Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hoax letter writers

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 no consensus. Hopefully editors will figure out how to rename/clean up the article. Renata (talk) 00:16, 21 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hoax letter writers[edit]

Unsourced article whose premise is original research; I'm not seeing any sources for the idea that hoax letter writing is considered a genre, or that these are considered hoax letters per se rather than pranks or satire, and there is a lot of speculation in here as well. Guy (Help!) 21:47, 15 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - per WP:OR, WP:REF, WP:RS, WP:V, WP:N, and somewhat WP:NPOV.--S_RX 23:56, 15 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - per WP:OR and WP:SYN --T-rex 01:08, 16 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep It's a somewhat notable concept, and I suspect that the author wasn't sure how to put this in words. It could use a different title (such as prank letters, which gets enough coverage[1] [2] to be notable). Rather than a hoax, this is best described as "prank authors who submit joke letters to real organizations and then publish their responses", a narrow branch of comedy. Don Novello (who was more famous as "Father Guido Sarducci" on Saturday Night Live) was the author of a bestselling book called The Laszlo Letters. Part of the humor was the serious responses to intentionally ridiculous inquiries. Mandsford (talk) 02:17, 16 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I'm inclined to agree with Mandsford that this may be better titled prank letters. Right now it's a bit list-y, but could be expanded from sources that have discussed the phenomenon under that and other names. It's impossible to define based on intent, but certainly it's notable and deserving of treatment outside of individual authors' articles. --Dhartung | Talk 05:41, 16 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. The article's unsourced and speculative nature places it neatly in the realm of original research. The subject may well warrant an article, but this is nothing more than a list padded out with unsourced speculation. Poltair (talk) 09:05, 16 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The subjects are not very difficult to source; I could do the Henry Root section myself, give a day or so (the Root letters were a UK publishing phenomenon in the early 80s and I own collections of them). I agree that the article is fairly inept right now, but let it be expanded first - Flann O'Brien, for one, was a notable writer of hoax letters. The practice itself is time-honoured enough to deserve an article of its own, and this is not a great start, but at least it's a start. Lexo (talk) 01:06, 17 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment if kept rename as it is ambiguously named. "Writer of hoax letters" or "Letter writers who are hoaxes" or "Hoax writers of hoax letters"... 70.51.11.210 (talk) 12:35, 17 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Split if referenceable, this should not be a single article. 70.51.11.210 (talk) 12:35, 17 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and discuss the best way to split it on the talk page. DGG (talk) 01:26, 19 August 2008 (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.