Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/House of Steel: The Honorverse Companion


 * 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 redirect‎__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__ to Honorverse. but this content remains in the page history in case any of it is needed for a Merge.

I just want to thank the participants here for a very civil discussion. You all were able to investigate the merits and possible notability of this article subject without being too wedded to your own desired outcome. You might be surprised how infrequently I see this in AFD discussions. Usually once an editor has identified themselves with a specific outcome, they argue it to the bitter end. I appreciate your open minds and willingness to consider perspectives other than your own. This is when Wikipedia consensus-building really works even if a Redirect isn't your preferred outcome. Liz Read! Talk! 01:59, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

House of Steel: The Honorverse Companion

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

This book sadly fails WP:NBOOK and GNG, being just a catalogue entry with a table of contents (no reception, rewards, reviews, etc.). I consider myself a fan of Honorverse, but my BEFORE failed to find anything except one capsule review (see Talk:House of Steel: The Honorverse Companion where User:Cunard was able to provide its contents). Cunard agreed that sources we have don't merit keeping this as a stand-alone entry, and as such, I propose a redirect to Honorverse, where I'll add the capsule review we found as a source in a moment. Since I dislike stealthy deletions by redirecting, I am listing this here, but since neither me nor Cunard could find anything to save this with, well, as much as I'd love to be surprised and see someone else step in, I have serious doubts we can do better than said redirect. Do prove me wrong if you can, of course. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:03, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Science fiction and fantasy, Literature,  and Military. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  02:03, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment. Here's an interesting source 461 words plus rating and content warnings. This is neither WP:UGC nor is it truly a WP:SELFPUBLISHED blug, as it has a editorial and review staff (listed only by first name), and some amount of editorial practices . The editor and assistant editor both have experience as professional or semi-professional writers. I don't see anything disqualifying, unless the lack of full names is a problem. &mdash;siro&chi;o 05:11, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks. The review is effectively anonymous (written up by "joe"). You are right they describe their staff members, including "joe", here, but I think we would all agree this website is an online fanzine, and pretty niche. Did the site win any awards or recognition for its coverage? Based on my experience with games reviews (board and video), I think this review can be cited, but it is not very helpful at estabilishing notability. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 08:14, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Fanzine is probably an apt descriptor. I don't see any awards. I do see some "minor" recognition, e.g from inclusion as a blurb from an independently published (not self-published) book or from agents/authors posting reviews of their client/own works eg . I definitely can understand the hesitance. I don't see any particular way in which this violates WP:RS, but the lack of full names gives me a moment's pause. &mdash;siro&chi;o 09:02, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Playing my own devils advocate, very RS outlets like The Economist also have anonymous or semi-anonymous pieces by default... sigh. It's more of my rule of thumb for reviews, as in, I don't think reviews from fanzines count for estabilishing notability. But this is very much my own rule of thumb, not somethign that is enshrined in community policies. Wonder if we could do an RfC somewhere on this? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 03:19, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Comment: The Analog Science Fiction and Fact review was the only source I can find about House of Steel: The Honorverse Companion:  The review notes: House of Steel: The Honorverse Companion. David Weber with BuNine. Baen, 565 pages, $15.00 (trade paperback). Baen ebooks: $9.99 (e-book) ISBN: 978-1-4516-3893-6. Series: Honor Harrington Genre: Military SF, Nonfiction. David Weber's Honor Harrington series, along with the universe of the books—known to fans as the Honorverse—was originally aimed squarely at military history buffs. Since then, the Honorverse has transcended its life of Horatio Nelson origin to become popular among all kinds of military SF readers. House of Steel is divided into two parts. The first 183 pages consist of Weber's Honorverse novella "I Will Build My House of Steel " This is the story of Lieutenant Roger Winton, first officer of HMS Wolverine in the Royal Manticoran Navy. Winton, who just happens to grow up to be king, gets an early education in intrigue among the Star Kingdom's foreign enemies—education that stands him in good stead when he takes the throne. The story's told with Weber's trademark friendly, breezy style. There's plenty of politics, action, and just enough humor. The second part of House of Steel is called The Honorverse Companion, and it was put together by the BuNine Research Group, an Honorverse fan group. Here are the background details of the Honorverse. There's military procedure and trappings, history, capsule biographies of important characters, and nearly two hundred pages of detailed notes (including diagrams) of military technology. In short, there's something for everyone. I can't imagine a fan of the Honorverse who wouldn't want this book."  