Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of anarchist 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 keep/no consensus. There is certainly not a consensus present to delete though. GDonato (talk) 16:56, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of anarchist musicians

Unreferenced, indiscriminate list. Categories work much better than lists like this and List of anarchist poets. Only bands that have been explicitly identified as anarchists should be included here and as there are no sources we should not have such a list. violet/riga (t) 18:33, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nominator: Delete. violet/riga (t) 18:33, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete and consider categorizing. Majoreditor 19:40, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, I'd rather fix the problems with the article instead of just deleting it, only to have it rewritten later. Sources shouldn't be hard to find for most of the listed. Murderbike 21:18, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: the article has major problems at the moment but only needs to be fixed up. With defined inclusion criteria, sourcing and some additional material from anarchism and the arts this could eventually become a good list. ~ Switch (✉✍☺☒) 13:26, 28 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: What's with the systematic attack on anarchist articles? Nothing wrong with this article that couldn't be fixed.--Apples99 18:25, 28 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Apples99 (talk • contribs)
Keep: The article needs work, but deleting it won't get it done. Since there are many anarchist musicians who are not punks, combining the article is a not a solution either. SmashTheState 18:46, 28 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and improve per SwitChar. ---RepublicanJacobite_{The'FortyFive'} 18:53, 28 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete indiscriminate unsourced list. No inclusion criteria, This will quickly grown out of control. Just because a band is politcal dose not equal anarchist. Article is doomed to POV and orignal research. 09:07, 29 October 2007 (UTC)Ridernyc 10:12, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment, an article/list is only doomed to OR if editors don't do their "job" and find sources and citations. Your argument is a strawman that could be used for ANY article. Nobody has claimed that "politcal" equals "anarchist". Murderbike 21:28, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To the keep voters: Please tell me how this list is in any way better than a category. It does not organise things by date or sub-genre. The title is incorrect as this is a list of bands and not musicians. It is totally unreferenced and sourcing it would be something of a pointless duplication of putting the references into the articles. I am tempted to speedy it based on these points and regret placing it on AfD - I hope these points will be taken into consideration by the closer rather than counting votes. violet/riga (t) 22:15, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment, I think Jello Biafra, John Cage, Daniel Carter, Robert Eggplant, Andrew Eldritch, Emcee Lynx, Tom Frampton, and many others would be surprised to find out that they were bands, and not musicians. If you want it organized by date or sub-genre, why don't you do that? Murderbike 00:53, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You managed to find a couple of examples - well done, that accounts for a tenth of those listed there. I don't think the list will ever serve a decent purpose hence me not wanting to try and improve it - it's a pointless list that is redundant with the use of categories. violet/riga (t) 11:34, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that's because i stopped at "F". The point was made that your generalization was wrong. And anyway, what makes people in a band not musicians anyway? Murderbike 17:33, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Right, shall we look at A then? A//Political, A Silver Mt. Zion, Against All Authority, Against Me!, Amebix, Antischism, Antisect, The APF Brigade, The Apostles, Atari Teenage Riot, Aus-Rotten, Autumn Poison. That's every A there and how many of them are musicians? None, they are all bands and are thus not musicians. Pedantry is rather unproductive in such circumstances. violet/riga (t) 18:49, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You want to talk about pedantry? YOU were the one who claimed that the title makes it a list of "musicians", not "bands", but still haven't explained how it is that bands aren't musicians. Murderbike 18:55, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And anyway, if the title of the article is at issue, then the solution if to move the article, not delete it. Murderbike 19:02, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A musician is an individual and therefore this should be a list of people, not groups. That is just one of the reasons that this list is poor, and the fact that this should be a category is the primary reason for deletion. violet/riga (t) 19:24, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete This is why we have categories. I question how much of these bands really are anarchist musicians. Per WP:BLP, a musician should only be classified under this if they explicitly identify as one or if there are reliable sources saying so. Spellcast 10:26, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Afd is not cleanup; uncited articles should be treated with Template:unreferenced, not a deletion nomination.Skomorokh ^incite 12:31, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Source. I have no problem with the existence of a list with this title, but each musician on it needs a source verifying that he, she, they, or it is in fact an anarchist musician. If they can't be sourced, the delete. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 13:06, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete; hard to maintain; sources are hard to find; not sure if intersection is notable enough. Jack^(Lumber) 00:56, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment, for what it's worth, I found eight sources in 25 casual minutes while I was doing other things. Claiming that sources are hard to find is a pretty poor reason to delete an article I think. A) It's totally subjective as to what constitutes "hard to find", and B) Everything's "hard" to source, but it's got to be done, and is C) way more productive than deleting articles/lists. Murderbike 06:27, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. This list has been nominated for deletion with the same excuse that was used to try to delete the Category: Fictional anarchists. The argument I made then was that the category in question had indeed been abused by the inclusion of non-anarchists and a lack of proper citation. However, the category and associated list still served a meaningful source of information, and source citations were indeed available for various articles. This same argument is even stronger in relation to this list, as we are now operating in the realm of non-fiction. This is not a matter of literary significance, but rather of political allegiances, and could serve an academic, as well as entertainment, purpose for others. This list may be improved vastly with a layout according to time period, or musical genre; it may be improved by the swift, calculated removal of any individual or, where appropriate, bands (insofar as a band is a collection of musicians, and this is a list of musicians, which allows for the inclusion of the plural, justifying the inclusion of bands to begin with) who do not self-identify as anarchists. This very strict criteria has been utilized for the category and list of fictional anarchists in the months since its failed deletion nomination, and the article has been significantly improved, and continues to be updated on a regular basis to further improve its quality. There is no reason to assume this list cannot be improved in a similar fashion. I would also like to note that in recent weeks I have begun to do the same for the List of anarchist poets and hope to have all poets lacking a citation removed within a matter of months. Do remember: patience is an important wikipedian virtue.--Cast 08:38, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Having bands included in a list of musicians is like having the Labour Party included in a list of British Prime Ministers, or "salad" in a list of vegetables. The bands are not musicians. It would be easy to fix by renaming the article. As for my "excuse" (not a word I'd use) for deletion I would say it goes into the nature of lists on Wikipedia versus categories, and as this stands there is simply no reason to have this article when a category system works better. Maybe it could be turned into an chronological or otherwise non-alphabetical list, but it isn't right now and categories work much much better for information in this form. violet/riga (t) 17:11, 1 November 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.