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 no consensus. Lots of discussion here but the only area of consensus I see is that this article could stand a few good editors trimming it down and working on the sources. Please don't take this No Consensus as an invitation to launch a 2nd AFD soon, this discussion has been relisted twice and I doubt there will be a different outcome in the near future. I think editors need to be encouraged to pay attention to the constructive criticism here and work on improving this article. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:35, 6 December 2022 (UTC) reply

Sexton Blake bibliography

Sexton Blake bibliography (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log | edits since nomination)

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Simply a list of books with no indication of importance, see WP:NOTDIRECTORY FishandChipper 🐟 🍟 13:41, 22 November 2022 (UTC) reply

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Fictional elements, Bibliographies, and Comics and animation. Storchy ( talk) 13:43, 22 November 2022 (UTC) reply

Interesting point, that may be true for Holmes and Poirot but most of the books on the Hardy Boys' page are not linked to anything.

/info/en/?search=List_of_Hardy_Boys_books

The Sexton Blake Bibliography builds on the information provided on the Sexton Blake page.

/info/en/?search=Sexton_Blake

It expands on the Publication History section of that entry.

It also has ties to Jack Trevor Story, John G. Brandon, Michael Moorcock, Maxwell Scott, Harry Blyth, William Murray Graydon and others who contributed to the Blake saga. Sexton Blake was the most popular detective of the first half of the twentieth century.

A Blake charcter is also listed here.

/info/en/?search=Monsieur_Zenith

It also has links to several of the key boys' storypapers on Wikipedia.

/info/en/?search=Union_Jack_(magazine)

/info/en/?search=Funny_Wonder

/info/en/?search=The_Boys%27_Herald

/info/en/?search=The_Boys%27_Friend

/info/en/?search=The_Nelson_Lee_Library

/info/en/?search=The_Sexton_Blake_Library

This is the most complete list of Blake titles anywhere. Nml25 ( talk) 14:21, 22 November 2022 (UTC) reply

This is not a discussion about the article Sexton Blake this is a discussion about article Sexton Blake bibliography. I don't care about those other aricles as they only serve to promote the existance of Sexton Blake, which is fine as far as I can tell. You also say that "This is the most complete list of Blake titles anywhere." so you clearly need to brush up on WP:NOTDIRECTORY. FishandChipper 🐟 🍟 14:26, 22 November 2022 (UTC) reply

Yes you are correct; there is no indication of importance.

I do not know how to write anything for wiki, but Sexton Blake stories were popular worldwide in the early 1900s. They were distributed worldwide. They were entertaining and educating---I know because I have researched and republished nearly 200 of these stories. (See Lulu.Com and search for " Teed") (G. H. Teed)

'Collectors' Digest' was a magazine by UK magazine enthusiasts. It was in circulation for a couple of decades, circ 1960s. There are probably more than a handful of articles on Sexton Blake (and Teed) and his 'history'. I believe if we can have one Baker Street detective, then we can have a second!

Please remember Blakes history/popularity, predates radio and television. The popularity of these magazines at the time was enormous. I know that Teed authored stories were translated into a number of languages. Frizzled ( talk) 14:36, 22 November 2022 (UTC) reply

Again this is not a discussion about Sexton Blake, this is a discussion about the article Sexton Blake bibliography. FishandChipper 🐟 🍟 14:38, 22 November 2022 (UTC) reply

It's also extremely suspicious for you to come out of a 4 year long hiatus to randomly comment in defence of this article. FishandChipper 🐟 🍟 14:39, 22 November 2022 (UTC) reply

Let me know if these changes are what you are looking for Nml25 ( talk) 07:14, 23 November 2022 (UTC) reply

You've just added a discription without giving any indication of notability. It's not at all what I was looking for FishandChipper 🐟 🍟 07:55, 23 November 2022 (UTC) reply

The descriptions are of milestones in the detective's career. They are notable in the development of the charcaters reputation. The addition of Tinker in 1904 helped established the boy sidekick as a key feature in detetctive tales in the boy story papers. The creation of recurring super villains in 1913 brought in the age of master criminals which subsequently influenced super villains in the comic book industry. Nml25 ( talk) 10:10, 23 November 2022 (UTC) reply

I don't think you understand. Notoriety is made by citations and references. You just writing stuff doesn't mean squat if there's no sources to back it up. FishandChipper 🐟 🍟 11:33, 23 November 2022 (UTC) reply

Looking at the NOTDIRECTORY, I think you have cited the incorrect Wikipedia guidance. Bibliographies and Lists of Works are another matter.

There is nothing on notability in Lists of works article on wikipedia.

/info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lists_of_works#Bibliographies

Basic list style – examples

Lists of published works should be included for authors, illustrators, photographers and other artists. The individual items in the list do not have to be sufficiently notable to merit their own separate articles. Complete lists of works, appropriately sourced to reliable scholarship (WP:V), are encouraged....

