Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ulric Nisbet

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. Mailer Diablo 16:32, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ulric Nisbet

The page does not assert the notability of its subject and has no citations. It has only 496 google hits. It seems to be a non-notable author who wrote a few books during his life time. Cowman109^Talk 21:07, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment There are currently 23 google hits for for the term "Ulric Nisbet" (taking out wikipedia hits)[1], and 16 hits for "Nisbet, Ulric"[2]. Bwithh 18:46, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. Fails WP:BIO. I only found 2 ghits. One was Wikipedia. Alphachimp ^talk 01:55, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment For a topic this old, internet hits mean nothing, you have to go for print sources. It's easy to forget but for a long time there was no such thing as an Internet, and lots of stuff from the pre-Internet world has not yet been "nettified". See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fairnie for a more recent example with limited Google hits, but that's now shaping up as a very good article. Note: no vote (changed below) from me re this specific article for now. Phr (talk) 15:03, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - I added this page. This author clearly meets the Wikipedia citerion for biographies: "Published authors, editors and photographers who received multiple independent reviews of or awards for their work". OK, he's a minor literary figure, but he was published, some of his archives are held in Cambridge University Archives, and he was reviewed in serious national newspapers ("The Onlie Begetter", TLS, 1936; "Spread no wings", Times 1937). Are we to purge Wikipedia of all minor writers and thinkers? That would remove one of its strengths - coverage of the unfashionable.Mark Nesbitt 09:43, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

• Keep if verified, Per Mark Nesbitt -- Librarianofages 02:54, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep if he's really the same one who wrote The Onlie Begetter. The article doesn't mention it. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 03:01, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep per Mark Nesbitt. Also the number of google hits is not 2, Alphachimp, using less restrictive search terms, I got [501. (note google hits are not reason, by themselves to delete an article. —— Eagle (ask me for help) 04:11, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

• Actually its just 35 hits if you use quotation marks[3]. (not that 500 is impressive) Bwithh 04:49, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

• COMMENTGoogle hits mean 0, what are you talking about? -- Librarianofages 05:47, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

• There's no need to shout. Google hits aren't the be-all and end-all, but they do mean something to different degrees depending on topic. It can especially useful when you're using Google Scholar and Google Books too. Bwithh 05:56, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

• keep : Ok, sorry about the google hits, should have put the "'s as above. Since this is an interesting disscussion I ran some searches on WorldCat. Here is what I came up with: The onlie begetter and Spread no wings. —— Eagle (ask me for help) 02:33, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. Mark Nesbitt seems to be working on his family tree, which is okay if the subjects are sufficiently encyclopedically notable minor thinkers and authors. Unfortunately I don't think this author is.
  • I found three entries in the Cambridge University library catalogue[4] (which is a legal deposit library[5], with minimal selectivity in what it archives - rather the library tries to catalogue all publications so its not a mark of distinction to be in the collection). The catalogue has a timeout feature, so direct links to searches won't work, but anyone can use the search function. I could not find "Spread no wings" in the catalogue.
  • Of the three I found - one title is a privately published book under a pseudonym, another is a book also printed under a pseudonym which had a print run of 250. The third is probably Nisbet's most notable book, The Onlie Begetter (1936), in which the author theorizes that the Mr. W.H. (the "only begetter" (i.e. patron, I assume) of the sonnets) to which an 1609 edition of Shakespeare's sonnets is dedicated is William Herbert, 1st Baron Powis, rather than William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke who was and is considered to be the most likely candidate. This theory is probably why the book received attention in the Times Literary Supplement. (But we don't know how it was received).
  • However, I can't find any relevant hits which discuss a connection between Powis and Shakespeare (searching for "William Herbert" and "Powis" and "Shakespeare" and "sonnets") in Google[6], Google Scholar[7] or Google Books[8](the national biography hit discusses William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke - the Powis mention is elsewhere on the page and is unrelated and not the right Powis anyway. and the biography dates from 1911.).There are 4 hits for "Ulric Nesbit" likely related to Shakespeare on Google Books[9]. Zero hits on Google Scholar[10].
  • In comparison, there are a substantial number of hits (658 pages on Google Books; 157 hits on Google Scholar, 765 hits on regular Google) which discuss the relationship between Shakespeare and William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke however[11] [12][13]. The wikipedia article on Mr. WH also lists 5 other persons aside from Pembroke who have been discussed as likely candidates for the mystery Mr. WH. - but does not include Powis.
  • All this leads me to believe that while Ulric Nesbit's WH theory about Powis may have made a minor splash at the time, he has had little or no lasting impact on the Shakespeare scholarship, even in his own lifetime. I think Ulric's theory should be mentioned in the Mr. WH article, but he is not notable enough of a scholar for his own article Bwithh 05:54, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Seems notable enough for inclusion. JeffMurph 08:27, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per Bwithh Originalbigj 00:16, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
• Mulling it over if this is the author of The Onlie Begetter (but if so, why isn't that in the article?) there's multiple hits for Ulric Nisbet on bookfinder.com. The Onlie Begetter was published by Longmans in 1936 and republished by Haskell House in 1970 and 1982; that there were enough readers to keep it marketable for that long is evidence of minor notability (unless Haskell House is a vanity press--I have a slight suspicion of that but haven't checked it out). However, there's also a 2006 print-on-demand edition which I'll guess is connected to Mark Nesbitt; if it is, then the article has a tinge of WP:SPAM to add to the WP:VAIN already evident. Phr (talk) 03:01, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Haskell House seems to be a small specialist publisher dedicated to reprints of "scarce scholarly books".[14]. Now known as MSG-Haskell House[15]. Can't find website for the company Bwithh 10:37, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Sigh, no I'm no relation to him and have no connection with him. I was a committed contributor to Wikipedia who likes to release to the public domain pieces of research that I do for other purposes, if they seem to fall within its scope...Mark Nesbitt 07:12, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep based on Bwitth's link to MSG-Haskell which looks a legit press (at least these days). ("Scarce scholarly books" is actually what sounded to me like "vanity"). If The Onlie Begetter stayed in print for 46 years in the pre-POD era, that's enough notability for something like this. Mark, if the article stays around, it would be good if you could update it with something about the book. (added:) Also, thanks for the clarification. Phr (talk) 12:13, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep based on the above comments. 496 google hits is fairly decent for a subject who died a decade before the internet became commercially viable. Yamaguchi先生 23:04, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment You're not parsing your google search correctly. There are currently 23 google hits for for the term "Ulric Nisbet" (taking out wikipedia hits)[16], and 16 hits for "Nisbet, Ulric"[17]. Bwithh 18:46, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

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.