Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tanka prose

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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 redirect to

WP:RS
, are primary sources, or are not independent of Woodward and the other authors mentioned. There is wide agreement that the topic as it is does not warrant a stand-alone article, but it is less clear whether the page should be deleted outright. I see no clear agreement on either whether the page should be merged somewhere or deleted, or on where the best merge/redirect target would be.

I am closing as "redirect" because it seems a reasonable compromise between the desire to preserve the content expressed by the merge !voters, and the concerns expressed over the sourcing by the delete !voters. Content from the history may be merged into other articles, but extra care should be taken that any merges satisfy

WP:RFD. — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 11:24, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]

Tanka prose

Tanka prose (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats
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Article discusses

talk) 12:54, 30 September 2012 (UTC)[reply
]

Comment - My concern is that the sources cited are not reliable, and do not adequately explain why "tanka prose" is appropriate terminology. They are not learned articles, and they discuss the term almost exclusively in relation to ancient Japanese literature, an area in which I am a specialist. The phrase "tanka prose" does not appear in any specialist literature on the subject, and
talk) 01:25, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Comment - The following observations are relevant to the proposed deletion of
Tanka prose
.
1) The article existed from 2008 until the present without significant alteration and without substantial objections being lodged toward its content or notability by anyone until done so by User Elvenscout742.
2) The article discusses a contemporary English-language literary form that is partly inspired by early Japanese literature but is independent of it; the writers of this form, by and large, are also practitioners of Tanka in English just as writers of Haibun, by and large, are also practitioners of Haiku in English.
3) Such articles as
Tanka prose
.
4) User Elvenscout742’s claim that the article “appears to have been substantially edited by only one user,” were it true, would be irrelevant to the issue at hand but this same user’s active editing role on the article, over the past few weeks, contradicts his own representation. To reconstruct the history of these edits, however, one would have to review the edit summaries of not only
Tanka prose
article, 2008 to present, are archived therein.
5) The judgments offered by User Elvenscout742, as regards the literary form and/or movement of Tanka prose in his proposal for deletion above, are apparently offered with bias, their goal being to discredit the article by painting the associated form/movement as “obscure,” “small,” “non-notable” and “minor.” User Elvenscout742 does not offer any insight into how he arrived at these conclusions and, indeed, elsewhere has not disguised his antipathy for the subject or for its participants. That no writer of tanka prose appears on the New York Times Bestseller List is conceded but the same might be said of English-language writers of haiku, of tanka, of haibun, of gogyoshi and, indeed, of writers of many other contemporary literary forms that have Wikipedia articles.
6) User Elvenscout742’s characterization of the term “tanka prose” as an “obscure neologism,” like his claims about the literary phenomenon it describes, reflects his personal opinion and nothing more. The term is clearly defined in the sources that the article cites and in the article in question. Critics and artists often coin new terms to discuss new literary phenomena; that a term is a “neologism” should not alone disqualify it from Wikipedia, particularly when the nomenclature, as in this case, has acceptance within the English-language tanka community. This term, which User Elvenscout742 elsewhere has described as “inherently oxymoronic,” parallels various well-known literary terms in construction, e.g., “prose poem,” “sanbunshi,” “haiku prose” or “haiku story” (see the writings of the Welsh poet Ken Jones), or “waka-prose complex” (see Jin’ichi Konishi, A History of Japanese Literature, Volume 2, p. 258). User Elvenscout742 redirected the original
Tanka prose to his rewrite of the page as Uta monogatari
; the same user translates “uta monogatari,” accurately enough, as “poem-tale”—an oxymoron whose construction mirrors that of “tanka prose.”
7) User Elvenscout742’s assertion that “when repeatedly prompted” this user “refused to cite reliable, secondary sources” is patently false. His request for sources touched upon that portion of the original article and of the rewrite that discussed the Japanese literary background. In the revised article here, citations from scholarly sources were provided for every summary offered of the Japanese background. However, User Elvenscout742, who admits that he has yet to consult any of these sources, promptly deleted the material in question and did so merely upon his imputing bad faith here to this user.
8) As evidence of User Elvenscout742’s idea of what it means to “request sources” from a fellow editor, I offer his entry here where he offers a laborious list of scholary and literary sources and concludes somewhat triumphantly: I have cited better-known and more widely available books written (or translated with introduction and notes) by both Konishi and McCullough, and no one has demonstrated that either of these authors have ever used the phrase "tanka prose" in their writings. Any more questions?
I offer two observations on the above. First, neither the article under discussion here nor the sources it cites claim that the term “tanka prose” was ever employed by ancient Japanese poets or by modern scholars of Japanese literature; the term refers to the contemporary English phenomena and so User Elvenscout742’s supposed debunking proves nothing, unless it can be said to demonstrate his inability or unwillingness to read with comprehension and without prejudice the subject article and its cited sources. Furthermore, while “tanka prose” may be fairly characterized as anachronistic when speaking of ancient and medieval Japanese literature, so too may such modern Japanese scholarly nomenclature as nikki bungaku or zuihitsu, concepts unknown to the early poets. Second, I wish to highlight the sneering rhetorical flourish of User Elvenscout742’s conclusion, “Any more questions?,” which is inconsistent with the civility due a fellow editor but rather carries the tone of a patrician addressing his menial. I draw attention to this because User Elvenscout742 alludes in his proposal above to the personal attacks that he believes he has been subject to.
9) User Elvenscout742, as late as Sept 26, was offering this user a compromise which would retain the current page that he now seeks to delete. In doing so, he did not raise the questions of notability or of original research that he now raises. It is fair to infer therefore, despite User Elvenscout742’s denials in his Comment above, that the fundamental problem is one regarding a dispute over content. This user on two occasions asked for time to review User Elvenscout742’s proposed compromise but, in each instance, before he could do so, User Elvenscout742 posted further demands and personal attacks.
