Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/New Polish School of Holocaust Scholarship (conference)

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 no consensus. Sorry, I do not see any consensus in this discussion, and I do not see any reason to discard arguments of one of the sides--Ymblanter (talk) 19:24, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

New Polish School of Holocaust Scholarship (conference) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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

Article created by an indef banned user as an attack piece about an event that fails notability policy. The conference itself is not notable; what generated coverage were protests against it and coverage of those protests. But the coverage lasted just a few days and, as such, fails Wikipedia:Notability (events) which requires lasting significant consequences or affects a major geographical scope or receives substantial non-routine coverage that persists over some time. GizzyCatBella🍁 08:07, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of France-related deletion discussions. GizzyCatBella🍁 08:07, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Poland-related deletion discussions. GizzyCatBella🍁 08:07, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Unsure, lean slight keep, its well sourced, and the coverage seems to last about 3 or 4 weeks (not days). But at the same time it does not seem to have been a lasting controvery.Slatersteven (talk) 10:36, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. I admit that there is too much trivia in this article for my liking (the full list of presenters/titles is excessive) and I agree that it is the protest which gives the subject notability. However, I do not think this is an example of one-off event with no long-term significance of the kind that WP:EVENT is intended to catch, eg. motorway pile-ups or individual murders. It forms part of a wider confrontation between Polish historical memory and Holocaust studies which is certainly notable and is only partially addressed at Historical policy of the Law and Justice party. As for the coverage, Slatersteven is right that it was relatively sustained and seems to have been reported internationally. —Brigade Piron (talk) 10:56, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 11:24, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Discrimination-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 11:49, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. News coverage of few weeks is not very sustained, IMHO, so I concur that this event fails NEVENT (and GNG). If kept this needs to be rewritten/retitled to Protests about... or such, as it was the protest, not the conference, which have any (if slight) claim of notability. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:03, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. non-notable conference of which there are many, without any long term influence or importance, used to write an attack page by now indef banned user notorious for falsfying and distorting sources.There was some news about it, but it lasted only couple of days. Wikipedia is not a depository of news articles. --MyMoloboaccount (talk) 21:25, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - as nominator - GizzyCatBella🍁 11:59, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • GizzyCatBella, You shouldn't !vote you first statement is already a delete !vote per Wikipedia:DISCUSSAFD Shrike (talk) 12:16, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep: Needs drastic rewrites. But from my look at the sources, there are enough high quality sources to easily establish notability. Macktheknifeau (talk) 13:50, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep: It seems that significance of the subject in question stems not only from the conference proceedings, but also from its social and political impacts, as demonstrated by reactions of various organizations and institutions, going all the way to ministerial and ambassadorial levels. All those events are notable enough to justify the existence of this article, but its content could be emproved. Sorabino (talk) 14:15, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as noted above in other comments, non-notable conference and the approach of the now indef. banned user is also questionable. --E-960 (talk) 18:42, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Fails at least tWO parts of WP:EVENT; WP:PERSISTENCE and WP:SENSATIONAL.This was actually pretty obvious when this article was first created. Volunteer Marek 11:57, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Based on description, that was not a groundbreaking academic event. It might be notable only as a subject of political controversy when "right-wingers" made a scandal. But I think that the incident can be best included to page Holocaust in Poland or to a more narrowly defined (but a better framed) page about the Holocaust controversies in modern Poland. Actually, this appears in the titles of the publications on this page, such as "The War Between Polish Nationalism and Holocaust History". Yes, something like that could be a proper subject for a WP page. My very best wishes (talk) 03:22, 2 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete: absolutely not notable. Mushroomson (talk) 07:06, 2 April 2021 (UTC)— Mushroomson (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]

* Keep: Numerous high quality sources demonstrate notability. If there are concerns that the notability is for the protests and not the conference itself, that can be dealt with by renaming the article to reflect the focus on the protests. Kenosha Forever (talk) 18:49, 2 April 2021 (UTC) (blocked today by Bradv as a sock of NoCal100) - GizzyCatBella🍁 03:10, 13 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• • Congratulations on your first AfD vote, just a month after you created your account. It's wonderful you feel you understand concepts such as notability so quickly after joining our project. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:54, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Passes GNG with multiple high-quality sources covering this in detail, from all over the world. Izabela Wagner wrote on this at length over here. The Polish national press wrote on this: [1][2]. So did Times Higher Education: [3]. Many other sources in other languages. I agree that this notable because of the attack on the conference, which resulted in the French government condemning the Polish government for the cross-border attack. --ScorchingElijah (talk) 20:02, 3 April 2021 (UTC) — ScorchingElijah (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits. [reply]
• Delete -- This appears to be an article about a single academic conference held on a notable topic. If the conference ended off with someone publishing its proceedings, with might possibly redirect to the proceedings. If some one can find a suitable merge target I migbht support a merge/redirect. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:12, 4 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment to closing editor. Please note that the creator of this article has been indefinitely blocked, is known to operate sock accounts, and has used them to vote in AfDs about their attack pages before. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:57, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep I was neutral so I didn't voted but after examining sources one more is does meet WP:EVENT per WP:DIVERSE --Shrike (talk) 05:47, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

