Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bec (novel)


 * 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. If any individual novel from the bundle lacks sourcing, please mind WP:ATD-M before renominating. czar 02:53, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Bec (novel)

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Individual books in this series lack significant coverage and fail to meet WP:NB, with the exception of Lord Loss, which won a major award and thus passes WP:NB. No claims of notability or RS in the articles. Also no claim of notability in the series' main article, but if that's remedied, WP:NEXIST applies. Reviews that exist of individual books are user-posted, paid from sources who allow authors to pay for reviews (e.g. Kirkus), or blogs. All articles listed consist of almost nothing but plot details. I am not including Dark Calling in this nomination because it's up for speedy deletion under CSD G4 (previously deleted via AfD).

With that explanation, I'm nominating the following articles on books in this series in addition to Bec:
 * Skeletor3000 (talk) 23:36, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Skeletor3000 (talk) 23:36, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Ireland-related deletion discussions. Skeletor3000 (talk) 23:36, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. Skeletor3000 (talk) 23:36, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Skeletor3000 (talk) 23:36, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Skeletor3000 (talk) 23:36, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Ireland-related deletion discussions. Skeletor3000 (talk) 23:36, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. Skeletor3000 (talk) 23:36, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Ireland-related deletion discussions. Skeletor3000 (talk) 23:36, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. Skeletor3000 (talk) 23:36, 6 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Redirect all to The Demonata or Darren Shan' – I agree with nom's assessment of the subjects' claims to notability. Redirecting to The Demonata would be the most natural from a flow-of-information perspective, but that article's sourcing also seems to be deficient and it's not clear that we should keep that one around either, at least as currently written. signed,Rosguill talk 00:30, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Merging everything to The Demonata would probably be okay but I suspect some of these books do meet WP:NBOOK. A search on ProQuest reveals that Demon Thief was reviewed by School Library Journal and The Times Educational Supplement  among others. Haukur (talk) 08:42, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment, did the nominator even consider "redirects" to the series page of what are popular books of a very popular author? Coolabahapple (talk) 06:46, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment, and another thing, the nominator says that reviews are "paid (e.g. Kirkus),...", can they please provide us with proof that this is so? i know that some organisations do provide such a service, although looking at kirkus it appears to be indie authors only?, but to allege that this author's reviews are such may be bordering on the slanderous? Coolabahapple (talk) 07:05, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep, another bundle of afds that a nominator expects other editors to spend their time finding reviews instead of doing it themselves, having a look at Shan's page of reviews for this book we find The Westmorland Gazette - here, The Echo - here, The Independent - here, The Irish Post - here, Business Post - here, unfortunately i don't have access to the physical reviews to confirm whether these are reader or independent reviews (hopefully there are editors that do:)), but that doesn't matter as here we have reviews from School Library Journal and The Horn Book Magazine, and here (about halfway down) a review from Voice of Youth Advocates thus meeting WP:NBOOK (multiple independent reviews), expect the other titles to be the same (see listed reviews of Demon Thief above). Coolabahapple (talk) 07:26, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep all the above comment is honestly selling it short, take a gander at this page . signed,Rosguill talk 08:51, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep thanks to for doing the work I put off doing yesterday. The sourcing presented by cool shows notability under WP:NBOOK and WP:GNG. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:48, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment The reviews you listed along with others I saw on Shan's site are not significant coverage, in my opinion. I can accept if my idea of significance does not align with consensus, and will make adjustments accordingly, but your claim that I'm being lazy and expecting others to do the work for me is short-sighted and in bad faith. The Westmoreland review reads as if the reviewer has never read Bec. It talks primarily about Shan's other books and goes no deeper than a regurgitation of Bec's flap copy, cliffhanger closing line and all. The Echo review is nothing but a description of the plot accompanied by brief praise for Shan's previous books. The Independent review is a user-submitted fan write-up by a 14 year