Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Unprecedented: A Simple Guide to the Crimes of the Trump Campaign and Presidency

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 Sara Azari. Nobody except ~~the creator~~one editor wants to keep this, and I'm inclined to give particular weight to DGG's professional view here. That said, there's no overwhelming delete consensus, making a redirect appropriate. Sandstein 22:21, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Unprecedented: A Simple Guide to the Crimes of the Trump Campaign and Presidency[edit]

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I only found two relatively short reviews, the Kirkus one and the Shepherd Express one-- neither are particularly in-depth or particularly indicative of significance. The project muse entry is not a review. This article feels a lot like an excuse to extensively criticize the Trump administration by providing an in-depth synopsis. I'd normally be inclined to accept two reviews as meeting WP:NBOOK, but considering that this book dates to Feb 2020 it's extremely unlikely there is coverage that isn't online (and I found no more coverage). If that's all the coverage that exists (Kirkus reviews 10,000 books a year according to our article on them, and the Shepherd Express is not particularly major) I find it hard to treat that as establishing notability. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 17:31, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 18:48, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep and comment to nominator: meets book notability with the two reviews already cited in the article that the nominator seeks to discount. Dear nominator, whether you like it or not, the Kirkus review, which is a long paragraph and has analysis, counts towards notability. Kirkus is a nearly 100-year-old trade publication. Don't complain that it does its job too well. It reviews a small fraction of the books out there. Shepherd Express is an alternative newsweekly; its review is also not short and it counts towards notability as well. DiamondRemley39 (talk) 20:09, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, believe it or not I'm well aware of how NBOOK is written. I am by no means the only one who feels that a contemporary book barely meeting the 'letter of the law' with two reviews (one of which is a PW/Kirkus type-publication) should not necessarily be considered notable. We often request three sources for GNG, why should the bar be lower for books? You are welcome to have a different opinion, what you should recognize is that other people's opinions can be valid even if they don't line up with yours. Best, Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 20:54, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - Different opinions are one thing, but when you nominate an article that fulfills notability because your dislike of book publications is so strong that you want to discount them... that's not a legitimate reason to nominate. The reviews were not bought, but happened legitimately. 'The letter of the law' to which you refer is the policy on book notability; ignoring that to nominate articles will sometimes be met with people pointing to definitions when your rationales are found to be problematic. Cheers! DiamondRemley39 (talk) 21:17, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - Kirkus is a legitimate reviewer that gets placed on aggregates sites like Bookmarks and is very trusted in the industry. It definitely qualifies for NBOOK and trying to dismiss them will not get you anywhere here. Swordman97 ^{talk to me} 21:31, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment most of the references in the article should be moved to footnotes or another section as they are not real references to another publication. ~~In addition, I feel that this article may violate WP:TOOSOON.~~ Swordman97 ^{talk to me} 21:35, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- How is it too soon, Swordman97? The book is published. DiamondRemley39 (talk) 22:09, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment a redirect (to the author) seems preferable to a delete. The book seems under-reported on, and IIRC some Kirkus reviews today are paid placement. Yet I haven't done enough research to support a delete (well, redirect) vote. power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:20, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Merge and redirect: The paid ones are the Kirkus Indie reviews - this one isn't marked as such. However Kirkus isn't really the best and I've heard enough about it via DGG to where I don't consider Kirkus to be reliable myself. I would consider the Shepherd Express to be usable, however the Project Muse isn't actually a review. It's the publisher's book blurb, as can be seen here in the official description on the Amazon page for the book, the publisher's site, and the Barnes and Noble link for the book. It can be easy sometimes to mistake this sometimes, so it's important to make sure to verify anything that isn't labeled as a review and looks to be a database listing.

That said, I do think that this is worth covering to some degree on Wikipedia. The book has been briefly mentioned from time to time in relation to its author and I think it could be covered in a few paragraphs on her article. It just hasn't gotten enough coverage to where I really think that it's worth having a second article. We could argue that technically there are two sources and this passes notability guidelines, as there are reviews from Kirkus and the SE, but I just don't know that it's really warranted at this point in time. If more sourcing becomes available then it can always be restored. To be honest, I'm a little surprised that this didn't get more notice from the academic and scholarly sphere. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 12:20, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

ReaderofthePack: as you've dissed it without explanation, I'm going to ask you to elaborate on the perceived "lack of reliability" of Kirkus? What, are they getting plot summaries wrong? How are book reviews not reliable? DiamondRemley39 (talk) 11:41, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

