Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/My Religion (song)

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 redirect‎ to Ryan Starr#Post-American Idol music career. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:03, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My Religion (song)[edit]

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Does not meet WP:GNG. A search on Google, ProQuest, Newspapers.com finds no significant coverage, production information, nor critical reception. Per WP:NSONG, "a standalone article is appropriate only when there is enough material to warrant a reasonably detailed article." Everything about this song can easily fit in Ryan Starr.

I have doubts about the Billboard chark peak; the Digital Songs online archive goes back to October 30, 2004, and it is not listed, nor is it in physical issues. Billboard had a regular column about the Digital Songs chart, and certainly if it had sold 130,000 units in one week (which is unsupported by the MTV reference, by the way) that would have been noted. A search of Billboard on Google Books shows nothing for this song. Perhaps it was issued for free on iTunes and that's why it reportedly sold so much. I believe previous editors have confused topping the iTunes chart with topping the Billboard Digital Songs chart. Heartfox (talk) 16:30, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Albums and songs-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 16:36, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to Ryan Starr#Post-American Idol music career: Worth noting WP:RSP's entry on the Guinness Book of Records which says it doesn't provide for notability. The MTV article (archived here) seems to base its number off of Guinness so I'm unsure that's reliable either. Without more sources, the origin of that downloads number seems suspect. And, of course, you'd be relying on just MTV for notability, and that alone is definitely not a GNG pass for this song. Redirect target has significant prose on the song with room to add more if anything here is of value and worth saving. QuietHere (talk | contributions) 19:28, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect. If it sold 130,000 units in one week in 2004, it 100% would have appeared on the overall Hot 100, not just number one on the Digital Songs chart. The page also claims that Starr gave an interview to MTV in which she "confirmed that the single had sold at least 360,000 units", but the web page (as shown in the archive link by QuietHere above) shows Starr didn't say that to them, they brought up the Guinness claim and the figure themselves. The book source quoted for making this claim has a footnote that first cites Starr's last.fm page (lol) and then cites this Rolling Stone "Where Are They Now?" article about American Idol contestants, which was published in 2011 and most likely took the claim from the Wikipedia page or the MTV article. It should be noted that the Wikipedia article claim of the Guinness record pre-dates the MTV article (this revision pre-dates the May 2007 MTV article by six months), so I think we're seeing a textbook example of how writers and journalists trust Wikipedia's claims without independently verifying it. It's basically all built on BS claims (thanks to @Heartfox: for uncovering this tucked away on a former American Idol contestant's page, I say). Just to note: I've gone ahead and removed the claim of going to number one on the Billboard Digital Songs chart from the article and attributed the Guinness claim solely to MTV, even if it seems pretty obvious the source for this claim was Wikipedia itself. Ss112 20:31, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also, check out this original version of the article by the editor Aceofhearts: [1] Cute made-up quotes from Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone and an individual song rating from AllMusic too! The next month, they decided to "add information from the Ryan Starr Wikipedia article", which was inserted by an IP editor, who said they "added a very exciting peice of information from guinness book of world records. quite impressive." and appears to be the original basis of the Guinness claim. This is how misinformation spreads to reliable sources: Because somebody made something up on Wikipedia in 2006 and nobody questioned it. Ss112 20:57, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

(Technically it wouldn't have appeared on the Hot 100 because downloads were not incorporated into the Hot 100 formula until February 12, 2005. Nonetheless, it seems like all the claims are fabricated. I didn't come across the page; it was through a redirect by Aoba47 which was reverted and then mentioned in a move proposal). Heartfox (talk) 21:20, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Heartfox: Oh, I thought America had started incorporating digital sales earlier than that. Interesting. Ss112 06:09, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to Ryan Starr#Post-American Idol music career: Thank you for the ping. I do not believe there is significant coverage on this song in third-party, reliable sources to meet the notability standards. I appreciate the time and the effort Heartfox and Ss112 have put into this discussion, and I agree that aspects of the song (i.e. its supposed chart placement, commercial performance, and record) all seem suspect. Aoba47 (talk) 00:42, 2 May 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.