10) The body of the article, as originally posted, numbered less than 700 words. I’ve been compelled, by User Elvenscout742’s innumerable postings on the Talk Pages of
Tanka prose and by his countless edits, to devote several thousand words to this article’s defense in the past few weeks. His criticisms and objections are frequently shifting. This dialogue, if it may be so called, has been largely uninstructive and has become a hindrance to participation here nor do I believe that it represents the spirit of cooperation that is supposed to be a standard at Wikipedia.Tristan noir (talk) 03:07, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Comment - 1) That the article existed since 2008 is irrelevant, since your version of it from that time up until last month claimed to be about classical Japanese literature, and thus eluded deletion as a non-notable poetic movement for a long time. Your personal attack against me is irrelevant -- I removed your false claims to "tanka prose" existing in ancient Japan from the article, and you have tried to reinstate them several times in order to justify this article's existence.
2) Your views on what "tanka prose" means are irrelevant to this discussion, as you have thus far failed to add any reliable sources to justify the existence of the article. I have already pointed out that, unlike haibun, "tanka prose" has no Japanese equivalent and is inaccurate/oxymoronic as a term. The content of the haibun article may or may not be inappropriate, but references that justify the article's inclusion in Wikipedia do exist; such an argument has no place here, though.
3) Please see
Wikipedia:Other stuff exists
for a discussion of why your above argument is invalid. The article at Tanka in English was started recently by me, mainly to keep material on modern English "tanka" from overrunning an article on Japanese literature, which it has almost nothing to do with. Haiku in English, whether or not reliable sources are already cited, has been discussed extensively in reliable, academic sources (one that happens to come to mind would be the chapter on haiku in Gideon Toury's 1995 Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond). That Haibun is comparable to your "tanka prose" is ridiculous -- the former term has existed in Japanese academic circles for centuries, and there is no reasonable argument for the article's deletion.
4) The article, two days after you started it (during which time the only other edit was by a bot to remove a link you had inserted), was 4 paragraphs long [3]. The article immediately before I removed contentious information and moved the page was 5 paragraphs long [4]. The latter paragraph was a copyedit by one user [5]. Every other edit by a user other than you was, in terms of overall article content, minor.
5) Please refrain from making personal attacks and ad hominem arguments here. The sources you have cited are non-notable, and most of them contain ridiculous claims about ancient Japanese origin.
6) The term is a neologism. It has never appeared outside of the obscure sources you cite. You have demonstrated elsewhere that you do not understand Japanese -- the term uta monogatari is the closest Japanese equivalent to your "tanka prose", as uta is synonymous with tanka and monogatari is the most prominent classical Japanese word for a prose narrative. The fact that uta monogatari do not exclusively feature "tanka", per se, is irrelevant, as both your article and your sources include the Kojiki and the Man'yōshū under this blanket term, which is inaccurate given the content of those works (tanka is one of the numerous genres of poetry appearing in both).
7) The sources you cited were taken out of context. They do not use the phrase "tanka prose" once. I asked you several times ([6] [7] [8] [9]) to cite reliable sources that justify the use of the phrase "tanka prose" in relation to classical Japanese literature, or refrain from discussing classical Japanese literature out-of-context. You ignored me each time, instead making repeated personal attacks, and continuing to cite irrelevant sources.
8) You used weasel words in your article, so as to very strongly imply that these reliable sources used the phrase "tanka prose" in reference to classical Japanese literature. You did this in clear violation of our previous compromise. I also need to point out here that I proposed a compromise with you so that I could clear Wikipedia of ridiculous claims about my area of expertise, and you and I could go on editing without interrupting each other. I did not, however, admit at any time that "tanka prose" merited a Wikipedia article. I just didn't want to get involved in a dispute. Your use of the word "sneering" in reference to my comment is an uncivil personal attack, and your comment is entirely irrelevant to this deletion debate. You have made similar irrelevant comments throughout our previous disputes. My criticizing your edits to an article, and pointing out specific inaccuracies in the sources you cite, are not personal attacks. Neither is my citing of valid, reliable, academic sources. Your consistently ignoring the substance of my comments to make ad hominem attacks, however, is in direct violation of Wikipedia policy, and is irrelevant to the current discussion. [10] [11] [12] [13] Even if you consider my wording to be aggressive or uncivil (I have been restrained in my critiques, though, unlike you), at least I have consistently focused on article-content. Also, nikki bungaku and zuihitsu, regardless of their specific etymologies, are established terms used in hundreds or reliable sources on classical Japanese literature.
9) This is another irrelevant personal attack. As stated above, at the time I offered you the compromise (well over two weeks ago), I was not actually doing so because I believe your article has a place on Wikipedia. I was deliberately ignoring Wikipedia policy on notability and original research, so as to avoid a dispute. Your article on "tanka prose" does not belong on Wikipedia, but I wouldn't really care, if it didn't make ridiculous, bizarre claims about Japanese literature. [14]
10) Your ad hominem remark is duly noted. The overwhelmingly majority of your "thousands of words" have been irrelevant to the topic at hand, and have been based largely on ad hominem arguments and your opinion that I am uncivil. Last time you made any kind of substantial argument related to content was here, and that comment was riddled with mistakes and misrepresentations. Comments about how much personal effort one has put into an article or a debate are irrelevant, but I think it's safe to say that I have a better case than you do here, as well.
talk) 05:22, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
  • Weak Delete. AfD's in the end are simple, you just need two independent reliable sources that discuss the topic in a non-trivial manner. I went through all the sources and found the following:
  • Preminger, Alex and Brogan, T.V.F. The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993, p. 981. I went to Amazon and did a "Look Inside" search and it came back with 0 hits for "Tanka prose". Am I missing something?
