Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Leigh Brackett's solar system fictional world (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   delete. (soft) slakr  \ talk / 09:17, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Leigh Brackett's solar system fictional world
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I marked this and related pages (Venus in the fiction of Leigh Brackett, etc.) as candidates for deletion and it was proposed that they be merged instead. However, I think merging is an unsatisfactory compromise. First, as un-sourced articles describing a subject in an in-universe style, merging does not address the main issues of notability and verifiability. Second, as these pages are primarily the work of one user, the proposed merge is unlikely to be addressed any time soon, so I think it's worth resolving the core issues.

I understand editors sometimes errs on the side of caution with these in-universe articles, but I wanted to raise the discussion one more time. In short, I think these pages fail the notability test, and as in-universe explanations, can only be "verified" by the fiction they come from. Geethree (talk) 14:37, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica1000 14:41, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science fiction-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica1000 14:42, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica1000 14:43, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Strong Keep Leigh Brackett is considered to be a major figure amongst women sf writers, becoming a Science Fiction Hall of Fame inductee in 2014. As such her work passes any notability test. The question regarding this and associated articles concerns the lack of sufficient references and citations. I have added several today and believe that a small amount of work will further enhance the articles to ensure they meet Wikipedia guidelines. Perry Middlemiss (talk) 22:56, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

I am not disputing Leigh Brackett's notability, but the notability of these specific articles—which do not discuss her work but fictional elements within her work, lowering their notability, see WP:BKD. IMO this basically falls under the problems implied by WP:FANCRUFT. Are there multiple independent sources that discuss these elements in substance? (One of the sources just added to the page references the very articles we're discussing here, which edges pretty close to WP:CIRCULAR, and I do not think the other sources can be said to discuss this topic in substance.)

That said, it's very possible I'm wrong here. However, I don't think we can take for granted that these pages inherit Brackett's notability.Geethree (talk)


 * I'm not sure how an argument can be run that implies that the fiction of a person who is notable for writing fiction is not itself notable. If the fiction isn't notable then the person isn't either.  And also, if the person is notable then the fiction is as well.  The point about this encyclopedia entry is that it brings together all the various streams of Brackett's fiction, thereby enhancing her notability rather than reducing it. I look on this piece as being similar to the Known Space article about Larry Niven's fictional universe.  Does that diminish Niven's notability by diluting the content?  I don't think so.  I suspect that much more work has been done on Niven's piece than Brackett's which is why I believe it needs to be added to the Wikipedia Science Fiction Project as a page in need of work.


 * I am aware that some of the articles used as references also mention this Wikipedia article but I attempted to only reference those sections which were new and not self-referential.


 * As stated earlier, Brackett was a Science Fiction Hall of Fame inductee in 2014. And the only way to be inducted is to be elected by experts and practitioners in the field. So I believe any possibility of WP:FANCRUFT is catered for. Perry Middlemiss (talk) 21:29, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I would describe that Larry Niven article as having many of the same problems, including over-described fictional elements and a lack of reputable, secondary sources. However, I agree that Leigh Brackett herself is a significant writer and that does suggest some inherent notability to aspects of her work, so I don't want to discount that perspective completely. Even though I still believe the Leigh Brackett Solar System articles should be deleted (or at least merged and substantially condensed), I would appreciate the input of other editors. Geethree (talk) 22:55, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
 * When it comes to the question of notability for in-fiction works, the long and short of it is that you have to look at whether or not the topic itself (in this case the fictional world) has received coverage in reliable sources. You'd need more than just literature reviews of her work, which means that you'd have to show articles that discuss the world and its lore as a whole. You can see this evidenced in this article about Discworld. Mostly this is because at some point we'd need RS to back up the claims in the article, because otherwise it'd just be original research, which is the biggest issue I see with the article as a whole. We can have pages on fictional universes if the work is widely reviewed and there are a lot of books in the series, but mostly people try to avoid doing that because of how easy it is for the entire page to become one large piece of original research. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)   07:10, 20 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NorthAmerica1000 19:44, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

 To reiterate and sum up my argument, I do not think Leigh Brackett is so notable an author that articles describing tertiary aspects of her work are inherently notable. So far, this seems to be the key argument in favor of keeping. We are several degrees removed from the author at this point: the author, works by the author, fictional elements within those works. The notability of such articles is clearly called into question per WP:BKD. Obviously, at a certain point, derivative articles are no longer notable even for very notable authors.

