Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yosef Yitzchak Paltiel


 * 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. v/r - TP 21:39, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Yosef Yitzchak Paltiel

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Non-notable individual lacking ghits and Gnews of substance. References are trivial mentions of individual. Fail WP:BIO. red dog six (talk) 02:26, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Keep : as refs are either A) Jewish/Hasidic community news sites notifying readers of events including subject as guest, B) Jewish/Hasidic organization sites with lecturer bios. The subject is a noted scholar within the Chabad Hasidic community. His lectures have been featured on both community websites as well as privately run sites. Ref format is a mess, my apologies for rushing the article. Also, I probable should have clarified a few details in the main body text.

In general, the Chabad movement places great emphasis on the study of Jewish mystical texts. The subject is very knowledgable in the area and thus accounts for the recognition within his community. — Preceding unsigned comment added by I.am.a.qwerty (talk • contribs) 02:41, 7 November 2013‎ (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:47, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:47, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:47, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment: The refs look lousy. The Torah Cafe ref notes it as "via insidechassidus.org", and links to a page that points out that the subject is founder of that website, which makes it hardly the sort of subjective third person we seek. The front page of TheYeshiva.Net lists him as one of their teachers, so that is not a third party. The next ref is a page of insidechassidus.org, so again, his website. National Jewish Retreat page is just a listing of him speaking. JHFweb.org ref is a catalogue of their recordings, including some by him. Crownheights.ch is a passing mention of him in a photo caption. Machonchana is a catalog of staff. Chabadwesthempstead is promoting him as speaker, so again, not uninvolved third party. The text at jml.org.au is just a copy of the text from TheYeshiva.net, where he is a teacher. Chabadinfo.com is an event listing. I've got to stop at the moment, but it's looking like all event listings and non--third-party sources. We are not doubting that he is a teacher and a lecturer, but doing such things would be expected to generate the sort of listings were seeing, and neither role makes him inherently notable. --Nat Gertler (talk) 04:10, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete - after looking at the rest of the refs, and performing some searches, I'm just not finding the kind of sourcing that meets our notability guidelines. --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:34, 7 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete: I cannot find anything that suggests that the subject is particularly notable even within Chabad—though he is certainly not completely obscure. הסרפד  (call me Hasirpad) 14:39, 7 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep as the subject
 * A) is well-known within the Chabad community.
 * B) lectures at Chabad institutions around the US, and abroad.
 * C) is frequently mentioned on Chabad community news sites (usually while covering events at various Chabad institutions.
 * D) His lectures are featured on his own site, as well as on theyeshiva.net (run by Yosef Yitzchak Jacobson), his lectures on the yeshiva.net have also been posted on community websites.
 * E) There is additional material on the subject, including: an interview with the subject in a established Chabad magazine, and an article on the Chabad movement's main website on the subject's personal history with Tay–Sachs disease.

If you are looking for something specific, let me know which ref would suffice. Thanks in advance, I.am.a.qwerty (talk) 16:37, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment/Question With regard's to the subject's activities in raising awareness of Jewish genetic diseases, does that help the subject's notability? I.am.a.qwerty (talk) 16:59, 7 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment. There is de-facto convention of which most of the panelists here may not be aware. Historically, there have been many articles on rabbis very similar to this one in the sense that they have sources that do not satisfy WP:RS (e.g. web pages, trivial mentions, etc) and have gone into AfD as a result. A great many of these have been kept either by consensus or by default by the efforts of editors seeking to have greater rabbinical presence on WP, several examples being Avraham Friedman, Tzvi Berkowitz, and Chaim Rabinowitz. Such articles have continued to exist for years on WP without further challenge. While I have advocated against the practice of keeping articles at this level because it basically amounts to special exemption from WP notability and sourcing guidelines, it might be important to consider this phenomenon relative to the article on Paltiel. Thoughts? Thanks, Agricola44 (talk) 00:30, 9 November 2013 (UTC).
 * Comment - Every article needs to stand on its own merits. De-facto or not it fails WP:BIO.  red dog six  (talk) 01:18, 9 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:BIO. The refs simply don't show significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject. Regarding the pages cited by Agricola44: I worked on the Chaim Rabinowitz page. The sources to books and newspapers are far better than these primary references to Chabad sites and community news sites. Yoninah (talk) 20:12, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Rabinowitz article does seem to have improved somewhat so that now only about half its citations are web pages. Sources for Friedman and Berkowitz articles remain as pitiful as they were several years ago. My point is that it is not waxing to question whether articles all within the same extremely narrow scope should not be judged by the same standards...standards which seem to have been set somewhat conclusively a number of years ago by articles like the three I mentioned above. Thanks, Agricola44 (talk) 07:57, 10 November 2013 (UTC).

Comment the subject on this case holds a unique position as a community mashpia. A mashpia is not a regular rabbi, and is a position of note within this particular group. In this case, we have to consider that outsiders (and outside sources) of the Chabad group to not necessarily  reflect the status of the position held. Because this is a situation where such a subject will be a notable personality within the community, and at the same time, outsiders to the group may not understand the significance of the position, notability should be established by the range of community sources available.

The position of Mashpia is pretty much unique to the Chabad group. So we should modify the bar for notability to filter those who are widely regarded within the group, versus those who are not.

The question of notability should, in this case, reflect that. Do not ask "is the subject notable enough to appear in secondary sources" if these sources would probably not reflect the value attributed to the subject's title by the members of the group.

The bar for such a subject should be the notability attributed to him/her in the group. In this case the community institutions where the subject was a guest speaker include both local and abroad ones. The fact that the subject is referred to as a referred to as a community mashpia in both established Chabad publications and community news sites, aside from the regular gig of teaching and lecturing, the subject is notable within the community for his work promoting awareness of Tay Sachs and other Jewish genetic diseases.

Wrap it all up, and you have a mashpia of note within Chabad. I.am.a.qwerty (talk) 17:29, 10 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Note For those familiar with Yoel Kahn, a very notable Mashpia within Chabad. Kahn holds no official title other than Majpia. And again, for those familiar, the subject is very much notable within the community, and I would not be surprised if there were few sources other than community ones documenting his notability.I.am.a.qwerty (talk) 18:23, 10 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment. The arguments from qwerty like "outsiders to the group may not understand the significance..." and "we should modify the bar for notability..." precisely reflect the phenomenon to which I am referring above. If the consensus is to delete, similar articles (like the three I mentioned) should probably be revisited. Thanks, Agricola44 (talk) 19:55, 10 November 2013 (UTC).


 * That there are some realms where notability is harder to establish than others is a given, but even were we open to some separate guideline, the level where I.am.a.qwerty seems trying to set the bar is problematically low. There are certainly teachers in other realms who might speak in more than one location and in more than one country without rising to the levels of notability that our guidelines aim for. The mere mention of someone with a subjective application of a term (particularly in articles like this which seem to laden compliments on everything and thus cannot be assumed to be an objective measurer of his community standing). Even if we were to accept description of him as a "mashpia [...] in Crown Heights", being a community thought leader can be seen perhaps as roughly equal to being on a town council in a political sense, a level of politician which we would not generally include a page for. (And that description from Collive looks like boilerplate language taken from some standard press info, given how that exact phrasing appears over several years in a couple different sources.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 21:21, 10 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete per my observations above. Agricola44 (talk) 21:46, 13 November 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.