I agree, I wish there was someway we could methodically plough through huge banks of missing articles and have everyone with adequate info and details first time. If they could be started in the way that Claus Peter Poppe is now I seriously doubt anybody in the community would seirously mind. A lot of new content could be started much more efficiently using well programmed bots and I have always requested them before I've started banks of stubs. The lack of bot operators actually interested in running bots to produce starter article more efficiently and productively seem extremely small compared to the amount that run bots for practically every other part of wikipedia. Maybe this is because the coding required to autogenerate articles correctly in this way is beyond most capabilities I don't know. What matters most to me is content and it a shabby human attempt by myself to try to do something about the mass of missing content on here. Dr. Blofeld White cat 13:32, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
Do you think that Claus Peter Poppe is really non notable? WOuld you say that somebody who represented the Scottish Parliament would also not be notable? I am certain if you researched any of these articles you'd realise the vast majority are notable figures in German politics, that isn't the issue I'm sure. The problems are mainly those that have been highlighted previously. I can guarantee that a lot of these articles will be restarted eventually but perhaps rather more impressively than what was attempted recently. Dr. Blofeld White cat 14:00, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
Speedy delete all except the two I highlighted as worked on. OK so this didn't work out and it is obvious where this is headed. Can we please end this nomination and delete per request of the creator. I'm tired of this now. We get the point and I now have work to do in improving quality which believe it or not I am interested in. Dr. Blofeld White cat 14:20, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
I improved Tea production in Sri Lanka and many others precisely for that reason, obviously true. Dr. Blofeld White cat 14:23, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
Could somebody please end this debate. We know where it is headed and the stub creator has even voted delete. This is embarrassing to those involved and a very unpleasant situation which has caused the creator to leave wikipedia. Please end this asap, this is pretty much a snowball delete. Further drama here is unnecessary and I think you should do the decent thing any admin viewing this and make the obvious decision. Dr. Blofeld White cat 16:13, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
The result was Delete any unreferenced biographies. Dr. Blofeld has respectfully requested that these articles be deleted. Given the author request combined with the mandate to delete here, I'm closing this discussion. An admin, likely Juliancolton (possibly with help from others), will go through the list to ensure that any articles that have been improved since creation are not deleted. -- MZMcBride ( talk) 16:38, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
From the discussion here, 2798 biographies (some BLPs, some BPDs) were created in the past few days by one editor in good faith. These politician bios were transwikied from the German Wikipedia using AWB. They are each sub-stubs which include only the same introductory sentence and no actual references. The reference section links to the original German article, some of which are not referenced. So, in addition to this article, this nomination also includes the other 2797 articles listed here.
If this listing was done incorrectly, I apologize. I'm not sure how to nominate this many articles at once, and tagging them seems implausible. But, considering the circumstances, I think notification to the author and Dr. Blofeld is sufficient. Lara 06:45, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
I'm lost for words' - I can't believe this. These are notable biographies and should be expanded not deleted. Over half of them do not even violate BLP . This is really silly. I've expanded this nomintation and it is clearly notable and within guidelines this politician was one of the List of members of the Lower Saxon Landtag 2003-2008 a representative of regional parliament and you honestly think sources can't be found??. God give us a few weeks to expand a few of them. I DO NOT waste my time and neither does Albert in that we create articles we believe could reasonably be expanded immediately by anybody. You are all the lazy ones by taking the easy way out and deleting articles which in due course will become perfectly accpetable and much needed encyclopedia articles. This is the kind of ignorance I've come to expect from the shitty community (meaning editors give each other little support when most of us all have a common goal) that runs this website and forces away the decent editors . A bot could EASILY salvage all of these articles by adding a reference linked to the main website of the parties and reliable publication and just sheer hard work to fill them out. These articles WILL be started again so I think we should not waste time and just work hard at expanding them. If people here really care about content in the long term they would certainly not think deleting articles which can become acceptable within minutes would be the right answer. Dr. Blofeld White cat 09:27, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
Look I don't have a problem with everybody here. There some very kind and helpful editors on here who are a pleasure to know and discuss things with. It is just the way the general community responds and sees us in bad faith for trying to start the transfer of content that's all. I agree to a point that these articles will require a massive amount of work, what I hate about the general response given here is the snippy comments that we should somehow be heartily ashamed of outsevles for trying to start the prcess of transferring notable articles into English. I just think some of the responses to this have been quite mean. I differ from a lot of people in that I look towards our long term goals for wikipedia, I root out articles and believe there is a set task for every subject to work towards. The problem here may be that the task is a little big for us to take on at least within the next few months so if there are BLP issues then I se eyour views. I just wish more people would see why such articles are created and why we create small stubs because of the sheer amount to transfer. As normal this is a conflict between quality and quantity. Ideally I'd like both but given the few editors who seme willing to help is often beyond possibility. Can't we at least keep several hundred of these articles to work through?
