Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bushidō literature


 * 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 speedy keep / withdrew. Green Cardamom (talk) 05:55, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Bushidō literature

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Article is essentially original research. It was apparently originally created in good faith by User:OzzieB based on the belief that the Bushidō article was too long and needed to be split. Whether or not the latter article is still too long and cluttered 6 years later is inconsequential, since "bushido literature" as a term does not describe an independent area of study, and if it did it certainly would not be structured like this article. The bushidō code post-dates almost all of the literature discussed in this article, and it appears no sources are cited that actually use the phrase "bushidō literature". Google searches indicate that the term at least exists, but there is no evidence that it is covered extensively and nothing to indicate why it merits an independent Wikipedia article. (28 Google Books hits and 4 Google Scholar hits, although the latter seem to all be written by film historians with little discussion of "bushido literature" itself.) I am posting the page here rather than simply proposing it, because I am not exactly sure if it should be deleted or made into a redirect to Bushidō or some other sensible location. The material in the article may be valuable, and so I initially considered unilaterally making it into a redirect and posting this on the bushidō talk page, but I figured it would be better to establish consensus here. elvenscout742 (talk) 01:04, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I considered informing OzzieB of this discussion, but then I noticed that he had made less than 100 edits, all but three of them within a two-week period in summer 2006. This is not evidence against the article, but just to point out that it's not bad faith for me not to inform the article's creator even though I mention him in the nomination -- I just don't think he'd notice if I did. elvenscout742 (talk) 01:11, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

(Also, I'm not sure if it was appropriate for me to post it here just to generate discussion, but it worked before.) The problem is that the works do not discuss bushido. Most of them predate the formulation of the bushido code, and reliable sources do not generally discuss them in relation to bushido; the "Early literature" section in particular looks like it's completely OR/fringe. The original justification for the page's creation was that the Bushidō article was too long and cluttered, but this no longer appears to be the case. I say we make the page into a redirect, copy some of the relevant-looking content into the main Bushidō article, and leave the rest in the history so future editors can decide what to merge. elvenscout742 (talk) 01:48, 29 November 2012 (UTC) Change of heart While eating a kara-age bentō at my desk, I came to an epiphany. If we take Green Cardamon's suggestion above to rename the article to Bushidō in Japanese literature, and take it a step further to Keep and Rename the article to Samurai in Japanese literature we can solve all our problems. Since "samurai" is essentially the English word for a pre-Meiji Japanese warrior, we avoid prickly WP:OR issues raised by application of the modern word/concept of "bushidō" (as well as the modern definition of the word "bushi") to ancient and medieval Japan. We also open up the article to discuss the material covered in a huge volume of literature and perhaps ultimately become a Good Article! :D elvenscout742 (talk) 03:18, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I suspect that "Bushidō in literature" is a notable topic. Have you looked for Japanese language sources ? There's unlikely to be a terrible amount on it in English. Claritas § 11:54, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * There's a Chinese language book called "Bushido in Contemporary Japanese Literature" by Guan Li Dan (China Social Sciences Press, 2009) -, which would presumably be a good place to start. You introduce systematic bias if you only look for source material in English. Claritas § 12:02, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep and Rename to Bushidō in Japanese literature. The article is a list of Japanese works (pre-20th century) that have content related to Bushido. The title "Bushido literature" gives the wrong impression of a literary or scholarly tradition. It should be renamed to "Bushido in Japanese literature". I have no problem with an article like this. There are other "in literature" topic articles on Wikipedia (Blindness in literature, List of knitters in literature, etc). The book Claritas found supports it as a legitimate area that has been studied so we are not in total left field (unlike knitters in literature!). -- Green Cardamom (talk) 20:10, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * (I'm not sure if the above comes across as sarcastic, but it's not supposed to. My suggestion is serious, as my withdrawal of the suggestion to delete. This article should be renamed and transformed into into an encyclopedic article on samurai in Japanese literature. elvenscout742 (talk) 03:20, 29 November 2012 (UTC))
 * I agree Samurai in Japanese literature is a great idea. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 05:46, 29 November 2012 (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.