Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Herzog Martin V. Zoransky

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 delete. j⚛e decker ^talk 02:44, 6 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Herzog Martin V. Zoransky[edit]

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Hoax (see de:Wikipedia:Löschkandidaten/27. Juli 2014#Martin von Zoransky for German discussion, ending with speedy deletion, after this Article was translated into German) Susumu at (talk) 22:21, 29 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete This appears to be part of an extensive hoax, using self-published books uploaded to Google Books with faked publication dates. Sockpuppetry seems likely as well; I'm pulling together an investigation. Choess (talk) 22:30, 29 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hoax probably applies to all Articles in Category:Zoransky. They all had a speedy deletion request recently by the way, which was removed.--Susumu at (talk) 22:33, 29 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: the following articles should probably be added to the AfD:
All of the above form a walled garden with the article discussed here. הסרפד (call me Hasirpad) 22:45, 29 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)Good Lord. Yes, to the extent that I can check those books using google books snippet view, they are self-published, and they don't appear to be at all reliable----they're not even properly typeset. The claimed publication dates are incompatible with the ISBNs. The investigation on de.wiki was thorough and closely-reasoned. I think they're right: the balance of probability is that this is an elaborate hoax. @Choess: I can read German, please let me know if you need help on that front during your SPI.—S Marshall T/C 22:58, 29 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Danke sehr, ist gar kein Problem. Hier steht dem SPI: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/AustralianThreston. There are a number of other articles there, some of which have hair-raising BLP issues and most of which are probably not fake but also non-notable. Choess (talk) 23:00, 29 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I suppose all the Threston articles are to be included as well? הסרפד (call me Hasirpad) 23:12, 29 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I think they're legitimate but non-notable. I think a separate AFD would be better to avoid entangling them with the hoax issues here. Choess (talk) 23:20, 29 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all. I declined speedy deletion nominations, because WP:CSD#G3 is only for blatant and obvious hoaxes. These look plausible at first glance, but the German investigation is convincing. Even if the people were real, notability is doubtful, and the sources are far to dodgy to sustain articles. JohnCD (talk) 08:43, 30 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think declining the speedy was the right call: this isn't within G3's ambit because it's insufficiently blatant. However, I think it would be appropriate to close this AfD early under WP:SNOW. I don't think it's possible to advance a plausible defence of the article now.—S Marshall T/C 09:37, 30 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete The German version of this article has been deleted because it was considered a fake biography. No information additional to those that were given in the article had been found, the given references were considered as highly questionable and obscure, since they were either general overviews on Prussian nobility without mentioning Martin von Zoransky, were auto-translations of other Wikipedia-articles, sel-publicized with no proper publisher, or information by private persons from other websites that could not be cross-checked. The works of Martin von Zoransky were not to be found. As a matter of fact publications that were said to be published by Zoransky were published by other people as in the case of the following essay: Archiv der Mathematik und Physik. 1906, vol. 3 und vol. 9, p. 81 und p. 209., actually written by “Kasimir Zorawski”, with no mentioning of Zoransky even in the footnotes. Another publication, allegedly published in 1918 (ISBN 1499310390) contains a text that was published on one of the given sites. Additional to that, ISBN-numbers did not exist prior to the late 1960es. The German discussion concluded, that one should have expected to find veritable information on nobility especially online, since there were so many newsgroups on genealogy of nobility, especially if he was downgraded from Duke. Events like that should still make the news. One also wonders how family documents of allegedly Prussian nobility ends up in Bavarian States archive. Additional to that the Coat of Arms of the Zoransky Family, looks pretty much like the Coat of Arms of the family of Dołęga Dołęga. One might suspect that it has just been copied in order to back up the claim of the Zoransky family being nobility. In consummation: there are no valid information on Martin von Zoransky, nor sound reference that stand the proof. Those references given are highly questionable and in case of allegedly German sources online, turned out to be bad translations or text of either unknown origin or turned out to be auto-translations of English Wikipedia articles. The same goes for Herzog Bernhard Zoransky and Joseph C. Zoransky that were discussed AfD above. LagondaDK (talk) 09:03, 30 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: I'm shaking my head at how much work someone put into this hoax, including creating an elaborate coat of arms (which is also nominated for deletion on Commons). Jonathunder (talk) 10:10, 30 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Germany-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:05, 30 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:05, 30 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all: I have spent quite a bit of time in editing and translating the three articles. By now I am convinced that Martin von Zoransky was no "Herzog" (duke). The German references in these articles are very poor translations of text that I couldn't find anywhere else. I still believe that some of the information in these articles is accurate, but due to the fake sources, it is impossible to distinguish between hoax and history. It will be easier to start from scratch than correcting the articles. Therefore, I endorse the deletion of these articles and the coat of arms that is shown in these. --NearEMPTiness (talk) 20:05, 30 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all all the involved articles lack any clear claim to notability.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:31, 1 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all as hoaxes, or as banned user creations for having been created by members of this sock farm. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 12:32, 1 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy delete all: After the recent update of LagondaDK on his Talk page I suggest ALL of the "articles" listed on Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/AustralianThreston as part of the sockpuppet network should be speedy-deleted. I think, this is proof enough, that there is not a single one, which is NOT a hoax or at least provide fake information.--Susumu (talk) 21:54, 1 August 2014 (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.