Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ferdinand Feichtner (2nd nomination)


 * 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 delete. Consensus clearly agrees with Eggishorn's deletion rationale. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 16:31, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Ferdinand Feichtner
AfDs for this article: 
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This is a long nomination statement, so please bear with me. The prior AfD nomination was closed only 19 days ago so renominating this soon would normally be out of process. That AfD discussion, however, was marred by some significant negative behavior and false claims and reached no conclusion. A new AfD after a two-week cooldown period may reach a conclusion without repeat violations. A request on the article talk page for options to improve the article per WP:ATD has produced no input for a similar period.

The article subject has no real evidence of notability under the WP:GNG or any applicable WP:SNG, including WP:NSOLDIER. In the previous AfD this was disputed on the basis that there were reliable sources cited. Closer inspection, however, demonstrated that all the information in the article that is actually about the article subject and not merely background is sourced entirely to one source: Ferdinand Feichtner himself. Of the 149 citations in the text, there are only six sources that are not taken directly from Feichtner's post-war debriefings and these six do not mention Feichtner. Removing all the self-supplied information leaves a ludicrous mess of an article. No other significant coverage in reliable sources was advanced in the discussion or is apparent in the article or in searches.

There are other problems. The article violates WP:NPOV since it only presents the article subject through the subject's own words without any attempt to contextualize his work or actions, without any analysis or synthesis with other sources, without any attempt to remove Feichtner's biases (see, e.g., the section headed "Romanian treachery late summer 1944"), without any attempt to select significant events or contributions from the ordinary life of a soldier and officer (see, e.g., "Change of Company Officers", "Transfer of evaluation section winter 1941", and many other examples), and without any attempt to remove excessive detail (just look at the ToC). For context, this biography is 150,716 bytes for a field-grade officer with no significant distinctions and doubtful significant contributions to WWII. The article for Chesty Puller, the most-decorated Marine in American history, clocks in at a mere 45,702 bytes.

Finally, there was a claim advanced that he did meet NSOLDIER #4 via being Chief Signals Officer for Luftwaffe South, which sounds impressive. Until you read through Feichtner's own words and find out that this was a relatively minor command. An American equivalent (and Feichtner's opposite number) would be G-6 for the Fifteenth Air Force and we have no articles for any US officer whose terminal assignment was such a position and had no other notable contributions. The article's other claims of significant contributions range from doubtful to absurd. Consider the claim that: ""Feichtner worked out the fundamental principles of secure ciphers and encipherment," an achievement that seems to elude cryptographers today and which is missing from our History of cryptography article.

Because there is no way to save this article and there is no actual evidence of notability, I am re-nominating for deletion. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 16:15, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 16:15, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 16:15, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Germany-related deletion discussions. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 16:15, 24 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete. The nom has, with an unusual degree of precision, identified that this article clearly does not meet WP:NSOLDIER. So, we're left with WP:GNG. The article is incredibly detailed, as one might expect in an autobiography, but that really doesn't meet the criteria for significant and reliable sources to demonstrate notability. Many soldiers have had interesting experiences but we have notability requirements because not every one deserves an encyclopedia article. Ifnord (talk) 16:48, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete the biographical aspects of this article are drawn entirely from an autobiography published by the US armed forces following debrief, which is primary and cannot be considered reliable as it is not independent of the subject. If the subject had significant coverage in multiple sources independent of his own account, I would have expected to see it here. A Google Books search indicates that such sources do not exist in English at least, although they may exist in German, is seems unlikely given his relatively minor role and low rank of major. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 21:40, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete on basis of comprehensive reasons given by Eggishorn. Fails WP:SOLDIER and WP:GNG because it is WP:PRIMARY with no WP:SIGCOV, not WP:V and breaches WP:NOFULLTEXT. Mztourist (talk) 03:32, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete per the excellent, comprehensive rationale given and by my comment on the previous AfD. Fails GNG. buidhe 14:08, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete. I went through every Google hit for Ferdinand Feichtner. The only independent Reliable Source I find to support Notability is The Third Reich is Listening: Inside German codebreaking 1939–45. It mostly recounts Feichtner's own words, but there's potentially enough there to qualify as one usable Reliable Source. We'd still need more good sources to establish Notability. (Feel free to ping me if anyone does find additional solid sources.) Maybe the subject will be more Notable in the future, but the sources don't appear to exist today. Alsee (talk) 02:19, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete. He was clearly an intelligent man, but unfortunately he was simply an excellent Nazi solder who served on the losing side. I really hate to say this but if he would have been a war criminal, in addition to being a superb radio communications commander, he probably would be worthy of an article.  Feichtner's words alone, without more reputable independent corroborating sources, are not enough to justify keeping the article.♥Golf (talk)
 * Keep. Why the rush to delete this article when the recommended wait time is two months? Feichtner was two down from Goering reporting to Martini. There are few secondary sources as much of the material related to German Signals Intelligence has only become available in the last five years.  Sure, the article requires reduction to meet criteria, however this will take time. As to notability, Christian Jennings says, “In the TICOM Series’ Seabourn Report into the Luftwaffe’s signals intelligence he was described by the US Air Force authors thus: “By general acclaim of his fellow officers he is credited with having made the greatest single individual contribution to the  development and subsequent success of the SIS of the Luftwaffe." You would expect then that someone so described, a Chief Signals Officer ultimately with the rank of Colonel of Luftwaffe in the west, would rate a mention. Neils51 (talk) 17:38, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The "rush" to renominate was clearly laid out in the nomination statement. You are, of course, free to disagree with that reasoning but to pretend it is not available suggests not reading the nomination. Before addressing the remaining points raised, I suggest that reading the Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions essay may be helpful.  Specifically, WP:SOURCESEXIST and WP:VALUABLE-type arguments in AfD discussions are rarely persuasive rationales.  What is persuasive is substantive mention in reliable sources.  I presume that by Jennings you mean The Third Reich is Listening (ISBN 9781472829542)? I have that book, and, strangely, it describes Feichtner in words very similar (often identical) to the same source that was used for this article.  Jennings is clearly making the same errors that have been described in the handling of Feichtner's testimony described above and also in the analysis posted on the Feichtner talk page.  It cannot be considered a reliable source.  As to his rank, Colonel is not generally considered a rank that confers notabilty.  E.g.: there are currently about 4,000 Colonels in the United States Army alone and we have no evidence of notabilty for the vast majority of them. As to being "two down from Goering", that also doesn't match any generally-accepted criterion of notability.  There were secretaries one down from Goering, do we have any articles about them?  Even taking Jennings into consideration, the crux of the issue is that the only evidence we have of Feichtner's importance to WWII is Feichtner's own words.  That isn't sufficient.  I hope this explanation helps. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:17, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * WP:GNG and WP:SIGCOV apply here, claiming that he was "two down from Goering" proves nothing without WP:RS that aren't just rehashes of Feichtner's own opinions. And this: is close to Canvassing. Mztourist (talk) 06:28, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. WP:VALINFO is not a criteria for keep. KartikeyaS343 (talk) 07:31, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete even after its recent filleting (a sub-headeroctomy!), what remains is far too reliant on primary sources. A WP:BEFORE search suggests that this is due too there being a dearth of available independent, secondary sources.Put it another way— three article makes use of all available sourcing on the topic, and still fails to pass the most basic requirements of WP:ANYBIO. ——  SN  54129  10:52, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Also per nom, of course; the nomination was clearly so extensively researched that it leaves commentators in the happy position of legitimately being able to per nom, safe in the knowledge that there is little more to say that hasn't been said by  :)  ——  SN  54129  10:59, 2 March 2020 (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.