Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2010 December 15

Battle_of_Karánsebes (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (restore)

The argument for deletion were many errors and sources from 50 years after the fact. While the details of the defeat of the Prussian army by the Turks may be debatable, the battle itself is documented. The report of A.J.Gross-Hoffinger (Leipzig, Nachdruuck, 1847) Die Geschichte des Joseph II (a scanned version can be seen at Josephs des Zweiten, but it is rather difficult to read because of the gotic alfabet) may not be of confidence, and the events narrated by him are probably bogus. But there is a letter from Joseph II to the first minister Kaunitz (Austrian Archives, Lettres d'empereur Josph II à prince Kaunitz) Joseph writes "The disaster our army has suffered, because the cowardliness of some units, is at the moment imponderable. The panic spread everywhere, in the heart of army, in the heart of Caransebes people, and by all the way to Temesvar, what is about ten leagues (about 40 km). I cannot describe in words the violence and the terrible carnage that happened." (translation from a translation from French to Portuguese of the letter is mine). The details of the reason for the defeat, like the Gypsy camp and the liquor, and the dispute for the liquor probably are not true, but the battle is documented, as is the defeat, and it is documented by a very good primary source, Joseph II himself. About the two modern books cited, The Brassey's Book of Military Blunders by Potomac Books does not cite sources, and its publisher is not well seen, and the other book Hinge Factor by Eric Durschmied was published by the now closed Arcade Publishing, but there is at least two other books: The history of nations. Vol 14 by Henry Cabot Lodge published by P. F. Collier & son in 1907 and Annals of the wars of the eighteenth century. Vol 4 of Sir Edward Cust published by J. Murray in 1862. There is still a description of the campaign and the defeat in an Scotish Magazine in 1788: Scots Magazine 1788. It seems the the battle itself, and the defeat is documented, or better, the panic and deaths during the retreat is well documented, and the later chase of the Prussian army by the Turksish army, while is questionable that we can call this "battle" it seems that something very wrong happened in the retreat, and call this event "battle of Karansebes" seems logical, there was an important defeat. This event is documented by the letter of Joseph II, the press of the time, and at least two books besides of the cited in the deletion talk (I am researching what were the sources of these two books), this seems to corroborate the A.J.Gross-Hoffinger report, at least in the part about the retreat an the deaths, but none of them cite the event of the liquor that really seems like a hoax. -- Agranero (talk) 05:21, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - archive.scotsman.com shows a hit for 1849. There is an April 25, 1999 review of The Hinge Factor: How Chance and Stupidity Have Changed History by Erik Durschmied in the Scotland on Sunday entitled "How numpties made history" that basically says the book is full of it. The book looks for the apparently trivial detail ("hinge factor) which decides the whole issue of a military battle (the whole issue of the militry battle hinged on that trivial factor). The book mentions Karansebes in 1766. The review notes, "Perhaps the most astonishing section is 'A Barrel of Schnapps', about the debacle of Karansebes, where the Austro-Hungarian army managed to end up fighting and fleeing from itself, with thousands of casualties." Searching "Karansebes" in google books brings it up as well. Maybe write a new article entitled Karansebes in 1766 (or would it be Caransebeş in 1766?) to get away from the "battle" focus. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 10:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment There was some more discussion on the quality of the sources at the article's talk page, now deleted of course. Mr Stephen (talk) 12:31, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I have temporarily undeleted the article and its talk page so that people can see it during this DRV. JohnCD (talk) 13:35, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Against restoration - Whether the battle even happened at all is extremely disputed, and the only sources cited for the article's sake were two popular entertainment books rather than reliable scholarly sources. Such as it is, the article should not be restored, unless its primary substance is about the debate of the battle. -- LightSpectra (talk) 13:46, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse. Fair AfD. Consensus, especially User:Starblind, reflects my reading of the article, that it reads like a hoax. "Meanwhile, the entire camp awoke to the sound of battle and, rather than waiting to see what the situation was, everyone fled." is an eyewitness report. If good sources can be found, the article should be rewritten from scratch. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:29, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Restore, optionally relist after a while. I think Phil Bridger 20:35, 19 December 2010 (UTC) below is right. Allowing for variation in terminology, there appears to be further sources. The AfD did not consider this. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:53, 21 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't endorse this at all. There are two published sources, so only a BLP issue or copyvio should lead to deletion. If this "battle" didn't happen then it's Wikipedia's job to say so.—S Marshall T/C 17:05, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  Can you clarify. I'm not aware of any standard by which if there are two sources we must have an article or articles become ineligible for deletion. Surely if the sources aren't reliable it isn't wikipedia's job to research that in order to write an article about that (OR), we'd need some sources having done that analysis and reaching that conclusion? If reliable sources don't exist to support the event having occurred, and sources don't exist which conclude it was a hoax, then we've no basis for an article. --82.7.40.7 (talk) 19:47, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  Sure, I can clarify. The spirit, the letter and indeed the whole point of WP:V is that Wikipedians don't get to decide they know better than the sources. If the material appears in a reliable source and there are no other sources that conclude it was a hoax, then we've no basis for deletion.—S Marshall T/C 20:51, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  Ok, I'm still confused then, are you saying you don't endorse because you believe the two sources to be reliable? i.e. you disagree with the opinions in the deletion debate that the sources weren't reliable. (WP:V does require us to assess the reliability of sources)--82.7.40.7 (talk) 20:59, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  I think they're reliable within the usual Wikipedian meaning; they're non-self-published books. Mind you, I don't want to overstate the case. The honest doubt about this means in-text attribution is appropriate ("Source X says that Y happened on Z date").—S Marshall T/C 21:52, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  Can't speak for anyone else but I don't take anything non-self-published as reliable and the question of evaluating sources such as WP:SOURCES certainly are more involved than that. Regardless of my or your view on the reliability of these, those arguing the xFD also evaluated them as process wise is proper, and we aren't somehow superior to those views expressed in the debate, so I can't see how this was a process problem with the xFD. --82.7.40.7 (talk) 07:37, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  You'll be aware of people like von Däniken, or Velikovsky. Wikipedians have rightly taken it that they are not reliable sources and that their claims are not necessarily true. But that doesn't mean that our encyclopaedia shouldn't address them; it would be inappropriate to delete their articles. The AfD should have made that finding and didn't.—S Marshall T/C 09:42, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  Please show me the article sourced solely to Velikovsky, which is essentially what we are discussing here. --82.7.40.7 (talk) 20:11, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  I doubt if I'll find one. Von Däniken and Velikovsky have both generated what one might call a significant corpus of refutation, and such things are rightly included in articles about their theories. A better parallel is Baldock Beer Disaster, which is a redlink because it was deleted at this AfD—the difference being that this material has sources.—S Marshall T/C 22:38, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  I understand Von Däniken and Velikovsky was different and that was my point in asking the question, there are significant reliable sources discussing the cases of Von Däniken and Velikovsky so their theories can be written about (at which point contextually they are reliable for what there theories are, not for the "truth" of those theories). For your parallel the conclusion was we can't write about something as hoax unless there are reliable sources discussing it as a hoax . We can't write about it as truth unless there are reliable sources for that. We don't seem to have reliable sources on either side of this, which was my original statement "If reliable sources don't exist to support the event having occurred, and sources don't exist which conclude it was a hoax, then we've no basis for an article.". --82.7.40.7 (talk) 23:26, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't like that outcome, because it's having it both ways. In deleting this material, we're deciding that Wikipedians know better than the sources. Which doesn't sit very well with WP:V (my original point), but perhaps there's a consensus to suspend that rule for the moment. (By the way, a decision a source is wrong is also, in the absence of a source that says it's wrong, original research. Among various other heinous Wikipedia sins.)

