Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sonnetology

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. The best keep arguments are based on a single journal whose very existence is in question. If anyone wants to merge parts into Sonnet, let me know and I will make them available. —Wknight94 (talk) 16:27, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sonnet studies

Sonnet studies (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Article appears to violate WP:OR and WP:NEO. Google returns only 4 hits for "sonnetology" (other than WP pages worked on by article's originator), none of which supports the notion that s. is a recognized "branch of literary criticism and literary theory." Term is also absent from the OED and other dictionaries available to me. Deor 23:38, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Is idiot plot found in your dictionaries? What about Islomania? Blobject? Sheeple? Plutoed? Speculative poetry? The answer is of course NO, yet I don't notice anyone trying to delete these articles as you are trying to do with this one... --WassermannNYC 01:01, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

It should be named "Sonnet studies," not Sonnetology. I'm going to move it now. However, can you help me to move the category as well to Category:Sonnet studies? Sonnet studies has approx. 650,000 hits per your 'Google forumlae'. Please see my TP for more info. --WassermannNYC 00:00, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment. Note that WassermannNYC is the creator of the article in question. This attempt to short-circuit the AfD process by moving the article smacks of lack of good faith, and I continue to support my nom under the new article name. What's more, I get only 124 Google hits for "sonnet studies," and most are irrelevant to the text of this article. There might be a usable category here but not a usable article. Deor 00:08, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

• Exceptionally weak keep in that there seems (from Google) to be a "Journal of Sonnet Studies". Claiming that the renamed term gets 650000 Ghits is disingenuous, since a search using quote marks (to make certain that the only results actually deal with such a field, and not someone who might be "reading sonnets as part of my studies in Elizabethan society") only nets 117 raw hits. Additionally, not only was the page moved but the AfD notice was removed, which is a very sneaky thing to do. Given that the journal doesn't seem to exist (which was something I didn't notice during my research, compromised as it was by the need to restore the AfD notice), I'm now inclining towards delete as well. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 02:26, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
• Granted that there is a "Journal of Sonnet Studies" -- apparently unpublished as yet and issuing a Call for Papers -- it's still not a widely used term. What can be written about "sonnet studies" that couldn't better be covered in sonnet? Unless a good case is made for the article's separate existence, delete. —Celithemis 01:39, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
• Weak Keep under the new name. The title of a journal is generally sufficient evidence fort the term being accepted. (not a mention in a journal, or the title of one article, but the title of a journal--it implies that numerous others will be able to tell what it includes).

Looking at the article on Sonnet, the lede paragraph defines the study of sonnets as Sonnet studies (though earlier it had sonnetology), and sonnetology is the category, with a request to change to sonnet studies pending. However, both terms were introduced by the same ed. so the question is whether either of the terms is independent of WNYC. I think they are on the basis that the editor of the Journal is Laura Manuel from Boston University.(not the same person--see WassermannNYC's user page) I do not think the change of name is in bad faith--I think it is a change induced by discovering that there was a proposed journal with a different title. I want to check tomorrow to see if there is another name used in the field. DGG 10:17, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment. The question is, Is the name of the proposed journal evidence that "sonnet studies" is the name of a recognized discipline, or merely evidence that studies are written about sonnets? There's a journal called Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies; does that mean there should be a WP article with that title in addition to all the articles about Greek, Roman, and Byzantine history? Deor 13:40, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

• Keep or merge to sonnet. It should not surprised anyone that the very anti-modern field of literary criticism generates few Google hits. The question is really "is there evidence that this terminology is in use". If the "Journal of Sonnet Studies" indeed exists, the answer seems to be yes and we should keep the article either in itself or at least as a redirect to sonnet. Pascal.Tesson 23:27, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
• KEEP -- "Sonnet studies" is a valid field. Whole books have been written about sonnets and sonneteers, and some colleges/universities have classes specifically on sonnets (for English majors and the like). --WassermannNYC 00:01, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  • There's a difference, though, between a class on sonnets (or even books about sonnets) and an entire field about sonnets. When I did my undergraduate degree, for example, there were a number of semester-long classes I took which were part of a larger field, rather than being parts of their own individual field. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 00:07, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I still don't understand why you continue to pursue this deletion Deor when the article in question (Sonnetology) HAS been deleted and replaced with the valid Sonnet studies (also note that Category:Sonnetology is in the process of being renamed to Category:Sonnet studies). To be honest, it seems that your actions rather than my initial mistake "smacks of lack of good faith." --WassermannNYC 00:11, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Also, NO ONE seems to have any problems with Category:Sonneteers -- why the targeting of this part of the field and not another? It makes no sense... --WassermannNYC 00:12, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
        • In response to both claims: Firstly, the article in question has not "been deleted". You moved it. The AfD was not created saying "There should not be an article called 'Sonnetology'", but rather "the contents of this article (whatever it may be called) are not valid as an article". That's why the removal of the AfD notice was a problem, incidentally. Secondly, the fact that the category has not been deleted is only of borderline relevance (see WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS, for example). Personally, I have no objection to a category which says "The people contained here wrote sonnets". What I do have an objection to is an article claiming that the study of sonnets is a field unto itself, which appears not to be the case. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 00:23, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

