Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Erin Bow


 * 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. Sam Walton (talk) 10:33, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Erin Bow

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Delete. Advertorially-toned WP:BLP of a writer, referenced entirely to primary sources and databases with not one piece of reliable source coverage shown -- even the one source here that theoretically should count for something, Publishers Weekly, is a Q&A-style interview in which she's talking about herself, not an article being written about her or her work in the third person. Notability per WP:AUTHOR is definitely possible here, but like all notability guidelines it must be passed on the quality of the sourcing and cannot get a person in the door just because its passage is asserted. So no prejudice against recreation in the future if somebody can write and source it better than this, but it is not a keepable article in its current form. Bearcat (talk) 04:29, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete non-notable writer.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:31, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * , expect more than this throwaway line from such an experienced editor. Coolabahapple (talk) 13:08, 22 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep Thank you for letting me know this article was nominated for deletion. I believe Erin Bow is notable per WP:AUTHOR 4c - having won significant critical attention. The most well known award her work has received is the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award; her book that received the award already had its own wikipedia page (Plain Kate; notable per WP:NB 2. for winning that award), though her other novels and poems have received other awards and nominations, as well as generally favorable reviews. I have rearranged the page and added links to establish notability (library of congress, interviews, book reviews (including well known sources such as Kirkus Reviews and the New York Times), announcements of awards, articles about Bow). I'm not sure what else to do to change advertisement-like tone? Perhaps only listing "won" awards and removing nominations/lists? Is there anything else I should change? Scatter89 (talk) 04:48, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Replacing all the Goodreads and press-release and her-own-website and Facebook and blog and YouTube and ISFDB and online-bookstore "sourcing" with reliable sources would help, for starters. Bearcat (talk) 16:22, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Okay. I have not removed any references, but have supplemented with more reliable sources. I initially used goodreads, ISFDB, and her website, etc. for the sake of convenience. (It is easier to create a list of books and awards from databases that have already collected them, such as goodreads and authors' websites.) For the list of her books and basic information about them: WP:PROVEIT says that an inline citation must be provided for any material likely to be challenged. It doesn't seem likely that which books she wrote or publishing info would be challenged, but regardless, many of her books have been reviewed as well providing verification (see citations in the article). For the awards, I can see where that information would be challenged. Additionally, for Erin Bow's biography and personal life, WP:SELFPUB and WP:BLPSELFPUB indicate that self published and questionable sources can be used for sources of information about themselves (the person in the article), and that includes material published on social networking sites. Again, for the awards, I can see where self-published articles would be challenged and would require more reliable sources. I did confirm the receipt of the awards through the award websites listing previous award recipients, announcements of the award, and articles about the awards if available. Multiple citations are now shown for the awards and nominations, and for several best-of lists. The best-of lists could be easily taken out; she has plenty of awards listed as it is, and it can be hard to find the original best-of list, though I have been working on adding references to them. For my response about the author's notability and inclusion of reliable sources that support her notability, please see my other two responses below. Scatter89 (talk) 21:08, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * You can't use bad sources for "convenience" pending better sources — you have to use better sources right off the top. Just as an example, barely three weeks ago in the process of starting a new article about a GG-nominated poet, I found that his profile on GoodReads was incorrectly crediting him with a novel written a decade ago by a completely different American writer who merely happened to have the same name. So if I had used GoodReads to source that he was the writer of that novel, we would be wrong — the correct way to use that information was to Google for a reliable source which credited him with that novel, which is exactly how I found out that GoodReads was wrong about it. If you want to use GoodReads as a jumping off point to start researching proper sourcing — e.g. Googling to find a reliable source that credits her with a book listed in her GoodReads profile — then that's fine. But GoodReads cannot be put in the article as the citation for anything, not even as a temporary "convenience" source, because it's a user-generated source which can be and frequently is in error about things. And a person's own self-published website and/or social media profiles also cannot be the source for a notability claim, because then we'd have to keep an article about almost every single person who exists at all — you can only use that kind of sourcing to support basic biographical statements (such as where they went to school, where they live, their outness as LGBT if they're LGBT, etc.) that have no bearing on their notability or lack thereof. Is it easier to use that kind of sourcing than it is to do the work of tracking down reliable sources? Sure. But "easier" doesn't equate to "acceptable". Bearcat (talk) 17:23, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Every time you comment, I work to improve this article. I wrote it; I accept that it needs improvement. But this discussion could be held in the talk page. Now, Erin Bow is notable. This has been addressed in the article (particularly the current version, as I have added a variety of sources since it was first nominated). It has been addressed in other comments I have made further down in this discussion, and in other comments from others in this discussion. You may have read them. Erin Bow's website is used to support facts about her biography, not about her notability. That is what I meant above; perhaps I was not clear enough. The rest of my argument about her notability can be read below. I'm not going to repeat it here. Scatter89 (talk) 01:47, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 12:30, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 12:30, 22 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep, meets WP:ANYBIO, has won the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award. Coolabahapple (talk) 12:36, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Not a notability freebie in the absence of reliable source coverage about that award win. People have created articles about writers which falsely claimed winning of or nomination for a literary award that they didn't actually win or get nominated for — so even when true, the claim still doesn't get an exemption from having to be properly sourced. For one thing, the existence of media coverage about a literary award's nominee and winner announcements is the crux of how we determine whether that award is notable enough to make its winners or nominees notable for that fact. (The CBC Literary Award, for example, is the type of award that can't carry a writer's notability all by itself, precisely because it garners no media coverage outside of the CBC's own announcement of its own winners and the occasional passing mention in later coverage of writers who've cleared WP:AUTHOR for other distinctions later on.) So media coverage about her win of the TD award could help change the equation here — but the sources being cited for it in this version of the article don't cut the mustard for sourcing. Bearcat (talk) 16:22, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm relatively new to wikipedia (at least to extensive article editing), but here is what I understand of wikipedia guidelines. Per WP:ARTN, "Notability is a property of a subject and not of a Wikipedia article." and "...if the source material exists, even very poor writing and referencing within a Wikipedia article will not decrease the subject's notability." In your initial nomination, you stated that notability per WP:Author was definitely possible. Erin Bow is notable per WP:GNG, WP:ANYBIO 1. "The person has received a well-known and significant award or honor, or has been nominated for one several times," and WP:AUTHOR 4. The person's works (c) have won significant critical attention. An argument for deletion should be based on the person the article is based on, not on the quality of the citations in the article. WP:DEL1 says that articles should be deleted if through attempts to find reliable sources to verify them have failed. However, WP:ATD says that "...if editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page." WP:ATD-T lists tags, such as the refimprove tag, which could be applied rather than deleting the page. I have now added that tag.
 * For evidence that the author is notable, her books have been well reviewed in well known, reliable sources including but not limited to The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, Kirkus Reviews, and The Guardian. Many of the facts about her life can be confirmed by a news article in the Omaha World-Herald. Interviews with the author have been featured in (possibly less notable? I'm not familiar with them, but also am not from Canada) sources, including Quill & Quire and CBC Books (Canadian Broadcasting Company). Thus she has received significant critical attention (reviews, interviews, best of lists), received a well known and significant award or honor (TD Canadian Children's Literature Award for her book Plain Kate), and been nominated for one several times (she has been nominated for many awards, including the Sunburst Award twice). Can I ask if you have looked at the most recent version of the article? I have added additional sources and continue to do so.
 * As for whether the awards are notable, not all of them have to be (per WP:NNC, notability guidelines do not apply to content within an article.) Further, it is not the burden of this article to prove that the awards are notable, but rather that it was notable that the author received this award. For instance, is the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award notable? Or for that matter, are the Pat Lowther Award, the Sunburst Award, the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award, the Cybils Award, and the Canadian Library Association Young Adult Book Award notable? Those are all awards that Erin Bow has been nominated for or received. They all have wikipedia pages, and I suspect that reliable sources exist that verify their notability. However, it is not the burden of the Erin Bow article to provide sources in order to show that the awards are notable. It is the burden of the other wikipedia articles, per WP:PROVEIT, although as mentioned above, the current content of the articles has no impact on the subject of the article's notability (WP:ARTN).
 * On the other hand, proving that Erin Bow is notable is necessary for the article to continue to exist. This can be done by proving that she has received critical attention, or by proving that the event of her receiving or being nominated for an award is notable. As an example, proving that Erin Bow receiving the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award is notable is possible. The award was announced by the Canadian Children's Book Centre (in a press release, admittedly), and covered by the Toronto Star and CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) news.
