Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Xone of Contention


 * 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. It may be helpful to further clarify WP:NBOOK to indicate what kinds of reviews are considered acceptable, but consensus in this AfD is clear. King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 22:51, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Xone of Contention

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This doesn't establish notability. There don't seem to be any reviews that I can see. Seems more suited to a list of novels unless there are some older print reviews. TTN (talk) 14:21, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Speedy keep, speedy close. Disruptive and grossly inaccurate nomination. If the nominator "can't see" any reviews, it's because he didn't look (and therefore didn't comply with WP:BEFORE. The most cursory search turns up reviews in Publishers Weekly and Library Journal (quoted here,, apparently too old for online archive). It was also on the Locus list of noteworthy releases for the month of its original publication and, as I recall, on various genre bestseller lists, including Locus, shortly thereafter. Even absent this level of coverage, there's no argument for deletion, since redirect targets are clear. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by administrators since 2006.  (talk) 13:22, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Oh no, I missed a trivial little review blurb. That's just inexcusable. Your wikilawyering is completely justified and not at all overboard or biased. Not super familiar with the general threshold on what is considered a proper review for a book, but both of those are truly trivial, basically just a sentence each of actual content amounting to "it's a cute book for kids." Maybe others will consider that to be enough, but I hope that isn't the case. TTN (talk) 13:45, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * That's certainly not the sort of response one would expect from an honest, good faith editor. You couldn't miss the PW review if you had Googled the title. Your lack of honesty is disturbing and disruptive -- you are, after all, the same editor he repeatedly insisted he couldn't find critical commentary on George Orwell's fiction. Not being "super familiar with the general threshold on what is considered a proper review for a book" is pretty much an admission that you're disregarding existing consensus on the subject in favor of your own shallow preferences. Even the ultradeletionist Qworty admitted that PW reviews were major indications of notability [Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert Pope], and they've been cited in hundreds upon hundreds of deletion discussions. As @DGG pointed out here, such reviews are among the most significant and influential in the industry; they are important considerations in library purchases and bookstore stocking and promotion decisions. You just don't understand how publishing works. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by administrators since 2006.  (talk) 14:12, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * It's the sort of response due to someone who regularly insults people and results to wikilawyering every single chance he can get just because he disagrees with someone's opinion. Out of the last ten times you tried that on my AfDs, exactly how many times has it worked? You purposefully bring up old arguments and misinterpret them simply to try to paint me in a bad light. If I saw that review, I probably passed if off as some user-generated Goodreads-like site. If I made a mistake, big deal, certainly not anywhere near as bad as you make it out to be. I don't care about some other guy's opinion on it, and DGG clearly stated that they are suitable for an author or book series but may not be suitable for singular books. Not sure how either of those help your argument. TTN (talk) 14:28, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * You're pounding the table a lot for somebody who made false claims in their nomination statement and didn't make the slightest effort to comply with WP:BEFORE. Your accuracy rate is AFD nominations is barely 40% (in contrast, mine is 87%); and yours would be even lower if redirects are discounted. That you defend your disregard of a review in the largest-circulation, widely respected magazine about the publishing industry by saying you thought it was "some user-generated Goodreads-like site" just underscores your self-acknowledged lack of WP:COMPETENCE in the area. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by administrators since 2006.   (talk) 16:17, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I used the above links and found nothing particularly relevant. That the site itself is widespread doesn't change the triviality and brevity of the "review." I will definitely assert that such a review is ultimately worthless and provides no context to write a reception section. Both your links above simply deal with the notability of the authors so I don't think they provide any relevant opinions on the site's use in novel articles, and one actively says singular book articles are probably not something to be made based upon those. That mention of AfD statistics is completely random and I cannot even see why you would mention it. Considering that you seem to deal with BLP porn actors more than anything, it's not a surprise that it's different. To get an accurate percentage of mine, you would need to count all the merge results and see how many of the articles have been merged or redirected since, seeing as a lot of my AfDs are ultimately correct but get clogged up with busybodies like yourself who couldn't give a damn about the actual content being discussed. TTN (talk)
 * The fact that you argue that Publishers Weekly (which is a magazine with an online archive, not a "site") "provides no context to write a reception section" further demonstrates your lack of competence and good sense in dealing with the notability of books and authors. PW reviews have been cited in hundreds of prior AFDs. Consensus on this point is well-established.
