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I have no opinion on this, but am opening this AfD because there has been an edit war between
WP:BLARing this article (citing a lack of secondary sources) and keeping it as an article.
Natg 19 (
talk) 20:54, 22 May 2024 (UTC)reply
@
TompaDompa: The difference is that Brobdingnag has decent secondary sources, while Laputa uses only primary sources.
QuicoleJR (
talk) 23:50, 22 May 2024 (UTC)reply
I'm inclined to believe that any content using these sources should be located at Gulliver's Travels or a subpage of that article. Skimming through some sources on the topic, I'm seeing a majority of the discussion of the subject in the context of the larger work and not of the location in isolation, and the encyclopedia should probably reflect that. I'm also not convinced by the precedent set by the
Brobdingnag article, which is currently struggling from quite a bit of in-universe fluff that seems more reminiscent of a fan wiki. —
TechnoSquirrel69 (
sigh) 21:27, 22 May 2024 (UTC)reply
I have no doubt that there exists a body of very substantial scholarship on Brobdingnag (and, possibly, Laputa). This is Swift, after all, not some computer game universe. However, it seems to be much easier to delete the existing text and simply wait for someone to create an article that will show this project in a good light. The kind of
WP:OR obvious in both Laputa and Brobdingnag tends to attract more of the same. We want editors looking for secondary
WP:RS, don't we?
Викидим (
talk) 22:09, 22 May 2024 (UTC)reply
WP:NEXIST says that notability is based on the existence of reliable sources, not the current state of the article. You are suggesting we
WP:TNT the article, which should only be done in extreme cases. It is much easier to improve an existing page than it is to create a new one.
Toughpigs (
talk) 23:20, 22 May 2024 (UTC)reply
First three statements: yes, of course for all three. The fourth one It is much easier to improve an existing page than it is to create a new one. Not necessarily. I wrote some articles from scratch and modified some, and I think that in many cases writing from scratch is much easier. In this particular case, note how much the sources listed below by
BennyOnTheLoose deviate from the current text: none of the subjects in the suggested secondary sources appear to have been touched upon in the current text.
Викидим (
talk) 00:43, 23 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Redirect. The article as-is entirely relies on the text of Swift's books (the only non-Swift source currently listed does not appear to be used). I can imagine an article on the subject that shows notability, but this text is not it: I do not think that the
WP:DUE content of the hypothetical replacement will use much of the current text. --
Викидим (
talk) 21:19, 22 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Keep. Looks like there plenty of potential sources, e.g.:
Laputa, the Whore of Babylon, and the Idols of Science. Dennis Todd, Studies in Philology, Vol. 75, No. 1 (Winter, 1978), pp. 93-120
Science and Politics in Swift's Voyage to Laputa. Robert P. Fitzgerald, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 87, No. 2 (Apr., 1988), pp. 213-229
The Unity of Swift's "Voyage to Laputa": Structure as Meaning in Utopian Fiction. Jenny Mezciems, The Modern Language Review, Vol. 72, No. 1 (Jan., 1977), pp. 1-21
The "Motionless" Motion of Swift's Flying Island. Robert C. Merton. Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1966), pp. 275-277
Laputa, the Whore of Babylon, and the Idols of Science. Dennis Todd. Studies in Philology, Vol. 75, No. 1 (Winter, 1978), pp. 93-120
The Scientific Background of Swift's 'Voyage to Laputa'. Marjorie Nicolson and Nora M. Mohler, Annals of Science, II (1937), 291-334
Swift's Flying Island in the 'Voyage to Laputa'. Marjorie Nicolson and Nora M. Mohler, Annals of Science, II (1937), 405-30
Swift's Laputians as a Caricature of the Cartesians. David Renaker PMLA, Vol. 94, No. 5 (Oct., 1979), pp. 936-944
These came up from a very quick search of JSTOR. I've only glanced over them, so if someone tells me that they don't actually cover the subject in detail then I'd be open to changing my view. Regards,
BennyOnTheLoose (
talk) 22:49, 22 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Keep: One of the articles that BennyOnTheLoose identified, "The Unity of Swift's Voyage to Laputa: Structure as Meaning in Utopian Fiction", is included in Jonathan Swift: A Collection of Critical Essays. Internet Archive has the book, but unfortunately you can't see the whole thing:
this is the link. Still, you can see the chapter heading and some sample text. Swift is important; people have been writing critical analyses of Swift's work for more than two centuries. —
Toughpigs (
talk) 23:04, 22 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Keep per above sourcing. I'll further note that "delete it until someone comes along and writes a better article" is a statement void of empirical underpinning: no one has demonstrated that is how reality works, even though the sentiment has been bandied about for probably a decade or more.
