Wikipedia talk:Centralized discussion/Lists of songs

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See the straw poll below.

This specific sort of list, I believe violates the spirit of the idea that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information (WP:NOT Sec. 1.7). There are exceptions to the generalization that all lists of songs are constructed using such asinine and arbitrary criteria that the list is nothing but inane trivia and should be speedily deleted, but the exception is that they're not asinine, arbitrary, or inane. They're still indiscriminately collected information, though, and should be deleted. The Literate Engineer 06:23, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Comments moved from project page[edit]

  • Any list of songs must have some reasonable hope of being maintainable. A list such as List of songs from the 1997 Academy Awards is reasonable, since it requires no maintenance and is readily verifiable. List of songs played at dances, on the other hand, ought to be readily deletable, since it is neither possible to maintain nor verifiable. Denni☯ 22:35, 2005 September 11 (UTC)
  • I think a list should be reasonable in size and connected in some way, rather than just trivia - so Denni's example of List of songs from the 1997 Academy Awards is a keep, but List of songs containing the word balloon is not worth keeping. Lists of 'best ever' or 'top' are only justified either in terms of a clear quantification (e.g. worldwide sales) or in the context of a high profile list in a major publication. Average Earthman 00:06, 14 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Denni I think has a generally good point -- there is simply no point in posting random lists of songs, though something with a specific, concrete theme (Academy/Grammy/Juno/Brit nominees, for example) is preferable to a more general theme (movie songs). That said, there are obvious cases and not-so-obvious cases, and the not-so-obvious cases may have to be called to account to form a consensus. I don't think there's any avoiding it. Haikupoet 05:42, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Topical lists[edit]

  • I believe lists that are based on a song's title (consisting of nonsense words or numbers, for example), or its lyrics (based on a pure linguistic POV, like only consisting of nonsense words or containing a significant amount of words in another language) should be kept while lists of songs based on the song's topic should be deleted (songs about alcohol and love). Sorting songs by topic adds no value to the list. - Mgm|(talk) 08:35, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
    • Contrary (allthough I too would like to keep te list with the nonsense-words, see elsewhere). Songs about a subject (alcohol, city, love) is a good reference. I search and find - great. In my book about Churchill (bought yesterday), there are say 100 titles of other books to look for. And we on internet know how great it is to have a good link. As an extra: the subject gives a good ground for maintanance (of a list) so that's OK too. Of course there will stay a grey area, but we can keep that small. I enjoy writing personal things, and the suggestion above aims at an robotical-judgement. I suggest we keep a personal eye on it ;-) -DePiep 16:28, 17 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think lists in general are essential in finding/exploring new ideas on Wikipedia and they give a nice overview. Making all kinds of lists of songs (artists, albums et cetera) is a music lovers' tradition that should have a place on Wikipedia. Quantitative critera: a nano-list with one or two songs is maybe too short but should have a chance to grow. Qualitative criteria: information in the list should be standardized and correct. The information should also be to the point: further information about a song could be put in a separate article. The shortcomings of lists of songs could be highlighted in the Wikiproject Music. Brz7 13:57, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think that although categorizing songs by theme or topic may prove useful for some people but to the public in general it will have little value. I honestly do not see the usefulness of knowing which songs are about love or drugs. Furthermore I believe that lists songs by topic would be unmaintainable and would lead to the creation of categories such as Category:Lists of songs about love by artists with the letter M or Category:Lists of songs about love by Michael Jackson and of lists such as List of songs about love by Michael Jackson. Joelito 00:59, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Verifiability[edit]

