Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rudolf K. Poecker

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. Although there has been no additional discussion since the last relist, I'm seeing a rough consensus that the available sources are not enough to establish notability, and nobody has been able to produce additional ones. – Joe (talk) 12:02, 5 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Rudolf K. Poecker

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Non-notable subject that does not meet WP:BASIC, as per several assorted WP:BEFORE source searches. Reliable source coverage is limited to name checks and faint passing mentions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 02:37, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 02:38, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 02:38, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Germany-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 02:38, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 02:38, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comment This is a good nomination, but a pretty interesting story to lose. I'm going to search around for another place to save this info, but will circle back in the next three days. LikeMeercats (talk) 05:00, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Unfortunately, me thinking this is interesting is not a reason to keep it. I maintain my above comment, but the article is poorly sourced, and I couldn't adequately defend a keep. LikeMeercats (talk) 05:02, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Here is two obits, [[1]], [[2]]. There is several mentions of his on GBooks, although it is all church business. Seems to have had an interesting, including surviving in an Alpine company that was whittled down, (terrible phrase) from 350 to 8. Two obits should be enough, but they are both mission news, although from agencies in different countries. scope_creep (talk) 11:58, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment user:Scope creep] Where are you seeing these obits? They're not in the sources, actually there's no live sources for this article. Even if they're around, I don't think two obits meets guidelines for notability on WP:BIO LikeMeercats (talk) 21:38, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  - One of the obituaries is a primary source that is unreliable (per Wikipedia's standards). See source analysis below. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 22:05, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - I will admit that I created this article originally, and knew the man personally, so I'm probably biased. I am a bit dubious about the notability, but consider it just within the bounds of notable enough to keep. Cyberherbalist (talk) 20:23, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – Below is a source review of those posted above by Scope creep:

Source	Analysis
"Stories: President Poecker's Life History"	This is a primary source published by a Germany Düsseldorf Mission Alumni organization. It is not an independent source, and is not considered to be particularly reliable as per Wikipedia's standards (it's essentially a blog). The subject of this article served as the President of the Germany Düsseldorf Mission, so it's natural for this blog site to include content about the subject, but it's not independent.
"Rudolf Kurt Poecker"	A usable source originally published in Deseret News

Of note that multiple independent sources are required to demonstrate notability, not just one, and primary sources are not usable to demonstrate notability. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 20:30, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comment One of them of the looks like a blog. I was looking at it afterwards, and certainly not the strongest ref, but an indication that he was well known on two continents. scope_creep (talk) 20:33, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for responding. Blogs are typically not usable to qualify notability on English Wikipedia, as they are typically not considered to be reliable. Secondary sources and tertiary sources work, but the blog site is neither of these. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 20:36, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yip, I spend half my life taking out blog reference. It cant be used. There is not much else apart from that obit. I will check jstor and t&f. scope_creep (talk) 22:19, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No joy. scope_creep (talk) 22:23, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete sourcing far below what would be needed to show notability. Schaerf's book does not give enough coverage to establish notability, and even if it did, it is the only source that comes anywhere close. Everything else is blog posts, paid death notcices, or routine announcements of changes of mission leadership. Basically unless every mission president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is notable, there is no way that Poecker is. Since Mission presidents serve at most three years (some serve only 2) and there are over 400 missions, and many regular Church going members could not name the current mission president over where they live, this is a very hard to sell idea. Just since 2009 there have probably been about 1200 mission presidents. The math gets a bit trickier because the number of missions increased by over 50 in 2013, but at least 3000 maybe closer to 5000 total mission presidents in the history of the Church. 3-year-terms did not become the norm until the 1930s, and it was not until the 1970s there were even 100 missions, with 300 hit around 1990. Many mission presidents are notable for other things, and maybe one or two did such impactful work as mission presidents, such as Wilford Booth and maybe Edward Dube, that they could be notable for that alone, arguably John A. Widstoe and David O. mcKay, but especially the former was more a mission presidenr over mission presidents, and both were already members of the Quorum of the 12 when mission presidents so it is not possible to figure out if it works. LeGrand Richards just might be notable if he only had to his name being a mission president and the book A Marvelous Work and a Wonder that grew out of comments he made while a mission president, but since he was an apostle when that book moved from being the theme of talks he gave to a printed work (with Thomas S. Monson being a key editor on it), it is an untestable hypothesis.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:43, 10 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Black Kite (talk) 00:20, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sam Sailor 10:36, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete this fails WP:GNG and possibly NOTMEMORIAL, as most if not all of it was sourced to a feature article obituary in the local paper. SportingFlyer talk 10:38, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I found two other sources, German Genealogical Digest: 1987-1989, Volumes 3-5 [3], which confirms his finding of genealogical records, and No greater love, and other true stories of courage and conviction [4], which is a 1982 LDS publication of "biography and autobiography". Probably neither is greatly reliable - I can't tell the origin of the Genealogical Digest (could well be the Genealogical Society of Utah, though that's just a guess). I also find this interesting, particularly the finding of the genealogical records (what did he do with them?), and I wondered if a small part of the info could be included in the Genealogical Society of Utah article, but it has no section on the original source records at all, or any information about work in Europe. So probably Delete, unless his roles in the LDS were sufficiently notable to warrant an article (and I have gathered that overall they do not have presumed notability). RebeccaGreen (talk) 17:44, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 12:37, 27 November 2018 (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.