Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of winners of the Walt Whitman Award


 * 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. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 00:08, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

List of winners of the Walt Whitman Award

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Winners of an unnotable award by the Academy of American Poets. Once again, creator has recreated a list that was already redirect to the main article once that was under the name Walt Whitman Award, and despite two other AfDs going on with two other lists of awards from the same organization that he remade, without discussion and against the current consensus. The lists are nothing but a repeat of the list of winners from the official website and the main AAP article has a better description of the award. The two "sources" are a directory listing for the award and a personal website. No notability of the award beyond its tie to AAP and most of the poets who have won it are not notable. -- Collectonian  (talk · contribs) 02:51, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Poetry-related deletion discussions. — --  Collectonian  (talk · contribs) 02:53, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Snowball Keep, there is Significant Coverage in Reliable sources, Independent of the subject, it took me 1 minute to google therefore snowball. flag for notability and third party sources, don't delete. pohick - (talk) 02:56, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * How does that make it a snowball keep? Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 02:57, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Someone's personal website is not a reliable source, nor is an advertisement for the award significant and independent. -- Collectonian  (talk · contribs) 02:58, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. Some sad excuses for sources, but the award itself is notable and the list would be too. Niteshift36 (talk) 03:18, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * How so? How is it notable apart from the Academy? How is a list of its winners that just repeats the award's website notable? -- Collectonian  (talk · contribs) 03:27, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Here are a couple of sources that might help:, , . The award is listed in a number of articles I reviewed when talking about a poets accomplishments. I'd rather have the list article than seperate articles on every recipient, wouldn't you? Niteshift36 (talk) 03:31, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * One more source: . This article actually talks about how worthless some awards are and uses the Whitman as an example of awards that have value. "But winning a Whitman insures that a poet will be published.

The Walt Whitman Award, established in 1975, comes with $5,000 and hardcover publication of a poet's first book by the Louisiana State University Press. But since the academy also buys 6,000 copies for its members, and the average print run for a poet's first book is 3,000 copies, a Whitman, or a James Laughlin Award ($5,000), and the sale of the 6,000 copies guarantee a best seller in the tiny poetry market."

Niteshift36 (talk) 03:34, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * See Academy of American Poets. All of that is already there. And no, I'd rather see a single award page for the Academy, as was done during the merging of the individual awards page, than individual ones just repeating their website over again.-- Collectonian  (talk · contribs) 04:00, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not opposed to putting it all on the Academy page. What I meant was individual articles on each recipient. But the NYT article (and other sources) clearly indicate the award is notable. Niteshift36 (talk) 16:52, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions.  -- TexasAndroid (talk) 03:34, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep/Merge. I see no reason why the Walt Whitman Award can't have its own article. My proposal is to move all the content and redirect List of winners of the Walt Whitman Award to Walt Whitman Award.


 * From Google News:
 * http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ltAMAAAAIBAJ&pg=5681,3685106&dq=walt-whitman-award
 * http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=7_0NAAAAIBAJ&pg=3576,6421758&dq=walt-whitman-award
 * http://likethedew.com/2009/05/06/walt-whitman-the-sublime-and-the-bibb-county-dump/
 * http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50E15FB3E5513728DDDAD0994DC405B888BF1D3
 * http://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/02/theater/as-arts-prizes-multiply-so-do-doubts-on-value.html
 * http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=GYAKAAAAIBAJ&pg=7119,6888054&dq=walt-whitman-award


 * Google News results for the first four recipients on the list:
 * http://news.google.com/news?q=%22Michael%20Martinez%22%20%22Walt%20Whitman%20Award%22
 * http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=%22Jonathan+Thirkield%22+%22Walt+Whitman+Award%22&cf=all
 * http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=%22Sally+Van+Doren%22+%22Walt+Whitman+Award%22
 * http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=%22Anne+Pierson+Wiese%22+%22Walt+Whitman+Award%22 — Rankiri (talk) 16:42, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep as per everyone but the nominator. Clearly notable, sources exist. Edward321 (talk) 00:35, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. I agree with Collectonion that the original Academy and Prize articles were very thin on notability; this is gradually being rectified, due mainly to her prodding. I have just added three more indicators of notability at the Walt Whitman Award section of the Academy article: the Library of Congress, the Poetry Foundation, and the New York times (37 references to the Award). I have also added some facts about the number of manuscripts submitted (1475 in the early 1980s) and the involvement of LSU, which publishes the volume as part of a series with its own webpage. I particularly value the list of winners for the Walt Whitman Award because it is not a recycling of the names of well-known, highly eminent poets. I think that the numerous red links are an invitation to consider articles for some excellent if relatively unknown poets. Easchiff (talk) 08:16, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Do to the reasons others have mentioned above, and I'd like to also add that if an organization is notable, then its awards are notable. They don't just give these things out without a legitimate reason.   D r e a m Focus  22:46, 14 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. I don't agree with all the reasons above but this certainly is a noatble award which automatically elevates its awardees. This content including the entire list certainly is encyclopedic and likely should be either at an article about the award itself or a list article. Either seems fine for now until the content is so large it needs to be split. -- Banj e  b oi   03:35, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep, it looks like an okay sub-article of Academy of American Poets to me. Surely the official website is a reliable source for the winners, and to complain that an article "repeats" a source is bizarre to me. If the Academy of American Poets article could list the winners, this article shouldn't be deleted anyway. There seem to be plenty of sources related to the Walt Whitman Award, which the nominator would have found if they would have done a cursory search on Google News before rushing to WP:AFD. --Pixelface (talk) 01:00, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep notable, useful, interesting - Vartanza (talk) 04:15, 16 June 2009 (UTC).
 * Keep Show how deleting improves Wikipedia. Keeping it improves Wikipedia because it informs people, and that's what we are here for. Hiding T 12:16, 16 June 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.