Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mozart Was a Red

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 by majority consensus. --Aarktica 21:41, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mozart Was a Red

• Delete minor text, not notable, does not pass notability for book or play Buridan 09:06, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, Randcruft. Not notable enough as a play or a work of literature. Lankiveil 10:37, 15 April 2007 (UTC).
• Keep. Properly sourced and informative article about a minor but quirky and revealing work by an outstanding personality. Stammer 10:51, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Keep as primary author. First, not sure if anything Rothbard pens can accurately be described as "not notable." Second, covered rather well in a major history book about the libertarian movement, plus a number of columns. Is performed on more than a few occasions. Finally, this was not created as some sort of Randian purpose - I'm not an objectivist, and don't typically edit libertarian/objectivism topics, but simply something noteworthy read in a book. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:55, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps then it should be merged into that books article? or is that book not notable enough to have an independent article? this content also might be put on mr. rothbard's page. --Buridan 13:11, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

That would be a completely nonsensical merge to the book. A merge to Rothbard might be appropriate if the subject itself wasn't worthy of treatment, which it is. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:13, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

but your argument above is that anything written by rothbard is notable, I don't think that is the case, as most of his works do not have pages, but this minor work does. while i grant rothbard is notable enough to have an article, few if any of his works are notable in regards to wikipedia standards, this one is not notable according to the notability standards Wikipedia:Notability. Currently you have one chapter in a book and that book likely fails the independent criteria. --Buridan 13:35, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

then that means we have a lot of work to catch up on, doesn't it? Actually, this likely would fall under notability for books, which this meets: "The book's author is historically significant enough for his or her works to be considered notable, even in the absence of secondary sources." This just happens to have secondary sources as well. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

no, this is not a book, it is and unpublished, one act play. --Buridan 14:07, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

It's the closest guideline we have in this case. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:09, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

It fails general notability with non-independent sources. The sources are not establishing notability either. what makes this unpublished play notable? I'd argue the only thing that might is its author, therefore, it alone is not notable, and should be deleted, or merged. --Buridan 15:35, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

The play is worthy of note in a number of reliable publications, and because of who authored it. You can disagree, that's fine. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:38, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

• Keep; there does seem to be a reliable secondary source. If not kept, it could be merged and/or redirected to Murray Rothbard. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 13:18, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Comment. I have added another source, which can be perused online at [1]. Stammer 14:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep This article is more what an encyclopedia entry is /supposed/ to look like--there are way too many aspiring Wikibooks masquerading as encyclopedic and they're a nightmare. It's obviously relevant enough to Libertarians and to the subject of Ayn Rand that it's been keep alive by the former and used as a source for commentary on the latter. And the author is well noted. Wysdom 17:08, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Keep: I was previously unfamiliar with both the play and its author. However, I skimmed through the article on Rothbard, and he seems to be quite a notable figure. Minor works—even unpublished works—of important people are worth noting. The article is brief and it links to a copy of the play. This article may not draw any major traffic, but it seems notable enough (and well constructed enough) to remain on the site.Fixer1234 08:11, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, out-and-out libertariancruft, presumably supported by those who seek to give the pseudo-philosophy of Objectivism more credit and import than it's worth. If Rothbard was even a professional playwriter (which he was not), this unpublished work would be of questionable notability. It would sort of be like having articles on dirty limericks written by Winston Churchill. While the author of this play is notable, the play itself is not. MichelleG 12:38, 16 April 2007 (UTC).

