Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs with personal names: A

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 Delete. In order to allow quick perusal of songs by this criteria, JForget's suggestion of creating Category:Songs with personal names as substitute of these lists is noted. Phaedriel - 10:24, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of songs with personal names: A

I am also nominating the following related pages on the same criteria:

(View log) Very broad list that would be unmaintainable, per WP:Listcruft, especially considering all the languages there are. Also, the list fails WP:TRIVIA this is a list of isolated topics (song names) group together based on loose categorization My suggestion is to WP:USERFY the content to a willing contributors' pages so that they can create a webpage with this information and then Delete Corpx 01:37, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Strong delete; Violates WP:NOT#IINFO and WP:NOT#DIR of loosely associated topics. The only thing these songs have in common is that they happen to include the name of a person in the title. That's any name, out of thousands of possible names, from tens of thousands of possible song titles. Masaruemoto 02:50, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom - indiscriminate list - and also userfy per nom if anyone wants it. Shalom ^Hello 03:39, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment it should be noted that there have been previous AfDs (October 2005 and May 2007) and a DRV discussion exactly ~~two~~ one month ago. -MrFizyx 04:14, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - indiscriminate list. --Haemo 04:19, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - I know the WP:ILIKEITs are coming, but it's indiscriminate and probably unmaintainable. Per above. Flyguy649^talk_contribs 04:49, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom., and all of the above.--JayJasper 05:10, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:NOT#DIR--Hirohisat ^{Freedom of Speech} 05:29, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom and the above comments. I really don't get why people do this kind of thing... it is obviously indiscriminate information. This really shouldn't have survived the previous AfD... WP:NOT is policy no matter how many WP:ILIKEIT !votes there are. MartinDK 06:36, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletions. -- John Vandenberg 07:13, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep: Recently there have already been 2 deletion nominations, and have been closed under "no consensus" status.
After this, on may 27th 2007, there has been a Deletion Review the article (and it's subpages), and closure was endorsed.
Come on guys, we can't be nominating every single month, this is complete compulsion! Lately wiki has gone on a Witch-hunt concerning lists... :( --Patrick1982 08:23, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:NOT#DIR, #1, "Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics". That's not witch-hunt, it's policy. --B. Wolterding 08:37, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:NOT#DIR, indiscriminate information. --Fredrick day 11:29, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong delete all - Wikipedia articles are not indiscriminate collections of information and Wikipedia articles are not directories of loosely-associated topics. These lists draw together songs from across every style, genre and theme of music that have absolutely nothing in common beyond happening to have a person's name, or in some cases a word that can be used as a person's name but in the song title is not, in the title. The lists tell us absolutely nothing about the songs, the names, or music in general. We have deleted any number of similar lists of songs by title recently and these are no better than those and worse than a lot of them. No argument has been advanced in support of these lists beyond "names are different" and "people like stuff with their names in it" and these are not valid arguments. No consensus closures of previous AFDs are not an automatic bar to re-nomination, especially in light of the clear and strong consensus against these sorts of inane lists that has emerged recently. Otto4711 13:55, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep all, because easily verfiable, enough songs to be relevant, excessive deletion nominations, etc. --164.107.222.23 14:32, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all, just like most of these "interesting" lists of things without any real connection. Could someone please create either a Wikilist or a Wikitrivia where we can dump all these kind of things (a Wikisummary might be a good idea as well). I can understand that people like these things, but what do they have to do on an encyclopedia? Are there many newspaper or magazine articles or scholarly studies about "songs with personal names"? No? Then it isn't a topic for Wikipedia, and we shouldn't have a list combining them either. Rule of thumb: if "X" is not an encyclopedic topic (per Wikipedia rules), then "List of X" isn't fit for Wikipedia either. Fram 14:45, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all In spite of the initial !votes here, I do not think there is consensus on the broader community about these lists in general, and I think we probably need a more general community discussion. Many of the lists previously deleted were of poor quality, and the quality of this is relatively OK. No consensus is not "keep", but I think that one month later is absurd--no -one should have to keep attacking or defending a relatively inoffensive long-standing article that frequently. DGG 14:47, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I think that Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs featured in Vanilla Sky and many other lists of songs used in TV shows or films, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs about Ronald Reagan, especially Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of sampled songs and all of its sub-lists, the bulk of lists from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs about weather, the entire contents of Category:Lists of cover songs and the category itself being deleted, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs referencing drinking, and again especially Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs with the same name as song artists (2nd nomination), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs whose titles are composed solely of numbers (2nd nomination), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs whose title does not appear in the lyrics, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs whose title includes geographical names (2nd nomination), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of English songs whose title includes the name of a fictional place, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of English songs whose title includes the name of a landmark, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs with the word "song" in their title or lyrics, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs whose title includes