The book is mentioned at Honorverse, so redirecting there is a good alternative to deletion per Deletion policy. I don't know if this article from my-sf.com is reliable or not as I've not encountered this website before. If it is reliable, the book passes Notability (books), which says: "A book is presumed notable if it verifiably meets, through reliable sources, at least one of the following criteria:The book has been the subject of two or more non-trivial published works appearing in sources that are independent of the book itself. This can include published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, other books, television documentaries, bestseller lists, and reviews. This excludes media re-prints of press releases, flap copy, or other publications where the author, its publisher, agent, or other self-interested parties advertise or speak about the book.</ol>" If it is not reliable, the book does not pass Notability (books). Cunard (talk) 07:07, 14 August 2023 (UTC) </li></ul>
 * Redirect to Honorverse per Cunard's suggestion. The sources provided so far seem insufficient for writing a quality encyclopedia article, and I was unable to find any more. It gives me pause that "MySF" itself doesn't seem notable and I'm also concerned by this "Review Request" page —they are not currently taking review requests, but they did at at least one point in the past .There are plenty of science fiction literary magazines that publish reviews and criticism (Besides Analog there's also Asimov's, Strange Horizons, Uncanny, Lightspeed, Tor.com, etc), as well as a decent number of genre-focused news outlets (The Verge, Polygon, Den of Geek, Wired, etc). I'd expect to see more substantial coverage for notable SF writing. Dylnuge  (Talk • Edits) 23:17, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
 * This is not meant to try to convince you to change your !vote, but only as a reply to the review request form note. I did see that review request form archive. It seems like a relative standard practice to accept review requests and review copies in the industry, this one just also happens to be a little more detailed. Overall, it's not too different to Strange Horizons which explicitly accepts review requests and explains how to submit, and Lightspeed  which accepts books for review. &mdash;siro&chi;o 23:36, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
 * This is a good point, and it certainly doesn't mean they're affected editorially (they claim requests are independent, and I see no reason to doubt that claim). I see some language on the archived page that makes me curious what the editorial standards are here; if they guarantee reviews to anyone who asks them (or pays for them) then for notability purposes I would consider it similar to Kirkus Indie. This is probably going too deep into the source though; given the broad coverage of the Honorverse series in general I doubt that happened here, and it's far more likely that "Joe" is a legitimate fan of the series who decided to review the compendium. Either way, I still don't see quite enough here to build a good independent article on the companion, but I suspect both this and the Analog review would be fine sources for expanding Honorverse—I might take a crack at that later this evening if no one beats me to it. Dylnuge  (Talk • Edits) 00:16, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I see Piotrus had already added the Analog source to the proposed redirect target, thanks! I cleaned up the existing prose a bit. There's not much more that can be said from the Analog review alone, reinforcing my thoughts that we don't have sufficient sourcing for a full article. Dylnuge  (Talk • Edits) 20:17, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Honorverse as a reasonable ATD. IMO mySF is between situational and unreliable. It is a Wordpress blog, which is generally a non-RS SPS unless there is evidence to the contrary (i.e., authors are subject-matter-experts, presence of editorial policies, and clear USEBYOTHERS). However, in this case I am concerned that 1) the staff are semi-anonymous, making it very hard to verify expertises, and only one of the editors as a technical writer possibly have expertise (though it's unclear if that's journalism or literary review related, which is required for subject-matter-expertise), another editor is semi-professional, whereas the rest does not have described qualifications at all, 2) there is otherwise no clear editorial process or editorial policy (I consider the list of staff and basic about us info to be distinct compared to overview of editorial processes), and 3) this basically has no usage by others except when authors and publishers very occasionally use this to promote their own works. Overall, I am unconvinced of reliability. This only leaves one reliable review found above, which is insufficient to pass GNG or NBOOK#1. Also, if someone adds the review above to the article, a light merge would also be fine.  VickKiang   (talk)  05:52, 15 August 2023 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> 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.