Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Otto Schneider (SS officer)


 * 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 List of Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross recipients (Sa–Schr). (non-admin closure)  Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk)  08:10, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Otto Schneider (SS officer)
Related AfDs: Articles for deletion/Karl Heinz Lichte‎ Articles for deletion/Josef Preiß (2nd nomination)
 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Un unremarkable SS captain; significant RS coverage cannot be found. What comes are trivial mentions and a few paragraphs in a heavily POV & non RS work by Franz Kurowski; here's the link, whereupon the subject "libertates" the city of Kovel.

The article was created in late 2008 using non WP:RS & fringe sources, such as frontjkemper.info and aforementioned Kurowski: 2008 version. The article was one of about 500 pages created around that timeframe by editor Jim Sweeney (now retired). The only reliable citation that can be found is Veit Scherzer's Knight's Cross Holders book; this is insufficient to overcome WP:BIO1E and lack of reliable sources.

The topic of the notability of Knight's Cross winners has been extensively discussed here: Notability in Knight's Cross Holder Articles; the summary in this subsection (Part 3). There's currently no consensus whether a single award of the Knight's Cross meets WP:SOLDIER #1, given that many were not awarded for valour and that too many were awarded overall (over 7,000).

Available sources on KC winners were discussed at Articles for deletion/Heinrich Debus (SS officer), with an insightful contribution from editor Assayer, who provided historiographic perspective on the sources (Thomas & Wegmann; Krätschmer; others) that were mentioned in related discussions. Per available information, such sources, even if available on the subject (which is not certain), are non-RS for the purpose of establishing notability. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:27, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:29, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:29, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Germany-related deletion discussions. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:29, 30 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment Some of the further reading here seems to be different than the previously discussed sources? Do we know if any of it includes non-trivial coverage of the subject? TonyBallioni (talk) 04:43, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete Never mind, reread the previous AfDs and see they were all discussed before. Nothing seems to be distinct about this soldier. No reliable sources and is not notable. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:47, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment: Further reading and References sections have been indiscriminately added to this and similar articles. Kurowski's Panzer Aces is not RS; and Mitcham is unlikely to mention the subject. Compare with Karl Heinz Lichte, for example; these reference sections are the same. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:50, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the further clarification. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:51, 30 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment: IMO, there doesn't seem to be enough coverage in reliable sources to warrant a stand alone article, but given that the award appears to be verified, I think a redirect to List of Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross recipients (Sa–Schr) seems like a valid option. Thoughts? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:52, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I think that's a possible solution. I think deletion would be better because I doubt there will be much searching going on for individual KC recipients given how many there are, and I don't see the need to preserve the edit history of pages made up of unreliable sources.  All that being said, if there develops a broader consensus to redirect for verified KC recepients, it wouldn't cause me heartburn.  TonyBallioni (talk) 14:15, 30 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Redirect name to list article where mentioned. Otherwise, at this point, not seeing notability for stand alone article. If it is kept in the end, then it would help if someone could expand the article with more in depth information. Because it is not present at this time. Kierzek (talk) 12:25, 30 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment -- the approach that editor AustralianRupert mentions at Lichte AfD ("Potentially a redirect (...) applied more broadly to the other stub-like KC articles?") has been proposed at the discussion that I linked to above. Please see the summary in this subsection (Part 3) (search for "Ok, here's a stab at a set of suggestion" to go directly to the details of the proposal). However, this has been objected to by editor Peacemaker ("There is nothing approaching a consensus for such action here"), so it did not look like a compromise solution was possible, hence the AfDs.


 * What has changed since then is that the source that was mentioned on the linked thread (Thomas & Wegmann) has been deem insufficient and/or unreliable, even if it were to be produced, and that essentially no reliable historiography exists on the bulk of KC winners, either in English or German, unless they were notable for other things:


 * "...Though it might be possible to reconstruct the military careers of each and every Knight's Cross recipients, these biographies present a distorted picture of the actual events (i.e., if the provision "played an important role in a significant military event" in WP:Soldier, is to be based on historical fact instead of Nazi propaganda). Veteran's organizations, particularly of the Waffen-SS, have based their image as an elite on their Knight's Cross Recipients. Collectors of militaria have an interest in such biographies (which is the reason, why Thomas & Wegmann reproduce bestowals documents). But on the whole, individual Knight's Cross recipients like Debus did never reveive any WP:SIGCOV by historiography, let alone in the broader public" (from Debus AfD).


