Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of books by Ian Stevenson

:{{la|List of books by Ian Stevenson}} ([{{fullurl:List of books by Ian Stevenson|wpReason={{urlencode: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of books by Ian Stevenson}}&action=delete}} delete]) – (View AfD)(View log)

:({{findsources|List of books by Ian Stevenson}})

Prominent books by this author already listed in Ian Stevenson#Selected books. No reason to create a separate list, which will only differ from that pre-existing list by the inclusion of the non-prominent ones. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 09:57, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

• Keep. I am still working on this list, and hope to have the chance to expand it and write a lead section. Ian Stevenson is a prominent researcher, with obituaries in NYT [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/health/psychology/18stevenson.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Ian%20Stevenson,%20Academic%20Psychiatrist%20Who%20Studied%20Claims%20of%20Past%20Lives,%20Dies%20at%2088&st=cse], Washington Post [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/10/AR2007021001393.html?nav=hcmodule], and Daily Telegraph [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/12/db1201.xml], on his death. And he wrote plenty of notable books. The selected books listed at Ian Stevenson#Selected books are not necessarily his most prominent; they are just some of the ones that deal with the subject of reincarnation. This article is serving as the main article for :Category:Books about reincarnation. Johnfos (talk) 10:27, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

:Question: why is it "the main article for :Category:Books about reincarnation" when many (most?) of the books in that category aren't by Stevenson? Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 10:58, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

• Keep. Ian Stevenson has arguably done the best work to date in examining early childhood memories of putative past lives. When one speaks of scientific work on reincarnation, he and his colleagues at Univ. of Virginia are about the only names that come forward. He's important enough to merit a list of his books, and I like the idea of selecting his list as the main article for books about reincarnation since (IMO) his is the highest quality work in the group.--Anthon.Eff (talk) 14:52, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. -- –Juliancolton | ^Talk 13:27, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. -- –Juliancolton | ^Talk 13:28, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
• Delete Duplication of information already in Ian Stevenson, and this list will not grow as he is dead. There are no size concerns with the main article, and I don't see what is notable about this list other than the author. If there are books here not in main article, justify their addition there. See WP:NOT. As the important material is already present in the parent article this unnecessary duplicate should be simply deleted. Also, note (as a side issue) that our other "List of books by..." articles are by much more prominent authors than this, and they are extremely few in number. This also seems to be duplicating some of the work of a category, for the notable books. Verbal chat 15:08, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
• Delete. Blatant attempt to expand the Wikipedia footprint of this fringe professor. Abductive (reasoning) 18:48, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

:Comment. More like an attempt to help remedy WPs parlous books coverage, from a WikiProject: Books participant. Johnfos (talk) 20:22, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

:: Then I'd suggest you start with notable authors who have written notable books to get this project going, or more historical figures who have also authored, rather than people who are notable for their fringe beliefs and wasted talent and in no way for their books. I can fully understand this rational. I fail to see any value in this article, except it acts to increase the coverage of this fringe personality. Verbal chat 20:30, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

:::par·lous

:::1 (obsolete) dangerously shrewd or cunning

:::2 full of danger or risk

::::Wikipedia cannot possibly become a library catalog; technically, a wiki can't hope to compete with the massive and long-established academic and commercial databases that already exist. This article is inappropriate. Abductive (reasoning) 20:33, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

• Keep - this is part of the WikiProject: Books which is to provide "book reviews ... and ... series of books". I think these lists are an appropriate addition to WP and do not violate WP:NOTDIR. A relevant example on a different topic is List of Australian environmental books. I suggest the Stevenson book list would be improved if it were organized by topics. BTW, parlous also means "terrible", "appalling". --EPadmirateur (talk) 00:12, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

:*Comment: I would note that 'List of [books/works] by XXX' articles are the exception rather than the rule. In fact the entire :Category:List-Class Book articles only contains 34 pages. I rather doubt if Stevenson is even close to being in the top 34 most prominent or prolific authors. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 07:35, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

:*Comment. Such lists are not the exception. There are actually hundreds of 'List of [books/works] by XXX' articles on WP, and some of them are here: :Category:Bibliographies by author. Johnfos (talk) 09:32, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

::*196 in that category (a tiny fraction of all writers with an article on WP), most of which (from a quick sample) appear to be far more prolific than Stevenson. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 10:42, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

• Keep or merge but only if its deemed necessary. The author is clearly notable, his article already seems fairly substantial. If the list is so long as to burden the article there is no reason it shouldn't be split off. This is standard for any notable author on wikipedia regardless of their reason for being notable.--Crossmr (talk) 05:27, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
• By no means is the main article too long to accommodate this list. Abductive (reasoning) 05:50, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
• Delete (although the title can be turned into a redirect) - I can see no rationale for this as the information should be in the subject's article and will not burden it. There is nothing notable about this list and I agree that such lists should be the exception - I'd only expect them with very notable authors with many more publications than this. Dougweller (talk) 08:06, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

:*Comment. Such lists are not the exception. There are actually hundreds of 'List of [books/works] by XXX' articles on WP, and some of them are here: :Category:Bibliographies by author. Johnfos (talk) 09:32, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

• Merge into Ian Stevenson. This list is already at that article so its just duplicate info. TomCat4680 (talk) 08:23, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
• Merge into the main article. No need for separate article. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 09:20, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
• If the editor wants it to show up in a "list of..." search, he could create a redirect to the main article. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 12:18, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
• Delete – absolutely no need for a separate article for such a short list of books. ╟─TreasuryTag►belonger─╢ 09:33, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
• Delete If there is any useful information in the list, merge it to the subject's article. Assuming the (reincarnated) subject does not write any further books, the list of books actually written by the subject will easily fit in the subject's article. I looked at some of the other "List of works by X" examples and the few I skimmed had large lists that would distort their author's article. This list is not required. Johnuniq (talk) 10:06, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
• Delete Merge if any information is actually of value to the article, but a bibliography section in the authors article would more then do this justice, and frankly such fringe-y lists don't stand on their own very well. --M^ask? 10:36, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
• Delete. Totally redundant to the main article. MickMacNee (talk) 12:14, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
• Delete Redundant, and inappropriate for anyone who is not a really major author. He's notable, but not in that rank, which is very close to "famous" . DGG ( talk ) 13:20, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
• Delete Clear POV fork to try to make him sound more important than he really is for purposes of giving undue weight to his fringe beliefs. Considering how long pro-Stevenson POV pushing has been a problem here, we might consider opening up some process to force people to knock it off. DreamGuy (talk) 13:11, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
• Delete Just looks like an attempt to artifically inflate the importance of a professor and his fringe subject. The list is already included in the main article. Also, repeating various volumes of the same book to inflate the list is pretty lame. --HighKing (talk) 16:52, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
• Merge There's a small list of authors for whom an entire separate article for works is appropriate. Roughly speaking, I would keep all such lists with the author article until such point as the author article is viewed as too large and needs to be split out—even then, it isn't obvious that separately out a bibliography is the best candidate for splitting. I note some propose delete; while I didn't examine closely, the lists aren't identical, so the missing books should be merged with the author article.--SPhilbrickT 15:32, 5 September 2009 (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.