Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Winnemac (fictional U.S. state)

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The result was Keep/mom withdrawn as per consensus. (closed by non-admin) RMHED (talk) 19:44, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Winnemac (fictional U.S. state)

Winnemac (fictional U.S. state) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

This article asserts no notability through reliable sources, and as such is just an in-universe repetition of plot elements from the works of Sinclair Lewis. As such, this material is not appropriate for the encyclopedia, is also entirely duplicative and can be safely deleted. Judgesurreal777 03:50, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

• Delete: Non notable. - Rjd0060 04:22, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, tag for cleanup, and notify the relevant wikiproject — I'm having trouble believing that the frequently used setting of a prominant social satirist has not been discussed ad nausium in scholarly works, at least as much as Yoknapatawpha County, if not more given the setting is part of the satire. That said, I'm not volunteering to track references down -- the man's writing gives me the hives -- but the notability should be easy to establish using the references in Sinclair Lewis. A good task for the person who cleans it up out of stub status. (I note in passing that said person could take a worse model than Yoknapatawpha County.) —Quasirandom 04:46, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I will withdraw the nomination if you can establish for certainty that that is true. Judgesurreal777 04:51, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Can I ask if you'd heard of Sinclair Lewis before you tagged this article? You know, the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature [1]? I did thirty seconds of googling and added quotes from three critical studies to the article. What exactly does this article duplicate by the way? The material here isn't presented in the Wikipedia article on the man himself. Nick mallory 09:17, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

And where exactly are these references? Can you actually demonstrate them for us so we can decide if this article is notable or not? Judgesurreal777 18:06, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

In the article, as he said. They need to be turned into actual references, but if, as you put it, cared to look, you would see they are there. —Quasirandom 18:21, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

• Keep We have no policy saying that in-universe elements would not be appropriate. The state is the setting of at least five novels and googling gives about 500 non-Wikipedia links, so there is obviously an audience for this article, establishing notability. I do not see this text elsewhere, so it is probably also not duplicated. Сасусlе 04:49, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

True, but in universe plot information by itself is not encyclopedic, as there is no information on, say, how the state was invented, creator commentary and such. See WP:FICTION. Judgesurreal777 05:06, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Judgesurreal is correct, guys. In-universe or not, it still has to meet WP:FICTION; this article isn't doing it. "Fruit of the utterly unreferenced tree" and all that... Bullzeye ^{(Ring for Service)} 05:37, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

• Keep So now the WP:FICTION crowd is going after classic literature? Critical commentary certainly exists. Browse through some of these results. Zagalejo^^^ 08:22, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep This isn't some teenage computer game or bubblegum slasher movie. Sinclair Lewis was a major writer and, as noted above, he set at least five novels in this fictional state. His brand of social satire may be a little of out fashion today but he was awarded, though didn't accept, a Pulitzer prize for 'Arrowsmith', one of the novels set in this 'universe'. Granted it's not really important like Final Fantasy IV for instance, but I think it sneaks into notable territory, fictional though that territory may be. Nick mallory 09:08, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

"His brand of social satire may be a little of out fashion today..." True. Too bad It Can't Happen Here is out of vogue. Dpbsmith (talk) 03:16, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

• Keep per Nick Molloy. Twenty Years 15:43, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Snarky comments insulting the nominator and others and empty google searches are not a basis to keep the article. And yes, even classic literature must meet wikipedia guidelines, including notability and verification through referencing. Judgesurreal777 16:50, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd have more respect for your nomination if you weren't simply arguing out of ignorance. At least give us some evidence that you tried to find sources. Zagalejo^^^ 19:39, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

• Keep Adequate notability and sources. Colonel Warden 18:00, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

There are no sources in the article if you would care to look before voting. Judgesurreal777 18:05, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes there are. Nick added sources several hours before you commented here. And there's more material out there, like "A Sinclair Lewis Portfolio of Maps: Zenith to Winnemac" by Helen Batchelor (Modern language quarterly, v.32, Dec. 1971.) That would be perfect; it's an article about the maps Lewis drew as he was planning the books. If you have access to Academic Search Premier, you can find it there. Zagalejo^^^ 19:36, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

• Keep, I added a source discussing the origin of Lewis's invention of the state. It's not like there's an actual "History of Winnemac" out there, but this is sufficiently independently notable for m.e --Dhartung | Talk 21:14, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Not commenting keep/delete, because too personally involved. But I don't understand how it is "entirely duplicative," since the articles on the five books set in that location don't, in fact, contain much material about Winnemac. Now, Sinclair is not as important a writer as Faulkner and Winnemac is not as important as Yoknapatawpha County, but there's a parallel there, as there is with Land of Oz, etc. It seems sensible to me to collect the material on Winnemac into one article and link to it from the articles on the books that mention it, as opposed to putting sketchy, overlapping, and, yes, duplicative material in the separate articles. In the novel Elmer Gantry we read that Gantry was "the first clergyman in the state of Winnemac to have his services broadcast by radio." If that piques someone's curiosity about Winnemac, where do we expect them to look first? Under Winnemac, of course. If there were no such article, logically he would next try Elmer Gantry... but that article doesn't even mention Winnemac. Is he supposed to guess that he should have looked in Arrowsmith instead? Dpbsmith (talk) 03:06, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
• P. S. 135 hits on winnemac Sinclair in Google Books, which is IMHO a respectable number for a Google Books search. More important than the actual number of hits is that when I look at them, I see reasonable evidence that people writing about Sinclair think Winnemac worthy of mention Dpbsmith (talk) 03:11, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
• P. P. S The articles on Sinclair Lewis in the Concise Dictionary of American Biography and in Contemporary Authors Online both mention Winnemac. I consider this clear evidence of notability. The former article includes a couple of sentences detailing on Winnemac's principal rivers, cities, etc. which I've added to our article. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:09, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
• P. P. P. S. I've added some material to the article from Helen Batchelor's paper and from a New York Times review of Lewis' last novel. Both of them make it clear that the creation of "Winnemac" was an integral part of Lewis' ambitious literary plans, following the success of Main Street, and to me, that nails down the notability of Winnemac. Dpbsmith (talk) 14:17, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Withdraw - The article has established at minimum a limited notability, and that was the central contention of my nomination. Thank you all for saving a valuable article. Judgesurreal777 16:14, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Hang on, that won't do. AfD is not the place for clean up. If you wanted a better article written you could have done that yourself. Everyone else has pointed out there are plenty of sources you could have found and added yourself. You clearly stated that the article should be deleted in your nomination. We're here to debate whether an article is 'valuable' or not in principle. There's nothing 'limited' about the notability of the subject either, it's notable now, just as it was notable when you nominated it for deletion. Nick mallory (talk) 11:35, 7 December 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.