Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Moshe Sacks

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. At the outset, let me mention that the editors who believe this delete close is not right, should contact me on my talk page for further clarification. Given our particular efforts on BLPs, I'm leaving clarifications for some votes here. Wizardman, J04n, Brewcrewer, all three have focused on the appropriate issue of non-citing of reliable sources that could have verified notability of this BLP. Debresser's tentative keep, logical in essence, does not quote or cite any sources for the books or notability thereof; perchance the reason Debresser's ivote is 'tentative keep'. While iZAK (note: multiple votes; still, per J04n, has done good reliable sourcing in the past) and Yoninah do give their points of view, they fail to mention any clear cut reliable source (offline inclusive). While they mention that not everything is available on the Internet (they mention the Jewish perspective), Wikipedia doesn't require online sources to prove notability; yet, our project definitely requires that even offline sources be cited appropriately. Cullen additionally mentions that we should Ignore all rules in this case (so does iZak in one of his arguments); unfortunately, in BLPs, that's not possible. At this juncture, I should implore the keep voters to re-read the following imperative policies and guidelines of Wikipedia: BLP, Notability, Reliable sources, Verifiability and Neutral point of view. The import of Verifiability mentions that the question is not what is true (it may well be true that Moshe Sacks is notable), but what is verifiable. To that extent, I close this AfD as delete. I need to mention that there is no prejudice to an early re-creation of this BLP provided the BLP is re-created with reference to reliable sources, either offline or online (kindly read WP:CITE on how to cite reliable sources in articles). If any of the editors so require, I would be open to userfying this BLP (that is, transferring the BLP contents to the requesting editor's user page). Wifione _.......^{Leave a message} 10:03, 16 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Moshe Sacks[edit]

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

Unreferenced BLP since 2008, a search came up with nothing relating to him. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 16:14, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletion discussions. —J04n(talk page) 18:24, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, unable to find any reliable sources independent of the subject. Does not meet WP:GNG or WP:ANYBIO. J04n(talk page) 18:24, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Tentative keep He seems to have written a series of books. That would seem a reason to keep this article. If there is not much information about those books on the Internet, that might be because of their subject matter. Debresser (talk) 16:20, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep for a number of reasons: (1) This article is about a WP:NOTABLE Haredi rabbi and spiritual leader who does not seek or get much publicity, see "NOTE" below. (2) (As the article correctly states): Being a dayan (religious judge) and posek (decider of Jewish law) affiliated with the key Edah HaChareidis rabbinical council of Jerusalem is a rare and high position in Haredi Judaism that makes him automatically WP:NOTABLE, just as an appointment to a local supreme court would be notable even without additional sources. (3) (As the article correctly states): He is the WP:AUTHOR of famous Responsa in Jewish law known as the Matnas Moshe (his name) based upon the multiple volume commentary by that same name he authored on the Torah, Shulchan Aruch, and Talmud. This qualifies the article per Wikipedia:Notability (academics), albeit it relating to Jewish religious texts within religious communities. (4) He belongs to a community that is cut off from the media and academic circles, so a search for his name will be futile in those SECULAR places, and it would be a loss to Wikipedia to lose even this minimal (yet clear) biography, therefore please note the application of WP:DONOTDEMOLISH and needs a WP:CHANCE. (5) The need for more sources is genuine and can be dealt with by having Template {{Refimprove}} and requests can be made at WP:TALKJUDAISM to get help from Judaic editors to improve it, and it can still wait. (6) There is no "statute of limitations" on how long articles should wait to be improved, especially when its creators fulfilled WP:BEBOLD yet are no longer as active. (7) Bottom line, it would not help Wikipedia to lose this start to good work that is not easy to come by and would result in a gaping hole in areas that deal with information pertaining to a tough world to shed light on. IZAK (talk) 14:52, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
