Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Lenin's Hanging Order (2 nomination)

Detailed rationale for the closure
The opinions were divided. Reminding that AfD is not a vote, let me review the strength of the arguments in terms of wikipedia policies and guidelines.


 * Notability (keep/del votes):
 * those who want to keep it claim that the telegram was highly publicized; referenced in several books and articles (Biophys, C.J Griffin).
 * A counterargument (Dzied Bulbash, Laudak) is that there are no secondary sources about this telegram: the books just cite it as a primary source.
 * No evidence of notability presented in the article (Colin4c, Dzied Bulbash, Laudak, Timurite). There are thousands of minor documents cited in various books (Colin4c, Dzied Bulbash, Laudak). It is unclear why this one deserves a separate article. At least someone must publish a scholar research about this one - a similar requirement is in many subpages of WP:NOTE.


 * Importance because of rarity (keep vote):
 * DonaldDuck says "few such documents preserved in archives" - First of all, DonaldDuck does not support this rather general claim. Second, while it is unclear, what exactly "such documents" mean, the statement sounds dubious: there are plenty of orders about executions and hostages and kulaks from Soviet era, even in wikipedia; you can even find documents about quotas for executions per oblast (i.e, numbers of enemies to kill were set in advance, without any trial)!


 * "We have this article in 4 wikipedias." (Biophys) - So what? Many minor wikpedias just translate from en: . Anyway, while wikipedia is not a reliable source for wikipedia, other articles may provide additional refs. Not in our case.


 * Original research (del votes)
 * The article does not provide refs from secondary sources that discuss the document as a research subject (Laudak, Dzied Bulbash).
 * The article is original research about an event, rather than the document, the latter one is just cited. (Laudak)


 * There was also some discuiion about the title, but I will not consider them here.

In summary,

While "keepers" claim notability and importance, "deleters" claim that there is no evidence of research of this particular document beyound quoting and the wikipedia article itself basically does the same: the document is only quoted, but not discussed in its essence. At best, the document may be placed in wikisource.

Additionally remarking that the article was not improved during the discussion and no evidence of the possibility of the improvement is given, I am closing the discussion with the outcome to delete - Altenmann >t 03:46, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

On a personal note: For those who sincerely believe that this doc is something outstanding or well-kept secret finally unearthed after the collapse of the Soviet Union, I would advise to read Venedict Yerofeyev's My Little Leniniana, a collection of quotes from Lenin's Complete Works published in tens of millions copies. Very funny. But some are not.
 * Тов. Зиновьеву в Петроград:
 * "Тов. Зиновьев!  Только  сегодня  мы узнали в ЦК, что в Питере рабочие хотят ответить на убийство Володарского массовым террором  и  что  Вы  их  удержали.  Протестую  решительно!  Мы компрометируем себя: грозим даже в резолюциях Совдепа  массовым террором,  а  когда  до дела, тормозим революционную инициативу масс, вполне правильную.
 * Это не-воз-мож-но! Надо поощрить энергию и массовидность еррора! " (26 ноября 1918 ).
 * (Zinoviev stopped St.Petersburg workers from mass terror. Lenin vehemently proitests)
 * Телеграмма в Саратов, тов. Пайкесу:
 * "Расстреливать, никого  не  спрашивая  и  не  допуская идиотской волокиты" (22 августа 1918).
 * ( "To shoot, without idiotic bureaucracy")
 * Тов Шляпникову, в Астрахань:
 * "Налягте изо  всех  сил,  чтобы  поймать  и расстрелять астраханских взяточников и спекулянтов. С  этой  сволочью  надо расправиться  так,  чтобы  на  все  годы запомнили" (12 декабря 1918).
 * ("Try hard catch and shoot Astrakhan bribe-takers and profiteers. These scoundrels must be dealt with in such a way so that it would be remembered forever.")

.... - Altenmann >t 03:48, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Deletion overturned
See rationale at Deletion review/Log/2010 April 10. NW ( Talk ) 22:27, 10 April 2010 (UTC)