Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Homestead Book Company


 * 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   Userfy, but for the meantime Delete. &mdash; Joseph Fox 23:41, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Homestead Book Company

 * – ( View AfD View log )

This company does not appear to meet the applicable notability guideline at WP:CORP. The only link from the article is to the page of the company, and I have been unable to locate any reliable secondary sources that provide a nontrivial discussion of this topic. VQuakr (talk) 00:55, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions.  — • Gene93k (talk) 20:00, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions.  — • Gene93k (talk) 20:01, 3 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete per lack of notable mentions, media coverage in general. Aside from the company's website, I didn't see any media coverage or third-party sources on both Yahoo! and Google. SwisterTwister   talk  22:03, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep give me a shot at fixing it up... there is history here worth talking about, I know it... I'm surprised they're still going, the internet just makes real books obsolete today... I see major advertising ads all over with Waldenbooks, google books has a couple, this page almost makes me what a kindle, another bookstore hurt by the internet and kindle Borders Group has a page, I get it, the huge corporations always get special treatment.... But none of them ever offered a spore print to study under a microscope either... Grab a High Times mag, from any year, and I bet you'll see them mentioned in there... PF Tek has a page, Homestead offered the first magic mushroom grow kit I know of called the Homestead Mushroom Kit years before Prof. F hit the scene... Homestead championed freedom of speech too, offering up books on cannabis, LSD, mushrooms, meth and the like in the eighties and early nineties before the internet brought along Erowid and others... Homestead applies to several catagories too, American websites, Drug culture, Psychedelics, dissociatives and deliriants, Educational websites, Mycology, Cannabis Culture to name a few... Oh yeah,I'm a newbie too, so no biting, just give the new guy a chance... Sorry for being long winded... Ljettinger (talk) 18:55, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
 * A keep !vote copied from the talk page for this AfD: Dear Wiki Decision Makers: Deleting the Homestead page is so extreme. I can understand making edits to the material, but to totally remove the article on the grounds that it might be too much like an advertisement. Exactly what language needs to be softened? I personally worked at Homestead Book Company in the 1970's. This is why I looked for an article, found none and now I attempt to get something out on Wiki about this historical book distribution company in Seattle. Is it possible that I list myself as a reference and be considered credible (as I did develop the article-that seems to be just … my opinion) if I make a quote about "the fact" of Homestead existing then and now. I know as a first hand observer, Homestead distributed underground comics as a book distributor to shops in the Seattle area in the 1970's. Thankselizmichael (talk)Lizbeth M.
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:49, 10 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete Those arguing for more time to improve this article have been given a little more time to produces reliable sources that discuss this business. I have been unable to find any online.  Cullen 328   Let's discuss it  02:53, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep, they are not a major publisher, but as a distributor (wholesaler, with possibly exclusive distribution rights for some books/publishers), they are a major supplier of "underground" themed books to retailers. books that a retailer might be reluctant to purchase directly from a smaller publisher, they can purchase from Homestead with return privileges. thus, if book X from publisher Y doesnt sell, they can return it and use the credit to purchase book Z from publisher 0. if they had purchased directly from publisher Y, and if none of the selected books sold, any credit the retailer has with that publisher is useless. purchasing from homestead means they can try out a selection, then return those that dont sell for credit for more. as long as homestead always has at least a few bestsellers from major publishers dipping into the counterculture market, retailers will continue to use them as a source for the obscure. imagine being a retailer trying to keep accounts on 3000 small publishers, and you get the idea of how important this service has been. This model has allowed big businesses like Ingram Book Company, Baker & Taylor, smaller businesses like Bookpeople (distributor), Last Gasp and other local companies (L-S distributors, Pacific Pipeline, and many others,), to thrive through the 70s, 80s and 90s. the advent of amazon.com and disintermediation of the book industry meant that the margins the distributor/wholesaler lived off shrank to next to nothing. These companies, including homestead, helped create and grow the modern alternative book market in a way that the publishers alone could not have. there was nothing like having thes books ON BOOKSHELVES at that time. now, things are different, but notability is forever. if anyone can find enough sources to support this subjects history as being important, it should stay. of course, being an underground book wholesaler means they wont get a lot of press, and their heyday, along with bookpeople, was pre-internet. It would be sad if we lost this part of our history, esp. as the mission of WP itself is so similar to the mission of these and other book publishing pioneers such as the Whole Earth Catalog. They are in addition a major publisher of marijuana growing books, an important (if small in numbers) subset of the book industry. if people insist on more references, we would need more print references, so at least Userfy if nothing else. PS, 491 actual google hits for ("homestead book company" -wallace). wallace is part of the name of a different company, wallace-homestead. not too bad.
