Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aaron Johnston (writer)


 * 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. T. Canens (talk) 10:46, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Aaron Johnston (writer)

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Delete. WP:BLP of a writer, which just asserts that he exists and wrote stuff, and sources that exclusively to his own website and IMDb with no evidence of any reliable source coverage about him in media shown at all. As always, a writer is not automatically entitled to a Wikipedia article just because he exists; he must be the subject of enough reliable source coverage to pass WP:GNG, verifying at least one specific accomplishment that would satisfy WP:NAUTHOR. Bearcat (talk) 04:07, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions.  st  170  e  11:55, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Comics and animation-related deletion discussions.  st  170  e  11:55, 4 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. He is a New York Times bestselling author and has written books in the widely known Enders game series Apollo The Logician (talk) 14:13, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Neither of those is an automatic WP:NAUTHOR pass in the absence of reliable source coverage about him. Wikipedia notability criteria are not passed by simply asserting that they've been passed; they're passed by properly sourcing that they've been passed. Bearcat (talk) 15:52, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
 * He passes per no.3 "The person has created or played a major role in co-creating a significant or well-known work or collective body of work." He has co-written many novels in the Ender's Game (series)Apollo The Logician (talk) 15:54, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
 * A person passes #3 when reliable sources are covering him in that context, not when his passage of #3 is merely asserted without reliable sourcing. Bearcat (talk) 16:07, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
 * See Ender's Game (series) page. "The first two novels in the series, Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, each won both the Hugo[1][2] and Nebula[1][3] Awards, and were among the most influential science fiction novels of the 1980s."
 * Which constitutes reliable source coverage about Aaron Johnston how, exactly? Bearcat (talk) 16:12, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
 * He passes Notability (people) "The person has received a well-known and significant award or honor, or has been nominated for one several times." As mentiloned above, he is a New York Times bestselling aurhorApollo The Logician (talk) 16:15, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
 * You're not getting how this works. No notability criterion can ever be passed just by asserting that it's passed — regardless of what the article claims, the notability criterion is still not passed until RELIABLE SOURCE COVERAGE IN MEDIA is supporting that passage. Nobody gets, for any reason ever, an exemption from having to be reliably sourced just because some impressive-sounding accomplishment has been claimed. There is no claim of notability that any person can ever make which exempts the article from having to cite reliable source coverage in media. Bearcat (talk) 16:20, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Nothing in the above link states that has to be the case Apollo The Logician (talk)
 * That's because "the above link" is about defining what is or is not a reliable source, in the context of a reference to reliable sources. The basic notability rule is where you'll find it explained that coverage about the subject in reliable sources is a base condition that has to be met before an article is allowed to even be started and that people cannot be exempted from having to be reliably sourced just because coverage of a notability criterion has been claimed but not sourced. Bearcat (talk) 14:48, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Sources have been added Apollo The Logician (talk) 16:32, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Daily Herald is a good start, but not enough all by itself — but his own website and his "our authors" profile on the website of the books' publisher do not assist, because coverage has to be independent of the subject to count as reliable source coverage for the purposes of satisfying Wikipedia's inclusion rules. Bearcat (talk) 16:37, 4 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment: This one is a bit tough. He's co-written several entries in the Ender's Game series, which is a notable series overall. However that is ultimately all that he's really known for and there hasn't been a lot of coverage of him as far as a writer goes. There's been precedent on stuff like this before. Jobie Hughes was an author known for ghostwriting a well-known series, but that's all he was known for and there wasn't enough coverage to justify him having a standalone article, so it was deleted and turned into a redirect. If he'd been writing the series solo then that might have gone differently, which is probably why Andrew Neiderman has an article outside of the VC Andrews stuff. This is what makes Johnson so difficult to really decide - he's well known for working with Card, but anything that is written about him tends to be predominantly about Card or the series, with him as more of an afterthought. There's so little out there that he could just as easily be covered in a subsection in Card's article, honestly. He definitely needs to have something about him somewhere, but the question here is where and how much. If we could show that he did something in the Ender's Game series solo, that would help out a lot, as well as coverage for anything he might have done independently of Card as a whole. It's kind of surprising that there isn't something out there, honestly. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  16:56, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
 * He is a comic and tv writer as well. Apollo The Logician (talk) 16:58, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The main issue though, is that none of the stuff he's put out independently of Card is really notable. The only things that have been notable have been the Card/Johnson works, which is why I'm leaning towards giving Johnson a subsection in Card's article and redirecting there. He's just not really independently notable because even when he is mentioned in RS, it's always in passing because the main focus is on Card and the work he's done with Card. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  08:04, 6 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep Author of ten books, important in other media. No pretense of compliance with WP:Before.  Article, content and referencing can be (and will be) improved.  7&amp;6=thirteen (☎) 20:00, 4 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep Obvious signs of Notability present. --Tarzany (talk) 21:14, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
 * To the closer: This account was created today, and it's only edits are to AfDs. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:33, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Delete Per the sources currently in the article. The heraldextra.com helps a little towards WP:GNG, but it´s not enough. I don´t think Goodreads is something that shows WP:NOTABILITY, it seems largely usergenerated. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:56, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment A redirect to Ender's Game (series) could be helpful to readers, he´s mentioned there. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:15, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Goodreads isn't considered to be a RS - the vast majority of content there is user generated, as users can create and edit information on books as long as they have librarian status, which is not difficult to achieve. The author's pages are debatable, as they're either created by the author or they were added by a random user. In the first case it'd be at best a primary source and couldn't show notability and in the second it's a non-RS. In the case of Goodreads, his author bio is also available on the author's official website, which should be the primary source used when backing up basic information. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  08:01, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, –  Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 02:04, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Mega problem his name is spelled wrong above, leading me and probably others to fail to be able to find him.  it's Johston with a "t".E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:04, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I boldly moved this discussion to the proper spelling: Johnston.E.M.Gregory (talk) 18:29, 15 January 2017 (UTC)


 * probable keep Searching with keywords turned up reviews of some of his books, which I added to the page.  A few more sources should put it over the top.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:04, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2017 January 15.  —cyberbot I   Talk to my owner :Online 18:37, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment Since "Enders Game" and "Speaker for the Dead" were fully the work of Orson Scott Card they do not confer notability on Johnston. This is not to say he is or is not notable, it is just to say that writting later works in a series that had earlier works win major distinctions does not make someone notable on its face.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:17, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep Enough sources are presence that I think he passes notability.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:25, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep, based on reviews and sources found by E.M.Gregory. ABF99 (talk) 03:21, 18 January 2017 (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.