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 of the debate was keep. After this was relisted, a clear majority of contributors wanted this kept. Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:20, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I notice that this has a deletion notice but no comments why. A quick glance at the article doesn't make it clear to me why this article was nominated for deletion; the person seems notable if the information in the article is correct. In the absence of any reason why the delete tag was placed here, my tendency is to remove the delete tag. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deville (talk • contribs)

I think this article contains valuable information and wikipedia should not allow people to pirate articles by considering them for deletion just because they are envious or because they don't like the nose of the scholar introduced on this page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adul (talk • contribs)

The nominator was 85.182.15.4, who gave the following justifications in his/her edit summaries:

AfD - Autobiographical articles are against Wikipedia policy. See Wikipedia:Autobiography. [1]

marked article "Christoph Marcinkowski" as blatantly self-advertisingly autobiographical. He even linked his own name to several topics of general interest. [2]

The lack of text here seems to be due to 85.182.15.4 having run into some trouble with AfD, as he/she explains here. --Saforrest 10:25, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep with revisions to make it less of a vanity article.

First off, autobiographical articles are not forbidden; they are just discouraged. And, unless a great deal of the objective facts on the page are false, this person seems sufficiently important to warrant a Wikipedia article. That said, there are problems with the article:

• it's is long and excessively detailed. It's densely packed with information, but much of this is not necessary or encyclopaedic.
• it's too praiseworthy of its subject. For example, regarding his books, it quotes positive reviews of books at great length, and describes them in superlative terms, e.g.

"The magnum opus of Marcinkowski is his award-winning dissertation [...] Dastur al-Muluk (Regulations of the Kings) provides invaluable information on political and religious administration, biographies of eminent personalities, economics, as well as culture and geography, during the early 1720s."

• It seems that the article has been written almost exclusively by User:Adul, who is Christoph Marcinkowski, its subject. This isn't a problem per se, but it does lead to a general unencyclopaedic tone to the article at times, e.g.

"In March 1995, Marcinkowski left Germany, first for Singapore, a city for which he has since then maintained always the deepest admiration,"

I don't have much experience with how to deal with autobiographical Wikipedia entires. My current, somewhat uninformed, opinion is to keep it, and improve it in the ways described. --Saforrest 10:25, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. I suggest that the author set up a homepage for the content of this article. Wikipedia is not a website for posting resume. In addition, publicising the autobiography article by adding links in other articles such as [3] [4] (and dozens other articles) is quite unacceptable, IMO. --Vsion (talk) 05:20, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. I find the debate around this entry quite surprizing (following the 'nomination' of this article for deletion by someone who does not identify himself for obvious reasons...). Once we start to nominate for deletion articles written by people who we don't like we can close down as well the whole wikipedia project. I can only hope that there is consensus on this... But anyway, lets be less ideological or driven away be personal motivations... I suggest to keep it...—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 155.69.4.223 (talk • contribs) .

The preceding anon user delinked this AFD from the daily log, it has been re-added - cohesion★talk 08:39, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete (if an anon has any say in this) or make it look like a real neutral encyclopedia entry and less like a self-advertising homepage. The wikipedian to make the final decision should note that all but one 'keep' votes were unsigned or anonymous. (Quite an irony considering how they (mostly Adul/Mr Marcinkowski himself) rant against the initial proponent's (my) anonymity.)

I first noticed a link to his page in the article about Samarra after the news report about the destroyed Al Askari Mosque, and asked myself why the name of any private person should relate to an Iraqi town. I think that this is something Wikipedia should avoid to become or we would soon have endless lists of remotely relevant consultants in topics of general interest.

If deletion doesn't apply here something should at least be done about his irrelevant linking all over the place. 85.182.13.210 08:19, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. The issue of anonymouy 'requests' applies also to those in favour of deletion. Anyway, I would like to agree with regard to some of the linking but I think some of those in favour of deletion appear to be driven by some rather personal motives (envy among scholars or personal animosities? who the hell knows and why should that play any part here?...). So, do keep it but decide perhaps with regard to the extensive linking. I guess that should do it. The preceding unsigned comment was added by 155.69.4.223 (talk • contribs) .
• Delete. Self promotional article. The pictures are nice, however what do many of them even have to do with the article. I also love the contact info included at the bottom. Sheesh, a lot of hard work for nothing. mmeinhart 02:13, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. A word of constructive advise: It could be edited further by a careful hand. But I think deleting it altogether would be an act of vandalism in itself, especially since some of those who are so keen to delete it seem not to be free from selfish motives themselves. Perhaps the linkings could be reduced somehow. The preceding unsigned comment was added by 155.69.4.223 (talk • contribs) .

• Question: Exactly who or what do you mean regarding 'selfish motives' of deletion proponents? This has been ominously hinted at several times now. I don't get it.

...and hey! You voted 'keep' three times already, 155.69.4.223, without being a registered Wikipedia member and also attempted to erase this whole AfD process. 85.182.4.113 08:37, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• If it's that bad (which I don't think it is) or whatever then just delete it for Christ's sake, especially since there seems to be such an "urge" and "serious interest" to do so... Quite tiring all this sissy talk.... I can only hope that wikipedia will be able to deal with this in a professional, less injurious, manner with it. I still think revision would be the best way in dealing with articles which have academic matters as subject. This is just the irrelevant opinion of a non-American. Have a good day. The preceding unsigned comment was added by 155.69.4.223 (talk • contribs) .

This is a bit difficult. This should probably be relisted; there's a certain shortage of.....(how best to put this)...known users contributing to this discussion. Abstaining from this discussion until someone knowledgable about his field of study could come forward. -Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 08:49, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: Known Users?? That's very comical. --Mmeinhart 12:50, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep by virtue of WP:BIO. To quote from the notability criteria: "Published authors, editors, and photographers who have written books with an audience of 5,000 or more or in periodicals with a circulation of 5,000 or more." It seems pretty clear that the subject of this article meets that criteria. If there are POV issues with the article, they ought to be handled on the talk page of that article and not on AfD. NoIdeaNick 11:12, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per Nick; trim the crap out of it (especially the really odd pictures) and it could be a halfway decent article.  RasputinAXP  c 15:36, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• That article for this guy!?! Weak keep pivotal on removing the unremarkable rambling POV praise, the excessive overlinking, and the irrelevant pictures. -- Krash (Talk) 15:51, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak keep per Krash. I'm not quite sure he meets Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion of biographies/Academics, but I'll err on the side of letting it stay. The article doesn't need a full bibliography; why not ask [User:Adul|Marcinkowski] to choose the most important works for a selected biblography? - Rynne 18:26, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak keep per NoIdeaNick. Subject of the article seems to satisfy notability criteria. If he wants to look foolish by creating and editing an article about himself, let him do it. dbtfz^talk 23:43, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• keep please as noideanick says Yuckfoo 00:12, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Very Weak Keep Needs a pretty big rewrite, but seems notable. A second poll after the rewrite is probably a good idea. Eivind 03:05, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete pending any evidence of notability. I have serious doubts about these books having sufficient readership to meet out notablility tests for a writer: they are academic texts on rather isoteric topics. I'd be prepared to change this vote if some evidence is available. Even then, the article is very bad (per everybody above) and must be vigorously stripped of unencyclopedic content. AndyJones 22:25, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Academic texts on esoteric topics are perfectly good content, as titles. Are they something someone might want to refer to? Yes. Charles Matthews 12:37, 7 March 2006 (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.