Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Laputa

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. Given the sources brought to this discussion, I see a consensus to Keep this article and not Redirect it. Editors are encouraged to incorporate these sources into the article and remove any OR content that exists. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:14, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Laputa

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I have no opinion on this, but am opening this AfD because there has been an edit war between

WP:BLARing this article (citing a lack of secondary sources) and keeping it as an article. Natg 19 (talk) 20:54, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply

]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Fictional elements and Science fiction and fantasy. Natg 19 (talk) 20:54, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@QuicoleJR, TompaDompa, and Викидим: (users involved in the edit war). Natg 19 (talk) 20:55, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Natg 19 (talk) 20:58, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for opening this discussion; I was just about to do so myself. I'd prefer to uphold the redirect to Gulliver's Travels § Part III: A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib and Japan. I've had concerns about this article ever since I came across it last year. (diff) —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 20:59, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For the record, I undid the initial
WP:NOPAGE situation, of course. TompaDompa (talk) 21:07, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Ping the participants in the above-mentioned deletion discussion WP:Articles for deletion/Brobdingnag (2nd nomination)—@Jontesta, PatGallacher, Vexations, Jclemens, BennyOnTheLoose, and Bearian: Feel free to weigh in here. TompaDompa (talk) 21:13, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@TompaDompa: The difference is that Brobdingnag has decent secondary sources, while Laputa uses only primary sources. QuicoleJR (talk) 23:50, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm inclined to believe that any content using these sources should be located at Gulliver's Travels or a subpage of that article. Skimming through some sources on the topic, I'm seeing a majority of the discussion of the subject in the context of the larger work and not of the location in isolation, and the encyclopedia should probably reflect that. I'm also not convinced by the precedent set by the Brobdingnag article, which is currently struggling from quite a bit of in-universe fluff that seems more reminiscent of a fan wiki. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 21:27, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have no doubt that there exists a body of very substantial scholarship on Brobdingnag (and, possibly, Laputa). This is Swift, after all, not some computer game universe. However, it seems to be much easier to delete the existing text and simply wait for someone to create an article that will show this project in a good light. The kind of
WP:RS, don't we? Викидим (talk) 22:09, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
WP:TNT the article, which should only be done in extreme cases. It is much easier to improve an existing page than it is to create a new one. Toughpigs (talk) 23:20, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
First three statements: yes, of course for all three. The fourth one It is much easier to improve an existing page than it is to create a new one. Not necessarily. I wrote some articles from scratch and modified some, and I think that in many cases writing from scratch is much easier. In this particular case, note how much the sources listed below by BennyOnTheLoose deviate from the current text: none of the subjects in the suggested secondary sources appear to have been touched upon in the current text. Викидим (talk) 00:43, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect. The article as-is entirely relies on the text of Swift's books (the only non-Swift source currently listed does not appear to be used). I can imagine an article on the subject that shows notability, but this text is not it: I do not think that the
WP:DUE content of the hypothetical replacement will use much of the current text. --Викидим (talk) 21:19, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

Keep. Looks like there plenty of potential sources, e.g.:

Laputa, the Whore of Babylon, and the Idols of Science. Dennis Todd, Studies in Philology, Vol. 75, No. 1 (Winter, 1978), pp. 93-120

Science and Politics in Swift's Voyage to Laputa. Robert P. Fitzgerald, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 87, No. 2 (Apr., 1988), pp. 213-229

The Unity of Swift's "Voyage to Laputa": Structure as Meaning in Utopian Fiction. Jenny Mezciems, The Modern Language Review, Vol. 72, No. 1 (Jan., 1977), pp. 1-21

The "Motionless" Motion of Swift's Flying Island. Robert C. Merton. Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1966), pp. 275-277

Laputa, the Whore of Babylon, and the Idols of Science. Dennis Todd. Studies in Philology, Vol. 75, No. 1 (Winter, 1978), pp. 93-120

The Scientific Background of Swift's 'Voyage to Laputa'. Marjorie Nicolson and Nora M. Mohler, Annals of Science, II (1937), 291-334

Swift's Flying Island in the 'Voyage to Laputa'. Marjorie Nicolson and Nora M. Mohler, Annals of Science, II (1937), 405-30

Swift's Laputians as a Caricature of the Cartesians. David Renaker PMLA, Vol. 94, No. 5 (Oct., 1979), pp. 936-944

These came up from a very quick search of JSTOR. I've only glanced over them, so if someone tells me that they don't actually cover the subject in detail then I'd be open to changing my view. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:49, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: One of the articles that BennyOnTheLoose identified, "The Unity of Swift's Voyage to Laputa: Structure as Meaning in Utopian Fiction", is included in Jonathan Swift: A Collection of Critical Essays. Internet Archive has the book, but unfortunately you can't see the whole thing: this is the link. Still, you can see the chapter heading and some sample text. Swift is important; people have been writing critical analyses of Swift's work for more than two centuries. — Toughpigs (talk) 23:04, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I also found another chapter, "Gulliver in Laputa", in a 1968 collection, Twentieth Century Interpretations of Gulliver's Travels: A Collection of Critical Essays. Toughpigs (talk) 23:28, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per above sourcing. I'll further note that "delete it until someone comes along and writes a better article" is a statement void of empirical underpinning: no one has demonstrated that is how reality works, even though the sentiment has been bandied about for probably a decade or more. Jclemens (talk) 20:38, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My work on Russian Wikipedia provides many empirical examples of this - entirely common - situation: if an article on an important subject is missing, its very absence spurs editors recognizing its importance to create one. In cases like that, where there are a lot of users ready to add
WP:OR based on the personal understanding of the Swift's text, the previous fate of the article helps to explain the need for secondary sources. Au contraire, a text that is essentially OR based on primary sources, tends to attract more of the same. Викидим (talk) 20:59, 23 May 2024 (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.