Jump to content

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Østby family

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 move to draft‎. Consensus was to let the article be improved in draftspace, rather than deleting it (non-admin closure) Seawolf35 (talk - email) 16:25, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Østby family

[edit]

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

Østby family (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

There's nothing in this article that indicates notability and I cannot find any mentions whatsoever on this family at all using a WP:BEFORE search. I cannot even verify if this exists. FatalFit | ✉ | ✓  01:46, 8 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

File:Prince GABRIEL of ROSENSVERD of The North Sea Empire T2020 Jubileum Standard Arms.jpg

Keep: Unfortunately, the article has been ravaged for one and a half year by a person presenting himself as Prince of Rosensverd, on Wikipedia known by the username Norges Adelstand and several IP addresses, including User:46.15.68.181 above. His disruptive behaviour, including his foul and yelling messages to other Wikimedia contributors, led to his User:89.8.149.65 being blocked for three months in June 2022.

To retell it concisely: First, the 'Prince' added a lot of fantastic (but erroneous or unsourced) claims about being royal princes as of 2023; the Wikipedia article even contained his self-assumed personal coat of arms in his 'capacity' as 'Prince GABRIEL of ROSENSVERD of The North Sea Empire' (see image). Also, for those who are unfamiliar with it, the said coat of arms is an outright copy of the coat of arms of Norway.

Then, when I removed all these claims in addition to changing the title from Rosensverd (a family name not used by the family when they were alive but constructed and attributed by 20th-century genealogists), the 'Prince's' response was to remove all mentionings of the name, arms, and members of the Rosensverd family—because he didn't want the name Rosensverd, which is his legal last name by deed poll, to be presented in a way that did not fit his personal agenda (so this is, by the way, an obvious COI case).

As far as I can tell, the Østby (Rosensverd) family has been extinct in the male line since the 18th century. It is possible that the person above is a cognatic descendant, that is, through female ancestors, but that does not make him noble—and much less a prince, a title never granted to the Østby family or any other noble families in Norway. His agenda is, nonetheless, to use Wikipedia as a means of promoting the idea that he is a prince.

My attempts to provide the article with brief but well-sourced information from my extensive library on the nobility in Denmark and Norway have stranded as I experienced and/or had reason to anticipate that the 'Prince' very soon would remove the newly added contents altogether or even, as he did in one case, illegitimately have the article speedy deleted, a case where I had to spend much time on having the article restored.

Thus, the situation is that the 'Prince,' without anyone stopping him, consistently has removed relevant information from reliable third-party sources from the article, with the result that the Østby (Rosensverd) family seems non-notable. When they, in fact, are a major medieval noble family.