a phone number (3rd nomination), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs that are also the name of a TV show, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs whose title includes dates and times, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs containing overt references to real musicians, not to mention the many other similar lists that have been deleted recently, have established a pretty clear consensus against this sort of list in the absence of something extraordinary about them. If a list of songs with the names of specific sorts of people like musicians is too loose of an association to stand as a list, a more general list of any name that happens to begin with a particular letter certainly is. Otto4711 15:24, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Reply As I think you know, the list of songs with overt references to other musicians originally had a sourcing issue which complicated the matter. But at least in that discussion there were specific issues raised about the list itself, which could be remedied. You seem to be in favor of wholesale deletions - I think that removing them without specific reason is damaging the encyclopedia. This is why I agree with DGG that a wider community discussion about this is overdue. The fact that a small number of editors have agreed to delete a bunch of lists hardly speaks to the need for broad community consensus. And, as I said - there is no emergency, so why not have broader discussion before damaging the years of work?Tvoz |talk 16:01, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Every editor has the opportunity to comment on any AFD, so the idea that the precedent established by all of these deletions is the trivial acts of "a small number of editors" is disingenuous at best. Specific reasons have been offered for the deletion of these lists, that they violate specific Wikipedia policies and guidelines. They can be reviewed for compliance with those policies and no wider community discussion of the list concept is required. Otto4711 16:21, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOT (official policy) says Wikipedia is not a collection of loosely assosiated topics such as .. personas (real or fictional). I would consider this worse than than having a list of names that start with A,B...Z. My resasoning follows that if it cant have a collection of names, then it definately shouldnt have a collection of songs with names. I think this topic is definately interesting, however I think the trivial content is much more suited for a personal website, or a something like a Lyrics Wiki Corpx 15:05, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would respectfully disagree with your logic - lists of names that start with a letter per se likely have no application other than a baby-name book could provide. Lists like we are discussing, however, have value to scholars of popular culture - a widely recognized academic field - in the comparison of names that appear in songs across eras, for example, as indicators of the popularity and longevity of first names. These lists are a valuable resource that shouldn't be dismissed so lightly. Tvoz |talk 15:15, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Scholars would rely on these lists - a random selection of songs, being far from complete, but without any sound statistical base? They would use this to compare the occurence of names in songs across eras? Good heavens! Where has science gone these days? --B. Wolterding 15:22, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I dont think just because people might look up this info, that it should be kept. There are lots of Trivial info that would get hits, but are not here for various reasons. I also fail to see how this would be a reference point since the list would never be complete. (Also, there are no years mentioned for the titles) Corpx 15:26, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Strong keep -as per DGG and Patrick1982. A larger community discussion, as suggested by DGG, seems like a much more productive way to go rather than this rapid renomination for deletion. There is no emergency here, and deletion of articles that represent a great deal of work, and have long-standing tenure,and obvioudly do have support from some in the community should not be done lightly or by brute force. Wikipedia is not being hurt by allowing these lists to stand while a reasoned, broader discussion takes place. Tvoz |talk 15:02, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- With due respect, but in spite of a number of people voting "keep" or even "strong keep", I have not seen a single valid argument here for keeping the articles. The only arguments used (discounting WP:ILIKEIT and similar) are procedural, questioning the validity of the nomination. If you name the arguments which make you support these articles, that will greatly facilitate the discussion. --B. Wolterding 15:11, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: listcruft, useless collection of indiscriminate information. --Hetar 16:16, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong delete all I fail to see how such a list could be useful to anyone using Wikipedia, other than for people who wish to find songs in which their own name is mentioned. There is no sense in keeping a series of lists that are of little or no use to anyone. Calgary 16:52, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest Delete Ever!!! This is the epitome of pointless listcruft and an indiscriminate collection of information. Useight 17:23, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral. Whilst I have contributed to these lists during bored moments in the past, I understand that they are not encyclopedic as such and may be out of place on Wikipedia. I would suggest setting up a 'Wikilist' or other such side-project like Wikionary and WikiSpecies. These music lists can be interesting to compile and occasionally useful (eg for a DJ wanting a suggestion for requests for records for people, or for people making mix-tapes) but maybe in another environment.Tony Corsini 18:01, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete the lists are just a collection of unrelated songs unified by having a personal name in the title. Not particularly more encyclopedic than List of songs without the word "the" in the title of some such carving of the universe of song titles. Carlossuarez46 18:53, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Weak delete per above, maybe a category would be more appropriate--JForget 23:11, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep as per DGG and Patrick1982 and Tvoz. Patrick's right, this is a witch-hunt, that keeps going on and on. I disagree with the comment that the fact that a lot of lists have been deleted has "established a pretty clear consensus against this sort of list in the absence of something extraordinary about them". Bullshit! All it establishes is that people who hate lists to begin with keep coming back to play at the AfD park, justifying their personal distaste for such things with the usual (ironically, drawn from a list) of "indiscriminate topics, original research, POV" blah blah blah.
