Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Russell R. Winterbotham

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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The result was Withdrawn by nominator, there being no other editors recommending that the article be deleted. UltraExactZZ Said ~ Did 16:30, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Russell R. Winterbotham

Russell R. Winterbotham (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Fails all applicable notability guidelines samrolken (talk) 00:07, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science fiction-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:39, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:39, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I've been working on this article and I've found some possible references, but they are rather weak and self-published/tertiary. I'll continue my efforts! samrolken (talk) 03:06, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Withdrawn: In light of the (reasonable) comments here and the sources I added to the article, I'd like to withdraw this nomination. I think it's a really close borderline case, but I am optimistic that this article can be improved with some solid sourcing. I'd like to ask that someone please close this as speedy-keep. samrolken (talk) 16:08, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

*Weak delete *sigh* another ether zone entry, I was able to find this referencing itself back to Wikipedia, then it links externally on WorldCat here to an entirely different book and authors...so thats a no-go. I checked the only other active link in the references here and it lands on the "manybooks" site where it demonstrates a total of 787 downloads in 5 1/2 years. Without schlogging through every non-linked item, I gotta say that the first link is a worthless reference as it lands on the wrong material entirely. I'm not hoping up and down excited about the 2nd link as 6 copies on WorldCat is basically pathetic, and I can't verify who supposedly downloaded the title 787 times - that few hits isn't impressive for any audience. I found this rather poignant quote on the 2nd linksite concerning the book; "Reading the story did not harm me in any way." If someone can pull some extra info on the other non-linking titles I'm open to rethinking this thing. Barada wha? 03:05, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Weak keep as the verifiable author of more than a dozen novels from major publishers. The age of his work means online sources will be few and far between, especially given the coverage of science fiction by the mainstream press during his lifetime. There are reliable sources but digging out in-depth ones will require some effort. - Dravecky (talk) 03:32, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep

Please note that this Afd was initiated by samrolken. samrolken has indicated marked hostility towards me; a user reported this Afd which appeared to be a retaliation against me for objecting to another of samrolken's Afd's (Steve Cottle article).

I was the last person to substantively update this article.

I did so because I have expertise in science fiction and SF comic strips, because I am personally familiar with this author, had previously read this article, own several of his books, and read two other articles about him.

I also downloaded the novelette, The Whispering Spheres (Comet, July 1941), using the link in the article.

I know of these articles and BOOKs and online source.

I own both books.

- Article "Winterbotham, Russell Robert" p. 1335 The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (John Clute and Peter Nicholls, 1993)

- Article "Winterbotham, Russell (1904-1971)" pp.703-704 The World Encyclopedia of Comics (Maurice Horn, ed., 1976)

R. R. Winterbotham - Summary Bibliography http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?1197

I edited the article to make it more useful to READERS.

I did not spend time trying to add footnotes, which I personally don't much read.

He is a very well known SF writer with a lot of published pieces, many shorter than novel length. Any fairly avid SF reader of that time period, mid 1930s through mid 1960s (thirty years) knows who he is and of his substantial work. 

