Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Josef Olechowski


 * 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. Please assume good faith in my closure. If you are unhappy with this decision, please take it to deletion review, I will not be offended, because I'll just send you to deletion review on my talk page. Thanks again everyone for participating. SarahStierch (talk) 17:30, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Josef Olechowski

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What we have here, ladies and gentleman, is a rare find: a seven year old hoax. This unreferenced article (the external link doesn't seem to be very relevant) doesn't check out on Google and Google Books - I tried the Polish name variant Józef too, and there is nothing reliable about such person (born 1898, Polish senator). He is not listed in pl:Kategoria:Senatorowie V kadencji (1938-1939) (which has bios for 89 out of 96 Polish senators elected in 1938). There's a bishop pl:Józef Olechowski - different person. As noted, it is my conclusion this is a hoax (or more AGFing, an obituary (no date of death, though?) for a non-notable person, filled with at least one incorrect fact - the subject being a senator, which is the only possible claim to notability this article makes). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 06:16, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete per not able to Verify the person's existance or what part of the story is accurate if he existed. Iselilja (talk) 15:50, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete for lack of sources establishing that this person exists. OhNo itsJamie Talk 22:25, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 01:08, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Poland-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 01:08, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 01:08, 18 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete no prejudice to recreation if more reliable sources appear. Buckshot06 (talk) 01:59, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete and preserve in WP Museum of Longest-Surviving Hoaxes. Pan Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 13:25, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete. Dang! How does this stuff resist discovery for so long? Binksternet (talk) 17:21, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment. In this edit the article's author User:Vumba indirectly reveals that Josef Olechowski was his grandfather per the description of a massacre. While writing articles about relatives may be problematic due to a possible COI, and it does not help to establish notability, it appears reasonable to assume that the article is not hoax as is, although we cannot verify its contents (or at least have been unable to verify it so far). Let's assume for a moment, that this article is about a real person, and that he was actually a Polish senator, are senators likely to be notable? If so (and if the Polish WP has 89 bios for 96 senators elected in 1938, this may indicate something), it might be worth trying to dig a little deeper and search for historical documents. There are many notable topics for which there are no online references today, while reliable offline sources exist (or existed decades ago). Please don't get me wrong, I don't know if this person was notable at all, I just want to remind us that for many historical topics "no Google hits" means absolutely nothing in regard to notability. At least, if this stuff would not be made up, but an article about a notable person, it would be quite a good start for an article and it would be a pity to loose it, even without (m)any references. This does not free us from trying to establish notability now, but we should be careful not to draw premature conclusions just because Google does not turn up anything. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 20:10, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I think there is a limit to how much time we should spend looking for possible obscure sources when the editor/s of the article doesn't provide any. A deletion now is no hindrance for starting a new article if sources that demonstrate notability turn up later . The article didn't look like a typical hoax to me either; might have been a relative who was writing according to family memory and maybe didn't get all the facts correct (for instance the senator claim). Iselilja (talk) 20:18, 21 December 2013 (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.