Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/World Trade Center 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 or at least no consensus to delete. Merging may be done at editorial discretion. Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 19:21, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

World Trade Center in popular culture[edit]

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Trivial list of appearances and what-have-yous. Maybe refine to “impact of 9/11 on popular culture (or redirect if that already exists)” but even then a comic in 2004 featuring the attacks is getting into “historical event” territory, not contemporary impact. Dronebogus (talk) 13:11, 6 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Dronebogus (talk) 13:11, 6 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Architecture, History, Popular culture, and New York. Skynxnex (talk) 15:27, 6 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment There also exist separate articles entitled List of cultural references to the September 11 attacks and List of entertainment affected by the September 11 attacks. TompaDompa (talk) 15:32, 6 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I’d merge the former into the latter and reformat the resulting fusion into a prose article. We have a very good collection of 9/11 articles and it’s a little disappointing and embarrassing our coverage of the popular culture impact is still in “list of minor appearances this or that” format Dronebogus (talk) 16:31, 6 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment it seems the majority of World Trade Center in popular culture is pre-9/11 and there is a hatnote mentioning this is for popular culture references unaffected by that. And there was a lot of significant pop culture usages and references pre-9/11 so I think it is likely that this is a notable, encyclopedic topic that is deserving of its own coverage even if this article has excessive cruft currently. Skynxnex (talk) 20:17, 6 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. This is a notable subject, as described in books like this and this, and to a lesser extent books like this. The book Icons of American Architecture: From the Alamo to the World Trade Center also devotes some text to the WTC in pop culture. While this article's current condition is downright awful, reliable sources do exist for the topic of the WTC in popular culture, both before and after 9/11.
In all honesty, this article should be rewritten to look like World Trade Center (1973–2001)#As an icon of popular culture. I wrote that section in the WTC (1973-2001) article, so I'm a little biased, but it actually analyzes the WTC in popular culture without getting bogged down in references to the WTC in pop culture. – Epicgenius (talk) 21:55, 6 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
WP:TNT exists for these cases. If it’s “awful” why not just rewrite it from scratch? Dronebogus (talk) 22:24, 6 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair, I'm agreeing with you that the article currently consists mostly of "trivial list[s] of appearances and what-have-yous". However, I also do not think that rewriting the article is within AFD's scope, and keeping the contents of the current page would be at least marginally helpful to someone who wishes to revamp the article in the future. The current maintenance tags on the page, "This article is in list format but may read better as prose", "This article contains a list of miscellaneous information", and "This article needs additional citations for verification", already detail some of the page's myriad problems. – Epicgenius (talk) 22:36, 6 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I lean towards WP:TNT. This may be a notable topic, but WP:NOTTVTROPES. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 15:07, 8 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. If this AFD closes with a consensus to keep, I think the current text of this article should be replaced with what's in the WTC (1973-2001) article, then expanded upon. – Epicgenius (talk) 17:18, 8 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. "In popular culture" is often a valid aspect of a given subject, but it should look like this rather than a list of examples. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:44, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Star Mississippi 02:42, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Merge Probably TNT, but the merge sounds better. Oaktree b (talk) 13:39, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 06:01, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep or selective merge to World Trade Center. This is a notable topic, but most of the content here is virtually unusable. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:43, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. This is very clearly a notable topic, and the principal objection to keeping this is article quality. However, WP:DEL-CONTENT notes that If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page; I see no need for us to ignore the deletion policy's guidance here. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 03:29, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
CommentIt's a pretty big article. There is a lot of problematic work. But is it significant without an updated article about the building for the encyclopedia? --Wyndhan Han (talk) 11:28, 29 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment The way it's written, it's pushing people to add every trivial instance of "someone used a photo of New York in their work" which is not what I'm reading the purpose of Lists on Wikipedia generally should be. I think the paragraph about the Simpsons is interesting, but it is Original Research? The item below it "Desperately Xeeking Xena" is a good example of a non-notable mention of the tower in pop culture. If we keep it, will it constantly be a target of that kind of padding? Denaar (talk) 08:06, 1 July 2023 (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.