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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 no consensus. I'd recommend unlinking the red links and adding a proper lede. -- Y not? 16:30, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

List of former members of AKB48

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List of former members of AKB48 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Unsourced fancruft which, even if it were sourced, would still be cruft. These people are not (unless in exceptional cases) individually notable, and this is part of the AKB48 on Wikipedia conglomerate of fan articles. Drmies (talk) 16:44, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Japan-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:52, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Music-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:52, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:53, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep. Everything in the article can be sourced easily. The info has been moved from the article AKB48. When a member leaves the group, she is cut from the main article and moved to this list. Cause the main article is too long already. --Moscow Connection (talk) 20:11, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. The nominator seems to be biased against J-pop and K-pop. So here we go again... --Moscow Connection (talk) 20:11, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - This is a very clear keep. The function of this list is well defined, and the list is long. This information is also not contained on the AKB48 page meaning it is not duplication. Merging them is also not an option per WP:SIZERULE since the AKB48 page is already over 100,000 bytes. I do not feel a delete is justified either and this article could be considered a justified use of WP:SPLIT. User226 (talk) 22:09, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Size is not a valid reason to keep an article, per WP:ASZ. Looking over this list, it seems like it's merely a WP:DIRECTORY. There's not any real indication of who these people are or why they are notable other than the time period of their membership in AKB48, but, of course, notability isn't inherited. If this were confined to notable former members of AKB48, then it might be work keeping, but it would also be about 1/20th the length. This kind of list reminds me of sports related articles like New York Yankees all-time roster, only without any actual history or statistics. Grayfell (talk) 22:28, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:DIRECTORY does not seem to apply unless you can explain further. Most pages about bands list former members and due to the nature of this group they have a long list. It is a very well-defined and specific list and not an indiscriminate collection of random members.
List are also covered under MOS:LIST and have different requirements for inclusion than articles. Per WP:LISTPURP this list does provide information and navigation. In addition, not every member of the list is required to meet notability independently to be included. Having a Short, complete lists of every item that is verifiably a member of the group is all that is required per WP:CSC. The group would be "Former Members of AKB48", a common group for notable bands. In addition, this list is also not unreasonably long.
If the WP:ASZ is in regards to my comments about WP:SIZERULE, then it also does not apply. The WP:ASZ argument is in reference to keeping a piece JUST because it is long or deleting an article JUST because it is short. The WP:SIZESPLIT is in regards to splitting information out of an article because it has grown too long. The AKB48 article is already long. The information in this list would otherwise be there making it even longer. Given this information I feel there are really only two options: Keep or Merge. Obviously, I think Keep is fully justified in this situation. User226 (talk) 23:06, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Write the article first comes to mind. We don't have a list of every past member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, or every cast member and understudy who ever performed in Cats, because that would be ridiculously out of scope for Wikipedia. How about List of former members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir? I don't think AKB48 is different. Listing past members of a five person rock group is very, very different from listing past members of an 86-person... conglomerate? It's not even a single band, so it's an especially silly comparison.
