Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Erich Heller

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 Keep. Clearly a consensus to keep (although I see the scenario playing out much as predicted by Bishonen). The "mistakenly created" argument doesn't hold much water, the nominator has edited the mistake hundreds of times and clearly believes there is case for an Erich Heller article, just doesn't like this one. Yomangani^talk 00:58, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Erich Heller

Erich Heller (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Deletion is requested under CSD G7. The cited rule has two conditions: both are met. The second condition, concerning the original post having been made in error, is certified by the user in question on the article’s discussion page. The fulfillment of the first condition is borne out by investigation of the article’s history. Some users, including User:Charles Matthews, and others, made objections to the proposed deletion on grounds extraneous to the rule. Those objections, as well as being predicated on false assumptions and unsubstantiated defamatory remarks, are irrelevant to the matter at hand.

The administrator who suggested the AfD process wrote here the opinion that ‘There is a case for speedy’ (3 November 2006, 09:05 UTC). — Prof02 07:40, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. This is a page with a long history. To assert now, after half a year, that the original page was mistakenly created, beggars belief. We do not allow wikilawyering about speedy deletion to trump the basic principle that content once submitted should not be 'revoked' by an author, who finds that editing here is collective. CSD G7 should not be a loaded gun that any page's original author can point at the community, as a threat, in order to get leverage on the page's content. WP:OWN applies here. Charles Matthews 09:28, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per Charles Matthews. 1ne 09:32, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
• The nominator's amusing reasoning doesn't help his case, and has been amply answered by Charles Matthews on the talk page of the article and on this page. So that leaves us with only this professor's notability according to our academic biography guidelines to consider. However, any doubts that this person is notable are soundly demolished by pages like this obituary from the New York Times, the 13 boxes of papers he wrote, and the many other books he wrote which is surely more than the output of many academics. Hence keep. Kavadi carrier 10:21, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per the above, it seems completely untenable to suggest an article created a long time ago with over 500 edits by the nominator was done "in error". The actual history of the article appears revealing edit summary such as "(art split off and moved from userpage without user's approval or consent, in an act of hidden vandalism)" and it's original userfication do support the suggestion that the nominator is actually complaining about their lack of ability to have long term exclusive control on the article, not a free webhost. Irrespective G7 is not a "will" be deleted, but "can" be deleted, we aren't in the business of deleting encyclopedic material to fulfil some bureaucratic process (not a bureacracy etc.) --pgk 10:53, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - CSD G7 does not apply here. As has been noted on the talk page, this is content that has been submitted under the GFDL. Please note the warning: "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it." - if you want to maintain control over a piece of text, don't post it to Wikipedia - it is as simple as that. Carcharoth 12:15, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