  • Woodward, Jeffrey, Ed. The Tanka Prose Anthology. Baltimore, MD: Modern English Tanka Press, 2008, pp. 13-14 - this is self-published on
    LuLu
    (can't link direct due to LuLu blacklist) and thus it fails WP:RS. The journal Modern English Tanka is also self-published.
  • "Tarlton, Charles" - published in Haibun Today which is a journal published by.. "Woodward, Jeffrey" (self-published), not a RS.
  • The article by "Everett, Claire" in Atlas Poetica is an interview with "Woodward, Jeffrey", who wrote the self-published material above.
  • "Lucky, Bob" in Atlas Poetica - Independent author, independent source (I believe). Discusses tanka prose and community in depth.
  • These two sources in the ref section: Santa Fe, Simply Haiku - they are both "Woodward, Jeffrey" articles. Simply Haiku is another interview with Woodward; Santa Fe is an edition with Woodward as guest editor.
  • Source by "Goldstein, Sanford" and "Smyth, Florida Watts". These books were published before the term Tanka prose existed or was in common use (I believe). It appears to be cites to poems the article is considering as Tanka prose, appears to be possible Original Research.
  • Sources by "Reichhold, Jane", "Kimmel, Larry" and "Ward, Linda Jeannette". These appear to be links to some poets but unclear if these sources use the term "Tanka prose" or more importantly establish the notability of the term with significant discussion of the term.
  • Based on the above, the "Lucky, Bob" Atlas Poetica article seems to be the strongest for AfD purposes. I'm concerned by the vast number of sources that come back to "Woodward, Jeffrey" in one way or another, who is a self-publisher, and the lack of academic sourcing. It has the appearance of an insular genre. That is OK but is it notable? If we discard all the Woodward-connected sources as being 1. self-published or 2. interviews (self-created content) or 3. guest editor (self-published), what is left is the "Lucky, Bob" article, which is not enough for a Keep. If however we keep some of the Woodward articles, such as the two interviews and the guest editor, it might be enough for a Weak Keep. My leaning is to Weak Delete because if you discard the Woodward-connected sources, there isn't much left, which is a sign of lack of notability beyond the publications of a single person. I did a cross-database search of over 50 commercial databases (
    talk) 08:32, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
    ]
Claire Everett is the "Tanka Prose Editor" of Woodward's Haibun Today[15], if that means anything. Also, the publication that ran the interview in question was Atlas Poetica, which is self-published by D. Garrison.
talk) 14:14, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Preminger and Brogan are cited in reference to the unrelated term "prosimetra". Their not using the phrase "tanka prose" makes sense, since they also appear to predate the coining of the term. You're not missing anything. ;-)
Also, Lucky is not an independent source. Of the ten references he gives, six were written or edited by Woodward, two are interviews with Woodward, and one is written by Patricia Prime, one of the interviewers. The last one is an article in German that doesn't use the phrase "tanka prose" or the corresponding German "Tankaprosa" once. Except in the references -- because it cites the English Wikipedia article. In any case Lucky and most of his sources are published by Modern English Tanka Press, a self-published work by one D. Garrison. Even if Lucky himself is not personally linked with Woodward, he is hardly an independent source.
talk) 00:47, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Self-published? – I want to address User Green Cardamom’s comments about the article’s sources and, in particular, his/her determination that certain of the sources were “self-published.” I was surprised by this statement and so I reviewed
WP:SPS, the OED and Self-publishing
agree; all place emphasis upon an author paying to have his work published or upon an author, without intervention of a second party, printing his own work.
Green Cardamom wrote: “Woodward, Jeffrey, Ed. The Tanka Prose Anthology. Baltimore, MD: Modern English Tanka Press, 2008, pp. 13-14 - this is self-published on LuLu ...and thus it fails WP:RS. The journal Modern English Tanka is also self-published.” He/she (I’ll presume “he” for ease of future reference) is calling into question three items here: the two cited articles by Woodward and the anthology edited by the same author. He remarks that these works are “self-published on Lulu.” I’m not certain how this conclusion was arrived at but perhaps I can offer some clarifications. Lulu is a print on demand supplier, like Lightning Source, CreateSpace, Replica Books and various others. From Print on demand: (POD) “is a printing technology and business process in which new copies of a book (or other document) are not printed until an order has been received.... Many traditional small presses have replaced their traditional printing equipment with POD equipment or contract their printing out to POD service providers. Many academic publishers, including university presses, use POD services to maintain a large backlist…. Larger publishers may use POD in special circumstances, such as reprinting older titles that are out of print or for performing test marketing.” The point to be made here, however, is that use of a POD supplier cannot invariably be equated with self-publishing. Many literary, university and commercial houses now employ POD.
The Tanka Prose Anthology was published by MET Press of Baltimore. This is a small literary press owned and operated by Denis Garrison, a well-known educator and writer of haiku and tanka. The publisher is not a vanity press; his backlist includes titles by such widely-read poets as Michael McClintock, Alexis Rotella and James Tipton as well as works by professional translators of Japanese poetry (Sanford Goldstein and Amelia Fielden), and even a book by Japanese literary scholar Michael F. Marra. His list also includes various anthologies, The Tanka Prose Anthology among them. Denis Garrison was also editor and publisher of the quarterly journal Modern English Tanka (2006-2009). That journal, while printed via Lulu, was distributed, like MET books, via many channels and not solely through Lulu distribution.