Jclemens (
talk) 20:38, 23 May 2024 (UTC)reply
My work on Russian Wikipedia provides many empirical examples of this - entirely common - situation: if an article on an important subject is missing, its very absence spurs editors recognizing its importance to create one. In cases like that, where there are a lot of users ready to add
WP:OR based on the personal understanding of the Swift's text, the previous fate of the article helps to explain the need for secondary sources. Au contraire, a text that is essentially OR based on primary sources, tends to attract more of the same.
Викидим (
talk) 20:59, 23 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Non-notable article composed of unreliable or primary sources. A search showed only trivial mentions, no significant coverage in reliable sources. My assessment is that it does not pass
WP:N.
Jontesta (
talk) 02:56, 22 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Keep Science fiction BEFORE searches should include scholar and books. PhD thesis from South Africa
here has detailed commentary on pp 91-100, and is contrasted to clearly notable science fiction universes like Asimov's Foundation. Also appears to be covered in Handbook of Vance Space by Andre-Driussi, ISBN 978-0964279568, but I am unable to see previews for that. Also appears in Xeno Fiction: More Best of Science Fiction: A Review of Speculative Literature by Broderick and Ikin, ISBN 978-1479400799, but again--I don't have access beyond snippet view, which appears promising.
Jclemens (
talk) 03:40, 22 May 2024 (UTC)reply
A
WP:BEFORE search presented only trivial mentions about this topic. This article fails
WP:NOTABILITY because it does not reach the level of significant coverage required.
Jontesta (
talk) 02:58, 22 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Comment as
Winkie Country redirects to
Land of Oz (since Jan 2024) and the non-primarysource sourcing is non-existent (both here and in the history of
Winkie Country), it is hard to envision a reason to keep this article. I do not expect there to be substantial non-(in-universe) coverage. It would take effort to modify
Land of Oz to be a plausible redirect target.
Walsh90210 (
talk) 03:08, 22 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Redirect to
The Lost Princess of Oz, the first and, as far as I know, only book this fictional city appeared in. The article is completely unsourced, and searches brought up no significant coverage in reliable sources. Which is not surprising, considering the city was an incredibly minor part of a single book.
Rorshacma (
talk) 04:49, 22 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Yes Lost Princess of Oz is the only book it appeared in. I just checked and it takes up about 15% of the book, but it's just one of many strange lands that are (spoiler alert) overcome by Ozma's friends and Cayke and the Frogman.I'm going to say keep but rename to
List of Oz Places (created by Baum) to conform to
List of Oz characters (created by Baum). We recently had an
AfD for Land of Ev. The
Deadly Desert is another obvious target - it has a fresh GNG notice on it from
User:Toughpigs so I'm not the only one that notices.
Oblivy (
talk) 16:06, 22 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Comment - Keeping, or even merging it somewhere, kind of needs to have some kind of sources outside of the actual book, and I am honestly finding absolutely nothing. Even sources/summaries about Lost Princess just kind of gloss over it as just stating its one of the odd locations they run across.
Rorshacma (
talk) 17:08, 22 May 2024 (UTC)reply
The Land of Ev and the Deadly Desert are different — there are some actual sources talking about them as notable features of the Oz stories. City of Thi is a very minor location that I'm surprised to learn has an article.
