Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Spinka financial controversy

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. Sandstein (talk) 12:31, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Spinka financial controversy

Spinka financial controversy (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Wikipedia is NOT NEWS Chocolatepizza (talk) 23:07, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Comment It says there "topics in the news may also be encyclopedic subjects when the sources are substantial," and you don't get more substantial that the source on this article. Neither is this a one time thing this has been continuing for over 10 years according to the FBI. Lobojo (talk) 23:21, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletion discussions. —Chocolatepizza (talk) 23:13, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
• Speedy Keep, the article has sources from the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times and many others. These are not minor articles either but are major 1000+ word by-lined articles individaully researched and reported. This is a major controversy in the Jewish world and beyond. This way just on DRV where the closer supported the creation of an article under this heading. Lobojo (talk) 23:15, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

He did not such thing. He said that it wouldn't be a BLP issue to create such an article which was the reason for the deletion of the previous one. He did not say he supports anything. Chocolatepizza (talk) 23:19, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

• Strong keep. This is a very serious subject that will have lasting importance. It is not something that just happened one day. It is the end product of an alleged ten-year scheme of fraud and may bring down five important charities and a notable dynasty of religious leaders. It is also important in the context of the history of Hassidic sects in America and their relation to the secular world.Wikidemo (talk) 23:16, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep as more than merely news - although cites from NY Times, LATimes, and UPI wire news must count for something. Major, possibly ongoing, scandal. Bearian'sBooties (talk) 23:24, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
• Weak Keep - Though Lobojo's continuing choice of Jewish Rabbi scandal articles for creation continues to concern me, it is reliably sourced. I do wonder, though, if the participants are sufficiently notable to have an article about this scandal in Wikipedia. Jeffpw (talk) 23:29, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Correct, Lobojo's choice of articles makes me wonder whether he has a hidden agenda here. Chocolatepizza (talk) 23:37, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes you got me ChocolatePizza. I hate beards. Lobojo (talk) 01:56, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Comment When people question another editor's motives in selecting topics to write about, it runs contrary to the requirement to avoid personal attacks and to assume good faith until and unless the editor in question demonstrates a trend departing from neutral point of view editing. Please discuss the article and do not delve into the inner workings of the mind of the person who created the article. Edison (talk) 05:05, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

• Speedy keep - We cannot delete Mike Hucabee's biography because he is in the news. Spinke Rebbe is a Grand Rabbi and should have had an article long before User Lobojo started this article, but better late than never. Thanks--יודל (talk) 03:10, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Ample reliable and verifiable sources to establish Wikipedia:Notability. Alansohn (talk) 08:49, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
• Merge with the main Spinka (Hasidic dynasty) article as sad as this topic may be. The Spinka (Hasidic dynasty) article is fairly short and this should and could be merged into it. It would be a legitimate sub-heading of "Spinka financial controversy." Why hasn't anyone thought of this obvious solution so far? It's not as if this is on the scale of the Lewinsky scandal that needed a separate article from the Presidency of Bill Clinton article. Thanks, IZAK (talk) 13:05, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Because this scandal has nothing to do with the Spinke dynasty over all, and Monica Lewinsky has everything to do with Bill Clinton. - This article must be renamed into Naftule Tzvi Wies, because Spinka is bigger than this one Rabbi and his Institutions. Thanks--יודל (talk) 13:39, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. No. Articles on the English wikipedia do not get non-English names. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:41, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

• A name of a person is the same if its in English or in Yiddish. I beg to rename this article to the name of the person not to his 1 sin, he is bigger than this one story.--יודל (talk) 15:35, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

