Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of American artists

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. - Mailer Diablo 12:39, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of American artists

The subject of this list is unworkable, simply because it's too vast and is going to get bigger and bigger, but unfortunately with less and less notable artists and more and more contemporary ones, swamping the significant figures that one would wish to stand out. Smaller lists would work much better, i.e. List of 18th century American Artists, etc, List of American Artists born 1900-1950, then List of American Artists born 1950-75 and then 1976-. At least all the contemporary ones and the self-noms would be in one place to see easily if they merited a place. This would also create a historical context for the artists. There are also other artists lists that will need assessing, but let's take one at a time.Tyrenius 00:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Maybe putting this list into a category would be better, don't you think? Diez2 00:46, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep, but reorganize Can't you just divide it by periods instead of alphabetically, put a notice on saying redlinks (and external spam links) will be deleted, & maybe have a "major contemporary artists" section that is policed, and then another "other contemporary artists" one at the end that you accept will have to be a bit rag tag & bobtail? You also have architects & doubtless other types in there; the criteria for inclusion need to be defined. Obviously the concept of the list is fine; its just the practicality. Having separate lists by century is not attractive; there are all sorts of overlap problems. It's not in that bad a state. I have problems like this at Printmaking & its daughter articles; better a messy list than no list. There already is a category of course, and people are always being encouraged to put categories into lists, not the other way around Johnbod 00:50, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm up for any meaningful and usable organisation, but this is no good to anyone, apart from unknown artists sneaking their name in. I've suggested retaining smaller lists. Using dates at least gives a rigid definition so that everyone knows where they are. Dates will also do a rough and ready job of sorting out major from ragtag contemporary artists, as major tend to be older. Good red links provide a valuable function to show articles that need to be written, so this purpose is also defeated by the present arrangement (though the new blue links are a good way of tracking down non notable contemporary artists.. ;) Tyrenius 01:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you have lists (or categories) by century, you have to put loads of people in two of them. The list isn't that long & the older periods would be quite short; as you say the problem is the contemporaries. I think you have have to keep redlinks out; there are other places (Visual arts project/ articles needed) for articles that should be done. Johnbod 01:32, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as unmaintainable and unwieldy. I think a compromise between two ideas above can be reached - multiple categories per period. --Dennisthe2 00:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, The subject is ridiculously broad, making it impossible to keep the list accurate and organised. Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 01:03, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. An article on American Art that said something of substance about these artists would be encyclopedia, a simple list violates WP:NOT#DIRECTORY. --Shirahadasha 01:05, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is nevertheless established that wiki does have lists (lots of them). What we need are lists that are useful and usable. This requires the right definition to start with. Tyrenius 01:16, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Here's what I say to do: Redirect this to Lists of American artists which would cover the kind of segmentation suggested in the nomination. Or any other kind of division desired. FrozenPurpleCube 01:06, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean a central list from which the specialised ones could be accessed? That would work. The real problem here is the amount of contemporary artists who swamp the rest. At the very least there should be a list of historic (i.e. dead) and contemporary (i.e. living) artists. The latter would be even better subdivided. If there was a list of people born after, say 1975, it would catch a lot of the not-terribly-notables (but just notable enough to survive an AfD) and make the other lists far easier to read. Tyrenius 01:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that is exactly what I'm suggesting. I have no idea what those sub-lists will be, but I do feel they should exist. FrozenPurpleCube 01:34, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I'm no expert, but isn't the generation of this type of list precisely what categories are for? So if anything, I'd suggest a set of narrower categories that include time period and nationality (i.e., 19th century American artists or whatnot). Planetneutral 01:21, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm no expert on categories (or lists - I tend to avoid them -mainly because there's too many like this one!), but an earlier comment said the encouragement was for lists rather than cats.Tyrenius 01:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes - look at any Categories for deletion day page (WP:CfD) - "Listify" is the regular cry. I think this is quite right by the way; lists sit quietly by themselves; categories have to be in every article, are much harder to rearrange etc. Johnbod 01:38, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds as if what we really need is the equivalent of an index, which is essentially what lists are, but conceiving of them in that way might make it easier to decide what lists to have. Tyrenius 02:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. As it stands, this list is of very little use. It is just a list of (potentially many thousands of) names, providing no context for each name—which is precisely what a category is. To be useful, the names in such a list would need to be categorized by genre of art. Moreover, the definition of artist is so broad that the number of people who could be listed is vast—too vast for one page. This list should be a category, and not surprisingly there already is such a category: Category:American artists. ●DanMS 02:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Wikipedia is not a directory or a list of lists. Philippe Beaudette 05:39, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, WP:NOT an indiscriminate collection of information, listcruft. There are many American artists. It's simply impossible to compile it into a list, a category will be much easier. Terence Ong 10:47, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per above. MER-C 11:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep using criterion. I raised this issue on the article's talk page. Specifically: "What's the criteria for listing here? Should the artist have been born in this country? Is reputation a factor? Are we wasting our time on a list that cannot be complete?" I might suggest the following. Allow this list by do not allow names for which there is no biographical information. In this way, the user can read a bio to determine information about the artist which, hopefully, puts him/her in context. This also prevents a random list of names with no context whatsoever. For example, I added the name George McConnell, but did not add a biography. This would force me to create his bio first, and then add his name to the list. Let me also point out that there are many references to biographies of American artists that are alphabetical with no further categorization. For example, the three volume reference Who Was Who in American Art (Falk, ed.).JJ 14:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Change to Category or Delete - I believe that something as broad as his would be best suited as a category or nothing at all. Then the criteria for inclusion are a bit more simplified in terms of notability. אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) • Give Back Our Membership! 15:12, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete/change to category. CfD "listify" cries are usually based, from what I can tell, on over-categorization. Something as broad as American Artists is, IMO, perfect for a category. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Geoffspear (talk • contribs) 21:05, 2 February 2007 (UTC).[reply]
Delete-Lists are terrible, and this one is way too general. We have categories for lists, not mainspace pages. --TeckWiz^Talk Contribs_@ 00:31, 3 February 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.