Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/An Empire Of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood


 * 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. \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 19:36, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

An Empire Of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

As per WP:NOTPLOT and WP:NOTPAPER, this article reads like a high school book review, relying heavily on plot summary and "Author said this" type sentences. Frmatt (talk) 19:18, 19 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete as nominated. Crafty (talk) 19:21, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep – Based on the following write ups in such publications as the New York Times – Boston Herald – Time – Los Angeles Times – Chicago Sun-Times – Washington Post – Jerusalem Post and on and on and on as shown here . By the way, nice job to the author of the article, very nice job. Thanks ShoesssS Talk 19:35, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment - Could you please provide links to the actual references and not simply to their wiki pages? This would allow us to see whether they are simply reviews or something more indepth.  WP:ITEXISTS is not a valid reason to keep a WP page. Frmatt (talk) 19:45, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I did as shown above under [1], but no problem here they are again, . P.S.:  especially with books, one of the ways to judge notability is if they are reviewed or not and who does the reviews.  In fact, that is the primary area to establish notability with printed material.  Hope this helps. ShoesssS Talk 19:51, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Delete: Title sounds racist. Rewrite from a NPOV - Ret.Prof (talk) 19:56, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment I've removed the rewrite of the book (the "Chapters" section) of the article. No opinion on keep or delete at this time. Hipocrite (talk) 19:48, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Question: Hippocrite: can you help me understand the "plot summary" policy? The reason I put a "chapter by chapter" description in this article is because I saw that in a couple of other non-fiction book articles, such as God is Not Great.  I was not aware of the WP:PLOTSUM policy, but I just read it, and it says "plot summaries are okay for works of fiction" but it appears to be silent on non-fiction books.   Im willing to admit that _this_ article was poorly written, and too quote-heavy (which I deliberately did to remove any hint of bias due to editor's own paraphrases), but what is the general rule on chapter-by-chapter descriptions of non-fiction books?  --Noleander (talk) 16:48, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions.  -- – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 19:50, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The title is the actual name of the book. I think you may have misread?  Thanks ShoesssS Talk 19:59, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Ret. Prof: Thanks for proving my thesis that many of the "Deletion" recommendations are worthless because the editors did not read the article :-)  --Noleander (talk) 20:03, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I have not read the book but, I have read the article...A very very unhappy Keep - Ret.Prof (talk) 20:12, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * No problem. Anyone with a photo of Ghandi on their home page is all right by me.  --Noleander (talk) 20:17, 19 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep Please remember that we do not delete articles because they are poorly written; we delete articles because the topic is non-notable. This book is a winner of the Los Angeles Times book award for history and was the basis for a television documentary. I believe this book easily meets the notability criteria for books. Problems with the writing style of an article are never an appropriate reason for deletion. Ben Kidwell (talk) 19:56, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep The book is an excellent history book, on a topic (the early years of Hollywood) that is of widespread interest to Americans, in fact, to much of the world.  The book was so well accepted, it was turned into a documentary movied that aired on A&E, which is where I first saw it.  As I created the article, I thought "gee, this could be perceived as antisemitic", so I structured the article to simply capture the authors thesis in his own words (he _is_ the secondary source, by the way, the primary sources are the Hollywood figures that he quotes directly).   Perversely, that decision to avoid using my own words (and risking the accusation that I put my own bias into the article) is being used to support deletion of the article (using the logic that "the article is just a bunch of quotes from the book").  Sigh.    Can we agree that the book and movie are notable?  That the subject is of broad and longstanding interest?  If so, can we focus on improving the article, rather than just deleting it?  --Noleander (talk) 20:01, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 *  A very very unhappy Keep: Sounds more than a little racist but it easily meets the notability criteria for books. Ret.Prof (talk) 20:07, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 *  weak keep. I am not concerned about anti-Semitism here -I know of no notable figure who has accused Gabler of being an anti-Semite and the book got a decent review from the New York Times - this is a book published by a respectable press.  But it is the work of a film-critic (whose argument is that the men who made Hollywood had fathers who were failures, and who wanted desperately to buy into the American dream and be treated as Americans and not Jews, and who would be seen as contributing tsomething of value to their new home).  My problem with this article is that ti does read like a high school book report.  I'd like to see more context, how the book as been reviewed or used by scholars in different fields, and so on. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 20:10, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that the article could be made much, much better. I am not the editor to do that:  I am not a historian, nor an expert on Hollywood.  I was hoping to just jump-start the article and let other editors take it from there.  --Noleander (talk) 20:19, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I understand. It is a shame that Wikipedia, however much it has grown, still lacks the editors to help out with something like this.  perhaps we need a new stub template leaving room for specific suggestions about what further help we need (or maybe that can be the outcome of a rejected RfD).  It would be great if a sociologist or historian with appropriate knowlege could read this article and fill in the gaps.  Great, but I am not holding my breath ... Slrubenstein   |  Talk 17:00, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment - Having seen the removal of most of the book excerpts, and seeing the possible addition of scholarly criticism, I'm starting to re-consider my nomination...but I will continue to watch this AfD and see where the conversation leads. To Ben Kidwell: I didn't nominate it because it was poorly written, I nominated it because as it was written when I looked at it, it failed the guidelines that I quoted.  It still only sources itself and has no third-party sources, which is a continued major issue. Frmatt (talk) 20:31, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * keep Book is clearly notable. Any claimed issues with the presentation and description in the article can be dealt with by standard editorial means. Whether anyone likes the content of the book is also irrelevant. JoshuaZ (talk) 21:52, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - the only assertion of notability for the book is that it was adapated into a (non-notable) documentary. Therefore not notable. - DustFormsWords (talk) 23:16, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep The notability of it is shown by the 250 GNews items,, almost all of which are primarily about the book, or the book in combination with the film.  just looking at some of the major reviews, there  are full books reviews in  the NYTimes--which gave it an award  reported in the LA Times  (and a full NYT review has almost always been considered by itself to make a book notable, as they are very selective) ,  TIME ,  the Washinton Post , the Jerusalem Post , the LA times , and even a prepublication article on the book in the NYTimes .    DGG ( talk ) 05:40, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep Numerous book reviews indicate notability. — Malik Shabazz 20:30, 21 October 2009 (UTC)


 * keep CLearly notable. No good reason to delete given. Paul B (talk) 20:59, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. This is a significant and reasonably influential book about the history of the Hollywood film industry.  It's frequently mentioned in popular and scholarly works about Hollywood. (300+ GScholar hits ) --Arxiloxos (talk) 21:57, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * keep to have a page dedicated to a book does not mean it is right. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Olivemountain (talk • contribs) 02:33, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep As above, plenty of reviews for this, make it notable.  D r e a m Focus  11:57, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep The book's apparently large readership and the reviews about it make it notable, as per the comments above. The article is missing descriptions of the book's critical reception, any controversies it caused and overall influence, which might blunt the charges of racism in the article.  --AFriedman (talk) 16:35, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep terribly written article, but it's a notable book.Bali ultimate (talk) 18:36, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep highly notable book, article can be easily improved and given enough references.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 05:50, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Legitimate well researched publication and article, although the Title is a little shrill--Jemesouviens32 (talk) 13:31, 25 October 2009 (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.