Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Frank Kaufmann

Frank Kaufmann

Frank Kaufmann (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Non-notable head of one of the myriad non-notable organisations within the Unification Movement. Only vestigial reliable third party coverage. The article is simply a credulous regurgitation of his blog biography, to which ludicrously tenuous citations have recently been added (when these claims were challenged & deleted). A substantial minority of these citations are to Kaufmann's own writings, and a vast majority are to sources associated with him (particularly through the Unification Movement). They frequently either do not even mention Kaufmann himself, and/or do not mention the activity he is claimed to have engaged in/people he is claimed to have "worked with", let alone actually connecting him with them in any meaningful way. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 16:16, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

• Delete Most of the information in the article is uncited. As the nominator said, no secondary source has discussed Mr. Kaufman in any depth. Northwestgnome (talk) 16:24, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. —Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 16:31, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

• Keep The discussion on the talk page continues to raise issues recommending the biography is notable. There is an ongoing dialogue that disputes the characterization of the references described above. This list provided in the initial recommendation to delete, has been modified steadily and consistently in respectful response to the corrections of Mr. Hrafn. The conversation continues on the talk page.96.224.169.155 (talk) 19:03, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Allegedly disruptive edit collapsed within

The most recent section of the talk page conversation is reproduced here:

===Sick to death of tendentious arguments=== I am sick of this anonymous editor:

1. Ubiquitously misrepresenting obscure sources, organisations and individuals as "major", "very elite", "preeminent", "major religious leaders", "a major Christian thinker and writer", "a significant international organization", "an important organization". Such ludicrous unsubstantiated hyperbole adds nothing to the discussion.
2. Making arguments that are ludicrous WP:SYNTH based on speculation so wild as to make conspiracy theories look like a WP:RS.
3. A 'Humpty Dumpty' 'words mean whatever I want them to' interpretation of 'peace activist', 'work with', etc.
4. A completely ludicrous claim that "Only one reference was "written by Kaufmann" -- when these stand as obvious contradiction [1][2][3], as well as the following references which are simply links to/sales-blurbs of/abstracts of material written by Kaufmann: [4][5][6][7]
   • And this is doesn't include the throng of other sources that Kaufmann has close associations with.

I am heartily tired of this and will WP:AFD this article. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 16:00, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I thought the rule of Wikipedia was not to make personal attacks WP:NPA, assume good faith WP:AGF, work with civility, and not to communicate in a way that consists of personally-targeted, belligerent behavior and persistent rudeness that results in an atmosphere of conflict and stress WP:CIVIL. Is it permitted to declare oneself "sick of" someone who is in dialogue in good faith.

The writer is responding in sincere dialogue and making changes. Is it permitted to denigrate a fellow Wikipedian, resort to name calling, declare oneself sick of people who differ and are in respectful dialogue?

Your list of notes "written by Kaufmann" are not accurate:

Footnote 1, lists Kaufmann's position by the World Media Association. This entry (on Kaufmann's work) was not written by Kaufmann.

Footnote 2, Shows a website concerned with issues of war and peace using Kaufmann's work. The use of Kaufmann's work was the decision of the site editors, it was not "written by Kaufmann."

Footnote 3, yes Hrafn is correct. I didn't notice those articles were written Kaufmann, my mistake. This must be deleted as a reference.

Footnote 4, a news aggregate of contemporary published news and opinion is not "written by Kaufmann." It lists his published writing as a function of that site's mission.

Footnote 5, The Common Ground News Service uses Kaufmann's published writing, Common Ground News Service is not "written by Kaufmann"

Footnote 6, The website of the educational organization Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies uses Kaufmann's published writing as one of its resources. It is not "written by Kaufmann"

Footnote 7 is from the website of an scholarly publisher. The listing of Kaufmann's book, that shows the academic fields that Kaufmann teaches, was not "written by Kaufmann" it was written by the Peter Lang Verlagsgruppe

It seems belittling and mocking to compare a discussion of peace activism with Humpty Dumpty. That is not a respectful way to make a point. It seems uncivil to describe a sincere effort to dialogue as tendentious. It seems uncivil to describe the efforts of a dialogue partner as ludicrous hyperbole, to say that efforts to comply "add nothing to the discussion could also be seen as hyperbole. The belittling of sincere efforts to provide referencing, mocking it by comparing it to conspiracy theory, also seems in violation of several of Wikipedia standards and regulations, and efforts of the leadership to create a collegial and welcoming atmosphere for contributors.