Claus Peter Poppe as it stands is not deletable, it meets our content requirements. Several hundred of these articles could be expanded with a reference similarly within a few days. Dr. Blofeld White cat 09:48, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
Right so we've established that we definately think these articles have the potential to be good articles at least that's something. The problem is that nobody was bothering to start the articles. I think the best solution would be to remove the BLP tags with a bot. Then maybe delete the living ones using German wikipedia as a check until they can be started fully. We can at least work towards the deceased bios which do not violate BLP. Dr. Blofeld White cat 10:02, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
The way wikipedia has grown to date has revealed that if the article is created it stands a much better chance of being expanded. A lot of people ignore red links and will not create an article but if they come across a lacking article may wish to expand it. Dr. Blofeld White cat 10:06, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
Mmm that's why wikipedia has tens of thousands of articles on low league baseball and soccer players and lists of Pokemon charatcers rather than decent articles about national Greek museums. If that is the interest of wikipedians overwhlemingly I wonder what that tells us about the people who use wikipedia. Dr. Blofeld White cat 10:43, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
I agree, I do me best to try to overcome the bias and uneveness in articles on here but I can't force people to edit articles they are not interested in. I've created a lot of good articles about places all over the world but little in comparison to what could and should be written. This is why I create so many stubs is because I try to venture into poorly developed areas and try in the long term to make them produce results by relying on the sheer traffic and mix of interests this site has. A lot of my stubs have been expanded into really good articles, even the most seemingly "perma stub" type of stubs like Der Müller und sein Kind for instance and Xinjiang Medical University etc (which is what inspires me to create more) but there are also many of my stubs which have remained untouched. I am pretty certain a fair number of these German politicians will have fairly decent articles eventually. If you believe it is best to build it one at a time rather than building upon 3000 empty stubs then I respect your views people I just really hate the tone of some of the editors especially at ANI and how they react to an honest attempt to develop wikipedia. I am a human being, I have feelings. At least the nominator Jenna has not described me as "intellectually lazy" anyway.
Where editors like myself and Albert differ in our outlook on wikipedia is that we see a fixed amount of articles on any given subject and believe that we as a project are working towards providing a more complete coverage of each subject with a fixed amount of articles to work towards and build up. I believe it was exactly the same with these German politicians in that in order to catch up and work towards filling this field starting the articles however stubby was the first step on the path to a better future coverage of this area of the encyclopedia. Sure we knew it would take a lot of work but both Albert and I firmly believe that the articles were worthy of creation, however stubby because we believed the content exists on German wikipedia and the articles could have bene brought easily up to scratch. Luckily I managed to organize a bot to trasnfer articles on czech municipalities more efficiently it is a great shame I can't organize a project and bot to do the same thing here. I am thinking of proposing a new wikiproject dedicated to trasnwikiying articles properly and the use of a bot, judging how many people here seme to regard me I'm having second thoughts. I personally think this project would benefit massively from content translated form other wikipedias esepcially if supported by reliable sources. Dr. Blofeld White cat 11:15, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
Thankyou, I'm glad you've clarified that. I agree if there are BLP problems but remember the BLP tagswere wrongly applied to half the articles on people who died 30 years ago etc . The misconception is that I don't want the encyclopedia to be of the highest quality as other people, I do, as much as anybody here, but I also think in order to achieve our project goals of "the sum of all knowledge" which is equally as important we could not ignore 99% of the notable politicians in Germany. I thought at least starting the articles was the first step even if they were poorly started. Can you understand how I view wikipedia? Dr. Blofeld White cat 11:43, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
For the record I think Claus Peter Poppe should be kept now anyway. Christian v. Ditfurth too. I'm certain if they had all been started like this we would not be here now. It is a valid source about a clearly notable politician. If I was fluent in German I'd expand it to b-class. Can we please keep this article even if you delete the others? If I try to fill out a handful of articles when we come to delete the mass can we at least keep the ones I've sorted a little bit? Dr. Blofeld White cat 12:21, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
I would be willing to go through the list and seperate the BLPs from the ones which are not. After all the BLP tags were applied wrongly to many many articles on deceased politicians which is partly what the problem was. I just need some time to be able to sort out the BLP vios. If you are going to delete the lot anyway I will not bother to at least try to salvage a few of them if you are adament they should all be deleted even if some of them are expanded to start class with references. Well. I'm probably wasting my time here. Dr. Blofeld White cat 12:38, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
That is exactly how I feel about it actually. Especially what you said about the experiences we know of on many articles which have been expanded very well by IPs and we would not have had that content if it wasn't for them. So I do not think that view is WP:BOLLOCKS as was claimed above. Dr. Blofeld White cat 13:12, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
I agree, I wish there was someway we could methodically plough through huge banks of missing articles and have everyone with adequate info and details first time. If they could be started in the way that Claus Peter Poppe is now I seriously doubt anybody in the community would seirously mind. A lot of new content could be started much more efficiently using well programmed bots and I have always requested them before I've started banks of stubs. The lack of bot operators actually interested in running bots to produce starter article more efficiently and productively seem extremely small compared to the amount that run bots for practically every other part of wikipedia. Maybe this is because the coding required to autogenerate articles correctly in this way is beyond most capabilities I don't know. What matters most to me is content and it a shabby human attempt by myself to try to do something about the mass of missing content on here. Dr. Blofeld White cat 13:32, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
Do you think that Claus Peter Poppe is really non notable? WOuld you say that somebody who represented the Scottish Parliament would also not be notable? I am certain if you researched any of these articles you'd realise the vast majority are notable figures in German politics, that isn't the issue I'm sure. The problems are mainly those that have been highlighted previously. I can guarantee that a lot of these articles will be restarted eventually but perhaps rather more impressively than what was attempted recently. Dr. Blofeld White cat 14:00, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
Speedy delete all except the two I highlighted as worked on. OK so this didn't work out and it is obvious where this is headed. Can we please end this nomination and delete per request of the creator. I'm tired of this now. We get the point and I now have work to do in improving quality which believe it or not I am interested in. Dr. Blofeld White cat 14:20, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
I improved Tea production in Sri Lanka and many others precisely for that reason, obviously true. Dr. Blofeld White cat 14:23, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply
Could somebody please end this debate. We know where it is headed and the stub creator has even voted delete. This is embarrassing to those involved and a very unpleasant situation which has caused the creator to leave wikipedia. Please end this asap, this is pretty much a snowball delete. Further drama here is unnecessary and I think you should do the decent thing any admin viewing this and make the obvious decision. Dr. Blofeld White cat 16:13, 24 July 2009 (UTC) reply