  Update: Or follow Bishonen's suggestion below. Carcharoth 01:02, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - the log history of this article, seen here (or use the links provided above) show that deletion and recreation has occurred before. Carcharoth 12:18, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - furthermore, in support of the assertion that CSD G7 does not apply, from WP:CSD#Non-criteria we have: "Author deletion requests made in bad faith: Sometimes an author will ask to have content removed because they feel frustrated with the project and resent it profiting from their work. However, they licensed their work to be used in this way and they have no legal basis for asking for its removal. The article must be "mistakenly created", for example if the author created it unwittingly by misspelling a name. Of course, anyone may request deletion of pages in their userspace." See also Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Explanations#General: "Does not apply to long-standing articles or quality articles not created by mistake. Such articles were duly submitted and released by the author and have become part of the encyclopedia, obviating others who otherwise would have written an article on the subject.". Note that the article history goes back to April 2006, and there are 26 links to this article from other articles in the encyclopedia, establishing that this is indeed a long-standing article and one that has become part of the encyclopedia. Carcharoth 12:32, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
  • See here and here for more background on all this. Carcharoth 13:05, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, sort of: Keep at this time: the argument here is self-destructing, as the "author" is not the "author," having gotten an account change since beginning. However, this is, absolutely without doubt, not an "author blanked" article or an article created in error. Geogre 12:46, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Which other account would that be? If you feel you can reveal this. Carcharoth 13:05, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Yes, I would like to know that also. For the sake of explanation to other users above (not to User:Geogre, whose other misunderstandings of this very subject are recorded here), it may be added that the fact that the article was created in error on 24 March 2006 is borne out by the fact that the user, then relatively new, requested its transfer from the mainspace to userspace back on 19 May 2006 (memorialized here), indicating his mistake less then two months after starting off. So no, this is not a new tack on my part. Deletion under CSD G7 calls for establishment of only two facts, indicated in official policy posted at that address, not for voting: a rational response, on two issues of importance, is required (see also WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_a_Democracy). — Prof02 14:27, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
    • • Oh, dear. Still thinking that I had some misunderstanding there, are you? That's fine, if you think it. Others can form their own opinions. Since your talk page has no official capacity and you were engaged in a Mad Hatter's tea party in your own mind, I really didn't feel there was any profit to being there. Unfortunately, your talk page is not your blog, and, if you cannot contribute and do not want to have your words edited, you shouldn't be trying to use it that way. Geogre 02:29, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
    • It has been pointed out above that the official policy you are quoting has specific sections that apply here, and which make clear that CSD G7 is not appropriate here. In case it is not yet clear, you will find that people here will greatly respect 30 years of scholarly work, but if you don't want to put this work on Wikipedia to be collaboratively edited by others, then you should publish it elsewhere instead (you still retain copyright on what you originally wrote, but cannot copy current versions without attributing Wikipedia). For example, you could publish your work on a website of your own. If you did that, the article on Wikipedia could be rewritten from scratch and include a reference to your website as an external link. Since most of the content at the moment is undoubtedly contributed by you, the ethical course for Wikipedia would most likely to agree to this (though technically I don't think we have to, as you 'released' your material under the GFDL by pressing 'save' in the editing window). Anyway, if this hypothetical website of yours ever died, Wikipedia could just revert back to the most informative version of the article (which would still exist in the page history). The ethical course for you would be to acknowledge on this hypothetical website that the material was first published at Wikipedia. For most people's contributions, which are tangled up in amongst other's, this doesn't work. Your contributions are still relatively easy to distinguish from others, so this course of action is probably possible. Others may have differing opinions though, as the possibility of someone later republishing what they have contributed to Wikipedia might be discussed elsewhere and rejected (ie. I might just be wrong here). Carcharoth 17:39, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
      • As you say he has copyright ownership over his own work, releasing it under the GFDL doesn' restrain him in any way on that, he can release his own work under an alternative license quite freely without any need to mention wikipedia or anyone else (The GFDL as a license is him as the copyright holder agreeing to license his works to others under certain conditions, not a license to himself...). Only if he makes use of other peoples work would he need to license their work under the GFDL and thus be subject to it's conditions. --pgk 00:59, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
    • This is in addition to the fact that he has not contributed as a signatory. I.e. his name is not "Prof02" at birth, and, since Wikipedia does not require the real name, we cannot "give" the rights to "him." I cannot call back all my contributions, for example, because no one at Wikipedia or in the software knows my legal name. We ran into this problem when we had reports of a contributor "dying" and then having "him" try to reclaim his account. We couldn't know if the "him" asking for rights back was the "him" who "died." Basically, Wikipedia is in a position of neither claiming nor granting rights other than the GFDL. Geogre 02:33, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Not a speedy candidate, and seems to pass notability Avi 00:27, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. I can hardly believe this article was nominated in the first place. Unfocused 01:21, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. G7 specifies 2 criteria, both of which must be met: (1) that the page's only substantial content was added by its author, and (2) that the content was mistakenly created. In this case, neither of these criteria is satisfactorily fulfilled:

Criterion 2: Prof02 created the Erich Heller article in mainspace on March 24, 2006 and edited it there hundreds of times. When making each of those edits, he viewed an edit page containing clear admonitions and policy links, which explain the operation of this wiki. He has long since forfeited the right to say "Oops, my mistake, I didn't mean to be here at all." That's like speeding down a highway marked with signage for hundreds of miles and then telling a police officer, "Oops, I didn't realize this was a public road."

Criterion 1: In mid-May at least one other editor made good faith edits to the Heller article. Prof02 expressed displeasure with this turn of events and explicitly characterized these edits as "arbitrary changes of substance" (see here). He then asked that "my article" be moved offline, a request which was granted on a temporary basis by a helpful admin, Bishonen. Prof02's own words clearly indicate that it was his own considered opinion that another editor was making substantial content changes to the Heller article. — WikiPedant 20:46, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

• • CSD G7 concerns itself, not with changes of substance, but only with additions of substance: the rule states that the only substantial content must have been added by its author. One could delete 236 words, or even all the words from an article, instituting as a result the most drastic changes of substance, without thereby becoming a co-author in the understanding of Rule G7 (to say nothing of common sense).

