Template:Did you know nominations/Hitler Youth Conspiracy

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by PumpkinSky talk 03:11, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Hitler Youth Conspiracy

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~~... that in 1938, the Soviet Union secret police executed 40 teenagers and adults in pursuit of an alleged Hitler Youth Conspiracy, which was later found baseless?~~

Reviewed: Datawind
Comment: The article I reviewed was already approved and promoted, but because of a serious concern, was returned to the queue November 19 or 21, where it stayed without any further comment or update. I reviewed it again so the matter could be put to rest.

Created/expanded by Marrante (talk). Self nom at 10:34, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Detailed, well sourced, moving, frightening ("Look how many arrest warrants I can sign in one minute."). - Let me understand a few things. 1) I didn't see where the title comes from, didn't see "conspiracy" in the sources, nor is it mentioned often in the article. It is alleged, that doesn't show. "Hitlerjugend in der UdSSR?" has a "?", something like that (quotation marks, italics ...) would help to understand that it is something that didn't exist. 2) NKVD is an abbreviation I had to look up, - yes there is a link, but I think "secret police" with a link to the official organization would be easier on the Main page. In the article the abbreviation appears unexplained the first time. I would like to see it explained in the lede. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:04, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I went with NKVD in the hook because it was the name of the article, but I have often piped it to "secret police" and will take care of that in the lede. I tried to figure out what to call the article for a long time. It's really a conspiracy theory, but not in the usual sense, which are sort of news hound or tin-hat things, this was a police theory. I settled on the word "conspiracy" because it was the easiest way to describe the story in one word. I looked at other article titles for guidance, but this really seemed to be sort of a unique thing. The German sources do things like say "fictitious" or add a question mark, but using that or "alleged" in the title didn't feel right. "Hitler Youth Affair" also didn't convey the idea well. My other idea for a title was "NKVD Hitler Youth Conspiracy" but that seemed even more confusing to me as a title. Finally, it seemed the best place to explain what it was about was the lede, not the title. There's also "Lincoln Conspiracy" which is not proven either. That also made me feel that this was the way to go with the title. Is it necessary to know in the title that it didn't exist? That would certainly be the case in German, but I'm not sure it is in English (as per the "Lincoln Conspiracy"). Maybe others can weigh in here. Marrante (talk) 23:32, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I fixed the problem of NKVD appearing in the article without explanation the first time. That was an oversight, the result of later adding a sentence higher on the page than the previous (and explained) first appearance. As for the explanation that the conspiracy was alleged, the second sentence in the article reads, "Essentially a theory in search of evidence, it nonetheless resulted in the arrest of numerous German teenagers and some in their twenties and beyond, who were accused of having been fascist, anti-communist members of the Hitler Youth and of working against the Soviet Union." Re: "conspiracy", see the use of the word here in the last full paragraph, just below the mid point, "Young Sobottka, for instance, was tied into the 'Anti-Comintern Conspiracy' indictment..." This is also an NKVD fantasy conspiracy. I don't think English requires that the conspiracy be identified as a theory right in the title. German is more finicky about stuff like that (company names, movie titles, no unisex children's names, etc.) Marrante (talk) 00:10, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing the NKVD. Why I mention the title question is that I would not have looked at an article of this name - without your name. There is "Lincoln Conspiracy", but one article is called The Lincoln Conspiracy and is no more than dab of a book and a film which are both italic, and there is Lincoln assassination conspiracy theories which is a redirect. I am not into legal things, is there something comparable to "Hitler Youth conspiracy case"? If the title stays, I would recommend to at least pipe it and get "alleged" into the bolding. The simplest way to change the article title is to have it italic by {{italictitle}}. To play with:

ALT1: ~~... that in 1938, the Soviet Union secret police NKVD executed 40 teenagers and adults in pursuit of an alleged Hitler Youth Conspiracy, which was later found baseless?~~

ALT2: ... that in 1938, the Soviet Union secret police executed 40 teenagers and adults in pursuit of an alleged Hitler Youth Conspiracy, which was later found baseless? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:04, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

ALT2 definitely (over ALT1). I think of italic article titles as signifying books, films, etc. For me, it doesn't convey the message that it didn't actually exist. I'm going to go ahead and change the article title, as well.... just as soon as I settle on one. I will come up with something within the next few hours, but I'd like to keep the hook as is and just pipe whatever title I figure out. Marrante (talk) 09:23, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Fine. I don't think the appearance of the title itself is as important, because a potential reader will not choose it by its title, but get to it by (piped) links from articles, also bitte zerbrich Dir nicht den Kopf, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:36, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

LOL, dafür ist es zu spät (but I still don't have a title, so I'll just leave it). Marrante (talk) 12:18, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

for ALT2, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:59, 6 December 2011 (UTC)