Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hamish MacDonald (author)

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. ✗plicit 12:04, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hamish MacDonald (author)

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Fails WP:AUTHOR. Could not find any significant coverage for him. No major awards and only links to one article 2006 in Scotland. LibStar (talk) 02:34, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Can't find any sources about him at all. There are no sources and this article may not meet the notability guideline. Grumpylawnchair (talk) 03:25, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Authors, Scotland, and Canada. AllyD (talk) 05:41, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - the article certainly needs updating as the author has transitioned to primarily comics from the novels and short stories listed here.
Responding to @Grumpylawnchair, if you found no sources then it would seem you can't have looked, a cursory 30sec search just now pulled

his goodreads page at https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/527328.Hamish_Macdonald

his last novel Idea in stone reviewed in the Skinny:

https://www.theskinny.co.uk/books/book-reviews/idea-in-stone-hamish-macdonald-self-published

Blackwells and Waterstones' catalogue pages (obviously unavailable as out of print):

https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Idea-in-Stone-by-Hamish-MacDonald/9781599714905

https://www.waterstones.com/book/idea-in-stone/alistair-hamish-macdonald//9781599714905

I could go on but hopefully that addresses the "can't find any sources" because a cursory search brings up plenty, and an overhaul of the page to update it and cover the more recent comic books (https://hamishmacdonald.com/shop.html) should include these references.

I'm not a fan of the notability criteria - it's a significant part of why I edit wikipedia less these days. "notability" itself is highly subjective and often used (as here) to remove minor content of niche interest simply because an editor isn't interested themselves in the content. Whether an author had received awards or not wasn't a criteria for who we studied when I was gaining a Masters in English, the originality and content of their work was.

MacDonald's career as an author was certainly short and by many measures unsuccessful, but both his approach to self publishing (literally doing it by hand at home and distributing via bookshops and his own site in the early 00s) and the content of the books (dealing with LGBTQ identity and national identity) have merit as subjects for the page. It's overdue for an update but should not be removed. Splateagle (talk) 12:38, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:16, 27 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Prob Delete - it is hard to find sources that meet the WP:GNG and WP:NAUTHOR when the person concerned is mostly known for self-publishing books. Also there appear to be several other people with the same name which complicates searching for sources. With regard to the comments above; Goodreads is not a RS. Bookseller catalogues do not count towards notability. Self published blogs are not independent, so I think we can dismiss all of those. Possibly The Skinny counts towards the GNG, but we would need to look a bit deeper into it. JMWt (talk) 11:50, 27 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

ETA - even if we decide The Skinny is a RS, it would be a bit weird if a very negative two paragraph review was the only ref which tipped the notability of this subject! JMWt (talk) 11:53, 27 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting, as the newly located sources have been dismissed as user-generated content and blogs.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:06, 4 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Weak delete I did find some intriguing mentions of this author NY Times, Smart Cities. I only found these, however, because I searched on his name and the book title "Finitude" because there are other folks with his same name who are more well-known. The one substantial review is the Taipei Times article which is already in the article. I didn't find anything significant while searching on his other book titles. His books are all self-published and AFAIK haven't gained press attention other than those few I mention. Lamona (talk) 20:09, 7 July 2023 (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.