Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Viktor Schauberger

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--Ymblanter (talk) 08:53, 15 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Viktor Schauberger[edit]

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Does not satisfy the basic criteria given in WP:BIO, as no reliable biographies appear to have been published about him. Does not satisfy any of the additional criteria in WP:SCHOLAR. None of the sources given in the article can qualify as reliable. The article has been tagged with WP:VERIFY since 2008, but no reliable sources have been found. --Daniel Dunér (talk) 19:36, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Austria-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000^(talk) 02:10, 9 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000^(talk) 02:10, 9 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment No biographies? How about reference 4, which is a whole book written about this person's ideas (according to WorldCat the book is in many academic libraries in the US, Australia, and other places)? --Randykitty (talk) 15:54, 9 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Here's another book, not yet used in the article: Living energies: an exposition of concepts related to the theories of Viktor Schauberger. Coats, C. 1996 pp. viii + 311 pp. ISBN 0-946551-97-9. --Randykitty (talk) 15:58, 9 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There are no reliable biographies, as far as I know. The biography policy WP:BASIC states that we need "multiple published secondary sources which are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject." I have only found unreliable biographies that fall under WP:FRINGE, with claims ranging from nazi UFO conspiracies to Schauberger managing to "violate laws of nature". Since Schauberger appears to have been involved in pseudo-science it would be reasonable for a reliable biography to document this. But the biographies in question actually maintain that Schauberger did all of these things, making them unreliable by Wikipedia standards and disqualifying them as sources for other information as well (the information found in these sources can't be trusted, if they get the most important things wrong). The talk page contains a discussion of a number of these biographies: Talk:Viktor_Schauberger#Removed_claims_based_on_unreliable_sources. This includes the book Living Energies, which makes the fringe-claim that Schauberger "demonstrated how Nature's abundance is the result of a complex interaction of energies that actually create matter, not the other way around as orthodox science believes". --Daniel Dunér (talk) 14:57, 10 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep We have usually been rather skeptical about the use of material that seems to emanate from the same very fringy group or cult, and have usually wanted some degree of attention from outside it. However, in this case there appear to be quite a number of related books, and they have been purchased, not by the 1 or 2 libraries one often finds in such cases, but , to my very considerable surprise, in many more ^[1] :

Olof Alexandersson, Living water : Viktor Schauberger and the secrets of natural energy 1st ed. Wellingborough : Turnstone, 1982. 2nd ed. Wellow : Gateway, 1990 ISBN 9780946551576, a translation from the German Levande vattnet. is in 104 WorldCat libraries, including Princeton and Harvard

Kronberger, Hans, Siegbert Lattacher, and Lois Lammerhuber. On the Track of Water's Secret: From Viktor Schauberger to Johann Grander. Scottsdale, Ariz: Wishland Pub, 1995. is in 12.

Coats, Callum. Living Energies: An Exposition of Concepts Related to the Theories of Viktor Schauberger. Bath, UK: Gateway Books, 1996. is in 85

Bartholomew, Alick. Hidden Nature: The Startling Insights of Viktor Schauberger. Edinburgh: Floris, 2003 is in 96 libraries

Cobbald, Jane. Viktor Schauberger: A Life of Learning from Nature. 1st ed. 2006, 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Floris, 2009. is in 53, including NYU and Princeton & Yale

And a collection of his own publications:

Schauberger, Viktor, and Callum Coats. The Water Wizard: The Extraordinary Power of Natural Water. Bath, UK: Gateway Books, 1998. "The first of four volumes in the Eco-Technolgy series, which makes available for the first time Viktor Schauberger's original writings and passionate debates." is in 73 (v.2 is Nature as teacher : how I discovered new principles in the working of nature , v.3 is The fertile Earth : nature's energies in agriculture, soil fertilization and forestry v.4, The energy evolution : harnessing free energy from nature

Furthermore, there does appear to be attention from outside the immediate circle:

Freund, René Land der Träumer : zwischen Grösse und Grössenwahn, verkannte Österreicher und ihre Utopien : mit Porträts von Jakob Lorber, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Rosa Mayreder und Marie Lang, "Sir Galahad" alias Bertha Diener-Eckstein, Florian Berndl, Eugenie Schwarzwald, Paul Kammerer, Otto Gross, Wilhelm Reich, Carl Schappeller, Viktor Schauberger, Nikola Tesla ("Land of the Dreamers: between importance and megalomania, unrecognized Austrians and their utopias: with portraits of Jakob Lorber, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Mayreder and Marie Lang, "Sir Galahad" aka Bertha Diener-Eckstein, Florian Berndl, Eugenie Schwarzwald, Paul Kammerer, Otto Gross, Wilhelm Reich, Carl Schappeller, Viktor Schauberger, Nikola Tesla") Wien: Picus, 1996.

