Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Volkmar Weiss

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Even though "Withdrawn by nominator", since there was a valid delete vote, had to be done through a regular closing process, and the consensus is clearly keep. (non-admin closure) Onel5969 ^{TT me} 23:55, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Volkmar Weiss

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

• How to contribute
• Introduction to deletion process
• Guide to deletion (glossary)
• Help, my article got nominated for deletion!

Volkmar Weiss (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

This figure does not appear to be notable per WP:PROF. The article describes him as a scientist but he does not appear to have ever held an academic position (his personal website [1] describes him as a "psychohistorian" and his German-language Wiki [2] states that he worked as an administrator for the German Central Office for Genealogy from the time of his habilitation until his retirement in 2008). His publication record appears to fall far short of notability as well. Further, I have not found any English-language WP:RS secondary sources discussing him. His website lists a 2002 book review in Personality and Individual Differences but I cannot locate the review in that journal's archive (or anywhere through numerous Google searches). Even if it does exist, one such review would not establish notability. Generalrelative (talk) 22:24, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

• Withdrawn by nominator. I won't stand in the way of what appears to be an emerging consensus for keeping this article. That doesn't mean I'm persuaded by all of the arguments below (I still think the subject clearly fails WP:PROF, and I've found only one instance of targeted commentary in a scientific journal –– the Gisela Grupe article in Zeitschrift für pädagogische Psychologie). However it seems that others are prepared to see the coverage in German-language newspapers as evidence for general notability and I'll be happy to defer to that. Thanks to everyone who's participated in this discussion. Generalrelative (talk) 21:58, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

@NightHeron: The German-language Wiki states that he was Mitherausgeber (literally "co-editor", though apparently this can simply mean that he was a member of an editorial panel) of Mankind Quarterly until 2015. It may be worth emphasizing that criterion 8 of WP:PROF is only satisfied when the subject has been the head or chief editor of a major, well-established academic journal in their subject area, which Mankind Quarterly is clearly not. Generalrelative (talk) 01:13, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

@Kusma: Thanks very much for your detailed response to NightHeron's query below. I suppose Weiss's notability hinges on whether Die Welt/Welt am Sonntag and Die Tageszeitung are considered WP:RS in this context. I know they're both considered politically partisan (as you point out) so it's not clear to me that they count to establish WP:GNG. I suppose it's a judgment call, unless you're aware of any precedents or policy guidelines that would help us adjudicate? And once again: thanks. I appreciate the thoughtful discussion. Generalrelative (talk) 00:00, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Also: looking more into Telepolis leads me to believe that it is a highly unreliable source. A quick search shows that they've published 9/11 "truther" claims by conspiracy theorist Mathias Bröckers and fringe ideas about physics by Burkhard Heim. Generalrelative (talk) 02:13, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@Randykitty: It's not clear to me that Die Tageszeitung (reference 2) is WP:RS, as mentioned in my reply to Kusma above. I did check all the references in Weiss's German-language article and found that of those 27, several of the clearly WP:RS ones do not actually refer to Weiss at all (references 8, 10, 11, 17). I'm not sure whether and to what extent policies like WP:SYNTH apply on the German-language Wikipdia, but this article seems to be quite full of it. Only references 18 and 25 appear to be clear cases of reliable, independent coverage of Weiss, and the latter appears to make only fleeting reference to him (it is a "brochure" or "pamphlet" –– Broschüre –– on a much wider topic). Seems to me that this subject still fails both WP:SIGCOV and WP:PROF. Generalrelative (talk) 17:21, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

• Delete as OP. Generalrelative (talk) 17:12, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 22:31, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Germany-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 22:31, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 22:34, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Delete The BLP gives no significant evidence of notability. The closest is the statement that VW's arguments were used in a chapter of a book (Germany Abolishes Itself) that was very popular among German rightists. He seems to be mainly a minor promoter of fringe views, and the article lists the white supremacist journal Mankind Quarterly as his "Co-publisher" (perhaps a mistranslation from German). NightHeron (talk) 23:50, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

• Keep, notable case of right-wing fringe science promoter and previous head of the de:Deutsche Zentralstelle für Genealogie. Co-founder of Die Wende era party German Social Union. Reasonable amount of WP:GNG sources in the German Wikipedia article. —Kusma (t·c) 11:16, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

This article was apparently brought over from the German Wikipedia but without RS establishing notability. Could you be more specific on which sources in German establish notability? Note that the article German Social Union doesn't mention him. NightHeron (talk) 12:28, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