If there is a rush to delete the article for some reason, a Wikipedia administrator certainly can manage to do so easily, I imagine. But why the rush? Clear evidence has been provided to indicate that that is a notable biography. Together with a seeming rush to delete this article, there has now emerged for some reason a string of offense, insult, belittling and mocking.

I do not know the rules of how articles are deleted. If administrators are free to do this unilaterally, then of course it is clear from the outset, and all throughout the conversation that this has been the direction of Mr. Hrafn conversation with a writer who is trying to comply.

If however Wikipedia is organized so that Wikipedia administrators are not free to personally delete articles unilaterally and without peer oversight, if it is the case that some form of a committee has to review such decisions as a way to protect the integrity of Wikipedia from the possibility of bias in a single administrator, then it should be clear to other reviewers that valid points have been made by both sides. The conversation continues. The seniority and authority of the administrator has been respected throughout (following initial instruction and apology), and in fact for some reason, late in the conversation the newbie suddenly has come under personal attack, mockery, and belittlement, for doing nothing other than offering differing opinions.

If there is a committee involved in decisions to delete articles, there is clear evidence that the biography of Kaufmann is notable, or at least possibly so, and there should arise some question as to why there is so great a rush to delete this particular article while sincere discussion and efforts to comply and modify the article continues? 96.224.169.155 (talk) 18:52, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

• No. The "conversation" does not 'continue'. I brought it to an end because of your repeated bad-faith misrepresentations of sources, and particularly of the degree to which the article relies upon material by Kaufmann himself (to the extent of your even claiming that a piece that explicitly states that it is "by Frank Kaufmann" was not written by him). And I have just had to nowiki-tag the section break that you inserted with the hidden material -- as it was disrupting ability to edit this AfD. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 05:19, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

• Keep The rampant tagging of the page makes it difficult to ascertain where its essential defects, if any, lie, so it should be kept until cleaned up sufficiently that the issues, assuming any remain, are apparent. Jclemens (talk) 20:10, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: so the fact that the sources to which the article is cited ubiquitously fail to verify the material cited to them, and are frequently unreliable (and therefore have been tagged for such), is reason to keep the article? Interesting reasoning. I think, given that the reliable independent coverage of this topic approaches very close to zero, that we can safely say that 'issues remain' and are already "apparent". Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 05:26, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Ad hominem attack & responses hidden, per M's request to keep this off the AfD

• Having personal experience with the way in which articles can acquire excessive tags, I'd say the current state of the article is prima facie evidence of the appropriateness of keeping it in Wikipedia. That is, an editor who was properly WP:DGAFing would simply tag it and leave it. The presence of a plethora of tags suggests that some editor has taken an excessive, perhaps unhealthy, interest in the outcome. Jclemens (talk) 05:42, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: given Jclemens desperate measures (both here and on other articles) to 'rescue' non-notable material lacking significant independent & reliable coverage, his invocation of WP:DGAF is hilarious. He quite clearly does "give a f_ck" about these articles. Whether he 'gives a f_ck' about WP:V (the core wikipedia policy at issue here) is a rather different question. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 06:38, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

• Well then, feel free to include some AfD links so other editors can review past contributions. I think they will find that recently, your evaluation is a good barometer of an AfD outcome: the community seems to fairly consistently disagree with your position. At our first encounter, I took your vehement opposition more seriously, until I realized that yours is just one differing, non-normative opinion about how to apply Wikipedia policies. Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 07:14, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

