Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Learning Perl

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The result was Speedy keep — nomination withdrawn by nominator, no other opinions to delete (non-admin closure). —chaos5023 (talk) 14:48, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Learning Perl (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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No independent secondary sources to establish notability as required by WP:GNG or WP:NBOOK. Google search reveals blog posts and reader reviews at Amazon and elsewhere, but no formal reviews that qualify as reliable sources WP:RS. Wikipedia is not a catalog WP:NOTCATALOG. Msnicki (talk) 08:55, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Retracting nomination: Two sources have since been provided which establish notability. Msnicki (talk) 13:32, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 01:45, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 01:45, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Cited in 47 other books. —Ruud 10:50, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nowhere in WP:NBOOK do I see any provision that allows mere citations to be considered as evidence of notability. Msnicki (talk) 13:54, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nowhere in WP:NBOOK do I see any provision that makes mere citations not relevant to establishing notability. —Ruud 14:10, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But silly policy wonking aside, if 47 authors thought it was a good idea to refer their readers to this particular book, then that's probably a good indication the book is indeed quite notable. —Ruud 14:15, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NBOOK states criteria for establishing notability. If mere citations are not on the list, it means they don't qualify. But if you can convince other editors to add language to WP:NBOOK that supports your reasoning, I'm on-board. I don't think that's going to happen. Msnicki (talk) 14:19, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I fail to see why such a thing would be necessary? —Ruud 14:19, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Conversely, I doubt you will be unable to convince other editors to add any language indicating citations from other book are not to be used to determine notability. —Ruud 14:24, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep The problem with NBOOK is that it's geared toward literature and fiction, not textbooks, which is what this is. It's the single best known textbook for a major programming language. Full disclosure--I own a copy and have met the author socially once. The citations mentioned above are really an appropriate measure of a textbook's worth--no one issues awards for technology textbooks, nor studies their authors, nor teaches classes on their influence on popular culture... you get the point. NBOOK criteria 2+ are essentially irrelevant to the entire field. Jclemens (talk) 05:52, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It seems unlikely that the editors who worked out that policy weren't aware of technical manuals and user guides. We're awash in them! I think the problem is that most of them genuinely aren't notable. Sure, there are exceptions, like K&R's, C Programming Language, or Kernighan and Pike's The UNIX Programming Environment , that influenced the world, introducing genuinely new ideas about programming languages and operating systems. But most technical books, even good ones like this one, are turn-the-crank how-to technical writing, explaining the features one-by-one with some good examples. No question, it requires skill and some writers are better than others. But notability is all and only about what other reliable independent sources say about the subject. Notability means people actually took note not just that it seems like they should have. Certainly, notability does not come simply from having sold a lot of copies. WP:BIGNUMBER Msnicki (talk) 21:00, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How much do you really know about this book, this publisher, and this author? I'm suspecting not much, but I'd like to hear your perspective on your own level of clued-in-ness before I expound farther. Jclemens (talk) 01:01, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should discuss the sources and the guidelines, not each other. Msnicki (talk) 01:27, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In other words, you have no personal experience with or about this book, and are just looking at it through the sterile lens of policy, rather than a view of its encyclopedic value informed by, oh, being in the IT field for a decade or two and actually having read and used the book in question? Jclemens (talk) 11:35, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, the "other words" are that I do own a copy, but you're being uncivil, bordering on personal attack and you should stop. Now. Personal experience is irrelevant here, which is why I don't discuss mine and no one cares about yours. Msnicki (talk) 12:03, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's some mighty thin skin there, when I was simply trying to AGF about your motivations in nominating such a book for deletion. I do think you are either prone to hyperbole or you have a very... unique view of what constitutes a personal attack. Jclemens (talk) 02:19, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note that at this point I've edited the article to add 8 separate RS references, demonstrating pretty conclusively that the book meets the WP:GNG. Jclemens (talk) 03:19, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Only the Morrey and Rooijackers reviews actually count towards establishing notability (the rest being either minor mentions or irrelevant comment about the author) but it does only take two WP:RS and you have them. Msnicki (talk) 12:36, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Pro forma notability-establishing citations now added, but IMO never should have been nominated in the first place. C'mon, Msnicki. Learning Perl? Seriously? I really feel like you're going too far in the direction of trying to apply Wikipedia guidelines legalistically. They aren't statutes, weren't written to function as statutes and so produce crazy results when applied as if they were statutes. —chaos5023 (talk) 13:16, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If something's notable, there should be sources to establish that under the guidelines. When I nominated this article, it did not appear there were any. Jclemens has since found some sources, of which two are indeed suitable for establishing notability, and consequently, I'm retracting my nomination. Msnicki (talk) 13:24, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak keep. The book is well-known and has a somewhat legendary status in the Perl community. I think that if we have articles about all kinds of programming languages, even exotic and little-used ones, we should have articles about some of the most notable books too, because they can be very influential. This, in connection with Ruud's argument (the book cited in 47 other books), makes this notable enough for our purposes. I understand the nominators concerns, and I think perhaps a community discussion should be initiated about notability of programming books. Nanobear (talk) 13:17, 24 June 2011 (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.