Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christmas in literature

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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 keep per consensus. Doczilla @SUPERHEROLOGIST 00:01, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Christmas in literature[edit]

Christmas in literature (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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This is an unreferenced list that may fail WP:LISTN and even if it doesn't, requires a WP:TNT. As a navigational aid, it fails since almost most listed on it appear notable. As for TNT, I started a proper, referenced analysis of the topic at Christmas in fiction where this could be redirected to. As an additional problem, List of Christmas novels is a similar, unreferenced, fork of the 'novels' section here and should probably be merged here, or redirected to the 'in fiction' article. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:50, 26 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:50, 26 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:50, 26 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:50, 26 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and fix as per Goldenrowley's comment on Piotrus's AfD of Secular Christmas stories. It'd be silly to throw away the work of many editors over many years in these two (mostly-list) articles merely because an individual editor has unwittingly created a third article covering the same ground. The correct approach is to merge Piotrus' work into whichever of the two existing articles it fits best, and delete the most recent, third article Christmas in fiction which currently consists of a single three-sentence paragraph, with very little information to move. Piotrus' paragraph would make a good introduction to one of the existing lists, and might attract further general improvement. Elemimele (talk) 11:30, 26 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. North America1000 18:51, 26 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I'm not convinced that "unreferenced" is an argument for deletion in this case, since it's a list of stories that have something to do with Christmas. Who would we cite? That these have something to do with Christmas is just a basic fact -- often revealed in the titles of the works themselves. If any of the individual works are in dispute for whatever reason, someone can just have it out on the Talk page or boldly remove them. -- asilvering (talk) 00:04, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Valid navigational and information list. References are found in the main articles. Anything that doesn't have its own Wikipedia article proving its notable can be removed of course. List of Christmas novels can be redirected here. I don't see any point in the article Christmas in fiction though. Dream Focus 00:11, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep -- It is a harmless list and potentially useful as a navigation aid, since (unlike a category) a list can provide classification. "unreferenced" is not a ground for deletion (except BLP cases). The articles listed will have the requisite sources (or should). A mass of referencing is in fact unhelpful in a list. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:00, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as a list of notable Christmas works. MichaelMaggs (talk) 21:37, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak keep As a purely navigational list (i.e. all entries have links and there are no plot summaries or similar) it's okay, I suppose. For a navigational list like this, references are only strictly speaking necessary for entries whose inclusion is disputed. So the argument for deletion is weaker after the list was turned into a purely navigational one. That being said, I don't think the argument for keeping the list is particularly strong either, hence weak keep.
    The suggestion to merge Christmas in fiction here is a bad one; it would change this from a navigational page to an informational one, and then we would need way better sourcing—specifically, the kind of sourcing that MOS:POPCULT mandates. The same thing would apply if descriptions were added to the individual entries (thus turning this into a TV Tropes-style list), see e.g. the recent WP:Articles for deletion/United Nations in popular culture (2nd nomination) which resulted in deletion. TompaDompa (talk) 16:17, 28 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't think WP:LISTN is in serious dispute—simply putting "Christmas books" into a search engine turns up quite a few lists such as this one] from Reader's Digest. The point about lacking clear WP:LISTCRITERIA is a stronger one, but that should be WP:SURMOUNTABLE. All this being said, deletion would be preferable to merging if those are our options; this list has no place whatsoever at Christmas in fiction, a prose article about the topic. Redirecting without merging any of the content would on the other hand be an alright option. TompaDompa (talk) 15:39, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak delete or merge to Christmas in fiction - At the time of this writing, nobody has addressed the nominator's valid concerns with WP:LISTN, and therefore non-compliance of this list with WP:V, and likely WP:OR. This list has no clear selection criteria (WP:LSC), fails to define what constitutes a notable Christmas literature work, and is therefore in violation of WP:IINFO. As for MOS:POPCULT, I'm not entirely sure it applies to stand-alone lists given that nothing in the guideline explicitly mentions them as the scope of the guideline (it mentions "trivia sections" only). Even so, if it did apply, this list would certainly fail the second and third paragraphs of the guideline, given that it is more stringent than WP:LISTN, as it mandates references to secondary or tertiary sources for all cultural references, and that it explicitly recommends prose over list for cultural references. Pilaz (talk) 13:51, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge (with history merge) into Christmas in fiction - Rescoping and moving this older title would've been preferable to starting a new article and then nominating the long-existing one for deletion. But yeah, now that "in fiction" exists, this one finds itself unnecessarily separate. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:32, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Rhododendrites Please reconsider. The 'in fiction' article I started has a proper analytical, non-list form, and its a totally different beast from the unreferenced, navigational(?) article discussed here, which if kept should be renamed to List of Christmas-themed works or such. Any merge will result in removing any possibility the article I started can be expanded into a DYK/GA or such, since it will be saddled with unreferenced, ORish list (that has no known inclusion criteria). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 10:03, 30 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think it's accurate that it would be "saddled with unreferenced, ORish" material. Regardless of where this material winds up, and in whatever form it takes, it needs inclusion criteria and anything that relies on OR should be removed. The ideal, whether for "Christmas in literature" or "Christmas in fiction" is to incorporate it into prose. I appreciate that's easier said than done. Another option would be to draw a clear line by renaming this one something like Index of Christmas-themed media and load it up with bluelinks to books, albums, movies, etc. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:20, 30 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, meets WP:NLIST (navigational aid, references available), this listicle should be expanded (which i've done a bit), not deleted, and just because a book doesn't (yet) have a wikiarticle it doesn't mean that it shouldn't be included. Coolabahapple (talk) 06:22, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • If it's to be a purely navigational list, then a book not having a stand-alone article on Wikipedia does indeed mean that it shouldn't be included. TompaDompa (talk) 22:24, 1 January 2022 (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.