Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of novels by point of view

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 has been said, consider doing this as a category system instead. Sandstein 04:58, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List of novels by point of view

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Unnecessary list attempting to organize novels by "point of view", which is completely unsourced personal views of what constitutes a "well known example" (per the lead). Well-known to who? What source says these are the best novels for each point-of-view and only these specific ones? The scope is far too broad for any kind of valid list, and one cannot just randomly pick novels to say "here are examples of this kind or that kind" of POV. Point of view (literature) already covers the basics of the actual topic of point of view. This list appears to fail WP:NOT and WP:LIST, and has apparently its need to exist has disputed a few times on its talk page, but no AfD or PROD was done. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 17:49, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. WP:SALAT, WP:NOTDIR. Considering that POV methods like first-person narrative are extremely popular among writers, the list is simply too broad in scope to be useful or maintainable. — Rankiri (talk) 18:21, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete this is an impossible to maintain article. the name of the article demands that it be a list of all notable novels sorted by point of view. thats not an appropriate article subject. examples of novels with certain pov's could be listed in the articles on various povs. however, if the articles defenders are really interested in preserving this in some manner, they could make sure each novel listed states the novels pov in its article, and create categories for each pov type: in addition to Category:Point of view, have Category:First person narrative novels, second person narrative, etc. we already have Category:Fiction with unreliable narrators, which is a good category in this vein. then they could build up article lists within the categories. lots of work, but i really see that as the only way to do this. this article is essentially a teaching guide for a class, not an encyclopedia article. The main defender of this article, TheEditrix2, admits he wrote it to help teach writers, and his user page doesnt exactly facilitate cooperation on articles. really, thats just rude!Mercurywoodrose (talk) 20:38, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 00:24, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 00:24, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:SALAT as the subject is too broad to be manageable since it would include every novel we have. The category system works much better for this type of organization. Them From Space 00:36, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep because it serves an educational purpose. Plese read talk page for explanation of its educational value. Numerous of my editing clients have been sent to the page, as have my teenaged writing students, kids who didn't otherwise grasp the fine differences between various literary POVs. The POV page simply doesn't serve the same purpose. --TheEditrix2 05:40, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please recall WP:USEFUL and WP:NOTTEXTBOOK. The purpose of Wikipedia is to present facts, not to teach subject matter. Besides, it seems that the list's educational value is inversely proportional to the list's size. If properly maintained, it'll have to house thousands, if not tens of thousands, of entries, and lists of this size are neither educational nor encyclopedic. — Rankiri (talk) 12:23, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I tend to agree with TheEditrix that it's helpful to have illustrations of the different types of narrative described in point of view (literature). Some examples should be in that article. The problem with making an entire list is that every work of fiction ever written would fall into one of the categories on the list. Even if the list could be limited to a handful of representative examples for each type of narration, it's unlikely that one could find a representative sample of books that are so well-known that the mere mention of the title is enough to be educational. It's better that examples like Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, Gone With the Wind, etc. be part of the parent article, and that longer lists should be part of spinoffs like First-person narrative, Third person limited omniscient, etc. Mandsford (talk) 13:03, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I don't wish to pout or argue. But to those who gleefully join in AFDs, may I just point out how discouraging it is to contributors when their serious efforts to contribute useful information to Wikipedia are dismissed and deleted on specious interpretations of obscure rules? The reason my profile is "rude" (c.f. MercuryWoodRose's irrelevent assessment of me personality, above) is that I tired of warring over nonsense. I shall now retire to a corner and weep because once again, my well intended efforts to contribute useful educational information have been poo'ed upon. And why? Is Wikipedia running short on server space? Is the Internet about to overrun its bandwidth? Leaving it alone would do NO harm, and deleting will make Wikipedia a slightly less helpful (and a less kind) place. But there you go. I shall leave, again, for an extended period of time to tend to my disapointment in the human race. Sigh. --TheEditrix2 15:51, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's very poignant. But who said that the information couldn't be contributed to Wikipedia? The debate is over whether it ought to be in a separate article all its own. There are plenty of existing articles where these examples could be added. The main thing to remember is that if one is going to create a new article, then there are basic rules to follow, the main ones being to list one's sources of information and to avoid "original synthesis". The rules are less strict when it comes to adding to articles that are already in place. Mandsford (talk) 13:03, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment maybe this could be moved to Wikipedia:Wikiproject Books and expanded as a complement to Wikipedia:Wikiproject Books/Lists of books. Guest9999 (talk) 01:22, 31 March 2010 (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.