Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Distributed republic

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 Snow Crash#Distributed republics. Editors may merge content from history. Except for Newimpartial, all agree that this should be covered in the context of Snow Crash, if at all. Sandstein 21:31, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Distributed republic

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

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

It seems to be a concept used in a single science-fiction book, I don't see how it deserves a separate article on Wikipedia, considering there isn't even much written here about it. BeŻet (talk) 14:44, 31 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science fiction and fantasy-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 15:08, 31 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 15:08, 31 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - discussed in reliable, independent secondary sources cited in the article. Meets WP:GNG. Newimpartial (talk) 15:56, 31 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see it being mentioned though in Neo-Victorianism and the Memory of Empire. Don't have access to the other one. BeŻet (talk) 19:14, 31 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know why you say that. It's there. Newimpartial (talk) 22:01, 31 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Tattooed Girl: The Enigma of Stieg Larsson and the Secrets Behind the Most Compelling Thrillers of Our Time says In Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, the concept of a "distributed republic" is introduced; it means a "nation" where citizens and physical assets are scattered around the globe, often changing, in many loosely connected anarchist communities. The concept is adapted, and acknowledged, in the online, anarchist "Hacker Republic" in the Millennium novels, where Lisbeth Salander is a "citizen".

The only search result for "distributed republic" I got in Neo-Victorianism and the Memory of Empire was America is conspicuously absent in the novel, recalled only in the hegemonic presence of "Neo-Victorian" culture, code for the technologically and culturally dominant "New Atlantis" tribe or "phyle" (ibid., p.33) that co-exists among others like the dominant Nipponese and Hindustanis but also the "Ashantis, Kurds, Armenians, Navajos, Tibetans, Senderos, Mormons, Jesuits, Lapps, Pathans, Tutsis, the First Distributed Republic and its innumerable offshoots, Heartlanders, Irish, and one or two local CryptNet cells" (ibid., p490)., but that was on page 132–133 (https://books.google.com/books?id=d2Xv0n40fE0C&pg=PT133), not on the indicated page 124. TompaDompa (talk) 00:25, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Newimpartial: as TompaDompa pointed out, it's not there. And it's just briefly mentioned in The Tattooed Girl. Doesn't seem notable to me. BeŻet (talk) 11:37, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

When a reference is on another page, that isn't what most of us mean by "not there". And the Tatooed Girl reference meets SIGCOV in this context, since it provides a definition usable in this article. The concept is also discussed in The Routledge Handbook of Anarchy and Anarchist Thought and some peer-reviewed articles, so I'm not really worried about the sourcing. Newimpartial (talk) 13:44, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What peer-reviewed articles? BeŻet (talk) 18:06, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

E.g., [1], [2]. Newimpartial (talk) 18:23, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

But are these sources discussing the "distributed republic", or other aspects of the book? If it is the latter, then they don't support notability of the subject. BeŻet (talk) 18:26, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Newimpartial, I've looked at those sources. Distributed Information: Complexity Theory in the Novels of Neal Stephenson and Linda Nagata contains the collocation "distributed republic" precisely once, in the sentence In fact The Diamond Age is chock full of distributed systems: not only the global communications media Net but organizations like CryptNet and the "gestalt society" of the Drummers, the peasant society of Chinese rice-farmers, the First Distributed Republic that springs up in the West of Carl Hollywood's grandfather, and Dramatis Personae, the autonomously intelligent play of performer/spectators. Remediated Readers: Gender and Literacy in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age contains the collocation "distributed republic" precisely zero times. I want you to explain how you think these sources demonstrate notability for the topic of distributed republics. TompaDompa (talk) 18:37, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for looking at those article sources. While they may not grant Notability for the topic outside the novel, but the book-length sources do meet WP:SIGCOV and therefore WP:GNG. Newimpartial (talk) 18:43, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

