Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Clare Richmond

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 redirect to List of pen names#Clare Richmond. RL0919 (talk) 17:47, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Clare Richmond

Clare Richmond (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination

)

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Pseudonym of two writers who have their own articles. Anything relevant would be for the actual authors and not their shared pseudonym. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:08, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:08, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:08, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 20:12, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 20:12, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment, would it be appropriate to turn this into a disambiguation page referring to both the target authors? It's quite likely a reader would search using the pseudonym, and ought to be directed to somewhere useful. Elemimele (talk) 21:54, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

WP:ATD. Missvain (talk) 05:30, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

No per

WP:NOPRIMARY (i.e. if there is no primary topic). Even if there are three or four topics, this is kind of a borderline case, but we should definitely have a dab page if there are >5. Also, this shouldn't be an article proper unless "Clare Richmond" has some kind of magical notable property apart from the two people who've used it, but I don't see any so far. Furthermore, a quick DuckDuckGo search

reveals a bunch of other people also called Clare Richmond, making this even more ambiguous than it seems onwiki.

From pageview statistics, we find that Louise Titchener gets more pageviews than Carolyn Males, so weak delete and redirect to Louise Titchener with a hatnote linking to Carolyn Males. (I'll change my !vote accordingly if this title turns out to be a richer topic than I initially thought.) Duckmather (talk) 05:43, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment, I had considered whether a DAB could be here instead, but then that would imply someone searching for the term actually wanted to know about one or both of the real authors, rather than the pseudonym. For me, a pseudonym would have to be notable in its own right and I am not seeing that to justify an independent article. A redirect isn't really viable when there are two competing targets. I can't see sufficient evidence this passes

WP:NAUTHOR. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:14, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

• Comment "Clare Richmond" can be an independently notable author without having to be a single real person. See, for example,
  WP:NAUTHOR. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 07:35, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  We're doomed, this is quite a difficult one to decide. (1) In this particular case, I don't think it's helpful to discuss the notability of the author and the pseudonym separately. In both cases, the pseudonym applies to a significant proportion of the author's output, so the notability of the author and their pseudonym are based on the same material. If one's notable, the other is. (2) We don't know which name our readers are using; they may know the pseudonym and want to know who's behind it, so we have to have some way to link pseudonym to article. But (3) In this case, both authors used the pseudonym together, collaboratively. This means we can't say Titchener is better known than Males, as "Richmond" because we're talking about the same Richmond and the same novels. To be honest, I think they're borderline anyway (they've both got decent output, they're decent-sized fish, but in an enormous pond, and a pond that is quite ephemeral), so I'm not keen on a whole article on their collaborative pseudonym as well as on the two authors separately, and yet we can't really combine the two authors in one article as they also wrote independently. So practically, if you don't want a DAB because there are only two targets, the best would be to redirect to one of the two authors at random, and then decide whether to use hatnotes to refer to the other, or whether to emphasise in the article text that the Richmond name was used with the other, linked author. Elemimele (talk) 10:19, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep: it provides useful information for the reader who finds a book, or a reference to it, by "Clare Richmond". I have expanded it with content from the two authors' pages, which could presumably be properly sourced if those pages are themselves properly sourced. An alternative would be to direct to one, randomly chosen, of the authors, with a hatnote "Clare Richmond redirects here: for the other author writing under this join pseudonym see ...", but that seems overly cumbersome (especially as they both collaborated with other authors too, so a complete set of redirects would be a mess). Simplest just to keep this mini article, which is informative for the readers.
  WP:IAR if need be: just help the reader. PamD 10:47, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]