There DOES need to be a community discussion about lists overall. Most people LIKE lists. We find it to be a convenient way to organize information. Almanacs are filled with lists. Encyclopedia articles often have lists. A card catalog in a library is, in effect, a collection of lists. Appendices in the back of a book are lists. Anything that facilitates research is welcome. Very few people think lists are inherently stupid. On the other hand, very few people hang around the Articles for Deletion board. If they happen to access a list during the week it's tagged for deletion, they might join in. Other than that, the only people who are aware that a list is targetted for destruction are those who visit this hellhole every day. Lists are not inherently evil. Some lists, like some articles, need to be deleted. But somewhere along the way, a notion has developed that information organized in a certain order is an insult to your intelligence, or blasphemy in the Wikipediapalian orthodoxy. Wikipedia really needs to put a new commandment into its bible so that we can judge lists by the content of their character, not by the color of their title. Mandsford 02:48, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It does not matter if most people like lists. Some of them violate Wikipedia official policy and hence, should be removed. You can call out the editors who monitor this "hell hole", but deleting articles that violate policy is what keeps this encyclopedic. If you think there needs to be a discussion, feel free to make a proposal to modify the official policy. However, as it stands now, lists like this are clearly in violation of official policy. Corpx 04:04, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"those who visit this hellhole every day"... says Mandsford, who for the last few weeks has done little else on Wikipedia apart from "visit this hellhole every day". Ever since Mandsford's own stupid article was deleted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Let's get out of here in film lore he has been unable to leave here, and judging by the nasty personal insults he attacked other editors with at that afd he seems to have been deeply offended by the deletion of his crap, and is now on a mission to save other people's crap. Good luck on your mission, and I'm sure I speak for most regulars here by encouraging you to move on from this "hellhole" as soon as possible. And quit the rambling, anecdotal comments in afds, they are irrelevant to the discussion and just plain boring. 172.200.6.248 04:44, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ouch. I'd say something poignant about civility and leave... but you wished me good luck. Thanks 172, you've given me a reason to go on living. It's less of a hellhole now. I'm wondering who you are when you're logged on? (It's nottoo hard to figure out..:) Whoever you are, I like all the regulars on this board, including you. Well, gotta take of my cape, put on my glasses, and go to my regular mundane job. Best wishes. Mandsford 11:59, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment It seems that many people who are in favor of keeping this group of articles are losing sight of why we have lists in the first place. Yes, a list compiles information that can be grouped under a single heading and presents it in a way that is organized and informative. But I fail to see how there is any sense in keeping a list that does not provide concievably relevant information. These lists are not the same as most other song lists. Most other song lists compile information that relates to a specific person or place. At least there you have an argument (people who are intersted in the particular subject may wish to find songs relating to it, which makes it debatable). Lists of song titles that incluse a personal name are not the same, as they do not reference a specific person. If it does not refer to a specific person, a given name is nothing more than a word. As a result, you have 15 songs with the word "Lucy" in the title, all of which are about entirely different people. How is this of any use to anyone? We have lists to make things easier for people, and allow people to easily access the information they are looking for. As such, we make sure that lists are well organized. Yet the articles in this list are only related to one another in that their titles share a specific type of word, and therefore are of little to no use to a reader of Wikipedia. If that's not grounds for deletion of a list, I don't know what is. Calgary 04:08, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong delete simply ridiculous. Bulldog123 07:46, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep Wikipedia is not paper. Lists allow users to connect information in a myriad of ways. An alphabetical listing (like a category, or list of songs) does not have this information. Let's be real about why these pages exist: They exist because many of us are intrigued to find a list of songs that have our name in it, or perhaps someone wants to make a mix tape for their significant other or child's birthday party, etc... What is the harm? It is no more harmful or unencyclopedic than List of Star Trek: Enterprise episodes (one of 14 such lists about Star Trek). Deleting lists like this is a waste of time, and makes Wikipedia a less enjoyable place to visit or participate in. Encyclopedic does not mean "Encyclopedia Brittanica", it means "A comprehensive reference work". We should be broadening the meaning of comprehensive, instead of limiting it. People love Wikipedia because they find information they are looking for. They find information they are looking for because of community effort. To delete the efforts of hundreds of people who contributed to these harmless lists is harmful to the community. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 08:56, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of Start Trek episodes has a fixed number of entries and the criteria for inclusion is extremely strict. It is not a list of loosely assosiated topics, which wikipedia is not per WP:NOT (now matter how much more enjoyable that would make the site to users). Corpx 09:05, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how the number of entries matters. Criteria on these pages is clear. I think "loosely" associated would apply to List of songs that begin and end with a vowel. This list is just a way for people to search for songs because there is no other easy method to find them. If there were a single List of songs or category that was complete, you could just search the text for names. But such a list does not exist. "loosely" should be interpreted as "something few people would be looking for". That is not the case with these lists. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 09:32, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

