Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mermaids in popular culture

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, default to Keep. Walton^One 16:12, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mermaids in popular culture[edit]

Unacceptable trivia collection, per WP:FIVE. The most important ones are already contained in the quite-adequate section in the main article. Eyrian 21:19, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment "The most important ones are already contained in the quite-adequate section in the main article." ??!?!?! There IS NO section in the main article about it. None. Nothing. Except a link to the in popular culture article. Bad faith nomination for sure here, as the person didn;t even look at the article. DreamGuy 22:58, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mermaid#Legend and myth. --Eyrian 23:03, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Delete all %SUBJECT% in popular culture lists, they are nothing but trivia and violate the five pillars of Wikipedia as well. Burntsauce 21:22, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Funny, the WP:TRIVIA article says nothing about deleting real info, it just says it shouldn't be in list format. Just because you're too lazy to edit it, it's not a justification to delete the whole article. DreamGuy 22:57, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep on dreaming there Dreamguy, we delete plenty of "real info" every day. Real things happen all the time, that doesn't make them automatically notable or worthy of encyclopedic coverage. Burntsauce 17:07, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep This article is pretty good, as far as an in popular culture article goes. Where does Five pillars ban "In popular culture" articles? Are you saying this article is unencylopedic or NPOV? Besides, at least this one isn't a huge, bulleted list. --Transfinite (Talk / Contribs) 22:31, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bullet points don't really make the difference, it's just a bunch of single-issue paragraphs. The first pillar of Wikipedia includes "Wikipedia is not a trivia collection". --Eyrian 22:50, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

And by your definition of trivia (versus format) no article on Wikipedia would be kept, you'd delete them all. The topic here is jhust as encyclopedic as any other topic. Go actually read policies before putting things up for deletion. DreamGuy 23:00, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can assure you, I read the article and the appropriate policies. The list would be the same with or without some trivial formatting convention. It's just a trivial list, regardless of whether the paragraphs start with little boxes or not. --Eyrian 23:03, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Speedy keep - If you think there's too much trivia, EDIT THE ARTICLE. Deleting it and having people just push the trivia onto the main article wastes everyone's time, as it'll just have to get deleted in the future, or get spun off into a new article again. Popular culture is a topic that can have solid, encyclopedic information, and much of the content is very salvageable. All we have here are pup culture article haters who don;t think ahead far enough to realize that these were spun off for a very important reason. DreamGuy 22:57, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A very important comment, the reasons you give here are not a valid reason for speedy keeping. Speedy keeps are used when procedure is not followed correctly or in cases of obvious bad faith. You should assume the good faith of the article's nominator as well as those voting delete, and you should, at the very least, watch your tone, as it is extremely uncivil, and comes off as merely angry and (to be honest) immature. Not a single one of the editors nominating these articles or those voting delete 'hate' pop culture or pop culture articles if they are done well and are not huge lists of complete crap. There was no important reason to spin these articles off (WP:FORK?). The reason why most of these articles were created was because the trivia and/or 'pop culture' sections in articles were becoming bloated lists of indiscriminate information. CaveatLector^Talk 05:57, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The page cited is an essay, incorporating material from various levels of acceptance in WP. It is perhaps being cited because none of the actual policy pages on WP provide for the deletion of this sort of article. .If there's material too unimportant for an article edit the article. one argument for deletion does not fit all--personally, I don't think much of proposals for deletion which do not show some awareness of the specific contents of the page. We do not delete on the basis of page title alone.DGG (talk) 23:08, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd ask you, DGG, to give an example on this discussion page of a specific paragraph or piece of information contained within the article that is actually useful, verifiable, and relevant to the subject at hand (the subject being Mermaids. CaveatLector^Talk

