The result was Withdrawn Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 19:30, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Some rather legitimate concerns were raised by Mattisse on the talk page:
“ | I agree. Mason invented the Xanadu House, a specific example of a hi-tech house, and promoted it via his 1983 book. The promotion was picked up at the time and mentioned in a few places, including a business publication and apparently was promoted as a tourist attraction. However, there is no evicence of an enduring effect of the Xanadu House concept. Are there any mentions in architectural reviews? Any recent mentions that the Xanadu House plans are even remembered? Is it still a tourist attraction? Are the three houses still standing? I have modern architectural reviews of the period that do not mention it. The two "Further reading" books appear to deal with how technology affects the economy, rather than addressing specifically the effect of Xanadu House. | ” |
I agree with every word in Mattisse' argument. Of the 18 refs in the article, only #7 seems to be non-trivial secondary coverage, but even then it seems to be only in the wake of Mason's promotion. Indeed, these houses seem to have gotten only a brief flurry of news coverage after their construction, and none whatsoever after the fact.
Yes, I am entirely aware of that shiny gold star at the top right of the article, but I'm also aware of the ((Primary sources)) tag that has been up since August, which screams "Obviously not featured content." The fact that it took four years for anyone to notice its questionable notability is immaterial — I have every reason to believe that this subject's notability is almost nonexistant, and obviously I'm not alone in that department. (As a post-script, featured content has been deleted or merged in the past.) Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 17:05, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
However, I do not share the notability concern. If something was ever notable, then it's notable forever; a well-established principle on Wikipedia is that notability is not temporary. And Wikipedia contains information about all kinds of topics of purely historical interest, which is as it should be.
I agree that there are no recent mentions, but who cares? That has nothing to do with our deletion criteria, which is also as it should be. The sources exist, they are checkable and they are cited, and that suffices.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 17:23, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]