Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia (1944–1977) ( talk| | history| logs| links| watch) ( XfD| restore)

This AfD was closed by King of Hearts as no consensus, with the rationale The sources from German Wikipedia may indicate notability, but there has been insufficient discussion in this AfD to decide for certain. It seems to me that the AfD close is a supervote that elevates an argument not offered in the AfD over the efforts of its participants. Several editors in the discussion evaluated the sourcing in the article, as well as other sources not in the article: Devonian Wombat, Red Rock Canyon, and myself. None of us found evidence that the sourcing on the German Wikipedia (or elsewhere) indicated notability, and between us we had two !votes for redirect and one to delete. Meanwhile none of the keep !voters put forward the argument that the sources on the German Wikipedia indicate notability: the only comment that came close was DWC LR, who wrote Keep and look to German Wikipedia article to improve which looks better sourced; like the other keep !votes, this contains no argument that any of these sources indicate notability. In contrast, my !vote contains a specific refutation of merit of the sources on de for establishing notability, and it was unchallenged by other participants in the week after it was posted. In summary, I feel that King of Hearts's comment would have been a completely appropriate contribution to the discussion (where I or other editors might have had the opportunity to respond to it), but that it is inappropriate in a well-attended AfD to base the close on an argument that was not defended by any participants. I request that either the conclusion be overturned to Delete/Redirect (to reflect the strength of the arguments offered), or that the discussion be re-opened and re-listed, with King of Hearts's comment included as part of the discussion, so that other editors may respond to it. I have discussed my concerns with the closer on their talk page; I appreciate their willingness to talk it over with me, and I apologize that this is probably an annoyance to them. JBL ( talk) 21:40, 31 July 2020 (UTC) reply

• I don't think we can re-close as"delete" because there wasn't a "delete" consensus, even if the deletes get a lot of extra weight. And if envisage reopening with King of Hearts as a vote rather than a close, and then re-evaluate it, I still get "no consensus".— S Marshall  T/ C 21:59, 31 July 2020 (UTC) reply

  If one restricts attention to comments that made any attempt to evaluate sources or apply a notability guideline (what I would call an appropriate weighting), you eliminate all the keeps, so. However, I understand that it feels like going out on a limb to disregard that many !votes, content-free as they may be. The point of adding King of Hearts's comment to the discussion is that it would allow others to respond to it, as I would have done if even one participant had suggested that a more detailed analysis of those sources would be relevant -- it's rather rough on participants to ask not only that they refute points raised in the discussion but also that they pre-emptively refute points raised by the closer. -- JBL ( talk) 22:21, 31 July 2020 (UTC) reply

  Notability does not depend on whether sources are used in an article, but whether they are presumed to exist. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:44, 31 July 2020 (UTC) reply

  I agree with you, but I don't understand what you are responding to. (The sources I analyzed, which analysis King of Hearts found insufficiently detailed (but this view is not expressed by any participants in the discussion), are mostly not in the article here on en.wiki.) -- JBL ( talk) 23:15, 31 July 2020 (UTC) reply

