Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lawrence Dwight Smith

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. Walton^One 15:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lawrence Dwight Smith

Lawrence Dwight Smith (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Delete - there do not appear to be reliable sources attesting to the notability of this author. Otto4711 03:40, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete as per nom Harlowraman 04:56, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Keep Nominator orginally PROD'd this article. I disagreed and wrote the following under talk:

I removed the Prod tag on the basis that he has been cited reasonably recently as an expert in cryptanalysis even though his books were published nearly 50 years ago. See: Channel4.com for example. Some of these authors who published pre-internet seem to have to meet higher hurdles than existing authors who can put their material all over the web without little problem. Gillyweed 02:49, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

• There need to be sources attesting to his notability. The link doesn;t attest to his notability; it just mentions one of his books. Otto4711 05:12, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

One of the tests for notability is whether or not books are cited. This book on cryptanalysis is still being cited 50 years after it was written by various academics AND Channel 4. This indicates both currency and relevance. Admittedly there are few Google hits for Lawrence Dwight Smith but this is more an indicator that his book has been out of print for 40+ years and all his work was done before the internet. I think we really need to be careful about stating that these pre-internet people are not notable because we can't find many mentions of them on Google. His fiction seems to have been very popular at the time (it is mentioned by crime fans for example), but given they would have been written on crap WWII paper, you won't find many in book shops these days. I'm happy to keep finding references to him but I'd appreciate a little more time. Gillyweed 06:20, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

After some more research, others have spelt his name as Laurence without the 'w'. A Google Search on this will throw up 700+ hits for him. Not bad for someone who wrote 60 years ago. I'm going to move the article to Laurence Dwight Smith - does this change the AfD? Gillyweed 06:32, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Nominator has given no reason for deletion, other than "No sources". If he thinks that's a problem, he can find sources and cite them, maybe even improve the article. --Stephanie ^talk 09:37, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

• The reason given for deletion is that I don't believe he is notable. Otto4711 22:17, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

• Weak keep the books will have been reviewed, so it should be sourceable. DGG (talk) 15:52, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep, his books were reviewed in the NYT contemporaneously. Move article to correct spelling Laurence Dwight Smith, under which spelling Google results improve. --Dhartung | Talk 23:14, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - many current reading lists on cryptography list his 1943 and 1955 works on that subject, so they appear to be classics (that's not my area, however). -- DS1953 ^talk 05:56, 11 August 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.