They are "loosely associated" because they do not relate to any concept that is significant for an encyclopedia. They are songs which, by coincidence, share the property that they refer to people's first names. In the context of categories, one would call this a "trivial intersection"; maybe that wording makes it more clear. --B. Wolterding 09:59, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You have a different definition of "loosely associated" than I do. I think it should mean, "information that is not likely to be very useful to others". Encyclopedic has two meanings. We should be emphasizing the meaning which is "having a comprehensive scope, especially of information or knowledge". A key part of having information is having many ways to access that information. That is one of the main reasons to create lists. These list allow people to access information in a way that is useful to them. That is all that it does, and for that reason I think it is harmless and worth keeping. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 07:56, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. There could be no stronger case for WP:NOT. As a general rule, I consider whether an article could be written about the things they're listing. Could any article ever be written called Songs whose title includes personal names? Of course not. The songs are totally unrelated. The list is unmaintainable to boot--how many proper names are there, and how many songs? (Sidenote: I agree that WikiList and WikiTrivia are sorely needed dumping grounds for these sort of things.) Calliopejen1 09:39, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - characterizing the AFDs of various lists as a "witch hunt" is a monumental failure to assume good faith on the part of those throwing out the accusation. And incidentally it does not address the actual issues raised by the nomination. Otto4711 14:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- *Comment - the "witch hunt" statement was not against AFDs in general. It was because a deletion review had already been held for this verry article, and an admin decided to close under "no consensus". And then merely 1 month later, again the "list-haters" start their campain and now suddenly another admin decides to delete. It only proves more the devidedness of the Wiki community... Without a better policy regarding lists, Wiki will loose quite some of it's charm. Lots of eople like lists, it's fact. It bothers me more that there was no will, or intent of good faith, to await the outcome of a debate regarding the lists... Why not use the power of internet? If you have the ability to include, you should not exclude; Wiki is not paper! --Patrick1982 22:34, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Again, it does not matter if people like it. If we're going to not exclude everything, we might as well shut down AFD because there wont be any need to delete (exclude) articles. Fortunately, there is official policy on this that dictates against lists of loosely assosiated topics, as this is the posterchild for. Corpx 01:25, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. As a matter of fair disclosure, I was the nominator of the previous AFD. The supporters of this list have claimed any number of benefits to its presence. Unfortunately, these claims are not supported by policy or the current content. The idea that this list could, for example, demonstrate the "value ... in the comparison of names that appear in songs across eras, for example, as indicators of the popularity and longevity of first names" is implausible with the current state of the list, which has no dates, no context, no information at all except for a long enumeration of songs and their authors, sorted into a novel order. During the previous debate, I forwarded a 6-month timeframe before I would renominate this content for deletion as indescriminate and without context. But as this has been independently nominated, I see no real reason to wait; even were this list reformatted or re-envisioned to allow cross-cultural comparison, or an alternative organizational structure to access information about people, or any of the other ideas raised during this or previous AFDs, it would be a novel synthesis of information. Wikipedia is (within its limits) meant to be comprehensive ... but it is meant to be a comprehensive encyclopedia. No appropriate sources have been forwarded to show that anyone other than a few editors here has considered this information in this way, and even though some comments here show a distate for the policies involved, "original research" is the opposite of "encyclopedia". Serpent's Choice 14:49, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Another list of trivia. There is no encyclopaedic notability associated with a song that contains a personal name. GassyGuy 10:12, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I've already voted Strong Keep. Actually, these lists serve a lot of purposes. Having worked in the radio business, I can say it's amazing how many dedications are made on call-in shows to Annie, Daniel, Sherry, Jim, etc., and not all of the songs begin with the name of the person... hence, Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al" is not listed under "A" in a Joel Whitburn book. Second, it's scary how many people owe their names to a song that their parents liked... many a girl named Brandi or Brandy was born after Looking Glass did their song about the "fine girl" of that name. Finally, there are few cultural references that one can identify with more personally than a song with their name in the title. So these particular lists are neither ridiculous, nor irrelevant. Mandsford 00:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not saying that this kind of list is not usefull, except that it just doesnt belong on this site, as WP:NOT clearly defines. Corpx 01:02, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