  If we're giving ourselves that much leisure to ignore the rules then we need to finish the job and explain why the sources are wrong. I mean, Wikipedia isn't Snopes, but there's an overlap when dealing with known error in print: it's our role to inform. To educate, in fact. By letting known error stand unchallenged we're failing.

  I can't help thinking I'm failing to communicate with you here, though. :(—S Marshall T/C 00:22, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  Agreed on the last sentence, I somehow doubt we're too far apart just can't make the link in the middle. WP:OR doesn't apply to assessment of sources, and it's not deciding we know better, it's looking to the source and saying we can't trust the source so we can't tell one way or other (i.e. the source maybe correct, but then again random dribblings on web forums by chance will soemtime be right), some may by extension may decide that for certain events the general signficance would normally be met with more sources, so the one is a hoax, I don't think we can conclude that, but it does mean we are short of enough material to write anything useful. --82.7.40.7 (talk) 19:03, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• WP:OR doesn't say that it doesn't apply to assessment of sources, but I can understand why you think it should. Let me try another angle. I think that this DRV needs to focus more clearly on what Agranero actually says—it's not insignificant that he presents new sources that don't seem to have been considered at the AfD. Even more so when the AfD concluded that the existing sources weren't to be trusted. The casualty figure of 563 seems to have been accepted at the AfD, and the 10,000 rejected (to my mind, rightly). In fact, to my reading, the AfD seems to have decided that an incident of some kind did actually happen. The "delete" outcome seems at least partly to be on notability grounds. Are you with me so far?—S Marshall T/C 19:45, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• I get the feeling that we might be best off if this were merged into Austro-Turkish War (1787–1791), but since this is DRV not AfD, endorse. Alzarian16 (talk) 21:10, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Relist to generate discussion ground in policy. Per S Marshall above, "Wikipedians don't get to decide they know better than the sources." The AfD reasonings were based on unsourced statements. If this is a hoax, then reliable sources will be available to present such information in the article. The two books cite in the article were:

Regan, Geoffrey (2000). The Brassey's Book of Military Blunders. Washington, D.C.: Brassey's. ISBN 157488252X. Relevant excerpt on Google Books.

Durschmied, Erik (2000). The Hinge Factor: How Chance and Stupidity Have Changed History. Arcade Publishing. ISBN 9781559705158. Relevant excerpt on Google Books.

The AfD focused on deleting these two references, not the article. Whether the sources were reliable should take place at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. The discussion did bring out enough additional reliable source material to support an article on the topic. Just because some Wikipedians hold their noses to the tale told by those sources is not a basis to delete the article. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 09:21, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The reliable sources noticeboard is not the sole arbiter of what is/isn't a reliable source. AFD should quite rightly evaluate the reliability of sourcing available. --82.7.40.7 (talk) 20:11, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'll go further than that, and say that the main business of the encyclopaedia writer is evaluating sources, so there's almost no page anywhere on Wikipedia where an evaluation of sources would be out of place.—S Marshall T/C 22:38, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This topic has been around since 1788. Things have been written about the topic since that time. Wikipedia is here to convey such information. The main problem I'm seeing is that some editors are saying the topic must be true and since we cannot tell whether it is true, then it should not be in Wikipedia. It is the same thing they do to those nutty, notable professors who throw religion into science. These editors say the nutty professor doesn't qualify under wp:prof, therefore delete. The problem in both these approaches is that it puts Wikipedian's in charge of what the reliable sources should have wrote about and if they didn't, then the topic doesn't deserve to be in Wikipedia. That is not how Wikipedia is set up. Wikipedia is nothing more than a conveyor of information written by others. The article should reflect what the collective of the reliable sources say about a topic without personal bias or judgement. As brought out in the AfD, the above two sources do not make up the entire collective of reliable sources and judging on whether the topic should be kept based on these two sources is not supported in Wikipedia policy. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 08:50, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment. I think that a large part of the problem that caused this AfD to gather consensus for deletion was the article title. Most sources that I can find describe the events as a "panic"[1] rather than a "battle". Phil Bridger (talk) 20:35, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]