Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens

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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. WP:TROUT to OceanCoombs for pontificating at length in a matter that was not conducive to reaching a community consensus in this discussion. signed, Rosguill talk 03:04, 4 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens[edit]

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Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Book does not reach notability standards for a stand-alone article. The only results I could find in a search is for booksellers and reader/blogger reviews, but no professional reviews, or appearances on best-seller lists. ... discospinster talk 21:45, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete no book reviews, nothing for mentions in RS.Not meeting notability standards. Oaktree b (talk) 22:45, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Science fiction and fantasy and Literature. Spiderone(Talk to Spider) 22:52, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Oaktree b. I couldn't find any WP:SIGCOV-compliant sources either. JML1148 (talk | contribs) 23:42, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to an Alcatraz series article, or if no one feels like writing one, to Brandon Sanderson bibliography#Alcatraz. I agree that I'm not finding RS reviews, but good grief there are a ton of non-RS ones, audiobook discussions, and a collection that includes these and the other novels. Under no circumstances should it be deleted--there are just too many ATDs out there. Jclemens (talk) 02:04, 28 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Switching to Keep per Cunard's sourcing, which I looked for but did not find. I guess I don't have the Google Fu with literature I do with television. Jclemens (talk) 04:33, 30 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources. Wikipedia:Notability (books)#Criteria says:

    A book is presumed notable if it verifiably meets, through reliable sources, at least one of the following criteria:

    1. The book has been the subject of two or more non-trivial published works appearing in sources that are independent of the book itself. This can include published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, other books, television documentaries, bestseller lists, and reviews. This excludes media re-prints of press releases, flap copy, or other publications where the author, its publisher, agent, or other self-interested parties advertise or speak about the book.
    Sources
    1. Burkham, Anita L. (January–February 2011). "Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens". The Horn Book Magazine. Vol. 87, no. 1. p. 100. Archived from the original on 2023-05-28. Retrieved 2023-05-28 – via Gale.

      The review notes: "Alcatraz's seat-of-the-pants narration--with references to "wombats, outer space, and stamp collections" in chapters that don't exist, direct requests to readers (to change their underwear daily, for instance), and self-referential comments on the literary nature of the book--might make the series appear at first to be a zany, kid-pandering mess, but the charismatic characters hold the whole enterprise together while the stealth plot unfolds. ... As goofy randomness streamlines into compelling narration, even readers who don't find giant robots reason alone to pick up a book will be drawn into Alcatraz's cohesive world, with its unique form of magic and that magic's natural enemy, the Librarians."

    2. Reid, Connie (2022-10-19). "Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens (Alcatraz #4)". YA Books Central. Archived from the original on 2023-05-28. Retrieved 2023-05-28.

      The page notes: "Star ratings in yellow are from our Staff Reviewers. Star ratings in green are reader reviews. Anyone can post a reader review, so post yours today!"

      The review from Connie Reid is a staff review. The review notes: "What I Liked: Brandon Sanderson’s ability to integrate the silly into a story enhances this series and makes it all the more appealing for Middle-Grade readers each time. My family enjoyed the chapter names this go around. It went from chapter 2 to chapter 6 with a quick explanation of what boring things happened in the missing chapters and why he threw them out. I especially loved the nod to Star Trek with the chapter titled NCC-1701."

    3. Raklovits, Amanda (November 2012). "Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens". School Library Journal. Vol. 58, no. 11. p. 54. Archived from the original on 2023-05-28. Retrieved 2023-05-28 – via Gale.

      The review notes: "He strikes the right balance between Alcatraz's naturally snarky tone and the surprisingly serious moments as the boy comes to terms with his mounting responsibility and shifting perspective. As listeners familiar with the series know, Alcatraz frequently breaks from the narrative to address them directly on any number of ostensibly unrelated subjects, and de Ocampo shifts neatly between the action and these asides, maintaining the listeners' interest throughout. For those who prefer their fantasy with a dash of slapstick, plenty of metafictional humor, and a heap of irreverence."