The relevant point, however, is this. An author who successfully submits an essay or poem to a literary journal that is edited by a second party is not self-published unless such a journal were to stipulate that acceptance of that author’s work required payment of a fee (vanity publishing). The same can be said for a book mss. that is submitted to a small literary press; Author X, upon acceptance of his mss. by Publisher B, cannot be reasonably described as self-published unless, again, a fee is involved. Therefore, a proposal to discard, upon the grounds of self-publication, the two Woodward essays published in Modern English Tanka or the Tanka Prose Anthology as published by MET Press has no proper foundation. On the same grounds, designating the Tarlton essay or the Everett interview as self-published is objectionable; contributors to Haibun Today, Atlas Poetica or the other journals mentioned by Green Cardamom do not pay to have their works published; they submit them to a second party (editor) who is free to accept or reject the same.
I apologize for having to go on at such length about this matter. Some final minor points of clarification for Green Cardamom: 1) the citation from Preminger & Brogan is for the entry in the New Princeton to “prosimetrum,” i.e., any composition that combines prose and verse; 2) citations to Goldstein, Smyth, Reichhold, Kimmel and Ward were merely historical citations to direct the reader to earlier published examples of tanka prose; I felt it necessary to offer the references lest anyone accuse me of making up said poets and/or their writings.Tristan noir (talk) 00:36, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Again I must point out to you that Goldstein and so on, just like the ancient Japanese sources you claim as "tanka prose", can only be called by that name on Wikipedia if they have been so-called in reliable secondary sources.
talk) 00:54, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Response We've made progress. Tristan noir has established which sources (he believes) creates notability and which do not. An updated list follows, each source given a number.
  • (1) All Jeffrey Woodward sources. According to
    WP:NOTE
    : "Multiple publications from the same author or organization are usually regarded as a single source for the purposes of establishing notability."
  • (2) Lucky, Bob (Editor). Atlas Poetica Special Feature: 25 Tanka Prose (July 2011) (the other Bob Lucky source is a Woodward source)
  • (3) Prime, Patricia. “Irresistible Constructions: a tanka prose essay,” Modern English Tanka V3, N1
Tristan noir, can you confirm? I could not find any more, most sources fall under Source (1) which is counted as a single source since they are all related to Woodward: interviews, journals, or articles by Woodward. --
talk) 06:38, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Response: Confirmed, Green Cardamom, with the possible exception (or addition) of the Ingrid Kunschke item at TankaNetz. Though not cited in the article as it now stands, there are also independent book reviews of The Tanka Prose Anthology available in the English-language tanka & haiku press, e.g., one in Ribbons (the Tanka Society of America's journal), another in Simply Haiku, another, I believe, at the Haiku Oz site (Haiku Society of Australia), and perhaps others.Tristan noir (talk) 16:14, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum: Independent references to The Tanka Prose Anthology:
Nominated by Grace Cavalieri, host of public radio’s “The Poet and the Poem from The Library of Congress,” for Best Books for Winter Reading, 2008
Reviews of the anthology online:
1. J. Harpeng, Haiku Oz: The Australian Haiku Society (Oct. 14, 2008)
2. Robert Wilson, Simply Haiku V6, N4 (Winter 2008)
3. Jane Reichhold, Lynx XXIV:1 (Feb. 2009)
4. Ingrid Kunschke, TankaNetz (Oct. 2008)
Reviews of the anthology in print only:
5. Tony Beyer, Kokako 10 (NZ: April 2009), pp. 51-53
6. M. Kei, Ribbons: Tanka Society of America Journal V4, N4 (Winter 2008), pp. 44-47Tristan noir (talk) 03:19, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - The unreliable, self-published material cited in this article having been reviewed in equally non-notable, self-published works does not prove that the subject is notable. The book itself having been nominated for an award does not make the book a reliable source of information. No one has claimed that the book itself does not exist -- I made it clear that I have read portions of it
talk) 03:53, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Agree - those are "references" for the book. But this discussion is about
WP:AFC, though I would point out that 1, 2, 3 and 4 are all blog-style self-published websites and might not be considered reliable sources. Stalwart111 (talk) 03:57, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Response Tristan, the problem with those reviews is they refer back to Woodward, they are not independently discussing tanka prose but simply review Woodward's book on it. The spirit of the Notability rule is that you need two multiple sources that are not from the same person, to avoid precisely this problem where a single prolific person is able to establish notability. That is why we have the rule for two multiple sources from different people. Those book reviews should group into Source (1) with the rest of Woodward, for notability purposes. I'll wait to hear your response before moving on, as we need to establish this concept. --
talk) 04:29, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Comment: Understood, Green Cardamom, and fair enough, though the independent reviews do indicate acceptance of the term “tanka prose” within the literary community in question, one point-of-contention here as is, unfortunately, the novel definition of self-publishing that seems to be a shared obsessive theme on the part of two of the participants in this discussion.Tristan noir (talk) 05:05, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Response The above is a needless and irrelevant personal attack. The reviews do not show a prevalence of the phrase "tanka prose" in the literary community. At least one of them spells it "tanka-prose" (hyphenated), differing from Woodward's usage. And again, they only demonstrate the notability of the book, if even that -- they do not justify the terminology in the book. Also, no one has yet explained how the article in question cited a book by Woodward that had not been published yet.
