The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. ✗plicit 01:56, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yan Li[edit]

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

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Does not appear to meet WP:GNG: the only independent coverage in the provided sources is a review of the subject's 2009 book, Lily in the Snow that does not provide much biographical information about the subject. Searching for more coverage in general internet searches, on Google Books, and Google Scholar, I was only able to find coverage about unrelated Yan Li's ([1] [2]).

On the WP:NAUTHOR front, having been a finalist for Amazon.ca First Novel Award does not strike me as being quite enough, and the Confucius Institute at University of Waterloo does not appear to be notable. Thus, I think that restoring the pre-existing redirect to Li Yan is appropriate. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 01:27, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 01:27, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 01:27, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 01:27, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of China-related deletion discussions. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 01:27, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 01:27, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect as per Rosguill's comment, this person does not meet either WP:GNG or WP:NAUTHOR. 01:47, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
• Comment: I don't think being a finalist for this award alone counts (though perhaps it does?), but I do just want to make it clear that this is a prize with money donated by Amazon; it's not a nothing award given by the online retailer for sales figures or something. The first book is definitely notable and I'll add some sources in a minute, not 100% sure about the second and not inclined to rabbithole right now. Redirect is no good - she'd be getting redirected to a dab page and nowhere to go from there. If it turns out she doesn't meet WP:NAUTHOR it should redirect instead to an article on Daughters of the Red Land. -- asilvering (talk) 02:30, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  The reasoning for the redirect is that Yan Li is a plausible or equally-valid alternate spelling for most of the entries at Li Yan. If a redirect about this subject is necessary, it can be made as Yan Li (novelist) or an equivalent. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 03:00, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Article creator here. Nominated for an independent prize, author of several novels that received reviews in independent publications and appear in academic monographs and thesis in literary studies. Searches poor-quality because name is common; looking into Canadian or Chinese sources shows plenty of sources Sheijiashaojun (talk) 03:43, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

：　if you want to convince yourself of Chinese sources: http://www.baidu.com/s?ie=utf-8&f=8&rsv_bp=1&rsv_idx=1&tn=baidu&wd=%E6%9D%8E%E5%BD%A5%E3%80%80%E5%8A%A0%E6%8B%BF%E5%A4%A7&fenlei=256&oq=%25E6%259D%258E%25E5%25BD%25A5&rsv_pq=b1ddaf570003b3dd&rsv_t=b2acJs0hq%2BnQe23Hu7ROfIMBS2vRibyPLjY0GoOUtzFBI3uj6zmdFDEjfNY&rqlang=cn&rsv_enter=1&rsv_dl=tb&rsv_btype=t&inputT=2717&rsv_sug3=22&rsv_sug1=11&rsv_sug7=100&rsv_sug2=0&rsv_sug4=4033

• Keep In addition to the extensive Chinese sources listed above, the final reference in the article is to the 1996 review of a different book, which the AFD nomination seems to ignore. But there's more - what about the extensive and detailed 1998 Ottawa Citizen article about Li? This nomination fails WP:BEFORE - see ProQuest 240171767. Nfitz (talk) 06:21, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The AfD nomination "ignores" the final reference in the article because it wasn't there at the time. -- asilvering (talk) 06:42, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fine with this being kept on WP:HEY grounds at this point, although I find it a bit amusing that I'm accused of not doing WP:BEFORE when I detailed the exact steps I took for a WP:BEFORE in the nomination statement. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 15:35, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah. Nowhere in WP:BEFORE does it say "make sure you check proquest newspaper databases". -- asilvering (talk) 18:46, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I can't imagine why one wouldn't check Proquest before though - perhaps time to revise Before? On that thought, I've just created WT:AFD#Is it time to amend BEFORE? Nfitz (talk) 20:03, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

To be fair, not everybody has ProQuest access to check ProQuest. People can only do any BEFORE in resources that they have access to. And yes, ProQuest access can be gained through Wikipedia too, but first one has to know that — so perhaps the most appropriate update to WP:BEFORE would be to add a link to The Wikipedia Library, because it offers some really excellent additional research resources. Bearcat (talk) 20:14, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Only those with less than 6 months or 500 edits don't have access to Proquest - so that's not a big barrier (that they can likely ignore if necessary). Nfitz (talk) 20:31, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well, sure, but that's where the "you have to know that the option exists in the first place before you can use it" part comes in. Anyway, I've added a bullet point to WP:BEFORE to encourage the use of The Wikipedia Library. Bearcat (talk) 21:21, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Also, just saying, it's six months and 500 edits, not one or the other. It's an insurmountably high barrier to all IP editors and anyone with an account younger than six months old. -- asilvering (talk) 23:50, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Do we really want newbs creating AFDs? Also, not a barrier, nothing would preclude doing one anyway. Still pointing to it rather than mandating it may be best solution. We should probably be talking about this at the Talk on that page. Nfitz (talk) 03:10, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Searching for the author is difficult as her name is so common, but searching for her book titles shows that her novels have been discussed in scholarly books and journals, so she passes WP:NAUTHOR#3 as the creator of a significant body of work. pburka (talk) 18:25, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. There was a problem with the sourcing at first — I even tagged the article for primary sources and explained to the creator on their talk page what was actually required — but the creator clearly listened to my advice, because the sourcing has been improved. The Amazon.ca First Novel Award is certainly a significant enough literary award to count for something, as well: it obviously isn't so highly meganotable that the mere existence of a nomination would "inherently" exempt a person from having to have any quality sources, but it's enough for an article that can be sourced properly, and the sourcing is already considerably better than it was when I discussed it with the creator last night. (Also, incidentally, Amazon wasn't even the corporate sponsor of the award yet at the time Yan Li got her nomination for it — so you really have to be careful to keep your feelings about Amazon as an entity out this, because it was the Chapters First Novel Award in 1996 and Amazon didn't take it over until more than a decade later.) We can discuss whether the page should be moved to a disambiguated title very separately from having to delete it, by the way. Bearcat (talk) 20:04, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Looking at the page history, it seems that it was asilvering who deserves the credit for finding the additional sources. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 20:06, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Fair enough, although the creator has been directly involved too. Bearcat (talk) 20:08, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment I appreciate everyone's interest and work. It might just be worth urging caution on nominating deletion re: Chinese people/names if you can't read Chinese because a) most sources will be in Chinese and b) pinyin ambiguity will get many names drowned in similar search results. It's different than Roman alphabet. Unlike French or Indonesian, say, a search in English just won't pull from Chinese-language sources. Bearcat's tag and explanation were very constructive, and thanks to them. Sheijiashaojun (talk) 20:19, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Thanks Pburka for finding another review for Lily in the Snow. I was reluctant to try to build a keep case out of the one definitely notable book, the award shortlist, and her relationship to the plagiarism controversy, since that could easily head towards WP:UNDUE territory; but now it looks like it's a more comfortable WP:NAUTHOR pass. I also really get the sense that there is more in Chinese-language or maybe China-based journals that aren't turning up in my simple database checks. Someone interested in digging for more might go through the bibliography on that PhD thesis. -- asilvering (talk) 22:26, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agreed. She's written several other books in Chinese that aren't even mentioned currently. pburka (talk) 03:28, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep and hope that someone who reads Chinese can expand from the info and sources in the zh.wiki article. PamD 08:45, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per above. VocalIndia (talk) 09:14, 15 February 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.