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. The article has been rewritten during the AfD to treat the topic from an out-of-universe perspective, and as a result the discussion has been trending towards keeping it. Sandstein 09:04, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Duke of Denver[edit]

Duke of Denver (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Non-notable fictional title. Avilich (talk) 01:48, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Avilich (talk) 01:48, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep or rename to Gerald Christian Wimsey, 16th Duke of Denver. The Scott-Giles book clearly constitutes significant coverage in a reliable source, so we are looking for a second source. There are lots of results in Google Scholar, but most are for the 16th Duke himself, rather than the title. But Gerald Christian Wimsey, 16th Duke of Denver actually redirects to this article, even though the character is clearly notable in his own right, per the scholarly coverage. StAnselm (talk) 02:27, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't see how a spoof history of a fictional family constitues significant coverage of a fictional title. Avilich (talk) 02:58, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • It looks like Harper-Collins actually published it in dead tree form, so, yeah, that counts by default. I'd never really looked into Sayers before, but the amount of academic commentary on her fiction appears to rival those authors I know better--per StAnselm, I don't see a quick way to sift through all the Google Scholar references to see if there's enough, but a first pass review sure looks like there ought to be. Jclemens (talk) 08:01, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      • Another work of fiction isn't valid significant coverage, and Google hits isn't an argument either. Avilich (talk) 14:21, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• One could probably write a good article, possibly framed around Sayers' aristocracy as a whole with literary analysis relating it to the real world rather than an in-universe portrayal of a fictional Dukedom, without reading the books at all.
  • Sandberg, Eric (2022). "Duke's Denver". In Foxwell, Elizabeth (ed.). Dorothy L. Sayers: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction. McFarland Companions to Mystery Fiction. Vol. 11. McFarland. ISBN 9781476645308.
  • Sandberg, Eric (2022). "Wimsey, Gerald (Duke of Denver)". In Foxwell, Elizabeth (ed.). Dorothy L. Sayers: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction. McFarland Companions to Mystery Fiction. Vol. 11. McFarland. ISBN 9781476645308.
  • Sandberg, Eric (2022). "Aristocracy". In Foxwell, Elizabeth (ed.). Dorothy L. Sayers: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction. McFarland Companions to Mystery Fiction. Vol. 11. McFarland. ISBN 9781476645308.
  • Kuhn McGregor, Robert; Lewis, Ethan (2000). "Lord Peter Begins a Career". Conundrums for the Long Week-end: England, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Lord Peter Wimsey. Kent State University Press. pp. 24 et seq. ISBN 9780873386654.
  • Brown, Janice (1998). "All Have Sinned: The Competent Delineation of Character in the Early Novels". The Seven Deadly Sins in the Work of Dorothy L. Sayers. Kent State University Press. pp. 60–61. ISBN 9780873386050.
  • Lewis, Terrance L. (1994). Dorothy L. Sayers' Wimsey and Interwar British Society. E. Mellen Press. ISBN 9780773491021.
  • …
• Uncle G (talk) 08:53, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Which of these sources constitute real-world coverage of the title itself? Avilich (talk) 14:21, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Please see the word "rather". Uncle G (talk) 20:08, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      • If there is no real-world coverage of the title, but "rather" of something else, what is even the point of all this? You could just as well drop this refbomb in some appropriate talk page where editors that are actually interested can look it up. Avilich (talk) 20:37, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
        • The point is clearly stated. I encourage you to read it again. Only you and the article's creator seem to think that real-world coverage of a title is the way to write about this stuff, when the Duke of Denver is actually a character in a book, so the fact that one cannot meet this arbitrary bar that only you think is the way to write in the first place is not really relevant to what I said and what the sources show. Uncle G (talk) 01:50, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
          • I don't care how you think Sayers and her aristocracy should be written about, the article is very clearly about a fictional title and a listing of its fictional holders, and it's not up to standards. You just cited a bunch of sources that don't discuss the real-world significance of the title "Duke of Denver", and so have zero relevance here. Again, you can either post this in some wikiproject or talk page where interested editors can actually look this up and do some productive stuff with it, or you can keep wasting your time here. Avilich (talk) 02:39, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
            • Actually, I cited sources that are about the Duke of Denver character, one of which exceptionally clearly so as it has it in the very title of the source. You seem to be not reading quite a lot, from what I wrote to the titles of the citations, let alone the sources cited. Uncle G (talk) 16:36, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• This is a very weird one. I'm plumping for weak keep. The problem for keeping is (1) the current article is almost entirely "in universe", and (2) because Sayers and Scott-Giles communicated about the Wimsey dynasty, they are joint creators and the Scott-Giles book is therefore a primary, not a secondary source. But Uncle G is as usual right about the academic side of this: Sayers is an enormously important figure in English literature, and this is an important part of her contribution, so there's no question an article can exist. I don't think redirecting to Sayers' own article is a good option because too much Wimsey-genealogy would unbalance it, and because a redirect wouldn't give due weight to Scott-Giles. But were it not for Sayers' huge stature, and what her writings say about society, and how they are written about (see Uncle G's suggestions above), I'd be sceptical about keeping a load of fiction. I would like to see the article say more about the meaning of this fictional dynasty, and quote more secondary sources, rather than merely reproduce a fictional family tree - which is probably inappropriate for WP. As it is, Sayers is widely-read, and I think it reasonable that our readers might want to know more about the wider significance of her creation of the Duke of Denver, which spans more than one (notable) book. Elemimele (talk) 12:57, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • There's an awful lot of secondary sourcing on Sayers. After I'd found and picked out the aforementioned myself, I found the Dorothy L. Sayers entry in Janik, Janik & Nelson 2002 which has a "secondary sources" section that's about 5 times as long as my list. Then there's stuff like McGlynn 2019, which we have as further reading in Dorothy L. Sayers and which is all about Sayers's portrayal of the aristocracy.