I mentioned ASZ because you said that the article should be kept because it was well defined and long, and I do not agree. If this was spun off of AKB48, I think that was a mistake, and it's my opinion that it should've been deleted instead. The fact that this article and the AKB48 article are very long can mean that they need to be split, or it can mean that they need to be pruned. I think the latter, obviously. The niche interest of the topic suggests, as Drmies said, that it rightly belongs on a site like akb48.wikia.com, where it would be of greater benefit. Grayfell (talk) 23:58, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I will just stike everything out. But I still think it is not fair that you practically "work together". (Just my opinion.) --Moscow Connection (talk) 03:02, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for striking the comment. However as you strike one unfair comment you make another: practically "work together" No, definitely we do not. First, we never practically "work together" at AfDs. To my recollection this is the first time I participate in an AfD with Drmies. The vast majority of our edits in K-pop articles have to do with cleaning disruption caused by socks. "Working together" to fight socks is a good thing and should be done more often and should not be used as a reason for criticism. That is very unfair. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 04:17, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry. I assumed absolutely wrong. I just saw one Drmies's comment and I came to a completely wrong conclusion. --Moscow Connection (talk) 04:41, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your comment. I appreciate your intellectual honesty and greatly respect it. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 04:48, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Dr. K. and I have a long history editing such articles. He tells me when some sock is doing this or that, and I sometimes drop him a line telling him what I'm up to. It's hardly much in the way of canvassing, since we check each other's edits every now and then and what's going on on talk pages. Besides, it's only one line, to one editor--and if you look again, you'll see that we have considerable overlap on K-pop articles, for instance, sometimes by chance and sometimes because we know where the other is working. ABK48 on Wikipedia is kind of like X on Twitter: an indication of how fan cruft easily threatens the relevance of our project, given the overwhelming amount of cruft dedicated to this particular topic. If anyone wants to see what really matters, what really needs to be written, where editors' energy and server space and electrons should be directed, check WP:CORE. Drmies (talk) 01:30, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't say it was canvassing. I didn't know you look at each other's edits. That probably explains why another editor appeared at another discussion too, and you didn't ask her. It is okay, but as I said above, it is not fair. --Moscow Connection (talk) 03:02, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Trim. The group is comparable to squads like Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (which also had a reality TV audition show and movies) or any large theater group or band/orchestra, where the list can be reduced to the notable alumni and years active. If it needs to be a complete list then use something similar to Mickey Mouse Club or List of SNL cast members, with a simple table (not the big bar graph chart) of name, years active, reason for leaving (graduated, resigned), and notes/references. The election ranks and birthday, birthplace need to go away, but if you want to write about the youngest member to join or oldest member to graduate, the list can support that in prose. If the Team graduations are different from one other, you can specify final team designation in the chart. I like the sentence from List of Therion members: "For detailed information, such as voice range or specified songs appearance, see the proper album article of the relevant year." On the other hand, if you want to go nuts over describing every member's joining or leaving of the group, and can support it with reliable sources, you can write up a section like List of Red Hot Chili Peppers band members, although in that article's case, there were plenty of notable members. Then remove the detailed personnel changes from the main article. -AngusWOOF (talk) 00:45, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • The Therion list strikes me as overdoing it (look how poorly referenced it is), and it seems like the Therion article itself is over the top qua fancruft. The list of members of the RHCP can hardly be compared to the current one. First of all, it has text, and that text is verifiable and well-written and so on--it's a Featured article. In comparison, this list has nothing in the way of verified content, and what content it has is pretty much trivial. Second, the former members of the RHCP are without any question at all notable and have notability outside of the band, even if that notability relies to some, or a great, extent on the band--that's how Anthony Kiedis et al. got started. And when they leave the band, they're still notable: you're talking about Dave Navarro and John Frusciante and people like that. It is my opinion that list articles should list notable things, or at least things that are likely to be notable--and there is no way in which that can be established for this one. It's not a principle here that should be at work--"If there are band members of a notable band there is an encyclopedic value for a list of the former band members". Remember that notability is not inherited. Rather, the question should be taken on a case-by-case basis: does the list serve an encyclopedic function beyond cruft? Does it contain elements that by themselves are notable? That's a matter of editorial judgment, the kind of judgment that Moscowconnection seems to deny by arguing from some principle of "it can be verified so it's of encyclopedic value". Drmies (talk) 01:41, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Delete - This article only serves to showcase a nonstop parade of non-notable idols. It would be on the same level as a page devoted to who is on the cover of ヤンマガ week after week. None of the information on this page is historically or culturally significant with regards to Japanese pop culture. This list is a stack of redlinks. Equivalency with something like Dancing with the Stars in the West is not justifiable considering the vast majority of AKB members are not individually notable in Japanese media, and even in the Dancing with the Stars example, the individual contestants are listed on the main page, not on a list with growth potential only for stacking redlinks. Jun Kayama 02:26, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep. Drmies and Δρ.Κ. are not arbitrars on cultural relevancy of artists they are not knowledgeable about and they obviously dislike (numerous condescending comments vis à vis Jpop and Kpop and its audience by those two, here and on other pages). Nilbuk (talk) 03:01, 14 June 2013 (UTC)— Nilbuk (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. Please see also Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Vgleer[reply]
  • Strong Keep. It is very simple: AKB48 is a highly influential musical act, dominating world`s biggest music market, and this alone makes it`s (former) participiants relevant to an encyclopedia. This discussion should be totally avoiding any comments such as "In J-Pop people are exchangeable" or any personal opinions about Idol culture in general. Proponents of this deletion seem to have their own history with expressing their personal bias towards the genre. Deletion of the article would in turn lead to the inclusion of it`s content into the main article again, and i can see no benefit from that. Rka001 (talk) 05:22, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - The actual size of the Japanese music market is second in the world, per RIAJ. [3] This significance in the world market is something I am proud of, and being tagged as disliking J-Pop is tedious, even after I voted Keep/Strong Keep on current AfDs for individual AKB members who without doubt meet criteria for WP:N.
