Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Van Zorn

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. Courcelles 02:37, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Van Zorn

Van Zorn (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Non notable play, un-performed performed only by semi-professionals, fails notability guidelines. PROD declined Jezhotwells (talk) 19:56, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

• Delete Not notable, unsourced, and the majority of the content is an evaluation. AntiCommons (talk) 23:39, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
• Keep It is notable. As a published play, it has been the subject of at least one scholarly articles, and the subject of at least one encyclopedia article. It is sourced (this means references, right? - there's one listed in the article, or am I missing something?). It currently has one source, Encyclopedia Americana, and a link to another potential source. With a play, I think an evaluation is useful information, though other evaluations are needed for completeness. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 13:32, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

There is no specific notability guideline for plays (there probably should be), but WP:Notability (books) gives the principles:

• The book has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial published works appearing in sources that are independent of the book itself.
• The book has won a major literary award.
• The book has been considered by reliable sources to have made a significant contribution to a notable motion picture, or other art form, or event or political or religious movement.
• The book is the subject of instruction at multiple grade schools, high schools, universities or post-graduate programs in any particular country
• The book's author is so historically significant that any of his or her written works may be considered notable. This does not simply mean that the book's author is him/herself notable by Wikipedia's standards; rather, the book's author is of exceptional significance and the author's life and body of work would be a common study subject in literature classes.

I don't think any of these are met. The one source used is an encyclopaedia, a tertiary source, not generally considered RS. There is one other source, apparently RS, which is in the External links, not cited in the article. The play was apparently produced in a Brooklyn hall by a semi-professional company, this confers no notability. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:18, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Please read your links. Tertiary sources, like all sources, have various levels of reliability. The only encyclopedia that is explicitly excluded as a source is Wikipedia itself, and that is because of other concerns. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 01:27, 12 July 2011 (UTC) I do notice that in WP:Notability, it does say that secondary sources are what are required for notability, but I think this is just to say that primary sources are not suitable. In this context I think a tertiary source would be an even higher indicator of notability. Tertiary sources can be considered a subset of secondary sources in this context I think. The criteria you cite for books seem a bit over the top, and would exclude things which have received significant notice in secondary (including tertiary) sources, which I think is the ultimate criterion. “If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article or stand-alone list.” Significant coverage is the only thing that I think is of issue here, but two solid sources have been turned up, and a third is suggested below. Prefaces in collections of Robinson's works are another possibility. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 02:25, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

• A review in the January 1971 issue of American Literature states that the book Edward Arlington Robinson, by Hoyt C. Franchere (Twayne, 1968) contains "a valuable discussion of Robinson's prose plays, Van Zorn (19I4) and The Porcupine (19I5), almost never adequately considered by critics." I do not have access to the book to verify that claim. --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 17:01, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Update: It turns out I do have access to the book mentioned above. The discussion of the play is pretty brief: a paragraph of plot summary and a paragraph of critique. I also found a brief discussion of the play in another source, which I added to the "suggested reading" section. I'll try to incorporate them into the article tonight. --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 12:49, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
• Delete: This play was performed only once by a semi-professional group a century ago. The lack of substantial discussion of the work in reliable sources is another indication that it is not notable. -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:30, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
• Keep. Arguably, any work by Robinson, the winner of three Pulitzers for poetry, is notable per WP:NBOOK #5. It's also discussed by reliable sources (both the source cited and others uncited). Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:00, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
• Merge and Redirect to Robinson's article: The play is clearly notable on the grounds of its author, but unless someone edits the page to give more information about the play's significance within Robinson's own oeuvre, I'm not sure it warrants its own article, especially since the version I found a couple weeks back was nothing more than a cut-and-paste job from the Encyclopedia. It should receive at most two sentences in Robinson's article, but leave the redirect. Aristophanes68 (talk) 21:10, 11 July 2011 (UTC) Keep with "expand" and/or "ref improve" tag added: The article is clearly more promising, but I think it needs more sources from later scholars, looking at it in terms of its relation to Robinson's other works. The two main sources currently used are, to my mind, too close to the original time period to be the only significant comments on the play. Aristophanes68 (talk) 03:13, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Arts-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 23:14, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Merge and redirect would be a good outcome. Jezhotwells (talk) 23:46, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I think the evaluation in Americana would be out of place and distracting in Robinson's article, but for someone interested in the play it is useful. It needs to be complemented by other evaluations from other points of view, but it does fit in the solo article. Americana selected it as one of two or three of Robinson's works to do an article on. That says something for its notability. No one expects stubs to be developed immediately. This one has potential, and should stay around as an invitation, and a collection point. It is no easy task, and having it there as a stub will encourage it, while a few lines in Robinson's article will not. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 01:46, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment: note that material and sources have been added after some of these votes were made. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 15:48, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
• Withdrawn and keep: Thanks to all of those who have found sources. I am happy that this now meets the notability guidelines. Could an un-involved editor close this as keep. Jezhotwells (talk) 21:50, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Doesn't work that way; an AfD can only close as keep on the nominator's withdrawal if there are no other delete votes, I think. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:52, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

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.