    4. "The Chapter Book/Easy Reader Shelf". Children's Bookwatch. Vol. 21, no. 1. Midwest Book Review. January 2011. Archived from the original on 2023-05-28. Retrieved 2023-05-28.

      This is a two-sentence review. The review notes: "Brandon Sanderson's Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens (9780439925570, $17.99) tells of Alcatraz Smedry, who has been the subject of prior adventures and who here appears in a final adventure where he faces down an army of librarians and their giant librarian robots in a war. If they win, everything Alcatraz has fought for will be threatened in this absorbing story of gigantic robots, evil librarians, and danger."

    There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens to pass Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".

    Cunard (talk) 09:29, 28 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

On the Irony of Proposing to Delete a Book about Burning Books[edit]

The author of this book series depicts, in this very series, the moral hazard of burning heaps of disorganized books in order to more easily organize the few that remain.

As a user of Wikipedia, I expect every single book I read to have a dedicated Wikipedia article about that book. As an editor of Wikipedia (for more than ten years through my homeschooling group editor account) I feel a responsibility to the users to provide them with the experience that I wish I had. From over a decade of experience editing Wikipedia, I know that all editors have a responsibility to all users to give them the best possible experience by preserving and building upon the collective knowledge of all human history, instead of shrinking and condensing it with waves of deletions. Like the keepers of the Library of Alexandria, we are meant to protect knowledge and should refuse to allow any article-burning bonfires that put at risk the collection we have built. Each time a group of experienced Wikipedia editors vote to delete an article about a topic which is likely to become more important, more noteworthy, and meaningful to more people in the future, the editors deprive untold numbers of future learners access to the inspiration to contribute to the quality of the articles that already exist. In all the years that I have edited Wikipedia, this tendency by certain other editors to see book burning as a useful housecleaning tool has repeatedly perplexed and stifled me. I would have contributed more to Wikipedia than I already have, in fact, if not for encountering this exact phenomenon which tells would-be editors that we have nothing of value to contribute, and the proof of our worthlessness is right in front of us on our screens where the value we would contribute has not yet been contributed so the missing contributions by virtue of being missing prove to us that nobody else considers our contributions to have value or somebody else would already have contributed what we are capable of contributing. Burning articles that do not yet have our contributions added to them because we have not yet contributed contributes to the high rate of article bonfire cleansing and the relatively low rate of editor contributions to improve the articles that need to be improved in order to be worthy of preservation.

On a less poetic note I would like to point out that before I came along 4 out of 6 of the books in the Alcatraz series had dedicated articles. the first one did. the second one did. the third one did. the FIFTH one did. As a user the appearance of missing information is aggravating and distressing. As an editor I would like to draw your attention to Template:Infobox book. What exactly is the point of this: 

  | preceded_by       = <\!-- for books in a series -->
  | followed_by       = <\!-- for books in a series -->

If we cannot provide to the user a complete and consistent path through every book in a series they are trying to read. — Preceding unsigned comment added by OceanCoombs (talk • contribs) 00:33, 29 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Every book? So you propose to get rid of the notability standard for Wikipedia? Only for books, or for every individual, every company? By your argument, deleting an article about an individual is akin to killing that person. There are places where you can read about all the books, for example GoodReads. Wikipedia is not GoodReads, nor is it a directory of everything ever published or everything that has ever existed, and it was never meant to be that. ... discospinster talk 15:50, 29 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If OceanCoombs is really as new as the account's contributions suggest, this is borderline WP:BITEy behavior, discospinster. Surely we can all work to support people who are trying to enhance things without having 10+ years of Wikipedia history and policy knowledge to fall back on. Fact is, OC's point is relatively valid: Why have a break in an otherwise notable series? Notability is a norm, not a requirement, and while it may never be a Wikipedia-approved reason, having a series entry for a non-notable book in an otherwise notable book series is actually a reasonable exception to notability. We've been saying "there are no precedents!" for so long, we risk beginning to look unreasonable and unencyclopedic in such cases. Jclemens (talk) 04:41, 30 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OceanCoombs, per their comment, is an editor with over 10 years experience, not a newcomer. Now if you want to talk about reasonable exceptions, that's one thing. But if you want to compare deleting an article to book burning, I will have to go ahead and disagree. It reminds me of the old "Wikipedia is stifling free speech" argument. Article deletion is a valid act and part of the maintenance of the encyclopedia, even if it hurts people's feelings. ... discospinster talk 13:57, 30 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I had overlooked that, my apologies. And no, I did not, nor do I now, endorse a comparison between book burning and Wikipedia editorial processes. Jclemens (talk) 05:42, 1 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A look at the previous speedy deletion and Objection to New Speedy Deletion[edit]