Keep Gain consensus to change the essay to a policy if you want to kill ALL trivia articles, but frankly, it's not policy yet and I doubt it ever will be. Bullzeye^{Complaint Dept./Contribs)} 23:52, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep for now. What an odd idea for an article. I mean, what are mermaids other than in popular culture? Perhaps this should be Mermaids in an era when no sane adult could seriously believe that mermaids really exist, but that would be a bit unwieldy. Most "XYZ in popular culture" articles are crap compilations of teenage obsessions; this one too isn't crap-free, but it's actually pretty good as they go. By all means remove its more trivial content ~~but let it live on~~. (Time/energy permitting, I'll add a note on Zemlinsky's Seejungfrau: a fine piece of music.) -- Hoary 00:01, 27 July 2007 (UTC) .... altered Hoary 02:49, 28 July 2007 (UTC) (note new vote below).[reply]
Delete, cultural impact isn't shown by writing down every time something appeared somewhere. Punkmorten 00:36, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete This article is a list. Its just not bulleted. Listing every time ________ something has appeared in TV/Movies/Radio/books is trivial information, so delete per WP:FIVE Corpx 02:29, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~Delete~~ Change to Keep and rename(RE: comments below) -- I wonder why more people want to keep this list than do in the usual In popular culture articles? I think it's just because it isn't bulleted (as Corpx mentioned), so it might give the impression it's a more substantial article. It isn't, it's just a list of loosely associated topics (from Fantasy Island to Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie to Bewitched) stuck together just because they all featured a mermaid. At some point. Saikokira 03:15, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment I've cut a lot of NN stuff, junk, trivia etc. You may still hate the article (or insist that it's no more than a list), but anyway it's shorter. -- Hoary 03:49, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - It's an improvement, possibly the way to go would be to rename it Cultural depictions of mermaids and concentrate on examples that are specifically notable for their depiction of mermaids. I've changed to my recommendation to keep on that basis.Saikokira 04:11, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Yes, I'd been thinking of Mermaids in the arts myself, not least because such works as Die Seejungfrau have hardly been "popular". -- Hoary 05:43, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per every other in popular culture article deleted recently. Listcruft, trivia, indiscriminate information, and original research. Resolute 04:32, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Er, really? I discriminated, and deleted a pile of "information". The result is still a mess, of course, but then a high percentage of WP articles are messes. -- Hoary 05:43, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Indeed. And while your effort is commendable, it doesn't change the fact that this is nothing more than a trivia section acting as an article Wikipedia is not a collection of loosely associated topics. Resolute 13:34, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Then perhaps we disagree on what's trivia. I don't see a history of artistic representations of this or that imagined phenomenon as inherently trivial, though I'd concede that trivia remains in this article (and that it's shoddily sourced). I wondered what kind of articles you might like, and a bit of sleuthing on your user page took me to 1988-89 Calgary Flames season. The first one fifth or so of it looks like an article, but the rest looks like a series of neatly formatted trivia to me. Now, I realize that my finding adult men running around after balls occasionally ridiculous but mostly soporific may be most abnormal; still, you might ask yourself whether such material as Jim Peplinski 24 79 13 25 38 241 20 1 6 7 75 Theoren Fleury 14 36 14 20 34 46 22 5 6 11 24 Mark Hunter 22 66 22 8 30 194 10 2 2 4 23 Jamie Macoun 34 72 8 19 27 76 22 3 6 9 30 etc etc etc is so very much more deserving than an as-yet poorly arranged series of fairly coherently written paragraphs on mermaid appearances. -- Hoary 15:48, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      - WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. I'm not going to waste my time defending an article on a different topic that is unrelated to this one. The problem with this article is that a random listing of things that happen to mention or include mermaids is hardly a "history of artistic representations" of mermaids. Show me some reliable sources that discuss mermaids in popular culture, and I'll listen. Resolute 23:45, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        Actually, Mermaid itself does. I'd looked at that too quickly. See my revised vote/suggestion below. -- Hoary 02:49, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as an indiscriminate list of information and I would ike to add a plea for sanity that should come through in my comments in this discussion. CaveatLector^Talk 05:57, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- If it's me that's being accused of insanity, that's perfectly fine. Perhaps it's insanity that causes me to wonder about the continuation of the charge that this list is "an indiscriminate list of information" so soon after (i) I discriminated among what I saw and deleted half of it, (ii) I announced this (above, 03:49, 27 July 2007), (iii) this act of discriminating deletion persuaded User:Saikokira to change his or her vote from delete to keep (above, 04:11, 27 July 2007); (iv) Saikokira and I have thought of new titles that are likely to keep at bay would-be adders of Finalfantasy-Dragonballquest-Starwarstrek-cruft. -- Hoary 06:27, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - That sanity comment was really directed at the entire discussion in general. Although it's apparent you've worked hard in this case to discriminate among the information, it's still rather loosely associated. Some of this article actually looks like it might move into a well sourced discussion of the portrayal of mermaids in art ('pop' or not); however, it's going to be rather difficult to surpass the Mermaid#Legend and myth section that is already in the main article, and if new, well sourced, information can be added, it should probably go there. CaveatLector^Talk 15:54, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Yes, Mermaid#Legend and myth certainly is a lot better than the article up for deletion. What's to be done? (I'm now too sleepy to comment further.) -- Hoary 15:59, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per CaveatLector 15:54, 27 July; but first dump the content into Talk:Mermaid (whose readers may well want no part of it). -- Hoary 02:49, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete if not fixed, per PunkMortem. The problem with this article is that there is no point, and no one is really editing it. I could find it acceptable if it were a bare (not annotated) list of blue links. Theoretically, if this were actually an article about Mermaids, and their depiction and importance in popular culture, I might support that, but I think the main article Mermaid already deals with these issues in a good way, without particularly emphasizing modern popular culture (as I have seen nothing to indicate that the modern pop culture idea of a Mermaid is any different). This article is just a cruft-magnet now, and full of cruft. If someone is willing to fix it up, I'd be willing to change my opinion. Mango juice^talk 14:36, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Mergemaid Mandsford 00:15, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - nothing encyclopedic here. IPSOS (talk) 22:48, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - and continuing with bold editing processes to make it stronger. Otto1970 00:06, 30 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete triviacruft. GlassFET 15:21, 31 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Merge It should be cut down and probably merged with the Mermaid article. Having an article of it all by itself, it doesn't meet the criteria. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 01:13, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per (Hoary 02:49 July 28)/(CaveatLector 15:54 July 27). Kayaker 22:57, 1 August 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.