But the "book-length sources" _do not_ talk about the concept of the "distributed republic", they just mention it in passing. I'm yet to see a source that talks about it in more detail at all. BeŻet (talk) 13:20, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Tatooed Girl is not what policy considers a passing mention, and neither is the Routledge Handbook. In both cases, there is ample information that can be used to source the article, beyond a mere mention. Newimpartial (talk) 14:13, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please show examples of what you mean. BeŻet (talk) 14:50, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, what The Routledge Handbook of Anarchy and Anarchist Thought says is In both Snow Crash and his later book, Diamond Age, Stephenson describes distributed republics—fluid governments that range across the world, occupying many various places at various times and following wherever their citizen-customers go. He presents these as for-profit enterprises, such as Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong franchise, or as shattered remnants of former nation-states, such as the leftover bits of the former United States, now known as Fedland. Stephenson portrays the former as tough but fair and, perhaps more important, good value for the crypto-buck. He depicts the latter as a pathetically shrunken relic, psychotically obsessed with false order. TompaDompa (talk) 14:57, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That to me is a passing mention. Had there been whole chapters about the whole concept itself, that would be different. BeŻet (talk) 15:00, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You can believe what you like, but there isn't anything in WP policy supporting your opinion. No topic requires whole chapters to establish Notability. Newimpartial (talk) 15:16, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Likewise WP policy does not say that a brief, unsubstantial mentioning of a phrase in a source is enough to make something notable - see WP:SIGCOV. WP:NOTABILITY is established via consensus following guidelines, so you can't really frame the discussion as "case closed". I'd also look at the "Presumed" clause: means that significant coverage in reliable sources creates an assumption, not a guarantee, that a subject merits its own article. A more in-depth discussion might conclude that the topic actually should not have a stand-alone article—perhaps because it violates what Wikipedia is not, particularly the rule that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Not only I am trying to dispute that there is significant coverage of the topic, but also trying to argue that the topic does not deserve a separate article. The coverage you are mentioning seems to me to only present superficial descriptions of the concept, and does not go any further (based on the fragments that TompaDompa kindly shared). BeŻet (talk) 22:28, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The question Notability is meant to answer is, do we have sourcing for a separate article? Descriptions of the concept, even if you find them superdicial, absolutely suffice as article sources. Also, you have not made any argument that WP:NOT applies here, which is the only example given in the "presumed" clause for why a GNG pass should not result in an article being retained. Newimpartial (talk) 16:40, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete or redirect to Snow Crash. There appears to be nothing beyond trivial coverage on the topic itself. The above sources seem to use it to very briefly define its context in relation to discussion on the books. If those sources aren't present in the novel articles, they should probably be added there. TTN (talk) 20:21, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 08:36, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The above delsort was applied due to the article being purely WP:INUNIVERSE and falsely claiming that this is a widespread concept. A {{fiction}} tag from November 2010 was removed without explanation or improvement in October 2017. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 08:38, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Merge Even with the limited sourcing above, per WP:NOPAGE this should be discussed in the main article topic as a fictional element of that. Reywas92^Talk 14:53, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to Snow Crash#Distributed republics. There wasn't (and isn't) really anything to merge since the content at distributed republic matches the contents of the cited sources poorly, but I have at any rate added a brief description based on the sources I've quoted above and an additional one I found to my proposed redirect target. All coverage of the topic I have found has related to Stephenson's books Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, and I wouldn't call any of it WP:Significant coverage—the topic is hardly discussed, merely described. Based on the sources uncovered so far, I don't see a case for a stand-alone article at all. TompaDompa (talk) 15:32, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Just so that we are clear, there is no reason that a topic must be discussed, rather than described, to have a standone article. That isn't the way WP:N (or WP:SIGCOV) works. Also, the fact that this article's topic is discussed in relation to two different novels is actually a sleeper !keep argument. Newimpartial (talk) 16:36, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - For something to qualify as significant coverage, it would generally have to be discussed within the source. If it is merely being briefly described within a larger context and receives no actual attention, that is the opposite of significant coverage. TTN (talk) 16:57, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - That's not what the guidelines say, though. There is talk of a trivial mention, but a sentence description of what something is, is not a "trivial mention". It is also clearly stated that a subject need not me the main topic of the source to count as significant coverage. Newimpartial (talk) 17:05, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      - Being briefly described for context is a trivial mention. Not having any focus as a talking point is a trivial mention. The whole point about not needing to be the main topic is the difference between something being discussed within a couple paragraphs rather than being the subject of a full chapter. Both are valid significant coverage. One sentence in which the topic is not at all discussed is below that threshold. TTN (talk) 17:34, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        I accept that this is your opinion. But there is nothing in policy that sets the bar as a couple paragraphs. Since the purpose of WP:N is not to gauge importance but to determine whether a reliably sourced article can be written, it seems that descriptive sentences should be fine. Newimpartial (talk) 19:25, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - What WP:Significant coverage says is "Significant coverage" addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material. I think a one- or two-sentence description of a fictional concept is a trivial mention; the coverage is brief and not in-depth. Discussed vs. described is my way of explaining why I don't think it's significant coverage. And if you compare what the article currently says vs. what the cited sources say, you'll see that original research was indeed needed to extract that content. TompaDompa (talk) 21:34, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - What content is in the current article that is not documented in the sources listed, or in Routledge, but instead is OR? Newimpartial (talk) 22:48, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      - I'm getting a bit fed up with your attitude towards checking what the sources say, especially considering that I caught you lying about what one of them (Remediated Readers: Gender and Literacy in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age) says earlier in this discussion. The sources are quoted above, and you can look at the article yourself and compare. However, for the benefit of everyone else:
        The article currently says The distributed republic is a concept of fluid republic consisting of land and citizens scattered around the globe, changing far more frequently than conventional nation-states. In fiction, many of these republics are corporate entities, while others are more loosely connected anarchist communities. The concept is rooted in the anarcho-capitalist, dystopian cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction, and was used extensively by novelist Neal Stephenson in his books Snow Crash and The Diamond Age.
        None of this can be attributed to Neo-Victorianism and the Memory of Empire, one of the two sources cited.
        citizens scattered around the globe and loosely connected anarchist communities can be attributed to The Tattooed Girl: The Enigma of Stieg Larsson and the Secrets Behind the Most Compelling Thrillers of Our Time, the other cited source. So could used by novelist Neal Stephenson in his books Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, but not the present used extensively [...]. fluid republic cannot be attributed to that source. consisting of land cannot. changing far more frequently than conventional nation-states cannot. many of these republics are corporate entities cannot. The concept is rooted in the anarcho-capitalist, dystopian cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction cannot.
        fluid, but not fluid republic, can be attributed to The Routledge Handbook of Anarchy and Anarchist Thought, a source which is not cited on the article (more about that later). consisting of land is dubious. changing far more frequently than conventional nation-states cannot be attributed to that source. The concept is rooted in the anarcho-capitalist, dystopian cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction cannot.
        The phrasing many of these republics are corporate entities, while others are more loosely connected anarchist communities is an amalgamation of what two different sources—only one of which is actually cited—in a way that misrepresents both. One says loosely connected anarchist communities with no other type, and the other says for-profit enterprises [...] or [...] shattered remnants of former nation-states.
        The entire phrasing of the article (The distributed republic is [...]. In fiction, [...]. The concept [...] was used extensively by novelist Neal Stephenson in his books Snow Crash and The Diamond Age.) implies that this is a real-world phenomenon which has also been used in fiction, in particular by Stephenson. What the sources say is that this is a fictional concept Stephenson uses in his works.
        The reason for all of this is, of course, that the sources were added in 2015 to text that had mostly been added back in 2006 ("Snow Crash" was added in 2007, "cypherpunk" was changed to "cyberpunk" in 2011, and "in fiction" was added in 2014). This is a classic case of adding a bunch of WP:Original research to an article and then looking for sources to verify it. Here, it was partially successful. It should of course still never have happened. TompaDompa (talk) 00:07, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        Well, getting a bit fed up seems to have led to you making mistakes: did you read The Diamond Girl reference carefully? The whole point of that discussion is that the concept of the distributed republic is acknowledged and adapted in the Millenium novels by Steig Larsson. In other words, it is not only used by Neal Stevenson, as you baldly stated above.
        
