Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Quinn Fawcett


 * 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 no consensus. Randykitty (talk) 14:53, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Quinn Fawcett

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Article on an author does not meet WP:AUTHOR criteria or GNG. Person co-authored a handful of shared-world fiction a decade ago. Only refs are to Publishers Weekly book descriptions, and a fleeting and incidental reference in the Los Angeles Times. (Also, as an aside unrelated to the AfD, note that editor claiming to be subject of this article complains the bio is inaccurate, "professionally damaging" and causing him "financial harm.") BlueSalix (talk) 18:38, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2014 November 30.  — cyberbot I  Notify Online 18:58, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete Doesn't meet WP:AUTHOR criteria. It's worth noting that Bill Fawcett, I believe, is the one who made the comment on the board. "Quinn Fawcett" is the apparent name of the "team" or "writing duo" of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Bill Fawcett. The former also fails to clear the hurtle of notability as well, but that's a different page perhaps. Anyhow, not much coverage (substantial, something other than standard PW review, etc.) for his books or him.Jimsteele9999 (talk) 02:31, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica1000 03:19, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica1000 03:19, 1 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Merge into Chelsea Quinn Yarbro . The problem is that there has been no official consensus that trade reviews don't count towards notability, although there is a general consensus that they are greatly depreciated in comparison to longer, meatier reviews by other outlets. I think that this is partially because some of the trade reviews won't review anything they're handed and do give negative reviews. There has been the idea that trade reviews solicit books and are guaranteed to give positive reviews and Kirkus is a good example of how bad trade review outlets can be, however there are exemplary ones like the Library Journal and Booklist that do argue that trades can still be usable. However in this case what we have is an author (supposedly) that has taken to a BLP board to complain that someone is writing negative things about him. (I can't see what in the original article about him (Bill Fawcett (writer)) was so negative, personally.) Anyway, my thing is that the books in this article could very easily be merged into the existing article for Quinn Yarbro, who does pass notability guidelines. She's extremely prolific- so much so that I'd actually recommend creating a spin off article to include all of her written works (Chelsea Quinn Yarbro bibliography), which would easily be able to encompass the books under her various pseudonyms- it's reasonable to have a spinoff article for a bibliography if a notable author is particularly prolific. There's really no reason to have separate articles for a pseudonym when an easier alternative is available, especially if someone is complaining that something is harmful to their career. I'll try to bang out an article for her bibliography in my userspace. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)   04:57, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Yikes- I had absolutely no idea that she'd written this much! A separate bibliography page has long since been overdue, I think. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)   05:54, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Done- the bibliography is now live, so the article should redirect to Chelsea_Quinn_Yarbro, where lower down in the page there is a link for the full bibliography, which includes her work with Fawcett. The main page does say that she has worked with Fawcett, so this will comfortably contain the same information without really needing a separate page for the pseudonym. We also have the side benefit of having CQY's full bibliography (as far as I can tell), whereas her page could only contain a small portion of it due to her being so incredibly prolific when it comes to writing. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)   06:02, 1 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete. It's what he wants. 70.192.83.88 (talk) 22:45, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment I can't find any mention of the volume of a writer's output lending anything to credibility via WP:AUTHOR. For the record, I think the argument of "Author X has written and published so many books, he is by default notable" a weak argument. Moreover, the issue isn't that a review in the NY Times Book Review is "meatier" than one in Kirkus, it's that the NY Times Book Review is a stronger source. That it has a better reputation. Been around longer. Has earned a better reputation. Has a better readership. That kind of stuff. Also, another thing for the record, it's excessive to list every book an author has published, especially if they are prolific, because, generally, there's a risk of veering into WP:RESUME, and lastly, reading some comments on the AfD lately, I have to say, (borrowed from elsewhere), words are like leaves and where they most abound, much fruit of sense is rarely found.Jimsteele9999 (talk) 02:30, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Not arguing for his article to be kept, just saying that CQY is notable and she's notable enough to where listing her bibliography would be worthwhile. Merging the series into the main page would make it fairly unwieldy, hence the page for CQY's work as a whole. I mean, they don't hand out the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement to just anyone, after all, and she's one of a fairly small handful of people who have been given the award. That kind of award is given to the person for their work as a whole, which is another reason why we should try to list as much as possible. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)   06:54, 3 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete - fails WP:AUTHOR ukexpat (talk) 15:00, 2 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Strong keep. First of all, we don't have an alternative process for handling joint pseudonyms of two notable authors; there is no primary redirect target, and there's no reliable way to assure that duplicated content in the separate bios would remain in synch and consistent. Better to treat this as no worse than a legitimate spinout article; it's not unusual to see articles like this for sustained collaborations between notable musicians. Second, the dismissal as insignificant of PW reviews is just plain wrong; Publisher's Weekly is quite selective in its choices of books to review, and there's a pretty-well-established consensus via many prior AFD discussions that multiple PW reviews strongly signal notability. Third, there seems to be a lot of coverage out there; the "author"'s books were also regularly reviewed by Kirkus (another strong signal of notability, though not literary quality), there are a few dozen newspaper reviews showing up in Newsbank, including one in USA Today (albeit rather brief). GScholar even turns up a few hits in academic journals, which may not be enough on their own to establish notability, but certainly suggest it. As Tokyogirl quite accurately argues above, there's no case for removal of the content of the article; this is a discussion over the form in which the content should be retained: This really isn't a discussion about deletion, and would be better closed summarily. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 17:38, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I would like to see a reference to support "Publisher's Weekly is quite selective". From their own site: "The book review section, not added until the early 1940s, has grown in importance over the past 75 years, and it currently offers opinions on 9,000 new books each year." Their page for submissions gives no information on selection. . Last I heard, about 30,000 non-self-published books come out each year; we don't know how many of those are submitted to PW; even if they all are, 1 in 3 is not "quite selective".
