Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of people working outside the arts who are also musicians

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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 delete as the rough consensus indicates. In addition, I believe the arguments for deletion outweighed those for retention. –MuZemike 01:37, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List of people working outside the arts who are also musicians[edit]

List of people working outside the arts who are also musicians (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
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Delete per WP:SYNTH and WP:OR. For most people this is trivial information and the criteria for inclusion depend on one's definition of musician. A significant portion of the population plays some sort of instrument so this list would become so huge that it would be useless. Pichpich (talk) 20:06, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Well, "trivia" & "listcruft" are often in the eye of the beholder. In this case, I'm afraid I just don't agree. As a serious student of human behavior from a social science perspective, I find this sort of info quite fascinating and valuable. The article pulls together some very useful information that would be extremely hard to locate otherwise. Cgingold (talk) 04:51, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • If we were discussing Categories, I would agree with you -- Category:Politician-musicians and the like would surely be deleted. But this is an article -- not a Category -- and as I already said, it pulls together some very valuable information. As for WP:NOTDIR, as I said above, poppycock. That guideline has nothing to do with articles like this. If it did, we would promptly expunge every last List article from Wikipedia. Cgingold (talk) 05:09, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, not really. The key word here is unencyclopedic, not cross-categorization. This is a cross-categorization which really doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. It is indiscriminate: it can go on forever and the lines here are very blurred (what constitutes "the arts" and how involved in music does one have to be to be a "musician"). Furthermore, this collection of date really isn't a notable one. Nobody comments on this sort of material, no reliable sources compile data on people who work outside the arts yet are also musicians. This is why the cross-categorization is unencyclopedic. Yes, there is nearly an infinite of bad list ideas such as this that fall under WP:NOTDIR. Sadly we host many of them, but most by far are not on here. What matters isn't your personal opinion on the article, but whether the subject is proper for an encyclopedia. If a subject hasn't even been defined elsewhere in the world, what makes us think we can invent it and publish it on Wikipedia? ThemFromSpace 06:08, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep but tighten up the scope of the article. I've already explained in my interspersed remarks why I disagree with the arguments that have been advanced for deletion. However, I would agree with Pichpich's observation that an awful lot of people play instruments, so the article should be renamed to "List of people working outside the arts who are also notable as musicians". Cgingold (talk) 05:34, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete While i like cgingold's argument, i dont think we can ultimately define such a list, so i agree ultimately with themfromspace. is it for people who have earned money outside of music, but also play? would they be excluded if they earned any money as a musician? some of the people on this list most certainly earned some income from their music. why "outside the arts", is someone opposed to Clint Eastwood being on this list? wouldnt a sculptor/musician be a good entry item? the best i can see is modifying cgingold's lede rewrite to be "people who are notable both within the field of music and within other fields", as the "working" part is too hard to define, and is not the basis for notability. but this may be an arbitrary confluence of subjects, which is disallowed, like "red haired dictators". see WP:NOTDIRECTORY. if its not an arbitrary confluence, as undoubtedly the subject of people who are musicians and other things has been written about, it may be too broad a confluence to allow. a person is notable, but once notable, how would one measure what precisely they are notable for? perhaps a pie chart: steve martin: 65% film, 15% stand up, 10%writer, 5% musician, 5% other. should the cutoff be at 90/10 for nonmusician/musician? I really think this is best left as categories, so a person can be both a banker and a composer/musician by category, not notable for being both at the same time.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 06:14, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Ny original inspiration for this article was people like Charles Ives, Robert Byrd, and the King of Thailand, all of whose careers were outside of the arts, but who had significant musical reputations as well. Then there is Bill Clinton, who is notable as a musician only because he was President. And others who are primarily musicians but who have careers in politics, etc.... I'm not totally satisfied with the article, myself, and hoped that other people would improve it. I also put in "outside the arts" because there is such a tendency for people to work in multiple areas of the arts. I don't think that a Congressperson who sings in the shower would qualify for this list. I'd like to see people make suggestions on how to improve the list and the concept rather than just eradicating it. The "Notable as musicians" qualification offered above sounds like it would define the concept a little better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Breffni Whelan (talk • contribs) 22:27, 17 August 2010 UTC
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.
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