Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Straight and Crooked Thinking

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. Non-admin closure. -FrankTobia (talk) 23:40, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Straight and Crooked Thinking (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Article about a book that appears to fail to meet of criteria for notability for books. The external references quoted are brief endorsements on websites, not the substantial reviews in independent, published media required by WP:NB. Gwernol 13:11, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Education-related deletion discussions. -- WilliamH (talk) 14:16, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Delete per nom. List of fallacies should include the whole list here; if not, it should be augmented. Please check this before deletion. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:07, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep This seems to be something of a classic in the field, and is assigned as reading even today. See, for example, a syllabus. Ray Yang (talk) 22:02, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • One of a dozen books listed as recommended, not required, reading for half the course. How is this more notable than the average textbook? We are not Amazon. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:15, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's moderately older than most books in this category. In fact, as far as books for lay audiences about logical fallacies go, it may well be one of the first. I think it's probably of marginal notability. Minor popular sensation at the time, dimly remembered by academics later. Kinda like the Frontier thesis, only less famous than that :) I run across numerous offhand references to it in various academic and newspaper columns. I believe that notability changes with time ... if this were the 1970s, I'd say it was notable for sure. Now, I don't know. I'm not exactly an inclusionist, but I feel like this may merit a stub. If we do delete, I suggest we redirect to the author, Robert Thouless. RayAYang (talk) 19:37, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The redirect sounds reasonable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:52, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. These 609 books all reference the subject, and Google Scholar lists 96 citations to the book, which is pretty impressive for a book of this vintage, and The New York Times ran a 1095-word review. That's just what I could find in a couple of minutes with Google and already adds up to pretty strong notability, even though you would expect most sources for a subject from the 1930s to be offline. I'd also like to recommend that this book be made required reading for all AfD participants. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:12, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Rather than a superficial application of the "criteria" in the book notability guidelines, let's read the whole thing and use some common sense (as is suggested multiple times in the guideline). in the "other considerations" section, it is mentioned that for non-contemporary books "the criteria proposed above intended primarily for modern books may not be as suitable. We suggest instead a more common sense approach which considers whether the book has been widely cited or written about, whether it has been recently reprinted, the fame that the book enjoyed in the past and its place in the history of literature.". Additionally for academic books (which arguably applies here): "the bulk of standards delineated previously for mainstream books are incompatible in the academic bailiwick. Again, common sense should prevail. In that case, notability should rely on the reputation of the academic press publishing it,[8] how widely the book is cited by other academic publications or in the media,[9] how influential the book is considered to be in its specialty area and whether it is taught or required reading in a number of reputable educational institutions." I say the "academic" label applies here, because books written for the "intelligent layman" fall into the gray area between "mainstream" and "solely for the ivory tower". With Phil Bridger's researching above, I think these common sense considerations clearly show this book is indeed notable. There are plenty of citations in education journals with glowing words like "pioneering". In addition, although this is perhaps not so important, this is one of the few books of this type that I know about. There are many books like this now, but few have reached the status of classic like this one. --C S (talk) 06:05, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - ample material to meet any required notability standard and for a quality article to be written. Links provided by Phil show ample material to pass criteria for notability for books - Peripitus (Talk) 12:18, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per Phil Bridger's comments. --Chriswaterguy talk 17:27, 21 July 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.