Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of descendants of Nazi officials

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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. postdlf (talk) 18:48, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

List of descendants of Nazi officials[edit]

List of descendants of Nazi officials (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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I'm not seeing any reliable sources discussing this specific group of children of Nazis specifically. Also, the inclusion criteria are excessively vague: who qualifies as a "Nazi official" or as a "well-known member of the Third Reich"? There are probably tens of thousands of people out there with a Nazi ancestor notable enough to have been discussed in multiple reliable sources, simply because there were so many high-level Nazi functionaries doing so many notable things. Where does the cutoff occur?

But the main problem I have with this is the potential for abuse and for point-pushing, especially given the vague inclusion requirement. This list would be very easy to misuse; find someone you want to smear whose father was a file clerk for the Reich, claim he was a Nazi official, and add him. The word "Nazi" is so tar-and-feather that it has the potential to cause real harm.

(I have already removed the title "Nazi Descendants" from the article itself, as in English that's ambiguous enough to be taken in the wrong way - ie. that the members of the list are themselves Nazis.) Contested PROD. NellieBly (talk) 03:30, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment I'm not in favor of lists in general, but wikipedians have been allowing a place for them for quite a while now. I don't think its a good idea to argue that a list shouldn't exist merely because there is the potential for misuse. Wickedjacob (talk) 04:00, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment It appears that they both need to have their own articles to qualify. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 04:34, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Yes, there is a potential for point pushing, but it does not seem to have been exercised. The inclusion requirements are, as RAN says, that both must have an article, and there will not be all that many people. Of the ones who are presently listed, the connection is undoubted, and, for most of them, there are specific references to the relationship between their father's careers and their own careers. A few of them have written books about it!. Just needs careful watching, not deletion. DGG ( talk ) 04:46, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Agreed, the function of this article is to list those who have notability by way of an article of their own. Also agree, careful watching is needed as the opportunity for abuse and vandalism are both present.--Whiteguru (talk) 06:52, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment If the goal is to link a group of articles together, isn't that best done with a category? GabrielF (talk) 14:49, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agree that categories could handle the linking as needed, though would also note that I'm missing what's actually notable outside of 'this is what that Nazi's kid is doing now' type references for at least a couple of the subjects, and I'm not sure I see the encyclopedic value of linking those that do have independent notability with their being offspring of a certain group. --Onorem♠Dil 07:06, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: I fail to see how this list serves an encyclopaedic purpose, and feel that it violates the spirit (if not the letter) of WP:BLP to call particular attention to a group of people solely by a feature that is both (i) highly negative & (ii) beyond their control. Would Wikipedia contemplate a List of famous rape victims? HrafnTalkStalk(P) 07:44, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Category "Rape Victims" was deleted. Jonathanwallace (talk) 12:27, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete We are agreed that notability is not inherited; the crimes of Nazi fathers should not be revisited upon their children. Those two should immediately make clear this article problematic, especially if any of the people on the list are living. People don't choose their parents; 'Nazi children' is not a notable subject in itself. Thus it would seem that this list/connection is not soundly based, but an excuse for creating an indiscriminate collection of info because it could be WP:INTERESTING. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 08:51, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete even if notable people qualify for this list, i think there are huge WP:BLP with someone being tainted as descending from a Nazi. that is something very few people would want to admit. what next List of descendants of Sicilian Mafia? LibStar (talk) 09:16, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete This page is a terrible, terrible idea. Per our policy, we should take pains not to besmirch living people unnecessarily. Enshrining people in this list does the exact opposite, conspicuously classifying them by a decidedly negative characteristic. According to BLP policy, "it is not Wikipedia's job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives, and the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment." This list is deeply problematic in that it is directly at odds with that policy. A list of Nazi officials is one thing; a list of their descendants is another. These people did not choose to be descended from Nazis. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 09:41, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as a trivial intersection not worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia. Jonathanwallace (talk) 12:27, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • And Comment. I looked at every one of the articles. One is a redirect to Dad, several are unreferenced and I saw only one that seemed independently notable of the parent. I think some other deletion nominations may be in order here. Jonathanwallace (talk) 12:37, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete and Salt - Wikipedia is not a family tree. Then we have the question of inclusion criteria — what exactly constitutes a "Nazi official"? We know they're from the "Third Reich" only... Business officials of the period with obligatory nominal party membership? High officers of the SS? A bit of difference, eh? Or is there? This terrible list makes no distinction. The content is not only trivial, it is potentially libelous, should someone be listed here incorrectly and damage result. Seriously, one of the worst lists I've seen at AfD, a terrible, terrible idea — done terribly. Carrite (talk) 14:43, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - This highly controversial, potentially libelous list is also absolutely unreferenced!!! Carrite (talk) 14:46, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete under "sins of the father". The individuals on this list should already be notable for other reasons else they would not be on any list on wikipedia, and adding them to this list is trivia at best, and raises serious WP:BLP concerns by association. Dennis Brown (talk) 14:45, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Excellent point — "Notability is not inherited," as we like to say. Carrite (talk) 14:48, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The children of some of the most infamous Nazi figures have achieved notability because journalists have taken in interest in their experience and on their perspective on their parents. I recently read an article on Adolph Eichmann's son and when I googled it I found several other articles and a gallery in Life magazine. [1][2][3][4]. There's definitely notability in being the child of a major war criminal - although, not, of course any ordinary Nazi. GabrielF (talk) 14:58, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Dennis Brown and Carrite. No encyclopedic basis, no well-defined inclusion criteria. