Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Charles Brokaw

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 redirect to Thomas Lourdes (novel series). The discussion was not very conclusive, but while the books seem notable the author, under his nom-de-plume, is not, and redirection to the article about the books will enable a searcher to reach what relevant information we have. JohnCD (talk) 21:02, 16 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Charles Brokaw[edit]

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Author of three books published by TOR/Forge. No references available. -- Dennis The Tiger (Rawr and stuff) 08:09, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I'm finding some book reviews from reliable sources for this guy, so if there's not enough for any one specific book entry or for an author page, it might be worthwhile to create an entry for the book series as a whole and redirect this to the series page. (I say series as all three books he's published have been part of an ongoing series.)Tokyogirl79 (talk) 10:07, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Additional. Wow... I think that there's a HUGE COI going on here. In my trawlings to find sources for the article, I discover the publisher's page for the author... which links to the Wikipedia page. I look through the original editor's edits to discover that they've done a lot of edits for authors published by MacMillan, all of whom are linked to Wikipedia articles about them. I have a very strong suspicion that the contributing editor works directly for the publisher or was hired to write articles for MacMillan's authors. See the editing history of Muledeer7[1]and this page [2] and this one[3] for an example of what I'm talking about.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 10:16, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete To have an article about the pseudonym with nothing about the real person behind it, means there would have to be significant coverage of him simply and solely as author of these books. That does not appear to be the case. A redirect to an article on his real name might be possible -- is there any indication of who he really is? Cusop Dingle (talk) 11:31, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:49, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep seems notable enough, and we do have articles on pseudonyms (see Franklin W. Dixon for an example). Hit #22 on NYT Best Seller list of paperback fiction on Sept. 5, 2010. Collect (talk) 14:12, 10 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see anyone suggesting that we can not or do not have articles on pseudonyms, but I did say that it is harder to establish notability for one. Do you have examples of significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject to support the claim of notability? Cusop Dingle (talk) 20:44, 10 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Other than such stuff as having books reviewed in such minor sources as the New York Times, Seattle P-I, Publishers Weekly and Library Journal, being listed on the NYT Best Seller List of Paperbacks, etc.? Seems to hit WP notability standards at this point, and a bunch of lesser authors get mentioned in articles on WP. And I am glad you agree that just because it is a "pen name" does not affect notability. Collect (talk) 22:01, 10 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What I'm wondering though, is that since 99.9% of the sources out there concern the books, wouldn't it be better to just create an article on the book series and then redirect the author's name to that? I'm willing to start on it if there's a consensus on this. Why have an article about an author (which lacks any real meat) when it's going to predominantly talk about the book series, when we can just have an article about the book series and have a redirect from the author's name?Tokyogirl79 (talk) 04:27, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. OK. Here's what I've found. The novelist's real name is Michael Cordy and to be honest, his article is a complete and utter mess. It's unsourced and not very encyclopedically written. Even if it was, it suffers from the same issues that we have with the article for the pseudonym: a lack of sources that actually discuss the author. What I'm suggesting is that since I've gone ahead and created a page for the novel series at Thomas Lourdes (novel series), we redirect both the pseudonym of Brokaw and the true name of the author (Cordy) to the novel series page. The author doesn't seem to have any notability outside of the series itself, as evidenced by the fact that neither name has any reliable sources that are actually about them. Everything I've found seems to focus on the books themselves, generally being reviews for the books. I just don't see where we need articles on the author and what little information we do have can be placed inside the general article for the series.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 05:21, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to Thomas Lourdes (novel series). There's nothing to show that this pseudonym (or the author's real name) has any notability outside of the book series. It also doesn't help that the biography for "Charles Brokaw" is complete and utter fiction, as Cordy is actually an Englishman (who still lives in the UK) that'd previously worked in marketing and quit to become a novelist. There's absolutely no reason for an article to exist for either of the author's name. I also highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend that an admin watch the person who has been adding these articles. Given that the publisher pages are directing people to the Wikipedia entries, it's painfully obvious that MacMillan is using Wikipedia as free advertising for their authors. So far there's a solution for this author (redirecting to an article about the series), but it worries me that they could be mass producing articles for publicity purposes, which really needs to be looked into. This isn't some random small advertising company adding a few pages for a low key company, but a big publisher deliberately doing it in plain sight.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 05:21, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I was rather erm.... "abruptly" told that Cordy was not Brokaw (but that's another story), but the fact still remains that Brokaw has no notability outside of his series. I hold firm that this should be a redirect to the series page.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 18:18, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree. There is no value in a "re-direct" ... where is the evidence that the author uses a nom de plume? Either the author is the one who is recorded inside the novels where the copywrite notice is printed, and is therefore accountable, in which case an article in his name is possible with reservations, or he is unidentifiable and should be deleted.

Gareth Griffith-Jones (talk) 22:09, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not really, that's not how WP:AUTHOR works. You have to have articles about the author to show that they have notability outside of their works. You can show that a book is notable or that a series is notable, but that notability is not automatically inherited or transferred (WP:NOTINHERITED) to the author. It's actually pretty common to have a redirect from the author's name to their work. Most authors won't be notable outside of their works, to be honest. For example, E. L. James has written the bestselling book Fifty Shades of Grey. It's on the NYT bestselling lists, but that notability doesn't mean that he merits an article of his own. All that this means is that it's more likely for articles to be written about him by reliable sources, which would allow him his own article. Even the authors of the bestselling Beautiful Creatures novel don't have their own articles at this point in time, despite them having a series that has sold almost as well as the Twilight series and having a Hollywood blockbuster being created of their work. Now this means that it might be more likely for them to have an article later on, but having notable works doesn't mean that the authors themselves are notable outside of said work.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 05:18, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

* Delete! In my posting above, I make no mention of retaining his article. On the contrary, I think the article should be deleted. Regarding articles featuring a writer's pseudonym as the article title, look at James Rollins – an author, James Paul Czajkowski, writing under two pseudonyms, as both James Rollins and James Clemens. Really, I should like you to address the nom de plume aspect, though, which you seem to be unable to verify. Where is the evidence that it is not his real name? Have you actually had physical contact with any of his three novels and looked inside?

Gareth Griffith-Jones (talk) 13:53, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Oh, as far as to how I know that the Brokaw name is a pseudonym, the publisher's website actually mentions this on his author page [4]. It's on most of the sources out there about him as well, so it's not actually a secret that it's a pseudonym.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 17:15, 12 April 2012 (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.