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.
Article fails WP:GNG and WP:NAUTHOR. The PROD was contested with the rationale that her books have been reviewed, meeting WP:NAUTHOR #3, but that criteria specifically says that the person must have "created or played a major role in co-creating a significant or well-known work or collective body of work. In addition, such work must have been the primary subject of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews..." This article's subject has not created any "significant or well-known work or collective body of work" and fails WP:NAUTHOR. Simply having your books reviewed is not a criteria of any notability guideline for an author. Aoidh (talk) 00:29, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I count 15 books, that seems like a substantial "body of work". With the reviews, I'd say she's passed AUTHOR, but I don't see the reviews. Oaktree b (talk) 01:45, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Oaktree b: Having a "substantial body of work" is not a criteria for notability. Book reviews existing do not show notability for the author of said books unless they are a "significant or well-known work" and this is not the case here; they are run-of-the-mill books and no sources describe or allude to them being significant works in any way. Merely having reviews does not meet WP:NAUTHOR, they must be reviews of significant works, and those reviews very specifically must be in addition to sources showing that the works are significant; merely having book reviews is not a criteria for notability. The reviews you cited do not have any significant coverage of the author herself, so she similarly fails WP:GNG. What notability guideline are you suggesting she meets? - Aoidh (talk) 02:16, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
AUTHOR 3, as above. We've kept articles on authors in AfD will less reviews than this lady has. For some authors, we're barely able to find 2 reviews; this one has at least 4 in peer-reviewed journals. I stopped listing them after 4, GScholar has many more. Oaktree b (talk) 11:55, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yet still, WP:AUTHOR #3 does not say having reviews shows notability, and vaguely alleging that other AfDs have been kept does not create an exception to Wikipedia's notability requirements; this article does not meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Maybe those other AfDs had significant coverage of the author; unless you can point to an actual AfD there's no way to know that this isn't an apples-to-oranges comparison. Regardless, that other articles may have been kept previously does not matter, and articles previously kept are deleted all the time, so an unrelated article being kept does not bar this one from needing to show notability. Unless and until the wording of WP:AUTHOR is changed to what you're suggesting, reviews alone do not show notability for an author, especially when all the reviews have trivial coverage of the author. - Aoidh (talk) 13:27, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Well I don't know what to tell you then, it's been fine for every other AfD with books we've had. That's how I interpret it. She's created a "collective body of work" that's had reviews in major peer-reviewed journals. Not sure what more you can ask for. They aren't vanity publishers and fly-by-night journals, that's pretty much how we define notability for wikipedia. Oaktree b (talk) 13:44, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't a book article, it's an author article; WP:NBOOKSdoes say that reviews show notability, but this isn't an article about a book it's an author's article. That's a different standard and has different notability criteria. To meet WP:NAUTHOR the "collective body of work" must be "significant or well-known", merely having a "collective body of work" that has had reviews is very specifically not part of that criteria. We define notability on Wikipedia by the notability criteria, and this article does not meet them. If you're arguing that because the reviews are reliable sources that this shows notability then that's not an WP:NAUTHOR argument, that's a WP:GNG argument, and if that's what you're suggesting then per WP:GNG the article's subject must have significant coverage in those reliable sources. This article's subject does not have significant coverage in those reviews; any mention of this article's subject is trivial and the sources are discussing books, not this article's subject. When you say Not sure what more you can ask for I'm asking for nothing more than the bare minimum: I'm asking for her to meet a notability guideline, ideally with significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, and if we can't have that, then evidence that the article's subject meets WP:NAUTHOR by demonstrating that the article's subject has created a "significant or well-known" work. If this article's subject cannot meet this very basic and simple requirement, then it does not warrant an article on Wikipedia. - Aoidh (talk) 14:08, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep As well as the above, I found some other fairly robust reviews. This is a solid as it gets. The article needs some work. scope_creepTalk 09:06, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Scope creep: What notability criteria says book reviews show notability for the authors? WP:NAUTHOR certainly doesn't support that. There are no sources that say these books are "significant or well-known" in any way, which is required. Reviews are very specifically and unambiguously in addition to that requirement; merely having just book reviews means nothing. - Aoidh (talk) 09:11, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Aoidh: How are you, in this fine morning. The standard for Afd, is if you can find three reviews, then the author is notable. They are true secondary sources that show that critical analysis has been undertaken, that is independent. WP:NAUTHOR #3 or #4 is probably satisfied. I wouldn't hack it too much. The thing about these writers, is you don't know how popular they really are by looking at the articles, unless it tells you explicitly. Due to the web effect, books that would have had a perhaps had a regional effect now have world-wide effect due to the specific targetting of a specific groups, and they are written for that group. So often you look at writer doing this kind of work, and you don't realise that they might have readerships for example, in 80 countries, of millions of 14 years olds or 9 year olds. Its that type of reading by the looks of it and you just don't know. So reviews are one way of guaging how well known the person is well known. scope_creepTalk 09:29, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Scope creep: I am fine and I hope you are as well, thank you for asking. :) Can you please provide a link to where this three-review standard can be found? I am genuinely not aware of this standard, because from what I see at WP:NAUTHOR and WP:NBOOK, reviews for books would show notability for the book, not for its author. From what WP:NAUTHOR #3 says, sources should explicitly say that the works are significant and not just that they exist; if we say that a work is so significant that just having written it makes a person notable, sources should support that claim. Even if it's something as simple as this, that would be more than I could find for this article's subject. There are a lot of sources I found online just now that allude to the significance of particular books; the NYT alone lists 100 a year, as does Time. That's 100 books per year from a single source that allude to significance of those books, so I don't think asking for a book to meet WP:NAUTHOR's "significant or well-known" criteria is an impossible requirement, especially for me because my standards for that are very low, but it's gotta be something more than a simple review; if reviews were good enough WP:NAUTHOR would say that. - Aoidh (talk) 09:51, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
[6] Erik Doxtader was the last one with similar search results, it was kept. Oaktree b (talk) 14:00, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That article was kept because the article's subject was an award-winning author with work in significant journals, that's very much not what this article has going on. - Aoidh (talk) 14:14, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Thanks to the efforts of editors including DaffodilOcean and Pburka to revise and add sources to the article, WP:AUTHOR notability seems more clearly supported by a collective body of work for which there are multiple reviews for multiple works, i.e. more than one notable book. There is some sourcing for biographical information that has been added as well. Beccaynr (talk) 14:49, 4 October 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.