Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/A Throne of Bones


 * 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   redirect to Theodore Beale. Spartaz Humbug! 09:39, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

A Throne of Bones

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Theodore Beale, who writes and blogs under the name "Vox Day", meets Wikipedia's criteria for notability. I fully grant that. However, I do not believe that a novel he has written becomes notable simply by virtue of having been written by him. If it can be shown that A Throne of Bones meets Wikipedia's criteria for notability, I will willingly retract this deletion request; however, I have looked around online and I have not found anything that would indicate this. Reviews exist, yes, but they are from sources that are not generally accepted as sources of notability: personal blogs, Amazon's "buy this book" page, forum posts, Goodreads, the publisher's own site, an interview with the author... plenty of things for facts, but nothing that shows notability (a key distinction). Even though the article links to what is described as a review at WorldNetDaily, it's actually an announcement by Mr. Beale that his novel has been released. As best as I can tell, there's no coverage that's not either a) linked to those who benefit financially from sales of the book, b) crowdsourced, or c) on personal blogs; that said, I am willing to be proven wrong in this regard.

Full disclosure: I'm not a fan of Mr. Beale's work, so that makes it all the more important that I do this as fairly and as openly as possible, in full accordance with procedure. DS (talk) 15:19, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions.  Everymorning   talk  16:23, 17 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Note: Any searchers will have to specify the author, as there is a similarly titled work by Brian McNaughton entitled The Throne of Bones, which will give false positives. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)   05:38, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Redirect to author's article. I just can't find anything to show that this particular book has notability outside of Day himself. Day is most assuredly notable, but this book hasn't received reviews or notice in any outlets that would really be considered to give notability, at least not enough to where this work would pass WP:NBOOK. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)   05:43, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Do not delete. We do not delete plausible redirects on grounds of notability alone (WP:R). Where an author is notable, but a book is not, the book will normally be redirected to the author (WP:BKD). In this case, any potential for confusion with the similarly, but not identically, named book by McNaughton can be adequately dealt with by means of a disambiguation hatnote. James500 (talk) 05:54, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm confused- are you arguing for this to be a redirect with history to the main article or are you arguing for this to be retained as an article independent of the main article for the author? If so, then rather than arguing "do not delete" you need to instead say "redirect with history". Saying "do not delete" implies that you think that the article should remain in the mainspace. As far as redirects go, this article is not a redirect- it's an article. It could be a redirect if the best AfD arguments are to make it into a redirect to the main article, but it's actually quite common for an AfD to end with the article getting deleted and then re-created as a redirect to the main article. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)   07:46, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * As far as I can see, "do not delete" does not mean "keep". It means "I am satisfied that this article should not be deleted, but have not yet decided whether it should be kept or whether it should be redirected (with or without merge)". As far as I can see, the only reason to delete and then redirect an article would be if the entire page history (ie every revision individually) qualified for revision deletion (REVDEL) which should be an unusual outcome. I think it should be clear that I am saying that I can't see an argument for an outcome "delete and then redirect", which I would only endorse in exceptional cases. If I had my way, this type of nomination would automatically be procedurally closed with instructions to go and discuss the possibility of a blank and redirect (with or without merger of content) on the talk page of the article where it is supposed to be discussed. James500 (talk) 06:55, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Ah, gotcha. I usually just label those as "redirect with history", mostly since the label "do not delete" is predominantly used by people trying to argue against the article being deleted or redirected in any aspect. It was just a little confusing, is all. I do agree that this probably should have just been redirected before bringing to AfD, though. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)   06:55, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:29, 18 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep Article has minimum sources needed for notability. Neptune&#39;s Trident (talk) 23:48, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Where? I honestly don't see it. DS (talk) 03:59, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete&mdash;No coverage in WP:RS, No significant holdings in worldcat. Would not object to a redirect.  Lesser Cartographies (talk) 02:09, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete I'd accept redirect, but the amount of coverage is very low. Article has minimum sources needed for verifiability but not notability. Fails WP:GNG fails WP:NBOOK. "Non-trivial" excludes personal websites, blogs, bulletin boards, Usenet posts, wikis and other media that are not themselves reliable. --Bejnar (talk) 05:52, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
