Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Unseen Academicals


 * 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.  Syn  ergy 01:10, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Unseen Academicals

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Article about a possible upcoming novel which by article's own admission author is only now writing. Per WP:CRYSTAL, we should wait till publication, barring notable scandals and so on, and totally fails WP:NOTE, as many books are being written at any given time. ThuranX (talk) 04:34, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. WP:CRYSTAL does not require that we hold off on articles about books until their publication.  This book is one in a well-established series, by a highly notable author; a verifiable publication date for the book has been announced, (October 8, 2009), and there has already been considerable speculation/discussion/analysis concerning the work.  As for notability, WP:CRYSTAL gives the standard that "the subject matter must be of sufficiently wide interest that it would merit an article if the event had already occurred".  This book will be notable once it's published; therefore it satisfies WP:CRYSTAL notability standards now.  Baileypalblue (talk) 05:44, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment that there's a lot of speculation in now way satisfies CRYSTAL, and having examined a number of the articles on the novels, all that's given is an overlong plot, occasionally some trivia, or a fan-spec based list of themes or continuity or connections to other novels, so I'm in no way convinced that most if the novels have any specific notability. The publication date is almost a year away; not impending within days, so the ' if it had occurred also holds no water. ThuranX (talk) 07:44, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, at the risk of committing the sin of implying inherited notability, this is Terry Pratchett we're talking about, not some minor author; if those other articles you are looking at fail to demonstrate notability well, the likely explanation is that the articles are poorly written. As for your second point, Amazon is selling copies of the book right now.  If for some reason the book is never published, the incident of a major book being sold in advance and then never published would be notable enough for an article.  Treading further into Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions territory, remember that we've had articles on other future books, such as the Harry Potter series, years before their publication dates; in fact we have the template  specifically devoted to future books.  Baileypalblue (talk) 08:12, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * But yes, that's all you're doing - attaching inherited notability. that's not a valid reason to keep. not at all. ThuranX (talk) 21:45, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep If Amazon is already selling it, then I say that makes it notable. Plus there is a lot of coverage. Dream Focus (talk) 10:01, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * CommentNo,that's my point. there's pretty much no coverage. And there's nothing notable about the intent of an author to keep writing books. It's called continued employment. ThuranX (talk) 00:03, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep on the basis that any novel by Terry Pratchett is inherently notable. And he's got thirty-something full-length books to his credit; if he's announced the title and a publication date, then I believe we're talking about a genuine and notable book that really will appear.-- S Marshall   Talk / Cont  11:44, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment Inherited Notability is a poor argument for keeping an article. There's no inherited notability for every book by every author we have on Wikipedia, because there is no inherited notability in that circumstance.ThuranX (talk) 00:03, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 *  Keep Weak keep I am not sure that we need individual articles about the Discworld books, but as we do have them it seems to be a no-brainer. It would make no sense to delete now only to recreate in October, which would definitely be necessary for the reasons given by others above. --Hans Adler (talk) 22:42, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Commnet WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS seems to be the best reply to this (no policy linkfarming intended); in fact, I'd like to mass nominate a great many of the Discworld books. It seems that well over half (I have not yet looked at every single one), are NOTHING but an overly long and laudatory plot section followed by fan conjecture about themes, connections to other novels, who characters are clever copies of ,and so on. We'd do far better to report specifically on the few novels of his which did receive major coverage, and move on with merging the rest back to an article Novels of Discworld or something similar, which could aggregate the questionably minimal notability of the individual works and show that as a collection, there's some amount of notability. ThuranX (talk) 00:03, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Articles such as Feet of Clay are not particularly encyclopedic, but I think just like the notability requirements for scientific topics are relaxed it's also OK to make allowances for popular topics. I don't see how fighting a battle that can't be won helps to build an encyclopedia. --Hans Adler (talk) 01:07, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * it is not that "the notability requirements are relaxed",but rather that somewhat different notability criteria apply. What we accept as a RS differs from subject to subject, but that's a function of what are the reliable sources for that particular subject. DGG (talk) 01:37, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * But I don't even see any assert of notability in that article, and no sources at all beyond the author's website. Are we really going to say that an article with even more flaws than that should be kept? ThuranX (talk) 02:07, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * After trying (in vain) to find a review of Feet of Clay to establish individual notability of the book I understand your position a bit better. I am still sure that such a thing must exist, although perhaps not easily available online. I still think my arguments are valid, although admittedly a bit weak, and so I changed my !vote. --Hans Adler (talk) 08:58, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep For certain authors, we can tell very well in advance that the books are going to be notable, and there may also be sufficient information to write an article. In that case, it does not fall under CRSTAL. I am in fact not sure that a combination articles would not ultimately be appropriate, but that's a question of style. DGG (talk) 01:37, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that for some authors, a book may be notable in advance, Salman Rushdie for example. However, there's no assertion of notability for numerous previous books of his, including the aforementioned Feet of Clay, and there's none for this one. We can't keep based on the supposition that we can SUPPOSE there to be notability. That's a supposition about a supposition, an if this, maybe that situation. It's not enough. ThuranX (talk) 02:10, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. There are at least two reliable sources about this book, listed in the references section. We don't have to suppose that there's notability, it's demonstrated by the existence of those sources.  Also, DGG is correct in that this book is pretty-much guaranteed to be even more notable once it has been published. JulesH (talk) 08:30, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * keep as it is only going to be recreated again. rdunn  PLIB  09:44, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Notable author, date of publishing was determined.--Yopie 12:38, 28 January 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.