        Look, I get that you're annoyed to be having this discussion, and I am not hear to defend the sloppy text of the present (or past) versions of this article. But WP:AFDISNOTCLEANUP and the question for AfD is whether Reliable Sources address the topic and whether it is encyclopaedic. The fact that this fictional political-economic form has originated in novels by one author, and then been explicitly adapted in other fiction by another author - as documented in RS criticism - is evidence of its encyclopaedicity whether this (or I) annoy you or not. Newimpartial (talk) 00:29, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        
        Edit conflict: postscriptAnd if you actually need sourcing for the contextually obvious links from cyberpunk to the distributed republic concept, here's a doctoral thesis that does so. Should it be cited in the article? Probably, but once again, NOTCLEANUP. Newimpartial (talk) 01:05, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        Yes, I read the excerpt from The Tattooed Girl: The Enigma of Stieg Larsson and the Secrets Behind the Most Compelling Thrillers of Our Time carefully. That's why I didn't say the concept was only used by Neal Stephenson—I said that the sources say it is a fictional concept Stephenson uses in his works (my exact words above), which is true. I also didn't say that it was also used by Stieg Larsson, because what the source says is that it was adapted, and acknowledged by Larsson. I chose my words rather carefully, you see. You're making it a bit difficult to WP:AGF here—first you lie about what the sources say, and then you claim I said something I didn't.
        I don't agree that the question for AfD is whether Reliable Sources address the topic and whether it is encyclopaedic—that's you shifting the goalposts. The question for this AfD is whether this stand-alone article should be kept, deleted, merged, redirected, draftified, or some other WP:Alternative to deletion. That's not the same thing. You need to make a case that this warrants a stand-alone article (which would necessitate meeting WP:GNG), not that this is something which should be mentioned somewhere on Wikipedia. TompaDompa (talk) 01:02, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        To be brutally accurate, the AfD non offered no actual grounds for deletion, but Notability seemed to be implied. Do you have another reason in mind? That I am aware, there are only a few typically valid deletion arguments at AfD: BLP concerns, COI editing, Notability and NOT. Are you trying to suggest something else? Because what I see is a GNG pass where NOT, BLP concerns and COI don't apply. Also, don't accuse me of lying just because I made (and admitted) a mistake. That's a WP:CIVIL violation.
        
