Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Shi'a: The Real Followers of the Sunnah

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 Muhammad al-Tijani. J04n(talk page) 23:18, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Shi'a: The Real Followers of the Sunnah[edit]

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What has been said at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/To be with the Truthful fully applies here. While this book is popular among the small niche market of Shia Muslims in Anglophone countries, it's not notable enough to warrant its own article. Even when searching the Net, any and all sources which come up - both those for the book and against it - are too POV-laden to serve as reliable sources. It's simply a non-notable book. Additionally - and I don't like to bring this up but there's no way around it - this article was created by User:Striver, a Shia user who had a long history of creating articles on non-notable subjects only for them to be deleted later. Now that Striver has been retired from Wikipedia for a few years, I think it's safe to say objectively that, while he made a huge amount of valid edits, much of the articles he created like this one were designed to push a certain POV. That's a view of these articles widely shared by those who encountered such articles, so it isn't simply something I'm saying as a personal remark but a valid assessment of edits over a long period of time to which many editors concurred. MezzoMezzo (talk) 11:32, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Islam-related deletion discussions. MezzoMezzo (talk) 11:36, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(books)#Note_on_notability_criteria states:

Ask yourself if several libraries or bookshops, or a no-subscription website have a copy of the book, so that other wikipedians can easily consult the book, or at least have access to on-line or press-published reviews of the book. Usually, books with an ISBN-number and/or availability in a couple dozen of libraries and/or a Project Gutenberg type website, and with a notability above that of an average cookbook or programmers manual would qualify.

I think it's notable and verifiable, and worthy of inclusion as this book has a ISBN AND is "availability in a couple dozen of libraries", AND also being available for full download on several sites. Also, the book is notable enough to be republished by several publishers.--Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 15:08, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The thing about the part you're talking about is that the library/bookshop thing is considered a threshold standard.

However, these are exclusionary criteria rather than inclusionary; meeting these threshold standards does not imply that a book is notable, whereas a book which does not meet them, most likely is not. There will be exceptions—books that are notable despite not meeting these threshold standards—but they will be rare and good reasons for the notability of such books should be made very clear.

Simply being available in bookstores or libraries is not in and of itself something that would give absolute notability. Having a wide level of availability makes it more likely that it will be notable, but it doesn't guarantee it. We need secondary independent and reliable sources to show that this is considered notable. If you can show proof that this is widely used in classrooms then that could help pass notability guidelines, but I'll say that if it's going to pass purely on that basis then you'll have to show a lot of proof. It's extremely rare that a book will be widely used in classrooms but not get mentioned in RS. Offhand I have to say that WorldCat doesn't show it in that many libraries. [1] It looks to only be in about 100 or fewer libraries at what I can see, which in the end isn't that much when you compare it to other books such as say, the cheesy teen book Twilight, which is in over 4,000 libraries worldwide. Although this in and of itself doesn't say it can't be notable, as notability is given by independent RS and isn't based on how many copies are available out there. I'll see what I can find, but I just wanted to say that availability isn't notability.Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 19:24, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just to mention that the book originally was written in Arabic and then it was translated in several languages, in English, Farsi, Arabic, French, Urdu, etc.--Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 06:50, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 23:27, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to Muhammad al-Tijani, but keep the history. I did a search and while I did see that this was in a handful of libraries (mostly universities), I couldn't see where this book is actually being widely taught. This might be a case of sources not being available online or in another language, but I just can't find much out there other than links to acquire a copy. I think that for now it'd be best to redirect to the author's page. His page needs some TLC, but I've found stuff out there that suggests that he is indeed notable. (Such as this link, which shows him being interviewed on TV.) I'd say that this could and should be used as a RS, but I can't find enough to show that it'd pass notability guidelines at this point in time. If sources can be found then I would support un-redirecting, but right now the sources just aren't out there. I have a feeling that if there are sources, they're in another language and not on the Internet and would take a lot of time and patience to find, hence the redirect with history. At the very least it should be userfied by an interested editor.Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 04:38, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If we decide to redirect then we should merge this article with Muhammad al-Tijani (& not only a simple redirect).--Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 06:50, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see a problem with that- the article as it is now isn't particularly long and it's customary to have a section that talks about an author's works in general. This could be easily merged into an overall section about his work. Would you be willing/interested in doing that? I'm going to be presumptuous and say that you'd probably be able to find and read any/most of the sources that are in another language. I can do some stuff with Google translate, but it's well, Google translate and anything I would produce would be of an inferior quality. I can find sourcing, but it's always better to have someone that would be more familiar with the language actually read the sources and write the article.Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:07, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There are some other works by the same author, similarly with short and unsourced pages here on Wikipedia, which I nominated for AfD. Perhaps we should wait for those as well and see if we can make one consistent decision for all of them; if one is merged, wouldn't it make sense to just merge all of them and give the author's page a beefier "Works" heading?

That is, if more users support the merge. I don't know if more will want to keep or just delete, as there really isn't much to specifically merge. The information is short and nondescript enough that I could see simply deleting this page and, separately, putting writeups on the page for the author's biography (which is obviously notable but neglected as a page). Not to argue but to simply clarify my point, I do stand by my original delete suggestion - I don't think we can find RS due to the POv-charged nature of the works. MezzoMezzo (talk) 10:14, 25 February 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.