Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Volkmar Weiss

Volkmar Weiss

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

This figure does not appear to be notable per WP:PROF. The article describes him as a scientist but he does not appear to have ever held an academic position (his personal website [1] describes him as a "psychohistorian" and his German-language Wiki [2] states that he worked as an administrator for the German Central Office for Genealogy from the time of his habilitation until his retirement in 2008). His publication record appears to fall far short of notability as well. Further, I have not found any English-language WP:RS secondary sources discussing him. His website lists a 2002 book review in Personality and Individual Differences but I cannot locate the review in that journal's archive (or anywhere through numerous Google searches). Even if it does exist, one such review would not establish notability. Generalrelative (talk) 22:24, 6 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@NightHeron: The German-language Wiki states that he was Mitherausgeber (literally "co-editor", though apparently this can simply mean that he was a member of an editorial panel) of Mankind Quarterly until 2015. It may be worth emphasizing that criterion 8 of WP:PROF is only satisfied when the subject has been the head or chief editor of a major, well-established academic journal in their subject area, which Mankind Quarterly is clearly not. Generalrelative (talk) 01:13, 7 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Kusma: Thanks very much for your detailed response to NightHeron's query below. I suppose Weiss's notability hinges on whether Die Welt/Welt am Sonntag and Die Tageszeitung are considered WP:RS in this context. I know they're both considered politically partisan (as you point out) so it's not clear to me that they count to establish WP:GNG. I suppose it's a judgment call, unless you're aware of any precedents or policy guidelines that would help us adjudicate? And once again: thanks. I appreciate the thoughtful discussion. Generalrelative (talk) 00:00, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Randykitty: It's not clear to me that Die Tageszeitung (reference 2) is WP:RS, as mentioned in my reply to Kusma above. I did check all the references in Weiss's German-language article and found that of those 27, several of the clearly WP:RS ones do not actually refer to Weiss at all (references 8, 10, 11, 17). I'm not sure whether and to what extent policies like WP:SYNTH apply on the German-language Wikipdia, but this article seems to be quite full of it. Only references 18 and 25 appear to be clear cases of reliable, independent coverage of Weiss, and the latter appears to make only fleeting reference to him (it is a "brochure" or "pamphlet" –– Broschüre –– on a much wider topic). Seems to me that this subject still fails WP:SIGCOV. Generalrelative (talk) 17:02, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as OP. Generalrelative (talk) 17:12, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 22:31, 6 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Germany-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 22:31, 6 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 22:34, 6 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete The BLP gives no significant evidence of notability. The closest is the statement that VW's arguments were used in a chapter of a book (Germany Abolishes Itself) that was very popular among German rightists. He seems to be mainly a minor promoter of fringe views, and the article lists the white supremacist journal Mankind Quarterly as his "Co-publisher" (perhaps a mistranslation from German). NightHeron (talk) 23:50, 6 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, notable case of right-wing fringe science promoter and previous head of the de:Deutsche Zentralstelle für Genealogie. Co-founder of Die Wende era party German Social Union. Reasonable amount of WP:GNG sources in the German Wikipedia article. —Kusma (t·c) 11:16, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This article was apparently brought over from the German Wikipedia but without RS establishing notability. Could you be more specific on which sources in German establish notability? Note that the article German Social Union doesn't mention him. NightHeron (talk) 12:28, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try. Article about his book in Welt am Sonntag and another one in Telepolis. From my own searches: Mentioned here in right wing Die Welt, discussed here in left-wing newspaper die tageszeitung. Weiss doesn't like Wikipedia very much: [3]. He has not only published questionable ideas about the genetics of intelligence, but also crank pseudoscience [4] in Mohamed El Naschie's journal Chaos, Solitons & Fractals. I can't find particularly good sources about the German Social Union (DSU) connection at the moment (can verify that Weiss was involved, but many articles/books that study the early DSU history typically use texts written by Volkmar Weiss as their main source). There's a lot to find from him via Google Scholar or Google Books, and his theses were discussed in a wide spectrum of German newspapers (not too hard to find), applauded by the hard right, condemned by the left. Notable enough, but I don't want to write about him. —Kusma (t·c) 22:09, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - badly fails WP:SIGCOV. Bearian (talk) 01:45, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 08:38, 14 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: fails NPROF The Ace in Spades (talk) 12:25, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Notable pseudoscientist. I went to the article on the German WP and already reference 2 is an independent reliable source. I didn't bother looking further, but there are 27 references in that article and while several are to publications by Weiss himself, several others appear to be independent RSs. Our article could be improved by using some of the stuff that our German colleagues have used. --Randykitty (talk) 13:07, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]