...ummm WP:DIVERSE says that “Wide-ranging reporting tends to show significance, but sources that simply mirror or tend to follow other sources, or are under common control with other sources, are usually discounted.” ... but this is exactly a situation where a bunch of sources just mirror each other, even putting aside the fact that nothing of significance has been published on this since when it happened. So you’re quoting WP:DIVERSE precisely when it would suggest that this doesn’t meet notability criteria. How does that work? Volunteer Marek 03:09, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep This is a thorough, well-researched and properly article about a notable conference, with ample reliable and verifiable sources. Alansohn (talk) 16:51, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Passes WP:GNG. I would have suggested a merge, but with several insitutions collaborating together to form the conference there is no good location to merge to. There is plenty of RS, and there is no good policy based argument for deletion. WP:EVENT clearly states that events are notable if they meet GNG, so I don't think a claim for failing that guideline is valid. 4meter4 (talk) 19:14, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Coverage of the conference passes WP:GNG and WP:EVENT. Philepitta (talk) 17:08, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep largely per ScorchingElijah and Shrike, primarily based on the fact that this event is particularly novel and important from the Polish perspective, and so duly covered in the Polish media. Therefore it passes GNG. WP:DIVERSE strongly applies. Sone of the arguments to delete are particularly weak such as the article being created by a banned user (apart from being invalid I also find this argument repugnant). — Alalch Emis (talk) 17:20, 8 April 2021 (UTC) User:Alalch Emis contribs is a brand new account which has just been blocked – reply to smear: My account is not brand new but four months old, and I've since become an EC user. I have not "just" been blocked but partially-blocked cca 2 months ago from a single article and and it's daughter articles on a discretionary sanction basis. Therefore the poster of the previous sentence is not telling it how it is. Am I missing something or should I ask why the need for such tendentiousness in place of valid arguments in this discussion? — Alalch Emis (talk) 02:45, 11 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

tl;dr there was once a (now) banned user who liked to break rules, but also was a bit too good at pointing out POV-forcing edits by a number of other editors, including Marek, so now said editors see sockpuppets everywhere; get used to it I guess. Trasz (talk) 18:30, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I’m sorry but how does an account created on 1/7/2021 know about “GNG” and “WP:DIVERSE”? Am I missing something or are you just being so obvious that you want to get caught? Volunteer Marek 03:04, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - this is a very important topic from the Polish point of view, and also heavily squashed by the current ruling party.Trasz (talk) 15:11, 11 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Trasz, Which source says "this is an important topic?" Has any scholar said this in independent analysis? Ditto for "squashing". I'd very much like to see a source about how this is "censored" in Poland - that would certainly help to establish notability. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:41, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance moniker was "Lex Gross" for a reason. Trasz (talk) 18:26, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • Trasz, Yes, it was amusing. Now, still waiting for sources that show this actually had an impact, and more importantly, that anything you mention was related to this conference. We are still dealing with the "small" fact that all coverage of the conference was limited to few days or so. If you have a scholarly source that discusses it in the context of Lex Gross or such, it would go a long way to establish enduring notability rather than NOTNEWS of this. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:21, 13 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, was anyone at the conference? I was there, at the site that was attacked by hooligans sent by the Polish government. Besides the news in the national Polish, French, and international press there are plenty of academic sources from 2020. The journal article at https://www.cairn.info/revue-raisons-educatives-2020-1-page-75.htm gives the attack as a demonstration why Poland is so problematic. There are full reviews of the proceedings that also contain details on the attack:

https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=928411 Review by Alina Molisak in journal

https://www.cairn.info/revue-revue-d-etudes-comparatives-est-ouest-2020-1-page-192.htm Review by Thomas chopard in journal

https://www.histoire-politique.fr/index.php?numero=23&rub=comptes-rendus&item=760 Review by Kornelia Kończal in journal

https://journals.openedition.org/lectures/44002 - Review by Florence Vychytil-Baudoux of attack and conference

All these reviews were published in 2020, because the proceedings (published in a book) came out at the end of 2019.