 * Thus, most of the KC winner articles that have been brought to AfD recently were deleted (with a couple of redirects); none were closed as keep or no consensus. So perhaps this could be revisited, although I'm not confident that a consensus on this matter can be achieved with the editor.


 * In this particular case, like editor TonyBallioni, I believe that preserving the article history that contains inaccurate and/or biased information is not in the best interest of the project. Delete & redirect may be a better approach, or simply delete. K.e.coffman (talk) 15:24, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
 * My main concern is that if the intention is to take them all to AfD, that it will consume a lot of bandwidth for many editors (whose efforts might be best focused on content improvement) when potentially there is a quicker, more constructive and common sense approach that might resolve the issue with less angst. The problem I see with "delete and redirect" IMO is that it has the potential to undermine a potential compromise due to the difficulties (both real and perceived) it creates for non admins to recreate an article if significant coverage is found at a later date. The point of the redirect approach is to create a solution that the majority of parties can support due to the flexibility it provides (hence it is not seen as a "zero sum" solution). Anyway, my suggestion is that redirects could be the initial bold adjust for the articles that seem non controversially to be lacking sufficient coverage (which would arguably be a lot, IMO), with a confirmatory serial of AfDs where there were any objections. In the interests of transparency, potentially the changes could be tracked on a sub page somewhere, which would allow potentially more of a consolidated and process driven approach that would allow interested editors to see what articles were being redirect or deleted. It would also potentially facilitate a more consolidated approach to discussing the contentious articles. The important thing that I hope all parties will take on board in regards to the current issues surrounding the KC recipient articles is that rigidly holding to an opinion and advocating and "all or none approach" isn't going to resolve the issue. There needs to be some compromise on all sides, otherwise it will just become intractable and have wider implications than just the topic of KC recipients. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 00:56, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I see the merit of this approach for verified KC recipients (I believe this soldier is one because of the lack of notation about the German Federal Archives like seen at Karl Heinz Lichte and other articles in this series.) I very much oppose redirecting for unverified awards like the Lichte article. I would generally prefer the delete/delete and redirect approach, but I do agree that the contentious AfDs are becoming a bit old. If we can develop community consensus here for a compromise of not opposing redirects for confirmed KC recipients to keep the AfD's down, while still taking unverified awards to AfD/PROD, I would support that. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:06, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. What is being proposed by editor AustralianRupert & TonyBallioni (...not opposing redirects for confirmed KC recipients to keep the AfD's down...) is very similar to what was put forth at the link above by editor HydroniumHydroxide. I supported the proposal (link). But it could not be implemented at that time, as it was strenuously opposed by editor Peacemaker. Since no other MilHist coordinators participated in the discussion, it appeared that the editor represented the voice of MilHist coordinators, and that further discussions were pointless: "I can't see any likelihood that a consensus will be reached that we (...) give carte blanche to anyone to turn them into redirects to the alphabetical lists, so there seems to be little point in continuing the back and forth".

This opposition is what essentially forced this and other AfDs to happen. The same editor also opposed the deletions (AfD:Beck and AfD:Debus, for example), along with other MilHist coordinators.

However, if the proposal can be made to stick, I would be fine with proceeding this way. (In the case of this particular nomination, I believe the article should be deleted since it already reached the AfD stage).

Still, I have two concerns associated with the proposal:


 * 1) The lists themselves (sample). The articles are not neutral (i.e. using Nazi era terminology; being based to a large extent on a non-independent source by the former head of the Association of KC Holders; obfuscating the validity of this source by referring to the AKC's order commission as a blue ribbon commission, while Further reading sections include books that have been described as "neo-Nazi publications", and so forth).
 * 2) Similar to TonyBallioni, I would not support a redirect to the lists for the disputed recipients, and I believe their names should be removed from the lists as this information has not been confirmed by reliable sources. As discussed at these AfDs (i.e. Debus), the information on unconfirmed recipients borders on fancruft, while Wikipedia caters to the general public.

