Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Arnold van den Bergh (notary)

Got an in parallel with 's closure. Adding here on Talk: to avoid editing the AfD post-closure.


 * Keep; TL;LR clearly and strongly. The subject was easily notable in their own life time in the field of Dutch social work (before and after WWII); in navigating semi-political life at a critical period of history via the Jewish Council of Amsterdam (start of WWII); and for their involvement in events encountered during their work as a prominent go-to civil law lawyer in the region, and at a stretch possibly also their own family's hiding and survival (second half of WWII), although details are a bit scant. (…Usually I recuse from expressing a clear keep/delete opinion at AfD on articles, where I did significant research/contribution—but with three weeks of listings at AfD perhaps the time has come to listen the contributions made thus far, and form and state a clear opinion):


 * In reviewing Talk:Arnold van den Bergh_(notary) we can see this is not the first time that notability was raised. Previously an editor added the  tag, and gave their thoughts a comment on the Talk: page.  A few days later the  tag was removed, along with the editor adding a comment to the Talk: page as ("Objection withdrawn").  ie. Concern raised.  Concern withdrawn.  Both documented on the corresponding Talk: page.
 * A couple of weeks later, a was again added, along with .  We cannot read the rationale on the Talk: page, because no rationale was given (there are no new comments).
 * Returning to this AfD, the submitter was kind enough to leave some rationale:
 * Obscure notary. The lack of notability is in conflict with the cited quoting of secondary sources.  The "notary" part is correct.
 * "subject has no notability other than…", same as above, the available sources state otherwise.
 * "…justification for a separate article", this argument appears to be backwards. If the subject were known for nothing else, except their proven involvement in $some_event, then a couple of sentences on another article would be fine (ie. WP:1E).  But this is the opposite situation here: an already notable figure from history was alleged linked, by a thin thread, (and not for the first time) to $some_event.  The proposer even highlights correctly that "[the accusation] is disputed and is not well-established or accepted by scholars at this point in time".
 * "There would be no article were it not for the controversial Anne Frank claim". We could easily delete the penultimate sentence in the article, and the article would still stand.  But that would be a dis-service to our readers, because the wikilink would no longer be there.
 * "utilizing largely Dutch-language", not too surprising, as the subject was based in the Netherlands, as newspapers and reports in the Netherlands are usually written in Dutch (although not all of them!). Citations make wide use of quote and trans-quote, allowing readers to double check precisely what the source states.
 * "original research" (Explanation unavailable)
 * "/synthesis" (Explanation unavailable)
 * "enormously lengthy footnotes". (The article has no footnotes).
 * "to flesh out the synthesis". (Explanation unavailable).
 * "Lamentably the expanded material only adds other issues". (No explanation about what the "other issues" are).
 * "padded with primary sources, and synthesis." (Explanation unavailable)
 * "There are no secondary sources …" Appears to be factually in conflict with the article contents.
 * "surplusage" (Vague)
 * "… there is very little that needs to be added to the Anne Frank article …" Which would appear to completely counter the opening basis proposal in opening this AfD.
 * Other contributions to this discussion are useful too; we have heard a number of one-liners from editors supporting deletion, most of which explicitly defer to the AfD nominator's original rationale (addressed above).
 * Per nominators arguments., "concur with the nominator's full reasoning." and per my nomination. The nominator's full reasoning has been discussed immediately above.  The offered "reasoning" is non-specific and factually flawed.
 * "Fails WP:1E as per nominator., and "per above, fails WP:1E" Likewise, WP:1E does not appear to be relevant, because the subject is notable for their own activities in their own lifetime.
 * "The theory about his involvement is already covered in …" The the subject article is 90% not about (allegations of) involvement.  The question comes down to whether the subject is notable anyway.
 * (Specifically, since the addition of a hatnote below the nomination, no more external contributions proposing deletion were made.)
 * In contrast, contributing supporting keeping of the article each advance their own words and arguments, and all specifically address sourcing:
 * "Details sourced information about his life …" and "multiple sources, and seems to make reasonable claims of notability" and "the article clearly states and sources that he was a notable notary during his life. That's all that matters here."
 * But mostly interestingly, is an argument for "… fulfilling an encyclopaedia's role of providing background to important subjects and periods in history". Even if the subject were not notable already (which does not appear to be the case here…) there would still be the encyclopedic duty to document that background and tie everything together, in order to serve our reader's interests.


 * In summary, keep. + Per WP:WTRMT policy, unsupported tags should be removed. —Sladen (talk) 10:32, 15 February 2022 (UTC)