  Shortfiction
    * The Star That Would Not Behave (1935)
    * The Psycho Power Conquest (1936)
    * The Train That Vanished (1936)
    * The Fourth Dynasty (1936)
    * The Saga of the "Smokepot" (1936)
    * Linked Worlds (1937)
    * Clouds over Uranus (1937)
    * Spore Trappers (1937)
    * Einleill (1937)
    * Specialization (1937)
    * The Secret of the Rocks (1937)
    * Procession of Suns (1938)
    * Interplanetary Graveyard (1939)
    * The Second Moon (1939)
    * Madness on Luna (1939)
    * Disappearing Sam (1939)
    * The Geist of the Jungle (1939)
    * Captives of the Void (1940)
    * The Element of Logic (1940)
    * Cepheid Planet (1940)
    * Equation for Time (1940)
    * Message from Venus (1941)
    * The Monster That Threatened the Universe (1941)
    * Status Quo (1941)
    * Genesis! (1941)
    * Jitterbug (1941)
    * The Whispering Spheres (1941)
    * Dead Man's Planet (1941)
    * The Time Maker (1941)
    * Invent or Die! (1941)
    * The Thought-Feeders (1941)
    * Old Man Mars (1942)
    * The Thought-Men of Mercury (1942)
    * Oridin's Formula (1943)
    * The Winning of Wooha (1952)
    * The Minus Woman (1953) [only as by Russ Winterbotham ]
    * Lorelei of Chaos (1954) [only as by Russ Winterbotham ]
    * Three Spacemen Left to Die! (1954) [only as by Russ Winterbotham ]
    * Ten Minutes to Daylight (1954) [only as by Russ Winterbotham ]
    * Lonesome Hearts (1954) [only as by Russ Winterbotham ]
    * Problem Planet (1955) [only as by Russ Winterbotham ]
    * A Matter of Ethics (1955) [only as by Russ Winterbotham ]
    * Perfect Discipline (1955) [only as by Russ Winterbotham ]
    * Gladsome Planet (1955) [only as by Russ Winterbotham ]
    * The Scientific Approach (1955) [only as by Russ Winterbotham ]
    * Just for Tonight (1955) [only as by Russ Winterbotham ]
    * The Oldest Man in the World (1955) [only as by Russ Winterbotham ]
    * Time's a Gorilla (1955) [only as by Russ Winterbotham ]
    * The Man Who Left Paradise (1956) [only as by Russ Winterbotham ]
    * A Little Knowledge (1956) [only as by Russ Winterbotham ]
    * Once Within a Time (1956) [only as by Russ Winterbotham ]
    * The Individualist (1957) [only as by Russ Winterbotham ]
    * An Experiment in Gumdrops (1957) [only as by Russ Winterbotham ]
    * East Is East . . . (1957) [only as by Russ Winterbotham ]
    * Extra Space Perception (1957) [only as by Russ Winterbotham ]
    * The Return from Troy (1957) [only as by Russ Winterbotham ]
    * Report on a Backward Planet (1958) [only as by Russ Winterbotham ]
    * The Variable Constant (1958) [only as by Russ Winterbotham ]

Anyone who knows SF would know about the ISFDB, and apparently none of you do.

Are any of you people knowledgeable of SF?

It doesn't sound like it to me.

This Afd should never have been initiated in the first place and was done on a bad faith basis.

In any case, decisions about SF authors should be done by consulting editors with sufficient expertise.


-- Drhankh (talk) 09:08, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep per Dravecky above. — Ched :  ?  09:18, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Borderline Keep Not a writer that appears on my shelves (my SF collection runs to about 1000 books with authors from H.G. Wells onwards represented). Can't even say I've even heard of him or his noms de plume. Being knowledgeable about a subject is not a requirement here. Having a knowledge of our policies on notability counts for more. A writer may have written the best book ever and self published it - and thereby achieved a cult following of about thirty people. The quality doesn't matter - it's the coverage. This author has been regularly published and has achieved an entry in SFE. A comparatively short entry (compared with, say, his contemporary 'Eando Binder' (present in my collection), and somewhat unenthusiastic, but an entry in a respectable encyclopaedia. Peridon (talk) 11:11, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
dup vote, and much too long
  • Keep: Hi Peridon, my personal library exceeds 8,000 books, and my SF section is much larger than yours.

Both articles in the books are substantial. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction is best reference work on SF authors anywhere.

When I got the first version of the book in 1978, I used to spend a lot of time just reading the articles.

As someone who appears to have the most expertise here, I think you aren't cognizant of the fact that for many SF authors active in the golden age (30s to 40s), most of their stories were novelette length, which were published in the SF magazines rather than books. In SFE, the authors who get longer entries are those who have a lot of books published. There's simply too much shorter fiction that's been published to include writeups pertaining to much of the shorter length (shorter than novels) stories. This is covered in SFE's introductory material.

The article in The World Encyclopedia of Comics is quite a bit longer.

I have read at least some of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(people)

"Scientists, academics, economists, professors, authors, editors, journalists, filmmakers, photographers, artists, architects, engineers, and other creative professionals:

"The person has created, or played a major role in co-creating, a significant or well-known work, or collective body of work, that has been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film, or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews."

If your primary exposure to SF is books, then you may not understand who he was. He was quite prolific and well-known.

I know that Wikipedia covers historical figures, and you just shouldn't even be thinking about deleting the biography page of a well-known SF author based on presumed readership today.

The public wants to be able to read about SF authors, and it's not helping anyone for be trying to purge this article, which was only initiated because a certain person doesn't like me, and I last worked on it.

"If the article is about a specialized field, use the {{expert-subject}} tag with a specific WikiProject to attract editors knowledgeable about that field, who may have access to reliable sources not available online."

With all due respect, you can tell me all you want about "knowledge of our policies on notability" but I can read them, and from what I see, you people are very good at ignoring those written policies.

Winterbotham is an author in a specialized field, which is SF magazine authors in the golden age. This is an important field, and from what I've read, none of you has the least expertise in this area and should have sought it out.

