Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jacob Neusner bibliography (2nd nomination)


 * 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. This is obviously a close call, however, the fact that he appears to be "the leading author -- or at least the most prolific author -- in his field" sways me towards keep. The article needs wikifying and having links added to RS sources --  Phantom Steve / talk &#124; contribs \ 14:01, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Jacob Neusner bibliography
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

out of scope Ysangkok (talk) 10:52, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletion discussions.  -- --RrburkeekrubrR 13:42, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep - MOS suggests a separate bibliography article where the "list becomes so long that its inclusion in the main article would be unsuitable" (see Bibliography of Jorge Luis Borges or Robert A. Heinlein bibliography). The list is bloated and disorganized, but these are not reasons for deletion. --RrburkeekrubrR 13:58, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Weak delete per WP:EL: external links are acceptable to pages with large amounts of detail. Jacob Neusner contains an external link to the professor's web site, which lists his books. If page is kept or merged, the list should be trimmed to a handful of most notable items. Cnilep (talk) 15:03, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep per MOS. I think the list needs some organization by topic, but he has in fact written a very great number of books. A complete list is justified for people who are actually famous, not just notable, and the fact that it available elsewhere is irrelevant.   One key difference from his web site is that his web site cannot be copied --our article can be. `    DGG ( talk ) 05:02, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep per --Rrburke and MOS. Obviously this is way too long for the main article on Jacob Neusner and should be put in its own article. He sure has written a lot of books! Yoninah (talk) 14:22, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  —David Eppstein (talk) 19:48, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:NOT. An external link on the Jacob Neusner article (which is itself a mess) is sufficient. This disorganized list is neither encyclopedic, nor notable, nor helpful, nor worth editors' time to fix. THF (talk) 01:47, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:NOTDIRECTORY. There are other sites (worldcat and Google books come to mind) that are better for listing all books by an author, if a bare list is what one wants. I don't see the encyclopedic purpose of having it here. There are several types of good "X bibliography" articles:
 * In some cases, an author may be sufficiently noteworthy that there are multiple reliable secondary sources that describe and organize their works, and we can have an encyclopedia article that summarizes that research.
 * In other cases, the author has a large number of works that are individually notable and have their own articles, and the list of publications serves the purpose of allowing readers to navigate to those articles.
 * There may be a large number of secondary works about that author that themselves are in need of organization. In this case the bibliography article can serve as an extended "additional reading" section for a main article.
 * But I don't see any of these rationales as applying in this case. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:47, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Cirt (talk) 11:53, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.


 * Comments Neusner is probably the leading author -- or at least the most prolific author -- in his field. see and ; Probably quite a few of them should indeed have their own articles--I think his translations of the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds in particular merit specific articles. What we can do that WorldCat cannot -- or at least does not--is organize the material--not that the present article does it at all well.   DGG ( talk ) 02:37, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete we are not a directory.  JBsupreme  ( talk ) 07:49, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep- Don't see how this is any different from other bibliographies we have on site. As was said earlier in the AFD, its standard practice to split out works when a full list would overwhelm the main article, and that seems the case here. Umbralcorax (talk) 17:40, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete with prejudice towards other bibliography articles per WP:NOT. Madcoverboy (talk) 08:04, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep per Rrburke's find in WP:MOS: "Lists of published works should be included for authors". VernoWhitney (talk) 18:26, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * But said published works should be included on the author's article, not spun out into a standalone article. As has been stated before, Wikipedia is not a directory. Madcoverboy (talk) 19:12, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * But further on in WP:MOS: "a separate article for a list of that person's works ... is warranted if the list becomes so long that its inclusion in the main article would be unsuitable." And I don't see that WP:NOTDIR applies in this case: it's not a directory or complete exposition of all possible details as it (explicitly) lacks articles, reviews and the like. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:49, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * As DGG said, the article does not organize it particularly well, but that's not an issue worthy of deletion. VernoWhitney (talk) 20:05, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * First, can supporters cite the specific MoS guideline, rather than waving their hands in the general direction of the entire WP:MOS? Second, I've read the debate at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(lists_of_works)/Archive_2 and it's not entirely clear to me how this became a style guideline, although good arguments are made by both sides there that need not be revisited here -- though I would fall on the side of views that argue that this is WP:OR, WP:UNDUE, and needlessly exhaustive for an encyclopedia. I would suggest that a RFC may be in order to generate broader consensus on this issue. My vote, however, remains a delete: if not a single one of this author's works warrants a Wikipedia article, how then is a list of them notable? Madcoverboy (talk) 20:46, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, Madcoverboy, I did cite a specific MOS guideline in my "keep" vote, but it printed just as "MOS". I cited Manual of Style (lists of works), which says:
 * "If an article already exists on an author or artist, then a separate article for a list of that person's works (such as Bibliography of Jorge Luis Borges or Robert A. Heinlein bibliography) is warranted if the list becomes so long that its inclusion in the main article would be unsuitable."
 * (And the list of works by Jacob Neusner is definitely long!) Yoninah (talk) 21:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep Per MOS per Rrburke. It also seems to me that the existence of a substantial dead-tree published bibliography or bibliographic essay on an author, e.g. the one referred to in the Jacob Neusner article, something which exists only for the most notable and prolific in any field,  is sufficient for a separate bibliography article, per the GNG. Editions of collected papers and works may also reasonably count here toward David Eppstein's first criterion above:  for Neusner see  review of a volume here.  This is independent of the existence of articles here on any particular work. Asking for multiple bibliographies (especially in the different case of a deceased subject) is too much and a good example why "multiple" shouldn't be a rigid requirement in the GNG.  It's like asking for multiple editions of collected works. Unless it's botched, why would anyone redo it?  In the cases of such prolific authors, it is inevitable that there will be real value to be added by a bibliographic article, telling us publication histories, saying which work is another one retitled, how X recycled parts of Y, how X appeared in several different publications, etc.John Z (talk) 00:20, 5 March 2010 (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.