  • All such lists (like other WP articles) depend on verifiability. Can the contents of such lists be verified in some external source? Top-40 lists, and winners of Eurovision song contests, and the like, should stay. Lists of songs about love, or lists of songs with fast tempos, are impossible to maintain. Lists of songs based on some arbitrary criterion, such as with "blue" in the title, or numbers in the title, or all nonsense words, or with long guitar solos, are also useless. Fun to edit, but no good to the reader. Don't forget Wikipedia:Readers First and the requirement to cite sources. —Wahoofive (talk) 16:24, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree with Wahoofive as to verifiability, but I've frequently seen indications that some obscure-but-factual quality is interesting to some people who might actually use it in researching an article. Often a Kappa keep vote of this sort will make me go "wtf?", but then I see something that was referenced several times in different decades that ties into something else like film soundtrack history or cultural influence of hallucinogens. Wikipedia:Make articles useful for readers directs us to make articles useful to many readers as compared to one or two fanatics, but it doesn't require us to cover only topics useful to all readers. I don't have a clear guideline to propose for what is too limited-interest and what a hundred thousand anime fans, for example, might find historically noteworthy. Barno 18:46, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Interesting though it might be, it's original research if it can't be independently verified.—Wahoofive (talk) 20:47, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Exactly. I don't think that hypothetical use to one or two users is sufficient. Plus, with these lists, the only information that could be "interesting" or "useful" is that all entries have the thing in common. It may be "useful", but not substantively so, and so I don't think that usefulness counts for anything. The Literate Engineer 00:32, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Disagree in the subject of nonsense-words. Where else would/could I find a reference (definition) of a song with "Shoos"? There should be a Wikipedia-place to find nonsense-words - but they do not have an article (just as expected. Would we allow articles about nonsense-words?). And the criterium is "in the title". Very checkable. Maintainable. Verifiable. -DePiep 16:52, 17 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Actually this isn't as clear-cut as you think. Is "Niggaz" a word? I bet it's not in your dictionary, yet most people (or at least most people who listen to hip-hop) know what it means. Similarly, "shoo" could be an intentional misspelling of a homophone (see Mairzy Dotes [1]). Conversely, fa and la are real words with dictionary entries; you have to interpret the context to know that "fa la la" is nonsense. I don't want to debate these particular examples, just to suggest that there will be dispute in some cases. That's why the verification criterion on Wikipedia is cite sources, not "verify by inspection." —Wahoofive (talk) 17:41, 17 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I did not (mean to) say that it's clear-cut. But in the current definition (=article-title) it is very verifiable. Your example "Niggaz" is not in my dictionary (nor in my vocabulary), but I would delete the songtitle as a nonsense-word: it is not. We both know it has a meaning. "Fa" is an article OK, but not in the sense Otis Redding used it in his Sad Song. "Fa la la" really does *not* need context to decide whether it's nonsense: our wiki-article Fa la la should clarify. The songtitle is the fact, and we are invited to document it. I think a good encyclopedia should give a hit on a search about this, if only to know how many Fa's there are in the songtitle. He didn't mean Fa in the Fa-article's way. Or felt so. We are not following dictionaries: we're writing them here! We're doing good works here!
You're right: not about single titles, but in general. Well, I think that the criterium "nonsense-words" is clear enough (there are very few sub-criteria in the article - a good sign) to say that it's maintainable. I accept a grey area, since it is small here. (unsigned comment by User:DePiep
  • I agree about verifiability: any song list that cannot cite an outside source other than the songs it is listing should be deleted as unverifiable. --Carnildo 18:48, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Although I've been known to vote delete for songlists, I don't agree that they constitute "original research". The characterists of the songs that qualify them to be on the list (e.g. over 10 minutes, about drug addiction, containing the name of the song more than X times) are eminently verifiable. -- BD2412 talk 01:05, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Really? Is Bridge Over Troubled Water (song) about drug addiction? Some people think so, but that doesn't make it verifiable, does it? —Wahoofive (talk) 17:41, 17 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • In some cases, sources will exist to verify that the artist intended a particular subtext to a particular song; in others, widespread perceptions become notable in themselves. If a news source, or an artist's autobiography, addresses the widely-held belief that a popular song has a particular subtext, these sources would satisfy any concerns, and make such speculation more encyclopedic. Xoloz 09:05, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • That a song on the list can be questioned does not mean the whole list should go - Cocaine is surely about Cocaine, for example.  BD2412 talk 22:07, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Verifiability doesn't imply that you'd need the exact same list elsewhere. "songs containing the name of the song more than X times" is indeed verifiable. - User:Docu
    • Perhaps, but the typical song list put on AFD is something more like "Songs about topic". Anyway, lists based on some alphabetic trivia like the number of words or letters in the title (or whose title contains a particular word) are pretty useless lists. My bottom line is, will at least some readers find them useful, or are they just fun for the editors to compile? —Wahoofive (talk) 17:03, 24 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Linking lists to related articles[edit]