talk) 05:26, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Wow, yet another
WP:SPA who, upon finally realising he has no valid argument, resorts to personal attacks. I'm shocked. It's such an original strategy - I've only seen it 148,976,254 times before! Ha ha. Stalwart111 (talk) 05:40, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Respond Tristan noir. Ok I have your acceptance on that point so here is the updated list of four possible sources, two some number of which are needed to meet the notability guidelines:
According to
talk) 07:36, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Response: I understand & agree, Cardamom, about the NOTE requirements. Your assessment of the Kunschke item seems fair. You asked if there were other missing sources. I haven't been able to consult it yet but User Warden offered another source (see below), previously unknown to me, where he wrote: The paper A History of Tanka in English uses the phrase more than once, e.g. "journals devoted to tanka prose and haibun appeared in the early 21st century". That item also should be taken under consideration.Tristan noir (talk) 17:14, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
According to
talk) 13:25, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
4.1 is also problematic, for the same reason as 4.2. The article discusses the genres of
talk) 07:56, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
You are correct the Contention is really centered on 4.1 .. if 4 is a reliable source or not almost doesn't matter since 4.1 is a problem. --
talk) 19:37, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
The key point to consider seems to be this: the article/argument in the article's defense has used external, apparently reliable sources, but these sources are general discussions of prosimetra, particularly classical Japanese prosimetra. They do not use the phrase "tanka prose" once, because it is a neologism apparently coined after the independent sources were published. There are, of course, hundreds of reliable sources that discuss Japanese prosimetra, such as uta monogatari and nikki, and I have pointed to them already. Discussion of these works does have a place in Wikipedia, but those places already exist in other articles. 1.2, 1.3, 2.2, 2.3, 3.2 and 3.3 all fail, it seems. The neologism "tanka prose" appears exclusively in a single source, being the publisher MET Press, apparently a non-academic, unreliable source that publishes through Lulu. I say they are non-academic, since they seem to routinely ignore the vast majority of Japanese scholarship. Their authors, in particular Woodward (who is still the only true source of information in the article), have a habit of making ridiculous gaffes in their discussion of "tanka prose in classical Japanese literature". I have listed just a few of them
talk) 23:29, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Another point that I appear to have largely neglected up until now: Tristan noir claims that neither his article nor any of his sources claim tanka prose existed in ancient Japan. An examination of the editor's blurb for The Tanka Prose Anthology on Lulu's website clearly disproves the latter point: The Tanka Prose Anthology is vital evidence of the first flowering in English of an ancient Japanese genre [...] whether the time is contemporary and presently unfolding or archaic and retrospective, the revival of the ancient medium of tanka prose has proven equal to the immediate task. This first-of-its-kind collection draws upon the work of nineteen poets from eight different countries. The introduction offers a detailed survey of the genre’s history and of its evolving forms while an annotated bibliography directs the reader to related literature. Why is tanka prose so novel? Because it is so old. The introduction, which "offers a detailed survey of the genre's history", claims the Kojiki and the Man'yōshū as the earliest examples of tanka prose (Woodward 2008, p.10). The Kojiki is not a work of prose fiction -- it was written as a quasi-historical document/propaganda piece in favour of the imperial family's claim to absolute dominance of Japan, and quotes old folk songs from around the country to support its claims (from B.H. Chamberlain's translation of the Kojiki). The Man'yōshū, similarly, is not a unified work of prose fiction. It is a poetry anthology, containing poems composed over several centuries, and while its compilation remains mysterious, it was probably compiled by numerous people over several decades (from Keene, 1999). The original version of the article before I edited it clearly made similar claims [16], and Tristan noir's rewrite did as well [17]. The rewrite cited "McCullough" and "Konishi/Miner" to justify this, but neither of those sources use the phrase "tanka prose", because no reputable source on Japanese literature does.
talk) 23:57, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Japan-related deletion discussions. — Frankie (talk) 20:07, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. — Frankie (talk) 20:07, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the
gråb whåt you cån (talk) 20:12, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
But that's not my biggest concern - my biggest concern is that the same person is, in effect, responsible for 16 of the 19 "references" for the article. Each is either his own commentary (including in non-
WP:OWNSITE
.
Having done a search, the same single-origin sources keep coming up. I couldn't find a single unrelated source that gives the subject significant coverage. Cheers, Stalwart111 (talk) 06:49, 2 October 2012 (UTC).[reply]
  • Keep/merge There is too much emphasis in this discussion upon the title of the article, tanka prose. This is not a neologism as both of these words are well-established. It should be considered as a descriptive phrase and we should just then explore whether there is a better phrase to describe the topic. As an example, see the source Prosimetrum: Crosscultural Perspectives on Narrative in Prose and Verse. This contains chapters with titles such as The Prosimetric Form in the Chinese Literary Tradition and Combinations of Poetry and Prose in Classical Japanese Narrative. The page in question is about a narrow slice of this general topic of poetry/prose combination. As the article
    WP:UNDUE. But while we are still working with early drafts, it seems best to be tolerant of enthusiastic efforts like this. 百花齊放，百家爭鳴 — "Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend." Warden (talk) 12:18, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
    ]
Comment - The problem is entirely based in the terminology. The historically attested material (the material discussed in the McCullough article you refer to) is already discussed elsewhere. Merging this content into
talk) 15:06, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
  • While that might be correct, that paper isn't a great example (in my opinion) - it's published by the same small group of people at MET Press who are responsible for almost all of the existing "references" and it cites many of those in that same small group of people. As far as I can tell, there is a small group of people (very small) who have (in essence) invented a particular style or phrase not widely recognised by others and are now citing themselves to softly
    WP:WEIGHT issue. Stalwart111 (talk) 00:27, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
    ]
Response That is a personal attack and a ridiculous claim. Stalwart and I have never dealt with each other before this discussion. We just happen to both agree that the sources cited for this article are extremely shaky, and the article seems to have been created as a promotion tool. Your calling in an external
talk) 05:26, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
talk) 05:39, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Comment - Reputable authors occasionally using self-publishing resources to publish material without the hassle of going through editors and so on, does not mean that it is not self-publishing, nor does it mean that all sources published by MET Press are reliable. The fact that you are now referring to those works here is evidence that, if anything, MET Press must have been all too happy to publish those works. Those authors' notable works all went through established, reputable publishers, many of which (universities) would be unlikely to publish original works of fiction, even by respected authors. Your appeal to authority is, however, completely irrelevant to this discussion, however. If you want to create an article on Marra or his work, go right ahead.
talk) 04:19, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Yeah, as I said above, I don't think it "invalidates" the sources, per se, but I also think we need additional sources to help verify the claims from the notionally self-published ones. At the moment we have three "sources" that are not directly from the one single source and those aren't great.