I'll try. Article about his book in Welt am Sonntag and another one in Telepolis. From my own searches: Mentioned here in right wing Die Welt, discussed here in left-wing newspaper die tageszeitung. Weiss doesn't like Wikipedia very much: [3]. He has not only published questionable ideas about the genetics of intelligence, but also crank pseudoscience [4] in Mohamed El Naschie's journal Chaos, Solitons & Fractals. I can't find particularly good sources about the German Social Union (DSU) connection at the moment (can verify that Weiss was involved, but many articles/books that study the early DSU history typically use texts written by Volkmar Weiss as their main source). There's a lot to find from him via Google Scholar or Google Books, and his theses were discussed in a wide spectrum of German newspapers (not too hard to find), applauded by the hard right, condemned by the left. Notable enough, but I don't want to write about him. —Kusma (t·c) 22:09, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

• Delete - badly fails WP:SIGCOV. Bearian (talk) 01:45, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 08:38, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

• Delete: fails NPROF The Ace in Spades (talk) 12:25, 15 December 2020 (UTC) — The Ace in Spades (talk • contribs) is a confirmed sock puppet of Waskerton (talk • contribs).

• Keep. Notable pseudoscientist. I went to the article on the German WP and already reference 2 is an independent reliable source. I didn't bother looking further, but there are 27 references in that article and while several are to publications by Weiss himself, several others appear to be independent RSs. Our article could be improved by using some of the stuff that our German colleagues have used. --Randykitty (talk) 13:07, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: don't be silly. Die Welt/Welt am Sonntag and Die Tageszeitung absolutely are RS. --Randykitty (talk) 17:15, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: Since this article was started over a decade ago, there've been about 100 edits, and it still does not establish notability. The two editors who want to keep it have argued that, if additional material were brought over from the German article, that could establish notability. A hypothetical statement like that is hard to evaluate, especially by those of us who don't know German. If someone who wants this article kept could put in the edits they're referring to, then we could evaluate whether or not they establish notability. Of course, Wikipedia policy explicitly allows editing of the article during the deletion discussion.

Also, for a productive discussion it would be helpful to avoid casting aspersions on other editors ("don't be silly"). NightHeron (talk) 20:12, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

• Don't be silly. Nobody is casting aspersions on other editors, but doubting that Die Welt/Welt am Sonntag is somehow not a gold-plated RS is plain silly. --Randykitty (talk) 21:56, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

• I thank NightHeron for their comment. For the record, I'm okay with being called silly, though of course it doesn't add anything to the discussion. The issue is with the sources. The only specific guidance I've been able to find on Die Welt and Die Tageszeitung is the New page patrol source guide, which lists both of them as having been subjected to "insufficient discussion". Those designations link to this RfC, where Stephan Schulz states that Die Welt is at the lower end of the German quality press, but yes, for factual reporting it's generally reliable. To back this up they cite this peer-reviewed article [5] and summarize it as follows: it lists Die Welt as the lowest of the second rank papers, below Frankfurter Rundschau and above Die Tageszeitung. TAZ is alone on the third rank, and the 4th rank papers include Bild and Neues Deutschland, which I don't think anyone would include as "quality press". Not exactly "gold-plated RS" (and Die Tageszeitung / TAZ is further cast into doubt), but if these sources are considered reliable enough for the community here then I suppose that's that. Generalrelative (talk) 23:04, 20 December 2020 (UTC)'

• Since may name came up: I'm not a fan of Die Welt, and Die Tageszeitung has a very strong and clear political positioning. But they both are part of the quality press. Not NYT quality, but easily on par with e.g. The Times under Murdoch, and unquestionably better than e.g. the New York Post. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:11, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

• Thanks for your insight. Generalrelative (talk) 20:37, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

• Keep per significant coverage in RSes as shown by Kusma, although I'm doubtful that his work at Deutsche Zentralstelle für Genealogie is a strong argument for notability in the absence of related sigcov in RSes. — Charles Stewart (talk) 22:29, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Missvain (talk) 00:52, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, MBisanz ^talk 18:02, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

• Keep. Enough academic and publishing qualifications for WP:PROF; the German Wikipedia article is strong; being a right-wing extremist scientist makes him notable in the notorious sense, but this is sufficient, he is noticed and commented upon. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:37, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• Keep A disagreeable puffball and quack, but a notable one. In addition to the NP coverage discussed above, there's also material in Der Freitag and targeted commentary in scientific journals. All that stuff would have to be lifted over from the German version, but since this is the rare deWP article that actually has plenty of inline cites (woah...), it's perfectly doable. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 21:13, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• Speedy Keep as nomination was withdrawn. ~EdGl talk 20:21, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.