Toughpigs (
talk) 19:01, 22 May 2024 (UTC)reply
There is also nobody stopping anyone from undoing the redirect or moving the page to their userspace for future notability searches. -
Knowledgekid87 (
talk) 19:56, 22 May 2024 (UTC)reply
I agree that they are different, but a huge section of that article is cited to nothing, and some of it is cited to the book itself, and we don't know how much is in the offline book. Land of Ev, too, is a more important place but it didn't feature much after Ozma of Oz, and the article is largely cited to nothing and has a lot of non-Baum content. This one by itself has a very weak do-not-delete rationale but as part of a larger article it could be OK. I don't know whether we can accept a citation to the book (it's widely done, but...)At some point a decision was made to deal with the characters, and it's a helpful article if people keep nominating these borderline place-in-Oz articles perhaps we can contain them in one place. Meanwhile
Land of Oz keeps getting bigger. And there are plenty of places that don't get articles, like the Nome Kingdom. It's not indiscriminate, the Land of Oz as a whole and its features have been written about (I think).
Oblivy (
talk) 09:13, 23 May 2024 (UTC)reply
I found nothing that shows notability. Fails
WP:BK.
SL93 (
talk) 21:22, 21 May 2024 (UTC)reply
'Comment': As for the sources shown in the first AFD - Starwars.com is not independent of the subject which is three of the links, Denver Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Club is unreliable (and about a different book), and SFsite is unreliable.
SL93 (
talk) 21:27, 21 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Keep. When you're working on an article about a novel, it's always worthwhile to use The Wikipedia Library to find book reviews. That's what I did, and I added several reviews that I found to the article. Eastmain (
talk •
contribs) 10:15, 21 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Keep the references are incorrectly formatted but they are there, and significant magazine coverage pre-internet is generally strongly indicative of notability. BrigadierG (
talk) 10:41, 21 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Keep per the reviews added by Eastmain.
Toughpigs (
talk) 16:16, 21 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Keep Booklist, Publisher's Weekly, and Library Journal reviews? Looks like sufficient SIGCOV for a book to me.
Jclemens (
talk) 20:59, 21 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Delete content is minimal and does not provide enough information to meet Wikipedia's standards for a comprehensive encyclopedia entry.--
Assirian cat (
talk) 07:20, 21 May 2024 (UTC)reply
This article lacks sufficient notability and reliable secondary sources to meet Wikipedia's general notability guidelines. Despite being a children's book, the article does not provide significant coverage in independent sources that demonstrate its impact or importance in literature. Additionally, the article has been tagged for multiple issues, including being an orphan and needing more citations, indicating persistent problems that have not been addressed.
Ktkvtsh (
talk) 17:56, 20 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Delete. I didn't find even one review for NBOOK. Aeon Magazine would count for half of NBOOK, except if you follow the link, it's not a review in Aeon Magazine -- it's a forum thread they hosted, posted by the author announcing the book. I can't turn up evidence of a published Aeon review. (Though the book sounds like a fun riff on
Connie Willis's stuff.)
~ L 🌸 (
talk) 23:39, 21 May 2024 (UTC)reply
This page is nearly entirely covered by the article
British literature. Quoting from the lead of that article, "Anglo-Saxon (Old English) literature is included, [in this article] and there is some discussion of Latin and Anglo-Norman literature". The parts not talked about there are under the other articles listed in the main topic hatnotes of each of the proposed article's sections. The only one not mentioned here in British lit is Hebrew literature from England, which as well has its own separate article. Your average reader, when typing "literature of England", is likely looking for the literature of England (covered in the British lit article) that is in English. Based off this, I propose to
blank and redirect and merge this article into the aforementioned British literature article. This is done with many other literature country articles, seen in
literature of France, which redirects to
French literature, and literature of
Germany,
Spain, etc.
Flemmish Nietzsche (
talk) 01:40, 20 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Unsure - briefly my problem with almost all pages of the "literature of x place" is that the subject is impossibly broad and therefore inclusion/exclusion decisions are at the whim of editors. That said there clearly are academics writing about it such as
1 - which itself has a more interesting lede para than the WP page - so by the
WP:GNG it appears to have the level of independent scholarly RS for inclusion. I'd like to hear other thoughts to help clarify in my own mind whether (or how) this page could/should be kept.
