Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Edward Anthony Wharton Gill


 * 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. Listed for 12 days with no arguments for deletion aside from the nominator. (non-admin closure) Ron Ritzman (talk) 02:09, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Edward Anthony Wharton Gill

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Obscure early 20th century academic and author. No indication that this individual meets WP:PROF, WP:BIO or WP:GNG. Article is merely a (very) close paraphrase of very short entry in the provincial Dictionary of Manitoba Biography (the brevity of which would indicate that it is not "significant coverage"). find turns up no further relevant information. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 04:24, 5 July 2009 (UTC)


 * keep - coverage in a paper encyclopedia is sufficient evidence to indicate notability on its own. However, if desired it is not difficult to find additional coverage in reliable sources by search for Gill+the title of any of his books.  For example .  Additionally, I already rewrote the article to address the copyright concerns. --ThaddeusB (talk) 04:51, 5 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Question: can you point to any of the hits in the search you link to that amount to anything resembling "significant coverage", as opposed to mere mention? I would agree that substantial coverage in a major encyclopaedia would give some indication of notability. I do however question whether a very brief entry, in a 'Dictionary of Biography' of one of the smaller Canadian provinces, confers much in the way of status. I would further suggest that, even after your rewrite, it remains a close paraphrase of the DoMB entry. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 05:16, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The reason inclusion in a paper encyclopedia is sufficient for inclusion (IMO) is that the encyclopedia obviously had sources for their information. Thus there must exist the required sources needed to establish notability in a Wikipedia sense.  (See also list of sources below.) As to the paraphrase, well these are basic facts about his life (and thus not copyrightable).  I can't really change what it says without either finding more facts or removing some facts, so yes it is a paraphrase it the sense that it says the same things, but that doesn't mean it has copyright problems.

*weak delete Keep--see below. About 15 of the major canadianlibraries still have both his two novels. / ] That's not a lot; it indicates he is not famous, but for notability it would be necessary to look for reviews of them, to see the popularity it his day. Dictionaries of State or Province biography are I think not generally acceptable as sole sources for notability the way national biographical dictionaries are, because they tend to be indiscriminate. DGG (talk) 17:59, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  —David Eppstein (talk) 15:44, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions.  -- TexasAndroid (talk) 19:37, 5 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment - Gill and his works are covered by the following sources (among others). Unfortunately, only the first is available for free preview online.  However, I did leave off anything that was obviously a list and it is highly improbable that not a single one of the additional sources has depth to its coverage.
 * 1) Unnamed country: the struggle for a Canadian prairie fiction (1977) - dedicates about a page to discussion of Love in Manitoba - IMO, the level of coverage is about equivalent to a newspaper review (which would be considered significant coverage for a modern author), only written 60+ years later in a serious academic work
 * 2) Canadian writers and their works
 * 3) Letters from a young emigrant in Manitoba
 * 4) Manitoba, a history‎
 * 5) Manitoba authors
 * 6) Literary history of Canada
 * 7) The Macmillan dictionary of Canadian biography‎
 * 8) Winnipeg 1912
 * 9) Governing childhood
 * 10) The Dickensian
 * 11) 1929 Who's who among North American authors (probably meant more to be included back then than it does now)
 * 12) Vertical man, horizontal world: man and landscape in Canadian prairie fiction‎
 * 13) The Freewoman
 * 14) Review of Historical Publications Relating to Canada
 * 15) Canadian worker in the twentieth century‎

Additionally, most of these books were after his death and a large chunk after 1990. Surely if people are still talking about his work after 80+ years he is notable. We wouldn't doubt the notability of current author whose work has been reviewed by three reliable sources, and we shouldn't treat his historical figure any differently just because reviews are more difficult to find online. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:17, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The article in the Macmillan dictionary of CB describes him as a poet, and since he has no published poetry, I have my doubts on accuracy. That is not unusual in such works, & I am reluctant to assign notability on that basis alone.   The Harrison book includes a long paragraph as one of the many books discussed, which is enough to show it is not negligible; the Ffokes excerpt specifically says his works were popular, which does help.  The McGilvery note also shows that it is known as one of the representative books of its sort.  However, Klinck's Literary history cite seems to be about another Gill, & The Dickenson is a mention at a conference. All in all I think you have foundenough evidence that his books were well known as examples of their kind, and were popular at the time. I changed to a keep. DGG (talk) 02:47, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ( talk→  BWilkins   ←track ) 12:29, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.


 * Keep Looked into this one when it was prodded, didn't find too much, but was unsure. ThaddeusB's assiduous research and DGG's analysis of it convince me that this is worth keeping.John Z (talk) 09:08, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep ThaddeusB ahs show that ample sources exist. Edward321 (talk) 12:58, 14 July 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.