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Talk:Alvin Hph-wayuo

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Possible deletion of this page

[edit]

It's not clear to me that this page fails to meet the notability guidelines. It's certainly been in existence for a while, and been edited by several different people. Alvin is a major character in an important science fiction novel(s). The page for the first book, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightness_Reef, is quite thorough, and does link to this page.

If that's all there was, I'd say that maybe the brief content of this page should just be moved to the Brightness Reef page. But Alvin is also in the second book, Infinity's Shore. So it makes sense to me that material about him be on a separate page that both books link to. Well, except that the article on the second book is just a stub: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity%27s_Shore So I'll believe that something needs to be done.

Anyway, I just reverted the tag for deletion of this page. What particular evidence of notability were you looking for? And is that really a fair test, given the date and genre of the novels?DavidHobby (talk) 05:08, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Of course WP:NOTABILITY is fair as far as 1980s SF. Why wouldn't it be? Abductive (reasoning) 05:20, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • O.K., then I guess WP:NOTABILITY isn't as clear to me as it seems to be to you. What exactly are you looking for? Are you applying the rule that "characters should usually not have separate articles", or what? DavidHobby (talk) 05:52, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • I look for secondary sources that discuss the topic, whatever it is. I don't discriminate by the category of topic; WP:PSTS applies to every topic equally. Abductive (reasoning) 06:00, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • The topic being Alvin himself, and not just Brin's Uplift books? Do websites and/or archived mailing list discussions count as "secondary sources"? What about the fact that Alvin appears in multiple books? It seems to me that it's easier to organize the material if he has a separate article--is this relevant to you? DavidHobby (talk) 06:11, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • Yes, the topic is Alvin. I've read all of Brin's books, by the way. What constitutes a reliable source is a subject of some controversy, but websites and archived mailing list discussions almost certainly aren't reliable, since there is no bar to anybody creating material thereon. The fact that a character appears in multiple books by the same author isn't considered particularly important by me or most editors. What matters is analysis. Take, for example, Larry Niven's character Nessus. If somebody nominated Nessus (Pierson's Puppeteer) for deletion, I would argue that it be kept, because of the existence of secondary sources. Look at these Google Books returns here, and discard the books written by Niven, and you see that people have analyzed the character in quite some detail. Abductive (reasoning) 06:35, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • O.K., so Nessus appears in secondary sources. Some of this may be because Ringworld came out in 1970. Since Brightness Reef came out in 1995, that gives Alvin less time to appear in books by other people, which seems to be what your criterion boils down to. By the way, a lot of Niven's characters have Wikipedia entries. Consider Beowolf Shaeffer, for instance, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf_Shaeffer . As far as I can tell, there are no references to him in books not by Larry Niven. So I get the sense that pages devoted to recurring characters ARE often not removed, even if they don't pass your test. I don't see a problem with this, either. It seems that having separate pages for characters that appear in multiple books is a perfectly reasonable way to organize material on an author's work. What is your take on the organizational question then? If this page goes, on which page should material about Alvin be placed? DavidHobby (talk) 16:35, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
              • Yes, the notability criterion "boils down" to commentary by other people. Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL reveals quite a few mentions of Beowulf Shaeffer, though not as strong as Nessus. The Shaeffer article is a mess, isn't it? As for organizing the material, what user is going to type in "Alvin Hph-wayuo"? This page view tool shows that nobody reads the article; 36 views in November. This low number is consistent with automated bots reading the page. In contrast, Nessus (Pierson's Puppeteer) had 414 page views in Nov, and Beowulf Shaeffer had 583. Typically, characters are merged. I would suggest he be merged to the first book in which he appears. That way the (rare) user will be able to proceed in chronological order. Abductive (reasoning) 17:10, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • And so all boils down to imagining that Wiki is paper - or even that someday the Wikipedia will be impressed in platinum plates and sent to outer space to preserve humanity knowledge. Wiki is not paper. Albmont (talk) 11:40, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • O.K., so I added an outside source, and removed the tags. This whole process seems silly to me: It was clear from the start that there were outside sources in print. But it's hard to check, since tracking down the actual book is a pain. I know the reference is there, since Google Book Search showed me a snippet with "Alvin", "Jijo" and "Brin" in it. WHY exactly are paper sources so superior?! DavidHobby (talk) 05:53, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Abductive-- Seriously, TALK FIRST. The notability tag can stay, if you want, but I don't see why it should. The PAPER reference lists Alvin as a main character of the book. I feel I've played by your rules, and hunted down a published reference. DavidHobby (talk) 06:49, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • As for the links to the Wikipedia pages for the books, I have no idea whether or not they are "references". I do know that MANY other pages list Wikipedia pages for books as references, and I copied their style. If those links belong in another section, please move them there. But don't just remove the links? DavidHobby (talk) 06:49, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • (Sorry, there was an edit conflict.) I'm not at all confident that this reference won't save the article. I believe I've seen logs of Articles for Deletion where your viewpoint did not prevail. It's not clear to me that everyone shares your vision of a drastically-pruned Wikipedia. I agree that this article is currently low-quality. But maybe if it stayed, people would improve it? DavidHobby (talk) 06:49, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • The only improvements can come from reliable secondary sources. My viewpoint has quite a bit of backing, as you might see, things get nominated for deletion, people claim that the book is notable so therefore the characters should all have articles, other people say it shpuld be deleted, then the final decision is merge. It's always merge. Abductive (reasoning) 07:01, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Abductive-- I don't agree with your gambit on the merge, and wonder why you don't do something more constructive than hounding minor articles. On the other hand, I don't have time to do the merge, and am leaving things as they are for the time being. DavidHobby (talk) 04:04, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Abductive-- So your proposal to have a similar article deleted was just turned down. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Streaker_(David_Brin)#Streaker_.28David_Brin.29

Given that, I'm undoing your "merge" of this article, which was essentially a deletion. Why don't we both just leave these articles alone? A merge may well be best, but you seem to have a biased opinion of how to treat these articles. DavidHobby (talk) 03:15, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Absolutely not. The decision taken at an AfD to "Keep" an article does not mean it shouldn't be merged. I go by the existence of secondary sources. For example, I removed my own notability tag from Gubru, because I discovered it had sources. This article has none. Wikipedia's own article on Secondary sources says it all: "In scholarship, a secondary source is a document or recording that relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere. A secondary source contrasts with a primary source, which is an original source of the information being discussed. Secondary sources involve generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of the original information." Abductive (reasoning) 03:57, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • You are not merging the article. You say yourself that you are deleting all its content. If you want to delete it, do so honestly, and propose it for deletion. I don't see how you even have consensus for a merge, since you're the only person pushing for it. DavidHobby (talk) 02:26, 20 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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