Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arnold Sutermeister

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. Numerically this is an even split, but the sources uncovered later in the discussion have largely not been rebutted, so we have a weak consensus to keep here. Vanamonde (Talk) 04:49, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Arnold Sutermeister[edit]

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Non-notable captain who only lead 240 soldiers and doesn't have significant coverage at all. PROD was contested by an IP that claimed the article should be kept bc it has info that leads to a "better understanding of this war". I do not see anywhere significant to the understanding in the article. Aaron Liu (talk) 12:54, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

~~Support~~ as nom.Aaron Liu (talk) 12:55, 6 January 2023 (UTC) (striking duplicate "vote" Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:40, 6 January 2023 (UTC))[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Military and United States of America. Shellwood (talk) 12:59, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2023 January 6. —^{cyberbot I}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 13:13, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: There appears to have been a work written about him by Karl Heinrich Remigius Sauerländer [de]; I've been unable to locate a copy of the work online, but it does exist. Curbon7 (talk) 13:48, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The University of Rochester additionally appears to have a collection of Sutermeister's papers [1]. Curbon7 (talk) 13:50, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Google books has nothing beyond confirmation of the unit he commanded. It was involved in a few battles, but it all seems rather routine. There is nothing expansive about him as a person; people go to war, not all are notable. I don't see a scholarly analysis of his papers held at the university either. Oaktree b (talk) 15:49, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to 11th Independent Battery Indiana Light Artillery: As an WP:ATD. A newspapers.com search did not reveal any sources providing WP:SIGCOV and only a few passing mentions. A search through a Swiss newspaper archive did not return any sources, though this is likely an incomplete collection. Curbon7 (talk) 16:30, 6 January 2023 (UTC) [reply]

I can't read Deutsch, but it seems the now-found Sauerländer publication does seem to provide significant coverage of the subject. Updating my !vote to weak keep, as I am still not bullish on the article, but it seems there is a good batch of sourcing. Curbon7 (talk) 17:56, 15 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Non-notable small unit commander. I would support a redirect if that turns out to be consensus, although there's no indication he assumed command of the consolidated unit in 1864.Intothat darkness 17:07, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete fails WP:BASIC. Mztourist (talk) 06:51, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. There are 2 good sources cited in the article: a biography of the subject here (although I can't read all of it online) and a 3-paragraph biographical note here. There are also a number of obituaries accessible through Newspapers.com which go into some detail. I'll work on adding them to the article. That's enough to meet WP:SIGCOV in my view, but if others disagree then redirect to 11th Independent Battery Indiana Light Artillery per Curbon7. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 02:55, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I’m not sure whether obituaries should count towards sigcov as almost every lieutenant gets a lot of obituaries, is there a policy on this? Aaron Liu (talk) 17:55, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Bylined obituaries from news writers would help towards establishing notaility, but self-published ones would not. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 00:15, 14 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

*Keep. Based on the newspapers.com discovery, the article should be kept. If after all the additions those who nominated the article for deletion feel the same way, they can renominate it, and then there can be a discussion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JRed176 (talk • contribs) 17:34, 11 January 2023 (UTC) - WP:SOCKSTRIKE - Beccaynr (talk) 23:53, 15 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. We should outright disregard implicit comparisons to the old WP:NSOLDIER, which has been deprecated and has had its use actively discouraged by the community. Instead, we should examine the extent to which this individual meets WP:NBASIC/WP:GNG. I will note that the biographical entry in the book linked to above is about a man who died in 1918 and was born in 1869; that man is the son of the article subject. The article subject, however, is briefly mentioned in the Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri, a book on artillery in the Civil War, Kansas City, Missouri: Its History and Its People 1800-1908. He was apparently the subject of a stonecutter boycott, as well. If not kept, this should at minimum redirect to 11th Independent Battery Indiana Light Artillery, as he is mentioned there. I'm not going to formally cast a !vote, largely because I'm uncertain if the Sauerländer book about him still exists (i.e. if it has not been lost to history), and I'm on the fence even then. The existence of his papers at University of Rochester complicate things more, and make it likely that somebody may write about him in the future, but we don't really care about that when making notability decisions based on existing sources. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 05:28, 13 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Don’t the mentions count as trivial mentions insufficient for notability? I do support a redirect Aaron Liu (talk) 12:35, 13 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Trivial mentions are insufficient for notability, which is why the Sauerländer book is so important to my being on the edge. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 20:23, 13 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:40, 13 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect Seems like all notability comes from Civil War and his artillery. Belichickoverbrady (talk) 01:50, 14 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Sutermeister wasn't just a military figure, but also an architect and sculptor. In German-language Wikipedia, the article was deleted in a first version, but later kept because Sutermeister has an entry as a sculptor in the Thieme-Becker artists dictionary, which per German Wikipedia's criteria means automatic notability. But I have no idea how English Wikipedia usually handles this. Gestumblindi (talk) 15:00, 15 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Gestumblindi The most specific guideline I could find was WP:ARTIST. I don't see any of that criteria being fulfilled though. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:27, 15 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Red-tailed hawk: I noticed that the Sauerländer publication was recently uploaded to Commons by User:Υ.Γ.. It's not really a "book", however, but an obituary originally printed in a newspaper (Zofinger Tagblatt) and then as an offprint ("Separatabzug"). Gestumblindi (talk) 16:45, 15 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If the obituary was written by the newspaper itself, then I think that we have an article we should keep—the obituary looks quite lengthy and should contain sufficient detail to create an encyclopedia article about this person. If this is something that the family produced and simply had published in the newspaper, then I would lean weakly towards deletion. My German skills are lacking, so I'm going to need a bit of help with figuring out which case we're in. I unfortunately lack access to Oxford Art Online (see: Phabricator:T320236), which is where a digital copy of the entry in the German biographical dictionary is held, so I can't evaluate its usefulness. However, if that source provides WP:SIGCOV, then it would make sense to keep the article.

I'm still on the fence because of the sources, though I think I lean towards keeping at the moment unless both of these sources for some reason do not contribute towards GNG. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 18:26, 15 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Red-tailed hawk: That volume of Thieme-Becker can be accessed freely as a PDF here at the Repository of the Cracow University of Technology. The entry for "Sutermeister, Arnold, Bildhauer u. Architekt" can be found on page 319. It is a very short entry that refers to "Brun, Schweiz. Kstlerlex., 3 (1913)", which apparently is short für a "Schweizer Künsterlexikon", but I haven't seen the article there. Gestumblindi (talk) 19:38, 15 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the link! I'm unsure if that's the sort of national biographical dictionary that would satisfy WP:ANYBIO#3, but I agree that the particular entry is not WP:SIGCOV. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:47, 15 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm new to Commons, but shouldn't these kind of things be uploaded to Wikisource instead? Aaron Liu (talk) 20:36, 15 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that Wikisource is more for text renderings, but I see original scans uploaded to Commons all the time. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 20:46, 15 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Wikisource is using original scans uploaded to Commons as a base for its text renderings; usually, files aren't uploaded to Wikisource. Gestumblindi (talk) 22:01, 15 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:34, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Between the German publications and English-language sources mentioned above, I feel GNG has been sufficiently met. Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 23:21, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The problem with 19th century sources is that it's often hard to find both primary and secondary sources about any person, except for very famous people. There seemed to be enough of significant coverage. Bearian (talk) 15:01, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep As above. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 09:47, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: It's worth noting that he has no entry and no mention in SIKART, the quite comprehensive Swiss visual arts biographical dictionary, which points to a lack of notability as an artist. No opinion as to any other grounds of notability. Sandstein 08:46, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: There's also this source to consider. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 09:24, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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.