--User:ShoahResearcher - ----<--- — User:ShoahResearcher (talk • Special:Contributions/ShoahResearcher) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Ignoring for the moment the WP:SPA nature of this account, the above sources are simply either proceedings of the conference or reviews of the conference. All conferences publish their proceedings!!! If you go to "Conference on Very Obscure Topic attended by Just a Few People That No One Ever Heard Off" then that conference will ALSO have proceedings. And you can find these in a some scholarly journal. I'm sorry but the fact that proceedings of the conference are published in a journal is simply not a way that WP:GNG can be satisficed. If we took that seriously than ANY conference would automatically be notable. Which is obviously not the case. Volunteer Marek 19:57, 21 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment This article in The Polish Review "Reflections on German and Polish Historical Policies of Holocaust Memory" has an entire section on the Paris conference (section 4, "Historians in the Public Sphere—A Case of the Paris Conference", but gives it a slightly different title "The New Polish School of History of the Holocaust” -- it's definitely the same conference though, same location, dates, and events (https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/polishreview.65.4.0036). An article in a scholarly journal devoting an entire section to this conference indicates lasting impact of the event. The conference is also mentioned in an article in the Israel Journal of Public Affairs ("Rediscovering the Dream: A Proposal for a “Pivot” in Polish–Israeli Relations (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23739770.2019.1638137). This one calls the conference "“The New Polish School of Holocaust History.”) The fact that this conference is discussed as a case study in multiple sources indicates notability per WP:PERSISTENCE. (Also, while I think there is already sufficient sourcing to demonstrate notability, the fact that the conference title is translated in multiple ways suggests that there may be even more sourcing to be found -- neither of these publications are currently referenced in the article). Philepitta (talk) 19:57, 13 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Philepitta, Thank you for finding academic sources. I finally found the time to try to review them, sadly, I cannot verify the first article, as my uni doesn't have access to it, and it's not on LibGen. Did you get access to it through a repository I could access, or can you otherwise email me a copy of this article? Regarding the second source, I was able to access it, but all I see is a mention in a footnote. A footnote mention is a rather weak indicator of enduring notability, although it is better than nothing. Hopefully, the coverage in the first article you mention is more substantial, which is why I'd like to take a look at it, if possible. TIA. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:53, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I got access to "Reflections on German and Polish Historical Policies of Holocaust Memory" it through JSTOR. As I mentioned above, the conference is discussed as a case study in an entire section of the article, "Historians in the Public Sphere—A Case of the Paris Conference." This is a ~4 page section in the article, so yes, it is a very substantial mention. You can see this reflected in the publicly accessible abstract: "He ends with a case study analysis of the ways in which historians behave in the public sphere: the case of the researchers belonging to the so-called New Polish School of the Holocaust." The mention in the footnote in the article in the Israel Journal of Public Affairs, while much briefer, is an extended footnote consisting of an entire paragraph describing events at the conference (the paragraph starts "A recent example was at a scientific conference in Paris on February 22, 2019, devoted to “The New Polish School of Holocaust History).” So both sources are examples of the conference being cited as a case study. Philepitta (talk) 15:00, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, the sources cited above by Philepitta and ShoahResearcher show significant coverage extending far beyond the immediate aftermath of the event itself. Passes WP:GNG and WP:EVENT. Nsk92 (talk) 23:59, 20 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but the fact that a conference published its proceedings - which ALL conferences do - does not in any way establish "significant coverage". Volunteer Marek 19:59, 21 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