• Overturn to Delete per WP:NOTAVOTE, as the vast majority of the keep votes made no attempt to even claim sources existed, just saying “He is notable because” and the few that did claim sources were in German Wikipedia were outnumbered by the ones who said that they did not cause a GNG pass. Devonian Wombat ( talk) 23:22, 31 July 2020 (UTC) reply
• Overturn or relist: On the balance of it, the policy/guideline-based consensus was fairly clearly towards delete/redirect. Furthermore, the cited close reason about German Wikipedia is insufficient since it was barely mentioned by one keep !vote but thoroughly rejected by a delete argument.
  The sole !keep mention about the German Wikipedia (look to German Wikipedia article to improve which looks better sourced) only used it as a suggestion of improvement rather than a WP:GNG argument. Meanwhile, JBL explicitly refuted the German Wikipedia sources being GNG-worthy (I don't believe that any of the sources on that article simultaneously (1) are reliable and (2) include anything more substantive than passing mention of the subject.).
  The only deletion policy/guideline cited as a direct argument by any of the keep !votes was GNG, but not one of the 8 keep !votes actually point a single GNG source. On the other hand, 8 editors each clearly stated that none of the known sources were sufficient to meet GNG. — MarkH₂₁ ^talk 01:28, 1 August 2020 (UTC) reply
• Endorse - The result was No Consensus, and the close accurately reflects the lack of a consensus. Robert McClenon ( talk) 02:07, 2 August 2020 (UTC) reply
• weak overturn to delete I really hate overturning a NC outcome when the !vote is close--it's hard to fault such a close in general. But frankly here I'm not seeing a single policy/guideline-based argument that holds water for keeping. NC was just on the edge of discretion IMO, but not quite there. To the folks that want to confirm automatic inclusion for people like this, you really need to get a wider consensus behind that. Also, it's not impossible that the sources in the article meet the GNG (I'm having a hard time being sure either way given how little I know about the general topic here). But the keep !votes didn't make that claim in any clear way. Hobit ( talk) 04:09, 2 August 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Just to make things harder on the closer, I'm fine with a merge too if there is a good merge target. I'm not sure there is, but again, I don't know the area well enough to know how unreasonable it would be to have this at some relative's article or something. Hobit ( talk) 19:51, 7 August 2020 (UTC) reply
• Overturn to delete. The majority of keep arguments are based entirely on inheritance. There are insufficient sources even to validate his real name, so the authors have made the common error of translating the German surname Prinz von Preußen to the English "Prince of Prussia" (a title that ceased to exist before he was born). This is the problem with many articles on members of former noble families. Guy ( help!) 22:12, 2 August 2020 (UTC) reply
• Overturn to delete. No sources were given that this person had any notability, except that he inherited a position that was abolished before he was even born, an absurd reason to have an encyclopedia article about someone. Smeat75 ( talk) 23:37, 2 August 2020 (UTC) reply
• Do not delete. It could not have been justifiably deleted due to the complete failure of WP:BEFORE. There are obvious merge targets, including House of Hohenzollern. There is a talk page proposal to merge to Louis Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia. The content is not inherently unsuitable for Wikipedia. Failing WP:Notability does not mandate deletion if there is a merge target. Given the merge possibilities, AfD should be forbidden until there is a serious proposal for merging rejected. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 00:44, 3 August 2020 (UTC) reply

  Nobody in the AfD (which this DR is about) suggested a merge, and the talk page proposal was a single IP comment from 2011. — MarkH₂₁ ^talk 01:51, 3 August 2020 (UTC) reply

  WP:BEFORE was the neglected responsibility of the nominator. The nominator needs to introduce the obvious possibility of merges, and the 2011 talk page suggestion is as valid today as it was then. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 02:15, 3 August 2020 (UTC) reply

  I had considered the WP:BEFORE alternatives when nominating. I didn’t think that there was any referenced content in the pre-nomination version worth merging. It was almost entirely unsourced. — MarkH₂₁ ^talk 02:24, 3 August 2020 (UTC) reply

  That may well be true. Possibly acceptable outcomes could include "merge and redirect", "smerge and redirect", plain "redirect", or "stubify". I think the nominator should mention these possibilities and "why not". I recommend WP:RENOM with a more comprehensive nomination, if you still think it should be deleted. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 02:52, 3 August 2020 (UTC) reply

  The issue there is that the redirect is still from a title that is incorrect. Guy ( help!) 08:32, 3 August 2020 (UTC) reply

  The complaint about BEFORE and the nomination is bizarre given the multiple discussions of sources that took place during the AfD discussion itself. This is not AfD! -- JBL ( talk) 10:36, 3 August 2020 (UTC) reply

  The BEFORE failure was by the nominator of the AfD failing to introduce obvious merge targets to the AfD discussion. — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 12:55, 4 August 2020 (UTC) reply

• Do not delete pet SmokeyJoe. Two obvious, relevant merger targets (father/son). His death was also briefly covered by the New York Times, so a short merger of this content somewhere would not be unjustified by the sources. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/ _{contributions} 01:04, 3 August 2020 (UTC) reply

  I personally am fine with this; moreover, it can be done even if the conclusion of this discussion is "delete". -- JBL ( talk) 10:36, 3 August 2020 (UTC) reply

