Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Maugham Elementary School Adolf Hitler assignment controversy


 * 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 Tenafly Public Schools. Content can be merged from history if desired.  Sandstein  06:30, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Maugham Elementary School Adolf Hitler assignment controversy

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I respectfully propose that this article be deleted for several reasons in line with Wikipedia's deletion policy. The main thrust of my position is that this article fails Wikipeda's policy on notability for events.

1. Despite this story breaking on May 31, 2021, this story has already failed to generate attention over a sufficiently significant period of time (as of the time of this writing on June 13, 2021). The coverage of this story is essentially a burst of news coverage which per Wikipedia policy: "Brief bursts of news coverage may not sufficiently demonstrate notability." As this chart of LexisNexis results on stories mentioning "hitler" and "tenafly" indicates, coverage of this story petered out within 5 days of the story breaking. This chart is a rough estimate of coverage - it includes many essentially mirrored stories that are largely copies of others while also excluding some genuine coverage from local newspapers. However, this latter category includes less than 10 articles over the entire period, and just 2 after the first week. The Star-Ledger, for example, a newspaper based in New Jersey, whose articles are not included in the LexisNexis data, published only 5 articles on the topic (mentioning "Tenafly" and "Hitler"), four of which were within 3 days of the story breaking on May 31. A single Star-Ledger editorial was later published on June 10. In addition, one of the articles included in the chart for June 11 is merely a summary and link to an article from NorthJersey.com.

2. Geographic scope: This article concerns an "event" confined to a single elementary school in a single town. The directly effected people number no more than 5: the student, the teacher, the principal, and the student's parents. This hardly seems of sufficient geographical scope to merit notability. Even if we include the individuals who took offense to the "event", unless we include every reader of any coverage, this would still be confined to the 172nd largest town in New Jersey.

3. No obvious lasting effect: Confined as this story was to a single elementary school in a single town and given the consensus among the coverage that it was largely an innocent mistake by a child and an unfortunate decision by a teacher, it seems reasonable to assume that this story will have limited broad lasting effects. The most recent news coverage of the story already suggests the community is moving past the "event" and finding closure. At a minimum, this article might be userfied and perhaps republished if any future developments occur which would raise its qualifications for notability. In this sense, the original article seems to have been a rush to create an article before its fifteen minutes of infamy were up. By contrast, the sharp decline in coverage since the initial burst suggests, I would argue, that I am not too early to propose deletion. As stated, userfying this article at a minimum, might be a reasonable compromise until any further developments.

4. Finally, this article seems to fall under the policy that Wikipedia is not a newspaper, even when 109 newspapers cover it. Overall, the "event" and coverage seems to be a case of a Hitler-inflected form of shock news, water-cooler talk, or quasi-viral story, all of which do not justify inclusion in Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cattlematrix (talk • contribs) 18:39, 13 June 2021 (UTC) — Cattlematrix (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 18:56, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of New Jersey-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 18:56, 13 June 2021 (UTC)


 * This is certainly borderline... I’m not sure which way to call it but I don’t think terribly much would be lost in merging to Tenafly Public Schools, there appears to already be a substantial blurb which wouldn’t gave to get much longer to fit all the pertinent information. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 18:58, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete This isn't a long-term sustained news event in any way.  Nate  • ( chatter ) 19:56, 13 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep. The nominaton, made by a WP:SPA, simply does not reflect the facts regarding the page (or in my discussions with the account on the talk page) in an accurate way. As I noted on the article's talk page, the dated search results that they have provided are innacurate and appear to outright miss news pieces that were included in the article as citations, not just the editorial. Even when I told them about this on the article's talk page, the nominator did not accurately represent this in their deletion statement.
 * The Lexis-Nexis database results are missing relevant sources that are cited on this page, so I am unsure that this actually overstates the amount of original reporting on the story is true generally (though it appears to be the case on some days). Some of these missing sources would appear to include the two published on June 10, when the database says that zero publication were made: this source from The Record and this editorial from The Star-Ledger. Similarly, on March 31, the database shows 1 source, though three are cited on this page alone. There's certainly a spike in the coverage when the story first broke, but the fact that Italian regional papers papers aren't providing daily updates on the situation doesn't detract from its notability; as I've stated above, the fact that there's ongoing coverage from reliable sources provides further evidence of notability.
 * The notion that the effect of this event is limited to a single municipality is unnecessarily reductive and doesn't reflect the situation at all. The Jewish community, not just in Tenafly but also in the greater region, was affected by this. Even the Anti-Defamation League wound up getting thoroughly involved. The coverage isn't just "this happened" but also "this happened + there was a regional response". The coverage of the topic among Jewish media, particularly in and around NYC, has been rather significant.
 * The topic has been the subject of in-depth coverage from a diversity of sources. These include sources based in Israel, Italy, Taiwan, the United States, and Canada. Articles from the United States were likewise varied by region; The Washington Post provided in-depth coverage of the event (which was re-published in the UK's The Independent), The Miami Herald, and NBC News approached the story with their own investigations. There is ongoing and continuing coverage of this, as I've shown on the talk page. And keeping in mind that the New York metropolitan area has one of the highest concentrations of Jewish people in the world (outside of Israel), it's not surprising that quite a few U.S.-based Jewish news sources with a more international focus (such as Algemeiner) are physically based in the region.