WP:SPS is pretty clear about what is appropriate and what is not. We can use self-published sources if the person publishing them is considered an expert in their field who has been cited as an expert in other independent, reliable sources. But even those are line-ball cases. The fact that the "publisher" has published works for other people is really quite irrelevant. Stalwart111 (talk) 04:29, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Woodward clearly is not an expert on Japanese literature, at least. His academic background (according to the MET Press website) is in linguistics and political theory, and his writings have consistently contained egregious errors regarding the history of tanka. He misspelled the names of important tanka poets in ancient Japan ("
talk) 04:44, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]

Resolution

I took the liberty of collapsing some of the above content - especially the sections that degenerated into personal attacks. My aim was not to remove particular points or content or remove anyone's contribution to the discussion. I have tried to keep those paragraphs that provided a primary / initial opinion un-hidden. The content remains in place - it was not deleted. Be assured - closing admins will read all the content, including collapsed material. My aim, in
Green Cardamom) - that of the sources provided in support of the article. If you feel your contribution has been unfairly or inaccurately collapsed, please either move my collapse templates or raise it with me - I will happily move them. Stalwart111 (talk) 00:27, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
  • Comment Hey I'm concerned the accusations of COI, SPA, SOCK could derail the AfD, such as a closure with "no consensus" because of unresolved disputes unrelated to AfD. I suggest ignoring accusations by the other party (beyond a single response), or opening appropriate Noticeboard reports to pursue it (COI is not inherently a bad thing, even if proven, but accusing someone of it during content disputes can be a problem). AfD is about finding two multiple independent reliable sources, is mostly what the closing admin will be looking for. We've identified 4 sources above and need to go through them with the 4 points of WP:NOTE including rationales for why they do or do-not comply. --
    talk) 19:37, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
    ]
Note: The below discussion uses a shorthand such as "4.2" which refers to Source 4 in the list below, and
WP:RS
"
  • (1) All Jeffrey Woodward sources (including book reviews). According to
    WP:GNG
    : "Multiple publications from the same author or organization are usually regarded as a single source for the purposes of establishing notability."
Even counted as one source, I can't see how these would be considered independent. They are all essentially by the same person who has, for all intents and purposes, "invented" the style in question. A good portion of them are self-published and (as I have said above), while that doesn't invalidate them, no-one seems to be able to find reliable secondary sources to back them up. On balance, I think these should be considered
primary sources, at best. Fails 1.3 and 1.4 of your matrix. Stalwart111 (talk) 00:06, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
This is a complex source since there is a variety of items including Woodward-self-published books, Woodward interviews published in other journals, book reviews of Woodward publications. For the purposes of notability, all of the references to 'tanka prose' are the end product of Woodward (expressed directly by him or repeated by others in credit to him or through his publishing). Woodward is not independent of tanka prose, rather central to it. Thus as a group it fails 1.4 (independence). The sources individually may pass or fail different notability criteria but too complex to untangle since they all fail 1.4. --
talk) 05:26, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
You can call a white dog black as often as you like but the dog will still be white. POD, like old-fashioned job printing, is a manufacturing process; both are for-hire contractors to commercial and small press literary houses, to institutions (universities) and self-published individuals. The test of self-publishing, as common definition and the Wikipedia guidelines agree, is whether or not the author directly pays a second party to publish his work. A book or article that is not self-published follows this pattern: Author A submits to editor/publisher B who (without a fee from the author) accepts and contracts the printing service to POD/Jobprinter C. This pattern applies to Random House, Princeton University and to MET Press (as well as its journal, Modern English Tanka). The concerted effort to marginalize the writings here discussed as self-published, despite plain evidence to the contrary, is unsettling. If you were to take this discussion outside of its present cloistered confines and place it, say, at a PEN International Congress, an Independent Book Publishers Association Conference or a Council of Literary Magazines and Presses Conference, the remarks made here with respect to self-publishing would be met with incredulity, if not open laughter.