In my opinion, the final vote for or against deletion in this case should be deferred for 30 days or more because the pending proposal for deletion is out of order. Consider how we got here:

On the 21 August 2021 at 01:58 this page was nominated for deletion. and at 9:30 on the same day all the content of the page was replaced with a redirect. Effectively this was a speedy deletion that violated the Criteria for speedy deletion. See also this Field Guide to proper speedy deletion which emphasizes the mistake that was made previously when this book was deleted by replacement with redirect instead of being improved upon or even discussed in a proposal for deletion. My decision to restore the previous article and improve upon it is being interfered with by the new deletion proposal, which I understand to mean a vote to keep or delete may occur any time after seven days, and instead of spending time improving the article as I intended most of my Wikipedia editing time in the last 7 days has been spent here discussing whether to delete that which I intend to improve.

The fact that the current deletion discussion is a result of my attempt to restore and improve the article strongly suggests to me that any decision to delete should first give enough time for improvements to be made AND that a deletion decision resulting from this discussion should be required to provide some proof that this book or this article (after it has been improved) somehow violates a Rule or Policy that MUST be enforced aggressively for some good editorial reason, because a decision to delete in this situation itself violates a fundamental premise of what Wikipedia is and why we are able to make it work: "Wikipedia is both a product and a process." The premise that it is perfectly acceptable for every article to always be under construction.

Absent any affirmative proof that this book or article violate a Rule or Policy requiring deletion, a Rule or Policy that MUST be enforced in order to prevent harm or solve a problem caused by the existence of legitimate, useful, accurate, factual and reliably-sourced Wikipedia content (particularly when that content pertains to a book or a work of art which is part of culture and inherently interesting to more people as time goes by) such as harm caused by paid editing conflict-of-interest content in Wikipedia, or the harm caused by violations of editors' privacy rights or other privacy violation such as doxxing and articles about non-public people or children, an article such as one about a book or work of art ALWAYS deserves a presumption of innocence and an "under-construction" sign with a place for editors to do the work and for users to read and consider contributing to this work themselves. The current proposal for deletion contains no affirmative proof that this article violates any such Rule or Policy requiring speedy deletion or any deletion or revision such as the previous decision to replace the article content with a redirect to the author's page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by OceanCoombs (talk • contribs) 23:08, 3 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Stare Decisis[edit]

Stare Decisis (a Latin phrase with the literal meaning of "to stand in the-things-that-have-been-decided") is the principle of deferring to previous decisions in deciding future verdicts. For 10 years since the creation of this page editors decided this book was worthy of the time and effort to dedicate a Wikipedia article about it. Stare Decisis should be the binding Precedent followed by all editors when we propose to overturn all previous editors' judgments allowing an article to have time to be improved upon and to render a different verdict. Under the principle of Stare Decisis we MUST find affirmative and clear evidence that the previous verdict rendered by every other editor for a decade was incorrect and MUST be reversed for a reason that improves Wikipedia going forward and makes the new decision that overturns the previous verdict more constructive as precedent.

Here we do not have any evidence to suggest to us that the previous verdict was wrong, therefore, to stand in the things that have been decided, we MUST keep and improve this article about a book that might be notable already, might become more notable in the future, and is part of a notable book series authored by an historically-significant and notable author. OceanCoombs (talk) 23:31, 3 June 2023 (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.
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