Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/A-Girl (2nd nomination)


 * 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   keep. Tim Song (talk) 03:45, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

A-Girl
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

Unnotable manga series that fails WP:BK and WP:MOS-MANGA. Single short direct to DVD adaptation is not a "significant adaptation." Little to no significant coverage in reliable sources. Oo7565 (talk) 03:09, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Anime and manga-related deletion discussions. --Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 11:59, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Notable author, notable publisher, ran for more than one volume, adapted into animation. If any of the preceding weren't true, deletion might be a viable option, but put together there's a fairly ironclad case for notability here. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  13:51, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Notable author, yes, but not so overwhelmingly notable that automatically everything she writes is notable. Notable publisher is irrelevant, as notability is not inherited in that way. Length of serialization is not a clause of WP:BK and proposals to add it have always lacked anything close to consensus. If the anime were a television series, then it would be an automatic notable, but it's an OVA, which means it has to demonstrate notability with, for ex, reviews. So, no, not ironclad. That said, there is one very strong indication of notability, which User:Starblind doesn't mention, which is that it was republished in a new edition -- that doesn't happen unless there's strong continuing interest. It's not on its own enough to demonstrate notability, but it means the work should not be dismissed out of hand without a good hard look for reviews and the like. Withholding my !vote for now till I have a chance to do said searching. —Quasirandom (talk) 14:11, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * FWIW, I've actually seen this one in the States, a copy of volume 2 in my local used book store. I didn't pick it up as the Chiho Saito was more up my alley, but its presence in the remote deserts of Arizona suggests something. Dunno what. —Quasirandom (talk) 14:13, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The amount of mainstream attention given to manga in Japan is enormous, especially compared to comics in America. I'm always comfortable assuming that Japanese-language reviews exist for virtually any series that makes it to book format or is animated. They'd be in Japanese and in this case nearly 30 years old in this case, so they certainly won't be easy to find, but they're out there. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  15:00, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Far more coverage, yes, but not for everything. More of a problem is that practically none of it appears online, and what does disappears with archiving blocked. At least of the reliable print reviews sort. —Quasirandom (talk) 21:09, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * For a series published 25 years ago, I'm finding a fair amount of Japanese discussion of this series online, but I'm not nearly fluent enough to evaluate the reliablity of any of it. (I'm also finding a surprising amount of English fanfiction for a work that has never (that I can tell) been scanlated or fansubbed, let alone licensed. But, however startling, this is irrelevant to our purposes.) —Quasirandom (talk) 21:09, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Agree with Quasirandom; kanzenban editions only happen for the biggest titles around, and any title that gets that treatment is considered to be a classic of the medium. Doceirias (talk) 19:22, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. This is another hard to search for title; Google and most good search engines will want to interpret it as 'a girl' which is utterly useless.
 * However, my CSE search does seem to show a (dead) forum copy of a French magazine's article, and another page suggested that A-Girl is covered in The Anime Encyclopedia. --Gwern (contribs) 21:59 6 June 2010 (GMT)
 * I used the same query and found absolutely nothing, not even a single manga review in English. One review in Japanese detected (via Google translation). -- deerstop. 00:28, 7 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete While its easy to argue that it must have sources because of its age and its being published in a kanzenban edition, without any actual evidence of said sources, we just can't presume they exist. Any notability of the author does not confer to every book she's ever written. Nor does who published it, nor is the number of volumes. It was adapted into a single OVA. I did find the reference in Anime Encyclopedia, a two-sentence mention as part of the entry on the Margaret Video Series, which the OVA was actually a part of. That, to me, does not constitute significant coverage, and nor one has yet to provide any actual demonstrable proof of probable sources. Redirecting to the author's page would also be appropriate, but as of now it fails WP:BK and WP:N as no actual, verifiable significant coverage has been produced. -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 05:59, 7 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete per AnmaFinotera. There is not much more I can say that she hasn't already said. But we do not assume significant coverage by reliable source exists then there is an absents of evidence. The author isn't historically significant (ANN only credits her with three titles, only one has won an award) and the publisher has no affect on a book's or manga's notability. We wouldn't consider a book published by HarperCollins automatically notable because it is published by HarperCollins, nor is such a criteria reflected in WP:BK. —Farix (t &#124; c) 13:44, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Work was republished over a decade after original publication, a clear sign of notability. Edward321 (talk) 14:30, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Notability is based in significant coverage by reliable third-party sources. So where are the reliable third-party sources? —Farix (t &#124; c) 18:49, 8 June 2010 (UTC)