I’ll also have to take issue with Stalwart’s assertion that the source being discussed here “invented" the style in question. We’re not dealing with a literary style, first, but with a literary form; the many practitioners of the form in question have individual styles. The larger point, however, is this silly claim that the form in question was one person’s invention. Like the somewhat desperate recitation of the mantra self-publishing, the facts are simply not in accord with Stalwart’s assertion. If Woodward invented anything, it was not a literary form but a descriptive phrase to identify it. This is clear from his “Introduction” to the Tanka Prose Anthology: “Japanese criticism, ancient and modern, offers no comprehensive term that might encompass the many forms and styles that the wedding of tanka and prose admits. Instead, the terminology employed in the scholarly literature is form-specific, addressing not the genus but the individual species…. The first problem to address in defining tanka prose…is nomenclature. Whereas Japanese waka practice and literary criticism provide no precedent, the analogy of tanka plus prose to the latter development of haibun does. The term haibun, when applied to a literary composition, most commonly signifies haiku plus prose “written in the spirit of haiku.” Haiku prose or haikai prose would be an apt English equivalent of the Japanese word, haibun. Upon the same grounds, tanka prose becomes a reasonable term to apply to literary specimens that incorporate tanka plus prose….” That the form precedes his coined term is clear from the independently published record; the article here proposed for deletion and the anthology present numerous works that pre-date the Woodward source and that were published wholly independent of him. For these reasons, I disagree with the assessment of Stalwart and Green Cardamom that this source fails 1.3 and 1.4.Tristan noir (talk) 04:23, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. That writers' clubs and the like have different standards is established, and perfectly acceptable. This website is a place for tertiary information based on prior legitimate scholarship to be posted. That MET Press is not an academic printing press is obvious. If such publishers do go through Lulu, that is also fine. But that the references you have cited all ultimately come from the same source (Woodward), who is apparently allowed to print whatever he wants through METPress/Lulu, is a serious issue for inclusion here. The quote you provide above from Woodward's book is, as I have discussed elsewhere, ridiculous and offensive. He admits to having coined the term "tanka prose" himself, unilaterally dismissing a millennium of Japanese scholarship, without providing any legitimate academic basis for his assertions. (Again, he clearly does not speak Japanese, and his only academic background appears to be in political theory and linguistics, so his unilateral assumption of the right to override all Japanese scholarship is questionable.) The quote also contradicts your earlier assertion that "tanka prose" is a translation of the old Japanese word wabun (和文, "Japanese-language writings).
talk) 05:20, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
It doesn't really matter if he invented the "style", the "form" or just the "phrase" to identify it (which might then be considered a
WP:NEO. Stalwart111 (talk) 05:37, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Again, most of the sources cited for this work come directly from Wikipedia (note
blog with "guest editors" comprised mostly of the same small group of people cited by Woodward. For all of those reasons I contend this isn't really a reliable source. Fails 2.2 and 2.4 of your matrix. Stalwart111 (talk) 00:06, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Has some independence but Lucky Bob also has connections to Woodward. According to
talk) 05:26, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Again, before being able to discuss notability, I’m called upon, by the preceding comments, to first address points of misapprehension or misrepresentation of fact. Stalwart states unequivocally that (a) the site in question is essentially a blog, and (b) that it has “guest editors” comprised mostly of the same small group of people cited by Woodward. The site, in fact, is the online home of a hardcopy journal, Atlas Poetica. The guest editors are independent of the journal proper and they edit only those special features found here. I made a quick count and found that 12 guest editors are listed there. Most can be demonstrated to have little or no connection with this first source.
Cardamom’s comments raise two other problems. He insists that literary genre is a scholarly topic which, indeed, it is. But genre is first and foremost a literary topic, like questions of literary form, and the writers of said forms, and not scholars, are the first persons to encounter this topic and to struggle with its definition. I say this to insist upon what I believe is an important point: that in discussions of living or contemporary literature, as over-and-against historical literature, those writers engaged in the form are the first witnesses and first scholars, if you will. The user who proposed the article on tanka prose for deletion consistently confounded these matters, insisting upon judging a modern English literary phenomenon by criteria drawn from Japanese scholarship. Writing communities, whether or not scholars are alive to the fact, tend to be relatively small, so much so that most parties, large and small, have some acquaintance. One might look only to the history of American poetry, for example, and review the complex of personal relationships between Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, and H.D. or the similar web later between members of the Beat Generation. For these reasons, it should not be surprising that writers who share common goals, such as those involved in tanka prose, may know each other just as do (and I apologize for the shocking comparison) the fellow professors of a university’s English Department. I offer these remarks to explain why I believe that Cardamom’s citation of
WP:SCHOLARSHIP are inaccurately applied in this instance. Therefore, I dissent from the opinion of Stalwart and Cardamom above and assert that the source passes muster of 2.2 and 2.4.Tristan noir (talk) 04:23, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Tristan's characterization of Atlas Poetica as a journal is inaccurate. It comes from the same publisher (D. Garrison/MET Press) as all the other sources cited. This publisher has demonstrated that it has somewhat lax standards of scholarship for something claiming to be called a "journal". Woodward's writings, as well as all the other writings based solely on Woodward, demonstrate this.
talk) 05:25, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
The site in question is a self-published blog and the author's own introduction to the site effectively says as much (though in German - Google translate is not great but it's enough to get the gist). It's certainly not a scholarly journal in the technical form of a blog - it's a stock-standard, my-thoughts-for-the-day type blog. I would contend it probably passes 2.4 but fails 2.2 of your matrix and possibly 2.1 given the term "Tanka prose" seems to be used speculatively, in the sense that even the writer doesn't seem to accept that the term is commonplace, just that it has been used. But that part is in English (not the author's native German) so I'm hesitant to over-interpret the meaning. Stalwart111 (talk) 00:27, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would be more inclined to say it fails 3.4 as well. The author, Prime, has personally interviewed Woodward on several occasions, and Modern English Tanka comes from the same publisher as all the other sources. In order for the term to be truly notable, it should probably need to have been discussed in independent works that do not come from one publisher alone.
    talk) 00:59, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
    ]
I think it might fail 2.4 because in the paper Patricia mentions a connection to Woodward. It also fails 2.2 since it's not academically vetted and we are dealing with a scholarly topic (
talk) 05:26, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Stalwart, above, seems to have confused the Kunschke source in German below and the Prime article in Modern English Tanka here under discussion. That is the only sense I could make of his statement that the PDF version of a printed journal (MET) was a blog. Again, we face the same misrepresentation of fact, viz., that an article by Author A accepted by Editor B is somehow self-published and thereby disqualified; that the author Prime is acquainted with the first source (Elvenscout goes so far as to claim that she has interviewed Woodward on several occasions; one occasion is cited in the references to the article; I challenge E. to offer evidence to support his hyperbole) and is thereby disqualified. And we have again what I take to be an unreasonable expectation, that is, that a literary topic’s proper authority is academic scholarship as over-and-against the writings of poets and literary critics. It should be obvious, from my remarks, that I’m in the minority and dissent from the above opinions on the issue of notability.Tristan noir (talk) 04:23, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My mistake. I apparently saw the same interview cited differently in two different places, and assumed they were two separate interviews. Prime's failure to correct Woodward's ridiculous assertion in that interview about the Hyakunin Isshu, however, might disqualify her as a reliable source on tanka history, anyway. The article claims, as does Woodward's book, to be rooted in classical Japanese literary scholarship, but the fact that no scholarly sources have shown up to support the use of the neologism "tanka prose" seems to indicate otherwise.