What the...!?!?! IZAK, I made the suggestion several days to merge the content into the main Spinka (Hasidic dynasty) article several ago at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 December 24#Naftali Tzvi Weisz to which you responded at this edit with a resounding oppose that a merge proposal "would be very unencyclopedic because then what would we do with all the articles in Category:Hasidic rebbes -- just merge them into the dynasties they head?" Did you actually type "Why hasn't anyone thought of this obvious solution so far?" or has someone hijacked your account? Was there a little something extra in the cholent this Shabbos? Alansohn (talk) 15:42, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Alansohn for you vigilance, I was waiting for someone to ask this question. Let me explain. I voted to "keep" the original article on Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Weisz, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Naftali Tzvi Weisz, because by being the Rebbe of an important Hasidic dynasty he is automatically notable. Period, there should be no question about this. The big problem of course was that it was written as an attack article and I disagree with that style and method and my suggestion was to find and add non-controversial information about this Rebbe, the institutions he heads and the good work he has done. It should be possible to locate and do this. However the push was to delete and before that happened someone suggested moving the biography of this Rebbe into the article about the Spinka Hasidic dynasty, which I opposed, see Wikipedia talk:Deletion review/Log/2007 December 24, simply because, so far, biographies of Rebbes, when created, remain separate to the "dynasty articles" they are attached to (see Category:Hasidic dynasties vs. Category:Hasidic rebbes.) The situation here however is different, since the article under review, as it is named, is about an event, the Spinka financial controversy (and again, its contents could and must be written from a NPOV and non-attack style), and it is not a biography, so that in this case there should be no objection in merging what is now a confirmed (sadly negative) historical event into the article that describes the rise and history of this particular dynasty. So to sum up, I opposed a motion to merge a biography of a Rebbe with the general article about his dynasty's history. On the other hand I support a merge of an article about certain key events into the article about the dynasty. Obviously, if an article about the Rebbe would reappear, these events would be mentioned there as well and editors would have to decide where the main story should be, but at no point have I opposed a point blank deletion of anything in this set of cases since this story is big and has had and will continue to have wide reportage and cannot be ignored, inspite of its "newsiness". Thank you, IZAK (talk) 08:28, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

• Keep This is better than using the persons name, because precisely of BLP--and he was not the only person involved. . (If it were under the persons name, that his name is nonEnglish is no reason not to use it) DGG (talk) 14:19, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Comment Please keep in mind there is only 1 prominent notable leader in this case, and thats the 'Grand Rabbi Of Spinke'. I am very troubled and bothered that Jews who trusted him must be shamed here they aren't public figures. As a Hareidi Jew i can tell u openly that we abide by our rabbis, first and foremost, although the law of the land must be upheld but not if its contradicting Torah Leaders. If my rabbi takes from me money and gives it back i will do it. - and if my name comes up in a police report i expect Wikipedia community to guard my privacy. Please rename this article to the Rabbis name because only he is the real Notable subject here what matters to the public domain all of his followers incriminated here must not be mentioned. Lets face it if the Grand Rabbi wasn't involved here this story would have never be known to us--יודל (talk) 15:28, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. This is not a Spinka controversy but Rabbi Weiszs', which requires this to be moved to N T Weiss which violates a few more Policies, which means that it doesn't belong on WP. This article has been recreated by Lobojo to work around the deletion of the previous one. WP is an encyclopedia and not a news paper. There is no such thing as Spinka financial controversy, this is a made up term by Lobojo to work around the deletion.--Shmaltz (talk) 21:05, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

That's silly. The Weiszs article was improperly deleted out of process against consensus, and we got a bad deletion reveiew result also against consensus. There is no BLP reason why this material does not belong here. It is a notable controversy over the alleged (and likely) misuse of Spinka charities by a prominent Rabbi to perpetuate a massive tax fraud and money laundering scheme. Many people, Jews apparently, close to Hassidism, have said that this is an important event about important people, not some random news story. Take your pick - the issue is about Rabbi Weisz, or it is about his Spinka charities. In that five related spinka charities are at the center it is fair to say it is about Spinka and about Spinka charities. To delete well-sourced encyclopedic content simply because it casts negative light on a Hassidic Jewish sect, charities, and individuals for (allegedly) having committed grievous illegal acts is censorship and an assault on this project.Wikidemo (talk) 21:49, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