JMWt (
talk) 08:07, 20 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Keep in mind that this is not a deletion (or redirect) proposal for
English literature, which entirely covers any content from the article
literature of England that may be about literature from England in English. I'm aware plenty of sources exist for English literature in English, as this is why we have the former article, but the proposed article is about literature in England mostly not in English, which, as said above, is covered by either
British literature or the other main articles. A possible remedy to this is maybe changing the potential new redirect target of this page from British literature to English literature, although the latter is not exclusive to England itself and is about literature written in English as a whole.
Flemmish Nietzsche (
talk) 12:06, 20 May 2024 (UTC)reply
I'm not sure if it is you that are confused or me. As far as I'm concerned
English literature refers to literature in the English language
Literature of England refers to literature produced in England in any language.
I do not understand why you keep implying that the Literature of England must necessarily be in the English language nor why we should take your word for that.
JMWt (
talk) 15:56, 20 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Not trying to imply that, more so that in an article about English literature (meaning any literature written in England) —
literature of England — the only content in the article is about literature that is not in English. By saying this I'm not implying that the article should only be about English literature in English, rather that the English literature in English is already fully covered in the articles of
English literature and
British literature, and as the latter is particular to the British Isles and the former is not as you said, the content from Literature of England (the proposed article) should be either redirected or incorporated into British lit. The British lit article does not have to be about just literature from GB in English, as is already said in the lead of the article. Another alternative would be to make Literature of England a disambig page to show the different articles of various languages of literature from England, although for now I'm staying with my original argument.
Flemmish Nietzsche (
talk) 17:13, 20 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Merge, not delete to either British literature or English literature, as appropriate. My understanding is that "English literature" is the literature of England, irrespective of what language it's written in; I presume the same is true of "British literature". Merger is the correct procedure if there's potentially useful material here, even if the contribution is minimal, or it turns out that everything is already included; in that case the article would still become a redirect to one of the relevant articles, but readers checking the article history would see that any relevant content here was reviewed and included in the target article before this became a redirect. The difference between merger and deletion is sometimes subtle, but still important.
P Aculeius (
talk 13:41, 20 May 2024 (UTC)reply
The original proposal was never to delete the article, as I said in the wording above, it is to blank and redirect the article. There is nothing to merge, and thus blanking and redirecting, (per
WP:BLAR and
WP:ATD-R) is an acceptable means of dealing with sitations such as this, and again per those policies, it is advised that controversial blanks and redirects are discussed on AFD, as I did here, even if the goal is not deletion.
Also, remember that it is best practice to
sign your talk page comments by adding four tildes at the end of a message.
Flemmish Nietzsche (
talk) 13:52, 20 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Blanking and redirecting is pretty much deletion—and this is "Articles for deletion", not "Articles for discussion". A merge doesn't necessarily involve moving things to other articles, but it ensures that editors know that the whole contents of an article—or anything useful in it—has been covered at the target article. Whether there's useful content isn't determined by whether it's duplicative of something better elsewhere. As I said, the distinction between merger and deletion is sometimes a subtle one, but important: if you just "blank and redirect" without indicating that the article was merged, editors might reasonably infer that no effort was made to ensure that the topic was fully covered at the target article or other appropriate places. And really no significant effort is required on anybody's part to do a merge in an instance where the contents are fully covered, so what's the objection?
Also, remember that any editor likely to comment on procedure probably knows how to sign a comment, and doesn't need an explanation of how to do it. It's easy enough to forget to type four tildes when editing one's own comments.
P Aculeius (
talk) 15:50, 20 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Alright, I see your point and I mostly agree, though it doesn't really seem right to call it a "merge" when no content is being merged into the new article, and incorporating parts of an existing article into a different one and then redirecting/deleting it is different than simply not incorporating any content and simply blanking and redirecting. We do seem to basically be on the same page though and I'll change the wording for not wanting to argue.
Flemmish Nietzsche (
talk) 16:06, 20 May 2024 (UTC)reply