The thing is that this article would have NEVER been nominated for deletion if it had been originally named Sonnet studies (as it should have been) instead of sonnetology as it was -- Deor's whole premise for deletion was that the former NAME of the article (Sonnetology) wasn't to be found in his dictionary or in web searches. --WassermannNYC 01:14, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes and no. Deor responded (after the renaming) that there was still little or no evidence that "sonnet studies" is a recognised field either. It's got orders of magnitude more hits than "sonnetology" ever did, but there's still no real evidence that it's caught on academically. Had it been created under its current title, I'd suggest that it would have eventually found its way here as well. Perhaps not as rapidly, since the name is less unusual-looking, but if the content were as it is now, I'd be surprised if it didn't turn up. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 01:50, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

• • (edit conflict) Again, though, what is there to say about sonnet studies as a discipline? There are courses and books about Decadence, but we don't have a separate article on Decadence studies; we simply have an article about the Decadent movement. There are journals called Dreiser Studies and Cather Studies, but it would make little sense to have a Dreiser studies article separate from Theodore Dreiser. From what I've seen so far, it seems to make equally little sense to cover sonnet studies separately from the article on sonnets. Until a field of study reaches a point where you can talk about its significance as a discpline -- like, say, Women's studies -- a separate article can be little more than a glorified dictionary definiton. —Celithemis 00:22, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Sonnet studies is indeed a discipline, just look at all the topics currently found in Category:Sonnetology (soon to be renamed to Category:Sonnet studies). We need a topic heading and/or category to group those 30+ topics related to sonnets and sonnet studies; otherwise they are just scattered about with no real central idea (or 'discipline,' AKA sonnet studies) grouping them together. --WassermannNYC 01:06, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

• • • With respect, there's yet to be any real proof provided that there is a "central idea or discipline" under which they can be grouped. They all relate broadly to sonnets, yes, but there's no indication (aside from unsubstantiated claims) that there is a field unto itself which covers all these things. It would make sense if there is, but that's not the object of the exercise here. I can see the logic in having a category for "concepts relating to sonnets" separate from a category for "sonnets themselves", but that's not always a principle followed in other categorisation schemes. Additionally, there's no rule against having such a category scheme but doing away with the article on the field which would notionally cover one category. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 01:57, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

That could simply be renamed to Category:Sonnets. —Celithemis 01:13, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

No -- that category (which I intend to create eventually) would obviously be reserved for ACTUAL sonnets (or books of sonnets) such as Sonnets from the Portuguese or Sonnets to Orpheus, or individual sonnets such as "Ozymandias" or Shakespeare's Sonnet 154. It's a vast field, this sonnet studies; this is why we need these categories and articles, in order to try and organize it all. --WassermannNYC 01:19, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe there is a need for Category:Sonnet studies, then, if only for lack of anything better to call it. Categorization on Wikipedia isn't something I deal with much, so I'll leave that question to others; it's not something that needs to be decided here in any case. What I'm still not seeing is any indication that sonnet studies needs an article. I searched Google Scholar and a couple of humanities databases and could not find even a single paper discussing "sonnet studies" as a field. The closest was a book review using "Sonnet studies", capitalized, to refer to criticism of Shakespeare's sonnets -- seemingly a nonce term. Can you point me to some sources that do discuss sonnet studies as a field? —Celithemis 02:27, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment I find it interesting that the field of Sonnet studies seems to have traction on these pages while Category:Women writers lacks traction on CfD. I'd like to see the articles and categories better built out quickly before they are justified. Most of these are unreferenced stubs. A Musing (formerly Sam) 14:53, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete Merge any relevant info with sonnet. The article merely tells us that people study sonnets, which is a true but utterly banal observation. I'm not sure there's any such subject as "Sonnet Studies" - and is writing sonnets really known by the technical term "sonnetizing"? Pointless page, fails WP:ATT. --Folantin 12:15, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, "sonnetizing" is a real term -- do you ever bother looking stuff up that isn't found on Wikipedia? Judging by your edit history, it looks like your a professional Wiki-deletionist to me...so why do you care if it's deleted or not? Or how can you comment on this article if you know nothing about the field? What all do you know about sonnets; if you don't know much (as I suspect), what makes you qualified to call for the page's deletion? Please look to Category:Sonnet studies to learn that it is a fairly wide field for such a specific sub-set of the larger subject of poetry. I also don't understand why this article was targeted for deletion when MANY more obscure terms/concepts/fields exist en masse over at the Glossary of poetry terms of List of literary terms pages. --WassermannNYC 13:24, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment Nice try with the ad hominems and the garbled logic. In fact I know quite a lot about the sonnet but I've never come across the term "Sonnet studies" or "Sonnetology" ("sonnetizing" is a jocular or archaic term). It would help if this page actually had sources or references. It would also help if there was any point to it. At the moment it is virtually content-free and completely unnecessary when we already have a vastly superior article on the Sonnet. --Folantin 15:13, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete - quite simply, because it's unsourced. WP:ATT is policy, and this is not an acceptable state of affairs. Keep if an only if someone provides some references that show that this really is a valid encyclopedic individual topic. The burden of responsibility for finding those references is on those who wish to keep this, not the other way around. Moreschi ^{Request a recording?} 15:54, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I've just added quite a few references and key texts in the field of sonnet studies. I hope that this is enough to keep it from getting deleted. --WassermannNYC 22:28, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Delete - unsourced, dicdef, no content. Also, if we're going to play the ad hominem game, why hasn't the author added sources or proof to the article in the five days since the nom was opened, rather than argue with people who have already voted? MSJapan 17:10, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I've just added quite a few references and key texts in the field of sonnet studies. I hope that this is enough to keep it from getting deleted. --WassermannNYC 22:28, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

