Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marie-Christine Lévesque


 * 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. 78.26 (spin me / revolutions) 14:37, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Marie-Christine Lévesque

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Biography of a recently deceased writer, which literally just states that she lived and died without even attempting to document that she ever achieved anything as a writer that would get her over WP:AUTHOR. As always, writers are not automatically notable enough for Wikipedia articles just because they and their works exist -- the notability test for a writer requires evidence of distinctions, such as noteworthy literary awards (of which she has none) or significant analytical attention from literary critics -- but apart from the recent blip of death coverage, I'm struggling to find any other sources that are actually about her in her own right, as opposed to briefly mentioning her existence in coverage of her more notable husband. And for a francophone writer from Quebec, the lack of an article on the French Wikipedia -- where you'd expect editors to be on the ball about a genuinely notable French-language writer -- isn't an encouraging sign. Bearcat (talk) 17:21, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. Bearcat (talk) 17:21, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Quebec-related deletion discussions. Bearcat (talk) 17:21, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Comment: Yes I was doubting about creating this stub. But I also saw this radio interview (hear here) and an online interview (here). She is co-author of many of her husbands books. SportsOlympic (talk) 17:56, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Interviews, which represent the subject speaking about herself in the first person, don't count as support for notability — they can be used for supplementary verification of facts after a person has already been shown as notable enough, but because they represent the subject speaking about herself and are thus subject to all the same problems as self-published sources, they don't count as data points toward the question of whether she has enough sources to be considered notable in the first place. We need to see independent sources analyzing her significance as a writer in the third person, not just things she's said about herself, in order to establish her notability as a writer. And by the same token, the mere fact that she coauthored works with her husband isn't an instant notability freebie in and of itself — we require independent sources analyzing the significance of those works to make her notable for them. Bearcat (talk) 00:07, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 13:39, 2 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep  Weak keep   Merge  - While it is always sad to hear someone died rather young, WP is not a memorial site. Because she co-authored many books with her partner Serge Bouchard who is notable (and won significant awards), I suggest merging them since some of the sources clearly state that they wrote books together. I did a google search and did not find anything on her that was significant. Netherzone (talk) 14:08, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
 * After more consideration, I am changing my !vote to weak keep from merge. There is no evidence that her contributions to books co-authored with her husband were not equal to his. Netherzone (talk) 13:20, 10 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep. I'm always reluctant to redirect a biography to the person's spouse, as if they were simply a footnote in their partner's career. I think she passes WP:AUTHOR#3 as the author of a notable body of work, as well as WP:ANYBIO. While most of the GNews hits are recent obituaries and memorials, there's a decent body of older significant coverage while she was living, e.g. a radio episode, reviews of her work, and literary awards. pburka (talk) 19:07, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Weak keep per and WP:SIGCOV. Bearian (talk) 15:40, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Weak merge to Serge Bouchard or Delete. I think this is really borderline, but I see nothing wrong with merging her article to that of her husbands. Since she co-authored a lot of his books and likely a lot of her notability comes from doing so. Looking in to it, I don't think someone could argue she was just a footnote in his career either, because it was multiple books over a meaningful period of time. It's not like she just proof read one his manuscripts when they were dating or something like that. --Adamant1 (talk) 04:10, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Respectfully, if she's not a footnote in his career and was, in fact, the co-creator of a notable body of work, then she deserves her own page. pburka (talk) 14:46, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
 * She would still have to meet the whole "in-depth" thing though. Which she doesn't. A brief line that says she co-authored some of his books in an article that's not about her isn't enough for it unfortunately. Blame "the media" for not covering her as much as they should have and for giving her husband more coverage. Chalk it up to "systemic bias" (which it probably is) or whatever, but that's not on us. We still need to follow the notability guidelines either way. --Adamant1 (talk) 00:47, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: While this is leaning keep there is enough variety of perspectives that a relist might make consensus clearer.
 * Delete: Having just looked at the sources presented by Pburka, only one even rises to the level of a casual mention; the other two are namedrops. Barring any actual significant coverage in reliable sources, there's no ground to keep.   Ravenswing      23:04, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:07, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep I recall Sue Gardner getting quite animated when the subject of deletionism came up and she expressed outrage and incredulity that an article about a Canadian author should have been deleted. Anyway, this seems to be a blatant case of WP:IGNORINGATD because the worst we would do is merge to Serge Bouchard.  But merging women into articles about their husbands is frowned upon and, as we have a good picture of the subject to showcase, we should leave this page for development per WP:IMPERFECT, WP:NOTPAPER and WP:PRESERVE. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:30, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
 * People aren't exempted from having to have reliable source coverage to demonstrate the significance and encyclopedia-worthiness of their accomplishments, just because somebody uploaded a photograph of them — and writers aren't handed an automatic notability freebie just because their work exists, if independent third-party coverage analyzing their work in reliable sources doesn't. Bearcat (talk) 18:10, 13 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep I found this coverage of her:, and this , as cited in the article, focuses on her (contrary to comments above, this citation is not an interview with Marie-Christine Lévesque, but a reporter writing about Levesque and quoting her spouse, who is talking about her.) The article fulfils C3 of WP:AUTHOR for coverage of her work here and as cited above by pburka. She fulfils C4 of WP:AUTHOR because she won Le Prix Victor-Barbeau  and also cited by pburka above. I disagree with the merge with her partner. A person doesn't lose notability because their work was co-authored by someone more notable. If she authored these works by herself, she would have enough notability. Z1720 (talk) 20:14, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I've added those citations to the article. Netherzone (talk) 20:54, 13 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep. There seem to be just enough sources to justify keeping the article.--User:Namiba 13:06, 19 August 2020 (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.