Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jess Nevins

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. WP:HEY Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:27, 22 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Jess Nevins

[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)

Non-notable writer with only references being passing at best Simonm223 (talk) 13:59, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Authors and Massachusetts. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:10, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Jess Nevins's books have been reviewed in Booklist, Science Fiction Studies, Fantasy & Science Fiction (see Wikipedia Library for these previous reviews), Library Journal (link), Locus Magazine (link), Forbes (link), Rocky Mountain Review (link), and many other places. There's also a massive deep-dive review of many of his books in Black Gate (see this link) and this review in The Washington Post, which says "Jess Nevins, author of Horror Fiction in the 20th Century, is not only widely read but also seemingly tireless." And that's merely a focus on his books. His essays and introductions to books are reviewed in many places including Publishers Weekly (link), Kirkus Reviews ~~(see 1 and 2),~~ The International Review of Science Fiction (see Wikipedia Library), and a number of other places. I've also found his work cited in a number of academic journals while according to Library Journal his book Horror Fiction in the 20th Century: Exploring Literature's Most Chilling Genre has been an academic bestseller. And there are extensive profiles of him and his work in Tor.com (link) and The Houston Chronicle (link) along with an entry about him in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (link). Finally, he has been a finalist for the International Horror Guild Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Sidewise Award, and the Locus Award. Jess Nevins absolutely meets Wikipedia's notability guidelines for creative professionals.--SouthernNights (talk) 20:01, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Library Journal article is paywalled so I can't comment on it. The Washington Post article does not exist. Publisher's Weekly is passing mention only. Kirkus is passing only in both. In all three cases they're reviews of anthologies he did introductory essays for - that's weak for author notability. Forbes can't be treated as a reliable source for online only content because it sells blog URLs to anyone who wants to pay. This effectively leaves the Black Gate and the Project MUSE refs - I'd argue that's pretty thin mentions to establish notability. Simonm223 (talk) 12:11, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Both of those reviews in Kirkus are Kirkus Indie where the author pays in order to get their book reviewed, it therefore does not count towards notability per WP:KIRKUS. Hemiauchenia (talk) 04:29, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for catching this and people should ignore those reviews. However, they were just passing mentions and there are plenty of other credible sources to prove notability. Plus there's also an entire deep-dive review article in Kirkus about the subject that is good to use.--SouthernNights (talk) 09:55, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Simonm223, I fixed the link to the Washington Post article in my original comment. The Locus review is also a deep dive review, and the Forbes review is absolutely notable (per Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, Forbes is given the highest rating for a reliable source). Plus all the reviews that I said can be accessed through the Wikipedia Library also prove notability. And you totally ignored the profiles I shared and the fact that he's been a finalist for all those awards. Per Wikipedia:Notability (people), anyone who has "received a well-known and significant award or honor, or has been nominated for such an award several times" is considered to be notable. So even without all the other sources I provided, the award nominations by themselves show his notability as does him winning the Reference and User Services Association Award, which is considered the highest award "honoring academic reference books or media." --SouthernNights (talk) 19:00, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As a follow-up comment, I found a detailed profile of Nevins's work annotating comics in a 2003 edition of The Austin American-Statesman along with addition citations in The Guardian and a number of scholarly works. I went ahead and added these to the article.--SouthernNights (talk) 19:32, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Here are two moderately substantial reviews of anthologies compiled by Nevins in WaPo [1][2]; also one more brief recommendation [3]. (An underline got turned into a space in the link posted by SouthernNights; it was however easy to find these with a site search of washingtonpost.com.) Some of the notability here seems to be as an anthologist; I'm not entirely sure of what level of reviews to expect in such a situation, but I think some form of WP:NCREATIVE applies. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 14:38, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

With the Forbes situation, you are running into the big Forbes problems. Articles from Forbes staff are absolutely reliable. However, Forbes also has "contributors", which is basically Forbes.com acting as a blog-hosting service. Such articles, which includes the one you are citing, are evaluated as self-published sources rather than Forbes-published (see WP:FORBESCON.) As a self-published source, we cannot use it for information in a WP:BLP, but that may be a separate question from evaluating the notability of the subject. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 19:46, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. I wasn't aware of that with Forbes. But it's all good. Even without considering the Forbes review there are a ton of other citations proving this subject's notability.--SouthernNights (talk) 20:00, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Nat for clarifying my concern regarding the Forbes source. Simonm223 (talk) 18:01, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I really hope we don't consider every person nominated for a minor book industry award notable on the basis of nomination alone. That's a recipe to fill Wikipedia with vanity pages for minor fandom influencers. Simonm223 (talk) 18:01, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

While some of the awards listed are reasonably described as "minor", the World Fantasy Award is not. It is one of the three big-league awards in the fantasy/science fiction genre (the others being the Hugo Awards and the Nebula Awards.) The Locus is a significant second-level award, seen as a feeder award to the bigger ones. -- three-time Eisner Award nominee Nat Gertler (talk) 18:53, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Online interview at Time.com in addition to what's noted above. Note: I am online friend with Jess, but have no entanglement that goes to the level of WP:COI. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 00:22, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for finding this. I added this citation and info from it to the article.--SouthernNights (talk) 19:38, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

FYI that I've done a rewrite to the article and adding a number of new citations to it. Among the new citations I added not listed earlier in this AfD are a detailed review of his work in The Wall Street Journal (sadly paywalled), a deep-dive review article in Kirkus, and a detailed review in Asimov's Science Fiction that can be read on Archive.org. --SouthernNights (talk) 13:11, 17 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I'm satisfied that the relevant wiki-notability guideline is met. XOR'easter (talk) 00:29, 22 June 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.