Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bibliography of conservatism in the United States


 * 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. Michig (talk) 19:55, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Bibliography of conservatism in the United States

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WP:NOTCATALOGUE. Just a list of books, mostly non notable and unrefenced/original research. The list inclusion has all the hallmarks of an indiscriminate list. Ajf773 (talk) 19:30, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Bibliographies-related deletion discussions. Ajf773 (talk) 19:30, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Ajf773 (talk) 19:30, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Conservatism-related deletion discussions. Ajf773 (talk) 19:33, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United States-related deletion discussions. Ajf773 (talk) 19:33, 23 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep I have been the second-most active editor on that page, and I think that material is appropriate, and reasonably well selected.  The list is selected based on the evaluations and recommendations for further reading made by multiple scholars, both liberal and conservative.  Google scholar lists over 22,000 scholarly books and articles published since 2014 on the topic of American conservatism. see https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=1%2C27&q=american+conservatism&btnG=    This article lists only 125 titles, which are grouped so that the particular subcategories (like Biography) have a limited number of useful titles.  There are 18 books listed under biography, and they are scholarly studies of Buckley, Schlafly, Nock, Smith, Russell, Burnham, Helms, Taft, Mencken, Voegelin,  Reagan, Meyer, Hoover, and Whittaker Chambers. That is what selectivity looks like.  My approach was to start with the bibliographies of the major surveys (listed under "Surveys:), check the book reviews and the scholarly journals, and check number of times an an item is cited in Google scholar. For example, Google scholar shows that the Rossiter book is been cited over 400 times by other scholars. So not only is it mentioned, but I went through its recommended readings as well.  I also work through "America: History and Life " Which gives abstracts of scholarly articles and books dealing with the United States and Canada . It lists 3086 Different publications under the subject heading of conservatism. So what we have is a highly selected list, based primarily on the scholarly guides, bibliographies in the books on conservatism, and Books recommended in the review section of scholarly journals.  The critic who wants the entire article removed claims that the books are "mostly non notable and unrefenced/original research. "  Actually, The titles were mostly selected by Allitt, Critchlow, Filler, Frohnen, and Schneider,  in the books listed in the "Surveys" section, plus the items highlighted by the authors in the "Historiography" section (they Brinkley, Burns, Cowie  and Salvatore, Dochuk, Kazin, Lewis, McGirr, Phillips-Fein, Ponce de Leon, Ribuffo, and Zelizer. These historiographers are in fact mostly liberals who are often sharply critical of conservatism.  The editor who recommended deletion is User:Ajf773, who is from New Zealand, and perhaps is unaware of the intellectual ferment over conservatism in the United States in recent decades.  In the last couple days he has been indiscriminately listing numerous articles for deletion on a wide range of different topics such as List of Chip 'n' Dale merchandise and List of Super Bowl jersey colors worn--Well, okay, I agree with him on those--but my complaint is that he shows no familiarity with the large major topic of American conservatism. That requires someone who's actually read some of the appropriate books and articles which appears from major publishers and in major journals. Rjensen (talk) 23:04, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * from WP:WikiProject Bibliographies, the article should feature an explicit, discriminate inclusion criteria and the lead should establish the notability of the bibliography by citing at least two sources that demonstrate that relevant books, journals and other references on a specific topic have been discussed as a group., both of which the article lacks. Do you believe that this is remediable based on your methodology for inclusion? Acebulf (talk) 01:14, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Good point--I expanded the lead to include your concerns. The 15 articles listed under "Historiography" all discuss the bibliography. Rjensen (talk)
 * Comment I don't want to make an WP:OSE argument since Wikipedia does host a number of bibliographies like Pershing missile bibliography, Bibliography of Irish rail transport, List of books about the politics of science, et cetera. (I'm not sure they need to be on Wikipedia, either.) The problem I have with the list is it has no specific category for inclusion - an indiscriminate list as per nom - but possibly best brought as a policy discussion or a bulk delete (see Bibliography on American Communism. SportingFlyer (talk) 23:27, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 *  Neutral or Close and move discussion I think this should be a policy discussion on bibliographic articles, better held on WP:Village Pump/Policy than on here. Acebulf (talk)00:32, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Why would we need a policy discussion on bibliographies, just because the nominator is unfamiliar with them? The nominator can either clarify what about this specific bibliography poses a problem for them (the current kitchen sink rationale has a low signal to noise ratio; clearly "unreferenced" is meaningless as stated, given that this is itself a list of references), or do some reading at WikiProject Bibliographies and ask some questions there. postdlf (talk) 00:50, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
 * If I understand the policy discussed on the Wikiproject, there should still be evidence of the notability of a particular set of works put into the bibliography from coverage of the references itself as being notable. Does this mean that there should be non-trivial coverage of the bibliography as a subject per-se? I think such lists should at the very least include some sort of indication that the works listed therein are significant to the subject matter. Acebulf (talk) 01:07, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I expanded the lede to explain the selection criteria--there are books and articles recommended in the books and articles listed under "Surveys" and "Historiography." The latter is 15 articles that each look at what are the most useful titles for specific subtopics. I cite Kim Phillips-Fein who argued in a British journal in January 2018, "an entire field of scholarship has emerged to interrogate the roots, development, and persistence of modern American conservatism."  This is a bibliography of that field. Rjensen (talk) 02:36, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I think that does good on asserting notability. Well done. Acebulf (talk) 03:55, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep With the new changes (see above) reflecting the methodology and notability asserted, I don't see the need to delete the article. Acebulf (talk) 03:55, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep – While we have a whole category related to similar topics (yes, OSE), the listing here can be culled down to notable works or works by notable authors. – S. Rich (talk) 07:11, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep - We have lists of notable works and we have bibliographies that have a different inclusion criteria. I've come to understand the latter to be rather controversial (see the somewhat recently deleted Articles for deletion/Bibliography of Oakland, California, deleted largely for NOTCATALOGUE/INDISCRIMINATE reasons based on it including non-notable books). I considered starting a bigger policy discussion thereafter, but figured I'd wait to see if those rationales led to more deletion of such lists (after all, there is also an argument that there just aren't enough works about Oakland, which is not an argument that applies here). &mdash; Rhododendrites  talk \\ 17:00, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep - Whether or not the article needs changes, I don't think that deletion is the answer, as this is certainly an appropriate topic for a Wikipedia article and there aren't serious issues (e.g. defamation). Also, subjectively, it seems like a reasonably well-selected list to me. Orser67 (talk) 08:04, 27 February 2018 (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.