Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bibliography of Greece

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 no consensus leaning keep. There were strong arguments on each side, but no feasible reason to delete. Stifle (talk) 14:23, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Bibliography of Greece[edit]

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Indiscriminate list fails WP:LISTN. Wikipedia is not just a list of unrelated books, ranging from ancient history, travel guides, and biographies, on a vast topic with no inclusion criteria. Unclear what makes this an encyclopedic compilation any more than typing "Greece" into your library's card catalogue, or what the title of a guide to visiting Greek islands being next to the title of a book on Alexander the Great's death is supposed to provide readers. Reywas92^Talk 01:03, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. Reywas92^Talk 01:03, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Reywas92^Talk 01:03, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. This seems to be a complaint about WP having any bibliography page, and not anything specific to this one that could not be addressed through page development. postdlf (talk) 01:12, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Bibliographies-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 01:15, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Greece-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 01:15, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep We have bibliographies for many/most countries and Greece is especially notable on account of its classical importance. Here's an extensive bibliography on its climate alone and it's easy to find more sources demonstrating a pass of WP:LISTN. Andrew🐉(talk) 01:24, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- WP:OSE is not a valid argument. That book is a ANNOTATED selection of books on a SPECIFIC topic. How in the hell does that justify this as an encyclopedia article?? Like, in 1960 that was useful, but what purpose does this serve on Wikipedia on the internet?? Reywas92^Talk 01:55, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - Per OSE: "In Wikipedia discussions, editors point to similarities across the project as reasons to keep, delete, or create a particular type of content, article or policy. These "other stuff exists" arguments can be valid or invalid. When used correctly, these comparisons are important as the encyclopedia should be consistent in the content that it provides or excludes...Trouble arises when legitimate comparisons are disregarded without thought or consideration of the Wikipedia:Five pillars." So if we have made a practice of maintaining bibliographies (and we have), then that's a valid observation to make to counter a nomination that is arguably arbitrary in targeting just one of them. postdlf (talk) 17:10, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep As per above. SoyokoAnis 01:34, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Our bibliography articles are often the labor of love for one person or otherwise completely neglected. Still, they are considered a valid form of list (although there's a good question of whether they belong in projectspace or mainspace). There is a good point about scope here, though. What is the inclusion criteria? What sort of inclusion criteria would be reasonable? Is it even realistic? My initial reaction is that we should Keep and Split as/when needed. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 01:34, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- No, a valid list has useful inclusion criteria. This has no criteria besides "Book. Is about something that has something to do with Greece". There must be tens of thousands of these when spanning mythology to modern tourism, and I cannot imagine reasonable criteria here. We are not the library, and there are much better organized lists of books at places like Greek_mythology#Secondary_sources and Ancient_Greece#Bibliography that are not such a random jumble and are more relevant presentations for the reader. Reywas92^Talk 01:55, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep While we should be careful of NOTDIRECTORY, this list can be a lot more useful than that. ArvindPalaskar (talk) 04:17, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I can't think of a solid, irrefutable argument one way or the other (WP:NOTDIR perhaps coming closest, although not quite on the mark). But policy considerations aside, I find this list fundamentally useless in conveying information, and therefore not fit for an encyclopaedia. If the list contained some metadata on each entry (say, year of publication and/or general topic area), and ideally were laid out as a sortable table, then it might have a purpose; alas, neither is the case (and I for one won't be 'improving' it to that effect, before someone suggests that). Random selection of books on a subject so broad as to be not really a subject, is all this boils down to. (PS: WP:OTHER should not be used as argument for keeping this; if anything, it's an argument for deleting the other stuff also.) --DoubleGrazing (talk) 07:43, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, so long as we maintain bibliographies, individual countries are certainly a valid topic for them. No criticisms of this one have been raised that are not addressable through discussion and development. postdlf (talk) 17:10, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Here's how I'd address this: Use WP:Further reading sections within specific articles like Ancient Greece, Greek mythology, Alexander the Great, and Tourism in Greece rather than lumping unrelated and indicriminately selected books together. Wide subjects like this are very poor topics for bibliographies, and much better ones are more particular like Bibliography of Mount Rainier National Park or Bibliography of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Reywas92^Talk 19:14, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I don't see the use of this list. Yes, these books apparently all have something to do with Greece, but I don't know how that helps encyclopedia users. The only information provided about each book is its author and title. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 18:19, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Rename Bibliography of Ancient Greece. Any entries that don't have an article for the writer or their works about Ancient Greece should be removed. This is a valid navigational link. Dream Focus 02:25, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Agree with postdlf that this is a valid article as long as we allow for bibliographies, which is currently apparently clearly allowed. If this is a problem, maybe somewhere like the Village Pump to get a better consensus. Improper content is not a deletion rationale here. SportingFlyer T·C 20:31, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Compiling bibliographies is a major activity of historians and scholars here on Wikipedia. We do this so anyone can do research....best not muckabout with academic endeavors. Editors need to understand its not the text they write that is researchable but the sources and bibliographies we provided are. All tertiary sources such as encyclopedias, are designed to introduce readers to a topic, not to be the final point of reference. Wikipedia, like other encyclopedias, provides overviews of a topic and indicates sources of more extensive information.--Moxy- 02:22, 9 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- This is a pretty crappy resource for historians and scholars. If they're looking for book sources about Ancient Greece, they should see what's linked at Ancient Greece. If they're looking for book sources about Greek Mythology, they should see what's linked at Greek mythology. If they're looking for book sources about tourism in Greece, they should see what's linked at Tourism in Greece, etc. etc. Every article can have further reading and reference sections for those doing deeper research to use, but lumping disparate topics in one place is not the way to do it. Anything in this jumble of a list should be moved there, but I laugh at the idea that this is where academics would go. Reywas92^Talk 03:12, 9 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