 * There's nothing selective about Publisher's Weekly. Less so with Kirkus. BlueSalix (talk) 08:44, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Your overall figure is way, way off, by a factor of 10, making your "1 in 3" analysis nonsense. That total should be more like 300,000. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 02:09, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I never made a "1 in 3" analysis. That comment was left by LaMona, who did not sign her comment, just like you didn't sign yours, The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Feel free to check-out WP:SIGNATURE if you need help. BlueSalix (talk) 15:24, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry about forgetting the signature. ~30K/~10K = 1 in 3. From the page you cite: "Bowker reports that over one million (1,052,803) books were published in the U.S. in 2009, which is more than triple the number of books published four years earlier (2005) in the U.S. (April 14, 2010 Bowker Report). More than two thirds of these books are self-published books, reprints of public domain works, and other print-on-demand books, which is where most of the growth in recent years has taken place." And I specified "non-self-published books", although I didn't even consider that PW would include reprints, etc., but I'm sure they don't - so removing, say 70% (= more than 2/3), we're back to 30K, and 1 in 3. PW doesn't cover PD works, and self-published books are under a different program at PW. LaMona (talk) 17:51, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
 * No. No. No. No. No. 30% of 1,000,000 is 300,000. This is not subject to debate or consensus. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 02:09, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * You're right, I can't count. But we still don't know 1) how many titles PW receives for review 2) how many it selects of those. So I'm still questioning PW being "very selective". This is a statement that needs a RS. LaMona (talk) 21:49, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
 * Keep Nice analysis by Hullaballoo Wolfowitz. --I am One of Many (talk) 08:50, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Go  Phightins  !  00:06, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep - per Hullaballoo. Content can be modified if we decide the BLPN's Bill Fawcett claim has merrit - though a quick Google raises doubts. Artw (talk) 02:18, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment A Kirkus review is no more a sign of notability than a PW one. Both are trade journals. Both review a lot of authors. Both accept payment. Throwing a statement out there how one is another weak point in Wolfowitz's analysis, particularly, "there's a pretty-well-established consensus via many prior AFD discussions that multiple PW reviews strongly signal notability," which is neither here nor there with this discussion, and "GScholar even turns up a few hits in academic journals," yet another limp towards clearing the hurtle of notability. I'm afraid it falls short. And, for the record, my response to tokyogirls' "comment" refutes her "argument." Going back to BlueSalixs' original post, this author does not meet WP:AUTHOR.Jimsteele9999 (talk) 02:35, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't have any particular comment on the trade reviews (although I will note that there has still been no official consensus on whether or not they are considered invalid for notability purposes), but I do have to stress that I believe that CQY's work as a whole merits an article because she received a major award from the HWA for her work as a whole. Stoker Awards are pretty darn notable and less than .01% of the people involved in horror have received one- let alone received one for their life's work. Only 44 people have ever received a Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement since its inception in the 1980s. It's not a small achievement by any means. However this is somewhat of a moot point since the topic at hand is whether or not the specific pseudonym should merit an article, not about CQY's work as a whole. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)   05:57, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NorthAmerica1000 08:50, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep with rationale. - I've been following this AfD discussion for several weeks, while I contemplated the comments of others and the best course of action to pursue in this AfD. As I see it, we basically have three choices:
 * 1. Keep a separate "Quinn Fawcett" article, more less as it is now;
 * 2. Redirect the "Quinn Fawcett" page to either "Bill Fawcett" or "Chelsea Quinn Yarbro";
 * 3. Delete "Quinn Fawcett" and add duplicate text to both "Bill Fawcett" and "Chelsea Quinn Yarbro" regarding the Quinn Fawcett partnership.
 * This is the common problem we face with any duo or partnership where the individual partners are also notable. None of the three options is ideal, given that "Quinn Fawcett" is of marginal notability at best, making a stand-alone article somewhat problematic.  A redirect to one of the two parent articles, by necessity, makes a choice to redirect to one or the other of the two literary partners, and not redirecting to the other.  Deleting the "Quinn Fawcett" article requires the insertion of duplicate content into both parent articles, giving due credit to both Fawcett and Yarbro for the works of the "Quinn Fawcett" partnership.  Having thought about this, and recognizing that there is no perfect solution, I have decided to treat this article as a "spin-out" of content from two notable subjects, and to register a "KEEP" !vote in favor of the "Quinn Fawcett" article.  At the end of the day, there is no harm in keeping it, and provides the most logical structure for the two parent articles, fully recognizing that other AfD participants may reasonably disagree with me.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:14, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Aerospeed  (Talk) 13:47, 26 December 2014 (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.