Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joyce Reason


 * 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. JForget 00:14, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Joyce Reason

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Prod disputed by article creator. Non-notable author, fails inclusion criteria listed at WP:GNG, WP:AUTHOR L0b0t (talk) 12:28, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Keep. Prolific author who appears prominent in a particular genre. Accepting references on good faith.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 19:01, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Keep. Many of her books (including Quaker Cavalier) are still in print seventy years after they were first written. Christian booksellers have special shelves for her youth books. A library search shows that her books are in every major Canadian library system - I assume the same would be true in the UK. I think she's far from being non-notable, but her notability is in a field which isn't well known by the average Wikipedian. --NellieBly (talk) 08:43, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Nobody is disputing the subject's existence or the fact that subject is indeed an author. However, subject has insufficient coverage in reliable secondary sources to merit inclusion in the encyclopedia.  "Accepting references on good faith" is not something we should ever do, references must be checked, vetted, and verified.  The article contains references but the vast majority are primary sources (the subject's published works).  There has been no non-trivial 3rd party coverage of the subject presented.  As such, the subject still fails all of our relevant inclusion criteria. L0b0t (talk) 12:42, 28 September 2009 (UTC)


 * No, I think that when an article is created by an established editor, as this one was, it is perfectly acceptable to accept in good faith the references provided, when they cannot be checked online. --JohnnyB256 (talk) 14:06, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * My apologies, I think I may have misunderstood you. Certainly, I did not mean to imply that the editor who presented the references did so in bad faith, only that our job here entails checking references (no matter who presents them).  That is essentially what AfD is for no?  We investigate and evaluate the presented references to see if they meet our editorial criteria.  Cheers. L0b0t (talk) 15:05, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * My point is that if libraries are still holding on to numerous copies of 70-year-old books - and my trip to the local library revealed that these books are still circulating regularly in three languages at that library alone - that their author is in my opinion notable simply because she's the writer of books that have stood the test of time. (Also, one 1951 book review I found in an old Winnipeg Free Press at the library claims that 10 million copies of her books had been sold by that time. To me that connotes notability no matter what she wrote.) Writers in this genre and of her age are very unlikely to have online fanbases or an online presence. Most importantly, there is nothing in the notability guidelines that says that sources have to be online - sources don't have to be available to every single reader with a click of the mouse; they just have to be out there. --NellieBly (talk) 03:56, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think anyone is claiming anything about sources being online. There is no such requirement here.  There is a requirement that before someone gets an article in Wikipedia, they be subject multiple non-trivial mentions in reliable sources.  If that means going to the library to look at old newspapers on microfiche or check out old books, then that is what one who wants to keep the article must do.  The fact that this person is an author that did exist is not in dispute but authorship of books, even a lot of books, does not equate to notability as defined by Wikipedia's inclusion criteria. L0b0t (talk) 04:32, 29 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep All the books, though published over 50 years ago, are still held in libraries. If appropriate newspapers of the period were widely available, there would be no problem finding reviews, either.    WorldCat shows 95 works, including translations into Swedish, German, and French--such translations generally imply notability. Even so, I;'ve found one: Chicago Tribune,  It's our systematic bias that this material is hard to find, and if were find some indication that a person before the online era would have sufficient coverage today, that's sufficient.    DGG ( talk ) 19:59, 28 September 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.