I am not arguing for deletion because this article is WP:UNENCYC, which is a fallacious argument. I am pushing for deletion because this article is a stack of redlinks. Listing all team members in AKB just because they are in AKB is like listing every single cast member for all the productions in Cats during its 21-year run. Acceptance into the ranks, transfer, graduation, in a separate list is like trying to list all the drafts, trades, and retirements of every single member of the Tokyo Giants. These redlinks have no value as stand-alone articles because the vast majority of these individuals fail WP:N or WP:NM in their own right, so this list is a collection of independent entries for redlinks, where room for growth is more redlinks. I have nothing against listing members in the main article in a format such as [4]. This article for AfD fails to serve to strengthen the main article, or in its present form serve as anything other than WP:CRUFT because of an absence of WP:RS to illustrate context. If someone wants to tag every last スポニチarticle generated for every redlinked member here in an attempt to fix this, they are welcome to it, but just because they are AKB is not sufficient criterion for WP:N for redlinked members or this article. Jun Kayama 13:55, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - the Takarazuka article has a much better solution [5] which should serve as a model. Jun Kayama 16:00, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I am also willing to flip my vote to a Keep if this page does not cover only former members, but current ones, and the structure takes after the JA Wikipedia page here [6] somewhat. Jun Kayama 16:20, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I agree on merging the member section of the main article and this one into a "Membership history of AKB48" main article. If that is not agreed upon, i stay to my Strong Keep. Another sample to organise a membership section is shown here: [7], which may be introduced with the tables of the current roster as shown in the main article. Rka001 (talk) 19:35, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The member section of the main artile can't be merged to any "history" article cause we need a list of current members anyway. I think the article should be first kept, and then we can start a discussion about how to present info about members differently. The Japanese Wikipedia has both a member list in the AKB48 article and a separate article about "AKB48のグループ構成". --Moscow Connection (talk) 19:56, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - JA Wikipedia serves the Japanese language community first, so articles about AKB are going to be in abundance and content fork more readily, with much more WP:RS. This low quality list of redlinks in a separate article is an eyesore. It wouldn't be done for Takarazuka, it wouldn't be done for A Chorus Line, and even アイドル追っかけ isn't served by the way this information is presented. A mass list of redlinked former AKB members who fail WP:N on their own is not an article that should inherit notability from the main AKB article. Future growth for this article is to add more redlinks. Trying to pass off some 研究生 as being notable after getting cut from the group [8] never to be seen again is unbelievable. Jun Kayama 20:43, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I was not advocating to merge the Timeline article with the member section, i was proposing to move the member list of the main article to the one that is discussed here to make room in the main article AKB48. As for the notability of former kyenkusei, i daresay that most of them did interest more people than the myriards of obscure Grindcore, Death Metal or EBM bands that have their own article on WP. Bands like Depeche Mode have entire articles devoted to concert setlists, which is arguably only of interest for fans. Noone complains there. Just to put into context what we are discussing here. Rka001 (talk) 21:45, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Those other genres have no relevance here. Dozens of Japanese idols are debuted every year and the vast majority do not meet WP:N. Not everything associated with AKB48 is notable, and this EN Wikipedia article is a fraction of the quality and detail of the JA Wikipedia article, especially in discussing 問題点とトラブル [9] most likely because the majority of AKB fans on EN Wikipedia can't work with the Japanese language. If no one complained, this article would obviously not be up for AfD. Contrasting this redlink-loaded article to something like List of Depeche Mode tours does not make sense. One comparison shows that the Depeche Mode article is linked to further articles, not lined with redlinks. "AKB is awesome and everything about it deserves an article, if you don't agree you are a