 * After poking about some more, I'm convinced that this series is indeed notable but its age makes finding online sources that can prove this sufficiently to others ... difficult. The circumstantial evidence includes not only the high-end reprint edition but a startling number, given its age, of online reviews/discussions of the series in Japanese, but none I can clearly point to as being reliable -- and I'm not fluent enough to evaluate their reliability myself. As such, I cannot !vote for delete. I'm not sure I can vote for a keep either. So for me, abstain. If the result is delete, the article should redirect to the author, Fusako Kuramochi. —Quasirandom (talk) 22:24, 8 June 2010 (UTC)


 * KeepKuramochi is indeed an artist who is of such significance ("overwhelming significance," Quasirandom) that just about anything she has ever made, and which remains in print today, is worth at least a stub--in Japanese, anyway. Since none of her work has, to my knowledge, been translated into English, her significance may not be obvious to anglophones, but if you were to ask every well-known manga critic or shoujo manga artist in Japan to list the 100 (or even 50) most influential and important shoujo manga artists of the past fifty years, Kuramochi's name would be high on just about anyone's list. She doesn't just have a loyal fanbase: she has been and remains highly influential. That is precisely why almost everything she has ever done remains in print today. This discussion was just brought to my attention today, and I haven't had a chance to look at the English entry for Kuramochi or any of her works. If there are already pages for her more famous works, I see no reason why this one should be deleted. If not, this seems an odd title to start with. But if the point of contention is "significance," then there's no doubt that the article should be left in place. Matt Thorn (talk) 23:04, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * But where are the reliable sources to support any of your arguments? The last AfD scrapped by with an allusion to potential third-party sources. But those sources were never found and incorporated into the article. I'm going to insist on more concrete proof this time. —Farix (t &#124; c) 01:45, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Matt Thorn IS a reliable source. Doceirias (talk) 17:55, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * But is it even the real Matt Thorn? Given the Essjay scandal a few years back, I think it is prudent to be doubtful. Besides, even if it really is the real Matt Thorn, we don't base the verifiability of information—especially when it comes to verifying the notability of a subject—on someone's credentials, but on reliable published sources. So even Matt Thorn has to back up his claims on Wikipedia with published third-party sources instead of with his credentials. —Farix (t &#124; c) 19:51, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Given that Matt Thorn has blogged about his Wikipedia involvement, this is his actual account. (unless, of course, it's his little brother at the keyboard. ;) ) If Matt Thorn were to blog about A-Girl, then we could use that blog entry as a reliable source, although as we require more than one such source, it would not be sufficient to prove notability on its own.  --Malkinann (talk) 00:21, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * When editing here, Matt Thorn is an editor, like any other, and not a reliable source in terms of his responding here making it a "source" for Wikipedia purposes. -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 20:36, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Had this been the AfD of Fusako Kuramochi, i would have certainly voted keep per Matt Thorn argumentation but this isn't so we are back to the basics meaning WP:BK & WP:N. Now i want to question our collective attitude toward experts, do we really welcome them as Wikipedia pretends to do so? Sorry, i can't just stand the near schizophrenic stance, we welcome them and yet we find them rather too meddlesome.

@Matt Thorn Please Like Malkinann said write something on your personal website, this will be by a fair margin the most efficient way for an expert to interact with Wikipedia currently unfortunately. --KrebMarkt 06:21, 10 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Neutral per arguements given, I too feel that information does exist to prove notability but it can not be found online as the series is so old. Then again if it were a notable series then why is there no reference information about it online? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:48, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Award winning writer. They don't pay to turn something into animation unless its popular.  This is significant, professional level quality, as opposed to simply something someone made themselves.   D r e a m Focus  03:53, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Unless the author is historically significant (ie. their work is routinely a subject of scholarly study) the author's notability has not affect on the notability of the work. So far, there has been not proof of that via reliable sources. Also, whether she won an award for an entirely different manga series is irrelevant to the notability of this manga series. Notability is not inherited. —Farix (t &#124; c) 12:03, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 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.