Template:Did you know nominations/Peter Feldmann

Peter Feldmann
Created/expanded by Aschmidt (talk). Self nom at 00:18, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
 * ... that Frankfurt's mayor-elect Peter Feldmann is the first politician of Jewish belief to be elected mayor of a major German city since World War II?


 * Symbol question.svg This article has pretty messy referencing. For one, while it is decent and intuitive to assume that no Jewish person served as mayor of a German city between 1933 and 1945, the sources do not appear to be explicitly saying that there was no person serving as mayor since 1933, but only that there was no such case "since 1945". Some also mention Landmann as Feldmann's Jewish predecessor, but they do not explicitly say that Landmann was the last before Feldmann, and the entry in fact does not quote them as such. Also, the "faz.net" source (actually a Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung article, which should be quoted under a proper name) appears as a citation for the fact, but it doesn't seem to even mention Feldmann's ethnicity/belief. It appears to me that this is a mild case of WP:SYNTH: not all the sources cited verify the article, and the order should be redone somehow if this is to be passed. Dahn (talk) 18:01, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Dahn, thanks for reviewing the article. In fact, Mr Feldmann was not elected mayor of Frankfurt because he is a Jew. As this was not an issue during his election campaign, you won't find it mentioned prominently in the German press, except for the Jewish weekly Jüdische Allgemeine, please see the last three paragraphs in this report published on Monday. All Israeli papers reported on Mr Feldmann's election, it seems, including Haaretz. I have not added any more sources since because there already are enough sources in the article. If you prefer, I can use the cite web template for the references.
 * There are three references for him being the first Jewish mayor of a major German city "after World War II" (World Jewish Congress, mako.co.il, The Times of Israel), while Haaretz says "since Holocaust". It goes without saying that between 1933 and 1945 there where no Jewish politicians in Germany, as all Jews were first banned from public office, and then there was the Holocaust. As far as Frankfurt is concerned the last Jewish mayor was indeed Ludwig Landmann who was mobbed, or expelled as it says in the WP article, from his office in 1933 by the Nazis. So it is indeed fair to say that he is the first one since 1933 in Germany as I for one haven't heard of any other one. But we can check this with WikiProjects Judaism, Germany, or History, if you prefer, just to make sure.--Aschmidt (talk) 19:17, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, I think we're talking past each other. To begin with, if a source doesn't say he is Jewish, you should not add it as a citation for the fact, let alone the hook, that says he is Jewish - the reference won't verify your text. You can of course use it for other parts of the article, but it doesn't make sense to add it there. It may also go without saying that there was no Jewish mayor to come into office under Nazi rule, but the sources do not credit the fact that the last Jewish mayor was the one ousted in 1933 - maybe there was one to be ousted in 1934, for instance. Whatever your intentions, you have used references which do not verify your text, nor your (reasonable) guesses. Please read WP:SYNTH and Section 3 of our Eligibility criteria for hooks. Dahn (talk) 19:40, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I've been contributing to Wikipedia for some seven years, so I know pretty well how to use references. The references I have given here are all right. We can change the hook to what the papers say: "Since World War II".--Aschmidt (talk) 21:30, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The references are alright, indeed, but the way you're citing them is not; that is the "messy" part of your referencing, and the article is still messy as far as that goes. You can take my comment personally and pull rank or whatever, but that wouldn't be addressing the issue. (I am not referring to the changed hook, which now says "since WWII", I am referring to the fact that you still credit the faz source to say what it does not in fact say.) Dahn (talk) 18:53, 29 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Symbol confirmed.svg don't really get it. This article is well-referenced. The FAZ source is only used to support the election results. Everything else also checks out.--Carabinieri (talk) 09:46, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for checking the references again. However, the papers were not right as to whether Mr Feldmann was the first Jewish-German politician to be elected mayor of a major German city. On German Wikipedia our attention has only recently been drawn to Herbert Weichmann who was indeed the first German mayor of Jewish belief at Hamburg. So I would rather like to withdraw the nomination as DYK herewith. I'm changing this fact in the article, too. I am sorry about this, but as you could see, the papers were unanimous, and it took several weeks in de.wp to check this out.--Aschmidt (talk) 15:16, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Please consider modifying the hook instead of withdrawing from DYK. Being "the first one in Frankfurt" or being "widely misreported by the press as the first in all of Germany" would be solid hook materials, methinks, as long as there are strong references to back up the claim. --PFHLai (talk) 05:43, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't want to bring the hook down, and my objections were precisely voiced to improve the article. The issue is the following: the article itself, not just the hook needs to adhere to certain standards before it is promoted, and appropriate crediting of the sources is one of the basic standards - regardless of whether the hook is based on them or not; and, in this case, yes it was. I described that error in good faith, and as long as I still see it I will still call it. I also want to point out that a "was misreported" hook is WP:OR, specifically WP:SYNTH: we cannot cite sources against themselves, and we cannot cite them to conclude they are wrong - "I give you this as a ref, but here's an editorial voice to tell you not to trust the ref". If you want to rescue the hook, this is not the way to do it. Dahn (talk) 12:51, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

ALT1... that Peter Feldmann is the first politician of Jewish belief to be elected mayor of Frankfurt since World War II?
 * That would be correct, and I would approve of this version. I was not really sure whether this would be enough to make it into DYK, that's why I did not suggest this version myself.--Aschmidt (talk) 11:25, 11 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I think the idiom is "of the Jewish faith". If this article is up for re-review, please let me know, but note that I will be largely absent from wikipedia for a couple of days. Dahn (talk) 12:54, 12 April 2012 (UTC)