Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Perl Cookbook

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. Ron Ritzman (talk) 18:21, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perl Cookbook

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

No independent secondary sources to establish notability as required by WP:GNG. Google search reveals blog posts and reader reviews at Amazon and elsewhere, but no formal reviews that qualify as reliable sources WP:RS. Wikipedia is not a catalog WP:NOTCATALOG. Msnicki (talk) 21:30, 18 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Retracting my nomination. One source (a Dobbs review) has been provided and it seems likely a second can be found. Msnicki (talk) 21:22, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. One of many programming books. Not clear how this one is more notable than average book of this kind. FuFoFuEd (talk) 00:09, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

~~The whole~~ A lot of the O'Reilly catalog appears to have been copied onto WP; see Category:O'Reilly Media books. I assume good faith WP:AGF and that many contributors to these pages thought they were doing the right thing. But WP is not a catalog WP:NOTCATALOG and it's pretty unlikely there are sources to establish notability WP:GNG for most if not all of these books. Msnicki (talk) 18:32, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

O'Reilly has way more books than that. But those which do have pages here seem to have been selected on editors' interests. A lot of Perl stuff for instance, probably because some of the Perl consultants edit here. FuFoFuEd (talk) 19:12, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

People write about what they're interested in. I don't think there is some evil conspiracy going on here to indirectly increase the revenue streams of these hypothetical consultants... —Ruud 14:06, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 00:23, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 00:23, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Among the most notable and iconic of O'Reilly's books. —Ruud 10:44, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A policy-based argument would be more helpful. Msnicki (talk) 13:56, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's notable? —Ruud 14:04, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Based on satisfying what part of those guidelines with what evidence? Simply claiming it's notable without explaining why is an argument to avoid. WP:ITSNOTABLE Msnicki (talk) 14:15, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, I had this book confused with Wall's Programming Perl when I made the comment above. That clearly makes its notability somewhat less than blatantly obvious. However, apart from the blog posts and reader reviews the nominator mentioned, I found reviews of this book in the Library Review and The Computer Bulletin. Also mentioned 21 times in other books. —Ruud 14:56, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I clicked though a few of those links. Not surprisingly, they are other books in the O'Reilly catalog, e.g. [1]. It's a common practice for commercial publishers to plug their other books in their own books in an attempt to increase sales. That kind of citation is not independent. FuFoFuEd (talk) 19:52, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, more than half of those, are simply back matter mentions of the kind: "X, author of such and such book (Perl Cookbook in this case), says this other book is awesome". Such mentions are mere PR for the person doing the back matter endorsements; a way to get something for their hassle, in the form of publicity for their own book(s). FuFoFuEd (talk) 19:58, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

According to User:Dominus the Perl Cookbook sold at least 150 000 copies [2]. Anyone know of a reliable source against which we could verify this? —Ruud 20:50, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I have added arguably sufficient notability-establishing citations to the article. If you'd like more, this would be a fine place to start. —chaos5023 (talk) 17:11, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You definitely have one, the Dobbs review, and I agree it seems likely another can be found. Msnicki (talk) 21:22, 24 June 2011 (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.