Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abram Kamensky

 This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was delete. Tally: del:7, keep:3, "conditional keep": 2. The author went berserk, got banned and did not fulfil the condition: provide verifiable sources of info and proof of notability. mikka (t) 00:22, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Abram Kamensky
Delete. Nonnotable. Nonverifiable. Vanity original research by an apparent descendant. mikka (t) 16:28, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Keep
 * Nonnotable. Abram Kamensky was Molotov's supervisor during early years of revolution. He charted the Soviet Republics. He funded the red army. Later he was demoted to somewhat lower posts by Stalin, because of having briefly joined the Trotskyst opposition. Finally he was beaten to death while imprisoned by Stalin's chief of the KGB, Lavrenty Beria. This is an important piece of history.
 * There were millions of bolsheviks who were each other's supervisors. Molotov was young sometime and over time had several stacks of supervisors hardly making all them notable for this reason. mikka (t) 17:41, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Vanity. That is slander, and goes against the "assume good intent" Wikipedia policy. Unprovable, since the subject of the article is notable. I believe that this accusation is motivated by personal bias.
 * Vanity is a shorthand term in wikipedia VfD to describe articles that dwell upon a person or company withouit establishing notability. Personal bias: I am dealing with thousands of editors here. I have no time to develop personal bias to them and you are not that distinctive (of course you may call the latter phrase "bias"; I can live with this). mikka (t) 17:41, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Original research. The article is based on some old Soviet newspaper article. You can't call it research since it is written by a descendant.
 * You still refuse to read wikipedia recommended wikipedia policies, original research in this case. I have no reasons to believe that you remember well the contents of this "some old" article. Reference, please. mikka (t) 17:38, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
 * The fact that I am a descendant is irrelevant. Each contributor writes about things that are meaningful to them. What is relevant that it is valuable information.
 * The fact is relevant: it gives at least minimal credibility: a descendant is supposed to know his parents, but on the other hand his problem is bias. "valuable information": once again, please read wikipedia policies: valuable information must be verifiable. mikka (t) 17:38, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I am a new user. My other contributions, Intelligent (the Russian noun), category Soviet Intelligentsia were deleted. While I consider all my contributions to be of high quality and relevance, I don't see why would I want to continue contributing to Wikipedia after everything I come up with is blocked. This is a violation of Wikipedia policy against discouraging new users.
 * I was unaware of how things are run on this resource that the public opinion is rigged. I should have known better having some experience with internet communities. But apperantly I got a different impression from Wikipedia's promotional slogans. I though this is more of an information buffet, not virtual socialism. If you vote to delete this article, please do me a favor and delete my other article Aleksander Kamensky, and my Wikipedia account. I don't have time to waste! LevKamensky
 * If I thought Aleksander Kamensky was nonnotable, we would be voting on it long time ago. Don't take this personal and try to address the criticism instead. Wikipedia is a cooperative effort and has established rules and traditions. mikka (t) 17:38, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Your impressions of both buffet and socialism are wrong. Your persistent desire to insult everybody else here is intolerable. mikka (t) 20:12, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
 * P.S.: I will be unavailable due to hurricane Katrina for at least three days, and wouldn't be able to comment. 


 * Comment: don't insert your reactions directly into my post, it makes it hard to read.LevKamensky
 * You are still refusing to learn wikipedia policies. Levels of indentation and itemizing are normal practice. mikka (t) 20:12, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Abram Kamensky was one of the earliest Bolsheviks.
 * There are articles on much less notable people in Wikipedia.
 * Abram Kamensky is included in the Russian Jewish Encyclopedia
 * If I didn't read the policy I wouldn't call you on political bias, assumption of ill intent, and discouraging new users. Your edits to the Aleksander Kamensky page are vandalism. If you deal with thousands of editors, I wonder where you find so much time to stalk me and make rude patronizing comments. 
 * I will have this time until you either comply with community rules or go away. You are not the first rogue newcomer here. mikka (t) 20:12, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Conditional keep: If he is notable, it doesn't come across in the article &#151; just one of countless (unfortunate) casualties. However, the additional information from the author, below, does seem notable. Assuming it's factual, the author should add it to the article. Just a suggestion, but I'd change the tone of the article away from reading like a family history piece and make it read more like a neutral observation &#151; avoiding judgmental descriptions like "heroic" and "slaughtered." Maybe more about the man and what he did and less emphasis on his less-notable decendants. &mdash; Cory Maylett 17:58, 21 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Comment: I agree, and I was planning to add some more information later. I just created the article, and mikka was on it within seconds, before I even had the chance to make a few edits. I believe that the purpose of an encyclopedia is not only to inform but also to entertain. That's why my writing style is not dry. It has nothing to do with vanity. The facts sink in better when they are presented as a narrative.


 * Comment: This is an encyclopedia, not a movie. This is not a place for entertainment.


 * Conditional Keep. I don't see a strong case for notability as of yet, and right now much of the article is not verifiable... but it's existed for a matter of hours here.  I've found vague reference to Abram Kemensky (with a date of death in '38 not '37 shown in the article... but surely the same person) crawling the web.  I'm going to say this article should stay for now; give the author a chance to make a case for it's inclusion.  If in say 60 days there is not a greater assertion of notability, then perhaps bring it back for AfD.--Isotope23 18:39, 21 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Comment: the reference you found is probably the entry in the summary Russian Jewish Encyclopedia cited above. There are apparantly some mistakes. For example Aleksander Kamensky is referred to as Artist, while he was an Art Critic. When data gets transmitted from Russia, much is lost in careless translation.

