Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jonathan L. Langer

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. Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:15, 26 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Jonathan L. Langer

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

I believe that this plausible-looking article is a hoax. Apart from minor fixes, it is entirely the work of user Gryffon (talk · contribs), who also wrote the undoubted hoax article Bunaka about a non-existent Indonesian island. Anything this author contributes therefore needs careful scrutiny.

There is a long list of references, but it is noticeable that they are all off-line. Although one would not expect much on-line "footprint" for someone who died in 1982, one would expect Google to turn up something for a man with so varied and distinguished a career (Navy, Yale, CIA, Goldman Sachs); but I can find only obvious WP mirrors. Notably, there is nothing in Scholar, though he is said to have been a Sterling Professor at Yale and to have written or co-authored "many influential publications."

Some checks are possible on-line, and they come up negative:

Howard J. Leavitt's Tales of Valor, cited as the reference for his Navy Cross, is available with preview at Google Books. The cited pages, pp.133-4, are among those visible; in fact the whole of Chapter 6, WWII Navy Cross, is visible, and Langer is not mentioned.
The Distinguished Flying Cross Society website has an Honor Roll, and his name is not there.
Awardsandhonors.com has a list of recipients of the Presidential Citizens Medal and his name is not there.
The images are all said to have come from the collection of the Yale University Office of Public Affairs. That collection is available on-line, and the portraits are ordered alphabetically, but Langer is not there.

Anyone with access to the records of Yale, particularly Jonathan Edwards College, could make further checks, but I think the false book reference and the absence of any confirmation are enough to say delete. JohnCD (talk) 18:22, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 00:15, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 00:16, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Some stuff that should have been easy to find (anything referring to the titles of his supposed publications, or the existence of the "Association of American Historiographers") turned up nothing in Google, and I was unable to verify anything else. On that basis I am inclined to believe the nominator's supposition that this is all an elaborate hoax. But regardless, it fails verifiability. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:40, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Here's one more. I first misread "Deke quarterly" as "Duke quarterly" and wasn't able to find it. But the actual Deke quarterly is online at hathitrust.org. Volume 43 (the volume cited here) is not included, but appears from the numbering of the other volumes to date from around 1925, long before the events it is claimed to document. The 1940 and 1941 volumes (volumes 58 and 59) have significantly fewer than 342 pages, even ignoring the fact that the issue number is early in the page range. So the citation information "The Deke quarterly, Volume 43, Issue 2, p. 342" for his 1940 Yale graduation, DKE membership, and summa cum laude honors appears to be completely bogus rather than merely having a typographical error or two in it. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:30, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, nothing checks out here, looks like a hoax. Nsk92 (talk) 07:42, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- As a sample, ref no 22 is bogus. The JSTOR page[1] for Vol 3, No. 6 of American Sociological Review shows that it was published in 1938, not in 1954. Nsk92 (talk) 07:58, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
@Nsk92: In dubio he made a mistake with the volume number. But ignoring this mistake for the source American Sociological Review, Vol. 3, No. 6 (Dec., 1954), pp. 770-783: No. 6 of 1954, Vol. 19, are articles Planning an Observation Room and Group Laboratory (pp. 771-781, by Robert F. Bales, Ned A. Flanders) and News and Announcements (pp. 782-784). The bogus sources are already examined by JohnCD above and indicate for a hoax. But please dont forget to delete the images too! Otherwise this images will stay online and produce false search hits for the hoax of Jonathan L. Langer. I wounder what person the photos realy show, I tried various searches (photo size, black&white, etc) but not found this images anywhere. --Martin H. (talk) 17:22, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per the very comprehensive nomination and David Eppstein and Nsk92's comments. Nick-D (talk) 09:16, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per above, I can't find any results related to the person. Even if he's real person, this would have meet the notability. Even if he's not a real person, the article would be a hoax. JJ98 (Talk) 11:31, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I tend to doubt a hoax accusation against a long-time (2006 to present) editor with over 1,000 edits and what appears to be a clean record, with no prior warnings or blocks. I think that it's more likely that the editor relied upon bad information (and perhaps is the victim of a hoax). I support a delete because of the obvious inaccuracy of the content. Mandsford 17:10, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It would be nice to AGF, but a false book reference, with page number, is hard to explain; also (which led me to check this article) the same editor input in 2007 the just-detected and now-deleted hoax article Bunaka, complete with detailed description, photograph, and lat. and long. of an Indonesian island of 348 km² and 6,750 population which simply doesn't exist. JohnCD (talk) 17:42, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I see now what you're referring to, though it wasn't obvious at first glance; all records of the creation of the article "Bunaka" and his edits in March 2007 aren't visible in his listing. Interesting-- you can't spell Bunaka without b-u-n-k. I'm surprised that there hasn't been a block, let alone a ban. Mandsford 19:22, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: per the above, there are serious verifibility problems. The main contributor is already a suspected hoaxer. Many of the sources don't say what they reference. Others cannot possibly have even existed at the time. Even if this individual did exist, there would also be notability problems. No awards listings for the Navy Cross (such as [2] [3] [4]) list Langer or close spellings. According to USS Yorktown (CV-5)#Battle of the Coral Sea, only one TBD was recorded as lost, and all of the crew was killed. The bit about Aleksandrovna sounds really fishy. Given that the Navy Cross bit was proven false, he would fail WP:MILPEOPLE, even if everything else could be verified. bahamut0013^words _deeds 18:03, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: And it just doesn't sound like a normal Wikipedia article: "...he took up the position as Vice-Chairman...", "...dedicated his life towards...", "...resigned only after a year in the company to join the United States Navy following the Bombing of Pearl Harbor...", "...when he was recruited by President Lyndon B. Johnson...", "Despite retiring due to health problems aggravated by his injuries sustained during World War II, he would remain highly active until the end of his days, summiting many of the world's major mountains..." and so forth. Sounds like a puff job. RoyGoldsmith (talk) 21:49, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - per nomination as a hoax. Anotherclown (talk) 10:16, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as hoax. Nice ctach by the nominator. Edward321 (talk) 02:59, 25 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as hoax. Ban creator. Of course, creator is always able to respond if claims here are unjust. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:17, 25 December 2010 (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.