Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mithila Review


 * 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. MelanieN (talk) 00:23, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Mithila Review

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New magazine, too soon to have generated substantial coverage. No independent sources, does not meet WP:GNG. Randykitty (talk) 22:17, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions.  /wiae   /tlk  00:14, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Poetry-related deletion discussions.  /wiae   /tlk  00:14, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions.  /wiae   /tlk  00:14, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

In India, speculative fiction is new compared to mythology. The magazine has been active since November 2015, and has over 100 followers on Twitter and Facebook. Compare this to AfroSF project--SF from Africa--which has two book volumes out in the last two years (I think), but only 200 followers.

The first "issue" came out in February, but the magazine has been active for many months now. That's why it was "noted" by Strange Horizons, a leading SF magazine. When there are hardy any platform for SF in the region, this is already significant. It has been talked about by Hugo-winning authors (Ken Liu) and editors (Jason Heller) and Bram Stoker-winning authors for the last few months. (See 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) Mithila Review has a critical and serious SF community on Facebook with almost all major SF writers and scholars from the region, including Usman T. Malik, Indrapramit Das, Anil Menon, Mimi Mondal, etc. The group was started in December.

This is the first time a science fiction story set in Nepal was published for free, and it has generated an impact. Major writers and editors in Nepal (Rabi Thapa, Kanak Mani Dixit) have spoken about it on their social media platforms. (See 1, 2) With nearly 5000 website views and over 10,000 social media impressions in the first week, if this not a significant coverage for a niche project from South Asia, then what is? Even if there are no future "volumes", the effort has already paid off and should be noted and has been noted by SF community.

I hope Wikipedia community will consider the niche audience, the absence of SF culture in the region, and redefine the "impact" parameters for such a project before taking a decision. I encourage other members to introduce pages on Indian SF, or South Asian SF (I'm planning to write in a few months). My belief is that people need to know about these kind of initiatives. What better place to start to know other than Wikipedia? Even the about page of Mithila Review links to Wikipedia because the goal is to help people learn and discover speculative fiction and poetry. Even a prominent writer such as Indrapramit Das didn't have a page, and I created it with links to his works so that people could just go and read them. But it was deleted. I used to work in advertising, but haven't felt the need to promote anyone on Wikipedia that I didn't think deserve writing about. I would have appreciated if the editor had removed the links--if it was violating our guidelines--or in some way improved the page, but simply deleting the page was a huge setback.

I'm new here. You're the best judge. I will accept your decision, and look forward to contributing to a field of literature that I am passionate abut. It would be easier if we had someone who know the context to make the final decision. Salikshah (talk) 03:48, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment: I'm sorry, but some tweets and Facebook posts are not the in-depth coverage in independent reliable sources that we need to show notability. And insofar a negative can be proven, a paltry 100 followers on Twitter/Facebook really comes close to proving something is not notable... This simply is too soon. --Randykitty (talk) 09:04, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Let's delete it.Salikshah (talk) 15:02, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete: WP:Too soon. Lacks significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 00:08, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   10:51, 15 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete. Hopefully, it'll be more notable some day. But as of today, it fails WP:GNG. utcursch &#124; talk 20:25, 17 March 2016 (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.