Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of festschrifts


 * 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, with the provision that we should only include festschrifts that are themselves noteworthy, as demonstrated by discussion of the festschrift in multiple reliable and independent sources. BD2412 T 04:25, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

List of festschrifts

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I have come across this article through New Page Review. There is no reasonable boundary to this topic, and the list could be expanded to hundreds of thousands of entries. I presume that most people who merited a festschrift would be notable in their field, but what the value is of starting a gigantic list of them, I don’ t know. Mccapra (talk) 19:08, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Mccapra (talk) 19:08, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academic journals-related deletion discussions. Mccapra (talk) 19:08, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Museums and libraries-related deletion discussions. Mccapra (talk) 19:08, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Mccapra (talk) 19:08, 20 April 2020 (UTC)


 * What do you think about List of autobiographies? Ali Pirhayati (talk) 19:40, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Personally I think it isn’t a valid list either. Mccapra (talk) 20:19, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete, indiscriminate. Huge numbers of academics are the recipients of festschrifts. Even if we limited it to festschrifts that are themselves independently notable (not merely, as half of the listed ones are, redirects to a contributor or subject) it would still be too indiscriminate to make a good list. It could plausibly be a subcategory of one of the book categories, since I think it is a defining characteristic of a book. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:54, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep, the nominator seems unfamiliar with article lists and their utility generally, as it is a commonplace consensus to limit certain lists to notable examples only rather than the "hundreds of thousands" that might otherwise be included. And if it's a d"efining characteristic" of a book as the above delete !voter states, then it's certainly not an indiscriminate basis for indexing them, and means that the same indexing scheme then passes WP:OCAT as a category Category:Festschrifts. This would then necessarily statisfy WP:CLN and WP:LISTPURP. postdlf (talk) 21:46, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment We already have Category:Festschrifts, and I'm not sure that this list adds any navigational value beyond that. In addition, it seems indiscriminately thrown together, mixing nonfiction with fiction and poetry. (Personally, I've only ever heard "festschrift" used to mean academic writing.) XOR&#39;easter (talk) 21:50, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * WP:NOTDUP answers why we have both lists and categories on the same subject, but regardless this list also has four other columns giving each entry more information than the category can. postdlf (talk) 21:54, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, in general, lists can bring "added value". This one doesn't. It just has more words, with less organization; it is even harder to tell from the list than from the category which items are mere redirects and which are actual articles. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 00:33, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I removed the link to redirects. Ali Pirhayati (talk) 00:44, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep The list shows more information than the category so is far more useful. It only list entries that have their own articles, so is not indiscriminate.  Useful for navigation so meets the requirement of a list article.   D r e a m Focus  01:49, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * It does not only list books that already have articles. 7 don't; 6 do. If kept, we'd have to decide whether the inclusion should be based on the person being notable or the book. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 02:17, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Those that don't have an article for the book have an article for the editor who created it.  D r e a m Focus  02:31, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, but who edits a festschrift is not nearly as significant as who the person being honored is. (Consider one festschrift from 1949 that is still cited today. Who's the greater influence in the history of science, Paul Arthur Schilpp or Albert Einstein?) Putting editors first, mixing fiction and poetry in with nonfiction ... The list as it stands is so half-heartedly executed that it's hard for me to want to keep it around, even if the basic concept is legitimate. I'd rather see Festschrift built up with examples and a separate list spun off in the event that those examples become too numerous to manage there. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 12:59, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * You see that all the people being honored have their own article. As far as the mixing is concerned, yes the list should be classified like the list of autobiographies. Ali Pirhayati (talk) 20:59, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Selective merge the notable (bluelinked) items to Festschrift and discard the rest. I suspect I am more inclined than to regard this as a potentially legitimate topic for a list, but the current implementation of that idea is too underwhelming for me to support it as a stand-alone page. A list of four items does not need its own page, and there are only four bluelinked academic books here. Even if we broaden the definition to include fiction anthologies (implausibly, to me), we only have six examples. That's enough for an "Examples" section at Festschrift, but nothing more. If we want to supplement Category:Festschrifts with additional information, then we can do it in the article Festschrift. If the "Examples" section of that article becomes excessively large, it could be split off, but I doubt that will happen. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 15:17, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep The list can be expanded and classified. Ali Pirhayati (talk) 01:53, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep - slippery slope arguments don't persuade me. The list is readable in a few minutes. I've known lots of academics, but even Ralph Alpher didn't get a festschrift. Bearian (talk) 13:09, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment - Article may not comply with WP:LISTCRUFT, which states a list is not accepted if "the topic is "unmaintainable". Kori  ( @ ) 20:59, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Merge Agree that a merge into the main article is the way to go here for the notable entries. If non-notable entries are allowed, this could quickly become unmanageable. Sam-2727 (talk) 20:05, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep - If we allow List of autobiographies, why not this list? It will certainly remain shorter than the list of autobiographies. If we didn't allow lists like autobiographies, I would say delete, but it seems we do. Ikjbagl (talk) 03:10, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz Humbug! 07:59, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. The majority of the festschrifts on this list don't have Wikipedia articles of their own. Nor is it clear what makes these particular festschrifts notable enough to be listed here. List of autobiographies is itself a bad idea, but this article needs to stand or fall on its own regardless of how it compares to that one. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 04:02, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep. and limit to those notable enough for Wikipedia articles (I think most of the others here might qualify)>Lists and caegories are of course complementary, and this gives greatly more information than a list. DGG ( talk ) 00:06, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Were you aware that, just among the published book reviews listed by JSTOR, over 25,000 of them use the word "festschrift"? My guess is that most of these are indeed reviews of festschrifts and that many of the festschrifts they review have enough other reviews to be notable. And that's not even counting the reviews that are of festschrifts but happen not to use the actual word "festschrift". —David Eppstein (talk) 07:16, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
 * In practice, we do not write articles about every book that has 2 reviews; in many fields in the humanities, there are always 2 reviews for any academic press book. Some of the books have special significance beyond what would be in the bio of the author, and in practice those get articles. We have so far managed to use reason in this area. .Similarly here.   DGG ( talk ) 00:35, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * We're very capable of making appropriate sublists for any topic that proves too large to maintain in a single list page. postdlf (talk) 16:01, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep I like DGG's idea. Pelirojopajaro (talk) 10:33, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete there's a million of those, this list is unmanageable both in practice and in scope. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:31, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   08:45, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep with the requirement that the honored individual is already notable or the Festschrift is demonstrably notable on its own merits (which will almost always, in practice, amount to the same thing) per 's suggestion. Some of the already-listed examples, e.g., Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think or Foundation's Friends are certainly notable . Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 04:11, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
 * that's not what I meant to say..(for example): Every really notable person in some of the  the humanities is honored with a festschrift at their retirement. That does not mean the festscrift by itself is going to be notable-most for the time its just another line in their list of honors. Sometimes, not often, it will be itself notable and then appropriate foro an article here.  DGG ( talk ) 15:05, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I apologize for the misreading. I was confused by which "those" were refered to but I think we agree that there are notable festschrifts and the presence of a list article linking to those is useful. I've struck out the misinterpreted portion.


 * 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.