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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. (non-admin closure) — Berrely • Talk∕Contribs 13:14, 26 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sniff (Moomin character)

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Sniff (Moomin character) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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A fictional character that doesn't appear notable. PROD removed with no explanation. PROD rationale was "The coverage (references, external links, etc.) does not seem sufficient to justify this article passing Wikipedia:General notability guideline requirement nor the more detailed Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) supplementary essay. WP:BEFORE did not reveal any significant coverage on Gnews, Gbooks or Gscholar.".The only thing that goes beyond plot summary is a single passing mention in [1]. The other passing mention is the Finnish Master Thesis cited in our article. Neither of them seems to meet WP:SIGCOV. Finnish wiki article is of little use (ours is a translation of it with pretty much the same sources). Swedish is even worse, being totally unreferenced. There is a tiny chance there are better sources out there in Finnish or Swedish, but I am not holding my breath. Still, let's discuss. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:14, 18 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:14, 18 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:14, 18 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Finland-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:14, 18 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The native language for this is Swedish, not Finnish, *sniff*. This demonstrates that this is just another drive-by and the due diligence of WP:BEFORE has not been done. When one actually looks, it is easy to find more coverage in a variety of languages such as As “viagens” de Sniff pelas memórias de Tove Jansson (Sniff's “Journeys” through Tove Jansson's Memoirs); Multilingual Moomins, which discusses the character's naming in both Swedish and Finnish (Nipsu); The Dilemma of Double Address, which discusses the translation in to Polish (Ryjeck). As well as the many issues of translation, there's also the issue of the numerous animations and adaptions so that there have been many voice actors such as Ryūsei Nakao. There's therefore plenty to say about this subject and so our policy WP:ATD applies, "If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page. " Andrew🐉(talk) 09:55, 18 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    It's normal that such characters have different names in different languages, after all, even Sniff is not Swedish (thank you for correcting me) but English. Translations are discussed in academic literature, but it doesn't make the character notable. As for the article, you found it is... weird. Academic, arguably, but published in a Mexican magazine [2] that I am not sure is peer-reviewed. And certainly, the format doesn't look like a traditional article - one and a half-page of text, and several pages of images. This looks more like some sort of an artistic experiment (Google Translate gives me this: "Sniff is the protagonist of this visual essay. It is a plastic doll, about five centimeters tall, acquired in a supermarket in the city of Pori, Finland, in the summer of 2015. The little doll became a great companion on “travels” and participated, intensely, in most of the activities and tours carried out"). I don't see as much as a single sentence of analysis of Sniff as a literary character in this short "artistic" writeup. And no, nobody is expecting you to change your vote, don't worry. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 10:47, 18 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Sniff is Swedish – its name in English is unchanged. Once again, we see a lack of basic knowledge demonstrating that the claims to have followed WP:BEFORE are empty and false. And then there's a bizarre complaint that a source is Mexican – it's actually Brazilian. This demonstrates the global reach of this topic, which has been translated in most major languages. Drive-by deletion is therefore disruption. My !vote stands. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:58, 18 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Sniff is one of the major characters, sort of an adopted part of the big, central family that's at the core of the Moomin books. I don't have any of these books at home right now, but there's an abundance of academic literature or other books that discuss Sniff in more than passing. Sirke Happonen writes about the central figures, among them Sniff (Nipsu, in Finnish), in Muumiopas (2016), though my Finnish isn't good enough to use it as a reference. In her PhD dissertation, Den lömska barnboksförfattaren : Tove Jansson och muminverkets metamorfoser, Agneta Rehal-Johansson discusses how Sniff has evolved over the years. Boel Westin discusses Sniff's relationship to the family in Familjen i dalen. Tove Janssons muminvärld (1988). Mirja Kivi writes about Sniff, and the other central characters, in Mumindalen. Figurerna som kom på museum (2000). And so on.
To contextualise this, a) The Moomin books are central in Swedish (as in the language) and Finnish (as in the country) literature, becoming part of forming national and/or literary identity both in a country where the books weren't written and in a language they weren't written in. They are books about characters, more than plot or environment. This has made the Moomin characters grow far beyond their place in the literature, cups with the characters becoming popular collectables in a way that's far more mainstream the merchandise aimed a fans of big popular cultural franchises, the characters becoming identities in their own right outside of the books, in a way that's true for few works of literature. Strong keep, without any hesitation. /Julle (talk) 15:36, 19 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
As I noted, I don't have access to all this literature now, but I went to the library today. They had lost Boel Westin's book somewhere in the stacks, but had Agneta Rehal-Johansson's dissertation, which spends more time discussing Sniff than I remembered. I've added parts her analysis of Sniff's character and how it changed between the revisions of Comet in Moominland. /Julle (talk) 19:55, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
And I've noted that Sirke Happonen's book was already referenced when this article was taken to AfD. /Julle (talk) 20:09, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Having had reason to glance at the literature written about Tove Jansson's works, I'm convinced there's enough written about them to motivate the separate articles for the characters that currently have those, the core cast so to speak. But yeah, maybe not the time or the place. /Julle (talk) 20:42, 22 June 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.
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