There is an apparent lack of multiple, reputable sources that discuss this subject specifically—a key requirement for establishing notability. While it's possible such sources exist, at some point we have to make a decision as to whether it is likely such sources exist. Given the current state of the articles (in-universe summaries), the potential future state of the articles (at best, substantially reduced and very likely merged), the lack of reputable sources, and the issues implied by derivative articles, I think these articles ought to be deleted. Geethree (talk) 18:37, 26 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I believe that Leigh Brackett is a notable author, as evidenced by her induction into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame this year. By my count (possibly out by one or two) there are only 79 such inductees.  She was inducted based on her lifetime body of work, which to me implies that her whole written output was important in determining her eligibility for the recognition.  That indicates that her sf and fantasy fiction (novels, stories and screenplays) is notable as it and only it comprises her notability. An article about a common feature of her work would therefore appear to be only one degree removed from the author herself. I agree that the article needs a lot of editorial work to ensure that proper and reliable sources are cited and that the article does not constitute original research, but I believe that is still a long way from an automatic delete. Perry Middlemiss (talk) 06:31, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NorthAmerica1000 22:40, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete: Whoa, time out here. So Brackett's notable.  No one's disputing that.  So many of her works are notable.  No one's disputing that either. So when did WP:NOTINHERITED get suspended? This article is a giant, fat WP:OR/WP:SYNTH violation, because it hasn't demonstrated that it, by itself, has been discussed as a subject in multiple reliable sources.  Just because Brackett was a notable author doesn't mean that any article with her name in the subject line gets a free pass, and that seems to be what Perry Middlemiss is arguing.  Nha Trang  Allons! 21:25, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
 * No, that's not what I'm arguing. I was attempting to answer the point that this article is "several degrees" removed from the author herself, which I believe is incorrect. That said, I'm coming more to the view that this article should be changed to a straight list of the elements of the author's works rather than a piece specifying the inter-connectedness of it all. So rather than a straight delete, an edit and a renaming to bring it into line with Wikipedia expectations. Perry Middlemiss (talk) 22:12, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I take your point that "several degrees removed" is perhaps not the best way to understand the issues of these pages. That said, to me these recent comments are still an argument in favor of deleting these pages. If a different, more appropriate page is created, or a new section is created on the Leigh Brackett page to describe her solar system, or what have you, then that would be a separate conversation altogether. In addition, "merge, edit, and rename" is 1) not very far from deleting these pages and 2) still does not address the core problem of a lack of sources indicating notability.
 * I don't want to dog this conversation as I feel like I've explained my position well enough (perhaps too much :)) so I will defer to whatever consensus is reached past this point. Geethree (talk) 20:38, 9 December 2014 (UTC)


 * wp:TNT at the very least, with all the pages ending up on the main universe page (which could be saved with sufficient extra sources). But this feels like fancruft and no notability of her worlds as distinct from her has been established.  Under wp:NOTINHERIT Delete would appear to be the only possible choice. Neonchameleon (talk) 14:53, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I can see that the consensus will be for Delete, and in its present form the page certainly fails to meet the requirements for WP:NOR in Wikipedia. And I think that is the main issue here, not the issue of notability which was the original reason cited for possible deletion. Also I have a lot of trouble buying an argument that an author can be notable but her works are not. That's like saying that a sportsperson is notable but his or her performances are not.
 * I've taken a copy of the text and if the page is deleted I'll attempt to change it into more of a list of items with references and move it away from its current implication of original research. Perry Middlemiss (talk) 23:49, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The claim isn't that Leigh Bracket is notable but her works aren't. Of course some of her works qualify as notable under wp:NBOOK.  But not everything she does is notable.  wp:NOTINHERIT.  Further there's a difference between her works being notable (some are, some aren't) and in-fiction aspects of her work being notable. Neonchameleon (talk) 18:23, 11 December 2014 (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.