        By contrast, I was crediting you with good faith when I attributed your omissions from Tattooed girl to a mistake. But it seems you left that aspect of the critical discussion out on purpose, even though you knew (?) it was relevant to the deletion discussion? Have I got that right, now? Newimpartial (talk) 01:11, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        There are 14 canonical WP:Reasons for deletion, and that's explicitly not exhaustive. WP:ATD-M says Pages about non-notable fictional elements are generally merged into list articles or articles covering the work of fiction in which they appear. That's basically what I'm proposing, except the article was and is in such a poor state that I rewrote it from scratch at the target article instead. WP:PAGEDECIDE says Sometimes, understanding is best achieved by presenting the material on a dedicated standalone page, but it is not required that we do so. There are other times when it is better to cover notable topics, that clearly should be included in Wikipedia, as part of a larger page about a broader topic, with more context. Even for topics that are notable, a stand-alone article is not necessarily the best solution. As an example, I'm fairly sure that the extended editions of The Lord of the Rings films would technically meet WP:GNG, but I also think forking would be a bad idea there.
        I didn't get the impression that you admitted making a mistake (is this the edit you're referring to?), but you obviously have now, so I apologize.
        The point I was making mostly had to do with the phrasing making it sound like a real-world concept (which it isn't), and to a lesser extent about how the article de-emphasizes Stephenson compared to the sources; I was originally going to write that the sources say Stephenson originated the concept (which it seems he did), but they don't really say that so I changed the phrasing. That Larsson adapted, and acknowledged the concept didn't seem germane to that. If I understand you correctly, you think it's relevant for different reasons, since you think it demonstrates that the concept should have a stand-alone article. I disagree, because I don't think the coverage is sufficiently in-depth to be considered WP:Significant coverage regardless. TompaDompa (talk) 02:07, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is, your first talk-quote is premised on the fictional element being non-notable - unless it fails GNG, that provision simply does not apply. My whole argument here is that being discussed, at minimum, in two RS books and a dissertation is a pretty clear indication of Notability for a fictional element.

