Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Soviet Republic of Naissaar

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The result was: nomination withdrawn, consensus to merge and redirect reached (non-admin close). -- Sander Säde 03:11, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Soviet Republic of Naissaar

Soviet Republic of Naissaar (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Hoax article. 0 hits in google scholar [1], 0 hits in google books [2] and the 1480 hits in google comprises entirely of Wikipedia mirrors [3] Martintg 10:16, 24 October 2007 (UTC) Withdrawn. Martintg 02:47, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

• Delete as nominator. Martintg 10:18, 24 October 2007 (UTC) Since some concensus has emerged for a merge and redirect, I withdraw the nomination. Martintg 21:52, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete as per nom. Scarian^Talk 10:46, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
• Comment: This article has been here for two years and has had time to grow roots, including translations in the Italian and Breton Wikipedias, an extensive mention in Stepan Petrichenko and links from dozens of other articles. If it is indeed determined to be a hoax, it'll take some effort to fully uproot. The article was started in August 2005 by Bloomfield (talk · contribs), who has been previously accused of problematic editing and sockpuppetry (confirmed by checkuser), but not of actual hoaxes. If this article turns out to have been a hoax, his other contributions and those of his socks should also be looked at very carefully. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:44, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

• As with all Bloomfield (edited by Petri Krohn) articles, there is a grain of truth in the general noise. For sources, see [4] and [5] (both in Estonian). The second one describes false burials given to the sailors by Soviet powers (the coffins were empty). From the Wikipedia article, only "In December 1917, the revolutionary sailors of the Russian Navy took power on the small island of Naissaar and proclaimed an independent "socialist republic" there. The Russian sailors, numbering about 80-90, formed a self-styled government and levied taxies on the local population." seems to be about the actual "republic", and that should be merged to Naissaar, provided it can be properly sourced - especially the second sentence seems dubious. So, in my opinion merge and redirect (actually, I don't think even AfD is needed for that, just some bold editing, which I'll do in a few hours, unless someone complains. -- Sander Säde 16:00, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

• Further comment (after edit conflict, somewhat redundant): This source (in Estonian, archive link) from the earliest versions of the article seems to support at least some of the claim in the article. In particular, it says: "Detsember: nõukogu kuulutab saare soldatite ja kindluseehitajate sotsialistlikuks vabariigiks.", or, in English, "December [1917]: the Soviets declare the island the Soviet Republic of Soldiers and Fortress-Builders". There's more, but my Estonian isn't good enough for me to attempt a proper translation. In any case, I've notified WikiProject Estonia; hopefully someone from there can straighten things out. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 16:21, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect supported This should have been deleted two yeas ago as not notable(note the no google hits or scholar resources) in its own article as the incident involved a very small group of people creating a "republic" out of thin air, under command of its creators, members of stationed military. It is notable with in the context of Naissaar history tho. BTW, Ilmari, the link you have is someones personal web page, hardly a reliable source. Thanks for taking interest in this.--Alexia Death the Grey 18:00, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

• Well, I merged the "socialist republic" part to Naissaar, using sources mentioned previously. However, as of now I did not delete/redirect Soviet Republic of Naissaar, as we should reach a consensus about that here. -- Sander Säde 18:46, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
• For what it's worth, I think the merge looks good and a redirect seems quite reasonable. Thanks, Sander! Now if we could just get someone to flesh out Naissaar a bit more in general... —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:09, 24 October 2007 (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.