Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/A. Alisaffi


 * 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. (non-admin closure)  J 947(c) (m) 19:34, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

A. Alisaffi

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Strongly suspect a hoax here. The name turns up absolutely no non-wikipedia mirrors, and nothing on Google Books. At least one of the print sources seems to be invalid, as its ISBN turns up no results. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 17:55, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Greece-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:55, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:55, 11 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep Not a hoax; the sources are just offline. Andrew D. (talk) 18:24, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Then why am I unable to verify that any of the sources exist? It still seems fishy to me that there is nothing online about them. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 18:31, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Not everything notable is online. That's why editors and writers have such a deep engagement with libraires and the curation of their own personal book collections. No Swan So Fine (talk) 07:23, 12 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep Andrew is correct, the sources are simply offline as I informed you TenPoundHammer on the article and on my talk page. He lived pre-internet and people wrote about him pre-internet. I don't create hoax articles. Its not true that there are no online sources, this Greek auction for instance https://www.karamitsos.com/auction.php?id=444 has many Alisaffi forgeries for sale but that is not the sort of source I would use to write an article. I should be grateful if you would withdraw the nomination since you are in error. Philafrenzy (talk) 19:19, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep Keep a thousandfold. I'm the branch secretary of the Preservation of Offline Sourced Articles. No Swan So Fine (talk) 20:12, 11 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep: Here are two online webpages that mention him: 1 and 2 though as Philafrenzy says this type of page would not be used as sources. Besides which Philafrenzy knows his stuff and has created numerous philatelic articles, so why would be bother to make a hoax one. ww2censor (talk) 22:40, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Weak delete even if this weren't a hoax, it does not seem to meet notability guidelines given the relative obscurity of the subject and the lack of sources. -  C HAMPION  (talk) (contributions) (logs) 02:53, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
 * But there are sources, and the obscurity of the subject is irrelevant...No Swan So Fine (talk) 07:23, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Indeed. The best modern source for his work is the book by Bill Ure, Forgeries of Greek Stamps of the 19th Century, which discusses his output in detail comparing and contrasting it with that of other forgers. see here (Greek). His work is also discussed in Fritz Billig's Großes Handbuch der Fälschungen (German 1933-38) and was noticed as early as 1903 and discussed in Demcker, Goldfuss and Pirl's Germania-Berichte (Vol. II). So we have multiple reliable sources that discuss his work in depth, published in different countries and languages and over more than a century. Philafrenzy (talk) 09:14, 12 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. As References section and Further Reading list show there is considerable coverage of the subject. ——Chalk19 (talk) 05:48, 14 September 2017 (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.