Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Peddie (author)

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. Consensus is that the subject is likely notable, though sources from that time are not easily available online. Therefore, the consensus is to give it more time.Mojo Hand (talk) 16:27, 13 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

James Peddie (author)

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does not meet WP:GNG or WP:ANYBIO, does not appear to be listed in only article reference, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction - [1] (entered the author's name and book names), Peddie's publications do exist but not in significant numbers (WorldCat lists two occurences of each - [2], [3]). Coolabahapple (talk) 16:40, 16 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 16:49, 16 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment, ISFDB has no records on him. Coolabahapple (talk) 23:42, 18 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep This fellow wrote for the "penny dreadful" publishers, printed in the late 19th-early 20th century on poor paper, so they generally did not get into libraries and there are many that did not survive. I was able to add two mere references, both just mentions. The book as listed in Worldcat is only 15 pages long, so it's essentially a story. He may be lost to history, sadly. (Particularly interesting is that his co-author is listed as "Mrs. George Corbett". And the book title page mentions other works by him: "by James Peddie. Author of "Dangerous dilemmas" "Secrets of private enquriy office" &c."). LaMona (talk) 21:22, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spirit of Eagle (talk) 06:34, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. User:LaMona makes good points about the likelihood of the survival of the sources, and their comment on the other titles listed in the book's title page is actually a much better source of notability than they've made out. If they were publishing multiple books that were for mainstream consumption at the time, it's entirely likely that in the zeitgeist of the moment they were an inherently notable author. It would be a shame to remove them from history just because we can't, well over 100 years later, find lots and lots of sources. Sometimes we should look to the evidence that is available, and work on the probabilities - it's not like there's a WP:BLP issue. Just my thoughts. KaisaL (talk) 16:31, 2 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Rebb ing 19:17, 2 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment, sorry but there have been zero useable sources found, i am not asking for "lots and lots", only enough to make Peddie notable, also, WP:NOTMEMORIAL. Coolabahapple (talk) 15:27, 3 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I thought I had commented on this earlier, but apparently not. It is a pity that the nominator did not click on the one link that was already in the article when they nominated it - it would have taken them directly to the article in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction which they could not find. However, while that article does amount to one usable source, it says little more than is currently present in the article under discussion here. I can find one source on another work of his this. There may be more, particularly since he seems to have had a long career - Amazon advertises a work of his from 1861. The trouble is that he seems to have been one of at least dozens of hack writers in London at the time, even if he managed a longer career than most. PWilkinson (talk) 22:58, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
keep I found and entered a very brief (single sentence) contemporary review of one of his books, that also mentioned the previous book by "the same authors". But it is the brief mentions of his book Capture of London in a number of French and English books on 19th century science fiction about the long-proposed Channel tunnel that makes this a keeper . Books google search here: [4]. Remember that any particular books google search produces only some of the hits google finds (it was more complete before that copyright law suit). If you get a handful of hits, you can reliably assume that more exist. None of these is extensive, the book is more of a curiosity thing. But there it is.E.M.Gregory (talk) 23:51, 5 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Comment, so there should be an article on the book if it is notable, not on the author, for whom nothing substantial has been found, "One swallow doesn't make a summer" (apologies to Aesop:)), only one notable book does not make the author notable. "But coolabahapple, what about Harper Lee? Oh drat! Coolabahapple (talk) 04:02, 8 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as clearly failing GNG. The notability requirement isn't about determining the subject's merit (which Mr. Peddie may have); instead, it's about ensuring sufficient sources currently exist that we can actually write a neutral, reliably-sourced, useful article. Coverage lost to the sands of time does not an encyclopedia write. Cf. WP:DEL7. Rebb ing 04:30, 8 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep. Cf this advertisement in the Middlesex Courier, which gives an address and further works. An author of multiple well-reviewed potboilers is probably notable. I suspect the relevant sources are offline and in the UK. Mackensen (talk) 02:02, 11 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Also, this dissertation from the University of Texas has some useful context. We can't use it as a source, but it may point in helpful directions. Mackensen (talk) 02:08, 11 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as WorldCat lists over 1,200 listings and that's enough. SwisterTwister talk 06:16, 12 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- @SwisterTwister: Are you sure? I'm getting 167 hits (link) and it's not clear to me that all of these are the same Mr. Peddie. More importantly, since when have we been able to prove notability by an author's own publications? GNG and BASIC are explicitly predicated in terms of how a subject has been received by others. Even if the author's supposed 1,200 listings were somehow a permissible source, how are they "significant" coverage? Is a phone book "significant"? Furthermore, not that even a million WorldCat entries would further the purposes of our notability guidelines because they don't provide usable third-party material for writing the article. Rebb ing 15:57, 12 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Comment, i feel like Canute against the tide of consensus. Coolabahapple (talk) 08:24, 12 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't get it. The AFD for an article like Jenna Fife (28 footnotes; 1098 words in body alone) is closed as no consensus with half a dozen editors having no trouble seeing that the sourcing, while extensive, isn't significant third-party coverage, but the community is willing to divine reliable, significant, independent coverage from contemporary advertisements and single-sentence reviews and sources like this to keep an article that is a mere twenty-three words because we imagine he may have been notable? Rebb ing 16:18, 12 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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.