These sources are published reviews of the conference proceedings, a very different thing. Nsk92 (talk) 20:04, 21 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nah. Pretty much every conference has these. That's certainly not in GNG or any related guidelines. For a good reason. Volunteer Marek 20:56, 21 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's nonsense, on both counts. Not "pretty much every conference" gets its proceedings reviewed. And we most certainly do count independent published reviews for notability purposes (that's done all the time for books and authors, in particular), that's completely standard practice. A published review in a scholarly journal (or even in a newspaper or magazine) is an independent WP:RS exactly of the kind that WP:GNG has in mind. Nsk92 (talk) 21:08, 21 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, it's the other way. Conference reports and reviews in academic journals are pretty standard. And no, these do not count for notability purposes - show me where it says that? Otherwise pretty much every conference would be notable. The purpose of a conference is to produce scholarly work for publication. OF COURSE it will be described in academic publications. This is like saying that a local fund raising event is notable because it was "reviewed" in the newsletter of the organization that put it on. Volunteer Marek 21:33, 21 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Conference reports and reviews in academic journals are pretty standard" is just your own personal opinion and pure WP:OR. (As it happens, this opinion is also completely incorrect.) WP:GNG does not list every possible type of WP:RS that is out there. Any independent reliable source providing in-depth coverage of a particular topic qualifies under WP:GNG, and published reviews satisfy that definition. Nsk92 (talk) 21:56, 21 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's actually not. It's literally how academic conferences work. I just got done attending one. The proceedings have already been submitted to a publisher. One participant already wrote up a review and submitted it to a journal. Is this conference notable? There were about 12 people at it and as interesting as it was I doubt it will have any lasting notability. You're trying to pretend that someone just doing their job (publishing proceedings of a conference or reviewing it) automatically makes something notable. It doesn't. YOU invoked GNG. Ok. fine. Explain which part of GNG applies. Don't just throw around acronyms to justify what seems to be just a spurious WP:IJUSTLIKEIT argument. Volunteer Marek 14:30, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Sources in the article are: SIX from February 2019, when the conference occurred. NINE from March 2019, right after the conference occurred. FOUR from April 2019, roughly a month after the conference happened. One written in April but only made available in July. And one in September of 2019 which only mentions it in passing. So all the sources in the article are from right the time of the conference or shortly there after. There simply seems to be no indication of any long lasting importance of this event. If there are, then they should be added. If you type in "New Polish School of Holocaust Scholarship" -wikipedia.org" into google you get... wikipeda mirrors... a couple of the articles from March/April... one book which is about the "school" but not the conference... and not much else. Claims made by a WP:SPA which are not possible to verify don't count. And it might be worth keeping in mind that the creator of this article has made several attempts to impersonate real life scholars, academics and activists to try to give an air of legitimacy to their socks' edits. Volunteer Marek 19:53, 21 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete – fails WP:SUSTAINED and WP:GNG. Mathglot (talk) 04:57, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Simply saying that something fails GNG and SUSTAINED doesn't make it so. There are four independent published scholarly reviews of the conference, published over a year after the the event [4][5][6][7]. That's plenty enough for WP:SUSTAINED and WP:GNG. Nsk92 (talk) 10:20, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No Nsk92, that's actually backwards. It's up to those claiming it passes GNG to explain HOW it passes it. There's way too many accounts here just saying "passes GNG" and that's it. Anyone can throw acronyms around. That's not an argument. And as already pointed out virtually ALL conferences have published proceedings and reviews. By that standard pretty much ALL conferences would be notable. Volunteer Marek 14:21, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nsk92, Your first link is to the entire issue of a journal. Which article is relevant? Going by titles neither strikes me as the obvious choice. The second link is to the collected papers from the conference published in a single volume, so it is both PRIMARY and irrelevant (it's not about the conference, it's the conference - about as useful as linking to the organizational webpage for the event). This is a bit more relevant as it is an independent review of the collected papers, and discusses the conference itself, if briefly. The problem is whether the coverage of the conference meets SIGCOV, since the book, and the review, focus mainly on other issues, which can be described as the Polish historiography in general, or what some are calling the "New Polish School of Holocaust History". Which is a much broader concept than the single conference. Your last link seems to be another book review. In fact, given the last two sources, one may consider the notability of the book that was published after the conference - it might pass WP:NBOOK. But that would require rewriting our article away from the sensationalist news piece into a proper article about the book, dealing with more serious but less eye-catching topics (i.e. the individual articles presented at the conference and later published as the book chapters). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:57, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The actual review articles at the above links are specified in New Polish School of Holocaust Scholarship (conference)#Published reviews of the proceedings of the conference. Each of those review articles discusses the papers presented at the conference and also the attack as well. It is true that the page would (greatly) benefit from being extended to include the discussion of the papers that were presented there, and that can and should be done. That's a reason to expand the article, not to delete it. Nsk92 (talk) 13:21, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's just not how this works. Look. Think about book publishing. If an academic publishes a book and it's published by a university press then it will get reviewed in academic journals. Does that make the book notable? NO. Because for many disciplines writing a book is simply the requirement for tenure. So there's thousands of books written and reviewed each year. Because that's how academic works. Same thing with conferences. There's hundreds of conferences every year and every one publishes proceedings and gets reviewed in SOME scholarly journal. None of that makes it notable. It's like saying that some plumber is notable because they did their job and unclogged some toilets. A notable conference would be something like the 1970 Philosophy conference at John Hopkins or the 1967 American Economic Conference where Milton Friedman delivered his presidential address. Both of these had a long lasting impact on a particular discipline (or sub discipline). And both are still widely referenced in publications today. This one here? It got news when it happened and aside from publishing proceedings, basically nothing since. No long lasting impact. No SUSTAINED coverage. Not notable. Volunteer Marek 14:26, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I know not if me voting here would be ethical, however if academic reviews are too specialized for Wikipedia editors, then editors should know that the conference and the book were discussed at length on RCJ radio just last month: https://radiorcj.info/diffusions/jean-charles-szurek-les-polonais-et-la-shoah-une-nouvelle-ecole-historique-paru-aux-cnrs-edition/ YouTube stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbC5-OAfdzM . This is their monthly history program presented by Annette Wieviorka. The almost hour program is half devoted to the conference.

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.