Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect


 * 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. Pastordavid (talk) 20:17, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Self-published book, failing WP:BK. Notability not asserted. Was "published" first on a website and then through a vanity press. Qworty (talk) 20:54, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science fiction-related deletion discussions.   --  Beloved  Freak  22:13, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. Huh. The article does quote one review - can you tell the rest of us about the steps you took to confirm that there are no good sources or other indications of significance? --Kiz o r  22:19, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment -- my normal check on whether a book is notable -- whether any libraries hold a copy or not -- does not hold here, since the book was never published in print. Needless to say, no libraries have it in their catalog (per worldcat). I double-checked the IEEE article and it is a review of this book, in the context of examining dystopic AI fiction. Cutting out Amazon & WP mirrors don't leave a lot of obvious external hits on Google -- but nonetheless, its publishing history is interesting, and I'd say offhand it's difficult to determine notability for this one (without knowing that particular corner of SF more intimately than I do). -- phoebe / (talk) 06:07, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Reply. Some print copies are available, but only through vanity press Lulu (publisher). Qworty (talk) 14:01, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment Many people have read and enjoyed this book. Regarding it as not notable because it's not listed in libraries or bookstores, is obviously not something worthy of an encyclopedia existing only in cyberspace. Should we delete wikipedia itself then? Sure, there are lots of texts on the Internet that doesn't deserve their own wikipedia page, but this one actually does, being a well written novel with interesting ideas that people are still discussing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Snekker Andersen (talk • contribs) 22:37, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Looking at the edit history, this is cleary not a promotional piece written by an author or a fan. The novel is borderline notable, but it's a significant work in a small field. As others have pointed out before me, our notability criteria don't work well for that type of work, and the novel still manages to meet them – albeit just barely. One independent review is mentioned in our article. The book was the subject of a review featured on slashdot.org which qualifies as a reliable source per WP:NP. The book is also mentioned as an example in Open Life: The Philosophy of Open Source. Rl (talk) 08:09, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment Wikipedia itself serves a good example on notable literature without being printed. Another means to measure 'notability' might be in order. --82.93.172.114 (talk) 14:59, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * delete no independent evidence of notability presented. Mukadderat (talk) 00:22, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment How is the IEEE review not independent? That review contains a table of six "influential works": The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1969), The Adolescence of P-1 (1977), True Names (1981), The Diamond Age (1995), The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (2002), Singularity Sky (2003). I doubt that this list should be in the article just to establish a notability claim, but the article already says that the reviewer "ranked it as one of the more important works of fiction to deal with the idea of a technological singularity", which I believe is a fair summary. Rl (talk) 07:34, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Opinion of a single unknown reviewer,a Marc Donner, is not enough evidence. No surprize at least one person liked this book. So what? I like stories my 6th grade daughter writes. If it is so great as the reviewer says, why no one else haven't heard about it? Wikipedia is not a vehicle for promotion.  Mukadderat (talk) 15:53, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep The book's publishing history alone is odd and unique enough to deserve mention. JCCyC (talk) 02:04, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I fail to see what's so unorthodox in the fact that no one wanted to publish it until self-publsihing arrived. And obviously no one wanted to buy its e-version, since the text is free to read now. Mukadderat (talk) 15:56, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * delete nonnotable self-published book of nonnotable author. `'Míkka>t 15:42, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you, all those present here, for a discussion that took the time to considered the circumstances and especially acknowledged our own limitations. In the parts that I haunt acronym shouting matches are the norm, and this seems to give better results across the board - and you have no idea how good it feels.
 * Keep. The above is what I came here to say today, but as the one-line misspelled deletes have started their pile-up I'm !voting. The book squeaks by the requirements, and it does appear to constitute a significant work in its small field. Rl, can you get the specifics for a citation of Open Life? --Kiz o r  23:22, 18 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep Given all of the talk about the book's publishing history, and the lack of any discussion of that topic in the article, I've added a short piece about the subject. In sourcing this, I noticed that the coverage in the Open Life book was quite good, and that there is a reasonable degree of coverage in other sources, such as Slashdot (a front page review) and Boing Boing. I'm not sure they're sufficient to account for notability on their own, but I'm happy to agree with Rl that it is borderline, but on the right side of the border, and there is room for expansion given that nature of some of the discussion that is floating about. - Bilby (talk) 13:13, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - I forgot to add: as of 2003 (one year after publication) the author calculated that there had been between 5,000 and 10,000 readers. This puts it beyond the level of standard vanity press works, and would be considered a reasonable success in print from an otherwise unknown author. I'm not sure how well this speaks to notability, nor how well the novel has gone in the intervening five years (either as downloads or as print through Lulu), but it might have some relevance to the discussion. - Bilby (talk) 13:18, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. The author himself cannot of course be considered a WP:RS in a matter like this. What he's saying about himself isn't verifiable. Qworty (talk) 02:56, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment agreed. Which is why I say that I don't know if this speaks to notability - only that it might be worth mentioning in terms of the discussion. - Bilby (talk) 03:12, 20 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment. If the book were truly notable according to WP:BK, it would have received reviews, and many of those reviews would have been archived for all time on GoogleNews--and yet we find that the historical archive provides exactly TWO hits for this thing, and both of those are blogs.  Blogs of course don't meet WP:RS. Qworty (talk) 02:56, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment Reviews mentioned here have been in Slashdot and IEEE, (both RS), with very good commentary in Open Life. So yes, it has received reviews. I'm unsure as to what other reviews it may have received, which is partially why I still regard it as borderline notable, even though technically it has been the subject of discussion in multiple reliable sources. - Bilby (talk)


 * 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.