Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Laura McGloughlin

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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. Clear consensus that improvements made since nomination are enough to assert notability. All deletion !votes were expressed prior to expansion, some subsequently withdrawn. (non-admin closure) Bungle (talk • contribs) 10:04, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Laura McGloughlin[edit]

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Laura McGloughlin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Fails GNG WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 02:02, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete: Very minor mentions as the translator of a few books but nothing about the subject herself. ww2censor (talk) 10:28, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I have to agree - there is no indepth RS on the subject (either in the article or in a before search), and while there are RS review of the books she has translated, I don't see how these can apply to WP:NAUTHOR here. ResonantDistortion 14:15, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Per nom and other !votes above, a WP:BEFORE search returns nothing more than the same short 3-sentence "bio profiles" we find in the article itself. Nothing that reaches the expectations of WP:SIGCOV. I can't even find sources to support the text we have (like the subject's degree from UCC which doesn't appear to be mentioned anywhere outside this article). WP:NAUTHOR, also, doesn't appear to be met. Guliolopez (talk) 16:42, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - with regret, as not many translators to be found in here, but this probably does not qualify on the work, and certainly does not evidence it. Like ghost writers, translators have to be recognised as exceptional in some way, or have a massive body of published work, to have articles in Wikipedia, as they are not creating a personal artistic body of work, but working on others'. Some, of course, are recognised as going beyond "just translation", but they are the exception, and often are, or become, published original authors too. SeoR (talk) 15:36, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - the article is much improved and now clearly asserts, and cites for, notable quality of translation. As I said originally, we could use more articles on translators. And I have done paid translation myself, and know both the limitations and the art that is sometimes called for - choosing words, never mind the flow and structure, can be a real challenge. And, frankly, some translations improve on the original. I've also heard a lot from authors about this (and don't even start on the more-common-than-we-realise world of ghost writing). All that said, I think the bar is higher than for wholly original work of quality - but anyway, this article now passes this bar. Thanks to the editor(s) who made this difference and facilitated retention. SeoR (talk) 01:29, 26 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I'd like to respectfully disagree about reviews and translators. To put it bluntly, there's a ton of work that goes into translating a novel. A translator work, in a way, has them basically re-writing the book. Only they can't write it completely from scratch as they have to keep as close to the original source material while keeping the same content, intent, and flow. If anyone has ever translated, then you'll know that there's a lot of work involved with this because a lot can be lost in translation, even when you're doing something like translating a news article. The translator has to figure out how to do this without changing things too much - but also picking out the best word in the new language to fit the translation because sometimes it's not as easy as translating "gato" to "cat". The translator has to decide whether or not to pick a word with a similar meaning, translate it as literally as possible, or to leave the word "as is" and include a footnote. That's not even considering situations where a sentence or passage has a ton of nuance and double meanings. A bad translation can completely change the nuance, intent, and original meaning, as well as the plot as a whole. As this translator puts it, a good translation will make you forget that you are reading a translation entirely.
So what does this mean? Well... it kind of means that a review praising the author's writing is just as much for the translator as it is for the author because again, the interpreter has to re-write the novel. That's a huge amount of work because ultimately the original author didn't write their work in (for example) English. The translator did and what the reviewer is praising is the translator's interpretation of the author's work. It's why a review praising "evocative and atmospheric language" is just as much praising the translator as the author because it's the translator who chose to translate it that way.
I'm not saying this to argue for a keep, just that we need to look beyond a one sentence mention of the translator's name here. We need to consider what the review is saying about the sentence structure, descriptions, and so on. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 15:59, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak delete. There are some sources and I do think reviews should generally count towards notability as long as they discuss things like the language, sentence structure, and so on, but I don't see that we really have enough that go into depth about that. When I argue for or against notability I try to imagine how the article would fare if it were brought up for AfD in a year's time - would it still hold up to newer, fresher eyes? With this one, I can't really justify it. It's a shame but there's just not enough here. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 16:05, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I think McGloughlin is a creative professional according to WP:CREATIVE, and as I review and add sources to the article, she appears to have "played a major role in co-creating a [...] collective body of work", and I am in the midst of reviwing whether "such work [has] been the primary subject of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews." Beccaynr (talk) 16:17, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - per WP:CREATIVE#3 and sources added to the article - McGloughlin is a creative professional who has co-created multiple works that have been the primary subject of multiple independent reviews. The article also has a Reception section with two reviews that have a brief specific focus on her translations; overall, I think ReaderofthePack's first comment in this discussion helps explain why the usual notability guideline can apply here to support keeping this article. Beccaynr (talk) 16:52, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Spain-related deletion discussions. Beccaynr (talk) 19:15, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I have struck my delete vote per the excellent work Beccaynr has done on the article. ResonantDistortion 20:07, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I am persuaded by the NAUTHOR body of work: 5 books with 2+ reviews each where the reviews are specifically of her translations. Glad to see so much sourcing added. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 23:47, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: The well-sourced article we now have is about five times longer than the unsourced version nominated for deletion.--Ipigott (talk) 12:33, 25 January 2024 (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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