Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/A Biographical Dictionary of Railway Engineers

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 of the debate was Keep. Redwolf24 04:00, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A Biographical Dictionary of Railway Engineers

Very interesting I'm sure - but nn --Doc (?) 01:03, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

• Delete. Unverifiable, as the ISBN is invalid. Pburka 03:24, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
  • Vote withdrawn, as the ISBN problem was simply a typo. Pburka 23:38, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
• I am not sure what the policy is on articles on individual books, but I think reference works of potentially wide interest should be allowed, as opposed to most monographs (which can rather be treated with their subject if they are important but not yet classics). The existence and publication details of the book are very easy to verify, c/o the British Library[1], for instance. A second edition was published in 2003. The ISBN is actually quite valid (for the first edition), but there is something wrong with the Wikipedia ISBN search function. Keep. Uppland 05:53, 16 August 2005 (UTC) 0715374893 : £10.00
• I included this originally as part of the Wikipedia series of entries of biographical dictionaries. I am using it as a reference to biographies I am writing on railway engineers. Keep Apwoolrich 07:46, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
• Comment: Maybe it's got to do with conversion to 13 digit ISBN numbers? - Mgm|^(talk) 08:19, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
  • It's a typo - should be 0715374893 not 0715374983. (I've checked the LoC catalogue, and this one checksums). Shimgray 12:09, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
• Comment: I'd gently question Uppland's logic. Monographs, whilst often not widely read, may have an important impact within a field {e.g. obviosly Origin of Species, and in my own field Quest of the Historical Jesus or Paul and Palestinian Judaism are good examples (I can't believe they just went red!)- but there are plenty of less well known ones). Reference works may be more widely read, but their contents are derivative and their intellectual impact usually negligible (and there are dozens of 'Dictionary of ....' 'encyclopaedia of ...' and 'introduction to...' in every field). Whilst obviously some have cultural impact (e.g. Guinness Book of Records many could have nothing more said about them than 'contains lots of info on the subject - and sold a lot of copies'. My own test for any non-fiction work would be: is it possible to write a paragraph on the 'influence and impact' of this work - if not, list it under 'references' in the relevant article (which is what I think Apwoolrich should do here). --Doc (?) 08:49, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I may not have been clear enough. I wrote "important but not yet classics", and was actually thinking of Origin of Species as one of the works definitely belonging to the "classics" category. Normally, even a fairly significant monograph on some smaller topic would not be important enough to be treated as a subject of its own but is better treated in an article on its topic as well as mentioned briefly in an article characterizing its author (if s/he has done enough other things to deserve an article). A reference work such as this could possibly be mentioned in an article on the profession of railway engineering, but it is much more likely to be used around here the way Apwoolrich is apparently using it, as a good reference source for articles on individual engineers. as such I think an article describing the work is useful. In either case, standards for including articles on books seem de facto to be quite inclusive. Just look at Category:Book stubs, and its subcategories, such as Category:Non-fiction book stubs. I occasionally get the impression that it is easier to get an article on a single book pass VfD than an article on a scholar who has published fifteen books ("just another nn college prof - publishing is what they do"). In either case, I think this is more useful than many other books for which we have articles and would like to see a policy discussion before I am willing to vote to delete this particular one. — A reasonable compromise, especially considering the size of this article, may however be to merge this with similar minor and specialized biographical dictionaries in a list in the Biographical dictionary article. Perhaps only the large multi-volume works with a long history (like DNB) need to have articles of their own. Uppland 09:48, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep--published book with multiple editions and published by a major house. Meelar (talk) 15:01, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep per Meelar. Kappa 17:29, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
• delete Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 1,431,026 , less notable than 1 million other books --TimPope 17:49, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
  • It's a specialised reference book - sales figures would be expected to be low. It's not much of a basis to rule on. (Were it a novel, this'd be a much stronger argument...) Shimgray 02:11, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
• Comment Firstly, apologies for the typo on the ISBN. I would be happy, if pushed, for the compromise of Uppland, if the alternative was deletion. In the Encyclopaedia article is a listing of many historical ones, including several specialist titles, which might, I am sure, be argued for VfD on the grounds of non-notability. They are there as an historical record, and, more importantly, as a resource for readers and editors who might otherwise never get to learn of them - and use them in their writing. The internet is very weak indeed on information of this kind, and Wikipedia enables a record to be maintained, - hopefully in perpetuity.Apwoolrich 18:23, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I'd suggest that if it's used as a reference in a wide range of articles, which I gather from context it is, then it's probably worthwhile keeping - I mean, we think it's notable enough to use as a reputable source! Perhaps it'd be useful to link to it when you reference it on those pages, though? It means you can keep all the bibliographic information centralised; I've expanded it a little from catalogue research to cover both editions. Some notes on scope of the entries would be helpful, and make it a bit more than a simple catalogue entry - how summary is summary? is it good, accurate, well-written? - but I can't add those without reading a copy. Shimgray 02:11, 17 August 2005 (UTC) (Also, can you check if there are any illus.? Cataloguers tend to notice, but you never know.)
• Keep per Meelar. -- DS1953 22:00, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep - doesn't seem to be any reason not to keep this. Trollderella 01:16, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep if expandable. Shimmin 13:47, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep per Shimgray. OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 13:51, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
• Comment I have added a bit more about the contents of the articles. I will see if I can find out about the author and if lucky will add a sentence. Apwoolrich 17:31, 17 August 2005 (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.