Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The WASP Question


 * 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   redirect to Drew Fraser.  Sandstein  01:32, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

The WASP Question

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Does not satisfy WP:N. Fraser once had some local notoriety, but this book has attracted nearly zero attention. The article is merely a summary, hence no more than promotion of the book. Dropsic (talk) 19:52, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2012 December 15.  Snotbot   t &bull; c &raquo;  20:08, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. &#9733;&#9734;  DUCK IS PEANUTBUTTER &#9734;&#9733; 04:11, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. &#9733;&#9734;  DUCK IS PEANUTBUTTER &#9734;&#9733; 04:11, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I support keeping the article, although it is by no means a perfect article I think it remains signifigant enough to retain. Certainly the article could use improvement, but then so do most articles. You state that the book is essentially just a promotion as it only summarised the book, but it does not seem all that different to me from other (admittedly less than stellar) articles like When Religion Becomes Evil. Furthermore I would like some clarification as regards notability and quantity of source, for instance The Madness of King George (book) an article which I used as a template (along with the other two I referenced on the discussion page) does not appear to have ever had any trouble remaing on Wikipedia even though its author is even more obscure than Fraser, and its illustrator is not much better known, and the article has no citations or references at all. I am by no means arguing that this is a stellar article with no need of improvement, but it (the article) does not strike me as all that much more poorly written, or based on a book all that much less signfigant than a number of other articles on Wikipedia at the moment. Back to your criticism that the summary was insufficent, what additions do you think the article ougth to have? Threadnecromancer (talk) 01:58, 18 December 2012 (UTC)threadnecromancer 
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, postdlf (talk) 05:27, 22 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment: I'm a little late to the party, but here are some of my answers to the above question. First off, the existence of other articles that may or may not pass WP:NBOOK has no weight upon this AfD. An article might exist that has fewer or no sources, but that just means that the article has yet to be sourced or brought up for AfD and deleted. When it comes to book summaries, the same rule applies. Just because one page has an overly elaborate description of the plot or contents of a book doesn't mean that it is necessarily in the encyclopedic or neutral format that an article should have. Of the two books mentioned above, both of them have issues with notability (ie, reliable sources) and one needs to be edited for content. A list of the book's chapters is almost never something that should be put on a page. A general synopsis of the book is usually more appropriate. I edited the synopsis on the page down to one paragraph that more briefly discusses the plot information. I also removed one of the sources, a link to a YouTube video of an interview with the author. The thing about YouTube is that we can only link to something if it's released by the person who owns the rights to the video. You could have the author uploading a CNN interview, yet that wouldn't be usable as a source since CNN owns the rights to the interview footage. There are ways to get around that, such as finding the information and putting in a reference that doesn't use the YT link. Now here's the other issue about YT videos: we can't always guarantee that the interview is actually notable enough to count towards notability. Sometimes people are interviewed on shows that don't pass notability guidelines or they are interviewed by people or organizations that they are personally involved with. For example, if Fraser worked for CNN and they interviewed him, that interview would be seen as a primary source. Don't worry if this feels frustrating to read- it's just as frustrating for the vast majority of us, trying to navigate through all of the red tape. Now this particular interview looks to have been through an Australian politician's radio show, but people could argue both ways on this. They could say that it's usable because the politician is notable, but others could argue that he isn't notable enough. I'd go through Reliable sources/Noticeboard to ask if this type of interview is usable. Even if it is, we need multiple reliable sources to show notability. Very rarely will one source be enough to show notability for anything, be it person, place, or thing. I'm having some issues with finding sources, so I'm leaning towards redirecting this to the author's page.Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)   08:06, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Drew Fraser. At this specific point in time there just isn't enough coverage in reliable sources to show that this passes WP:NBOOK. I also wasn't able to find where this specific book is taught in multiple colleges and Fraser isn't one of those people who are so overwhelmingly notable that all of their books would be notable as well. (Less than 1% of the authors alive or dead meet this guideline, so it's not a slight against Fraser.) I have no problem with this getting userfied by Threadnecromancer if they want it, but this should redirect to the author's page for the time being. It's conceivable that this would be a search term and as redirects are cheap, there's no reason not to redirect it.Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)   09:15, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Support redirect: Tokyogirl79 - I agree with your reasons and your editing, by which time there's not much there so I support the idea of just a redirect to Fraser. --Dropsic (talk) 21:51, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Could you please define "userfied" for me? I am sorry, but I am ignorant as to what that means. Threadnecromancer (talk) 21:12, 24 December 2012 (UTC)Threadnecromancer
 * Sure! What it ultimately means is that a copy of the entry will be moved into your userspace so you can work on it until more sources can be found that show notability for the book. What makes userfication so great is that stuff in your userspace generally can't be nominated for deletion. This will pretty much allow you to take as much time as you need, be it weeks, months, or even years. I've got more than a few books in my userspace that have been languishing there for years because I have yet to find enough sources to show notability. The biggest obstacle with userfying articles is usually that people forget about them after a while. That's why it's sometimes a good idea to earmark them somewhere if you're like me and can easily forget what you've written in your userspace. There's more about it as WP:USERFY, if you're interested in having a copy of this moved to your userspace. I do have to warn you that it might end up that the book gains no further attention, but you never know. Some books fly under the radar for years, only for a random event to suddenly spark interest in it. A great example is The Purpose Driven Life. It released in 2002 and was largely overlooked until Ashley Smith mentioned that she read it to her captor, upon which point the book became wildly popular. Considering that the author of The WASP Question is notable himself, it's possible that the book might become more visible in the future and will gain coverage in reliable sources. When/if that happens, you'll have an article ready to move back into the mainspace. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)   11:32, 27 December 2012 (UTC)


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


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  MBisanz  talk 01:58, 30 December 2012 (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.