Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of controversial non-fiction books (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.  MBisanz  talk 09:54, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

List of controversial non-fiction books
AfDs for this article: 
 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

The subject of this list is too vague. It is impossible to objectively determine which books should be included and which excluded. It also has POV problems that seem inherent to the topic. See also my comments on the Talk page, the previous deletion discussion, and the first and second discussions on deleting Category:Controversial books. Art Carlson (talk) 09:41, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * This AfD nomination was incomplete (missing step 3). It is listed now. DumbBOT (talk) 13:15, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Oops. Sorry and thanks. --Art Carlson (talk) 14:15, 16 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment While there are, undeniably, books that are "controversial"-- just ask Salman Rushdie or for nonfiction, Frederic Wertham -- this strikes me as original synthesis and no small amount of POV on the part of the editors. Bluntly said, a book is controversial if it was "influential", but some people didn't like it.  It would be possible to cure some of the OR problems by citing to published sources that have made their own lists of books that others have described as controversial.  Interestingly, the article cites to such a list selectively, picking one of the 10 books on the list, illustrating the OR problem.  I can't see putting a book on the such a list merely because it has been criticized.  The first entry is Margaret Mead's book, on there because one author, Derek Freeman, wrote a criticism of it later.  Of the two, Freeman's book would appear to be more controversial.  Mandsford (talk) 18:29, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete First list I've !voted delete on for a while. A list has to have a defined topic that permits some reasonable conclusion about whether or not an item belongs. I do not see how one can be done for this list: A list including The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail and origin of species makes very little sense; the books listed have all given rise to some sort of controversy, but there are in fact probably very few notable non fiction books that could not be included. Mead's book is an example of the difficulty: I think it belongs, because the controversy was not just in the academic world and involved important cultural issues, but Mandsford's disagreement with including it is equally reasonable. The listing of two books by Lomborg illustrates the use of this to give unreasonable prominence to an individuals views. Unlike most lists, I do not think the problems can be fixed by any degree of careful editing.  DGG (talk) 21:23, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete The list is highly subjective and it doesn't scratch the surface of what constitutes controversy. Pastor Theo (talk) 22:24, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep In general I dislike lists like these, but I think this one should be kept. The first reason is that it makes interesting reading. My other reason is that inclusion on this list does not involve much of a POV judgment compared with the following. I'd like to see List of topics characterized as pseudoscience, which is massively POV, scrapped, and the corresponding books put here instead. I'd treat the "examples" in Pseudohistory and Pseudoarchaeology similarly. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 23:04, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete "controversial" raises inherent POV issues and potential scope issues. If there is not a universal definition of 'controversial' then this is inherently POV. 69.210.42.241 (talk) 00:55, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * delete good lord. What decent book isn't controvsial to somebody, non fiction or otherwise. The whole assesment of what might belong here is a POV exercise, highly subjective, and beyond the scope of this project.Bali ultimate (talk) 01:58, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. This is simply point of view clutter/listcruft at best. RobJ1981 (talk) 06:35, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete: Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. (WP:IINFO) List is too vague and just seems like a bad excuse for the mother of all edit wars.--Sloane (talk) 15:16, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep and Merge: Merge with List of banned books Jwray (talk) 19:53, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete contraversial to whom? when? useless. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 21:48, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Weak keep Per DGG's concerns. What is controversial can be subjective except these are notable books so their moments of controversial-ness are at least somewhat documentable. If however it's a ridiculous list to maintain because so many notable books could be sourced as controversial it may dilute the use the list itself. This is a similar concern if this were a category instead. I suggest a stay of execution then and a bit of soul searching to what reasonable and intuitive changes could be affected to filter out a list article that would serve our readers and remain policy compliant. I'm not convinced that deleting it is the way to go but neither is keeping an article that really isn't illuminating controversial material. For instance, an article delving into the most politically controversial books might be feasible if it were limited to notable books and confined to notable political movements. Even then maintaining it would likely be a challenge. -- Banj e  b oi   07:17, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete per above. Doctorfluffy (robe and wizard hat) 19:55, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete While it makes for an interesting read there is no special logic in bringing together this handful of books when, as others have pointed out here, almost every important non-fiction book has generated some kind of controversy. Northwestgnome (talk) 04:25, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. It has references to backup each claim.  Perhaps the title should be List of notable controversial non-fiction books, since it doesn't list just any controversial book.  Had to have a certain level of impact somewhere.   D r e a m Focus  12:43, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete per DGG w/nod to others. This would seem to be an exercise in agitprop and does not seem fixable. Cheers, Jack Merridew 13:03, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete as an indiscriminate list. What book hasn't been considered controversial ever?  Them  From  Space  23:44, 20 March 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.