Wikipedia also encourages list of works for fictional characters.

Tarzan for example. All of the adventures he starred in are listed on his page. Each entry is linked to an article. (not required by Wikipedia) Tarzan's notability is explained in the main Tarzan article

If you look at the entry for the individual work, entries are often very basic.

/info/en/?search=Tarzan_the_Invincible

For Tarzan the Invincible.

Plot sumary, publciation date, turned into a comic book.

It seems to me the easiest thing to do is to append the full bibliography to the Sexton Blake page. This meets Wikipedia's aims that "Complete lists of works, appropriately sourced to reliable scholarship (WP:V), are encouraged"

The fact that Blake appeared in 4000 tales would make the Sexton Blake entry rather long, that is why I created a unique page for the Sexton Blake bibliography.

The fact that Blake appeared in 4000 tales is notable in its own right as no other detective has reached or surpassed that number of appearances in works of fiction.

I understand your argument, but I think it misrepresents wikipedia policy. Lets bring in some of your colleagues and get their opinion. Nml25 ( talk) 13:31, 23 November 2022 (UTC) reply

It is not my habit or hobby to write Wiki articles. I am retired and follow a number of activities which draw me to Wiki for research. http://ghteed.blogspot.com/ is a site that has both some of G. H. Teed's stories and some of the articles from 'Collector's' Digest' which support and explain the sequencing of the Sexton Blake stories. Frizzled ( talk) 18:16, 26 November 2022 (UTC) reply

• For what it’s worth, the book The men behind boys' fiction talks about the list of authors of Sexton Blake, which is closely related to the bibliography. Also, the Blakiana website presumably counts as a reliable case of a self-published source, as the author Mark Hodder is recognized as an established subject-matter expert e.g. by this academic source.

The question I ask myself is, what's the quality of our list here compared to that compiled by Mark Hodder? Should we rather refer interested readers to that list or not? Daranios ( talk) 16:11, 23 November 2022 (UTC) reply

• I'm of a mind with Daranios here, I think: this is an interesting topic that should not be lost from memory, but this list seems overly long and detailed. That is, we don't need to know the issue of every story to cover this character/series/phenomenon appropriately... but still, the list looks like a labor of dedication and love. Is there somewhere it can be transwiki'ed? Jclemens ( talk) 18:44, 23 November 2022 (UTC) reply

  As cynical as it may seem, it doesn't really matter how long an article is or how much effort someone put into it, so long as it not encyclopedic it has no place here. It would definatly be much better suited somewhere else, but not here. FishandChipper 🐟 🍟 18:53, 23 November 2022 (UTC) reply

  FishandChipper is quoting the wrong guidance. He should use: /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lists_of_works#Bibliographies

  "Complete lists of works, appropriately sourced to reliable scholarship (WP:V), are encouraged...."

  WP:NOTDIRECTORY does not apply. This is a bibliography related to a character, not a directory of people. Nml25 ( talk) 23:27, 23 November 2022 (UTC) reply

  The MOS is for an AUTHOR's bibliography, not a character's. Either way if you look at any other bibliography you'll see that they don't list every single one individually. For example you have every single issued release of a story listed which is overkill. Besides that your "bibliography" doesn't actually give any additional info beyond title, author and publisher, the latter of which is incredibly redundant as there have only ever been two publishers ever as far as I can see. This article needs to be completley rewritten to adhere to standards so rather than delete the article I will place it into a draft such that the issues may be fixed. FishandChipper 🐟 🍟 06:43, 24 November 2022 (UTC) reply

  Here is the Wikipedia page for all the Star Trek Novels ever published. Why the double standard?

  /info/en/?search=List_of_Star_Trek_novels

  Is the StarTrek page overkill as well? 'Overkill' is relative. You don't know what a researcher is going to research.

  Wikipedia has no limit on the amount of titles that can be included in a bibliography, whether that's of a character or a real person. If

  There is much information to add, links to more authors, debut of key characters etc, but it won't be worth doing if the page is goign to be deleted.

  Plus once the list is complete others can co-construct knowledge and add entries on books, publishers etc as they see fit.

  Just as a note: there were two Blake publishers up until 1964. After that several more publishers began to publish or republish his adventures. Nml25 ( talk) 16:42, 26 November 2022 (UTC) reply

  For the record I also think that that Star Trek article has no place being here either. It's completely non-encyclopedic just like this article. FishandChipper 🐟 🍟 18:01, 26 November 2022 (UTC) reply

• It's a fascinating bibliography, and thank you for your hard work. Have you considered exporting this to Wikidata and using Listeria for a more robust list linked to the WP of this character? I think that's a cool idea compared to a static Wikipedia page. Cheers! Prburley ( talk)
• Comment — This page takes up 866,146 bytes, or almost a full megabyte, on Wikipedia. elijahpepe@wikipedia (he/him) 02:12, 27 November 2022 (UTC) reply

  It's currently by far the largest page on Wikipedia, nearly 200,000 bytes longer than the second longest. FishandChipper 🐟 🍟 08:27, 27 November 2022 (UTC) reply

  There should be some kind of award Nml25 ( talk) 18:12, 27 November 2022 (UTC) reply

  An award for putting strain on the Wikipedia servers? FishandChipper 🐟 🍟 21:17, 27 November 2022 (UTC) reply

  Strain? This is one page of 57 million.