    Per Special:Diff/62599765 the article's creator modelled it on real universe peerages, which was the wrong approach, because obviously it isn't real. Whereas Colin Watson's statement that Sayers portrayed the aristocracy sycophantically, which others have counterargued, gets not a mention. There's all sorts of things that one could say, such as the assumption by the Duke of Denver of almost a droit du seigneur, which presenting fiction as fact will not, and does not, say. Uncle G (talk) 20:08, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    • Janik, Vicki K.; Janik, Del Ivan; Nelson, Emmanuel Sampath, eds. (2002). "Dorothy L. Sayers". Modern British Women Writers: An A-to-Z Guide. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 9780313310300.
    • McGlynn, Mary (Fall 2019). Foxwell, Elizabeth (ed.). "Parma violets and pince-nez: Dorothy L. Sayers's meritocracy". Clues: A Journal of Detection. 37 (2). McFarland. ISBN 9781476637532.
• Delete per WP:TNT. There may be something notable to be written here, but there is nothing salvageable from the current mess. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:32, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 08:04, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• delete - in-universe refs, no evidence of notability. Loew Galitz (talk) 08:35, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. There are no useful references, the pedigree section is wholly unsourced and is is written in an inapropriate in-universe style, and once all that has been removed nothing useful remains. The text should be deleted and the title should become a redirect to Dorothy L. Sayers for now. If anyone is able to to dig through the sources mentioned above and draft something reasonable, a new article could be created at that time. MichaelMaggs (talk) 13:31, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually, there is a kernel of useful content there. If I were going to zap this and start again, I'd keep the section on the actual book character, which is easily sourceable to Sandberg 2022 harvnb error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFSandberg2022 (help). And I'd probably keep a mention of Scott-Giles, although I'd discard everything from Scott-Giles. In fact, let me give that a go. Uncle G (talk) 16:36, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Info: Out of interest, I checked the Scott-Giles book at the British Library some time ago, as I wondered whether the pedigree was a copyright infringement lifted straight from it. It wasn't, but that does raise the question of exactly which sources were used to create the pedigree, and whether the fictional information given will ever be checkable. MichaelMaggs (talk) 13:31, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• There you go. Uncle G (talk) 18:49, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well done! Perhaps some of the delete !voters would like to reconsider per WP:HEY. StAnselm (talk) 19:34, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Piotrus, MichaelMaggs, and Loew Galitz: The article has been rewritten by Uncle G and your evaluation in light of the rewrite is requested. --JBL (talk) 21:57, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Changing to keep. Thanks for the ping. That's a far, far better article, and I'm happy now to change my !vote to keep. MichaelMaggs (talk) 22:01, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @Uncle G:, you haven't !voted yet. MichaelMaggs (talk) 22:31, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @MichaelMaggs But the article is a possible forkish mess. It is now covering two characters, one has his own article Lord Peter Wimsey, the other does not but we do have articles on books he appears in (Whose Body?). Note that the current article has content that is relevant to the books/series but not to the characters or the concept of the Duke of Denver ex. the section on the Wimsey Papers, second phalf of the 'In Sayers's works' section which contains paragraphs on portrayal of aristocracy in the series, most of the collaboration section, th eother section which talks about 'fictional genealogies'. Considering the existence of the Template:Lord Peter Wimsey which implies we are dealing with the "Lord Peter Wimsey series", having looked into this in more detail, I think this article (Duke of Denver) needs to be merged to the Lord Peter Wimsey, which likely needs to be tweaked to be an article about the book series. On a side note, I am concerned whether the articles other characters from the series are notable as well. Some might, but some may need merger too. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:05, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  It's not perfect, but an article with this title or something like it does seem the best place for a discussion of Sayers' collaboration with Scott-Giles. I would (now) keep the article, but wouldn't be adverse to it being renamed if necessary. MichaelMaggs (talk) 11:03, 21 March 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.