If any of you have had to resort to searching 'online' sources, then you simply don't know the field. I haven't had to search anything. It's in my head. I know this field, and you people do not. I have demonstrable expertise.

If you wish to challenge me, then let's bring in real experts, like John Clute.

You people seem to me to be acting very amateurish.

I'm not saying that some of you aren't trying to figure things out, but there's a right way to do things.

"Insufficient sources 

  "If an article fails to cite sufficient sources:
      "Ask the article's editor(s) for advice on where to look
      for sources."

samrolken knew I had edited this article. Did he come to me as the previous editor, to ask for my advice on where to look for sources? I knew them right of the top of my head.

No. In fact, the only reason he initiated this Afd was due to his anger towards me.

I'm sorry, but as far as this task goes, you're all just rank amateurs. Knowing something about your alleged procedures is insufficient.

I'm am sorry to be so blunt, but I certainly researched the notability criteria long before I ever posted anything, and I was nearly incredulous to observe how it's routinely ignored and apparently not properly understood.

Now please don't misunderstand me here, I think most of you, including Peridon, whose comments here got me started, are completely sincere, but I still feel the above points are accurate. Peridon, BTW, actually just wrote a nice little and helpful section over here, and I hadn't quite put the names (the same name) together. :-) Sorry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Conflict_of_Interest.2C_Harassment_and_Vandalism

Anyhow, I hope you don't take too much offense, a lot's been going on, but I did earlier read the material I've quoted, and I got very annoyed that specialists weren't sought out, as that article suggests, not just here, but at the Steven Cottle article Afd. The people working on that one had no business doing so. That article needs specialists in newspaper comics and preservation of that material, and I know samrolken, who also initiated that Afd, has no expertise.

samrolken wrote this:

"Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Sangorshop) has been canvassed to this discussion."

samrolken probably has no idea he even posted a message, using his real name, to a group that included Sangorshop, as a prominent and well-respected member.

And I'm sure samrolken has no idea what Sangorshop means, because he knows nothing of signficance about comics.

Yet he has the gall to submit an Afd about an article who's only nexus is that it's about his close personal friend.

Anybody who knows comics knows about the Sangor Shop!

See this article for coverage:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_W._Sangor

And samrolken's accusation about Sangorshop is totally baseless, with zero evidence, and I know for a fact it's false. Sangorshop decided to post his comments on his own initiative and didn't tell anyone he was going to do so, or that he'd done it. I only discovered it when I went to the Afd. And let me tell you, Sangorshop's expertise is peerless compared to anybody considering the Afd for the Steve Cottle article.

As is Steve Cottle, which I could tell from interviewing him for several hours.

Look when I bought the first Science Fiction Encyclopedia, I researched it, and got it because it was a true encyclopedia written by experts.

Likewise, when I've bought real encyclopedias, I've wanted them to be written by experts.

I haven't been writing articles from scratch here, but if I was considering doing so, I wouldn't want to tackle a subject unless I felt I had sufficient expertise. I've never written articles unless I understood the subject matter. So I can't see trying to dicker around with deletion of articles when the editors lack sufficient expertise.

I'm certainly not trying to single anyone out, but there's a big difference between golden age SF and books; if you aren't much exposed to golden age SF, just SF books, then you simply aren't exposed to that subfield. Most golden age SF was only published in SF magazines, and a lot of stories weren't reprinted. But tons of people read them, and it's an essential part of our culteral heritage, and true SF afficianados know all about this. :)

Anyhow, I sort of got off on a tangent. To be perfectly honest, I was so annoyed with what samrolken's been up to, that I hadn't planned to intervene here. I said to myself, 'Why should I? Why should it be up to me?' In fact, I had pretty much made up my mind to let samrolken have his way and let him just delete as much as he wanted and let Wikipedia suffer for its sins of ommission.

But I guess the efforts of the previous editors, especially Dravecky, got me thinking about changing my mind, and then a few good folk over at the other thread, including Ched, BWilkins, and finally Peridon, had me start to change my mind.

Anyhow, I hope these comments are truly helpful from the perspective of someone who is looking at this part of Wikipedia for the first time.

I really liked your comments over at the other thread, Peridon, and when I'd done here, I plan to read them again in detail. Thanks again!

And Auric, many thanks for your comments! -- Drhankh (talk) 12:55, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This wasn't meant as a 'duplicate vote' but rather as another comment as part of my Keep recommendation; this was only my 2nd Afd. Perhaps another editor can move my comments to combine them or tell me how to do it? The main thing is they are readable. Drhankh (talk) 16:21, 4 March 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drhankh (talk • contribs) 16:18, 4 March 2013 (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.
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