I disagree. I think using

WP:IAR is a bit of a cop-out in a discussion for which there is no policy-based argument to use in defense. The fact is, each of the real authors in question that used this pseudonym also used other pen names too, as very clearly stated on their articles. Are we to have a standalone article for each of these too, because if we keep this one, then surely that has to happen? There may be a case to have one central article that links the authors together (say Pseudonyms of Louise Titchener and Carolyn Males), then redirect all the pseudonyms to that (although could get messy if other authors used the pen names too). I simply cannot see a need for standalone articles for a pretend author that does not seem to have independent notability. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 10:34, 31 December 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 10:46, 30 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep: I see no reason not to follow PamD's argument for
  WP:IAR in this case. Redirecting to one author or the other adds confusion, not clarity. -- asilvering (talk) 02:26, 31 December 2021 (UTC) Delete as below. I still think redirects will just cause a mess. -- asilvering (talk) 13:55, 8 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Disambiguate The pseudonym itself obviously isn't notable, and there is no primary topic (pageviews do not necessarily correspond to primary topic), so a disambiguation page makes the most sense. Mlb96 (talk) 01:24, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, does not meet
  WP:NAUTHOR, gsearches under ""Clare Richmond" book reviews", and for each book ""[book title]" by "Clare Richmond" book reviews" bring up zero reviews, which may not be surprising given that there have been 20,000+(?) harlequin titles published, as for needing a redirect/disamb for wikireaders, once this is deleted and Clare Richmond is entered wikireaders can "search for pages containing Clare Richmond" and hey presto! the two authors that use this pseudonym will be at the top of the list, ps. i note that both author wikiarticles presently have all the books listed, possibly just need to add mention of the other author ie. "As Clare Richmond with ...." and the titles' isbn but that is all. Coolabahapple (talk) 15:53, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  @Coolabahapple Works for me. I'll strike my !vote. -- asilvering (talk) 13:52, 8 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Less Unless (talk) 13:15, 8 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• A problem with "delete redirect and rely on search" is that it stops working once we have a new article on another Clare Richmond, a singer or astronomer or politician. I'm beginning to think that a List of shared pseudonyms would be useful, to which to redirect this and similar cases. Maybe something like that already exists: will check further when not on phone. PamD 14:39, 8 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to List of pen names, to which I have now added her. PamD 16:11, 8 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment @Bungle: Alyssa Howard is similar to this article; Clare Richards is a dab page, which complicates things slightly: have added both those names to List of pen names. PamD 16:20, 8 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A redirect wouldn't be a bad outcome I guess, though I won't advocate it. There are many pen names on that article without articles or redirects, although I can't argue against redirects being

relatively harmless. I'd suggest whatever the outcome of this AfD should apply to Alyssa Howard et al where independent notability cannot be ascertained and demonstrated. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:23, 8 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

I think a redirect would be an ideal outcome, tagged with {{R to list entry}} and categorised as Category:Collective pseudonyms. Whyever not? It helps the reader. We could add a source to the list entry to verify, but the convention there seems to be not to add sources. PamD 16:52, 8 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note:

Tess Marlowe, another of this gang's pseudonyms, was deleted at AfD in 2015 with rationale "One of these articles that is basically one line saying that it was a name used by 2 writers but nothing to back it up" but I've now added her to List of pen names and created a redirect. PamD 17:00, 8 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

And I have created list entries at

WP:ATD for a case like this - will try and remember it for any future instance. PamD 18:48, 9 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

@PamD Hard to believe it took three AfD relists for anyone to realize this solution exists. This redirect sounds fine, unless there's some mechanical reason that makes this unhelpful for mobile users? A List of shared pen names might be an interesting list to make, too, if you've a mind to do it. Given that List of pen names exists I'm actually a bit surprised that it doesn't. I suppose it could present an annoying problem where someone adds something to List of pen names but not the other one? -- asilvering (talk) 22:03, 9 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment, have struck out my "delete" as this has moved on, and a big thankyou to PamD who has found this sensible solution. Coolabahapple (talk) 21:20, 9 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to
  anchor, per Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Alternatives to deletion. Thank you, PamD (talk · contribs), for this excellent solution. Cunard (talk) 01:47, 10 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]