  • My main criterion for lists of all types is: could the list, in some way, add value to a different (non-list) article or concept already covered on Wikipedia? A List of songs about drug addiction certainly would add value to Drug addiction. On the other hand, List of English songs whose title includes nonsense-words doesn't highlight a cogent concept in songwriting, or least none that is found in any article on Wikipedia. If someone were to write an encyclopedic article about the use of nonsense words in song titles, and then supplement that article with the list, fine – but without it, it's listcruft. android79 17:54, September 9, 2005 (UTC)
    • I like this idea. —Wahoofive (talk) 18:04, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I do not. This way spoken, indeed some lists should be deleted. But there are other reasons for a list, or an artice. More roads lead to Rome - and I like that here at wikipedia. Especially about nonsense-words: would you expect an article about the (sort of) nonsense-word "Fa", an then two references to the Fa Fa ... songs? Nonsense-words do not have an encyclopedia-entrance - by definition! That's why they are nonsense. (xception: Doo-Wop; detailed elsewhere). Maintainability is the best criterium, lets go into details about that. -DePiep 16:44, 17 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • That is exactly my opinion, if a list can be considered as part of a larger article that can stand on its own with the list removed, than it is probably an appropriate list. (see Wikipedia_talk:Lists#Seed_of_a_Policy_Proposal).
        I don't have the knowledge for that but I bet someone can write a very good encyclopedia article on the general usage of nonsense words in lyrics. Ah!... Found it!! We have a section close to that at Nonsense#Nonsense_verse. Linking from/to that article/section a list of some such songs makes sense. Naturally some other criteria must be established so that Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da would fit in but Blergh!!! by the local punk band won't. Nabla 23:46, 17 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Belated note: Nonsense words in songs are called vocables. Tuf-Kat 19:46, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Individual lists which need to be kept[edit]

    • Verifiability is a usefull criterium here: I suggest we keep the *overt references*, becouse thats clear, & verifiable (I'd like to know what they're ssinging about artit X). The *covert* referencs tend to be very subjective, and therefore less ok for this wiki. What to do with a serious writer who states "this makes me think about Lennon" etc. -DePiep 17:07, 17 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I guess I should fine-tune my own criteria. Those lists are quite useful. Still, List of songs containing covert reference to real musicians needs a lot of references. The mere fact they're covert means they need something reliable to back it up. - Mgm|(talk) 10:55, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

Songlists recently on AFD[edit]

For reference. This covers the month of September 2005, in reverse chronological order. The first five are still pending as of this writing.

I'm working up a draft policy for this; I'll keep you posted. —Wahoofive (talk) 05:28, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Draft policy for lists of songs[edit]

Okay, here's a draft policy: User:Wahoofive/Lists of songs. Please comment on that page's talk page.Now moved to this page —Wahoofive (talk) 16:40, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Comments copied from that draft policy's talk page[edit]

What is trivial, exactly?[edit]

I love this proposal! I do anticipate that some might object regarding triviality, since a minority appear to believe the dubious claim that a reasonably large group of people care about trivia like songs between six and seven minutes long, and might search for it.

To head-off these arguments, I'd like to tighten the definition of what trivial means in this context. Wahoo has a good start, but I think more specificity is needed to convince any doubters. Sadly, being stupid, I don't know how and where to tighten. I'll ram my head against the wall to try and help, but I raise the issue so that smarter people might address it first. Xoloz 04:09, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, what if we started with the most restrictive version of the "topical" list proposal that would still allow any lists:
"Topic-based lists must relate to an article on the topic mentioned; for example, List of blackface minstrel songs is an obvious extension of Blackface minstrelsy. This is an absolute requirement."
we could work on making it less restrictive, rather than starting from a policy inclusive of everything and then tacking on slight restrictions like "No lists of songs similar to a list of songs between six and seven minutes long", "no lists of songs similar to a list of songs about dead pet armadillos," etc.
Although I suppose I should point out that I believe the policy should be "Topic-based lists must relate to an article on the topic mentioned." The Literate Engineer 04:28, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the issue about that approach is simple: a more restrictive rule (which, in this case, I personally support) may not garner the necessary wide consensus. Xoloz 05:28, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I'm inclined to agree with Xoloz on this point, sympathetic though I am to the concept. —Wahoofive (talk) 06:29, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. In general, this whole proposal looks reasonable, and given some recent AfD discussions, I'm inclined to say it's needed. Barno 17:55, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I still do not like the criterium of "there must be an article". 1. The intro of the list could be substantially enough by itself. 2. The link to an little-too-far-away article is easy, though out of this intention. Prefered phrasing, like: in "Songs about topic" the topic should be able to have an article. -DePiep 17:56, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
How is that different from the current phrasing: Topic-based lists should ideally relate to an article on the topic mentioned? I intentionally phrased it to make that the preferred method, while leaving an opening for other lists. The intent is to make the bar for nontriviality higher for lists which don't relate to prose articles. —Wahoofive (talk) 20:56, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

About verifyability[edit]

