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. (non-admin closure) Extraordinary Writ ( talk) 21:55, 19 January 2022 (UTC) reply

Xanth

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The coverage (references, external links, etc.) does not seem sufficient to justify this article passing Wikipedia:General notability guideline requirement nor the more detailed Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) supplementary essay. WP:BEFORE did not reveal any significant coverage on Gnews, Gbooks or Gscholar for the fictional world of Xanth, what little I see is plot summary. Perhaps the book series, referred occasionally as the "Xanth series", could be notable, although the article doesn't include any sources discussing it as a whole, nor did I see anything scholarly on it. I'll note we have Piers_Anthony_bibliography#Xanth_series and close to 30 very unimpressive entries for the books in the series - only the first, A Spell for Chameleon , seems to have a "reception and significance" section, all the others, like Well-Tempered Clavicle, are just plot summaries and should likely be PRODed due to failing WP:NBOOK (which further suggests the series itself is not notable, although I did see some in passing references to the series being "best-selling", ex. [1]). Anyway, back to topic at hand - as a "fictional world", this fails GNG hard, and as a "book series", it do so as well. A redirect to th Piers_Anthony_bibliography#Xanth_series seems best, although if someone would like to save it, cutting down the "world of" fancruft and replacing it with sources discussing the entire series (not individual books) could work, if such sources exist (again, I found to locate anything that meets WP:SIGCOV). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 17:46, 12 January 2022 (UTC) reply

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 17:46, 12 January 2022 (UTC) reply
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science fiction and fantasy-related deletion discussions. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 17:46, 12 January 2022 (UTC) reply
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 17:46, 12 January 2022 (UTC) reply

• Keep. There is sufficient third-party RSS coverage for GNG ( [2], [3], [4]). The reason there isn't very much is that Xanth's peak of popularity was in the 80s, but notability is not temporary. "Best-selling Xanth series" refers to the New York Times paperback best seller list ( [5]) with 29 appearances between 1983 and 1990. Dan Bloch ( talk) 19:19, 12 January 2022 (UTC) reply
• Strongest possible keep: "Fictional world" is a weird phrasing, as this article is about the series and not the in-universe world. That said, the series is enormously, unquestionably notable. This is a small, 15-minute-search sampling of what's out there about the series as a whole:

  AV Club: https://www.avclub.com/revisiting-the-sad-misogynistic-fantasy-of-xanth-1798241312

  Slate: https://slate.com/culture/2013/08/piers-anthonys-spell-for-chameleon-the-mass-market-paperback-that-was-my-first-grown-up-novel.html

  Tor citing Variety; it doesn't look like the film/TV adaptations have come to fruition but the fact that they were optioned at all indicates the series' notability: https://www.tor.com/2017/04/12/piers-anthonys-xanth-novels-to-become-feature-film-and-tv-series/

  Searching on Google Books for sources is kind of arduous because there are just so many of these books to filter out, and most of the significant coverage is old enough to be behind a paywall. But some things I found:

  This 1983 book seems to have quite a lot (paywalled, but the book is solely about Piers Anthony and the span of page numbers here suggests it is more than passing coverage): https://www.google.com/books/edition/Piers_Anthony/3dQJrNDap_0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=xanth

  A periodical from 1984 that seems likely to be WP:SIGCOV, but I can't confirm due to the paywall: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Fantasy_Review/vcMbAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22xanth%22+%22piers+anthony%22+%22fantasy%22+%22series+is%22&dq=%22xanth%22+%22piers+anthony%22+%22fantasy%22+%22series+is%22&printsec=frontcover

  Tertiary source: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sequels/tBUlCAwAtNwC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22xanth%22+%22piers+anthony%22+%22according+to+the%22&pg=PA26&printsec=frontcover

  Another tertiary source -- there are a lot more, so I'm going to stop at two: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Encyclopedia_of_Fantasy_and_Horror_Ficti/jUv5gVgSNvYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22xanth%22+%22piers+anthony%22+%22fantasy%22+%22series+is%22&pg=PA8&printsec=frontcover

  Google Scholar also unsurprisingly has some papers; this one seems substantial: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol40/iss1/6/

  Another Google Scholar example, but further behind a paywall: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0034408910860104?journalCode=urea20

  This article isn't directly about Xanth but mentions a book (Bellbottoms, Disco, and Death Stars) and implies it does have substantial content: https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA452880064&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00145483&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=nysl_oweb&isGeoAuthType=true

  And finally a bunch of stuff on JSTOR that I don't have time to go through, but I think at this point I've demonstrated notability: https://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearch?Query=xanth+piers+anthony&so=rel