  Sort of. For attribution reasons, if we merge text from this article into another, this article shouldn't be deleted for attribution reasons. A redirect without deletion would be ideal (there are other ways to manage this, but ideal is the right word). Hobit ( talk) 13:52, 4 August 2020 (UTC) reply

• Overturn and delete per the consensus of the AFD. The closer erred in not recognizing that many of the keep !voters asserted incorrectly that being an heir to the throne conferred notability. Stifle ( talk) 08:28, 3 August 2020 (UTC) reply
• Endorse. The close was a no consensus. It clearly was a no consensus. The "my arguments are better than your arguments and any argument that disagrees with mine should be ignored" claim is a tiresome one that tends to be made by editors who are convinced that they are clearly right and anyone who disagrees with them is clearly wrong. The close was entirely correct. -- Necrothesp ( talk) 15:26, 3 August 2020 (UTC) reply

  a tiresome [claim] that tends to be made by editors who are convinced that they are clearly right and anyone who disagrees with them is clearly wrong Here was your contribution at the AfD: ... Clearly notable. ... This has nothing to do with WP:NOTINHERITED and everything to do with common sense. So. -- JBL ( talk) 15:54, 3 August 2020 (UTC) reply

• Overturn to delete or redirect. Most of the keep !votes are based on the fact that the subject was the heir to a defunct throne. As that doesn't seem to be codified anywhere I don't think that argument should be given as much weight than the concerns of the other side, which were rooted in notability guidelines. Only two keep !voters brought up sourcing-based arguments: ClearBreeze, who posted a count of Google News hits, and DWC LR, who said that the German Wikipedia had better sources. Neither gave specifics and at least one of the delete commenters reviewed the German Wikipedia sources and didn't think they were enough. I'm happy with a merge to some similar article. Hut 8.5 17:56, 3 August 2020 (UTC) reply
• Do not delete looking through one news archive online the Hamburger Abendblatt, they reported on his engagement, marriage, accident right up till his death weeks later and then funeral, his death was reported in the New York Times as noted above, that does not happen to an average person. He was the heir to the Royal House of Prussia that is why he was notable and of interest to the media, notability can be inherited rather than achieved by doing something. Was he the most famous person in the world, no, but neither are most of the people we have biographies of here. We could merge to another article but what’s the point, there is clear evidence of notability through significant coverage which extended even to the USA and we are not a paper encyclopaedia struggling for space. - dwc lr ( talk) 21:39, 3 August 2020 (UTC) reply
• Overturn, and then my AfD vote would be merge and redirect to Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia#Family, the family section of his son's article. Little of the info in the article besides his death is sourced. He doesn't meet the WP:GNG requirements of having coverage in multiple sources, unlike his son. Despite the objections, seems to be WP:NOTINHERITED - the idea that he sounds notable so he must be isn't an argument, but does influence votes. Sorta like Canadian Who's Who. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 22:14, 4 August 2020 (UTC) reply

• Endorse Not seeing a lot of consensus here, although we have more !votes than the deletion discussion (and a lot more text that the article itself). original close therefore seems reasonable. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:19, 5 August 2020 (UTC) reply
• Endorse arguments from precedent at AfD are valid, so are arguments saying it’s bad precedent. The additional fact that the German Wikipedia has an article makes NPOSSIBLE a valid consideration. Just as the views of those wanting to delete had some basis in policy. Endorse as no consensus existed. TonyBallioni ( talk) 06:16, 5 August 2020 (UTC) reply
• Overturn to delete There are three types of votes in that discussion - that he is automatically notable, that he's not notable, and a couple !votes which actually discuss whether he's Wikipedia-notable, specifically Red Rock Canyon's. Though mathematically the vote is about even, the strongest votes are the ones which actually discuss the sourcing, and there's not enough souring here for a standalone article based on the discussion. I've selected "overturn to delete" in the bold, but I'm fine with any result that moves this away from no consensus grounds into not-a-standalone-page grounds, especially if there's any possibility any sourced information can be included elsewhere. SportingFlyer T· C 07:43, 5 August 2020 (UTC) reply
• Endorse. The discussion clearly reached no consensus. The "overturn" arguments would require the closer to resolve a policy dispute on which the community has not reached a supporting consensus, which would be an abusive supervote. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by many administrators since 2006. Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong! ( talk) 20:51, 5 August 2020 (UTC) reply