[edit] "Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia; there is no practical limit to the number of topics we can cover, or the total amount of content, other than verifiability and the other points presented on this page. However, there is an important distinction between what technically can be done, and what reasonably should be done...." That being said, I think that one has to force the facts in order to make arguments that this particular list is "non-encylopedic", or that it's "loosely associated topics" or a "an indiscriminate collection of information". An alternative to this useful (and harmless list) is that you would have individual articles for each name, or each song. People often reach this type of "list article" when they are looking at another article, and they click on to the "see also" portion at the bottom of the page. I wish that Wikipedia had a means of showing how many hits a particular article gets... then we would have a true measure of what other people think should stay here, not just what you or I might think. Mandsford 13:20, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That any particular article is "useful" or "popular" does not mean it belongs on Wikipedia, else we'd have every random list of trivial info (like this) and every random website that a few people enjoy visiting and every game that random gamers play. Why someone hasn't started a Wiki for lists like this is beyond me (or maybe they have and the parties who claim to be interested in maintaining said lists just don't bother with them?) GassyGuy 17:56, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:USEFUL and WP:HARMLESS. --B. Wolterding 13:48, 1 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can we try to get along? Wikipedia has room for articles about Mortal Kombat, Snoopy's siblings, Forgotten Realms and Ray-Ban Wayfarers and this. The whole concept is that people from around the world contribute to the growth of information. A lot of things that some might find interesting, others find boring. Some things some think are important, some find childish. The "wp:"s that get raised as reasons to stomp another person's sand castle are, shall we say, flexible to accomodate anyone's personal point of view. However, if these principles are applied consistently to all subjects, there wouldn't be many articles left. Nobody benefits from mass nominations for a deletion. More tolerance, less zealotry... life will go on. Mandsford 18:04, 1 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Everyone seems to be getting along fairly well here. No one is being terribly rancorous or nasty. I do need to point out, however, that your argument here is another of those "wp:"s you don't care for, specifically WP:WAX. Otto4711 19:29, 1 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I hate to say it, but wikipedia is not about the growth of information. You cannot put your ownOriginal Research onto wikipedia. Corpx 04:02, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think Mandsford is commenting about the tone of this discussion, but instead about the desire to delete lists like this. I too, think we should be creating a bigger tent, in a sense a place where we can all get along. These lists simply allow people to access information in a way that they find useful. It is not original research to create a list like this, when every entry's reason for being included is self-evident. Nobody would say that any of the entries are original research because a citation is missing that says "Song 'XXX' has 'XXX' in the name of the title." --☑ SamuelWantman 07:56, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

While it may be true that original research is not a problem with these particualr lists, OR tends to abound in lists of this type, especially "lists of X about Y" and "Z in popular culture" lists, where editors frequently rely on their own observations to conclude that X is really about Y or that pop culture item A contains a reference to Z. The problem with this particular set of lists is that they violate WP:NOT#DIR, since they are a collection of items that have nothing in common with one another beyond a coincidence in titling. While a wider discussion on the topic of lists in general may or may not be in order, the conducting of such discussion or failure to do so has no bearing on these lists or on this AFD. Otto4711 12:16, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOT#DIR does not apply to lists like this. The one case where lists are ALWAYS a directory is when they are a directory of Wikipedia articles. A main reason (if not the most important reason) we have lists is that they can organize our articles in ways that a category or a search cannot. I will grant you that there is a gray area between those lists that are purely organizational and those where WP:NOT#DIR does apply. AFD is the place to discuss this because precedents often get solidified into guidelines and policy. I would suggest that we be more liberal about lists that organize information in novel ways. There might be some good reasons to delete some lists, and some are mentioned at WP:NOT#DIR. Perhaps we can better define why some of those lists are problematic. What really bothers me in this debate is that it seems that people want to use WP:NOT as a blanket rationale to delete many lists that are harmless, that help build community, add rich alternative ways of accessing information and are useful to many people. I wish we were taking a different tact, one that said, "we should keep lists like this unless there are clear reasons why they are destructive and problematic." I have yet to see how the lists here are destructive and problematic. What nearly everyone is saying is that they are "against the rules". That approach, to my way of looking at it, is much more harmful than these lists, because the approach goes against the spirit of Wikis and the principle of "Ignore all rules". Ignore all rules exists so that we will look at each situation with fresh eyes and not loose sight of the big picture. In this case it would be to look at the situation and say, "we don't really need to extend WP:NOT to lists like these." The other popular sentiment is to say that these lists are "unencyclopedic". I'd say the opposite. It is lists like this that make Wikipedia BETTER than any other encyclopedia. They make it more comprehensive. They offer information that can't be found in other encyclopedia. They help build community. We are not creating the Encyclopedia Brittanica. We are creating something better. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 20:43, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with you completely. I agree with the mission statement of Wikipedia form WP:NOT, which states the purpose of wikipedia is "in building a high-quality encyclopedia". An encyclopedia shouldnt be focused on writing articles so that it increases readership. Lists are intented to organize tightly related items, not something as trivial as this. Many of the articles on AFD are not "destructive or problamatic", but they get deleted anyway. I'd guess that less than 5% of AFD nominations fit "destructive or problematic". Its not about whether this list harms the encyclopedia, it is just that it doesnt belong here. I could create a bio page about myself and it wouldnt be destructie or problematic or harmful, but I sure hope that article gets deleted. If WP:NOT doesnt apply to lists like this, then what does it apply to? Corpx 21:35, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am not saying that "harmless" is sufficient by itself for keeping. If an article or list does not meet our core policies of being verifiable (such as a bio page about yourself) it should be deleted. These pages are obviously verifiable. I agree with most of what WP:NOT says. I just think we should be a little less gung-ho about applying it. Its application should be based on principles, and if the principles are not clear-cut (such as this example) we should err on the side of inclusion. There are many aspects of Wikipedia that expand the notion of what an encyclopedia is. That is to be expected because an on-line encyclopedia does not have the constraints that a printed one has. We should embrace these possibilities. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 02:03, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Evan assuming arguendo that you, Sam, are correct about NOT#DIR not applying to lists of Wikipedia articles (which, since Wikipedia articles are not simply collections of either internal or external links, I question) such an exception would not apply in this case because the vast majority of songs on these lists do not have Wikipedia articles. "It's harmless" is not a valid keep argument and there is no evidence that these lists help build community. Otto4711 00:59, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some have articles and some do not. So? The ones that don't are not external links, so this is not a list of external links. It IS information that people look for. It IS information that many, many people have contributed to. I see nothing wrong with having lists of cast members of TV shows, articles about Pokemon charectors, and all the rest of the pop-culture stuff we have. All of these get different populations of users excited about Wikipedia. Deleting all of these will not strengthen the encyclopedia. The people who worked on these articles are more likely to be pissed off and leave, than decide to write articles about French history. If there is nopressing need to piss them off, why do it? -- ☑ SamuelWantman 02:03, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The reason the sister wiki projects exist is because they didnt want that information here. Why not put word definitions here instead of Wikidictionary? People will certainly look them up and it would make it easier for them to find the definition and articles relating to the word. I've had articles deleted that I had contributed to, but I understand that its because those articles have no place here. AFD would be pointless if we're afraid of losing editors because we're deleting content they've contributed to. Corpx 03:19, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree (not surprisingly) with Administrator Wantman. Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia, but not a free lunch; there's no subscription fee, no membership charge, and it runs to a large extent on voluntary donations. It's all well and good to vote to delete an article because you believe that it's contrary to the letter of the law of a particular WP. The trouble is that if you start zapping a contribution almost as soon as it comes on board, or if you can't say that it's inappropriate without making sarcastic remarks (I know, pot calling the kettle black, etc.), I think that it violates the spirit of the law, which is that Wikipedia is created by users from all over the world. Look in the upper lefthand corner at that sphere made out of jigsaw puzzle pieces. I respect everyone's wish to be faithful to the principles, but some take it so seriously that they miss the bigger picture... "useful" and "popular" are not dirty words, folks. All of us continue to hone our writing skills, we are each other's peers, and we should look at building the community that we all enjoy being part of. Mandsford 02:58, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So the above two comments are that the articles nominated here are harmless, useful, interesting, and that a lot of editors have put effort into them? If editors are exciting only about contributing to Wikipedia in ways that are outside the general guidelines, it is best for them to learn early that they would perhaps enjoy themselves more on other Wikimedia wikis or other wikis or websites or blogs or whatever that are more open to the content with which they wish to work. GassyGuy 03:04, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is not an accurate description of what has happened. These pages and have a long history and survived two previous AFDs. The policies do not explicitly cover this case, they are being extended, through AFDs like this one to cover more and more lists, lists which have long been an accepted part of this project. I am just saying that there is no pressing need to extend the guidelines further, and doing so may be harmful to the larger community. The first paragraph of Wikipedia:Consensus says "every edit that remains on a page, in a sense, has the unanimous approval of the community (or at least everyone who has looked at the page)". These pages have survived for YEARS and have THOURSANDS of contributions from HUNDREDS of editors. Three people have nominated the pages for deletion. Twice they failed. This is not a case where one or two people created something inconsequential. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 04:11, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia isnt here to accumulate all the content that people might find useful. Its purpose is to build an encyclopedia. We should be pandering to the content of the articles, and not the popularity of the content. If we were pandering to popularity, then might as well put targetted ads on pages. Corpx 03:16, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia IS here to accumulate useful content. It is not pandering to allow pages which are not destructive to the project and abide by our most important policies. Nobody is advocating ads in any shape or form. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 04:11, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I dont think the five pillars state anything about accumulating "useful content". Five pillars state that "Wikipedia is not a trivia collection" and also that "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia incorporating elements of general encyclopedias, specialized encyclopedias, and almanacs.". WP:NOT also prohibits against content that users might find useful like, Dictionary, directory, manual, guidebook, and textbook. Corpx 05:11, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this is what I am getting at. As Wikipedia grows -- and becomes a more comprehensive source of knowledge and information with elements of specialized encyclopedias and almanacs -- we will more often confront what many would call "trivia". The problem with "trivia" is that it is rarely considered "trivia" by everyone. "Trivia" is not a helpful concept. A much more effective way of assessing inclusion is to look for utility and popular interest in information. Whatever the informtion, it still must be verifiable, NPOV, etc... etc... I work on List of largest suspension bridges. Some might see this as trivial information, just as I see lists of Star Trek episodes as trivia. Wikipedia IS a trivia collection, it is just that we cannot agree on which parts are trivial. Why fight about which parts to delete when there is no harm in keeping all of it? --☑ SamuelWantman 06:00, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If there was a List of suspension bridges that contains a personal name, I would also nominate it for deletion. I think that would be trivial. I dont think we should be expanding the inclusion criteria here when WP:NOT prohibits it. Corpx 06:07, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see anything in WP:NOT that directly deals with the suitibility of these lists. What I do see is "Wikipedia also includes reference tables and tabular information for quick reference", which I think is close to being on point for supporting these lists. There is also "Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy." -- ☑ SamuelWantman 06:18, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You dont think songs that contain a name in their title would be a "Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics" ? Also, would you also vote keep if there was an AFD for List of suspension bridges that contains a personal name ?Corpx 06:30, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the "loosely associated" wording at WP:NOT was probably chosen to rationalize the deletion of articles which would have little or no utility and a very mall number of interested users. This is a valid way to judge the suitibilty of new articles, but for old ones, we just have to look at the history page to assess how much interest there is, and there is an obvious utility to these page. I don't see this as "loosely associated". I see it as an alternate organization of information which cannot be easily found any other way. I would vote to keep List of bridges named after people. I can imagine that someone studying history and culture might use such information to study what sort of people are honored this way. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 06:47, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of bridges named after people are bridges named after specific people. This is a list of songs that contains any personal name. Nobody notable/specific is honored by having their "personal name" in the title of a song. This criteria is so loose because it applies to any name and any language of the song. Corpx 07:49, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - If there was such an AfD I would actually read the arguments provided by the list's supporters before assuming it had no value to the encyclopedia just because it is a list. I would think about whether some kind of harm was being done to the project by keeping it. I would likely vote to keep it as well, for similar reasons as Samuel. And I wouldn't throw around policy acronyms as carelessly as some have done here. As I and others have said here and in previous discussions, scholars of popular culture (not "scientists" as someone above misstated my argument), writers doing research for their books, disc jockeys, film and television producers in need of appropriate selections and others use compilations such as this in their work. We are providing valuable content that Wikipedia is uniquely situated to do. It is far from "useless" or "ridiculous" as a couple of people here have said. Samuel Wantman is quite correct that the assignment of the "trivia" label is totally subjective and therefore not a useful concept to a global encyclopedia that aims to be more than Britannica. We are indeed not a paper encyclopedia - we should not be applying the archaic gatekeeping rules of those paper endeavors who must pick and choose what goes in and what does not because of space issues. The editors of Britannica after 1954 - the gold standard edition - had to throw out material in order to make room for new space age articles, and it is well-known throughout academia that Britannica suffered as a result - many scholars snap up those old 1954 editions (I have two of them), because the newer ones are missing content. Wikipedia does not have to do that - that is one of the things that makes this project great - and if a series of articles, including lists, are accurate, we are fulfilling the mission of being a repository of information. The endless citing of WP:NOT neglects to carefully read it: "indiscriminate" means "not based on careful distinctions". No one has shown how these lists do not make distinctions - they have clear guidelines for what can be included, they are logically displayed, they are accessible and, yes, they are useful. When did the idea of usefulness become the subject of disdain? Do you really think that because the five pillars don't say that usefulness is a virtue, that it is not? I would hope more articles were useful - I see an awful lot of them which seem to me to have no useful application. But that does not mean that they should be deleted just because I fail to find them useful. Someone happily listed a whole bunch of lists above that have been attacked here - I don't think their expulsion is something to be proud of. And I have yet to read a cogent argument for removal of this list that actually addressed the issues that have been raised in support. Why has the idea been ignored of respecting the previous two AfDs and letting this sit, while a community-wide discussion takes place about the larger issues? What harm is this list causing that prompted the renomination so soon after the previous no-consensus determination? Tvoz |talk 07:32, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Okay, than take this as an example: [Category:Lists of stars].