 * Please do show any where an article on a book was fully established based on one of their reviews. I don't doubt they're used in articles as a sort of filler. Even if brief, they technically do provide some sort of perspective. Looking at some featured articles and good articles on recent-ish novels, I saw it used a couple times, but their best sellers lists were much more common. It's certainly not a go-to staple in terms of sourcing. If a few tiny, one paragraph reviews are all a book has going, it's really not something that can be called notable. TTN (talk) 19:34, 9 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment: I'm not sure how to do that fancy arrow thing that I see people do on here, but in any case I'm going to put my two cents in. So far there has not been any consensus that trade reviews or that short reviews in general cannot establish notability for a work. I've asked about this on a few occasions and I've also seen others ask this - there's never really been a clear consensus for or against this. The reason for this is that while some trades have longer reviews than others, enough to where they'd be considered reasonably indepth. In contrast, others are very short but the publication is considered to be fairly prestigious. The Horn Book Guide is one such publication, as they're pretty discriminate in what they review. (The book sourced in the HBG article is from 2002, which was from before the self-publishing business really exploded. It's also arguable that there's been an increase in publishing as a whole since then.) Booklist is another publication where they have a pretty good history, as it's the official publication of the American Library Association. Other places that do short reviews are places like Choice, which have a pretty good pedigree. (By contrast, Kirkus isn't considered as reliable anymore.) Now I personally try not to source an article using only trade reviews, but playing devil's advocate they are still considered to be reliable technically. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  10:25, 10 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment: An admission that this "Seems more suited to a list of novels" indicates to me that this should have resulted in a merge proposal or a redirect rather than an AFD. Otherwise, this seems like a case of WP:IGNORINGATD. BOZ (talk) 03:36, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
 * That one is certainly nonsensical considering merge and redirect outcomes are perfectly valid in AfD, and despite what people may say in attempts to wikilawyer BEFORE as some kind of policy, there is nothing wrong with taking an article to AfD with merge or redirecting in mind. In my mind, deletion followed by a new redirect is the most preferable outcome because it removes the ability for someone to easily resurrect the articles years later as with the mess of D&D articles, and nine times out of ten the content is not worth even merging. TTN (talk) 03:48, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Your cognitive dissonance is showing. If you're asserting that it's OK to take an article to AfD just because you think it should be merged or redirected, and that that somehow excuses your lack of any remote WP:BEFORE effort, well... Jclemens (talk) 05:18, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
 * BOZ's comment is clearly unrelated to the above discussion. The idea that one must pursue every single avenue before even thinking about deletion is silly. BEFORE is a list of suggestions and nothing more. I think this should be deleted either way, so that doesn't particularly matter anyway. And no, I did a search for sources, but overlooked that trivial review above. I don't really care how notable the publisher may be, but the review is barely even a review. Maybe in the end the standard for sources for novels is much below everything else, but I sort of doubt it because nobody can give a clear "yes, it's a great source that should be used for all novels." As per DGG in the link above, it seems much more suited to author notability. It seems very likely that most series where the author is releasing up to twice per year for over ten years are not going to have notability established for each novel, but not the biggest deal if this AfD fails. TTN (talk) 20:15, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science fiction-related deletion discussions. Jclemens (talk) 06:03, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Jclemens (talk) 06:03, 10 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep Bad faith nomination, meets GNG per Hullabaloo. Jclemens (talk) 05:18, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep, meets WP:GNG and WP:NBOOK, due to multiple reviews (apologies for almost verbatim quotes from reviews but this is probably necessary due to mischievous comment of "truly trivial, basically just a sentence each of actual content amounting to "it's a cute book for kids."") ie. Publishers Weekly - "The newest volume in Anthony's most popular series (Zombie Lover, etc.) is for truly dedicated Xanthropologists only--for it's filled not only with horrendous puns but with a maze of references to past books in the saga. .. Leaping from wordplay to wordplay and rapidly straining readers' patience with their marital troubles, .. Occasionally a bright scene, such as Pia and Edsel's visit to the Isle of Talents, is handled cleverly, reminding us of Anthony's ability. But these moments are outnumbered by sophomoric jokes about the Adult Conspiracy to keep teenagers from having sex and the power of women's panties to disturb males. The novel won't alienate the faithful, but neither will it convert unbelievers.", Library Journal - "The latest addition to Anthony's popular Xanth series takes on computers, chat rooms, and the web with the usual plethora of puns and slapstick humor. Purchase according to demand.", oh and look a 3rd review from BookList - "This newcomer to a long series could be called Xanth Meets the Neta heavily satiric version of the Net, of course, complete with "Macrohard" software, etc. .. The magical puzzles here are ingenious, the puns numerous (and frightful), the sex and gender relations as adolescent as usual, and a great deal of Xanth's history and characters turn up in Edsel and Pia's quest. Lurking amid all the fluff are some real wit and serious ethical questions.". ps. i couldn't find anywhere on the above review pages that this is a "kids book" (btw the WorldCat entry doesn't either), as a member of "kids books" project would appreciate nominator explaining the relevence of "cute book for kids." comment to the afd? Coolabahapple (talk) 15:29, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Maybe it's just me, but those seem like bottom of the barrel reviews. The relevance of the publication doesn't change that the quality is low. When the point is to churn out as many review blurbs as possible, it wouldn't surprise me if nobody actually reads what they're reviewing. Maybe I'm just looking at more recent 8-15 paragraph reviews and trying to place that standard on a time where paper reviews were still relevant. The Library Journal is definitely not something I would ever call a "review" though. The character articles I've seen on it so far gave me the same vibe as the Animorphs articles, so I just assumed. Though young adult would be the proper term for that, I guess. TTN (talk) 21:18, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
 * thanks for explanation, as someone with the attention span of a gnat:) i find these sorts of reviews more than adequate to assess the qualities of a book. Coolabahapple (talk) 00:55, 13 January 2017 (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.