  @ Hullaballoo Wolfowitz: What policy dispute? -- JBL ( talk) 20:14, 8 August 2020 (UTC) reply

• Overturn to delete or redirect. The keeps are so weak that I do not see how "no consensus" is within discretion when the strength of argument is taken into account (per Hobit, Hut 8.5, SportingFlyer, et al.). No objection to a merge. T. Canens ( talk) 03:22, 8 August 2020 (UTC) reply
• Overturn to delete. That's how I would have closed the AfD, and although closers do not always need to be of one mind about how to close an AfD, they do need to take the strength of arguments into account. Here, most "keep" arguments were in the vein of "but he's a royal". These arguments should have been discounted because community consensus is that notability is WP:NOTINHERITED, and in particular not when the supposed royal house is a mere fiction. See also WP:OUTCOMES#Monarchs and nobility. Sandstein 06:05, 8 August 2020 (UTC) reply

Cobb Education Television ( talk| | history| logs| links| watch) ( XfD| restore)

This was a non-admin closure of no-consensus for which I am requesting an overturn to delete. The discussion was lightly attended however, I do believe the discussion was sufficient to arrive at a consensus of delete. The only "keep" came from the article creator who provided no policy based arguments for keeping and the rebuttal to lack of notability amounts to WP:ITEXISTS, and WP:OLDARTICLE. The one "Redirect" put forward acknowledged that there is almost no sources found. I and the nominator make for two "delete" and the "redirect" commentary actually supports deletion given the paucity of sources. Whpq ( talk) 13:48, 31 July 2020 (UTC) reply

Endorse my decision. I do not believe there was sufficient discussion to choose an appropriate outcome at the time. The page was already on its second relisting, and as per guidance I was not prepared to do so a third time. (The second relist garnered 0 discussion). OP seems to lean on the side of this being because of 'votes', not because of discussion - which there was very little to make a consensus.   Kadzi   ( talk) 14:19, 31 July 2020 (UTC) reply

My DRV nomination is not about vote counting. My nomination statement makes it very clear I am contesting this because of the discussion. As for the brevityof discussion, there's not a whole lot to actually discuss because there is almost nothing in the way of sources to actually discuss. -- Whpq ( talk) 19:38, 31 July 2020 (UTC) reply

• Overturn and have an administrator close this one per BADNAC #2 - there's a number of ways in which this could be closed, and given the discussion I think redirect is probably the strongest, but the very fact there's a number of ways this could have been closed combined with the fact the close is controversial means it should be re-closed by an administrator. SportingFlyer T· C 17:12, 31 July 2020 (UTC) reply
• It's to Wikipedia's credit that we don't do credentialism. It doesn't matter whether Kadzi has a sysop flag. What matters is if his close was right. I've considered that, and I think it's rather unfortunate that Kadzi describes his close as "my decision". That betrays a lack of clarity about the role of the closer which I find a bit troubling.
  Netoholic's contribution to that debate is clearly the strongest. He's considered the lack of sources, come to the (correct) conclusion that there shouldn't be an article in that space, and then followed ATD to see if there's a valid redirect target. He's identified one. Deletion is only an appropriate outcome if all the alternatives have been exhausted.
  It follows that Netoholic's vote deserves far more weight than either the "keeps" or the "deletes". To my eyes, the closes that would be within discretion are "no consensus" and "redirect". Weighing the votes per policy, you can't get to "keep" or "delete" from there.— S Marshall  T/ C 21:09, 31 July 2020 (UTC) reply

  Comment I appreciate your concern regarding the usage of the term ‘my decision’, I understand how it could be seen to lack clarity on the role of the closer - rest assured this is just my vernacular, and in closing this discussion I attempted to interpret the discussion as accurately as possible. The decision ‘’was’’ made by me as to close it, however my decision making used the discussion as the forethought. This very page (2.2) uses the very same vocabulary “ Endorse the original closing decision; or”, and I was simply mimicking this. Apologies for any confusion.   Kadzi   ( talk) 22:22, 31 July 2020 (UTC) reply

