Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Luke Zimmern


 * 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   redirect to The Shape of Things to Come. (non-admin closure) Spirit of Eagle (talk) 01:33, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Luke Zimmern

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Following a Talk page RfC, consensus appears to be that Luke Zimmern was not a real person but rather a fictional creation of H.G.Wells in The Shape of Things to Come. JSTOR, Google Books and Google Scholar return no references for someone who, if they are real, is apparently a noted German economist. It is also possible, given that The Shape of Things to Come was a fictional book, that Wells based a fictional Luke Zimmern on Alfred Eckhard Zimmern. They clearly knew, or were aware of, each other as they were writing on the same subjects. This paper for example discusses their different sides of the same argument. Alfred Zimmern, like the supposed "Luke Zimmern" was a social scientist writing on the same subjects. Add this altogether - the same, unusual, surname, the same time period, the same occupation and the same subject matter plus being known to Wells... It's just speculation but there's a lot of coincidence suggesting that Wells simply created a fictional character based on a real person. I suggest a redirect to The Shape of Things to Come but feel given the age of the article and the relatively small number of contributors to the RFC that there's a chance for a broader discussion first. The RFC can be found on the talk page (permalink). QuiteUnusual (talk) 11:02, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  Everymorning   talk  15:46, 14 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom, no references whatsoever outside of Wells' book. Everymorning   talk  15:50, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Germany-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:23, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:23, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
 * Redirect to The Shape of Things to Come per nom. This is (I hope) a link to the first page of results of a search for persons named Zimmern at the German National Library; there is no Luke or Lukas Zimmern listed. That's pretty definitive, but to be sure I checked the title (under both Entwickelung and Entwicklung and also simply Kruppismus and the author on WorldCat, with no hits. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:16, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment. A really unusual case. Wells cites other sources in The Shape of Things to Come that are genuine, such as Sir Henry Wilson, 1st Baronet and Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden. The article creator probably believed this was another one and created this article in good faith. As a fictional character, though, subject's single reference in passing doesn't come close to satisfying WP:N. Calamondin12 (talk) 03:32, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment. People have been wondering if this person is real for at least a decade. Pax 08:57, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, N ORTH A MERICA 1000 00:48, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Redirect to The Shape of Things to Come - This is a very rare AFD which I have no idea what to suggest for the best, To put a long comment short - It's very very unlikely anything beyond now will ever be known of Luke and the book and at the end of the day we may aswell preserve what's in the articles history for now and redirect back to HG Wells, We all could be wrong but we'll never know and as I said I don't think we will ever know so I'm going with Redirect per nom/above. – Davey 2010 Talk 02:29, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Redirect as above. Without clear evidence that he actually existed, I think we have to treat this the way we would treat any other minor fictional character in a notable work. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:04, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete and Redirect to The Shape of Things to Come makes sense to me per the above. &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 03:31, 25 January 2015 (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.