I could fix the article in a couple of hours. But I hesitate to do so, because I know that the article will continue to be vandalised by the COI Prince. Nevertheless, my suggetion is that I improve the article tonight in order to establish the family's notability per the Wikipedia guidelines, hence 'Keep.' Brox Sox (talk) 17:21, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Draftify: I see that I'll need a little bit more time to improve the article substantially. Thus, I recommend that the current article be transferred to my user space as a draft, or a similar solution. I do not recommend 'Delete,' because the revision history should be preserved, considering that the upcoming article most likely will pass the WP:AFCR review. Brox Sox (talk) 20:27, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: I thought that this article had been to AFD before but it was tagged for speedy deletion and then there was a deletion review. For more information about the tangled history of this article as it got moved around the project, see Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2023 June 10.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 08:32, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Reliisting to see if there are any objections to this article being userfied and moved to User:Brox Sox's User space.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 23:58, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Question: if the Østbys are a notable "Norwegian noble family", how come neither of the two Norwegian Wikipedias have an article for them? Any chance this is all a hoax?
--A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 01:17, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete /draftify as an appropriate ATD in light of subsequent comments and replies/ and Brox Sox can get this refunded if and when they're going to work on it, in order to prove the subject's notability, as they've said. I was unable to determine that the subject is real or notable after an attempt to do so myself.—Alalch E. 03:23, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Combined response to User:A. B. and User:Alalch E.: In fact, the family have an article on Norwegian Bokmål Wikipedia: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosensverd I don't know why there's no interwiki. As to notability, I (who didn't create this AfD) am not sure whether the family really are worthy of inclusion on English Wikipedia. I'm in favour of this being decided by the AfC review, not least because I need to make a full literature review before I may conclude when it comes to notability.
Some historical context: The Rosensverds were among the numerous local, well-off families who were 'mass ennobled' in the late 15th and early 16th centuries by the Dano-German kings of Norway, most of whom—including the Rosensverds—never gained any national importance. They're certainly not a hoax, however. Regarding the name, there were originally two presumably related families, known as the Østby family (known since the 15th century) and Handingmann (known since the 16th century).
The Østby family became extinct in the male line in the 17th or 18th century. They never used the name Rosensverd. 20th-century historians, however, dubbed them Rosensverd, because their coat of arms displayed a sword and two roses, but 21th-century historians have largely abandoned this custom of retrospectively attributing 'canting arms' names to 'nameless' medieval and early modern families like the Østbys based on their coat of arms. Brox Sox (talk) 05:31, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If you would like the article to be draftified and you intend to start/resume work on it immediately I am not opposed to draftification. —Alalch E. 16:31, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know whether it will be immediately, but absolutely within a few weeks. I do have some relevant books in my library, but I might have to visit the National Library for additional sources. Best, Brox Sox (talk) 12:03, 28 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I do not see the notability of Rosensverd at all. The Norwegian article is bad, essentially the same as the one we have here, except for not having the fake name Østby in it. Geschichte (talk) 07:28, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I am interested to see what Brox Sox will come up with in draftspace. —Alalch E. 12:04, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I would like to add, once again, that I haven't created the article, thus, there's no prestige for me in keeping it. In fact, as stated above, I'm not sure whether the Østby family are notable for English Wikipedia (indeed, they are notable for Norwegian Bokmål Wikipedia, notwithstanding that the self-proclaimed Prince of Rosensverd has ravaged that article, too, something that needs to be mitigated once I'm done here).
First and foremost, I've studied their letters patent of 1458, which only survives as a copy from 1580. It says that on the recommendation of their paternal cousin Gudbrand Rolfsson, a canon of St. Mary's Church, Oslo, the brothers Sjøfar and Nils Sigurdssons were ennobled, given a coat of arms, and expected to be the king's 'servants and men at hand' (thienner oc handgenger mendt). The Prince of Rosensverd has manipulated the word thienner, modern-day tjener (servant), to be thane and handgenger mendt, modern-day håndgangne menn, to be 'hird member'. By the way, here's the last version of the article before I entered the field: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%C3%98stby_family&oldid=1072359733
After that, I tried to see whether individual members of the family had done something great or held high offices. But they haven't. I find a parish priest, a couple of lawspeakers. The rest, although being noble, were farmers by occupation. Some of them owned considerable (yet not tremendous) amounts of land, though. Third, the family's alleged stake in the Sudreim claim (a claim to the Norwegian throne), or for that sake any links to former royal houses of Norway, is unproved. By the way, 'Østby family' is not a 'fake name' as User:Geschichte claims above; it's used by reputable historians in third-party-published journals such as Norsk Slektshistorisk Tidsskrift. Brox Sox (talk) 13:26, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds like we can already conclude that this is a non-notable subject then, no? —Alalch E. 13:33, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe or maybe not. What I meant to say is that the Østby family have an utterly boring and ordinary history—but boring does not equal non-notable. I've seen that English Wikipedia has heaps of articles on, be it, Russian noble families, with Artamonov (Russian nobility) being one example. This family is not more notable than the Østby family. And not to mention German noble families, such as Aachen (German nobility): 'owners of the Reigerding country estate', 'two family members (...) were part of the Royal Prussian Army'. Yawn! Definitely not more notable than the Østby family. So, that's why I have reached the conclusion that whilst the article in its current state should be unpublished because of poor quality, the Østby family might still be notable per Wikipedia's own guidelines, and this will be established when the draft is submitted for AfC review. Thus, unpublish the article, for God's sake, but keep the contents, including the revision history, in the draftspace. That's at least my thought. I don't really have any strong opinions here. Brox Sox (talk) 13:55, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with that. —Alalch E. 14:06, 29 October 2023 (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.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Østby_family&oldid=1186523702"