Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Quantum Sheep

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 delete. -- RoySmith (talk) 02:55, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Quantum Sheep[edit]

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This is basically a one-time experiment by a non-notable poet, not a whole movement or style of poetry that other people have picked up on and imitated since the initial effort. It appears to have been mildly locally newsworthy as a human-interest story when it occurred, and has attracted almost no interest or critical commentary since then. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 03:56, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 03:56, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Poetry-related deletion discussions. 94rain ^Talk 07:25, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Um, not so fast. Laws made the first poems back in 2002; it attracted quite a lot of attention back then; the respected Peterloo Poets published a book on the topic in 2006 (a substantial leap in notability in the quiet world of poetry). Later, in 2017, the composer Stephen Downing made a musical piece of the Quantum Sheep, showing both that it continued to have currency and that another artist thought it worth working with. In 2018, educators thought fit to write about the poem's experimental approach, showing that the poetic method of the said sheep has currency 16 years later, and is of interest to another constituency of people; hardly a nine-days-wonder. This is a definite keep. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:24, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: If this had perhaps a handful of more notable sources, I would change this to Weak keep, but as it stands the only ones I can find are the BBC News article and this HuffPost article from a Stegner Fellow/poetry teacher. The problem, I think, with using Laws' books to advance notability – one of which was the one Chiswick Chap describes above as attesting to the style's notability – is that she was the one who pioneered the style of poetry, and thus it's by definition not independent. As far as the FutureLearn source, the single reference used is Laws herself, and the article – which has very little depth – effectively defers entirely to Laws when describing quantum sheep. I pretty much concur with Premeditated Chaos' description about it being a "mildly locally newsworthy [...] human-interest story". TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 04:27, 7 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

All the same, the FutureLearn source is an independently-created page in an independent field, education. If we're on a source hunt, another is the philosopher Robert P. Crease's article Quantum of Culture on Physics World, which gives substantial coverage to the Quantum Sheep. It's certainly an independent source from a notable authority in his own field. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:22, 7 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's not really "all the same". As I pointed out, the literal only reference for that brief FutureLearn article, by its own admission, is Valerie Laws' webpage. Per the GNG: "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list." The problem here is that the FutureLearn article effectively just regurgiates what's on Laws' website wholesale while adding nothing of its own.

While I would consider that Physics World page as adding to notability, I would say only marginally due to a couple qualifiers. First, quantum sheep is far from the main subject of that article; it's not a perfect metric for importance, but it receives ~230 words in a ~1975-word article. Second, the coverage seems to be sourced half from Laws' website, and half from quotes from Laws from the BBC interview, i.e. another article that ostensibly adds very little outside of "Here's what Laws says". The saving grace here that makes me say "marginal" is the article's author. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 10:44, 7 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: If kept, that article may need to be sheared down just a bit. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 04:35, 7 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Nosebagbear (talk) 12:08, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete fails WP:NOTESSAY. WP:NEO, and WP:GNG.E.M.Gregory (talk) 10:15, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete fails WP:GNG MaskedSinger (talk) 16:39, 19 June 2019 (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.