I opened a thread on these topics at the MilHist Talk page, (link to discussion, but that went nowhere fast. I also attempted to improve the lists themselves, but this was summarily reverted link. Editor HH referred to these lists as "alphabetical monstrosities" in the linked discussion and I believe he was right. :-)

Perhaps AR's proposal represents a new consensus among MilHist coordinators and this can be addressed more amicably? K.e.coffman (talk) 04:24, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
 * , I share your opinions on this article (and these series of articles in general), but I think if we could develop a broader compromise consensus on the KC, it'd be a sign of good faith to agree for a redirect to this article. If there isn't a broader consensus, my general thoughts are for delete on a case-by-case basis through AfD or PROD, but I think 's is worth trying (with my concerns about unverified recipients being taken to AfD instead still standing here.)  Just a thought to try to decrease the workload at AfD. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:54, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
 * G'day again. Addressing K.e. Coffman's comment about "new consensus among MilHist coordinators" and "it appeared that the editor represented the voice of MilHist coordinators": Regardless of whether an editor is a Milhist coordinator or not, they speak only for themselves. I don't believe that would have said otherwise, as such I am concerned that potentially you misunderstand the role. So, please be clear, I am providing my opinion only, and it holds equal weight to anyone else. Other editors no doubt hold a variety of different opinions. That is their right. Regarding using AfD or PROD for the articles on the unverified recipients: I could support this for the stub like articles that have no significant coverage, so long as there is consensus not to mention the unverified recipients by name on the consolidated lists. If this consensus is established, then I think largely PROD would be fine for the individual articles where a PROD hadn't previously been declined, so long as the process is transparent, i.e. an announcement for each PROD is made on the main Milhist page and other relevant talk pages (Biography and Germany etc) to ensure interested editors know about them so they have a chance to object. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 06:24, 1 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the clarifications. Editor Peacemaker makes frequent references to "MilHist Community" and "we" in communications with me / about me. For example:
 * "these deletions are not in consensus in the Milhist community"
 * "That is not how we do military biographies on en WP".
 * I suggest all coordinators keep a weather eye out for this behaviour"
 * Also note that the quote above contains the same "we". So perhaps I misunderstood. K.e.coffman (talk) 07:03, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, I don't see the relevance of these diffs to this debate and think that you are placing a little bit too much emphasis on comments taken out of context. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 01:47, 2 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Redirect - to List of Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross recipients (Sa–Schr). As a verified KC recipient it seems a valid search term to me; however, it does seem to lack the significant coverage req'd for a standalone article. On the wider topic of how to handle these entries I'd say that all the verified recipients lacking SIGCOV could be redirected to the parent article in a similar fashion. Perhaps also for the unverified recipients too. The fact that they appear in a number of widely available sources (even if unreliable) which state that they may or may not have received the award indicates to me that someone somewhere is likely at some point to be interested in finding out more about them and that at the very least they are valid search terms also. I'm not even convinced that they should be removed from the parent articles either to be honest. Why can't we retain the information about these unverified awards but just make it clear that they are unverified (and the reasons why)? That would make Wikipedia more comprehensive and is better than just blowing them up and salting the earth so they never grow again. I don't see why we need to delete them wholesale and think that that would be a bad outcome. Anotherclown (talk) 03:37, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Redirect I'm convinced by AustralianRupert and Anotherclown's comments. I don't think the edit history here is particularly valuble given the unreliable sources, but if reliable sources could be found for verified recipients, I can see how the past edit history of the page could be of value. Unverified are a different matter, but I agree with AustralianRupert's suggestion on the Lichte AfD that a narrowly construed RFC is the best way to deal with that issue going forward. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:41, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Redirect per AustralianRupert. Iazyges   Consermonor   Opus meum  22:47, 4 October 2016 (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.