Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Overlord (epic poem)


 * 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. -- Cirt (talk) 18:08, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Overlord (epic poem)

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Unremarkable epic poem (fails WP:GNG) Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:34, 31 January 2011 (UTC) *Keep Praise by Ted Hughes gets it over the notability hurdle. Jonathanwallace (talk) 22:38, 31 January 2011 (UTC) (Striked to make the change clear) SmartSE (talk) 13:09, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep Sources are given. It sounds rather remarkable to me, however that is not a WP policy. Borock (talk) 15:57, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete Changing my earlier "Keep" based on discussion at WP:RSN which appears to establish that the Hughes reference is not reliably sourced but is self-pub of Haggers. Jonathanwallace (talk) 06:39, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Hagger's self-identified personal assistant has now amended the article to say it was written on the urging of Ezra Pound, possibly making it even more notable. If there were reliable secondary sources for either of these two claims, I might agree. I have removed those claims from the article and started a discussion about them on the talk page. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 15:54, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * If the two paragraphs and two references about Ted Hughes and Ezra Pound which DS keeps deleting go missing from the article, they can be found on the talk page, which explains that they are allowable under WP:ABOUTSELF. These paragraphs/references have an important bearing on the discussion in this AfD and should not be censored by the nominator. Sanrac1959 (talk) 10:19, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete The applicable standard here would be WP:BK, which has a very specific set of notability standards for a literary work such as a book :


 * A book is generally notable if it verifiably meets through reliable sources, one or more of the following criteria:


 * 1. The book has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial published works appearing in sources that are independent of the book itself, with at least some of these works serving a general audience. This includes published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, other books, television documentaries and reviews. Some of these works should contain sufficient critical commentary to allow the article to grow past a simple plot summary. This excludes media re-prints of press releases, flap copy, or other publications where the author, its publisher, agent, or other self-interested parties advertise or speak about the book.
 * -This work is not the subject of significant, non-trivial third party coverage. The only reference to this work that I can find on Google News is a trivial mention in passing in the Daily Telegraph article, which is about Hagger's estate, not about him or his works. There is no independent mention of this work in Google Scholar, and a trivial reference on Google Books in the 1997 Notes and Queries. None of these involve any critical commentary whatsoever. I do not have access to the East Anglia Daily Times archives, but from the title alone I'm going to guess that it, like the Telegraph article, is principally about the estate not the poem. Regardless of what that lone source may or may not contain, it would not meet this standard.


 * 2. The book has won a major literary award.
 * - No.


 * 3. The book has been considered by reliable sources to have made a significant contribution to a notable motion picture, or other art form, or event or political or religious movement.
 * - No.


 * 4. The book is the subject of instruction at multiple grade schools, high schools, universities or post-graduate programs in any particular country.
 * - No.
 * 5. The book's author is so historically significant that any of his or her written works may be considered notable. This does not simply mean that the book's author is him/herself notable by Wikipedia's standards; rather, the book's author is of exceptional significance and the author's life and body of work would be a common study subject in literature classes.
 * - No. Hagger may or may not be sufficiently notable for a Wikipedia article, but he is definitely not an author of exceptional significance whose life and work is the commonly the subject of study in literature classes.


 * This work may or may not be remarkable, but it fails on every requirement of Wikipedia's Notability standards, and it is not even a close question. Fladrif (talk) 19:59, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That the work was allegedly inspired by Pound is irrelevant to its notability. That is was praised in private correspondence between Hughes and the author, is insufficient to establish notabilty, notwithstanding the later publication of Hughes' collected letters or the inclusion of the correspondence in an appendix to this work. That this one admittedly prominent writer thought well of the work is still only singular, not multiple coverage and not enought to establish notabiliy. Fladrif (talk) 20:10, 4 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The article fulfils Admin Spartaz’s requirement of two decent sources. The two-page spread ‘Overlord of the Manor’ has pictures of two early volumes of Overlord and three columns about the work. It is not exclusively about the estate he once ran. WP:ABOUTSELF holds that self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves so long as they do not involve claims about third parties. In the Hughes reference the subject is Hagger’s Overlord, not Hughes. As the Hughes letters are in the Overlord appendix their presentation there can be seen not as a comment by Hughes about a third party, but as a comment by Hagger regarding himself, quoting an input from Hughes. The reference could be reworded to begin “Hagger received a comment from Ted Hughes” etc.” The involvement of Pound and Hughes does impact on the notability of the work. This work is not unknown, for example an American actor gave a public reading of passages in London in 2010. Sanrac1959 (talk) 14:04, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Admin Spartaz does not get to override clear Wikipedia policy. Two sources does not satisfy the clear requirements of WP:BK to establish notability. WP:ABOUTSELF does not permit Hughes private letters to Hagger, and the tortured arguments attempting to shoehorn them into that narrow exception are meritless. The letters are comments by Hughes about another person and another person's work, not about himself or hs own work. Hagger cannot sponsor the material himself because the essence is that he is saying "another person made this comment about or my work". That is clearly outside the exception.  Fladrif (talk) 18:26, 5 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Poetry-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 15:00, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete I agree with Fladrif's rationale after also trying to find sources myself. The !keeps by Borock and Jonathanwallace do not appear to be based on policy - simply having mentions somewhere is not sufficient and unverifiable claims of what inspired the poem are irrelevant to a discussion here as everything must be based on sources. Our notability requirements for books are pretty high, for a reason, since there are so many publications. I'm not seeing anything in gbooks, gnews or gscholar to suggest that anyone has taken particular note of this work, as is required for it to be included. SmartSE (talk) 14:23, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete WP:BK is being sensibly applied here by Fladrif. Ezra Pound and Ted Hughes are red herrings. It seems these claims are not actually verifiable, ultimately tracing back only to the author. --WTFITS (talk) 02:34, 7 February 2011 (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.