talk) 05:02, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Prime is the "Reviews Editor" of Haibun Today, of which Woodward is the "Founder & General Editor" - see the publication's Facebook page. Interviews aside, working for the same publication would not be considered "independent" by any stretch of the imagination. Stalwart111 (talk) 05:37, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This too, just in case you can't see the Facebook version. Cheers, Stalwart111 (talk) 05:40, 5 October 2012 (UTC).[reply]
Has been analysed above and I agree it probably fails 4.1 and 4.2. Stalwart111 (talk) 00:06, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Discussed above. Fails 4.1 --
talk) 05:26, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
I hope you don't mind me including this in your matrix given the original author has contended that it should also be considered which I think is only fair (I have included it as number 5, so the matrix extends to 5.1, 5.2... etc). As I noted when this "source" was original put forward, it is published by the same people as those who publish a good number of the sources in the "Woodward" category 1. I would contend on that basis that it fails 5.4 of your matrix. I would contend it notionally fails 5.2 given it is published (via the same self-publishing house as many of Woodward sources) by the same person responsible for publishing source 2 - Lucky was writing for Kei's blog as a "guest editor". We know the author in question is a blogger who, in this instance, has turned his hand to writing a slightly-more-scholarly style of essay, published by the same group as other "sources", citing many of the same small group of "authors". On balance, I would contend it fails 5.2 and 5.4. Stalwart111 (talk) 00:06, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Source has some independence but also connections to Woodward. According to
talk) 05:26, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
The characterization by Stalwart of the author of this item as a blogger who, in this instance, has turned his hand to writing a slightly-more-scholarly style of essay is deserving of contempt and has no place in this discussion. Beyond that, Stalwart chants his tired refrain (self-publishing) and spices that with further evidence of his bias by placing words like “sources” and “authors” in quotation marks. His clear attempts at character assassination are self-evident. Beyond this venom, he says nothing coherent or persuasive about notability. I offered my reasons above, under Lucky, item #2, for dissenting from Cardamom’s specific application of
WP:SCHOLARSHIP to these items. I disagree for the same reasons here.Tristan noir (talk) 04:23, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Please refrain from making personal attacks here. If you have a counter-argument, make it. Otherwise refrain from posting these ad hominem comments. Wikipedia is not a democracy, and this is not a vote, so your saying "I disagree" does not mean anything unless you give reasons.
talk) 05:06, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Sayre’s Law? Indeed! I protested earlier about a perceived coordination of effort by two users in this notability discussion. They promptly protested and proclaimed their innocence. It has come to my attention, however, that the same users have been conducting a parallel private communication on the subject of the article here nominated for deletion and upon their future plans for actions regarding the article and / or its sources. This material is not irrelevant to (a) demonstrating their clear bias and their coordination of activity as regards our discussion here, and (b) their possible COI with respect to the sources that support the article under discussion. Their remarks can, and should, be read at
User talk:Elvenscout742 here [5] [6] [7].Tristan noir (talk) 19:10, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
There is nothing inherently wrong with (open) discussions outside for the purpose of answering policy questions, gather information and coordinate opening new cases elsewhere. I reviewed the above conversations and it looks like normal discussion about rule application and so on, don't see malicious intent or bad faith efforts at work. If you see something specific let us know. --
talk) 19:50, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
There is nothing "private" about that conversation at all - it is in a public userspace. Not only can you see it but it is open to non-editor members of the public. Your silly suggestion is, I think, an admission on your part that you have absolutely no valid argument that the sources in question allow this subject to meet
WP:COI - that personal attack doesn't even make sense. Stalwart111 (talk) 02:34, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
*KeepMerge - the term is shown to exist, but to be very thinly sourced, so I'd go for a merge to Tanka as a brief section there. there do seem to be sufficient sources here. If we spent this much effort on the article, it'd be a
WP:GA by now... Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:53, 5 October 2012 (UTC) 15:27, 8 October 2012[reply
]
Chiswick chap, where are you now suggesting we merge it into? I have already tried to include a small amount of the seemingly verifiable information in the article
talk) 22:53, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
Which two sources pass? We identified 5 potentials in the list above. It would be great to see your rational if you have the time, this is a complex case. --
talk) 15:24, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
It can never be a good article because it is a made-up term that is inaccurate/offensive to the academic community in question (Japanese literary scholars) and is only (will only ever be) used by a small number of non-specialists.
talk) 11:48, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
]
  • It is our
    policy that "Texts should be written for everyday readers, not for academics.". Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia and not part of academia. Warden (talk) 14:56, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Texts should be written for everyday readers refers to the Wikipedia text, not the source text! Please read
    talk) 17:18, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply
    ]

(This is elvenscout742 on a new phone. (@@;) )Do you really think that what the tanka in English article needs now is more poorly-sourced/inaccurate/promotional material? There is nothing discussed in this article that deserves inclusion in Wikipedia, in its own article or not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.249.241.103 (talk) 07:06, 13 October 2012 (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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