  You still haven't posted your notice to have the List of Star Trek novels deleted.

  /info/en/?search=List_of_Star_Trek_novels

  Once you've done that move to have the List of Doc Savage novels deleted as well.

  /info/en/?search=List_of_Doc_Savage_novels

  Be true to yourself. Live your values. Nml25 ( talk) 09:19, 28 November 2022 (UTC) reply

  The Star Trek novels page is still well sourced and is more than just a bibliography. This page is just a list with nothing else of substance other than a few (unsourced) statements. FishandChipper 🐟 🍟 11:01, 28 November 2022 (UTC) reply

  I have seen more than two publisher, so I think including that is not a waste, but takes up a lot of space. I think the size of the article could be significantly reduced through normal editing by just combining identical entries of authors and publishers following each other. Daranios ( talk) 12:14, 28 November 2022 (UTC) reply

  I agree, listing every single issue of a single story makes no sense. Instead of putting "Part 1, Part 2, Part 3..." just like all the parts as one. Sorting it by year doesn't really make much sense either I think. Rather sort by "era" or arc. FishandChipper 🐟 🍟 12:53, 28 November 2022 (UTC) reply

  @ FishandChipper and Nml25: I was more thinking of combining adjacent cells with identical content like that, but combining serials makes sense, too. Daranios ( talk) 16:06, 30 November 2022 (UTC) reply

  Combining serials is the only correct way to end this. I think. The vast majority of individual books seem to be of little significance but combining every book in a serial into one is ok. I still think they shouldn't be organized by year either. FishandChipper 🐟 🍟 17:03, 30 November 2022 (UTC) reply

  Nice work Darianos. I added some sample notes into the tables you adjusted. Check if the content is easily readable.

  I think the breakdown by year is important. It visually displays the evolving importance of Blake in popular fiction. It also makes it easier to locate books in the various Blake eras.

  1893-1894 Pre Sherlockian

  1895-1912 Sherlockian

  1913-1919 Age of Master Criminals Begin

  1920- late 1930s Golden age

  1940s End of Master Criminal Era

  1950s -1963 The James Bond Blake Nml25 ( talk) 22:21, 30 November 2022 (UTC) reply

  'Unsourced' comments relate to content in the story, that one gets from reading the story. They relate to charcaters, plot points etc. They are not opinion. They are fact. They are blurbs with some notes as is the practice with the list of Doc Savage novels. /info/en/?search=List_of_Doc_Savage_novels

  Combining serials makes sense as I have done for the first decade of Blake publications

  Sorting by year makes sense as this removes the need to type in year of publication for each title. Nml25 ( talk) 15:17, 28 November 2022 (UTC) reply

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:01, 29 November 2022 (UTC) reply

• Delete per WP:NOTDIRECTORY, obvious repository. Summarising his notable appearances, and important differences between them, may be done on the main article; having a dedicated list to every single one is unnecessary.

JJLiu112 ( talk) 21:35, 3 December 2022 (UTC) reply

• @ Nml25:

"1893-1894 Pre Sherlockian

1895-1912 Sherlockian

1913-1919 Age of Master Criminals Begin

1920- late 1930s Golden age

1940s End of Master Criminal Era

1950s -1963 The James Bond Blake"

These are literally a far superior way of organising the books. Look at any other bibliography and they are sorted by era rather than exact year. If somebody were to come along looking for a specific book, it would be a lot easier to find if they were organised like this.

Also, I hate to be rude cause clearly you are a huge fan of Blake, but he's evidentially not as important or well known as you believe he is. Compared to Sherlock Holmes (who gets 150,000 pageviews per month on average), the main Sexton Blake article only gets 1700 pageviews per month on average. FishandChipper 🐟 🍟 04:30, 4 December 2022 (UTC) reply

• Keep But some aspects of this page need to be cited or removed. Statements, like this one under 1904: "This year marks the beginning of what will become one of the greatest detective teams in boys' popular fiction." have to be sourced, as well as headings of this nature: "2009 The Era of Anthologies of Classic Tales Begins". Those smack of original research. Lamona ( talk) 20:19, 4 December 2022 (UTC) reply

