Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of books portraying sexual attraction to children or adolescents

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 (kept by default)

I considered the discussions here and also at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs portraying sexual attraction to children or adolescents, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of films portraying sexual attraction to children or adolescents as a whole while closing.
After merging the discussions the outcome looks like a quite good example of no consensus. A simple counting of unique opinions would be 16 for deletion, 15 for keeping (If I haven't missed any). Both sides have some weak arguments (like speedy delete, and procedural keep). I think most keeps are a bit weaker as most acknowledge the current articles are poorly written and sourced. Yet the balance of opinions remain.
It would be most helpful in a possible future AfD nomination to nominate all these together as they raise essentially the same issues (also List of works for the theatre portraying sexual attraction to children or adolescents, possibly more). That would keep arguments in a single page, making the work easier for all of us, avoiding possible conflicting decisions in similar articles.
Nabla (talk) 18:19, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

List of books portraying sexual attraction to children or adolescents

original research PetraSchelm (talk) 23:25, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong delete I refer you to the talkpage of another user: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:SocJan#Pedophilia_and_child_sexual_abuse_in_fiction_.28boys.29. Note that he explains very well the policy of not making statements about a work that no one else has made, that do not accurately sum up the work, and serve only to push a point of view. So if no critic believes that Marguerite Duras' novel L'Amant Anglaise is chiefly about "Sexual attraction to children," and the novel is not in fact chiefly about that, listing it on the basis of finding it so is "original research." Note also that "sexual attraction to children" is a huge POV misnomer from a fringe POV. -PetraSchelm (talk) 23:25, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom and Petra. (And "ew.")—Scouter Sig 23:32, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The nom is Petra. As for "ew," WP:IDONTLIKEIT isn't a valid deletion rationale. --AnotherSolipsist (talk) 05:29, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The above are good arguments for why the article needs editing, but not for deletion . DGG (talk) 01:48, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note This article was nominated for deletion under a different title. The discussion is here; the result was no consensus. LaMenta3 (talk) 03:21, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I agree with LaMenta3 Broooooooce (talk) 03:30, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: The individual items needs sourcing, big time. So tag each one with {{fact}} and if no one can justify one, whack it then. But give the editorial process a chance, eh? —Quasirandom (talk) 03:55, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, per DGG. --AnotherSolipsist (talk) 06:05, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: My view parallels that of Quasirandom. SocJan (talk) 03:10, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete inherently un encyclopedic -- Naerii 15:05, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Huh? It might help to explain what you mean by this, as it's certainly not obvious from the topic why it would be unencyclopedic, except if we take "unencyclopedic" as some milder substitute for WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Bikasuishin (talk) 15:20, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I promised myself I wouldn't get into writing a huge long rationale for this, but ...

"unencyclopedic" i.e. something that doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. Why not List of books portraying brothers who dislike their sisters, List of books portraying people who have a phobia of cheese, etc? There's nothing particularly significant about this literary theme and the list is always going to be a matter of POV because who's to say that sexual abuse to a child necessarily is the same as sexual attraction? Abuse sometimes occurs for reasons other than attraction. Added to the fact that.. who's to say a book is primarily about sexual attraction, in some cases it may be a less significant side plot - the fact that NONE of the sources cited are critics commenting on the themes within the book is a big red flag to me. At this point there isn't a single useful source in the article, just a list of the subject headings which they come under which isn't anywhere near good enough. The list has no defined criteria for inclusion and some of the book choices are bizarre to me; even the references for some books don't help much (c.f. ref #2, "^ Library of Congress Subject Heading: Male prostitutes-United States-Biography"). Obviously you could say that these are reasons for cleaning up the article but in my view it's nigh on impossible for the article to ever be free of POV because the criteria for inclusion is always going to be inherently subjective. -- Naerii 15:33, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong keep Wikipedia has thousands of 'List' articles Portal:Contents/Lists_of_topics so I cannot understand the rationale for wanting to delete this article. The talk page demonstrates a strong consensus that this article, under its new title, is an important contribution to Wikipedia knowledge.Tony (talk) 07:03, 4 April 2008 (UTC)Tony[reply]

Strong keep Nom is apparently in bad faith, please see users contribs. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 20:33, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How is the nomination not being the best (or even bad faith) have any relevance to the content of the article? I invite you to critique what AFD's are started for, the article, and not the nomination process. — Κaiba 12:13, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete This doesn't have any encyclopedic value and fails notability. I fail to see why we would want such a list. Thanks, SqueakBox 21:20, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Yes it is a problem in that it's sort of is original research... at what point do we say that that simple and obvious ordering of information becomes original research, and does this article pass that test? I don't really know but my personal opinion is that it does. Tony Sandel put a lot of work in this which you hate to throw away, and it's surely useful, granting that those are not legitimate reasons for keeping an article. I guess it's a weak keep. Herostratus (talk) 22:12, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete problems exist with a lot of the content failing WP:OR, WP:RS and WP:V, and not only that, but may potentially go against WP:LC, as a list of books portraying sexual attraction to children or adolescents may not assert notability outside of those who study these topics. — Κaiba 10:52, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete It just doesn't seem very useful or notable in the context of an encyclopedia, per previous user's comments. Legitimus (talk) 15:53, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Not notable Antonio Lopez ^(talk) 19:35, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete' The fact that original research is involved is a problem, not to mention notability. The fact that there is consensus on the talk page is immaterial nor is it important that persons have labored on it. It's not encyclopedic and the decision as to what to include or not include appears to be entirely subjective.Mysteryquest (talk) 15:29, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per rationale here. Note that these three related AfDs really should have been bundled. --Cheeser1 (talk) 04:54, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as being insufficiently supported by robust sources, and lacking a credible set of inclusion criteria - the criteria as set out in the list header are rather broad and open to interpretation. Guy (Help!) 14:34, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom and the lack of supporting sources or a clear selection process. Many of the works included in this list appear to be arbitrary or whimsical which is of course the problem when their inclusion is not supported by reliable, verifiable sources. This is of course even more important considering the controversial nature of pedophilia and the problems with assigning such an intent to an author's work without reliable sources to support such assignment.Mysteryquest (talk) 16:37, 10 April 2008 (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.