Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Controversial literature

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 delete as a subjective list. There would be multiplicity of contradicting sources for this list. List has WP:NPOV concerns which is one of the five pillars of Wikipedia. — Nearly Headless Nick ^{C} 10:06, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Controversial literature

~~Delete~~ Revert. This appears to be a duplicate of Category:Controversial Literature, with all of the same overwhelming reasons for deletion: impossible to define criterion or adequately cite references for definitive inclusion, intractable subjectivity and POV problems, will include far too many works of literature to be useful. For discussion on the deletion of associated category, see Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_February_5#Category:Controversial_Literature. pbryan 03:43, 10 February 2007 (UTC). After insightful input from Uncle G and Pomte, I agree this article should be reverted back to the Library of Congress subdivision content rather than be deleted. pbryan 18:48, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Wikipedia would be better served by focusing on listing banned books, rather than any piece of literature which somebody takes exception to. Using the criteria of a ban or restriction assesses the response of a community or powerful authority figure to a piece of literature, and therefore, is a noteworthy fact. Most truly controversial literature is going to be banned by some community somewhere, anyway. NetOracle 03:52, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
delete per nom as excessively subjective for inclusion in an encyclopedia. Niffweed17, Destroyer of Chickens 04:43, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete subjective list. Doczilla 05:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete indiscriminate unverified overly broad POV-ridden list. Otto4711 05:18, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Merge The title is absurdly unencyclopedic. However, organizations such as the American Library Association do keep lists of frequently "challenged" books (challenged as in books that parents formally request be removed from school curriculum and libraries). We already have a List of banned books, and I don't see a problem listing frequently challenged books as well. I think merging some of the content to a List of banned and frequently challenged books would be fine, provided that the content is sourced to a legitimate organization like the ALA. GabrielF 06:50, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep it I'm wondering who is the bastard who keeps putting this artical up deletion. I have worked 3 days on this articel and I still wish work on it to make it better. The other two lists are completly useless and do not give clear information while this list dose. So I say keep ut. - Tony360X

Comment This time, I was the one who nominated this page for deletion. I appreciate the amount of work you've put into the article, Tony360X. Being bold is a major tenet of Wikipedia, and so I appreciate your initiative in creating an article. However, work must stand here on its merit, and therefore that is the subject of this debate. pbryan 01:32, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To all of the editors decrying this for being a "subjective list": Please note that before Tony360X (talk · contribs) completely replaced this article with a list of books that xe thinks are controversial, it was actually an article about a Library of Congress form subdivision (see this, this, and this), and a far more specific class of literature documented in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature. Uncle G 08:15, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Good point, Uncle G. With this new information, it seems more appropriate to simply revert it than delete it. The original, though a stub, was far more definitive and objective. Thoughts anyone? pbryan 01:32, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Merge per GabrielF. There's nothing subjective about it, given the definition it gives — but that definitionm eans that it merely duplicates what's done elsewhere. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 19:27, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Doczilla. Yono 20:25, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete The list is just re-creating the category,and the rest of the information is WP:OR.--Sefringle 08:52, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete What Otto said: "indiscriminate unverified overly broad POV-ridden list". Plus it's a mess. Lack of references really don't help, especially when you're making some pretty novel claims. For instance, I never realised Lady Chatterly's Lover had been banned "for violation of obscurity laws". --Folantin 10:11, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, nor a list of stuff that got banned in school one day, nor a list of stuff that someone, somewhere was offended by. Moreschi ^{Request a recording?} 12:39, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Userfy the current version for Tony360X. In the CfD I suggested for him to work on this article and others, though this is not what I meant. Since he is obviously enthusiastic about this subject, what he can do is work on finding references for the banning of books on this list and List of banned books. That list is encyclopedic and has merit if verified. A list of frequently challenged books, what Tony360X intended to combine into this article, may be up for more scrutiny since "frequently" is subjective, unless official organizations have set standards per GabrielF. Revert article to the revision that talks about the Library of Congress subdivision per Uncle G, adding in those sources he found. Pomte 18:32, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Revert per Uncle G, and encourage interested users to contribute to List of banned books. I don't think it's POV to make a list of books that were considered controversial, provided clear evidence that controversy existed can be provided, so if Tony360X wants to develop an article like List of books that some people disliked enough to want to ban, but didn't actually manage to I think this might be useful. Such an article would not be indiscriminate, would not be POV ( provided contributors were careful in their work ) and could ( if it used the format currently in place ) provide additional information that a simple category does not. If Tony360X takes up this project I hope he will seek collaborators: it's not easy to do a big piece of work on your own. Finally, I'd like to commend Tony360X, Uncle G and Pomte, among others, for sparking such a thought-provoking debate. WMMartin 19:47, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep It I admit its just like the banned books and most challenged book article but unlike those articles I feel that Tony360X article is more useful cause he not only includes books but also short stories, essay, and goverment reports. I was shown this article on Thursday 2/8/07 by my english teacher at Stanford and he said it was more reliable then the other two articles. So the best thing to do is delet the other two and keep this one.BigFrank100 , 11 February 2007

Shenanigans. BigFrank100: You appear to be a sock puppet for Tony360X. The basis of my suspicion: the same misspelling of the word "article" (artical), you registered this account today and then claimed support for this work with only one other contribution. If my suspicion is correct, please reverse your position in this discussion. pbryan 02:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I need this list to see what books have caused problems. Cockmaster500

Shenanigans. Cockmaster500: You appear to be a sock puppet for Tony360X. The basis of my suspicion: You registered this account today and then claimed support for this work with no other contributions. If my suspicion is correct, please reverse your position in this discussion. pbryan 02:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do Not Delet This artical is the most useful one I have read about book censorship on Wikipedia. I find it more useful then then Banned Books becuase its a bigger list and covers a wide verity of books and its not that confusing. - Bryson 16:47, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note - the above comment was not made by me, but by 24.23.201.236 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), see [1]. --Bryson 03:26, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Shenanigans. 24.23.201.236: You appear to be a sock puppet for Tony360X. The basis of my suspicion: the continued misspelling of the word "article" (artical), you're not logged in, yet you signed this as another user User:Bryson109 all in succession with other suspected sock puppetry. If my suspicion is correct, please reverse your position in this discussion. pbryan 02:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, looks like Tony360X is staking me. I did not make the above comment, but I did Rv. vandalism by Tony360X and leave a warning on his talk page.--Bryson 03:11, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Let it Be: I see no reason to delete this article since every person who has said "Delete" has not made a good argument except for “Its like Banned Books”. I will change my opinion if somebody has a better reason. – 153.18.19.188

Comment. Your only two-edits, [2](as of this time) are on this page, why is that?--Bryson 02:32, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - a "runaway train" list, unverifiable to an encyclopedic standard. YechielMan 22:54, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or Revert back - Per nom and Uncle G comments (and No I did not already vote). --Bryson 02:32, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The essential subject, "controversial literature", seems like the kind of thing we ought to have an article on. I don't know if the article should extensively list examples the way it does, but I feel we can handle the general topic in some sort of sensible, NPOV way. We could look at how various types of literature are restricted or frowned upon by societies in various times and the reasons for that, how literature can highlight polarization when different elements in societies react to it in sharply different ways, and how it can bring an issue to the forefront of debate, etc. Everyking 06:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Just cut out the unverified junk and it is a pretty interesting page. I went to it expecting to see a lot of problems, but it overall did not seem so bad. The advantage it has over banned books is that it can link to books that simply caused verifiable and significant controversy but never faced a ban. The Behnam 21:52, 14 February 2007 (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.