Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stephanie Powell Watts

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. As a group - individual nominations remain possible. Sandstein 10:49, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Stephanie Powell Watts[edit]

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

This is the first of several articles in which a single user has been creating articles which reference minor and otherwise non-notable authors. The "citations" are mostly web links to promotional stories and sites about the author themselves and several have an "external link" section which links to homepages advertising the sale of the author's book. Recommend deletion of all articles on minor authors per WP:PROMOTION, WP:Notable, and also these have issues I feel with WP:BLP O.R.^Comms 01:46, 19 September 2015 (UTC) I am also nominating the following related pages because they are similar promotional articles for minor and non-notable authors -O.R.^Comms 02:00, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. Everymorning (talk) 02:08, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Delete Un-notable authors. Eat me, I'm a red bean (talk · contribs) 02:15, 19 September 2015 (UTC) Keep per Northamerica1000.—Eat me, I'm a red bean (talk · contribs) 08:32, 25 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – @Eat me, I'm a red bean: Is your !vote based upon source searches and notability guidelines, or is it based upon your personal opinion? Your !vote is vague regarding qualification for deletion of these six articles. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:39, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the refs are to promotional articles and primary sources.—Eat me, I'm a red bean (talk · contribs) 08:19, 25 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Eat me, I'm a red bean: Did you consider the sources and rationales I provided in my !vote below? North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 08:29, 25 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 08:51, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. (added per Maud Casey being a professor of creative writing and Stephanie Powell Watts as a professor at Lehigh University). North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 08:52, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Below is my !voting for these subjects. Also of note is that none of these articles has a promotional tone, in my opinion. Rather, they provide objective, quite neutrally-worded overviews. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:09, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly Keep Maud Casey – Per criteria #2 of WP:NACADEMICS. The subject has received a Guggenheim Fellowship ([1], [2]). Per the Specific criteria notes section of Wikipedia:Notability (academics), "Some less significant academic honors and awards that confer a high level of academic prestige also can be used to satisfy Criterion 2. Examples may include certain awards, honors and prizes of notable academic societies, of notable foundations and trusts (e.g., the Guggenheim Fellowship...". North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 08:59, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly Keep Jennifer duBois – Per criteria #3 of WP:AUTHOR. The subject's works have received multiple independent periodical articles or reviews: USA Today, The New York Times, Publisher's Weekly, Entertainment weekly, The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:09, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly Keep Amanda Coplin – Per criteria #3 of WP:AUTHOR: The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, The Independent, The Oregonian. Another option is to merge to The Orchardist. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:21, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly Keep Megan Mayhew Bergman – Per criteria #3 of WP:AUTHOR: Boston Globe, NPR, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:26, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Stephanie Powell Watts – Meets WP:BASIC: Columbia Daily Tribune, The Times-Picayune, The Express-Times. There is also a book review here at Publisher's Weekly. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:36, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly Weak Keep Srikanth Reddy – Per criteria #3 of WP:AUTHOR: Chicago Review, WBEZ. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:47, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: It looks like Amanda Coplin wrote at least one notable book, so the question here is whether to keep the book article for The Orchardist (which has been around longer) or to merge any pertinent data into the author's article. Both are pretty slim, so I'm leaning towards merging and redirecting the book article into the author's page. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 09:04, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Amanda Coplin. I've redirected the book's page to her article. We can really only have one at this point in time since this is her biggest claim to fame so far. She's won some awards, but I don't know that they'd be major enough to warrant a keep on that basis alone. I've merged the information about the book and if/when she releases more work that receives coverage we can always un-redirect. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 09:20, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Maud Casey. She's received enough coverage for her books to where she'd pass notability guidelines. Actually, some of her books would probably merit articles since there's a lot of coverage. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 09:25, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

comment wp:NAUTHOR: "3. The person has created or played a major role in co-creating a significant or well-known work or collective body of work. In addition, such work must have been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews." i am providing more than one substantial book review from a reliable source. you need to address a policy reason to delete, not merely that your ignorance of literature should be inflicted upon wikipedia. when writers get reviews in the nytimes or washpost that is a strong indication; what is your standard of author notability? If you do not "like" the policy, then change it, or you could abide by it, or i could make you a laughing stock. Duckduckstop (talk) 18:10, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Unrelated to AfD