 * some possible references: this google book link shows them listed as a resource in a book on how to market your book. this shows one of their books reviewed in mother jones (not very good ref, i know). this is an interview with a Pacific Pipeline owner in a book on the industry. that should help. this is a mention in a very significant book on drug addiction. this is a brief mention in a book by andrew weil. Thats the best i can do for now.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 04:40, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * We don't count Google hits here. Two or three solid references that give significant coverage are vastly better than 491 Google hits that are passing mentions, blog references, Facebook pages, self published stuff and the like.  As of now, we don't even have one solid reference.  Cullen 328   Let's discuss it  04:59, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for trying, Mercurywoodrose, but every one of those is a passing mention, and there is no significant coverage whatsoever in what you've offered.  Cullen 328  Let's discuss it  04:55, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Your welcome, and thanks for acknowledging the effort (this project can get under my skin sometimes. Why do i try so hard with some articles?). I agree that i probably dont have enough additional references to clearly establish notability. And i should have prefaced the GHIT mention with the fact that it doesnt confer notability by itself. Likely the only way this will establish notability is if someone has not-yet-scanned print resources they can cite.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 15:32, 10 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Userfy - I am reasonably sure that this topic is notable per Wikipedia criteria, but I can't establish notability via online sources. One challenge in that regard is recentism; another challenge in online research is that many Internet firewalls block content related to counterculture topics. Notability is likely going to depend on print sources -- local news media, old copies of High Times, etc. A more serious issue is that the current article seems to have been mostly copied from the "History" page on Homestead's website. Being a counterculture organization, I imagine that Homestead doesn't believe in copyrighting its web content, but there is still a potential issue with WP:Copyvio. The content needs to be rewritten in the contributor's own words. It seems to me the best way to handle this for now is to move it to the contributor's user space for further development. --Orlady (talk) 16:30, 10 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment - Speaking as a historian, this is a cool little piece. Wikipedia is the poorer for not being able to make square pegs like this fit into round holes. The inevitable deletion here will, once again, go a long way towards turning off a newbie editor. We need to figure out how to fix that problem, too. It's difficult to see how this is going to end up a Keep given the notability rules that Jesus brought down from the mount less than a decade ago; please be sure to userfy it to minimize the damage. Maybe sources will emerge or we'll start wising up to the fact that information like this helps the encyclopedia. Carrite (talk) 23:12, 10 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep - Ignore all rules. Use common sense to improve the encyclopedia. Carrite (talk) 23:13, 10 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment Both Mercurywoodrose and I have written personal welcome messages to the new editor who is the author here. Each of us, in our own way, have explained the problems and encouraged the new editor to stick with Wikipedia.  I remember that Will Beback wrote me just such a friendly message when I first started editing, and it made a very favorable impression on me.  I encourage all editors to write personal welcome messages to newcomers, speaking directly and in a friendly manner about the specific challenges they are facing.  It helps make this a more welcoming place.  Just my two cents . . .  Cullen 328   Let's discuss it  01:45, 11 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment For what it's worth, I've thrown two references into the article, one slightly more than an entirely passing reference, the other entirely a bibliographic entry, but the latter surprisingly enough at the North American Mycological Association. --joe deckertalk to me 01:57, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. It's counter culture that nobody much cares about. Pleny of little orgs like this. Szzuk (talk) 12:13, 18 August 2011 (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.