Note what the page says: ''The following list is a translation of names and minimal personal data for 8,500 people included in Jewish Encyclopedia of Russia (Rossiyskaya Evreiskaya Entsiclopediya); first edition; 1995, Moscow. Famous people who are listed in the book, which in fact is a biographical dictionary, were born in Russia, the USSR, the Russian Empire, or lived there. This is the first edition of this kind in Russia and a large group of specialist from Russia, Israel and other countries participated in the project.''

I hope that answers the question about notability.LevKamensky
 * I have a list of 1,345,796 victims of Soviet repressions with "names and minimal personal data". Nizkor also has a huge list, with bios. But this does not make all them notable enough for wikipedia articles. mikka (t) 20:20, 21 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Userfy - transfer the page to the author's user page until suitable references can be provided and the page restored. The reference provided only states that such a person existed, not what he did. As it it it's all just conjecture, but if supported it's notable - --Outlander 19:02, 21 September 2005 (UTC)I'm accepting Curps in that there is probably no evidence of notability forthcoming. Change to Delete --Outlander 14:21, 22 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Ah, notability, notability… As they say, if you kill a man you are a murderer, if you kill a lot of men, you are a conqueror, if you kill millions of men you are god.LevKamensky
 * and if you do all that, but still can't document it, you're nobody. --Outlander 19:41, 21 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Borderline . A minor Soviet functionary, mentioned in Vserossiyskoe genealogicheskoe drevo website  and also and .  His existence is verifiable, but the information about him seems to be limited to a one or two line bio, so many of the details of his life might be hard to verify .  If the Russian Wikipedia had the same level of completeness as the English Wikipedia (700,000+ articles), he would certainly might warrant an article there.  Since Wikipedia is not paper, perhaps there's no harm in keeping this article, but it's unlikely to ever expand beyond a stub. -- Curps 23:19, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Does really English wikipedia have (or going to have) an article for each Democratic Party clerk? mikka (t) 00:29, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
 * He wasn't quite a clerk, he was... what was it... head of the cultural finance division of the Ministry (people's commissariat) of Finance of the RSFSR... a sort of assistant deputy finance minister? And other similar posts.  OK, you're right, this is not notable enough. -- Curps 07:30, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for posting some references Curps.--Isotope23 16:20, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. This article was created by the author in the brief period he had today between his two successive week-long blocks, and shortly before he nominated 28 articles for deletion in a matter of minutes. Which happened shortly before those AfDs were all deleted. So don't give me lectures on assuming good-faith. This smells to me like inverse vanity, I'm afraid. -Splash talk 23:40, 21 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Delete as per mikka. While I sympathize with the ill-fated family of the apparent author, the notability of the  subject of the article does not seem confirmed enough (for a person from Russia).  There were many victims of the red terror and Stalin's Great Purge  as well as many who served on the side, which caused that terror but later fell its victims. -  Introvert   talk  00:37, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Speedy delete for not even asserting notability. Not one thing said about this person in this article suggests he might have been notable. --Angr/undefined 00:59, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete Per Splash --Aranda56 01:51, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Not notable. bogdan | Talk 07:15, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Is there an article about him in the Russian Wikipedia? Is there any question among the Russian editors that it be kept?  If the Russians think there should be an article about him, then keep.  If the indefinitely-banned LevKamensky goes over there to create an article just to justify the article here, or if there is no article in the Russian Wikipedia, then delete.  User:Zoe|(talk) 02:41, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
 * There is no article in the Russian wikipedia, but that wikipedia only has 32,000 articles so far and many very notable topics and persons are missing from it (for instance Zinoviev, Pravda newspaper, etc). So absence in the Russian wikipedia doesn't really tell us anything. -- Curps 02:55, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Curps. Then delete.  If somebody on the Russian Wikipedia creates one, and they decide to keep it, then somebody can translate it and move it over here.  User:Zoe|(talk) 00:04, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep real person, mentioned in Solzhenitsyn's book (as google search for "Абрам Каменский" shows).  Grue   20:48, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Real, like 1million+ victims of Stalin's repressions published by Memorial. But a cursory remark des not make him notable and article content verifiable. mikka (t) 21:01, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I think this is the Google hit you meant... but only his name and date of death is mentioned, nothing more, part of a list of a hundred or so names of the "repressed".  He certainly was a real person.  -- Curps 21:32, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment: This link  shows that he was a member of the kollegii of the Nationalities Affairs narkomat (ministry) when Josef Stalin was commissar of it in April-May 1919.  He was also involved in the founding of the short-lived Donetsko-Krivorogian Soviet Republic.  So he was indeed an "old Bolshevik", possibly modestly notable in the very early days of the Russian Revolution, though somewhat obscure by the time of his arrest and death. -- Curps 21:20, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Is there any guarantee we are speaking about the same person? What you've found does not match the article. That is the whole problem and reason for VfD: the article is not verifiable. While the scraps over the net (I've seen all this myself, I know google, thanks) do not make into a reasonable article. Not to say a rank and file Bolshevik bureaucrat even found on net is hardly notable. 22:39, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Per reasons stated by Isotope23. --BrownHornet21 22:25, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I am OK with waiting extra 60 days per Isotope (although I don't remember anything like this for other vanity pages), but something says me it will not help. The only person who could be really interested in doing this decided to go berserk instead of convincing us by providing solid info. mikka (t) 22:44, 23 September 2005 (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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.