Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Unpopular Books

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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 no consensus. Specific and reasonable arguments for notability have got to prevail over those who claim a topic is non-notable. Verifiability is also raised as an issue, but the claims in the article are very basic, and do appear to be easily verifiable (although not sourced), and arguments are given that the information can be verified. Mangojuicetalk 19:02, 3 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Unpopular Books

  • del unpopular unnotable and unverifiable publisher. Its website is undeveloped. Why I have an impression that it wants to disprove its title using wikipedia as promo vehicle? I smell a big rat nest around this publisher, which looks like publish A LOT in wikipedia:
Can someone check out the following creations which hinge on unpopular.org.uk?
I don't say that they are not OK. I am just a bit suspicious. `'mikka (t) 01:43, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. I don't know anything about the articles that you mention, but I own a few of their publications. They definitely exist. - N1h1l 03:19, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Existing is not considered a reason for keeping an article. See WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information.--TBCTaLk?!? 03:36, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
      • My comments were directed at the claim that Unpopular Books was an "unverifiable publisher". - N1h1l 13:19, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
        • I should have been more clear. (I thought it is crystal clear in modern times): anyone who has spare $900 and some pirated or free sofrware may arrange a full-blown publishing house in a garage. `'mikka (t) 15:33, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete No assertion of notability or in fact much content at all. An under-construction text based official website [1] and dubious ghits [2] (admittedly a very crude test in this case) don't help. Not a hope of passing WP:CORP.
The articles listed by mikka are in desperate need of investigation. London Psychogeographical Association, for example, is a mash of unverifiability, weasel words and border-line nonsense. The article states that this is a "largely fictitious organisation" and that it is "best understood in the context of situationist praxis". I think a spate of AfD nominations may be in order. --IslaySolomon 06:02, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. Notable for a number of reasons, including publishing material by Jean Barrot for the first time in the UK and translating works by Asger Jorn. The connection with the LPA is also notable as this organisation's texts inspired authors such as Iain Sinclair who have used psychogeography in their work. The official website does not include a list of their publications and I have added to and amended the list on the page concerned by referring to books that I own. I am not sure if the quality or lack of other pages or their authors is relevant to the issue in hand. John Eden 08:46, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete and investigate. While the fact that Unpopular Books printed Decadence of the Shamans: Or Shamanism as a Key to the Secrets of Communism may be poetically apt, this seems to be a non-notable publisher dedicated to some minor and unintelligible ideology. I'm not sure that WP:CORP applies here, since this seems to be some kind of marginal movement in art or politics rather than a business. If the business guidelines were applied it falls well short of meeting them, but like all guidelines, they only define what is per se notable. What concerns me is that Mikka's articles seem to be a walled garden. - Smerdis of Tlön 13:49, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete all No assertion of notability (for the publisher) and per walled garden argument (for the rest) <-- I know it not a deletion criterion but let's WP:IAR and make a reasonable judgment here. Zunaid 14:34, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
  • can someone direct me to the notability criteria for political and/or artistic movements, then? John Eden 15:32, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
  • AFAIK there are no specific notability criteria beyond the most basic ones for political or artistic movements. Most of the articles on Mikka's list seem to revolve around some sort of vague melange of Marxism and Dadaism, which makes me wondered whether these articles, any one of which might seem an eccentric performance, might be merged into some umbrella article about this particular tendency. - Smerdis of Tlön 16:46, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
  • If there are no specific criteria, then this discussion becomes a bit nebulous. I am happy to revise the article on the basis that Unpopular Books is notable for the works it has published rather than for being a publishing company. Googling for the company name alongside names of its authors like Stewart Home or Jean Barrot or Asger Jorn seems to generate a sensible number of hits. John Eden 11:35, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete, agree with Zunaid. - Pernambuco 19:11, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep, as notability does seem to be established in the article - notable authors. Themindset 20:11, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete all - nothing important or significant here. BlueValour 02:31, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete: Per lack of WP:RS. Sure it exists and sure the publisher has made some quasi-notable books but there don't appear to be any verifiable reliable sources for the publisher itself which means the entire article violates WP:V. Without WP:V, it shouldn't be here. —Wknight94 (talk) 02:13, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
    • I have added ISBN numbers for a few of the titles. I hope this helps. John Eden 07:32, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

A POV summary of the reasons for deletion

1) That the publisher is unverifiable. It is easily verifiable that Unpopular Books has published a number of works. At least two contributors to this page own a number of them. As I have stated above, I feel that the texts they have published, and their authors, make them notable.

2) Walled Garden. Because Unpopular Books is in some way linked to other projects such as the LPA, etc, it forms part of a walled garden. I would dispute this. It is clear that authors published by Unpopular Books such as Stewart Home, Jean Barrot and Asger Jorn as well as the collected works of the Black Mask Group have a wide appeal. They are, individually, relatively obscure, but to my mind clearly notable within their respective fields. If people feel that pages on the Neoist Alliance, or LPA, or AAA or NLI should be deleted then I would think that individual calls for deletion should be done on those pages and not here. I note that nobody is proposing that Asger Jorn or Stewart Home be deleted from Wikipedia.

3) "An under-construction text based official website [3]". The page is about Unpopular Books and the works they have published, it is not a page about their website. Indeed it seems unlikely that "it wants to disprove its title using wikipedia as promo vehicle" if its own site is so minimal.

4) "dubious ghits (admittedly a very crude test in this case)". Indeed. As I have pointed out above, googling the authors or titles and Unpopular Books does give a reasonable number of hits for a project of this type (i.e. marginal, but still notable)

5) "Not a hope of passing WP:CORP." Again, as stated above, Unpopular Books is not notable because it is a huge multinational corporation with offices all over the world. It is notable because of the works and authors it has published.

6) "No assertion of notability (for the publisher)". As I have said above: "I am happy to revise the article on the basis that Unpopular Books is notable for the works it has published rather than for being a publishing company." I am unclear if I am entitled to do this whilst the deletion debate is ongoing.

I would invoke most of the reasons for not deleting covered here. I.e. wikipedia is not paper, there is a lack of objective criteria, etc.

It would be helpful if people could respond to these points rather than simply saying "delete" etc - it will add to my understanding of wikipedia if nothing else.

Finally, it seems that the creators of this article have not been informed, could the person who initiated the call for deletion do that? John Eden 14:49, 28 September 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.