Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Henriette Mertz (2nd nomination)

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. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 06:11, 18 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Henriette Mertz

AfDs for this article:

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Non-notable fringe theorist; fails GNG Orange Mike | Talk 15:35, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Women, Archaeology, and Illinois. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 15:54, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep given the wide range of sources that were found during the first AfD discussion. Her theories weren't as fringe at the time as they appear now, and attracted a respectable volume of notice from mainstream scholars. pburka (talk) 16:07, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep She appears to be fairly heavily mentioned by other writers of various early America history writers. I haven't seen if these were found in the first AfD but these all seem to support notability in various ways: A field guide to mysterious places of the West by Trento, Salvatore Michael by Pruett Pub. Co., 1994. WORKING THE HOMESTAKE. in Journal of the West. https://doi.org/10.2307/212716. [1]. Apparently had some small notability being the only woman military patent lawyer in the 1940s: [2]; was involved with the Manhattan project and a column in the Chicago Trib decided to follow up in where she was in 1983: [3]; a "mere" society column from the 1950s DC, but where's the featured person showing a "color film" about four people's trip over the Andes and onto the Amazon [4].

Since the previous AFD, I see in Google Books, she has multiple paragraphs in The Battle Over America's Origin Story, 2022 by Brian Regal. Used as a source in How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America, 2022; and some mentions in both Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity, 2022 and Mad Hazard, 2022 So, given the previous keep and the fact she's had more mainstream work written about her, still a keep. Skynxnex (talk) 21:35, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Skynxnex brief mentions and use as a source don't meet GNG so far as I understand it. Field guides to mysterious places aren't reliable sources. Regal, yes. Doug Weller talk 13:32, 12 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Doug Weller yeah overall I think that is correct although my sense is that the totality gets close to meeting notability and hence my keep although it may be closer to a weak keep. I will try to look at things more critically but my feeling is there may be an independent in-depth story about her hiding out there. Skynxnex (talk) 17:45, 12 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This was mentioned in the previous AFD but not linked, here's an 8 paragraph bio of her in the ABA journal from 1949: Lawyers in the News Source: American Bar Association Journal, Vol. 35, No. 1 (JANUARY 1949), pp. 35-36 Published by: American Bar Association Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25716715. She's also fairly well-cited for her work at the Library of Congress on copyright matters, and in particular, she is the primary person who created a "Copyright bibliography" for the copyright office [5]. It's almost plausible that her work on that and other copyright and patent matters would meet some notability guideline if some offline sources were pulled up, so that plus her more fringe work on historical theories is why it felt like there are sufficient sources. The articles does need improvement and have done some, but there's definitely more to include if I get the sense it's likely to be kept. Skynxnex (talk) 22:36, 12 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of ProQuest hits:[6] (another obit, maybe possible to get on WP:RX), [7] (I know, I know, owned by the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party. Still, independent coverage). Some interesting hits at NewspaperARCHIVE.com, too, [8][9], though WP hasn't heard of Hubbard News. Hopefully it refers to a place and not L Ron. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:04, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Per nom, no demonstration of notability. - Roxy the dog 14:54, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment More than passing mention in theses books:[10][11] Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:31, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as there is sufficient coverage in independent reliable sources to satisfy WP:BASIC and probably WP:GNG. There is also quite a bit of coverage in sources that do not meet WP:RS, so we need to be cautious in adding them into the article (i.e., don't add them or contextualize as appropriate). As always, caution is necessary when dealing with fringe theorists, etc., but we can't just get rid of it because of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Cielquiparle (talk) 18:45, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep There are enough reliable sources to establish notability, although the article does need some cleanup to ensure compatibility with WP:FRINGE. Partofthemachine (talk) 18:59, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Gråbergs Gråa Sång your first source is a brief mention by Von Wuthenau, a fringe writer (note your source even says fringe collection). Richard W. Noone is even worse. Doug Weller talk 13:29, 12 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Noted, but per publishers Crown Publishing Group and Three Rivers Press, I think they may have some WP:N value just the same (is Noone a real name though?). Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:27, 12 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently it is. Partofthemachine (talk) 16:21, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Those authors may be fringe theorists themselves, but please consider the coverage in Brian Regal's book linked above. He's certainly not a fringe theorist and he devotes multiple paragraphs to Mertz in The Battle Over America's Origin Story. pburka (talk) 15:43, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, Coverage in Regal, ABA article, and reviews of her work (ie [12], [13], [14]) establish GNG. Being fringe and wrong doesn't necessarily detract from notability when coverage of their ideas has reached reliable sources. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 17:11, 17 March 2023 (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.