Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Neptune's Brood

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 merge to Charles Stross. (non-admin closure) TBr and ley ^{(what's up)} 18:21, 27 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Neptune's Brood

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I'd originally come across this page while looking at the new books showing up in the category for 2013 books. I saw that the only source on the page was a link to the Amazon entry (which BTW is unusable as a source to show notability). I did a search and was unable to find any substantial coverage to show that this book passes WP:NBOOK. There are a few routine 1 line notifications that the book will be released, but no actual in-depth coverage of the book itself. There's primary sources, but they can't show notability. There are also a few blog posts about it, but none that would be considered a reliable source. Considering that the book won't release until July, it's just WP:TOOSOON for this to have its own article. Most books don't receive substantial coverage until about a week or two before their release date. Some don't receive it until a week or two after their release. Some never get to that level of notability regardless of the author. I'd previously redirected this to the author's page, but it was un-redirected with the justification that it wasn't too soon. Since the redirect was contested and I know a PROD would simply be removed under the same justification, I'm bringing it here for an official AfD discussion. This book doesn't pass WP:NBOOK in any format. There isn't any coverage and Stross isn't the type of author that would be so notable that all of his works become automatically notable as a result. Even Stephen King isn't considered to be entirely at that level of notability and he's a household name. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 07:00, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

From the creator of the Neptune's Brood article:

Tokyogirl79 says that "Stross isn't the type of author that would be so notable that all of his works become automatically notable as a result". If you look at Charles Stross' publishing history, all of his previous 20 full novels have their own Wikipedia article, so arguing that his newest novel would not qualify for a Wikipedia article is just silly. If the previous 20 novels passed WP:NBOOK, then surely the newest books (in all important aspects identical to the 20 previous books) also qualify.

As for the other argument that "Considering that the book won't release until July, it's just WP:TOOSOON for this to have its own article.", I know that at least A Memory of Light had a Wikipedia article four years before it came out (and it was very useful, and had no negative consequences by existing!). Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia - why is Tokyogirl79 so insistent on deleting this article? For people interested in this book, having an article even now is surely useful, as lots of information is available online. Google has 1780 results for "Neptune's Brood", and surely Stross' own summary of the content is reliable enough for an article (why would he lie?).

From what I have read about the publishing world, at this point 6 months before the declared release date, the book has to be practically finished here 6 months before. If you look at for example A Memory of Light, Brandon Sanderson had already turn in a full draft 11 months before the final release date. And as Stross has a publishing contract for this book and a track record of publishing, I think it is overwhelmingly possible that Neptune's Brood will be released (though I guess there is a chance that the release date will slip). Since there is therefore little doubt that we will have a Neptune's Brood article, why not collect whatever reliable information is available already now, and be useful now for people curious the upcoming book? Thue (talk) 08:05, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Here's my return argument:

First off, just because his other books have articles doesn't mean that this book should. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS just says that other stuff exists. It might end up that some of those other books don't pass WP:NBOOK and just haven't been nominated for deletion yet. Even if they do pass, that's not a guarantee that the next book will get this coverage. There are a lot of authors that publish multiple books and eventually attention just dries up. However I'd bet that if I were to search the 20 books for Stross, at least 2-3 of those books would probably not pass WP:NBOOK. (Update: Not all of his books have articles. I also noticed that many of the books that do have articles have some serious issues with sourcing. Again, an article's existence doesn't mean that all works by an author pass notability guidelines because another article exists. If you want to improve these articles, now is a good time but I will suggest reading over WP:RS first. Adding non-reliable sources won't save an article no matter how many you add.)
As far as author notability goes, an author has to be overwhelmingly notable. This means that he or she would have books written explicitly about them, their work is covered in various schools across the world, etc. Stross doesn't fit this category. Most authors don't. This is held for writers along the lines of Shakespeare, Poe, and authors who have entire shelves devoted to them. I don't mean this to come across as a "anything other than classical lit won't meet these guidelines" type of thing. I mean this in a "less than 1% of all published authors that meet notability guidelines in general meet this specific criteria" sort of thing. Most authors will never get to this level of notability. Being popular does not mean that all works automatically become notable. It just makes it more likely it will gain coverage.
We don't keep articles because they're useful. We keep them because they meet notability guidelines. WP:ITSUSEFUL has never been an argument that has kept a page on that basis alone. Everything and I mean everything must pass a notability guideline of some sort. This means that it must have coverage in reliable sources.
Reliable sources are things such as news coverage in sources that are independent of the author, his publisher, or any other WP:PRIMARY sources. Merchant sites do not count as reliable sources, nor do fan sites or 99.9% of blog posts. So far the only coverage this has received is a few brief WP:TRIVIAL mentions here and there. Trivial mentions do not show notability.
A book being published does not show notability. A book can be published and never actually meet notability guidelines. I've even seen books end up on the NYT Bestseller list, yet still fail notability guidelines for books because it hasn't actually met notability guidelines because it never actually received coverage in reliable sources. Notability standards for books have required in-depth coverage for years now and merely existing is no longer enough to pass notability guidelines.
The books mentioned above (the upcoming Robert Jordan book, for example) are one of the rare examples of a book that has not yet released that has established notability guidelines. Various reliable sources were reporting comments on the upcoming Robert Jordan book years before it was released, giving it a lot of in-depth coverage from places other than fan sites and primary sources. The same thing would go for the upcoming Song of Ice and Fire book as well. It's received coverage for years now and would pass WP:NBOOK even if it never came out. Neptune's Brood does not have this coverage at this point in time. Most books don't get this sort of attention beforehand, so it's fairly common for books to not get an article until the month of the book's release or sometimes not until a few months afterwards. If at all. Like I said above, books can get on the NYT list and not get enough coverage to pass notability guidelines.
Why am I so insistent upon deleting it? Initially I redirected it because it was too soon for an article. We can't make exceptions for articles because you personally like Stross or because the book is "likely to be notable". We have to hold all articles to the same standards of notability that we would for the book of an unknown author that's being released next month. If we start saying "oh gee, we have to keep this one because I like it and it's useful" and whatever reasons you could think of, then we have to do that for ALL of the articles. The rules apply to all of the articles or none of the articles. All editors should follow this rule, especially admins. We can't make special exceptions for articles that clearly don't pass notability guides. Not now. Not ever. Especially if the person involved is an admin. That sets a bad precedent that others could say is an example of favoritism. If you want to argue for a standard of notability that allows for books to pass notability guidelines if the author has had a set amount of notable books published, please do so. It'd make my job here easier. But so far the set standard is that an author only meets this level of notability if they're at Shakespeare type levels. People argue against Stephen King meeting this level of notability, so you'll have a pretty hard time convincing people to go for this for anything less than Shakespeare.
Now before you start pulling up examples of books, be aware that I'm one person and when I see one article that doesn't pass notability guidelines, I will go after that article. The only reason I haven't nominated This or That by So-and-So is because I haven't seen and researched that article yet. I don't think of myself as a deletionist. I just happen to think that the rules should apply to all articles and not just to select articles. This doesn't pass notability guidelines. Heck, if you want to argue about a book that will be "obviously notable and more than likely release", look at the upcoming Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed. That's a book that's not only more than likely to be a #1 bestseller, but it's also likely to gain tons of publicity. But since it doesn't at this time pass notability guidelines, it redirects to the author's page. It'll probably pass notability guidelines in another month or so, but doesn't at this time.

There's more I can write, but this I'm going to stop here before it gets way too TL;DNR. I'm just more posting this because as an admin, you're expected to stick to the rules for notability more so than any other person on Wikipedia. You can't argue for an article to be kept by posting stuff that's already covered in WP:ATA.Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 08:43, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy Keep The nomination tells us clearly that the nominator wanted to redirect this and so is just coming here because they were reverted. But AFD is neither cleanup, third opinion nor a forum. AFD is only for cases where you actually want to extirpate something completely and make it a red link. Now the book in question is the sequel to Saturn's Children and so while it might be sensible to merge there, that's a matter of ordinary editing. The current draft is just a stub which gives the simple infobox facts and so it doesn't much matter whether it's merged or not. I've browsed the topic and find that, even though it's not published yet, there's more to say about it: that it was written using Scrivener (a tool which may be of interest to article writers here); that it is a pastiche of Heinlein's Friday; that it features a society of android mermaids on Neptune; &c. I further learn that Stross is a fairly successful author; that he wrote The Rapture of the Nerds with Cory Doctorow and that that's available as a free creative commons download. That sounds interesting and so I have downloaded it myself.

Now, if the issue is that we should not promote this author's work, note that the reason that I spent a good 30 minutes exploring the matter and actually obtaining a copy of the author's work is not because of the dull and uninteresting stub. The driver for this activity was this AFD — an amusing example of the Streisand effect. And notice that, by convention, we never delete AFD discussions. The best we can do to prevent this work getting undue attention is to shut down this AFD before it grows even more. See also WP:POINT, WP:WINNING and WP:BOOMERANG.

Warden (talk) 10:39, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The reason I brought it here was to avoid a revert war with Thue. I'd redirected it and they showed every indication of getting into a revert war because they wanted to keep the stub, which by no means passes WP:NBOOK by any stretch. The options were to either bring this to AfD or have a few days of revert warring over the article until a different admin stepped in to put a hold on the article, after which point it'd either be a question of taking it to AfD or to the admin board. My point is that there are no reliable sources out there to show that this book passes notability guidelines in any format. My first thought was to redirect it and Thue essentially said that this wasn't an option for the article, so I took the rational next step. So if you've found anything to show that it does merit being kept and that it passes WP:NBOOK, please add them to the article. As far as the overly long explanation goes, it's more because Thue is an admin and doesn't seem to really understand how notability in general goes. That's a pretty big shortcoming for an admin to have considering that notability is the first thing you must have to establish any article, regardless of subject. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 17:20, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISPEANUTBUTTER☆★ 12:42, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science fiction-related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISPEANUTBUTTER☆★ 12:42, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISPEANUTBUTTER☆★ 12:42, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Merge Sources I found:

Paragraph on the announcement of the deal for the book
Announced cover art, along with US and UK synopses
Announcement, reliable primary source by the author

The first two are secondary sources; it is hard to say if the second of them would be considered in depth. My impression is that this topic is near the notability threshold, but it may be a little WP:TOOSOON. It's very likely that this topic will become notable in the near future. This article has potential (see WP:POTENTIAL), so deletion is uncalled for. Merger to the Charles Stross article might be the best option; Neptune's brood is already mentioned there and two of the three sources above are already cited. When this topic does become notable, re-creation of the article is reasonable. Mark viking (talk) 13:24, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is overwhelmingly likely that the article will pass notability with flying colors once it is published. Why not start filling in the article now, and the useful in the mean time to people waiting for the book - what is the harm? In the very unlikely case that all copies of the draft goes up in smoke and the book is never published, the article can then be deleted or merged, with no harm done. Why the big urge to destroy? Thue (talk) 16:31, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Because there is nothing at this point that shows that notability is a guarantee. If there were more sources out there that showed any sort of coverage for the book at this point in time, I'd be more than happy to ignore the article for a few months. There's literally nothing out there for this book that would give notability for it. Neither of the two secondary sources listed above would really be considered anything but trivial. As someone who has edited many, many book articles over the past few years, I can vouch that "seems like it'd be notable" is not a guarantee with any author. Very few authors are actually "guaranteed to" have notability when a book comes out or even before that point. Please read up on arguments to avoid during deletion discussions. WP:ITSUSEFUL is not an argument we use to keep an article. We don't keep articles simply because you personally find it useful. The article must pass notability guidelines. This article doesn't do this at this point in time and to say that it will is just WP:CRYSTAL balling at this point in time. And this isn't really destroying, it's maintenance. I expect all articles to be held to the same standards, regardless of who wrote them, what it's about, or whether or not someone personally likes the subject matter. Like I said above, either all articles are held to the same standards or none of them must follow the same standards. Besides, at this point there really isn't much to delete that isn't already on the author's page. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 17:25, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I mean seriously, if we were to keep this article because "it'll totally become notable" then we'd have to keep every article under the idea that each subject matter is just inches away from becoming known. We can't give preferential treatment to any subject matter. That's a dangerously slippery slope for articles in general. The same argument of "this will totally become notable one day so let's keep the article until then" might not sound like it'd do "any harm" for a book until you see someone trying to make that same argument for a website or a merchant of some sort. After all, it's a company/website that's "totally going to become notable one day" and they could argue that because "it's popular" that they'll more than likely get coverage once that event happens and gets them coverage. That's just not how Wikipedia works. In all good faith we can't make exceptions for one article, then turn around and tell another editor with the exact same situation that their article must be deleted. This is half the reason so many misunderstandings in AfD happen when they say "but editor X got to keep their article despite having no sources". The rules apply to everyone and to all articles or we should throw them out and have no rules apply to the articles and let everyone add their stuff. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 19:19, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It does have a good deal of Google hits already, to not be completely unnotable. A completely unnotable book would not have that amount of web coverage. We have a completeness argument for notability too, that we have an article on a book just to have an article on every book an author has - that argument should eb enough to meet the notability argument for this book, since we have an article for every other of his books. Also, I am not going to waste time to reply to all of you massive amount of arguments, evry if some of them are clearly wrong - I would rather spend the time to improve Wikipedia. Thue (talk) 03:44, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:GHITS, the amount of google hits are irrelevant to whether or not an article should be kept. There are books out there that get dozens to hundreds of hit pages, yet do not pass notability guidelines. Having a complete guide to every book by every author is nice, but we can only have them if the books in question pass notability guideline. Wikipedia is here to cover the notable stuff, not to be a complete compendium on every small facet out there. (WP:NOTEVERYTHING)Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:04, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Merge as WP:TOOSOON to author's article per Mark and spin out when published and notability established. Mcewan (talk) 15:59, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Merge, per WP:TOOSOON, the sources simply repeat the statements made by the author about his upcoming book(s). We might be able to find reliable third-party sources with in-depth coverage when the book is finally published, which would certainly establish notability, but until then, I agree with Mark viking on merging it to author's article. Nimuaq (talk) 11:36, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to its author. We should not be having articles on books at least until there start being reviews, which in turn depends on it having at least reached a proof stage. Peterkingiron (talk) 14:38, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Weak redirect or merge with author or prequel for now. Agreed that it's technically too soon, there's not yet substantial enough coverage. But the novel is all but certain to receive reviews in reliable sources, so it's not the end of the world if the article stays around until July. Sandstein 21:02, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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.