Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mohammad mehdi jafari


 * 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. WP:V, a core policy, and WP:BLP mandate that biographies of living people must cite reliable sources. But no such sources are cited in the article, and in this discussion, the concerns that no reliable sources (in any language) exist that could be used to verify the article's claims have not been seriously addressed. While various links to websites have been posted, nobody here has made a real attempt at an argument why they should be considered reliable sources or that they verify what the article says. Policy therefore requires that we err on the side of caution, disregard the "keep" opinions and delete the article.

It should be noted that the notability of the subject (if what the article says can be verified) hasn't really been questioned here, so if anybody does find reliable sources they may recreate the article forthwith.  Sandstein  17:19, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Seyed Mohammad Jafari

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

The subject of the article is not notable and the only reference is the Persian wikipedia. Psychotic  Spartan  123  22:48, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Now that I've looked the article's creator seems to have made other similar articles with similar reasons to delete. This is my first time nominating and I'm unsure if this is reason for CSD or not. Psychotic   Spartan  123  22:54, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I've also noticed that there appears to be another account that links to some of the articles created by Ali qahremani. The editing styles aren't identical, but they do appear to be editing in tandem. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  10:52, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't know that it's sockpuppetry, but I am concerned that they are working together. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  10:56, 30 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete. I saw somewhere a while back before I created my account (I think it was on a declined draft that I happened to come across) that you can't use any Wikipedia article as a source, regardless of what language it's in. I have tagged the article with refimprove, but I highly doubt the issues will be corrected. Wiki you now, Wiki you later! (talk) 00:36, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. &mdash;&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T&middot;E&middot;C) 02:40, 1 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete - Wikipedia is not a source for Wikipedia. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:33, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment: I find most of the discussion above rather wrongheaded. Using an article in another Wikipedia as a source is quite legitimate, provided fairly firm requirements are adhered to - and even if they are not followed by the original editor, the first preference should be to bring the offending article into line with the requirements, provided this can be done fairly promptly and easily. The requirements? Mostly, see WP:MACHINETRANSLATION for a summary (though I would add that the original article should not be cited on the main article page - that is handled instead by the translation template on the talk page - and emphasise that the citations used in the original article to establish notability and verifiability must be either be brought over with the article or substituted for by better alternatives). In this case, the main problem is that the article creator has completely ignored (or, quite likely, was completely ignorant of) the warnings in WP:MACHINETRANSLATION and, while replacing the "citation" on the main page with the appropriate translation on the (not yet existent) talk page could easily be done, the other problems would require the prompt and concentrated attention of a willing editor fluent in both Persian and English in order for even a stubbed version to pass WP:BLP. Leaving this aside, however, the article on Persian Wikipedia (judging by a full Google translate) does appear to have some citations, the subject gets a few mentions in English sources, and I would judge that there is a very good (though not certain) chance that the subject's notability could be established from sources in Persian. PWilkinson (talk) 10:28, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah all I could do was improve the structure of the page. Following his link would only be useful if I could read Arabic/Farsi (I think Persian is a dead language, but I don't really know). He added other links that I also can't read. If anyone can read the links and translate them for the page I'd be glad to vote in support of such a page. On an off note, the name Mohammad mehdi jafari might not even be the right English translation of the name which would cause problems in finding useful English sources if there are any. Psychotic   Spartan  123  12:33, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm bewildered as to how you could have come to the conclusion that "using an article in another Wikipedia as a source is quite legitimate" when WP:CIRCULAR specifically states: "Do not use articles from Wikipedia as sources."--Anders Feder (talk) 18:37, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:31, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Iran-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:34, 4 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep (changed from Delete) - the English Wikipedia should be written in English, and there should be at least one source in a language written with the Latin alphabet to identify the subject. We can not be left at guessing what this should be about. A person with the name Mohammad Mehdi Jafari is mentioned here, so it seems to be a correct transliteration of the name. But Google Scholar has a different person of the same name here. Kraxler (talk) 16:02, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