'Delete; I'm not even sure a redirect to the author is warrented. The reviews are insufficient.: if there's nothing better than Kirkus and a free local distribution paper, the book is insignificant. This is confirmed by the reviews, which are essentially trivial--just read them. If a book put out by the popular division of even a minor university press can't do better, the book isn't worth covering. DGG ( talk ) 05:03, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: It would be funny to me to see both a trade publication and a local paper disregarded in this AfD... if it weren't alarming. I don't decide whether a book is worthy by our own personal standards. Book notability asks for: "The book has been the subject[1] of two or more non-trivial[2] published works appearing in sources that are independent of the book itself.[3] This can include published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, other books, television documentaries, bestseller lists,[4] 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.[5]" Well, it has that. You don't have to love the reviews. They just have to be independent, published, legit. Regarding the dislike for Kirkus: that's a personal preference. The reviews of Kirkus, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist are one of the ways bookstores and libraries make selection choices. Plenty of Wikipedians are fine with Kirkus. Some of the votes here acknowledge the reviews but still seek to dismiss the book. The anti-Kirkus argument is reminiscent of WP:JDL until the day that policy is changed and only newspaper book reviews or Levar Burton's are accepted. Reader of the Pack writes: "It just hasn't gotten enough coverage to where I really think that it's worth having a second article." (Emphasis mine.) That's 'I just don't like it.' "We could argue that technically there are two sources and this passes notability guidelines, as there are reviews from Kirkus and the SE, but "I just don't know that it's really warranted at this point in time." That is also a case of 'just don't like it'. This view is problematic--'the article passes, but I personally don't think the world needs to know about it here'. That's not an argument for deletion, that's a topic for an essay. Some degree of objectivity is needed in AfD. Most of the books that pass notability no one needs to know about. That isn't the issue. DiamondRemley39 (talk) 11:41, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- I didn't want to come back here since it's clear you aren't hearing what's being said and responding only reinforces your belief that you're somehow better than the rest of us and your interpretation of notability is the only correct one, yet in a single comment, you have accused myself, ReaderofthePack and DGG (and maybe Power~enwiki) of being intentionally biased, somehow, against this book and at the same time clearly admitted your bias towards it (you feel people "need to know about" it). You don't know the slightest thing about who I am or where I'm coming from. So I'd suggest you take a step back and quit attacking people for the crime of disagreeing with you. (still) best wishes, Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 12:28, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

First: If someone writes in a statement that they don't think or feel a book is notable, though they admit it passes the book criticism guideline, welp, yeah, there may be a rebuttal. That's AfD.
Second: I never accused anyone of being biased against the book. I wrote about whether adequate (book criticism) sourcing exists to warrant an article. That's the whole issue here--not the book itself. The only person I named was Reader of the Pack and I did that because they showed the math for keep and yet went... merge ::shrug::. I may express my concern for the disregard for reliable secondary sources. I've seen it in other AfDs and I call it out when it's a source with which I'm familiar. This is done for the benefit of the discussion--it's not about who made that statement, but about the discourse--other people may participate in the discussion and a closer will at one point close it.
Third: Loaded language is employed in your writing when you accuse me of "attacking people for the crime of disagreeing with you". This is beyond hyperbolic--it is untrue. I have attacked no person and it isn't about whether they agree with me, but the standards.
Fourth: "[A]t the same time clearly admitted your bias towards it (you feel people "need to know about" it)": I never said that or anything close to that. This is some mixture of false dichotomy and jumping to conclusions. One doesn't have to be (and perhaps shouldn't be) for or against the book. I could (and do) believe in information, Wikipedia, policies and standards, metadata, objectivity, and any number of other ideas at play here.
I respectfully request that you strike any of the following: "(you feel people "need to know about" it)", "clearly admitted your bias towards it", "you have accused myself, ReaderofthePack and DGG (and maybe Power~enwiki) of being intentionally biased", or "attacking people for the crime of disagreeing with you" if you care about either civility or rhetoric. The tone is not minimized with the "(still) best wishes" in your signature. And here I offer mine. DiamondRemley39 (talk) 14:33, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I can understand being disappointed. A few of my first articles and other tries at things here were not accepted. But I found places where I was tolerated, and some where I was actually welcomed. Before I joined WP, I was a librarian and a teacher of librarianship, and I taught book selection at two library schools. I taught people how to read book reviews, and what they were good for --and what they were not good far. Kirkus at the time was even worse than now, basically a pay-to-review arrangement, though some parts of it are a little better now. PW is essentially what it always was, a place for publishers announcements. They don't show value, they don't show that the public wil be interested. . In this case, read the newspaper review-- one thing I really advise at WP is to actually read the sources. The review doesn't talk about the book. It talks a little about the Trump Presidency, and basically says the book is nothing special.

WP publishes articles not about things the public ought to know about, but about what they will want to know about, and that's the point of significant coverage. If a book about Trump is something that people want to know about--to know the quality and the bias and the background, it will get really substantial reviews and discussions in essentially every major news source. We probably do ned to adjust the wording of NBOOKS to make it clearer. DGG ( talk ) 16:08, 19 March 2021 (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.