• • As regards the second G7 criterion, that concerning the author’s mistake, it is clear that I have created a work-in-progess in the main article space by mistake (from inexperience with the technicalities of the site, as this was only my second article on Wikipedia, and the first of this size and caliber), and that, when the concept of user subpages as the appropriate place for a work-in-progress is brought to my attention by User:Charles Matthews, I had never heard of the idea before, and declare openly that I do not know how to create a user subpage and need help with the task (the literal quote, recorded here, is: ‘I lack however the technical knowledge of how to do this’). The principle of ‘tough-cheese’, which seems to actuate at bottom some of the reasoning here, is not recognized by any judicial system in the world. — Prof02 07:16, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. Please don't let's stand on ceremony and the GFDL in a case where common sense ought rather to prevail. The article is clearly of immense value to the main author and of little value to Wikipedia, being written in an unencyclopedic, reverential, circumlocutory mode. Did you people who want it kept actually read it? I don't mean to suggest anybody's commenting carelessly, I'm sure you checked out the facts in the text and the claims to notability, but did you read it as a piece of writing? Yes, it could probably be ruthlessly edited down to an encyclopedic stub, but why lacerate the user's feelings (and incur his flamethrower) for so little gain? It would surely be simpler to start over and write a new, Wikipedia-type, article about Erich Heller. I nominate Charles Matthews, who knows the subject. ;-) Note that I'm not proposing that the page be reuserfied, there's been enough of that. I'm sure the user has somewhere off wikipedia to put it. It has generated enough battleground, please let's get rid of it, and also of this newly created userspace fork, and any future versions which may be created using Wikipedia resources without being freely editable by Wikipedians. Bishonen | talk 00:31, 7 November 2006 (UTC).

• This argument makes sense. I'd be happy to support this. Carcharoth 01:02, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• I greatly respect Bishonen's fine track record as an admin and mainspace contributor. She makes sound points about the shortcomings of this article and the behavior of the original author. But I am not comfortable with her proposed course of action. Sometimes, to be sure, situations present themselves where rules should be held in abeyance. However, "common sense" can be a slippery guideline and the common sense page she cites is not an official policy page. While it is true that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, Bishonen is proposing a leap in the direction of frontier justice. G7 and the other AfD rules are the products of consensus and they should be respected in all but the most exceptional situations. Without the consistent application of criteria like these, all AfD discussions would degenerate into debates invoking ad hoc principles. And Bishonen suggests not only that the G7 criteria be bypassed, but that the working drafts of the article in the user's subpages be deleted too (I see 2 such copies: here and here). It is not clear to me that this extra step falls within the purview of an AfD decision. If the user is the real problem here (and he is, to say the least, a "civility-challenged" character), there probably are ways to deal with that, but this does not strike me as one of them. - WikiPedant 03:52, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• Hi, WikiPedant. Your keep !vote is very logical, and it's clear enough that the article will in fact be kept. I don't really object. I guess I was most of all expressing my feeling of how nice it would be to get the whole thing off of Wikipedia. I do have some logic of my own, though: as soon anybody but Prof02 tries to edit it, it is incandescently clear from User talk:Prof02 and Talk:Erich Heller that he will defend its present state to the death, then quickly be blocked for edit warring, then quickly be indefinitely blocked. Honestly, Wikipedia is a chrystal ball sometimes. What's the point? As for ways of "dealing" with the user's civility issues, I've been trying to do that since May or whenever it was, and I really doubt it. Never mind, though. I just wanted to explain my angle. Oh, and I was indeed thinking of putting the user subpages on WP:MFD, I quite agree that deleting them can't be decided on AFD. Bishonen | talk 05:31, 8 November 2006 (UTC).

