Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/New Writings in SF


 * 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   speedy keep. Reliable sources are given  SilkTork  *YES! 19:46, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

New Writings in SF

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Remove. Fails WP:BK. There are no reliable sources. The series existed, but - apart from a few SF fan sites that mention it - I couldn't find anyone who had written about it. I recall the series - I read some of the issues, and may even have a copy in the loft somewhere - but it doesn't appear to be notable.  SilkTork  *YES! 18:18, 25 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment. There is the possibility of redirecting to John Carnell and making a section in that article about the series. Even though there is little information on which to base a section, some details could be given about dates and contributors.  SilkTork  *YES! 18:21, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Keep. Your assessment of the article as possessing no reliable sources is premature, since the existing article was simply a placeholder to host the discussion page on the merger proposal. As for your going ahead and merging in the articles under discussion, that too was premature, since the discussion was ongoing. In light of the fact that the issue is unresolved I am not going to second-guess your doing so at this point, though the reasonable thing to do would have been to maintain the status quo until a definite conclusion had been reached. Kindly attempt to restrain yourself from over-precipitate activity in the future, out of courtesy to other contributors, if nothing else.

As I have noted in the previous discussion, defending the notability of the series is comparatively simple, even if defending the individual volumes might be less so. Carnell was a vital figure in the development of British science fiction in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly in fostering new talent. All of the journals and series he edited (including New Writings in SF) served that end. Brian W. Aldiss's article on Carnell in the 2004 edition of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is a good place to go for documentation on this point. Carnell's aims for the series are spelled out pretty boldly (and ambitiously) in the first volume. The names of the series's contributors, many of whom already were or or afterwards became important in the science fiction field, serves as good corroboration. These can easily be verified in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. As for your statement that you couldn't find anyone who had written about it, well, you couldn't have looked very hard. Try looking into some of the standard references -- the Clute encyclopedia, for one. Reference does not begin and end with the internet.

Naturally, I oppose the proposal to delete the article on New Writings in SF. The previous proposal in regard to the individual volumes was arguable. The present proposal is wholly without merit. BPK (talk) 20:50, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Keep. "No reliable sources"? Please take another look. The stub was created 2 days ago. In the last 36 hours, new authors, including me, have made many edits, expanding and cleaning up the article considerably. Though I have used some, there are additional references at GoogleBooks that haven't been incorporated into the article yet. There are also reviews which haven't been incorporated into the article yet:, , , , etc. Rosiestep (talk) 23:00, 25 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep per Rosiestep. More sourcse that could be useful:  .  This series is part of the history of SF, and really should not be deleted.  There will be plenty more sources in fanzines and other critical works that are not available online.  JulesH (talk) 08:15, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * See also Seed A Companion to Science Fiction Blackwell 2005 pp69-70. JulesH (talk) 08:24, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * SNOW Keep. This was began without regard for the purpose of the stub, to host discussion on the merits of moving/merging several articles into one article. As BPK (rightly) has no intention of fleshing out an article that is going to be deleted, I have no intention of writing a fully cited article only to have the move/merge discussion turn cold. This was a noble, if overzealous, attempt to clean-up, but you must understand - we're using that article. Padillah (talk) 12:51, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Obvious keep per User:BPK2. There are hundreds of good sources for this - what was the nominator thinking...? Colonel Warden (talk) 16:04, 26 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment What the nominator was doing was the merges as requested, and as I was doing them I became aware that the external links given were not appropriate as they a) gave no information other than what was already in the article and b) were not from a reliable source (www.isfdb.org). I thought, as I was doing the merge, that I would add some cites. My GoogleBooks search was flawed in that I didn't use inverted commas so the return was simply pages of the book rather than on the book. So my thinking, at the time, was that there were directory listings of the series which proved it existed, but I saw nothing to assert the notability. I read BPK2's comments with interest, and also the GoogleBooks links provided by Colonel Warden using inverted commas which show comments about the series, including this one which gives the notability by saying this was "the longest-running original anthology series". I also note the article now has reliable sources. As such I'll close this as a Speedy keep under Reason 1.  SilkTork  *YES! 19:45, 26 February 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.