J-Pop hater" is not a credible defense for an article like this of such low quality with poor organization and conveyed information. How many people have read the JA and EN articles side by side here? Jun Kayama 00:08, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Hm, that wasn´t exactly my point. May i ask you this question: How would you rate the non-inherited notability of Depeche Mode tour set lists compared to the non-inherited notability of former AKB members, especially in respect to fancruft? Because, i get this feeling some people are under the impression to give idol groups a special treatment, for whatever reasons they might have. At the very start, idol groups are music/entertainment acts, and AKB48 happens to be an idol group with just many members. Repeat, the only difference here is the number of members. Everything else is theorycrafting. That said, i like DM much better than AKB btw:) Rka001 (talk) 09:17, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: Individual band members may or may not be notable, but in any case the band itself is notable. Perhaps worth a merge, but the main article is large enough and this seems like a valid content fork -A1candidate (talk) 13:53, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or Trim the article appears to contain unsupported statements about living people in breach of WP:BLP. If the article is kept, a proper lead needs to be written. Stuartyeates (talk) 21:31, 20 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: Certainly more sources are required, so either more sources need to be found or unsupported statements removed. However, this list is definitely a notable topic itself.--192.5.110.4 (talk) 18:15, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Are the WWE alumni pages going to be deleted next because it is "fancruft"? Former members is encyclopaedic information and the only notoriety necessary of former members is that they were part of this band. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.226.5.172 (talk) 11:49, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per WP:IINFO. Miniapolis 20:12, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note to the closing admin
    1. Even if you decide to delete it in spite of no consensus (like a similar AfD that was closed a couple of days ago), please merge it to the article AKB48. If simply deleted, it will greatly damage the coverage of AKB48 history in the English Wikipedia. This info will still be needed. It will have to be rewritten from scratch and added to the article AKB48 anyway. Maybe in some other form, but it will have to be somewhere in Wikipedia.
    2. I guarantee that there's nothing in the list that can't be easily sourced. Most of "graduations" were covered in multiple reliable sources. If there are a few that weren't written about in the media, they can be sourced from the official site. The problem is that there are too many, so the article needs a hero to reference it. --Moscow Connection (talk) 00:58, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I have already posted several suggestions for improvement in the talk page of the article. I would also volunteer in searching references, if somebody else would do the formatting into tables. Rka001 (talk) 09:13, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. 192.5.110.4 commented: "this list definitely a notable topic itself". I concur to this. This list can even be remade into a "normal" Wikipedia article. --Moscow Connection (talk) 01:02, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Looking at WP:List Purposes: Most entries are not topics of articles to be written (insufficient development purpose) and most entries are not and will not be internally linked terms (insufficient navigation purpose). This list mainly is an information source. The question is whether it is a valuable information source. For people, that issue is addressed by WP:Lists of people. To avoid trivia, each entry in a list of people must have the same importance to the subject as would be required for the entry to be included in the text of the article. An importance of the AKB48 topic is the come and go of members. However, this does not also mean that the importance of the AKB48 topic is the come and go of each specific member, which is what this list covers. While fans of the group may find value in this list, the list is not a source of valuable encyclopedic information. Since the list lacks encyclopedic purpose within Wikipedia, it should be deleted. -- Jreferee (talk) 14:58, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Pointless fancruft and the reasons for deletion havve already been articulated. Niteshift36 (talk) 12:23, 28 June 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.
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