 * Please see my other replies, one above, and one below. Scatter89 (talk) 21:08, 24 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment, oh, and meets WP:AUTHOR and WP:GNG, with plenty of other awards and her works have plenty of reviews, article reflects this. Coolabahapple (talk) 12:51, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment, actually this afd is pretty disappointing, looking back at the article version at the time of the afd, its obvious that the subject is notable, just need to look at the awards section (and although the references cited aren't the best, a quick search of the award sites would confirm them). Coolabahapple (talk) 13:01, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Winning a literary award is not an automatic notability freebie in and of itself, if your sources for that win are the award's own primary source press release about itself, her own self-published website and/or her user-generated author profile on GoodReads, which is the only kind of sourcing shown here for any of those awards — to confer notability, an award win has to be sourced to reliable source coverage about that award win in media. The problem remains that the sourcing is almost entirely non-reliable garbage, of the type that is not allowed to carry notability in a Wikipedia article. This discussion does not mean that she can never have an article — we have lots of articles where a bad, poorly sourced early version got deleted, but then somebody redid the article better than the first time and thus made the topic keepable — but nobody, regardless of the claim of notability that's being made in the article, ever gets to keep an article that's written and sourced like this. Bearcat (talk) 16:18, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * As noted above, per WP:ARTN, "Notability is a property of a subject and not of a Wikipedia article." and "...if the source material exists, even very poor writing and referencing within a Wikipedia article will not decrease the subject's notability." The notability of Erin Bow is not dependent on the sources present in the article at any given time, but whether or not those sources exist. Please see my 2 replies above. Scatter89 (talk) 21:08, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The reliable source coverage has to be shown to exist, not merely asserted to exist — anybody can claim that RS coverage exists of anything, so if the mere assertion that better sources exist were enough to get an article kept we'd have to keep outright hoaxes just because the existence of coverage had been claimed. Ideally, we prefer the better sources to actually be added to the article itself, although showing hard evidence of the better sources in the AFD discussion is also technically acceptable — but one way or the other, the better sources do still have to be explicitly shown, not just asserted as existing, before ARTN can become a valid counterargument to a notability question. Showing the sources can certainly change the equation — simply claiming that better sources exist somewhere, but not actually showing the hard evidence of that, does not. Bearcat (talk) 17:46, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
 * You wouldn't have to accept hoaxes if a search for reliable sources about an article failed (WP:DEL1). If reliable sources exist and can be found (as Coolabahapple noted in one of her original comments, a search of the award sites would confirm this author's notability), editing or tagging this article accordingly is the preferred alternative to deletion (WP:ATD) [Edited to add: Or asking me to add better sources via my talk page or the article talk page, since as the article creator the burden is on me to prove that the content is verifiable. Scatter89 (talk) 00:43, 27 October 2016 (UTC) ] Regardless, there are reliable sources in the article now. Scatter89 (talk) 22:27, 26 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Weak Delete, just not reaching notability, at this point. Too much promo fluff and non-RS citing, as well. If kept in the end, needs ce work and better citing. Kierzek (talk) 16:25, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * CE work? Scatter89 (talk) 00:47, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
 * CE = copyedit. Coolabahapple (talk) 07:02, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Scatter89 (talk) 15:15, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Comment do, do, do, do, do, - "Not a notability freebie in the absence of reliable source coverage about that award win. (my emphasis)" and "Winning a literary award is not an automatic notability freebie in and of itself, if your sources for that win are the award's own primary source press release about itself, her own self-published website and/or her user-generated author profile on GoodReads, which is the only kind of sourcing shown here for any of those awards (my emphasis)", article now has these two sources about the TD award (thanks to ) - "Russian-flavoured historical fantasy Plain Kate has won the $25,000 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award." Plain Kate wins $25K children's book award from CBC News, and "Plain Kate, a first children’s novel by Erin Bow of Kitchener, won the $25,000 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award Tuesday evening, after being deemed “best children’s book of the year,” by its judges." Plain Kate a beauty of a book from The Toronto Star, which are reliable, so i suppose a withdrawal of this afd would be in order? Coolabahapple (talk) 14:00, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep - sufficient coverage, e.g. see:, , , , . --Fixuture (talk) 22:40, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep - Article could use clean up, not deletion per WP:ATD. Hmlarson (talk) 03:38, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  MBisanz  talk 23:36, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep - Article is tagged for Copyediting, which should be done before any decision on deletion, per WP:ATD. I will mention this article to the GoCE.--Dthomsen8 (talk) 01:09, 1 November 2016 (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.