 * keep - The only thing separating this novel (aside from the irascibility of its author) from some others I like (and which have probably tenuous Wikipedia articles) is its contemporaneousness. The existing stub is an appropriate compromise.--Раціональне анархіст (talk) 22:27, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
 * If you're arguing for notability because WP:ITEXISTS, then that isn't really a good argument for inclusion. The book does indeed exists, but existing does not automatically confer notability. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)   06:00, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm a sucker for fantasy novels. (Disclosure: I have not read this one, but note that it is well-regarded in reviews.) In any event, I do not like the slippery-slope I am seeing here, in which roving editors with sharp axes and nothing better to do begin cleaving out swathes of underrated material possessing at least nominal merit, objectively speaking. Meanwhile, if I may digress, the AfDs are flood-filled with "grade-Z" pornstar articles which appear to be passing muster. -- Is this the Wikipedia we want?--Раціональне анархіст (talk) 17:26, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Good question, and my answer is yes, emphatically yes. I have no use for pornstar bios and the people who care about them likely have no use for the mathematical bibliographies that I care about, but we share a common understanding of what an encyclopedia is:  a summary of existing, reputable, published, third-party work.  The problem with this article is that we aren't able to find any independent reviews of it.  Were we to create an article, we would be left with what the author says about it, what organizations affiliated with the author say about it, and the unpublished impressions of folks who might or might not have read it.  That kind of article doesn't inspire a lot of trust in readers, so until the independent reviews show up, we delete these kinds of articles.
 * You mention that you've seen good reviews&mdash;where did you find them? If we can cite those, that likely means we can keep the article.
 * You might also be interested in the formal descriptions of notability and reliable sources. There are additional guidelines for what makes books notable (and what makes pornstars notable, if you're curious).  And WP:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions might be worth a look as well.  Feel free to ping me or Tokyogirl79 if you have questions; there is a method to this madness, but sometimes I think we do a pretty good job of hiding it.  Lesser Cartographies (talk) 18:02, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Regrettably, the reviews I refer to are the sort of vote-tallies and independent write-ups one finds on Amazon, IMDB, fantasy blogs, Wordpress pages, etc. Not anything we can use. The mainstream press has no time for niche genres; they highlight one Harry Potter or Game of Thrones per decade, and that's the extent of their interest. (Continuing the pornstar ramble, the industry has basically learned how to game Wikipedia's PORNBIO guidelines ("multiple awards to everybody!") for endless free smut advertizing, and the encyclopedia is reacting with the alacrity of a tortoise.)--Раціональне анархіст (talk) 18:18, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Maybe this would work? -- The author, novelist Lars Walker, appears deserving of a Wikipedia article in his own right (and he would then confer greater notability to topics he discusses).--Раціональне анархіст (talk) 18:35, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Created Lars Walker; notable author with half-dozen novels and a column at a notable periodical. His attention should be enough to keep this particular article alive.--Раціональне анархіст (talk) 20:00, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Nice work on finding the review! It's in a blog, which would usually disqualify it, but since he has reviewed several other books and is an author himself you could argue the expert exemption in WP:USERGENERATED.  So that's one.  Any other reviews that you can find?  Lesser Cartographies (talk) 20:46, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I was busy creating the Lars Walker page, so I haven't had time. But I would gamble he is not the only other accomplished author out there who has a) reviewed Bones, and b) does not yet have his own Wikipedia page. (If pornstars can get articles by giving each other BS awards, then certainly writers ought to qualify under the same principle when critiquing the works of their contemporaries.)--Раціональне анархіст (talk) 20:55, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't really see anything on the article about Mr Walker that goes for notability either: both sources are on sites that profit financially from Mr Walker's writing. Not every Baen author meets notability criteria, as I've learned (case in point). Could there be more coverage of Mr Walker somewhere, enough to sustain an article? Sure. Is there? No idea. And if we can't show notability for Mr Walker himself, then his thoughts on AToB don't really do very much to support its notability either. DS (talk) 21:56, 25 December 2014 (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.