 * At the time of the nomination there was no indication that the subject was a member of a national legislature, thus passing WP:NPOL. I still think that at least one source in Latin script is required to identify a subject, especially a BLP subject, otherwise the transliteration would be WP:OR. Since there are exclusively Farsi sources here, I'll take the word of those who profess to read it that the claims in the article are in the sources. It's up to those who speak the language to contest the claims. Kraxler (talk) 15:33, 9 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete As per above. Heyyouoverthere (talk) 03:00, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep the sources in the Persian WP are probably enough. There is absolutely no requirement for a source in English, or in a roman alphabet The articles are written in English. The sources are outside the article--we are just referring to them. We have probably a few hundred thousand articles on people and places with only non-English sources. The alphabet problem is real--but we probably have about 50,000 articles with only non-Roman references, which include the geographical articles for at least half of the world. Persian, btw, is not a dead language--seeWP:Persian -- Iran uses Persian as its only  official language, not Arabic--the main use of Arabic in Iran  in religious contexts  U|PsychoticSpartan123,, before you comment on an article on a national topic, you should find out the basics about the nation. Before you say a language is dead, you should look it up. DGG (at NYPL) -- reply  here 00:03, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment I just didn't care enough about the name of the language or it's status to look it up. I still don't think the subject is notable enough, but unless somebody can actually write the article in good English and actually use these often mentioned Persian references I don't think it should be kept. On an off note, is there a page to go and specifically request assistance from Wikipedians that can read Persian? Psychotic   Spartan  123  04:33, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
 * If you don't "care enough" about the name of the Persian language or its status, that's probably an indication you're not in the best position to declare someone from this culture "not notable" ...  —Мандичка YO 😜 11:17, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Jenks24 (talk) 06:37, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Strong keep - His Persian article is sourced and he is perfectly notable. He served in the Iranian parliament and government and has won various honors. In particular his book was a winner in Iran's "Book of the Year" awards., . Nominator should review WP:BEFORE prior to nominating articles. —Мандичка YO 😜 11:10, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment The status of the language has nothing to do with why I nominated the article. But if somebody can give a definitive statement on whether or not the references already in the article are reliable or not then I'd say the discussion should be closed as a Keep. Or conversely the two references given by Wikimandia can be included in the article itself (Instead of just telling me I'm wrong you can prove it by incorporating these sources in the article where it matters). Psychotic   Spartan  123  15:58, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
 * You nominated the article with the reason that the subject is a "not notable" individual. The subject of the article in fact meets notability criteria as WP:POLITICIAN and WP:AUTHOR. FYI at AfD it is sufficient to show that sources exist; they don't have to be in the article "to matter." —Мандичка YO 😜 03:57, 10 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Whether the sources are in the language of God himself, morse code or Wobbly lingo is very much unimportant. What is important is whether someone speaking the language of this Wikipedia (which happens to be English) can reasonably verify that the sources are reliable. I have yet to see anyone offer even just a shred of evidence that the sources cited are reliable. If the subject is a former or current parliamentarian that ought to be easy to verify. Also note that per WP:MACHINETRANSLATION, an unedited machine translation is considered worse than nothing, which would imply that replacing the machine translated parts with nothing (i.e. deleting them altogether) would actually improve the article. This and many other articles were created by a sockpupetteer who mass-machine-translated many Persian sources at no effort and dumped the results in Wikipedia; nothing of value would be lost by deleting those parts.--Anders Feder (talk) 19:22, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
 * as a side issue, the real question is that a minimally edited machine translation even by someone who does not know the original language can be of real value in some subjects, such as places or straightforward bios, where the purely factual information shows the notability.  And machine translations of newspaper articles and the like can often give enough information to verify the sourcing--especially for that sort of material. Machines are a useful adjunct to thinking, when used by people willing to think.  DGG ( talk ) 00:21, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * If you are "willing to think", you should think up an intelligible article that serves a purpose. Wikipedia isn't a free web host to dump copy-pasta from Google Translate on something that someone wants to bump up in search engine result listings.--Anders Feder (talk) 00:36, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Putting up a machine translation of an article on a different-language Wikipedia has nothing to do with WP:NOTWEBHOST. That's why we have the "expand" template, to encourage people to bring text over from a different language. Obviously the result, when not cleaned up, is a mess. I don't agree with the claim that it's worse than nothing - it's already begun the article creation process and just needs to be cleaned up. That's exactly why we have cleanup tags. It's not a reason to propose for deletion.  —Мандичка YO 😜 03:57, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * So should WP:MACHINETRANSLATION be changed? Template:Expand language is to encourage people to translate in accordance with English Wikipedia's standards, i.e. manually.--Anders Feder (talk) 06:03, 10 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Weak Keep, I would assume that if we were a parliamentarian as claimed, there would be at least something in English to verify that, but I've come up with a blank. That said, the transliteration of his name might be an issue and I have no skill whatsoever with the Persian language.  I'm assuming good faith for the time being that the sources say what the article says they say, until evidence is produced to the contrary.  Note that per WP:NONENG, sources in languages other than English are explicitly permitted to be used here.  Lankiveil (speak to me) 12:27, 18 July 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.