It containts list like List of largest stars, List of most luminous stars, List of most massive stars, List of least massive stars, List of brightest stars, etc.
Would nominator and co. also appy the same rules to these lists? may I quote you:

"Very broad list that would be unmaintainable" --> There are trillions of stars, every day new important stars may be discovered. red alert: neverending lists!
"Violates WP:NOT and WP:NOT#DIR of loosely associated topics. The only thing these [stars] have in common is that they are [large|small|bright|etc]. That's any [..], out of thousands of possible [..], from tens of thousands of possible [..]" --> So delete then, as per your criteria?
"List of Star Trek episodes has a fixed number of entries" --> okay total of stars is not, shall we delete?
"No appropriate sources have been forwarded to show that anyone other than a few editors here has considered this information in this way, and even though some comments here show a distate for the policies involved, "original research" is the opposite of "encyclopedia" --> this claim against Wikipedia:Verifiability is ridicilous. Lists of stars are no problem as they are scientifically verificable? Well maybe, but then only by a limited number of experts (astronomers, etc.). In contrast, a song's title can be understood by anyone, including a 5 year-old kid! Sourcing a song's name isn't needed, it's straightforward.

So as we can see, the criteria that were used for this AfD can also be applied to other lists that are well accepted on Wikipedia, or at least were biased.
I personally think this will be an endlessly debate. The only solution with an clear outcome will be the re-definitioning the meaning of "trival". Remember: it's not just this article, tomorrow it will be about List_X and the day after tomorrow it's List_∞.
(by the way, the above comment was written with some irony in mind, this was intended, so no need to invoke W:AG ;)) --Patrick1982 21:49, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

- I think you're missing a very important point here. The article Star discusses brightness, mass, etc. of stars (no one would doubt this is reasonable), and so a List of most massive stars is an encyclopedical addition to that topic. However, the article Song does not discuss personal names appearing in songs (and, beyond reasonable doubt, it would be nonsense to do so). Thus a list of songs with personal names is not an encyclopedic addition to that topic. It is a list of trivia. --B. Wolterding 22:12, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- And just because the term "loosely associated" seems to be controversial: The Star article, as said, makes a very tight association between stars and their mass, luminosity, etc. The topics "song" and "person's name" are, in contrast, completely unrelated, and using their intersection as inclusion criteria for a list makes it a list of loosely associated topics. --B. Wolterding 22:20, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think that, once again, we're heading to No Consensus. I hate to think that we're going to have to go through all this next month too. Maybe we can put a moratorium on this until Labor Day? Everyone seems to have strong feelings about this, which is fine. The difference is that if they stay, nobody HAS to look at these articles. If they get deleted, nobody GETS to look at these articles. Question for the nominator-- what type of articles do you find to be well-done? I've looked at your User page, and don't know what you might have created or made major contributions to. But what do you find to be encylopedic? Examples? Mandsford 22:48, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No consensus ? while AFD is not a !vote, 19 arguments for delete to 6 for keep (which are largely WP:ILIKEIT) does not seem to suggest that no consensus exists. --Fredrick day 22:57, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I said it looks like we're heading that way.... of course, I can't count that high. Mandsford 01:03, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but consensus is not about numbers it is about arguments. There is clearly a difference of opinion here. It boils down to a disagreement about what is "trivia" and when should it be removed. Saying that those of us who are defending these pages are just arguing using "I like it" as a reason is not fair. I could just as easily say that everyone else is advocating deletion with the reason "I don't like it". Even if that is all that we are talking about (some of us like it and some don't), I think it should be kept. By the way. I have never visited these pages before the debate, I have not contributed to them, and I won't personally miss them if they are gone. My "like" of these pages has nothing to do with the reasons I am defending them. --☑ SamuelWantman 02:53, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This would be more like List of stars with a personal name (which I would also vote to delete. Also would like to note that stars named after a person and ones that just contain a personal name are not the same) Also, I dont see why my personal preferences on articles should be mentioned in an AFD discussion Corpx 01:30, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, you've made clear your personal opinion about what you don't like. I was just curious about what you do like, but that's entirely up to you. Mandsford 03:26, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's not that I dont like this stuff, but I think these kind of stuff violate WP Policy and doesnt belong here. I'll leave you a message on your talk page about my likings! Corpx 04:22, 4 July 2007 (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.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs with personal names: A

List of songs with personal names: A

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