old 1. The Irish Post review is a single paragraph, consisting again for praise of Shan's previous books, plot summary, and a single sentence of commentary on Bec: "An excellent read." The Business Post review is similar, focusing on the author's previous works with the exception of one sentence about Bec. I checked reviews for every book I listed, through Shan's page and numerous Google search strings. I did not have access to search on ProQuest, which may garner more significant reviews, but I put substantial work into investigating each book listed. If these reviews qualify as significant in spite of their lack of depth, I can accept that I need to recalibrate my expectations. Laziness, however, is not the issue, and I reject your assertion. As for the Kirkus claim, I only meant that the site allows authors to pay for reviews and is not a reliable source. I can see that I phrased that poorly and I'll adjust it. Thanks. Skeletor3000 (talk) 23:54, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I didn't find any really meaty reviews either, which is why my comment above is so half-hearted. The School Library Journal review of Demon Thief is a brief plot summary followed by this: Demon Thief follows Lord Loss (Little, Brown, 2005), the first volume in this grim and very gory series from the author of the "Cirque du Freak" books (Little, Brown). Readers who love the ghastly and demand a fast pace will be asking for more.-Walter Minkel, New York Public Library Traditionally, even short reviews qualify under WP:NBOOK as long as they are demonstrably independent, but this is pushing it a bit. Haukur (talk) 00:08, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
 * FWIW this is a pretty standard review example in SLJ (and LJ). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:47, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
 * and so, even if we discount the author's listed reviews (not that im necessarily doing so:))we still have kirkus (still no proof offered that they received money for their review, start down the generalised "but they do carry out some reviews for money" and we may as well discount all reviews from newspapers/magazines/journals that carry any advertisements from publishers/book sellers as it could be argued that they are not independent), we have slj (short but is it trivial or non-trivial (from nbook)? - after all, the poetic form of haiku is short ie. 17 syllables but is it trivial?:)), horn, another "short but sweet" review and VOYA, hence multiple reviews. Coolabahapple (talk) 16:21, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
 * A publication directly taking money for reviews is not comparable to having advertisements related to content (standard practice for any publication containing ads, for obvious reasons). Same goes for comparing a book review to a haiku. These are very strange arguments. Skeletor3000 (talk) 17:28, 10 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment I'm much more fascinated in the Kirkus discussion here, but honestly, I'm not sure how it applies... I can't find any Kirkus reviews for the works that are listed on this AfD.  Neither on the Kirkus site nor on any of the review compilations from his site (note that he does list Kirkus for other works). Perhaps in print-only Kirkus issues?  I could only find Lord Loss, which was intentionally omitted from the nomination (and not paid for, see below). I found the Kirkus topic interesting, so I searched and found these previous discussions on the Reliable Sources archives: Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 180 and Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 190.  Bottom line, it seems that you want to look for an indicator at the bottom of the review saying "Program: Kirkus Indie" to know if it is paid for by the author.  Here are two examples:  and .  All of the Darren Shan hits in the Kirkus link I provided earlier are not part of this program (e.g. Lord Loss). (Again, none are on this AfD, either.) All that said, each review still needs to be assessed individually since a showing reliability and notability are different.  -2pou (talk) 19:39, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
 * FWIW I am also not aware of any reviews of any of these titles in Kirkus. I still maintain other review sources are more than adequate to establish notability per Cool uner NBOOK. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:48, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you for that info! I was also unable to find info on the Kirkus site regarding how to differentiate their reviews, but had not seen the Wikipedia noticeboard discussion. You're also correct that I did not even need to mention Kirkus in the nomination. While searching, I found the reviews of other Shan books on the site, but neglected to double back when writing my AfD to see that none of the books in question were listed there. Thanks for your comments.
 * My takeaway here is that I need to adjust my expectations of what depth is necessary to meet WP:NBOOK. I appreciate your comments as well. Skeletor3000 (talk) 19:52, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   08:10, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I think the upshot is to keep this for now. Haukur (talk) 09:34, 14 December 2019 (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.