Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old school

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. Stifle (talk) 08:57, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Old school[edit]

Article talks only about a term and its etymology. It is not in any way about a subject or topic. This is purely a dictionary entry. It's different in kind from, for example truthiness which actually talks about the underlying meaning, and the reactions to it, and the forces that lead to the concept (rather than the term). This article is simply about a term and multiple meanings of it to boot. The wikipedia is not a dictionary.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 17:30, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - the page goes into some depth about the application of the term and its scope is significantly beyond that which you might find in a dictionary. Undoubtedly, there are multiple issues but those are for editorial action. TerriersFan (talk) 18:18, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whether something is encyclopedic or not is not about how much is written about it. It's about whether the term is used for a single thing or multiple things. In this case it's multiple, so it's a dictionary entry, not an encyclopedia one. If you like the article, please copy it over to the wiktionary.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 18:27, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The other issues are also on topic here. But even if it was referenced, it would still be about a term not a subject/topic/concept. The article right now is not salvageable. Perhaps an encyclopedic entry could be written. This isn't it.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 18:27, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Old School isn't a dicdef, it's a state of mind. Squidfryerchef (talk) 23:06, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep good article, meets our standards. already goes into appropriate depth for an encyclopedia articel, but could be expanded significantly.DGG (talk) 17:08, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:DICDEF#Wikipedia is not a usage guide which is policy. The length of the entry is irrelevant as explained by this policy: However, note that dictionary and encyclopedia articles do not differ simply on grounds of length.... It is the nature of the content which determines the application of this policy. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:41, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

this is not a usage guide, which is an explanation of how to write or speak--the WP Manual of Style, for example, is a usage guide. Its a description of the significance of a phrase. The material here is currently such as would fit is either a dictionary or encyclopedia, and could be expanded to make it even more encyclopedic. It's thus the suitable beginning of an article. DGG (talk) 17:08, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My usage and understanding of the term usage guide in this context is that the article is a lengthy catalogue of the usage of this phrase. The article does not discuss phrases with equivalent meaning such as old-fashioned and so is about particular words rather than about the topic which they describe. It thus fails the WP:DICDEF policy. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:38, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Per col. warden. It is a dicdef. A good proportion of the "usage" section is OR. I take a narrower view than Warden on the issues of dicdefs in wikipedia (See the nucular deletion debate), but this one still falls into that category for me. Protonk (talk) 17:36, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as dicdef, OR and borderline WP:Complete Bollocks. Eddie.willers (talk) 17:58, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Article is not just a DICDEF. It goes in length to describe a variety of situations in which the term is used in popular culture and society, with references included. Sebwite (talk) 23:53, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's just usage of a term! Article's are not suppose to be about terms, they're about a topic. There's no sense that the different usages of the term are the same topic here. The topics here in the article are 'old school in X' but the X's don't overlap. And there's not different terms that mean the same thing.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 20:07, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, it's not a mere dicdef and Wikipedia has many articles about slang terms. --Pixelface (talk) 11:08, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Give us the list then, and I can AFD them also, if they're purely about a term and the different ways they're used.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 20:07, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, but add more subject-specific content besides term-specific. -- chAlx 07:04, 26 September 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.70.236.126 (talk)

There isn't any underlying subject. That's the problem. The subject is the term. If the article picked one of them like 'old school reggae' or something that would be fine. But you can't have an article on every different sort of 'old school'.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 20:07, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment this may work better as a disambiguation page Sebwite (talk) 20:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep or merge with school of thought: WP:NAD states that encyclopedic articles are "articles...about a person, or a people, a concept, a place, an event, a thing etc. that their title can denote." This article informs us about things that the concept "old school" denotes: religious denominations, music, cars, video games, etc. Cosmic Latte (talk) 04:28, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But that's exactly the problem. This article isn't on a single topic. It's about multiple things that are all to do with a term. Encyclopedia articles are on a single thing that isn't merely different usages of a term. Different topics go in different articles in an encyclopedia.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 04:43, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If encyclopedia articles are about things with agreed-upon definitions, then I guess we'd better nominate truth and justice for deletion. Cosmic Latte (talk) 04:50, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Careful here. There has to be a single topic, not a single definition of the topic. Radically different definitions do call for different articles though (that would be a different topic).- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 05:38, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The topics don't seem to be so disparate as to warrant, say, a disambiguation page. The term seems to have originated with religion, and it now appears to apply primarily to the arts, especially music. Simple enough. Cosmic Latte (talk) 06:13, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, for example, old fashioned which is a synonym of this, is a disambiguation page.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 15:02, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's a very good argument. It more or less reduces this to a prefix than a concept in of itself.

