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 delete. There seemed to be some feeling that the article would pass muster if better sourcing could be found, so if requested I will userfy the article to allow for improvement. MelanieN (talk) 02:28, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Red Fez[edit]

Red Fez (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Delete. Article about an online literary magazine, with no strong claim of notability per WP:NMAG and no strong reliable source coverage to claim WP:GNG in lieu. Of the eight sources being cited here, four of them entirely fail to be coverage of the magazine at all, but are being cited solely to support the existence of contributors to it (e.g. "film critic Chris Lambert" is sourced to a primary source directory of his film criticism in another publication, rather than a news article talking about his contributions to this publication; "poet Michael Grover" is sourced to a user-generated site which nominally verifies that Michael Grover exists as a poet but completely fails to support his notability as a poet; etc.) Of the four surviving sources, two are the magazine's own primary source content about itself, and one of the other two is a directory entry in a database that allows literary magazines to add themselves. Which leaves just one piece of actual media coverage to even begin building a GNG claim on, and even it isn't about Red Fez but just glancingly mentions its existence in the process of being about a minor local literary festival. Wikipedia is not a free PR directory where everything that exists is automatically entitled to an article just because it exists -- RS coverage, supporting a notability claim that would satisfy NMAG, must be present for an article to become earned, but nothing here fulfills that requirement at all. Bearcat (talk) 13:12, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Do not delete. Thank you for your thorough review of this entry. I appreciate any suggestions for improvement and additions to this stub to help bolster its quality and breadth. Any additions you or other editors may have would be welcome.

In regards to the notability of this entry, if you look at Wikipedia’s list of literary magazines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_literary_magazines) you’ll find that a large number of entries there would fail your same criteria, some, like Word Riot, 32 Poems and Brick Magazine, are very notable and respected magazines within the literary and writing community. Literary journals are a different breed of periodical, and are notable in ways that aren’t captured by Wikipedia’s current guidelines. I based this entry, as best I could, on the other entries on that list that seemed acceptable.

Generally, literary journals are notable for the following: - How long they have been around - Who and how many authors they have published - Who has edited them and - How many people read them.

Items one, two and three are addressed by this entry. Item four is not a very interesting stat for readers, but could be dug up, though I feel I would be including it to satisfy notability requirements rather than to meet reader interest, as would listing some of the more notable editors who have retired from the magazine. The most important aspect of a literary journal is its contents, and not the journal itself, which may lead to a fairly plain Wikipedia entry, but does not make the journal any less notable or worthy.

Regarding the NMAG and GNG guidelines, unlike scientific or scholarly periodicals listed in the NMAG (which Wikipedia has made special guideline exceptions for to help important scientific journals that have only a handful of readers around the reliable source and notability guidelines) literary journals are not ‘referenced’ or quoted by other journals. That is just not a practice that happens. Arguably, literary journals are read by many more people, and also have high a very prominence within a very select community of publishers and writers. If attention is received due to a journals efforts, it is by the author or work published in that journal. Because many literary journals are non-profit organizations, they also don’t have institutional notability support from academic institutions, which is also accepted in the NMAG.

I welcome any ideas or suggestions for how this can be fixed in this entry. If this entry is deserving of deletion, I think a good number of other (I would argue valid) journals on the List of Literary Magazines should probably also be flagged. Wintersbeard (talk) 15:16, 27 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Journalism-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 04:49, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 04:49, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 04:49, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment, hi Wintersbeard, welcome to wikipedia, i hope that this experience doesn't put you off continuing to contribute, as this is your first article it might have been appropriate to submit it via Articles for creation, there you can receive great feedback and help (the same goes for the Teahouse where there are even editors who are willing to be mentors!), anyway, bak to redfez, the article presently describes what it does with some nice references backing up the statements, but nothing that really explains why it is notable and significant ie. what brings it above the 100s of literary journals that are out there in non-wikiland, has it received any well known/significant awards?, is it well cited amongst literary circles?, has it launched a number of significant/notable authors ie. first publication of their works (although this may bring rise to WP:NOTINHERITED editors may be more sympathetic; and a couple of final points - you say that there are other similar articles that might also be flagged for deletion please have a read of WP:OTHERTHINGSEXIST, and as an example of a nice little literary mag article from the list you mentioned above is Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine (i promise it was a random pick:)), from that little town south of Sydney ("hang on coola, thats the capital of australia!", "i know, its just that a lot of people across the pond in the US only know of bondi and the bridge, oh, and the fireworks.") Coolabahapple (talk) 06:02, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - this is plainly a worthy topic and one could wish it were notable, but this would have to be established via reliable sources, which are not forthcoming. Wintersbeard's suggestions for a more rational policy for Notability of magazines would be welcome on that policy's talk page, though I fear they would run into the usual procedural glue. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:02, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Do not delete. Articles in progress that are actively being worked on should not be de facto noted for deletion by parties with no vested interest in the subject, particularly if the subject is in an underrepresented area. HullIntegrity^\ talk / 15:16, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Won't cut much ice here, I'm afraid. If you know of reliable sources, say so, and let's list the key ones here. Since there don't seem to be any - and we have looked quite hard - the topic is not yet notable. Maybe in a few years' time that will have changed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:34, 20 October 2016 (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.