The references are certainly about sonnets, I'll say that much. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 23:39, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately none of them prove that there is any such subject as "Sonnet studies", merely that people have studied sonnets - which isn't the same thing. --Folantin 10:20, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Thought as much. I just didn't have access to a library today. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 10:33, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

You don't need a library -- just click the ISBN #'s to check out the book(s). Some of those books focus directly on the actual history of the sonnet as a poetic form, while others focus on very specific sonnet topics (i.e. sonnets in the 19th century or in Shakespeare's era, etc).

• delete - Google Scholar only seems to give 2 occurrences of "sonnet" and "studies" next to each other. Certainly doesn't seem to be notable yet. Give this journal a few review cycles, and the term will likely be more notable. Smmurphy^(Talk) 04:07, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment -- You people seem to think that ALL information is already found on the Internet. Well, it isn't, and the 'Google formulae' currently used to 'establish notability' here on Wikipedia is a broken and ridiculous 'system' if there ever was one. --WassermannNYC 05:57, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. Article contains almost no information not found in sonnet. The references are not used in the article to source the existence and notability of the field. A discussion of critical views of sonnets, their place in literary and poetic theory, and so forth, would be appropriate in sonnet; if such a section grows unwieldy it can be split again then. Mike Christie (talk) 12:45, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment -- in addition to all of the books that I've just added to the article, it looks like you all neglected to notice the following info in the sonnet article:

...Richard Vallance publishes the Canadian quarterly journal Sonnetto Poesia (ISSN 1705-452) which is dedicated to the sonnet, villanelle, and quatrain forms, as well as the monthly Vallance Review on historical and contemporary sonneteers. Michael R. Burch publishes The HyperTexts and there are sonnets from well-known poets on his site. William Baer has also recently published 150 Contemporary Sonnets (University of Evansville Press 2005).

Despite my references and plus these journals, it still looks like this article will son be deleted, so I suppose that I'll start transferring some of the data from this doomed article to the sonnet page. --WassermannNYC 20:31, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I would also like to reassert the observation that this article would have never even been nominated for deletion if it had been named correctly in the beginning. --WassermannNYC 20:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Again, I doubt it. Even those references you've added are related to "the study of sonnets" as against "sonnet studies". Had the article been named differently in the beginning, it may well have taken longer to find its way here, but given the lack of support for the field as a separate endeavour of study, it would've been here eventually. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 21:57, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Uh, "the study of sonnets" and "sonnet studies" are obviously the same thing, right?! I'm not following you here...it doesn't matter much though because I'm basically transferring the data from this article to the main sonnet article because this one is doomed. Now, however, I'm more concerned that the category will now be targeted and subsequently deleted. If this happens I'll have to create a List of sonnet related topics or something to that effect in order to avoid data loss. --WassermannNYC 05:57, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

"the study of sonnets" and "sonnet studies" are obviously the same thing, right?!. Not necessarily. Someone writing a biography of Shakespeare would naturally study his sonnets and presumably some of the other ones written at the same time, but that wouldn't mean that they were participating in "sonnet studies", would it? BigHaz - Schreit mich an 06:09, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

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.