  Nearly every single thing on this page cannot be proven to be true due to the fact that there are no citations for practially anything. I believe this should incubate in draftspace before returning as a real article, at the moment the article has far too many issues. FishandChipper 🐟 🍟 04:03, 5 December 2022 (UTC) reply

• Weak keep I think Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists of works can be applied to this fictional character as the closest analogy we have. The men behind boys' fiction could give some insight into the topic. I am somewhat concerned that this page is duplicating THE SEXTON BLAKE BIBLIOGRAPHY by Mark Hodder, but the notes, such as they are, set it apart. As has been stated above, evaluating comments need secondary sources. On the other hand, plot summaries and publication information can be verified through the primary sources. Pinging @ Nml25 and Frizzled: You have argued for the preservation of this article, but not clearly indicated what your opinion is. Maybe you still want to do this? Daranios ( talk) 11:46, 5 December 2022 (UTC) reply

  I would argue that the content is of public value. Hodder's THE SEXTON BLAKE BIBLIOGRAPHY is of course of immense value to Blake fans and researchers. It does however contain a few gaps and author misattributions. It is also in private hands and should the website be taken offline for whatever reason, as has happened in the past, that content will be lost forever. This bibliography does not attempot to duplicate that work. It does not even come close to the detail. Wikipedia is a departure point for inquiry and research, for both academic and non-academic purposes. It is also the first thing that pops up in a google seach of Sexton Blake. The bibliography seeks to be through and piant a more accurate picture of Blake's impact on popular culture. One cannot predict what researchers intend to research. Providing a complete bibliography, with key characters, blurbs, etc may open new avenues of inquiry. There is of course more character information to add, once the final format/headings of the tables is agreed upon. Why does Sexton Blake matter? Can probably be best answered in Boys Will Be Boys: The Story of Sweeney Todd, Deadwood Dick, Sexton Blake ... available on google books... Nml25 ( talk) 14:47, 6 December 2022 (UTC) reply

  It seems like you have the wrong view of what Wikipedia is. Wikipedia is not a repository for lists with blurbs, nor is it a place of debate. It is an encyclopedia. It doesn't create debate, it records debate. FishandChipper 🐟 🍟 16:16, 6 December 2022 (UTC) reply

  People here have been helpful. Lamona and Daranios have offered ideas and constructive criticsm. Prburley made help suggestions and Frizzle also had positive contributions to say. Thanks!

  FishandChipper: Most of your comments are unhelpful, some verge on bullying and others are just stupid.

  FishandChipper quote: "Wikipdia is not a place of debate."

  Interesting comment on a page created to invite comment and debate. What exactly are you talking about?

  FishandChipper quote: Wikipedia is not a repository for lists

  This article is within the scope of WikiProject Bibliographies, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Bibliographies on Wikipedia.

  This article is within the scope of WikiProject Fictional characters, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of fictional characters on Wikipedia.

  The Sexton Blake bibliography is modeled on these bibliographies:

  /info/en/?search=List_of_Star_Trek_novels Actually called "List of Star Trek Novels" FishandChipper still hasn't posted his notice to have the List of Star Trek novels deleted.

  /info/en/?search=List_of_Doc_Savage_novels Actually called "List of Doc Savage novels" FishandChipper still hasn't posted his notice to have the List of Doc Savage novels deleted.

  The Blake page is longer, much longer, and it's complete, just like the Star Trek page, just like the Doc Savage page.

  And I've tried to keep to simple facts.

  FishandChipper quote: The article puts "strain on the Wikipedia servers?" One article among 57,000,000 slowed the servers down to a chug did it?

  FishandChipper quote: "The main Sexton Blake article only gets 1700 page views a month" The highly referenced page you created on Saoirse McHugh has a lifetime total (3 years) of 12,238 views, which is what Blake does in ten months. I'm not quite sure what your point is... a topic is only of value on Wikipedia if you've heard of it?

  It doesn't seem to me like FishandChipper has final say on whether or not the article gets deleted. Too much of what he's written has been justifiably ignored. Maybe someone could clarify that for me. He also comes across as incredibly angry, far too angry for someone who should be impartially evaluating content. Dude, seriously.

  Sexton Blake still makes the papers from time to time. Here's a recent mention in the Washington Post dated Nov 2022. https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/18/dirda-old-books/ Nml25 ( talk) 17:50, 6 December 2022 (UTC) reply

• Comment This article, the underlying Sexton Blake article, and the individual articles need to be better referenced. I added some links to Google Books sources on the talk page of the Sexton Blake article. Nml25, I think you should concentrate on adding references ASAP to protect the articles here. I did add a few references to the Blake and the bibliography articles, but I'm far outside my wheelhouse with this topic. Also, do look in various encyclopedias of literature/children's literature/film as inclusion in those can support notability and may be sources of specific facts like dates. Lamona ( talk) 17:03, 6 December 2022 (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.