Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs containing overt references to real musicians

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. Sr 13 03:12, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of songs containing overt references to real musicians[edit]

Delete - Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information and Wikipedia is not a collection of loosely-associated topics. This sprawling list brings together vast numbers of songs that share nothing in common in terms of style or theme based on the happenstance of mentioning a musician somewhere in the lyrics. This list is not encyclopedic and it does not tell us anything about the songs, their relation to each other, the artists who recorded them, the artists mentioned in them or music as a whole. Any number of similarly loosely associated indiscriminate lists have been deleted recently and this one is no better. Otto4711 12:48, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. List that is based on no signifcant common characteristic of items included, as described by nom. Deor 13:07, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. --Evb-wiki 13:33, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletions. -- John Vandenberg 14:50, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Music-related deletions. -- John Vandenberg 14:50, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:NOT (more listcrap) /Blaxthos 15:19, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as a totally indiscriminate, loosely associated, et cetera. Now, if this list were to be re-tooled to something like "List of songs that are tributes to other musicians" and if it were well-referenced, it could stay. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(((Broken clamshells • Otter chirps)))} 18:30, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy Delete Zero tolerance with articles that being with "List of songs...", delete it before it spreads! Dep. Garcia ( Talk + | Help Desk | Complaints ) 20:24, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Delete per WP:UNENC. A1octopus 20:54, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep. This is better than most "Lists of Songs that..." because you do list what celebrity is referenced in each song, and the recording artist; you have an introduction; it's obvious that your musical expertise is not confined to a single decade. Save your article; don't let the critics get to you. What some see as another "list" is, in this case the beginning of an index. It's worthwhile to anyone who deals with music (such as a radio station programmer). Many Wikipedia articles have a section entitled "----- in popular culture"; usually, it's a nod to The Simpsons or to Family Guy, so it's nice to see something other than a TV reference. Suggestion: The better approach might be to reverse the organization... rather than an alphabetical list of songs that have overt references to musicians, maybe you should make an alphabetized list of celebrated persons and the songs that reference them. I'd confine the list to more well-known songs, but it's a good start. Mandsford 01:46, 11 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Save your breath, it appears no one is listening. I know folks who put a lot of work into this article and it's been around for a long time, yet people have decided to target it as part of the anti-list agenda. It's one of the reasons I no longer edit Wikipedia in any serious way. (retired Wikipedian: 68.146.8.46 03:40, 11 June 2007 (UTC) )[reply]
- Amen to that. You're right, this article has been around a long time, and now it's targetted for elimination. Once Cotton Mather says "there's a witch", a lot of witnesses turn out to testify. Within any organization, whether it's the Red Guards or the Southern Baptists, there are zealots. They have a creed to go by, complete with slogans. Instead of "Withstand the Revanchist Movers" or "Let's Take Back Our Country", the ones here have slogans like "WP:UNENC". It's kind of sad, but I think this article has already been tied to the stake, and folks are looking for combustibles. Mandsford 12:45, 11 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Comment - perhaps if you spent less time gnashing your teeth over the wretchedness of the deletion attempt and more time citing actual Wikipedia policies that support the existence of the article, you might have better luck convincing people. "It's better than most" is not particularly persuasive. Nor is "most articles have an 'in popular culture' section." Got anything else, or are you still too busy trying to spit on the villagers' torches before they set you alight? Otto4711 01:54, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Since you asked, there are some things I don't understand about the Wikipedia policies. Nobody ever wants to delete any of the hundreds of articles about a television show (which has its own website), but groups of lists are targetted for "mass deletion". I don't get it. Deletions don't appear to be made out of a concern for space. Take Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for instance. Sure, it's worthy of an article, but why are there individual entries for each of the 144 episodes? Or 56 articles about fictional characters on the show? Or an entire article called Buffy's residence? Why is there a Buffyverse? And that's just a single television show. I guess that's why I don't understand it when someone says that Wikipedia is "not about trivia", or that sources aren't cited, or that it's based solely on "original research". I don't know why Wikipedia policies support articles about individual TV episodes and songs on a CD, but not someone's (L-word) of songs that make a reference to celebrities. So, no, I don't get it. But that's just my opinion.Mandsford 23:14, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment you are not the only one who is boggled by the process, but I can't come up with a reason to keep this in light of the WP consensus as demonstrated by our prior deletions that nearly all lists of songs are not encyclopedic - I have even made arguments to keep some that I think ought to be saved as encyclopedic, but have ended up in the minority but you can't win them all. Another thing struck me: your pointing to the buffyverse is analogous to the Wikipedia:Pokémon test, which is a good read, that has been noted by other wikipedians. Carlossuarez46 01:58, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom & ample precedent. Carlossuarez46 21:31, 11 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom, WP:NOT, and cruftiness. María (habla conmigo) 17:07, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support deletion, but not for the usual reasons. The topic here is way too broad to allow a useful index to be created. This makes it much less useful, say than List of songs about Elvis. Also, there are two many songs that simly list artists without commenting on them (e.g. Dan Bern's "Chick Singers"--which is not yet included here[1]). -MrFizyx 17:42, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Who cares? —^Jack_Lumber^/tɔk/ 22:04, 14 June 2007 (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.