Peter ^Isotalo 16:26, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Old-fashioned is an adjective that can refer to just about anything. Old school is primarily an aesthetic/musical concept. Cosmic Latte (talk) 03:04, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's exactly the problem. "Aesthetic/musical" is still a huge area. It's much too diffuse to be appropriate as an encyclopedic topic. As pointed even by some keepers, it would be much more useful as a dabpage.

Peter ^Isotalo 09:43, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm...looks like such a page already exists: Old school (disambiguation). Could certainly be expanded, though. Cosmic Latte (talk) 16:27, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Dictionary definition + usage guide + example farm... nothing encyclopedic. --Rividian (talk) 12:22, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Per nominator, and especially the old fashioned-example. Peter ^Isotalo 16:26, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. The multitude of use-case mentions have a serious case of recentism. (The term was widely used before your great-grandfather was born, and none of the mentioned stuff was even new-school yet.) If you strip them out, all that is left is a dicdef. ~ Ningauble (talk) 19:10, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, treelo _radda 00:20, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

KEEP and Change to disambiguation While I do favor keeping for the most part, this would make a perfect disambiguation page, as it already lists various terms with articles for which the phrase "old school" is associated with. Sebwite (talk) 01:14, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep the phrase has transcended it's original use and extends into all age groups and races, even if it means slightly different things to each. An article is appropriate, and since wikipedia isn't a paper encyclopedia, it is exactly what it exists for. PHARMBOY (TALK) 11:02, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- A phrase that no longer has any reasonably cohesive meaning is a classic example of a dicdef. The article doesn't describe "old school" as a concept, but rather a group of semantic meanings. There is nothing in the article that refers to anything written about anything other than the usage of "old school". The article could theoretically be kept if someone digs up plenty of reliable sources that actually discuss the phrase itself. Simply describing how it is applied is a description of language usage, and that's not in the scope of encyclopedias, paper or electronic, but of dictionaries, one of which happens to be a sister project. Peter ^Isotalo 12:29, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Many words in the dictionary have multiple modern meanings, that are modified from their original use. But we're still talking about meanings, as in, definitions... definitions belong in a dictionary. --Rividian (talk) 15:03, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment to closing moderator: none of the calls so far for keep are addressing the policies in any way here. All of the comments that do address the policies call for deletion.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 15:52, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I could've sworn that my "Strong keep" began with a direct quotation of policy, namely WP:NAD itself. Cosmic Latte (talk) 08:26, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, there has only been one quotation of policy then. But you only quoted one sentence of the policy, and not the part that the article is being AFD for having contravened. If that works as a valid defence then I'm a monkey's uncle.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 00:14, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Has been expanded well beyond a dicdef. This is one of relatively few slang terms for which an article genuinely seems possible. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 16:26, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- This is an argument raised in just about every word-article AfD these days, but I've never actually seen it expanded upon. Formatting dictionary information (etymology, usage, synonyms, semantic meanings, spelling variants, etc.) to look encyclopedic does not render that information encyclopedic. So what part of the article is actually verifiable encyclopedic information that doesn't belong in separate articles? Peter ^Isotalo 16:34, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Turn into disamb page: I the nominator, after reading the above I'm going to call for turning this into disamb page; failing that Delete. For the record, it looks like a perfect dicdef to me, but even if it was magically somehow beyond that, that wouldn't make it automatically an encdef.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 17:09, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Mainly due to lack of sources, although this vote should not be assumed to mean support for speedy deleting a recreated article that does have sources. There ought to be sources for at least in the context of electronic dance music, on the other hand, I'm not sure there's anything that can be said that isn't already covered at rave. Similarly any other sections for which sources might exist are probably better off covered in the relevant articles. Turning into a disambiguation page is a possibility, but only where the terms are supported by reliable sources - which we don't have for most of these (on that note, is a tag page on last.fm considered a reliable source?). If this article is kept, we need to find sources, or remove unsourced material if it can't be found (recently someone tried to add the term "old school" to goth slang - it was rightly removed due to lack of sources, but I don't see why it should be allowed to remain here without sources either). Mdwh (talk) 02:14, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- I'd clarify that the sources need to discuss the term "old school", not the topics that it is used to describe. Those belong in the articles of the respective music genres and aesthetic forms. And mere attestation of usage is not enough either, no matter how long or good the prose gets. Wikipedia is not supposed to keep track of how terms are applied. That's the job of the wiktionarians. Peter ^Isotalo 06:57, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Convert to disambiguation page - Francis Tyers · 07:09, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Old's cool! :-) Cosmic Latte (talk) 14:27, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete For me, the whole argument above about whether or not it is a dictionary definition is off track. The real issue here is that this is original research. The only references are to places on the web that use "old school" as an adjective to describe something. While this does support the "it's a dicdef" side, what's more important to me is that while it all may be true, it is all based on primary sources gathered through OR. Not acceptable, sorry.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 06:18, 3 October 2008 (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.