Talk:Gunther Holtorf

550 miles in 27 years? did he run out of petrol? 2,000 kilomitres

Conflicting information

There seems to be some confusion regarding how many km/mi Holtorf travelled. The "official site" says 900,000 km (i.e. 559,353 mi), other sites say "almost 900,000 km" or "556,000 mi" (i.e. 894,300 km) and others yet say "884,000 km" (i.e. 549,400 mi), so we should say "approximately 550,000 miles" (with a convert template) in the article. The mention of Guiness Book of Records also seems to be a mistranslation. The only source for it seems to be an interview with Holtorf himself in Spiegel Online where he says "ein Eintrag ins "Guinness Buch der Rekorde" ist in Vorbereitung", i.e. that "an entry in GBoWR is being prepared", which is not the same as a confirmation by Guiness Book of World Records that it has been accepted as a world record. It's so vague that it's actually not even a claim by Holtorf that it has been accepted as a record. Thomas.W ^talk 18:08, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

• I can add that a search on "Holtorf" on the Guiness World Records web site ( http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/ ) returns nothing ("No results found"), while searches on "Gunther" and "Günther", to make sure there are no alternative spellings of the family name, only return records that have no connection to Holtorf. Thomas.W ^talk 18:40, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

In any case, the Guinness mention needs to be deleted no matter what, per WP:CRYSTAL. Until there is an actual cited entry, we cannot mention it on WP. UPDATE: Done. Softlavender (talk) 09:37, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Hey. I didn't realize that this was here as well. :) The statement in the article wasn't based on a mistranslation from Spiegel; when I was drafting this and Spiegel was all i had for that, it looked quite different. What wound up getting posted was based on a quite clear statement in another source: "550,000 miles and 215 countries later the Mercedes - nicknamed Otto by Miss Holtorf - has made it in to the Guinness World Record books."[1] However, as I mentioned to Thomas.W at my talk page, I don't have great familiarity with Express and it's one source, so I was content with his revision. (I don't think I agree, though, that we need wait for an actual cited entry in Guinness. Wikipedia is all about secondary sources. If we had enough reliable secondary sources indicating that Holtorf was mentioned in any reference work, those reliable sources would be what we'd cite. But we don't have that here - that's an aside. :)) Getting back on track, what was wrong with the revision that Thomas had already made, Softlavender? It's not CRYSTAL to indicate that something is being submitted to Guinness, right? :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:49, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it is WP:CRYSTAL. I'm sure Guinness gets billions of submissions per year. It's trivia and inadmissible unless and until it's actually listed in Guinness or on the Guinness site. Mentioning Guinness at all on Wikipedia would indicate approval or sanctioning of the belief that it's actually going to be accepted by Guinness or even stands a chance, never mind the fact that it's prohibited by WP:CRYSTAL, in my opinion. It's like any award, etc. -- we need confirmation from the award source/presenter, after the fact, not just the word of the hopeful or of a fallible journalist(s) reporting what the hopeful says. Cheers, Softlavender (talk) 13:04, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Those seem like two separate issues, Softlavender - trivia vs. crystal. I don't think it's essential for the article to mention that he's submitted for, but I'd be quite interested in hearing your thoughts on how it can be crystal to announce that somebody is applying for something (the words, when removed, said, "is being submitted to Guinness World Records'). It is not a future event, but a present event, and does not predict the outcome of that event. CRYSTAL says, "Wikipedia is not a collection of unverifiable speculation. Wikipedia does not predict the future." There is no speculation or prediction there; it's simply a statement based on reliable sources. In terms of conformation from the award source/presenter after the fact, WP:SECONDARY are quite sufficient, if reliable. We don't need WP:PRIMARY although can obviously use them. There's no primary sources confirming that James M. Buchanan won the NOBEL, for instance. We're relying on people like The New York Times and Badische Zeitung to tell us this. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:21, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Of course we don't need direct confirmation for the Nobel Prize, but we do need confirmation for less renowned awards not covered on a daily basis by all major news outlets. To repeat, I'm sure Guinness gets billions of submissions per year. Wikipedia is not a newspaper; we don't report things like that: we don't report when people apply for things, we report when they achieve things. If Holtorf gets listed on the Guinness site or in one of the Guinness books, we report the acceptance/achievement then. Hope that makes sense. Softlavender (talk) 13:38, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

It's definitely not a case of WP:CRYSTAL since there's no speculation about future events in "is being submitted to Guinness World Records", so the only reason for removing it would be that it is of no relevance to the article. Which I feel it is, or I wouldn't have rephrased it and kept it in the article. Thomas.W ^talk

Softlavender, we don't create articles just for people who apply for things, but I don't believe that there's any specific prohibition on reporting that somebody has applied for something when they are already notable and have an article. Certainly, when awards are not covered by major news outlets, primary may be necessary. But if news outlets do report, they work perfectly well for us. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:11, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to ask if any other WP articles (quality ones) mention that someone is submitting something to Guinness. If something of that nature can be found, I'd be more convinced it is applicable to a Wikipedia article. We've already had problems and claims of puffery about the various iterations of this article, and it would be best to avoid any such semblance in my opinion. The problem with stating that in the article is that it implies that he is probably going to win the distinction, but since there is no official annual ceremony for Guinness Awards (that I am aware of), there is no way for anyone to actually know when the yea or nay will be determined, and editors will forget about this article, and that statement will just languish on the article forever, as a putative semi-fact and implication of success. If there is some consensus that it should be added, I think a better and much more accurate statement would be to say that he hopes to win the Guiness World Record for the longest journey; that is what our already listed citation The Local says: [2] (Can also check out [3]). Hmmmm, while I was looking that up, I found this damning write-up which throws some of the Holtorf story into question, including the viability of his Guinness claim: [4] (do Control+F gunther) -- I found that via this [5] (do Control+F gunther). This is another reason not to mention the Guinness submission before success. Softlavender (talk) 14:29, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

That "source" is the current holders of the Guinness record, so it must be taken with not only a grain of salt but a pound of it. It's also published on their own blog, whis is as far from a reliable source as anything can be. Thomas.W ^talk 14:54, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

They provide linked and verifiable citations for several of their main claims: (1) the well-known fact that Holtorf only traveled six months per year, which may very well, or in their opinion probably will, exempt him from the Guinness record; (2) he claimed to have visited Somalia [6], chart, but in 2013 when specifically asked about that country told Outside he actually hadn't [7]; (3) Mercedes dealers opened up the odometer every 100,000 kilometers and pasted a number on it. Those three alone could exempt him from the world record; if their other claims bear out they would add to the probability he won't meet the criteria. PS: I'm not saying their blog is an RS for the wiki article; I'm saying that the likelihood he would receive a Guinness World record seems slim and therefore in my opinion we should not mention the submission in this wiki article. Softlavender (talk) 15:23, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

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