Talk:W. H. Pugmire

Notability Guidelines Remain Unmet
This article does not meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines. After being flagged, a small handful of references appeared that are authored by personal friends of the subject. Independent verification of notability, however, remains unmet. The article should be nominated for deletion soon, unless additional secondary sources (independent of the author and his circle) are cited that demonstrate the subject's notability.Pernoctus (talk) 17:35, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Not sure if I'm doing this correctly, but I feel compelled to chime in here. W.H. Pumire is something of a legend in the H.P. Lovecraft literary community; plain and simple. He's been writing Lovecraftian-influenced fiction for over 25 years that I'm aware of, and he excells at it. The community of fandom is close-knit, and so obviously people will meet and interract with Willum at events, readings, etc. I have spoken at The Lovecraft Film Festival, Comic-Con, Son Of Monsterpalooza and more; each time W.H. Pugmire's name has come up during discussions on the state of current Lovecraftia. He is a legitimite writer, with a legitimate fan-base. There is no validity in deleting him from Wikipedia as a legitimate Lovecraftian artist/writer.
 * 108.206.117.89 (talk) 19:52, 1 February 2013 (UTC)MARS HOMEWORLD
 * My understanding of Wikipedia guidelines is that notability is established through references in reputable secondary sources, such as those found in databases such as JSTOR. Anecdotes and fan testimonials such as those referenced above do not meet this criterion.Pernoctus (talk) 02:28, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I disagree the Notability Guidelines remain unmet. Under "Creative professionals," number one states, "The person is regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by peers or successors." According to his peers in the Lovecraftian Community, W.H. Pugmire is an important figure. The fact that it is a tight-knit community should not negate Pugmire's influence in the genre. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.238.58.122 (talk) 15:09, 2 February 2013 (UTC)


 * With all due respect, you are cherry-picking from the guidelines. Please see the deletion discussion page for links to the complete guidelines.Pernoctus (talk) 17:58, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Recent editing
I added several links and cross-connections to other pages, esp. to the publishing houses and the recent anthologies. Additionally, blurbs and reviews have been posted that should prove W.H. Pugmire's literary value. A new page has been added in the reference section as well, referring to the Author Page on Amazon. Please let me know if anything else is needed or if the guidelines have been met. LadyLovecraft (talk) 21:53, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Merely being published by the small press and being praised by fellow small press authors should not suffice to establish notability. S. T. Joshi is a personal friend of Pugmire's, as are, I imagine, most of the persons quoted in the "praise" section. Notability requirements are met through citations in reputable journals found in databases such as JSTOR by critics and reviewers who are not personally known to the subject. The article remains defective, and should be deleted.Pernoctus (talk) 02:35, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Small Press authors are mostly praised by their peers, not everyone gets a blurb by Thomas Ligotti or Stephen King. To prove the credibility I added the praise from Publisher Weekly. Kindly also look at the publishers, neither Hippocampus Press, Centipede Press nor Miskatonic Press are small publishing houses. Most of the anthologies have been published by notable publishing houses that work with notable editors like Doubleday, Tor, HarperCollins, Del Rey, PS Publishing, Night Shade Books, Centipede Press, etc. LadyLovecraft (talk) 23:27, 2 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Please see the deletion discussion page for answers to your assertions. Pernoctus (talk) 18:00, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Collections table needs to go
Wikipedia articles don't list the tables of contents of books. These need to be formatted as standard book citations and merged into the Bibliography section without all the excess details. The Bibliography section would be better if it were renamed Works or Publications, per MOS:layout, "Bibliography" is discouraged because it is not clear whether it is limited to the works of the subject of the article. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:22, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Revamp Complete
In the hopes of seeing off any further delete attempts, I finished a lengthy rewrite of the article. I've added as many sources as I could find without dredging into minutia (i.e. still remembering that this is supposed to be an encyclopedia article). As Pugmire often said the same thing in his interviews (especially during periods where he was interviewed several times in short order), for a given claim/fact I've usually taken at most the best two cites (the most specific, usually) and used those, instead of citing everything four or five times. For those who might consider it overlinked regardless, I think the fact that there's been two delete attempts argues in favour of thoroughness. Additionally, two cites helps ensure it was not a one-off statement, and each usually offers a somewhat different spin than the other.

For the "Selected Appearances" section, I've largely avoided the zine and small press stuff in the interests of obscurity / notability, so it's biased towards his last works found in widely available books (though between his Locus entry and ISFDB page, both cited, you have a hefty chunk of his early work at least).

For the "Critical Response" section, the first para deals with notable reviews, while the second is for the opinions of his peers.

I also want to highlight a link to a specific older revision of the page which, while deleted for not meeting Wikipedia standards, contains a host of useful information for fans of Pugmire: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=W._H._Pugmire&oldid=892534421 Palindromedairy (talk) 03:20, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Your baseless assertion in the talk section about "rubbish deletion requests" would be excusable if you had no prior knowledge of the version of this page that was nominated for deletion. Since you apparently do, however, it seems merely disingenuous. You have certainly improved the page, but still not proven why a derivative writer of fan fiction should be considered notable.Pernoctus (talk) 00:37, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Feel free to file a new delete request after seven years of hibernation like some kind of very sad cicada. Palindromedairy (talk) 07:57, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Reply to Iarann
″It is also worth pointing out that the previous attempt at deletion did not fail due to canvassing, but because people pointed out sufficient evidence of the author's notability per WP:NAUTHOR. Iarann (talk) 00:15, 16 April 2019 (UTC)"

On the contrary: The attempt at deletion failed not only because of canvassing, but because the massed fans enlisted a sympathetic Wikipedia editor who arbitrarily decided to keep the page and who did not address a single substantive argument of mine or others about why the author was not (and is not) notable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pernoctus (talk • contribs) 00:44, 26 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Somehow I missed this attack on me until now. I'm the admin who decided back in 2013 that the AfD consensus was that Pugmire met Wikipedia notability guidelines. If there was any doubt about this outcome, the second AfD attempt in 2019 -- which was closed early due to overwhelming consensus that Pugmire is a notable author -- should put that doubt to rest. And for the record, I wasn't enlisted by Pugmire's "massed fans" to either close that original AfD or work on the article afterwards. SouthernNights (talk) 18:09, 13 August 2023 (UTC)