Stevens, Henry. Hitler's Flying Saucers: A Guide to German Flying Discs of the Second World War. Kempton, Ill: Adventures Unlimited Press, 2003. (the connection is "Learn details of the work of Karl Schappeller and Viktor Schauberger. Learn how their ideas figure in the quest to build field propulsion flying discs. "

Satish Kumar, and Freddie Whitefield. Visionaries: The 20th Century's 100 Most Important Inspirational Leaders. White River Junction, Vt: Chelsea Gree Publishing, 2007.[here's a list of the 100 people

Most of these have corresponding German versions, which are usually the original ; some have Swedish translations also. A few also in Dutch, Czech, French, Spanish, Japanese

There are also some other books in German only; there's a Bosnian novel based on his life.

What is even more surprising, there's an academic thesis from Nürtingen-Geislingen University of Applied Science: "Fließgewässerregulierung nach Viktor Schauberger"; and there's actually an article on it & similar eccentric ideas on water in the German mainstream chemistry magazine" "H₂O - Jo mei! : vitalisiert, verwirbelt, levitiert, energetisiert, informiert und anti-entropisch" Chemie in unserer Zeit, v47 n2 (April 2013): 108-121 and an article in a mainstream German technical magazine published by Elsevier: ""Instream River Training -Bachgestaltung in Öhringen nach Prinzipien Viktor Schaubergers". WasserWirtschaft. 103, no. 12: 47-48. (2013)

I think that this clearly meets the requirement for "notable fringe". DGG ( talk ) 19:29, 10 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There are a number of fringe books, yes, but this is not enough for notability as per Basic Notability Requirements for Biographies. The fact that the books are owned by real institutions doesn't change the fact that they are fringe, disqualifying them when trying to establish notability. WP:BASIC requires several reliable and independent biographies to be published about him. The books Land der Träumer and Visionaries could possibly satisfy this criteria, but they only seem to mention him in passing and you would need to establish that they don't make fringe claims about him.

Many people (including me) have tried to find reliable sources in order to fix the article for years. But since all sources are unreliable fringe-stuff, which is disqualified for use on Wikipedia, this hasn't been possible. So even if there is lots of fringe-stuff to be found it's still impossible to write anything with proper citations, which (as far as I understand Wikipedia policy) means we can't have an article on him. No reliable biographies/sources = no article.

Or am I missing something? --Daniel Dunér (talk) 21:45, 10 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

you should have found the Chemie in unserer Zeit and WasserWirtschaft. articles, had you looked even in WorldCat. The very first thing to try for anything where books may have been published, weird or otherwise, is WorldCat. It's very easy to use and free, but if you prefer, any time you're looking for something oddball, ask me or any other librarian. DGG ( talk ) 15:56, 11 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per thorough analysis of DGG. --Randykitty (talk) 19:36, 10 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per DGG, coverage goes beyond the fringe and library holdings indicate significance beyond the fringe. Dloh cierekim 15:20, 11 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Library holdings indicate significance beyond fringe" you say? But this seems to directly contradict WP:FRINGE that states that:

For a fringe view to be discussed in an article about a mainstream idea, reliable sources must discuss the relationship of the two as a serious matter.

So could you please point me to the relevant Wikipedia policy that says that fringe sources are acceptable when owned by libraries? --Daniel Dunér (talk) 15:44, 11 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Again you misunderstand. They would be unreliable for an article about water. The person is not "a mainstream idea." As for owned by libraries, you have to look at which and how many libraries and use some common sense. And again, did you notice the thesis and the journal articles even when I pointed them\n out?. All 3 are mainstream. DGG ( talk ) 16:00, 11 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, it's a biography so we have different rules for notability. But the standard rules for reliability with regard to source still apply, right? If we are to write a biography we need a reliable source of biographical information. Which we don't have, as far as I can tell. The mentioned biographies are all fringe and therefore not reliable sources. The thesis-stuff isn't biographical.

So how can we possibly have a biographical article on someone without a source of biographical information? We won't be able to write anything about him with proper citations. --Daniel Dunér (talk) 17:58, 13 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

He's notable because of his (fringe) ideas, not for which actress he married and such. So an article has to concentrate on that. The fringe books can certainly use as sources for uncontroversial biographical data (why would they misreport, for example, his birth date or birth place). Things like the thesis and mainstream articles can serve as basis for a discussion of his ideas and their influence. Enough stuff to get this up to Start or even C-class. --Randykitty (talk) 18:23, 13 January 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.

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