OK completely misunderstood my point...... students doing research utilize our sources and bibliographies..... scholarly editors are the ones who compiled them Wikipedia:List of bibliographies. We have guidelines for them and also make historiography articles to accompany many biographies...like Historiography of Canada for Bibliography of Canadian history. We link these from the main articles because they contain many sources already in main articles.... would be lots of regurgitation. We make these lists available to educational forums and to our student editors here on assignments. We are here to help facilitate knowledge.--Moxy-

04:13, 9 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

But a scholarly editor didn't compile this? This was made by a user who bulk-created a bunch of these without evidence they'd read these books. Again, why would a student need books on the Peloponnesian war lumped together with "Alice: Princess Andrew of Greece" – Are these students too dumb to use Peloponnesian War#Further reading or Princess Alice of Battenberg#References if that's the respective topic of their assignment? This is a mish-mash of unrelated themes...without organization around a narrow topic this facilitates nothing, and respective reference and further reading sections give better context. If this were narrowed like Bibliography of Canadian history to Bibliography of Ancient Greece as suggested above, that'd be a bit more useful to a student than interspersing "The Lawrence Durrell travel reader"! Though it also duplicates Ancient Greece#Bibliography... Reywas92^Talk 07:12, 9 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I don't understand why there have been so many "keep" recommendations. This article was created 10 years ago and appears to be predominantly the work of one editor with only minor contributions by others, and as far as I can tell has never been much better quality than it is now. The fact that the idea of a "Bibliography of Greece" could be something very scholarly and significant doesn't match the fact that this bibliography of Greece is not scholarly or significant, nor has it ever been in the 10 years since it was created. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 16:59, 9 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Thankfully, Wikipedia articles aren't static or owned by individuals, so anyone is free to add to it, organize, etc. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:05, 9 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - Yes, I know. I guess if we keep this low-quality list around for another decade or two, someone will finally get around to improving it. Or maybe they won't. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 17:40, 9 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep apart from a general dislike for bibliography articles (which isn't currently supported by policy or consensus) I don't see a reason to delete. The article would be improved if articles on Ancient Greece and Modern Greece were not intermingled, but that's not an issue for AFD. power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:59, 9 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
keep: The article definitely needs to be improved and expanded, but it is a notable topic for a bibliography. // Timothy :: talk 20:23, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:IINFO: the scope of this list is so broad that it could include hundreds of thousands of entries. Any useful and maintainable bibliography would need to be much narrower in scope. Sandstein 07:53, 11 March 2021 (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.