Meanwhile, your second talk quote - which observes that it is sometimes better to cover notable topics on part of a broader topic - is actually one I heartily agree with. But it does not apply to a fictional element the RS on which connect directly to two novels by one writer and several by another. 02:33, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

I think we are at an impasse. I don't think this meets WP:GNG since I don't think any of these sources provide WP:Significant coverage as I don't think they go into sufficient depth (I don't agree with your characterization that the topic is discussed in these sources), but clearly we disagree.

I was initially optimistic that the dissertation The evolution of cyberpunk into postcyberpunk: The role of cognitive cyberspaces, wetware networks and nanotechnology in science fiction might provide WP:Significant coverage (though WP:GNG asks for multiple sources and I don't think any of the other ones rise to the level of WP:Significant coverage). So I read it intent on being able to use it to write more about the topic of distributed republics in-article and perhaps change my stance on what should be done with the page. The dissertation says The political structure and the new social order outlined in The Diamond Age derive from Stephenson's previous novel Snow Crash, which presents a geopolitical division consisting of a set of colonies identified as 'Burbclaves' (suburban enclaves) and Franchulates (political franchises), both assembled by peoples with common interests. In contrast, in The Diamond Age the Earth is organized in diverse city-states pertaining to different 'distributed republics' whose territories are scattered around the planet. This enables Stephenson to examine various aspects of our current globalized order, its new economic alternatives (like post-capitalism) and other issues such as the success and failure of ancient social philosophies that, in the novel, are labeled as New Victorianism or New Confucianism. In other words, the concept of distributed republics is briefly described for context, as TTN put it. I wish we had more in-depth sources providing WP:Significant coverage for the topic so we could write a proper stand-alone article discussing it in detail, but my standards for what I consider WP:Significant coverage are higher than this. TompaDompa (talk) 03:22, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

And higher than WP stipulates. :). I offered the dissertation merely to cover one or two of the gaps you were pointing to above as "unsupported by the current sources"; if I had meant to imply that it offers an additional level of depth beyond a mere discussion contributing to a GNG pass, I hope I would have chosen my words to communicate that. Newimpartial (talk) 13:09, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You keep saying that other editors are wrong about what the threshold for WP:Significant coverage is. Again, what WP:SIGCOV says is "Significant coverage" addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material. There does not exist any general consensus about where to draw the line, so we judge it case-by-case. Some editors focus on length of coverage; a cut-off of WP:One hundred words has been suggested. Some editors focus on breadth of coverage. Some editors focus on depth of coverage. You previously stated that the purpose of WP:N is not to gauge importance but to determine whether a reliably sourced article can be written, it seems that descriptive sentences should be fine, which is fairly similar to the ideas expressed in the essay Wikipedia:Significant coverage not required. That's certainly one possible way to view it, but it doesn't enjoy community consensus the way you seem to imply. I don't think having one or two sentences describing the concept of distributed republics for context in order to discuss something different is significant coverage addressing the topic directly and in detail, but you are of course allowed to disagree. TompaDompa (talk) 15:28, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try one more time to articulate what I think the GNG and SIGCOV are for, which is to answer the question, "do the sources suffice to write an encyclopaedic entry on the topic?" In this case, I believe they do. You have raised an additional question - which I also see as relevant - namely, is the sourced information better treated in the context of a larger topic? Since this article's subject is not limited to one book or to one author, my provisional answer is no: it is better treated as a separate article.

It is my view, by the way, not that there is one correct interpretation of SIGCOV, and I am its custodian, but rather that the threshold for significant coverage has been deliberately kept vague in the guideline so that it can be interpreted differently in different contexts. I am also arguing that, in line with the purpose of Notability (which is not gauging the importance of the topic, but rather its potential sourcing) the relevant interpretation in this instance (and in most) is a permissive one. Newimpartial (talk) 15:59, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to Snow Crash, if the content gets too long, a Technology of Snow Crash article is probably the better option._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 16:14, 5 August 2021 (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.