  I agree we don't do credentialism and I agree that benefits the site, but we also have a rule that non-administrators should not close close discussions, and I define this discussion, with multiple possible outcomes and redirect the strongest outcome, a close discussion. SportingFlyer T· C 07:34, 5 August 2020 (UTC) reply

• Overturn seems like a lightly attended discussion but with the not-keep arguments clearly better than the keep argument; since redirects are cheap and this one would be appropriate, it's hard not to see "redirect" as the consensus outcome. -- JBL ( talk) 22:28, 31 July 2020 (UTC) reply

• Overturn to redirect- although it wasn't the best attended debate of all time, when one considers keep v not it's clear that consensus was for the latter. Redirect seems reasonable, although it's a bit off that there is no mention at all of the subject at the proposed redirect target. Reyk _YO! 22:38, 1 August 2020 (UTC) reply
• Weak overturn to redirect. My general rule of thumb is that one or two !votes to delete (including the nominator) are insufficient to constitute a quorum regardless of the strength of the arguments, so I will either relist for a third time if something about the discussion suggests that doing so might be beneficial, close as soft delete if there is no opposition, or close as no consensus WP:NPASR if there is even token opposition (with the intent to undo my close and relist a third time if challenged, since that is more productive than the nominator starting a new AfD from scratch). I am sympathetic to arguments over where the line should be, but for me three is enough. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:20, 1 August 2020 (UTC) reply
• Endorse the result. It should have been closed as No Consensus. I would have preferred an admin close, but I see no need to get someone else to sign off. Robert McClenon ( talk) 02:05, 2 August 2020 (UTC) reply
• I agree with S Marshall here in all the particulars. overturn to redirect until better sources surface. Hobit ( talk) 04:11, 2 August 2020 (UTC) reply
• Overturn to redirect; the nominator and two others would not have had an article at that title and only one suggested keeping it. Stifle ( talk) 08:29, 3 August 2020 (UTC) reply
• Overturn to delete. The numbers were in favour of getting rid of the standalone article and the lone Keep comment didn't address the arguments for deletion. The fact that the article has no third party reliable sources by itself should be decisive, as this is a requirement of WP:V. I can't see any point in a redirect as the subject isn't mentioned in the target article, and since there are no meaningful sources I don't think a merge is a great idea either. Hut 8.5 18:05, 3 August 2020 (UTC) reply
• Endorse close as NC. There was no consensus in the discussion, and the close correctly said so. The article could be converted to a redirect as an ordinary editorial action, an AfD is not needed for that. I would tend to favor that outcome, but there was not consensus for it in the AfD. Or the article can be renominated after a reasonable delay, which need not be terribly long for an NC close, if any editor chooses to do so. An admin, had one undertaken the close, should have closed this in the same way. DES ^(talk) _{DESiegel Contribs} 16:34, 4 August 2020 (UTC) reply
• Endorse because there wasn’t a consensus. No prejudice against a speedy renom if people want to argue for a redirect that would be contested that way. TonyBallioni ( talk) 06:29, 5 August 2020 (UTC) reply
• Just as an aside, even though I respect them, I think the editors who claim there's no consensus here are clearly wrong to the point where I need to mention it. There were two !votes to delete, one to redirect, one vote to keep. The !votes to delete and redirect all specifically mentioned the lack of sources, and at least two voters did a source search - the redirect simply found a place it could be redirected to. The keep !voter (the article creator) only offered the "we've had the article for 16 years," which is not a valid argument. I have no idea why people think this one's a no consensus, and while it's fine to have an opinion, opinions can indeed be wrong. SportingFlyer T· C 20:03, 5 August 2020 (UTC) reply

  I think the number of !votes does matter, in a lightly attended AfD. If there were just one fewer !vote to delete/redirect, then it's a pretty clear NC result for me. I would pretty much never close an AfD with only two editors supporting delete (or redirect) as hard delete, regardless of the strength of the arguments, because there is WP:NOQUORUM, unless the article somehow met WP:CSD. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:09, 5 August 2020 (UTC) reply

• Endorse outcome. No real consensus here; the nom provided no reasoned analysis, and redirecting topics to articles which do not even mention them is generally unhelpful. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by many administrators since 2006. Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong! ( talk) 20:45, 5 August 2020 (UTC) reply