NOTE: Question: Given that tens or hundreds of thousands of people consider a Haredi rabbi as a spiritual leader, is there a reason that google-searching "____ ____ ____" yields so few useful results? Should I be googling using Hebrew characters, for example? Response: You have hit upon a huge dilemma perhaps without realizing it. I would say that you lack two fundamental insights into modern-day Haredi life in general, especially to those in Israel, that pertain to your question. One is that Haredim and their leaders do not function like Western leaders. They literally despise the media and the academic world. They do not allow their children to study secular studies. That is just a fact one must accept about them and their chosen lifestyle. The second factor is that they are vehemently opposed to the Internet and certainly to any form of mass publicity through it, and they have outright banned its presence in Jewish homes and allow it only very sparingly for business purposes under very tightly controlled environments. Parents are warned that their children will be kicked out of yeshivas if they allow them any Internet access. See Of ostriches and cavemen; Can Israeli rabbis enforce their ban against the Internet? and Bezeq to launch ‘Kosher’ internet. This is the same way that they have dealt with TVs in homes for decades with great success as no-one wishes to defy these rabbis and face social ostracism in those communities that they preside over. The net result of all this is that you will often find very little information on the Web about some of the presently most notable and highly-regarded rabbis, Hasidic rebbes and Jewish sages. Thus one must often rely on the barest of crumbs that would minimally satisfy Wikipedia's standards and criteria for how to verify notability. There is also the odd phenomenon on Wikipedia that some persons who are actually rogue "rabbis" and may have no standing in any Jewish community, can get articles because of the publicity that has been generated about them, but truly humble publicity-shy personalities may get shunted aside in the media blizzard. Actually, Haredi rabbis would probably be very happy that no articles are written about him anywhere on the Internet and certainly not on Wikipedia, so even though the author of this original article may be blocked from Wikipedia, he was actually sticking his neck out and taking a huge risk writing up any article about such a notable rabbi. So these kinds of situations require great care and inspection so that one does miss the forest for the trees. Thanks for giving this your considered attention. IZAK (talk) 14:52, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per IZAK. Rabbi Sacks is a well-known and notable personality in Jerusalem, but as IZAK explained, his Hasidut, Satmar, is not going to publish information on the internet. Perhaps someone who understands Hebrew or Yiddish could do a search for some references. Alternately, someone could add references from a yeshiva dinner bulletin or speaking program. But the page should be kept, and the picture is very good. Yoninah (talk) 22:28, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Side Comment. There is an over-reliance (for obvious reasons) on internet sources in Jewish Wikipedia articles. Googling is not always a good marker for notability. Another thing to note is that when noted Jewish legal authority and Yeshiva head Shlomo Zalman Auerbach passed away, his funeral was one of the largest in Israeli history, but since he was not political, the secular journalists had never heard of him. (Der Yid would be a good start, although a bit too internal.)Mzk1 (talk) 23:01, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment to closing admin While I understand where the keep rationales are coming from, my main problem remains. There are still no sources noted in the article at all, let alone any of the information verified. I understand that it's more difficult, but presuming it's kept, this will have to be stubbified as well until we can verify the info. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 23:08, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To expand on the above statement, User:IZAK has done a terrific job sourcing similar articles. I'm going to drop him a line to see if he wants the article moved to his userspace to allow more time for finding sources or perhaps it could go to the incubator. As the article stands now it is an unreferenced WP:BLP. J04n(talk page) 23:21, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

NOTE: It's obvious that Wizardman and JO4n are saying different things. Wizardman, the original nominator of this AfD is being gracious, by taking an important step back from his original proposal, and is definitely deferring to the input of knowledgeable editors not to delete this article at this time for the reasons they have all cited and he is offering the positive option of "this will have to be stubbified as well until we can verify the info" (with "stubbified" not really defined here since the article itself is barely more than a elongated stub) -- while on the other hand JO4n seems to be following a more narrow interpretation of WP rules and clearly seems to be favoring deletion, which would be counter-productive for editors connected with WP:JUDAISM who have been working long and hard to get such key biographies started and many are still works in progress even after a couple of years (life moves at a snail's pace on WP quite often). Therefore, and I almost never do this, it is completely correct and valid to invoke WP:IGNOREALLRULES at this time because the rules are going to kill something good which is not what they are meant to do. IZAK (talk) 14:50, 7 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid it's even more complicated than this. There's another Moshe Sacks, or at least, there was: in 1836, one Moshe Sacks was the first to propose mass Jewish settlement of the Holy Land. He was supported by Baron Rothschild of Vienna and he's mentioned in the Encyclopedia Judaica, vol 9., p. 514.
