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The result was KEEP, nomination withdrawn (non-admin closure). Whpq (talk) 17:33, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Women in Shakespeare (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

I have no doubt this is a notable topic. However, it's also a high school paper in its present form, not an encyclopedia article. It's been sitting around now for the better part of a year, and does us no credit. When someone's ready to start anew, great, but for now, let's get rid of this essay, which no amount of editing will really "improve" into a fully-developed article. Biruitorul ^Talk 03:07, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Improvements have been made (mainly by reducing what was there), so I withdraw this nomination. Thank you to those who did the work, and my apologies if anyone's time was wasted. - Biruitorul ^Talk 19:27, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Delete as an OR essay. Can be recreated if now based on scholarship. JJL (talk) 04:14, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per WP:NOT#OR. It's clear that the commenters in the previous AfD were entirely too sanguine; this cannot stand in its current form, and no one's seen fit to do anything about it in the seven months since then. Deor (talk) 04:27, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Withdrawing my "delete" recommendation in the light of Drmies's rewrite. I will, however, never understand how turning a manifestly unsuitable article into a Ship of Theseus is preferable to just nuking it and starting over. I still think that this is an intractable topic for an encyclopedia, so I'm neutral now. Deor (talk) 23:54, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak keep--Well, Deor, if you had told me about it, I could have tried! Call me next time. Seriously, this is a tough call since this is an incredibly notable topic, and this was an incredibly poor article. (Not a passing grade in my class either.) Books? Comic Women, Tragic Men: A Study of Gender and Race in Shakespeare by Linda Bamber, Rhetoric, Women, and Politics in Early Modern England by Jennifer Richards and Alison Thorne, Shakespeare and Women by Phyllis Rackin...there is plenty there. I don't think we should delete this, and I've made some cuts to the essay. Drmies (talk) 05:08, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If I'd known about the article before today, I'd certainly have told you, Drmies. :-) But where does one draw the line? This topic could be, and no doubt has been, the subject of multiple entire books, each with a different take on it. I'd like to see a suggestion of how it could be treated in an encyclopedic fashion without distorting or synthesizing the sources; simply rewriting a personal essay in a way that citations can be slapped on it does not make it an encyclopedia article. There are some topics that lend themselves to neutral and concise treatment in an encyclopedia and others that are so broad that only a comprehensive bibliography of relevant books and articles can point readers in the right direction. I fear this is one of the latter. Your cuts have eliminated some OR but have not solved the problem—-it's still as far from an informative article as it was. Deor (talk) 06:17, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, min Deor, I absolutely agree with you. It's still crap! But it's less crappy, and perhaps the cutting of crap is more inviting to editors to get to work on it. I think an article such as this should do two things: make some general statements about female characters in Shakespears (BTW, I don't think this is unproblematic--that sophomore essay didn't mention the sonnets) and perhaps their status (admittedly a tricky thing), and give an overview of some of the modern investigations of the topic. I have no doubt that it can be done, though I don't know if I can do it: I'm more of an Old English guy, and Sh. is a bit newfangled. ;) Drmies (talk) 15:51, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. -- — LinguistAtLarge • Talk  05:29, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Subject is notable as nom's statement "I have no doubt this is a notable topic" indicates. ChildofMidnight (talk) 05:30, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep as a notable topic and per WP:TIND. Those who object to certain content within the article should feel free to stubbify it. Jclemens (talk) 06:49, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Has been rescued to a somewhat respectable form by recent edits. Gigs (talk) 09:07, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep No need to even nominate clearly notable topics when all that is needed is rewriting. Collect (talk) 11:39, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep The subject has great potential, which the nominator acknowledges. Problematic writing can be fixed in the editing process. Pastor Theo (talk) 12:36, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep as per nominator who admits it is a notable topic. Cleanup and improvement is a seperate issue. Edward321 (talk) 14:41, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - subject is notable per nom's admission and various published works on the subject of Shakespeare and Women Gbooks search 15k results. The article needs cleanup and attention from an expert. — LinguistAtLarge • Talk  15:56, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - yes, I "admit" (if we have to use that term, as if I'm on trial) the subject is notable. That's not the point. The point is that the article, in its current form, can neither be improved by editing, nor by reducing what is there to stub size. It requires starting anew. If someone wants to start literally from scratch, fine; but equally valid an option is deletion and starting over when the appropriate materials are found. - Biruitorul ^Talk 18:29, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment--well, the current article is really a stub. I can easily delete what was left of the original text and make it even stubbier, throw in a generic sentence and a book title, and that'll be a keeper then. If that's what you need, sure, but it strikes me as much ado about nothing, since there is clearly a consensus to keep. I took the liberty of creating Category:Female characters in Shakespeare (I hope I'm not duplicating anything--I looked for such an existing category and couldn't find anything) and of wikilinking all the names on that list that have articles. You'll note that all the delete votes were cast when the article was an utter mess; perhaps they'd feel differently now. Drmies (talk) 18:57, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    •  Done
      • Caution: symbolic penis alert! OK, as I was typing a quote into the stub, I realized just to which extent the male critic of female personae wields his mighty phallus (borrowing Shakespeare's "magic wand") as he (re)opens them for his perusal: "The poet's magic wand has laid open the depths of woman's nature." There you have it, ladies. Shakespeare has laid you open, and every man can gawk to his heart's content. Drmies (talk) 19:42, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • On that theme, should we not perhaps rename? Anne Hathaway was the only (recorded) woman in Shakespeare (or, rather, he was in her); the article refers to a rather different set of women. - Biruitorul ^Talk 21:20, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Maybe so. The title his this to recommend it--it's short and sweet. Any more correct title that I can come up with is long and unwieldy: Female characters in Shakespeare's ...what? Perhaps leaving the Dark Lady out and retitling the article "Female characters in Shakespeare's drama" is the way to go. BTW, Biruitorul, my phallic note is of course strictly symbolic ("the phallus is not a penis"), and I most strongly object to your insertion of graphic terminology into this soft, fertile subject matter. Drmies (talk) 21:37, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Sources are present. in the current version. There is no article that cannot be improved by editing. There may possibly be article not worth improving, or that need an almost total rewrite to improve, but that does not apply to the present version, nor did it apply to earlier ones, since they were in fact improved to the present one. DGG (talk) 19:37, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Speedy keep per WP:SNOW as previous AFD closed as keep and as nominator here has also withdrawn the nomination. Anyway, an obviously notable and verifiable and encyclopedic topic concerning depiction of characters in one of the all-time most significant playwright's plays, many of which have also been adapted into films. And yes, even print encyclopedias specifically discuss the topic of how Shakespeare depicted women (see for example here). What's good for actual print encyclopedias is surely good for paperless ones. Sure article can be improved, but so can pretty much everything. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 19:57, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. —A Nobody^{My talk} 20:00, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletion discussions. —A Nobody^{My talk} 20:01, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep with cleanup - Notability shown, just needs the OR cleaned up, but not a reason to delete. --MASEM (t) 20:12, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep and build a WP:SNOWman. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 10:23, 4 May 2009 (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.