Talk:Rosenzweig

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Cleanup efforts have been reverted twice now, so I'd like to present my rationale for removal of names from this surname list.

  1. This page was created by a user who was obsessed with surnames and created hundreds, if not thousands of surname pages. He is banned on en:wiki, de:wiki and jp:wiki, possibly others as well. A cleanup project (WP:SU) has been created for these pages.
  2. This page falls under the scope of WP:SU, which also says "Inordinate amounts of red links should be trimmed". At the moment, 8 out of 16 names of this page are redlinked, and I would call that "Inordinate amounts of red links". Most of them were added by this banned user.
  3. Several of these redlinked people have entries on www.jewishencyclopedia.com (which is offline at the moment). Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not Google (essay), and nothing gets lost in removing these names from the list. Furthermore, from the hundreds of surname pages that already got cleaned up, I can tell that jewishencyclopedia.com has many entries on people who are "just" rabbis (amongst others). To my knowledge, being a rabbi doesn't make you so wiki-notable so that you are allowed to have your own Wiki article (Wikipedia:Notability (people)).
  4. Furthermore, I checked de:Rosenzweig (the only other wiki surname page on other-language wikis so far), and I checked Whatlinkshere for each of the redlinked people who were added by the banned user to establish notability. None of the redlinked people have their own article on other-language wikis, it appears, and none that I removed had incoming links, so their notabilty is extremely doubtful. Most of the redlinked people also did not have an article created in the past year, amplifying my opinion of non-notability.
  5. I consider it doubtful that anyone would create an article based on a redlink on a surname page, so the disambiguational worth of this page declines with each redlinked person. (I know that this page doesn't fall under MOS:DAB, but since until recently surname pages were still part of MOS:DAB, I think its obvious that its spirit should apply, and that's how I always approach surname pages, without much interruption by anyone so far.)
  6. I have no opinion on bluelinked people. If others consider some of the IMO non-notable redlinked people notable, they should write an article that will pass the notability requirements, and I won't complain.

I'll revert this page to the cleaned-up version in a few days if no-one can provide reasons why I shouldn't. – sgeureka t•c 14:34, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I apologize for getting in the way of WP:SU, but when I first approached this page, I addressed its issues as I would any other page on Wikipedia. Anyhow, my response:
  1. The fact that the page was edited by SU is only a red flag, and does not warrant automatic reversion; the content needs to be scrutinized first (I doubt that you disagree with this).
  2. That may be a valid point ideally, but in practice each entry (i.e. each name) has to be analyzed individually on the sole basis of disambiguation-level notability.
  3. Ok, I'll concede to this one. The Jewish Encyclopedia names for which no other notability can be established should be removed.
  4. Not having an article or any incoming links on any language Wikipedia is not a valid indication of non-notability.
  5. If a person is notable, then that person should have an article, regardless of whether anyone would create that article.
  6. Again, just because a name doesn't yet have an article doesn't mean it's not notable, which means that not having an article cannot be the sole indicator of non-notability.
As for the individual names involved, it seems to me that definitely Cynthia, probably Gerson, and maybe Adolf (the second one, not Adolf Agai) should stay. Best, DLandTALK 15:07, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the replies. I don't object, except that I think you're approaching (non-)notability in the (IMO) wrong way. Yes, it is true that all all my demonstrations of non-notability are (obviously) not final. However, no-one can prove the absense of something for sure (Falsifiability). So far, my honest try to find (non-trivial) sources hinted at non-notability. Now, the Wikipedia:Verifiability#Burden of evidence is on you.
Note: I'm not on a witch hunt here, and I'm trying to make wikipedia better just as you are. If you really feel strong about keeping some of the redlinks, I'm fine with that. As long as jewishencyclopedia is offline, I'd also have to give you the benefit of the doubt, so I'll leave this page alone until it's online again. It's just that I'd rather have surname pages not be magnets for WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE information for non-notable people with this surname, and redlinks certainly are. BTW, there is this German surname page for Rosenzweig [1] which says there are 421 phonebook entries for this surname in Germany, which may be extrapolated to 1120 people in Germany, making this surname a regular common surname. The info as well as the maps are stated as licenced with Creative Commons there, in case you want to use this info. – sgeureka t•c 21:38, 29 June 2007 (UTC)