Please refrain from personal attacks on this page per WP:CIV. Any editor is permitted to nominate a page(s) for deletion. You are welcome to visit WP:ANI if you feel a policy has been violated or you have been unfairly targeted. -O.R.^Comms 19:58, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

when you make sweeping claims of non-notability untethered from any policy, and misrepresent what the reliable sources are, it tends to go to the question of your "good faith". i don't go to ANI, rather i'm going to wikiconference usa. user:DGG and others may be there, and i will have some pointed questions for them:
- what is the use of notability criteria, if veteran editors won't follow them;
- what is the point of wp:before, if veteran editors won't follow it, mark it historical;
- what is the hope of finding another Wadewitz, with veteran editors such as this one;
- what do i advise the college librarians at the many editathons i go to? stay away from wikipedia and commons, because of veteran editors like this one, go to wikidata ? Duckduckstop (talk) 23:09, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all as passing WP:AUTHOR.
- Watts: won a notable award; multiple independent newspaper stories about the award; book reviews on Oprah and Publishers Weekly. Saved from BIO1E by having two notable aspects to her story: the book itself and the award for the book.
- duBois: won a notable award; multiple independent reviews in major newspapers listed by North America (these should be added to the article).
- Coplin: won multiple notable awards; multiple independent reviews in major newspapers already in article.
- Reddy: the weakest of the six but I think the two reviews found by North America are (barely) enough.
- Bergman: multiple independent reviews of more than one of her books in major newspapers, already in article.
- Casey: Guggenheim fellow may also be enough for WP:PROF; multiple independent reviews of her books including multiple book reviews in the NYT.

And I agree with Duckduckstop's criticism: this was an ill-informed nomination. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:52, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep All. "Multiple indépendant periodical articles or reviews" have been listed for these authors, as already noted. ABF99 (talk) 16:09, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all. Notable authors. -- GreenC 16:44, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all as insignificant. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:36, 20 September 2015 (UTC).[reply]

on what base , Xxantippe, do you say that? Is having 4 novels published by Simon & Schuster (as did Maud Casey), insignificant? DGG ( talk ) 21:01, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

for reasons given by OR. It looks like COI or paid editing. -Xxanthippe (talk).

I completely agree. There has been strong suspicion that these articles may have been created to commercially promote the authors. If they are notable, however (which seems to be the way the discussion is leaning), then there would be no reason to exclude them from Wikipedia. -O.R.^Comms 13:12, 22 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

OberRanks, why do you think that? What do they have in common: they're not published by the same publisher, or associated with the same university. They're not even all living, or all of the same gender or nationality. They're in the usual style for mildly notable authors: describe the career, list the books, link to reviews. How else would anyone do it? They don't show the key hallmarks of promotional editing in this field--they do not contain excessively long quotes from reviews, they don't try for reviews in minor local papers, they don't give extensive personal details about the authors motivations or family; there's no significant attempt to write simultaneously separate articles about an author and all their books. --those are the factors I look for in judging articles in this field are likely to be promotional. What standards are you using?

I also look to see who wrote them. Paid editors almost always use a different user name for each article; promotional articles focus on a single narrow subject. The ed. here has writing on a wide range of people in different fields, and various other subjects. I can not identify that any of the editor's articles have ever been deleted, though a few attempted rescues have been. One of our most productive bio editors, and the only coi seems to be an interest in writing for WP. DGG ( talk ) 07:53, 26 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all It would be possible to renominate individually if desired. It is absurd to consider authors in different fields and of undoubtedly different degrees of notability in a single afd. But after taking account of the references supplied above, I wouldn't advise it. The novelists, as expected, have reviews; Reddy too is notable: Univ. of Calif. press published two of his volumes of poetry. As poetry publishing goes, that's quite an unusual distinction; one of them, Voyager, a/c WorldCat is in 835 libraries, quite a rare distinction for contemporary poetry. [3]

Duckduckstop, I advise participants in Editathons that WP can be erratic: our method of operations cannot be expected to be consistent. Just as anyone can write an article, anyone can list it for deletion. DGG ( talk ) 21:01, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

you'll excuse the rhetoric. there are non-notable associate professors with one or two books, but these are not them; no where close to the line. i see this high handed style with newbies all the time; it is quite discouraging, and when you consider that this editor is a veteran, and very well should know better. Duckduckstop (talk) 21:08, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

To avoid cluttering up this AfD page with an unrelated discussion, I placed a response on the talk page. -O.R.^Comms 23:56, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Stephanie Powell Watts Passes WP:GNG with two notable awards to her credit. Theroadislong (talk) 17:12, 23 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all as passing WP:AUTHOR. Best, FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 18:10, 24 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Stephanie Powell Watts at the very least as the winner of two notable literary awards with significant cash prizes. I do not have the time right now to investigate the other writers, but find this group AfD nomination disconcerting. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:35, 27 September 2015 (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.