I've also found this source, which isn't exactly a brilliant one but it does confirm that a 21st century Moshe Sacks was prominent enough to meet the Pope.
Bottom line is that we need some content on this page, but I'm not sure whether it should be the 21st century Moshe Sacks, the 19th century Moshe Sacks, or a disambiguation page between the two. This needs expert input.—S Marshall T/C 02:01, 7 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- No reason to delete this because it's not a problem, just create a disambiguation page for persons, when and if an article is written for the 1836 one. There could be dozens of people with the same name and WP finds ways of noting them differently such as ____ _____ (philanthropist); ____ _____ (rabbi); etc etc. IZAK (talk) 14:37, 7 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
NOTE: The notability of this subject is further reinforced, he is linked at the Edah HaChareidis#Affiliated rabbis, all valid and true. IZAK (talk) 14:53, 7 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Sorry, but just saying "he is for sure notable" does not conform with our encyclopedia's policies, especially WP:BLP. The article still lacks something even resemebeling a source.--brew crewer (yada, yada) 19:39, 7 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Hi Brewcrewer: This is not what is being said, do not misrepresent. He is a leading author of key published and used books of present-time Rabbinic responsa, as the article states, anyone who knows this subject of Jewish law can affirm it to be true. That TIME or People magazine did not write him up does not make him not notable as a posek, as you you should well know. In the meantime we are searching high and low for a good outside ref, and that in itself should win the article a reprieve for now. A dilemma should not equal "publish (a source) or perish." IZAK (talk) 07:41, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - I just added a reference[1] identifying him as a resident of Kiryat Mattersdorf and citing him as a major posek and scholar. Yoninah (talk) 11:20, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz ^Humbug! 03:07, 9 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I relisted to give some time to find sources but a real estate site isn't a source for a BLP and there has to be something at the end of this discussion or it has to be deleted per policy. Spartaz ^Humbug! 03:10, 9 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Spartaz: There is no purpose to "relisting" when what's going on in this AfD is stated clearly, there is a good rapport between all participants, and has been progressing with some limited progress. A number of good editors familiar with this topic, including myself are citing relevant WP policies. Kindly withdraw your relist. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 05:50, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I think this is one of the rare instances where we really need to be bold and ignore all rules in order to improve the encyclopedia. There remain notable cultures and societies that reject the Internet and this man lives in the midst of one of them. Please remember that nothing in our policies about reliable sources say that such sources have to be instantly available online. Nothing in our policies says that reliable sources have to be in English either. Paper sources in Yiddish or Hebrew are potentially just as reliable as English journalistic sources that can be pulled up on a Google search. This man is an author with numerous published works over many years. I endorse IZAK's argument and urge other editors to oppose deletion in this case. Don't let your own infuriation with the Satmar worldview cloud your judgment. They infuriate me too. I would make a similar argument about an article on a prominent Amish religious leader, or an article about a leader in any other culture that rejects the Internet. Wikipedia should cover such figures. Cullen328 (talk) 05:10, 9 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note Moshe Sacks is profiled in a recent book called "Hasidic Rabbis In Israel" published by General Books LLC in May 2010, ISBN-13: 97811564340, ISBN: 1156434041. Don't be surprised that no author is listed - this community values anonymity, as does Wikipedia. I can't add it as a reference as I haven't read it, but the book exists, and a chaper is devoted to Moshe Sacks. Cullen328 (talk) 05:27, 9 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
On the other hand I just learned that Wikipedia itself appears to be the source for the information in the book I mentioned above, so it can't be used as a reference here. That would be circular, wouldn't it? Sorry. Cullen328 (talk) 05:43, 9 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, for all the reasons I have outlined above. IZAK (talk) 05:44, 10 November 2010 (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.