• Ahhh yes, an AfD where the closing admin accepted your misrepresentations of a bunch of pseudoreviews as evidence of WP:NOTE, an AfD where I accepted addition of material made after my original comment as raising the article (barely) to notability, a highly contentiuous one which resulted in a close of "The result was keep in the sense of 'not delete'. There is no immediately apparent consensus as to whether or not the article should be merged to one of a number of proposed other articles" (when my final vote was to merge), an AfD when even one of the proponents admitted that "it was indeed a quote farm from her books but the books were references when there wasn't much else", and one where half the article was WP:COPYVIO. If this is the best that you can cherry-pick (they are neither the most recent AfDs I've participated in, nor ones that I've initiated), then your accusation of "one differing, non-normative opinion" is clearly baseless. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 07:54, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: 96.224.169.155 & Jclemens have spent an inordinate amount of space in ad hominem attacks on myself in an apparent attempt to distract attention from the complete lack of "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". I have started a section on: Talk:Frank Kaufmann#Reliable independent coverage of Frank Kaufmann to highlight what coverage there may be. Rather than attacking me further, why don't they demonstrate that this article is worthy of keeping by finding some non-trivial independent and reliable coverage and add it there. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 12:42, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

• Be happy to, on one condition--from now, until the close of the AfD, you do not edit the artice. If you're willing to raise objections in the article's talk page and let other editors fix them without constantly disrupting the visual flow of the article with tags, I'm fine with that. Feel free to keep a running list on talk, we'll leave the articleissues header as is, and then you can reinsert appropriate tags in the article assuming it survives AfD. As is, the repeated inline tagging actively discourages improvement. Since you've nominated the article for deletion, this also gives you a bit of separation from the cleanup work, such that nothing you put on the talk page could be construed as actively interfering with the repair work. How's that sound? Jclemens (talk) 15:53, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

• Given our anon-friend's habitual tendency to misrepresent the reliability (most obvious example is the Eden Project -- but numerous other sub-par sources have been represented in superlative terms), content (the Dalai Lama video, claims for working with Muftis, Hindus, etc, etc), and authorship (particularly Kaufmann's own authorship) of sources, why on earth would I want to give him a free hand to do so unchecked? And to be honest, given my previous experience with you, I don't trust you much more. So no deal. WP:NOTE requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" -- so I see no reason I should bargain away my right to highlight poor sourcing for something that wikipedia officially demands anyway. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 16:28, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

• Week keep - Poorly written article, but no problem with notability. --Dezidor (talk) 14:20, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Ad hominem attack & responses hidden, per M's request to keep this off the AfD

• Are there rules for arbitrarily adding or deleting article content with the specific result to diminish the notability of a biography? (See here and here) Thank you 68.160.253.64 (talk) 15:02, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

• In hundreds of AfD's I've particpated in or reviewed, Hrafn is the only editor I've seen remove content inserted by other editors that they maintain improves notability. He should probably respond to this query. Jclemens (talk) 15:55, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

• I will WP:AGF and assume that Jclemens is not lying about "only editor I've seen" -- just has a very poor memory -- as he himself (in one of the AfDs he links to above, in his previous ad hominem attack) made a similar accusation against DJ Clayworth, who had removed some of the trivia that Jclemens was attempting to insert into that article in an (ultimately successful) attempt to spoof notability. I will not engage this further attempt to distract attention, but will repeat my earlier question: where is the "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject"? Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 16:13, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

• Oh yeah, him. Haven't seen him in that article since the AfD, unlike you. Allow me to amplify my statement: In hundreds of AfD's I've particpated in or reviewed, Hrafn is the only editor I've seen remove content inserted by other editors that they maintain improves notability, while repeatedly inserting excessive tags and challenging cleanup work in progress. Better? Jclemens (talk) 04:11, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

• Delete - perhaps strong delete. This article reads like a padded and glorified CV. The positions (director, editor, scholar, collaborator, nominee) sound notable, but they are unverified, the organizations/awards aren't notable enough to make him notable, and the listed accomplishments (oversight of monographs, responsibility to talk to religious leaders) don't merit inclusion in the encyclopedia. I also urge the editors to discontinue arguments on this AFD page, as it clutters things up and discourages others from voting. A link might draw interested parties to whatever talk pages are relevant. –M^T 18:06, 7 August 2008 (UTC)