• Yes, Bishonen, I think your prediction is quite likely to prove accurate. Perhaps there is a way out for all concerned. If the finding of this AfD process is that G7 has not been satisfied and the article stays, Wikipedia functionaries could make Prof02 an exceptional offer -- to delete the article and Prof02's userpages if Prof02 withdraws voluntarily and permanently from the Wikipedia project. He may well be as fed up with the contributors to this project as some of them are with him, and be quite agreeable to a mutual parting of the ways. But I don't have a clue who has the authority to make or implement such an offer. - WikiPedant 06:11, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• Strong keep per above; Pgk has a nack of being able to sum up things beautifully like that. Daniel.Bryant ^{[ T · C ]} 02:31, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Delete. Obviously Erich Heller is worthy of an article here, but is this article worthy of Erich Heller? That a man described as an essayist can have a page of this calibre devoted to him tells the world more about Wikipedia's standards than about Erich Heller. It cannot under any stretch of the imagination be described as objective or encyclopedic. If an editor is prepared to take it into userspace, and heavily edit it until it conforms to the standards expected of a Wikipedia article then perhaps it could be given a limited trial life in order to conform. I could prune this by a third and make an encyclopedic page within twenty minutes - but it's not my subject - I would probably remove something important, and this is the danger, editing this page cannot be tackled by just anyone, we could have something of even less use than the present article, if not downright misleading and dangerous to Wikipedia's reputation. - So for Erich Heller's and Wikipedia's sake this has to go - and then if necessary be re-created in a more encyclopedic fashion by a new editor at sometime in the future. Giano 09:04, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Do you realise that User:Prof02 has had this page userfyed, and edited it over 1500 times in that state? I'm sure the article could be improved. Since when has that been a reason for deletion? Charles Matthews 09:39, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

In reality this is not about User:Prof02, nor should it be, it is about if the article is suitable for retention. 1.5 or 1500 edits is neither here nor there. Everything can be improved, but surely the pages sojourn here would have been the impetus for some one to do just that - no one has. This page does not cut the mustard - It cannot remain as it is - there is no one to able to fix it so it must be discarded. I would have thought you would welcome giving some one the opportunity to start again with a clean sheet. Giano 10:11, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

But that's entirely to do with editors not wanting to be abused. I could quite happily start sorting out the convoluted Thomas Mann stuff, using Anthony Heilbut's book. I would want to retain the references, which are good, while removing more of the POV and tangled logic. Michael Hamburger has some useful things also. It seemed sensible to let the dispute over who was competent to edit the page run its course, ignoring some of the vitriol. Doesn't mean the page should be torched. Charles Matthews 13:08, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I do not know whether or not User:Giano II is aware that the Erich Heller article he is looking at is not an article that its contributor, the undersigned, intended for Wikipedia. That article is still in the process of being prepared here, and at the present stage is still not ready to be released to the main article space. The article on Heller which Giano is looking at, and which constitutes the subject of the present debate, has been forcibly wrenched — in violation of Wikipedia guidelines — without the user’s knowledge or consent, from that work-in-progess on the user’s subpage (I use the Saxon genitive judiciously here). When I asked that the article be re-merged with the body from which it was truncated, the administrators involved refused point-blank, without stating valid (or indeed any) reasons. The matter, as a result, is a subject of a very, very serious dispute, involving pre-eminently User:Charles Matthews, User:Bishonen, User:WikiPedant, but also others, who are now locked in a battle of their administrative lives on Wikipedia. Let’s therefore keep the proceedings on this page simple, and constrain ourselves solely to the subject-matter at hand, which is the CSD G7 rule. Either it applies or not, and if not, why.

Parenthetically speaking, the reason why works-in-progress cannot be edited by others, even if they show the compulsive eagerness to do so exhibited by User:Charles Matthews, is the circumstance that the ‘progress’, as in ‘work-in-progress’, is arrested in such conditions. I have never had anything close to the unreasonable problems created artificially by a single user, with the support of a group of others who benefit from the protective umbrella that his membership of the ArbCom in their eyes bestows, with the ten or so other articles I have contributed so far. And this situation I do mean to change, permanently, even if I have to suffer mud being thrown in my face as I methodically pursue this. — Prof02 07:11, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Really, I am so 'compulsively eager' to edit Erich Heller that I have put up with half a year of this sort of prevarication from an editor who simply doesn't understand our policies, and, more importantly, our way of doing business, and, more importantly again, shows no signs of being able to take in any explanations of anything to do with Wikipedia. Unreasonable problems created artificially by a single user refers, apparently, to the operation of normal policy and collective editing. Can we cut the chop-logic short and just keep the existing page? Charles Matthews 23:04, 9 November 2006 (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.