— Mikehawk10 (talk) 21:22, 13 June 2021 (UTC)


 * (original nominator, who is yes a WP:SPA but hope I'm acting in good faith here)

2. In good faith, honestly not sure what/if there is standard for adjudicating notability of a story whose main content is reaction by groups with agendas (using that term as neutrally as possibly) such as the ADL, quotes elicited by reporters, and a few non-notable (in the technical sense) people on social media platforms. In addition, how are we defining "Jewish community" and how are we defining "affected by" for people not themselves directly implicated in the action such that this alone would merit inclusion in Wikipedia?
 * 1) Point of clarification: The LexisNexis table was not intended to be a comprehensive listing of every source on the article, it was to show the **relative** volume of or change in coverage over time using one reasonable sampling of articles published (The LexisNexis database).  That this database search missed some articles published in total is not the relevant factor, I argue, rather the change in volume is what I was trying to show to establish that this story qualifies as a "burst in news coverage" and thus not necessarily notable.  Using the article's own current citations reveals a similar quick drop off in coverage.  It might be claimed that this is a result of the editing on the page being completed, but if the editors were to go back and try to update it to account for more recent news, as the LexisNexis database suggests (even if it is just a sample and not fully comprehensive) they would be hard pressed to find much new to add even in just the last few days.

3. Re in depth coverage, see argument above about 109 newspapers guideline. From my own analysis of the diverse coverage by international sources, it seems to be largely mirrored coverage of the underlying event which per the diverse sources guidelines are usually discounted. Where the stories do differ it seems is getting different sets of reaction quotes, which again goes back to this story mostly being about some people got rightly or wrongly offended by a child's innocent mistake and a teacher's unfortunate decision.

--Cattlematrix (talk) 22:25, 13 June 2021 (UTC) — Cattlematrix (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * I'll try to respond briefly. The so-called 109 newspapers guideline isn't a guideline, it's an essay that has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. And, even if it were a guideline, it's clear that it's talking about not using the same news wire published in many places and treating it as if it constitutes additional sources; multiple independent sources not relying on the same reporting isn't the thing the essay attempts to address. The notion that Jewish groups more broadly have some sort of agenda here isn't true, and there's certainly lots of coverage from multiple Jewish publications on this issue (these include The Jewish Standard, JewishLink, JewishLink op-ed from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, The Jewish Press, The Algemeiner (June 1, June 9) and there's a joint letter that involves the Israeli-American Council. It seems like quite a few regional and national Jewish/Israeli groups have been involved here, which further indicates notability. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:35, 14 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep. Passes notability guidelines with various third party sources, especially notable currently due to the recent rise in anti-semitism. Tinton5 (talk) 07:32, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Merge / Redirect to Tenafly Public Schools - There does not appear to be justification for a standalone article. Most of what is here is already in the article for the district, but any additional material should be added to the article for Tenafly Public Schools and this article turned into a redirect. Alansohn (talk) 15:21, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Merge / Redirect to Tenafly Public Schools. This has attracted a lot of material above, but the reality is as given by Alansohn above. This should not be a stand-alone article. --Bduke (talk) 00:10, 15 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep and do not merge. This story is a lot more notable than the school where it had happened - per sourcing and otherwise. This is really an ominous event showing in which direction USA is moving. The analysis in tables above proves nothing on the lasting notability (one needs a much longer period of time). It is notable enough right now, and that is sufficient. My very best wishes (talk) 00:32, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
 * And why it should be merged to Tenafly Public Schools? This subject is not known as Tenafly Public Schools controversy. That had happen in Maugham Elementary School, but we do not even have a page about it. My very best wishes (talk) 22:55, 27 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Merge to Tenafly Public Schools, where topic can found and satisfactorily covered at this time. Djflem (talk) 16:18, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Merge Not enough sustained coverage for a stand-alone article.Jackattack1597 (talk) 11:06, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   07:35, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Merge as per above arguments. Not notable enough to have its own page. Paragon Deku (talk) 06:15, 26 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Tenafly Public Schools. There is already a section there on the topic that is sufficient.--Bduke (talk) 08:15, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment. I'm concerned that the links to the categories and other information would get lost in a merger or redirect. Antisemitism is on the rise. Bearian (talk) 15:36, 29 June 2021 (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.