Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Damaged beyond repair

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. postdlf (talk) 23:15, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Damaged beyond repair[edit]

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

In searching I am not finding widespread support for this term defined as is. I don't nec. think it falls within a csd category but I do think it is not notable phrase to include here and possibly has a dose of WP:OR to go with it. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 08:33, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as a neologism. I am finding some mentions of the term in places such as this book, but it's brief and would be considered trivial. I'd suggest merging it somewhere as a mention, but I don't know an exactly good target for this to be added to. I don't have a problem with someone userfying the data, but I think it'll probably be a few years before this term really gets enough coverage to justify its own article. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 09:48, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISJAMMMY☆★ 11:12, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per Tokyogirl79. I've heard of the term "damaged beyond repair" to refer to structures damaged after calamities, but the term as used in the article appears to not be widespread. An alternative could be to redirect it to a disaster-related article (the term is frequently used in that context), but I'm not sure what the appropriate target would be. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 11:21, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Certainly the term is used loosely (and perhaps more formally) in relation to damage to physical objects and no doubt the usage here derives from that. If kept, there should be a hatnote directing users to Total loss. I do see quite a bit of evidence in Google that this alternative meaning has been around in the popular conciousness, or at least the blogosphere, since 2007 and is discussed for example here - it certainly cannot be dismissed as OR and we usually restrict neologism objections here to things of more recent coinage. What I cannot judge is how far it has penetrated into the (sub-)culture in order to be notable. But I do not think this is clear-cut, and I am inclined to give the article the benefit of the doubt. --AJHingston (talk) 11:53, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the OR concerns stem from the tone of some of the claims made in a previous version of the article, which claimed things such as all DBR men fail to make any contributions to society in a meaningful, positive way or that it all was the "direct result of black male socialization which focuses on aggression and hypersexuality". It wasn't backed up with a RS and was such a blanket statement that it came across as a little OR. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 13:43, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

- Thank you TG. That is exactly why I thought it was a possible issue. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 13:45, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So long as the view is attributable to the coinage then of course it has a proper place in the article, as does criticism of it. The difficulty might be that the term could be held applicable to all men/women/people within a (sub-)culture, a person's particular personal history, or men in general for that matter, and the article should make clear whether it has retained its original context. The fact that it is controversial or not borne out by the experience of some editors (which is OR) is not so much the issue as whether we can reliably reference it by pointing to usage. Alternatively, the controversy itself might be sufficiently notable for the article to be on that. --AJHingston (talk) 16:53, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete by "not a dictionary." The concept of people "damaged beyond repair" might possibly be a good topic for an article. I don't have any ideas for a title. This article says this particular expression is used in the black community. Obviously (again a part of "not a dictionary") we don't have two articles, one on what something is called by black people and another on what it's called by white people. Kitfoxxe (talk) 15:53, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:NEO. Nwlaw63 (talk) 22:00, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - let's not define every single metaphor in the English language. --Salimfadhley (talk) 00:52, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000^(talk) 06:03, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete — The OR issues mentioned above are not a reason to delete, of course; I'm not sure why they were brought up. However, I don't think this neologism quite meets the bar set by WP:NEO. "Damaged beyond repair" is a common phrase used to describe objects such as equipment, so for example a search for the phrase "damaged beyond repair" yields a lot of results. However, very few of them are for the usage that is the subject of this article. There are some; this is a thing that has some usage, to be sure. But I can't seem to find much in the way of discussion in reliable sources about the term, other than the trivial mention in the Karazin book that Tokyogirl linked to: "Neologisms that are in wide use but for which there are no treatments in secondary sources are not yet ready for use and coverage in Wikipedia." (WP:NEO). ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:43, 10 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In my view it's a simple statement, if it's a phrase not in common usage, and has no significant or verifiable references it must by definition be WP:OR. Under the subheading WP:STICKTOSOURCE which states rather explicitly "If no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article about it. If you discover something new, Wikipedia is not the place to announce such a discovery." therefore it is indeed a valid reason to mention for deletion. Now whether or not my assessment of original research is correct can be up for debate but I thought it fell under verifiability clause. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 01:26, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

But this is a phrase used in this context in 2007 if not before, commented on at the time, (we have references for both) and which it is said remains in use. The original use was not in WP. Even the controversy over it could be notable if we had enough sources. That is very different, surely, from the case where somebody writes a WP article claiming (say) that all men are worthless based on her experience, or an article based on a phrase that someone else used last week for the first time in a blog. Once somebody has coined a phrase and given it a meaning it could not be original research to attribute that meaning to it if the reference exists; the issue here must be whether it has passed the notability bar. --AJHingston (talk) 02:15, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I understand your point in the fact that it has some support showing it is a phrase used in sparing situations, that is one of the reasons I added whether my assessment was correct or nowt was open to debate. My main reason for the post was replying to the comment that OR is not a reason for deletion when it is. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 02:52, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oh pardon; I did not mean to imply that OR is not a reason to delete in general; I've argued for deleting made-up neologisms on a number of occasions. My point was simply that it is not a reason to delete in this case, so I was confused as to why it was being discussed here. There was possibly OR in the article—much of it I think removed here—that kind of OR can be fixed without deletion. The term itself is not OR; it is in use and discussed in RS. I agree it isn't enough to pass the bar set by WP:NEO, but it is certainly not OR. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 07:36, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, i understand where my statement may have been off base too. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 13:58, 11 December 2013 (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.