Verrry Intrresting! I did not know that Winston Churchill wrote dirty limericks, which by analogy I assume exemplify his geopolitical strategy. Can you provide a reference? I would like to write a Wikipedia article about them. Stammer 15:19, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - I was poking around and saw a page which struck me somehow as having a similar condition to this one. Let's see if I can conjure up some logic for my reasoning here. If Objectivism is (more?) to Rand than what Synchronicity was to Jung, then this is (more than?) Rand's Littlewood's law, a tucked away creation by a contemporary from a different profession which as a contribution is of yet a third guild, and yet, somehow, it caught hold and is remembered today. Yet, just like that law, WP has plenty of space for oddities that are notable through the persistence of their memory and their association with notable people. It doesn't matter if Objectivism is nonsense or not, this has almost already passed the 50 years test, and I have a hard time believing that the Rand-ites will disappear in the next 50. Smmurphy^(Talk) 02:50, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • comment the difference is that jungs idea and littlewoods law are both notable ideas, this is an unpublished text. it isn't notable, those are. --Buridan 20:32, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Sorry, I was stretching a bit, and my comment seems a bit like WP:WAX (those are stricken now, for clarity). I do believe this is notable per others' arguments, and based on what I didn't strike out. Smmurphy^(Talk) 21:00, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
• A few points: (1) This debate is not about the “pseudo-philosophy of Objectivism” or about Ms. Rand, as some writers above have attempted to make it. Let me be clear--I myself am not-at-all a fan of Rand or Objectivism, but any sentiments about the importance or legitimacy of Rand or her philosophy are barely relevant, if at all relevant, to this conversation. (2) Many writers here seem to assume that because something is unpublished or of limited interest, it is automatically non-notable. While this might be somewhat true for paper encyclopedias that need to make decisions based on what they can practically print, Wikipedia is able to include a wider range of information. For instance, it includes information on other unpublished works (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Unpublished_novels) and articles that are clearly aimed at a specific community of informed individuals (see Completely distributive lattice which contains mathematical formulas that many people, including myself, could not understand). It also bears mentioning that Wikipedia is full of page after page of minutia about pop culture that would not be interesting (or notable) to non-fans. A topic need not be of wide interest to be notable. (3) If anyone is unconvinced, they might take a look at Love's Labour's Won. This article about Shakespeare's lost play is really able to say little more than the play was lost. The text of Rothbard's play is available and linked to from the article up for AfD. Since the text is available, I can conceive that someone might choose study the play. (*) As I said in my first post, since Rothbard is notable, this work—though unpublished—is also worthy of note. I say again keep Fixer1234 21:44, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

in what sense is an unpublished play that appears in reference of two books... notable according to wikipedia standards? if it is merely because of the author, then shouldn't it be merged to his page? this guy is not shakespeare.--Buridan 00:22, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

• First off I personally wouldn't mind a merge, but the material should stay on Wikipedia in some form. Secondly, in reply to your comments: No, Rothbard is not Shakespeare, but neither are the authors of Bet on the Saint or Per Fine Ounce, but these unpublished novels have Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia's “notability standards” are guidelines—they are not set in stone. This play was written by an important figure; it lampoons Ayn Rand, who is quite a notable figure; and it has been the referenced in a number of published text. Though these characteristics don't meet any of the bullet point guidelines for notability, taken together they point to notability. Fixer1234 01:45, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

• Just a thought Let's define "unpublished" if we're going to keep using it as evidence vs notability? Does a work being unpublished in the sense that no one owns the copyright and or is profiting financially make a work inherently less notable? The play has obviously been read widely enough to be mentioned in more than a few independent (at least one book, a few scholarly essays/articles from just a cursory Google) sources and has been performed on stage. Or do we draw the notability-depleting state of "unpublished" from the fact that it was not published (and, so, presumably little/lesser known?) in the author's lifetime? The first definition of "unpublished" would argue against the notability of works created prior 1440 (The Canterbury Tales, Beowulf, The Divine Comedy, The Bible) and modern works in the public domain (all 1,744,000+ articles on Wikipedia). The second definition would make inherently less notable Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince, The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, and virtually everything ever written by Emily Dickinson. Please note: These aren't arguements FOR the notability of MWaR; rather, they're intended to illustrate that "unpublished" != not notable, de facto. This being the case, I submit that "unpublished" is not valid criteria by which to determine the notability of a creative work; however, the reasons a work was/is unpublished (e.g., it's self-insertion, Mary Sue, Good Charlotte fanfic) may be closer to the heart of why it's not notable. "Unpublished" by itself, however, is a red herring. Cheers! Wysdom 07:10, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
• Weak Keep/Strong Merge. If it isn't enough for its own page, a merge into Murray Rothbard seems most appropriate. But I think it holds up well enough on its own. Lemonsawdust 02:17, 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.