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 15:05, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - These are people wholly unrelated to one another save for a bit of historical trivia on who their parents were. Tarc (talk) 16:15, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. -- N/A0 17:28, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Per BLP concerns expressed above. Jaque Hammer (talk) 18:38, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Horrible BLP problems, with great potential for harm. No indication of notability of these people as a class. What's next? Children of murderers? Children of abortionists? On TV shows about crime they used to say "The names have been changed to protect the innocent." So delete this article to protect the innocent. Notability is not inherited, nor is infamy. Edison (talk) 20:26, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete- being called a descendant of a Nazi is potentially harmful, and this list is very poorly sourced so per WP:BLP it should be deleted. Reyk YO! 22:14, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: There is no BLP issue here. Will they be able to sue Wikipedia for saying there ancestors were Nazi? No, they legally cannot do that. The article is not calling them Nazi, just saying there ancestry, and it is no illegal. --Reference Desker (talk) 02:17, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Horribly missing the point of WP:BLP; something doesn't have to be illegal for it to be harmful. Tarc (talk) 02:58, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Note This also misses WP:HARM. No one is suggesting that the individuals not have articles on Wikipedia if they are independently notable. The WP:HARM is lumping them together in the public square to throw rocks at them because daddy was a Nazi. Because this doesn't interfere with their individual articles, it isn't censorship. As pointed out above, similar to this. The value of having this information group in this manner is grossly outweighed by the potential HARM it could do others, and not grouping it this way reduces in no way affects the content of individual articles. Should be an easy call. Dennis Brown (talk) 13:55, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as a list with no clear standard for inclusion; no clear encyclopaedic value; disporportionatley difficult to source/resource; potential BLP issues; ... Hyperdoctor Phrogghrus (talk) 09:45, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Further Comment. I understand our "notability is not inherited" rule to mean that significant coverage in reliable sources of X solely as the child of notable Y does not earn X an article in Wikipedia. Jonathanwallace (talk) 12:16, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment That's my understanding too. Hermann Goering's child is only known to the world because of the family connection, but Hermann's courageous brother Albert is considered independently notable by reliable sources, and well he should be. A more light-hearted example would be Kirk Douglas and Michael Douglas: perhaps Michael wouldn't have been able to make a start in show business if he weren't Kirk's son, but he's still independently notable. --NellieBly (talk) 23:59, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. A whole bucket of problems, starting with the idea that there's a topic here to begin with at all. The Nazi party wasn't royalty; it's positions weren't filled through agnatic descent. With vanishingly few exceptions, "List of descendants of..." or "Descendants of..." articles relate to royalty (and several of those exceptions, frankly, might need to visit AFD). Beyond that, it is unquestionably true that this article is a BLP nightmare. We don't have articles listing the descendants of any other group of "bad people", nor should we. List of descendants of the Manson Family? If that's ever a blue link, something has gone wrong. If that's not obvious now, consider the future: 20 years from now, would we put a notable businessman or politician on this list because his grandfather or great-grandfather was a Nazi official? Surely not! While it is true that many children of Nazi high officials are notable, often simply for the media attention paid to their circumstances, those people have individual articles to address the issue. This list, however, needs to go. Serpent's Choice (talk) 16:46, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as a BLP minefield with little encyclopedic value. Hut 8.5 16:57, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Hut8.5 sums it up succinctly. (Also, I've added references to article. I'm not someone who demands keep voters add references to articles, but in this case it was pretty disappointing to see people voting keep, yet leaving it unreferenced when the BLP issues are so obvious.) Jenks24 (talk) 17:25, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Dennis Brown. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 21:04, 23 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete BLP issues galore, no real substantial link connecting these people, plus the obvious moral reasons. Gah.--Yaksar (let's chat) 05:05, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, but a useless list based on a trivial and unencyclopedic concept is.--Yaksar (let's chat) 15:42, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: This page makes a potential for a WP:BLP shitstorm, and that's only putting it nicely. The children of sinners are not sinners. However, there are people out there with the mindset that the daughter of a murderer should be executed, because people are governed by their emotions, and this is what makes them do illogical things. There have been notable cases in the past where, whilst seeking revenge against a murderer who has committed suicide, victims have made retaliation murders against family members. Why should it even be listed in Wikipedia that certain people are related to certain criminals? Does the Wikipedia community really believe that holding such information is beneficial towards building an encyclopedia? Primum non nocere is not Wikipedia policy, but hey, it's common sense, plus I'd consider someone a decent person if they follow that principle and I'm sure a lot of other people do as well. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 13:04, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So it a revenge against my "keep" votes in your AfDs and the note in your talk page. --Reference Desker (talk) 13:15, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Jesus, what's down with you nigga? Keep Ad hominem in the playground, I'll have none of it thanks. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 13:24, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete and blast the edit history to pieces. Serious BLP problems and no encyclopedic value at all. - filelakeshoe 15:42, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per obvious BLP problems, and because it is a great steaming pile of garbage, unworthy of an encyclopaedia. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:01, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, obviously. Else we can start listing grandchildren by now, most of them are in their 30s... and I bet there's at least one notable great-grandchild somewhere. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 20:37, 25 April 2011 (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.
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