Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of alternative rock artists

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. Both the nominator and the lone delete !voter are correct. Currently this "article" is nothing but a duplicate of the category but theoritically that can be fixed through normal editing. We can revisit this issue in a few months if that isn't done. Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:21, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

List of alternative rock artists[edit]

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An unsourced (WP:V) plain alphabetic list, entirely redundant to Category:Alternative rock musicians (which is more useful because it has subcategories). Now I know that in principle the existence of a category is not a reason to delete the corresponding list, because a list can contain information that a category cannot, but this list has been expressly set up and formatted to duplicate the category. And given that it's existed in this form since 2004, we can assume that nobody is interested in changing that and rewriting it in a form that is not a hand-coded duplicate of a category. Sandstein 22:41, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Music-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 23:53, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 23:54, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Just because an article is poorly sourced isn't a reason to delete it. And some of the artists are sourced as alternative rock on their own pages, which I think is preferable to having a massive reference section in this article anyway. –CWenger (^ • @) 01:28, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Amorphous and uncompletable list. May have an in-links function that outweighs the futility of the general concept. Alternative to what? "Alternative Rock" is a catch-all phrase, not a concrete genre like punk rock, country, or blues. Carrite (talk) 06:03, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Perfectly fine list with clear inclusion criteria. The arguement about it having a category is redundant, per WP:CLN. Maybe this list can be cleaned up to add in a table with country, years active, etc? Lugnuts (talk) 07:53, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - As Sandstein says, it is acceptable to have both Category and List for one topic, but they should both add some value. The guideline Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates explicitly says: "Accordingly, these methods [categories and lists] should not be considered in conflict with each other. Rather, they are synergistic." However, the List does not take advantage of its list-ness: it should have some note next to each musician, or (better yet) a footnote justifying the inclusion. Absent that, the Category is sufficient. --Noleander (talk) 20:34, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Perfectly good topic for a list (aside from the general problem of actually defining 'alternative rock', but that's another debate) - it could no doubt be improved, but the talk page would be a good place to raise those issues.--Michig (talk) 20:51, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. As one of the editors who helps police this one, I see both sides of the argument. There are some suggestions for clean-up above, but I would add that references for bands could be enforced, rather than just mentions in articles. There would have to be a clean up and pruning first, as finding references for all the existing bands is not a job I for one, much fancy spending my time on. I would also suggest sub-division into sub-genres, but that might create more debates. Sometimes these things make a list more manageable.--SabreBD (talk) 09:25, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Concur with need for references. List articles are not exempt from the WP:Verifiability requirement, and in theory an editor could prune this list severely based on WP:CHALLENGE and WP:Burden. --Noleander (talk) 14:07, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Topic is notable. The problem is not the topic but that lists are treated very differently then main articles. Another words specific guidelines need to issued (or reissued) about the topics discussed above and other issues such as notability. Specifically regarding genres in lists and in main articles more specific guidelines need to be issued how much of an artists material need to be in the genre before we can call then that. Edkollin (talk) 22:56, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
~~Delete~~ -(currently a) valueless list, its a cat without the benefits of the cat tree and the demand that a cat requires for inclusion - to add the cat there must be the cited confirmation in the article content. Off2riorob (talk) 21:47, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and improve. Advantage should be taken of the list format to add some context, such as years of activity. I do not see how this is not subject to the same inclusion criteria as the category, so it certainly does no harm. DGG ( talk ) 23:00, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
DGG'S correct in what he says, my delete vote comment is an opine from the position that no one has done the work and no one may ever do it, that he is suggesting will turn the article into something of added value. I am moving to neutral. Off2riorob (talk) 23:16, 30 July 2011 (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.