Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Camino Chronicle

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 all. Jersey Devil 04:06, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Camino Chronicle

Camino Chronicle (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Books by Susan Alcorn whose article was deleted in AfD here (I was the closing administrator). They do not seem to fulfill the conditions of WP:BK. They were prodded but the articles' editor removed the tag. Yannismarou 16:06, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I am also nominating the following related pages for the same reasons as above:

Richmond - Windows to the Past (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

We're in the Mountains Not over the Hill (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)--Yannismarou 16:12, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

• Delete All - They lack WP:A to satisfy WP:BK ... also serious WP:COI because they were all created by Susan Alcorn herself as Backpack45scb (talk · contribs) ... she removed one of the prods after adding "Now out of print, there are two copies available on Amazon at a starting price of $89" to the article, and then cited Amazon.com reviews and being the finalist for a NN independent publishers' award "to show this is a work of substance" as reasons to remove the prod from another ... such blatant vanispamcruftisement should not be allowed in Wikipedia, and these articles should have been included in the AfD for her article as well. —68.239.79.97 (talk · contribs) 18:27, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• I'm weakly recommending delete on all of these, mainly because of the WP:COI issue. Since the AfD nom, the author has been editing the articles, trying to establish notability, but adding things like ISBNs and Library of Congress catalogue refs to do so is an exercise in futility. It seems to me that, all in all, the books barely fail to satisfy the guidelines in WP:BK. If any of the articles is retained, however, it should be Camino Chronicle; that one has at least attracted a bit of notice on independent Web review sites. Deor 01:11, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete All If you delete the author as “Un-noteworthy” you must delete the books she wrote and listed on Wikipedia or you have set-up a conundrum. Shoessss 13:16, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm the contributer of the articles, and I am the author's husband, not the author. My name is Ralph Alcorn. Agreed, there is a conflict of interest issue, but please judge the articles on their merit. I've only done a few edits on Wikipedia in the past, so am still learning the rules.

Background: I've known the author for many years, and am in a position to see her total contributions. She writes on subjects which are narrow, but of considerable interest to the thousands of people interested in the same topic. She is serious about her writing and has been writing for thirty five years. Her body of work includes some other books that didn't have lasting impact, and a number of newspaper articles. In the last twenty years her main interest has been long distance hiking, and she has been hiking three to four hundred miles every year. (I do have a point to make). She is one of the few women in the age 65 and older category that are still doing long distance backpacking. Her notability is primarily being a woman of this age still doing long distance backpacking. See here in a Trailcast podcast [1]. If you look at the other Trailcast subjects of podcasts, it is the Who's Who of long distance hiking. If you are in the long distance hiking community, you know "Squatch", who produces an annual "Walk" dvd featuring clips of Pacific Crest Trail backpackers. We are in his 2006 dvd, and I'm referencing his trail journal entry just to provide some attribution to the fact that Susan Alcorn is still out hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail [2]. I can see the question, who are these active older women? being a research topic at a high school or college level. Susan Alcorn might not be noteable enough yet to be in a hard copy encyclopedia, but I thought that was part of the purpose of Wikipedia - to include topics that might be too obscure to include in an encyclopedia limited by the weight, size and space required for paper articles.

Re: the individual book articles. I assume I should discuss them here in the delete discussion rather than each books discussion page.

Re: The Richmond book. I found three citations in a few minutes search, and added them to the article. One was 1993, one for 1996 and one for 2001, each referring to this 1980 book. Again, pointing to the durability and notability of this book. In the discussion I added the full description of this book from two independent sources.

Re: The We're in the Mountains book. Of the three books, this one has got the most attention from the buying public. Most paperback books have a short life. They go out to the bookstores, and the next year there is a 30 to 40% return rate. Four years later, this book is still selling at the initial rate. We don't know exactly who, about 2/3rds of sales are thru National Parks and outdoor stores, the rest through Amazon. Our theory is that older women are buying it because of the unique subject. No other book in the United States addresses older women backpackers. This is the book that makes Susan Alcorn known.

Re: Camino Chronicle. Of the three, this is the most well crafted in terms of layout, photos, maps, etc. The story has international appeal. Appearance plus the story are what brought it up for the travel essay award, but some of its success is because of the Susan Alcorn name. She has been writing a newsletter for four years, and has been giving slide presentations at west coast locations ranging from Phoenix to Portland, with many in central California. For outdoor people in this area, Susan Alcorn (author) is noteable.

(Backpack45scb 23:00, 15 April 2007 (UTC))

I've added numerous newspaper and magazine interviews to both Richmond - Windows to the Past, and We're in the Mountains, Not Over the Hill. In the process of doing this, I have found additional material for the Susan Alcorn (author) entry, which was deleted before I had a chance to respond. I will be travelling until May 10, 2007, so won't be able to respond to posts until then. (Backpack45scb 22:30, 17 April 2007 (UTC))

• 'Delete and possible recreate one for the author with all the books listed, now that there are apparently better sources for the others. But the reviews cited for this book are either extremely specialized or reader reviews, which don't count for notability. DGG 19:14, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

• Delete All Author was determined to not be noteworthy. My investigation into the book shows Camino Chronicle as Amazon Sales Rank #226,856. No major media coverage, the only Ghits returned seem to be for small websites that sell the book. That all adds up to a good candidate for deletion in my book. - BierHerr 23:28, 20 April 2007 (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.