Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dust (His Dark Materials)


 * 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 as per consensus. If there is WP:OR it can be handled without deleting as WP:DINC. (non-admin closure) Kj cheetham (talk) 21:36, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Dust (His Dark Materials)

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

No reliable independent sources to establish notability for this, as per WP:SIGCOV. Article is entirely WP:OR. Jontesta (talk) 01:49, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Jontesta (talk) 01:49, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment Guardian ref seems super solid. There’s also a LOT of results for “what is dust in his dark materials” if you Google it, though a lot of that is for the TV show not the book. Sorting out if they are different between the two and restructuring the article around that might be an idea. Artw (talk) 02:41, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science fiction and fantasy-related deletion discussions. Artw (talk) 03:47, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep Was there a WP:BEFORE search done, and the referenced article, His Dark Materials: A look into Pullman's interpretation of Milton's Paradise Lost, checked out, before claiming "No reliable independent sources to establish notability for this"? It is not the current content of the article, which decides notability, but what sources exist in general. Using the deletion process, but ignoring how it should be done, like skipping the WP:BEFORE step, is WP:Disruptive to the improvement of Wikipedia! Now to the content, I think this article relies too much on primary sources, but as long as no conclusions are drawn beyond the information which is present in Pullman's books, than it's not original research. "If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page." So are there secondary source which could be used to balance content based on primary ones? The linked Mythlore article goes into detail on Dust, the book His Dark Materials Illuminated: Critical Essays on Philip Pullman's Trilogy has a lot of discussion of Dust, like the whole chapter 12: Circumventing the Grand Narrative: Dust as an Alternative Theological Vision in Pullman's His Dark Materials; or this paper “Without Contraries is no Progression”: Dust as an All-Inclusive, Multifunctional Metaphor in Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials”; or this PhD thesis Nature, gender, and Dust: An ecocritical reading of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy; I could go on. So WP:SIGCOV is no problem whatsoever if one does a very quick search in Google Scholar or Google books. The links are right there in the Deletion header "Find sources: ...". Daranios (talk) 07:25, 28 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Comment The Guardian article is wholly on the book's release (which, mind, is notable and merits its own article). The article is mostly OR. JJLiu112 (talk) 07:49, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Three-and-a-half of the short paragraphs the The Guardian article consists of are dedicated to the concept of Dust, rather than The Book of Dust specifically. Daranios (talk) 08:26, 28 June 2022 (UTC)


 * This is a 2nd AfD nomination for this article – the first one was lumped together here: Articles_for_deletion/Races_and_creatures_in_His_Dark_Materials I'm guessing that not a lot of work went into fixing the article after it was kept the last time, as there certainly is a large body of secondary source material on the topic. Possibly not enough awareness/attention from those editors with sufficient background in citing literary analysis appropriately. (Not sure if I can help but will take a look.) This is a good example of the need for follow-up clean-up AFTER an article is "kept" through the AfD process. Otherwise we waste cycles nominating and discussing the same articles over and over again.) Cielquiparle (talk) 08:39, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * “ This is a complex discussion, to the point that some people have suggested that it should be closed as WP:TRAINWRECK.” - lot going on there to have expectations coming out of it TBH. Artw (talk) 13:57, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * What I meant was that there probably is a broader community of editors who don't regularly follow AfDs, who would have happily helped to improve the page after it was kept, had they known that it had come under so much scrutiny. Cielquiparle (talk) 18:22, 29 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep on the basis that reliable independent sources do exist, as established in the previous AfD discussion and above, some of which has been added to the article now. Per the article Talk page, past editors have worked on trying to address the OR issues. Further work can and should be done to fix and improve this, but this alone is not grounds for deletion. Cielquiparle (talk) 13:38, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep have added a couple of refs and mentioned the TV show, which largely seems to treat things the same - we should probably make a note of any differences if they come up. Artw (talk) 14:20, 29 June 2022 (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.