It didn't really need consensus, since it was blatantly against policy. It's not BLP, it's WP:NOT, so far it's just a news story under a made up terminology. Rabbi Weiszs' name is not made up but Spinka financial controversy is, someone made it up to be able to put that news story in it. It's an alleged misuse of some of over a dozen Spinka charities, out of that over a dozen, he is the rabbi (or grand rabbi) of only one. This is NOT encyclopedic content on it's own, this is encyclopedic content only within another article, however the main Spinka article cannot be that one, since it's for over a dozen Spinka rebbes. Find an article where there is significant other content, that relates only to Rabbi Weiszs' Spinka and I agree it's encyclopedic content.--Shmaltz (talk) 22:03, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

It was not against policy. You say it is, I say it is not. Therefore we need consensus. Otherwise I can just recreate it and say you are wrong. You can delete it and say I am wrong. I will recreate it again, and then we are in an edit war. That is not the way to handle things on Wikipedia. That is why we have procedures and not just content policy. People reviewed the rules and agreed that this is more than a news story. When most people, arguing reasonably, say that something agrees with policy and should be kept, or that an administrative decision was made wrongly, it is not up to those with the minority view to act on their own.Wikidemo (talk) 00:43, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't get your point, if you understand what you wrote, why don't you recreate it?--Shmaltz (talk) 00:53, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia has three kinds of rules, expressed in its policies and guidelines: (1) content rules, about what material should be in the encyclopedia; (2) behavioral rules, about what people may or may not do; and (3) procedural rules, about how people are supposed to reach decisions when they do not agree on something. The Rabbi's article was nominated for deletion as a mixed question of notability and BLP violations. Both WP:N (and the subsidiary WP:NOT issue) and WP:BLP are content rules. They say some material is allowed, and some is not. If everybody agreed the article is allowed or not allowed there would be nothing to resolve. But some believed the article is allowed and others believed it is not. The procedural rules tell us how to resolve the question. The rules that apply most directly to this situation are those for consensus, speedy deletion (CSD), and for AfD. We had a discussion according to the consensus rules and the consensus was that it should be kept. CSD has no provision for deleting an article under the circumstances. AfD required the closing administrator to follow the consensus. The administrator said he was ignoring consensus because he believed the content rules prohibited the article. There was no principle behind his decision other than that he believed he is right. We had a deletion review that was supposed to resolve this, but the administrator closing that did the same thing. Even though the majority of people felt the original decision was wrong and did not follow procedure, he believed personally it was right. When people do not follow the procedure there is no way to resolve disputes. It simply becomes an issue of who will delete or create articles. It is incorrect to say that adding the material is an attempt to get around the earlier decision. The earlier decision is not made validly so there is no mechanism for following it. Even if it were made correctly it applies only to that specific article, not the entire subject matter. The administrator closing the discussion said explicitly that the outcome would not affect any new article devoted specifically to the controversyWikidemo (talk) 01:16, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Quote: The administrator closing the discussion said explicitly that the outcome would not affect any new article devoted specifically to the controversy end quote. The nominator of that afd said the same and even beyond, that within that article it could stay as well as long as that article is an article. With the content of any article being just this story it matches the criteria of WP:NOT which is why this was nominated again. Which is why I keep saying it should be deleted, since WP is NOT a newspaper, all that article is doing is recording one well sourced event, that is not even 2 weeks old.--Shmaltz (talk) 01:39, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

*Delete, at most Merge with Spinka (Hasidic dynasty). Culturalrevival (talk) 23:14, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

• Keep but should be renamed, Spinka Charity Tax Fraud or Spinka Charity Scandal. Chesdovi (talk) 00:31, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep Originally voted delete some time back (other afd). But now its sourced, NPOV, no BLP issues, andnotability re: topic matter is established. MBisanz 05:08, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep article is well sourced, enough to stand alone. Culturalrevival (talk) 16:48, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Although I argued for a keep on the deleted article, the community said otherwise and the original speedy-delete occurred and the deletion review failed under the provision "cover the event, not the person." in WP:BLP. This article is on the event; the source quality for the article is very high, and there is no issue of non-notability. In addition, because the event has cultural and historical significance which makes it more than random news, WP:NOT#NEWS does not apply. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 23:50, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
• Comment this article is the correct way to handle such material , under BLP--not under the name of one of the criminals. DGG (talk) 07:38, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. The article appears well-sourced, and focuses on an event of some note. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 17:43, 2 January 2008 (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.