• In sum, at the risk of assuming bad faith, the sheer volume and breadth of the secondary source coverage of this series makes me wonder how exactly a WP:BEFORE search was done. Gnomingstuff ( talk) 20:29, 12 January 2022 (UTC) reply

  You are citing reviews for books in the series and encyclopedic entries for Piers, Anthony, which do mention the series in passing. Cobbling things together is somewhat WP:SYNTHy. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:04, 13 January 2022 (UTC) reply

  • Reviews count toward notability per WP:NBOOK -- I am of the opinion here that most individual books other than maybe the first are better merged into an article on the series. The act of incorporating information from multiple sources is not original research ( WP:NOTJUSTANYSYNTH). It is the very process of constructing an encyclopedia article. Gnomingstuff ( talk) 18:38, 13 January 2022 (UTC) reply
• Keep. Not a big fan of the series myself, but it goes on and on, seemingly forever; 45 novels(!) is just too much to ignore. Clarityfiend ( talk) 20:53, 12 January 2022 (UTC) reply
• Keep - The Xanth series itself is certainly notable, as demonstrated by the sources already mentioned in this AFD. Aside from adding those sources into the article, all this really needs is a bit of cleanup to make it clear that the article is on the notable book series, and not on the fictional world itself. Rorshacma ( talk) 23:13, 12 January 2022 (UTC) reply
• Keep It's reasonable to discuss what should be focused upon by this article, but that it's a notable fictional franchise is indisputable. Not up to your usual BEFORE standards, Piotrus. Jclemens ( talk) 06:55, 13 January 2022 (UTC) reply

  @ Jclemens I did say that the series may be notable, but the article needs a WP:TNT. Have you looked at it? Outside a list of the books it is pure plot summary, it has zero on reception, significance, best-selling status, etc. For the record, I might be tempted to create a viable entry for the series post TNT, but I am unwilling to work using the current fancruft pile as a foundation. I stand by my view that keeping this entry in the current form is a disservice to the readers, we are providing next to zero encyclopedic information, and all the fancruft is covered better at https://xanth.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:07, 13 January 2022 (UTC) reply

  • AfD is not cleanup. If you don't want to take the couple of seconds to delete a few paragraphs, then that's entirely on you. Gnomingstuff ( talk) 18:38, 13 January 2022 (UTC) reply

    Forgive me if I repeat myself, but... if we delete a few paragraphs, the OR about the fictional universe, what are we left with? The lead about the same plus the table with the list of books from the series that duplicates Piers_Anthony_bibliography#Xanth_series . Is anyone here saying that the fictional universe is notable, and if so, what are the sources for that? As for the book series, yes, it may be notable, but there is nothing to salvage for rewrite/cleanup here, outside the duplicated list of books. If this is kept in the current form, we are doing readers a disservice, providing them a poorer version of fancrufty plot summary instead of encyclopedic analysis that needs to be recreated on the ashes of what we have here. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:39, 14 January 2022 (UTC) reply

• Comment This source seems to be a biography of Pierce Anthony and has a 9-page chapter on Xanth, both about the series (four novels then) and the world. I can't see it completely, but it does have some commentary on the world on pages 73-76, e.g. "Xanth, which is itself an inversion of scientific realities. There magic is natural" (p. 75), "Anthony... apparently decided to invest his magical land of Xanth with every fantastical conception ever invented...", "so much so that readers have found its lushness of detail digressive" (p. 73). Daranios ( talk) 19:52, 14 January 2022 (UTC) reply
• Keep and possibly Rename to "Xanth series" or something of the kind, to clarify that the article is about the book series and not just the fictional world? PianoDan ( talk) 03:34, 16 January 2022 (UTC) reply

  That is a suggestion I'm open to, but which should be raised on its talk page. I'm annoyed to see the article here as an AfD without being first discussed there (there is a section, but no one has added to it yet). —  CJDOS, Sheridan, OR ( talk) 21:11, 18 January 2022 (UTC) reply

• Keep Yes, this article needs to be refocused to be about the series itself (which ostensibly is) and not about the fictional world (which is how it reads now) but I don't see why the article has to be deleted to do that. In my opinion this is a true case of an article needing cleanup, not deletion. Rhino131 ( talk) 14:07, 16 January 2022 (UTC) reply
• Keep not seeing an applicable deletion rationale here outside of just liking deleting things. Artw ( talk) 16:00, 16 January 2022 (UTC) reply
• Keep: Article needs improvement, as outlined in this discussion summary, but using it as a rationale for deletion is going too far. Just because encyclopedic sources haven't been added, does not mean they don't exist. Discuss major changes on its talk page as necessary. —  CJDOS, Sheridan, OR ( talk) 20:59, 18 January 2022 (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.