I think the criterium on Verifyability is too strict, depending on facts only. Since we are talking about songs (literature), we are gonna miss a lot of non-factual things. EG: The idea that Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man can be heard as telling about drugs (allthough only in parallels!) is indispensable. Such an allusion/parabel/subtlety should not be discarded. -DePiep 18:02, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • But you can find plenty of sources that explain how Mr. Tambourine Man is full of drug references. Same goes for many popular songs with double meanings/double entendres. -- BD2412 talk 18:27, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree with BDA. If you can't find references in reputable sources (professional mags, not just somebody's raving in a fanzine), then the idea isn't indispensible and isn't sufficiently noted to be encyclopedic. WP is not Publish-Any-Subtle-Allusions-Anyone-Can-Imagine-About-Songs-pedia. Barno 18:44, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Indeed, these sources exist. But the (strickt) verifyable-criterium only mentions facts, not (quality) descriptions. That's why I wrote "facts". But appearantly we trust and agree on an outcome, that (e.g.) Mr. Tambourine Man would be on the list. So we agree. Of course the discussion per song can shift to the fanzine-gossip-level, but we'll manage. -DePiep 19:44, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Single-artist[edit]

"Lists of songs by a single artist belong with that artist, or with that artist's albums." In general, good advice, but shouldn't be a hard-and-fast rule. If the artist article is long enough (e.g. The Beatles), there's a good chance that song list, discography, etc. merits a separate article. (For a non-musical example of something like this, see Jorge Luis Borges and Bibliography of Jorge Luis Borges. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:50, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The comparison doesn't really apply, though, since there is no equivalent to albums in the literary world. Even for the Beatles, the songs on each album appear on that album's page. The only list I noticed on The Beatles is List of Beatles songs by singer, which really could go under each singer's page. Note that List of Beatles songs is a redlink (cf List of Nine Inch Nails covers and List of songs covered by the band Pearl Jam). —Wahoofive (talk) 22:10, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. There is a List of Beatles songs written by George Harrison, but that could easily fit in the George Harrison article. —Wahoofive (talk) 22:10, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Straw poll[edit]

Is this ready for prime time?

Support votes[edit]

  1. Yup. Nice work. android79 15:59, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Absolutely. Xoloz 18:37, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Nabla 00:11, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Let's go. Joelito 01:19, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose votes[edit]

  • This is not necessary, too complicated, and will create more angst than the lists it is supposed to deal with. There is no huge and pressing problem with these lists. Trollderella 05:54, 28 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Further comments[edit]

  1. At the moment, there are blue-linked examples in the verifiability section that I believe are deletably trivial. Because of that, and my concern that the triviality section is too permissive, I am unable to support this guideline yet; however, I don't think it has the sort of fundamental flaws that would justify full opposition. The Literate Engineer 04:54, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Please suggest different examples, perhaps from Category:Lists of songs. —Wahoofive (talk) 05:01, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    After looking at the category, I'm unable to find an alternative to List of songs with numbers in the title as an example of a list that's verifiable by inspection that I don't also consider deletably trivial. I'm having to conclude that I consider the verify-by-inspection list an inherently trivial list. I suggest List of protest songs as a more acceptable alternative to List of songs about video games, or perhaps List of theme songs. As for strengthening the triviality section, I'd like at the minimum to see a sentence indicating that editors have the freedom to deem a list trivial for reasons not specified in this guideline, and to act accordingly (i.e., radically change the list's criteria for entries, or send the list to AfD). The Literate Engineer 05:31, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  2. There ought to some mention here of when categories would be more appropriate than lists as it pertains to collections of song titles. My own general criteria is if it would never be possible for the list to be known to be complete, then it should be a category instead. I can't think of any song specific criteria right now for the list/category decision, but if there are any that others think would be worth inculding they should be mentioned here as well. Caerwine 02:11, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Perhaps that's something we could add to the "too broad" section? Although, as is often pointed out to me at AFD when I suggest replacing lists with categories, that does limit the information to songs that have wikipedia articles. By the way, Wahoofive, I like how you responded to my concerns. I may be placing a vote soon. The Literate Engineer 22:07, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, it is a collaborative effort, n'est-ce pas? Anyway, the whole category idea assumes that the individual songs would have separate articles of their own, which in general isn't true. —Wahoofive (talk) 01:24, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • If any of the pages are going to be deleted, they should instead be archived. At least be able view the source for the articles. I am one who finds these articles very interesting. I do not wish they were deleted at all, and archiving them would help. --G VOLTT 00:09, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Closing vote[edit]

I'm going to close the vote at the end of today 28Oct05. Result: proposal failed due to lack of interest. Considering how many people typically vote on song list entries on AFD, I expected much more traffic on this vote; I have to consider the lack of participation to be readers "voting with their feet" i.e. OPPOSE votes. I just can't imagine implementing a policy like this with only 4 support votes. Thank you to everyone who participated, however. —Wahoofive (talk) 15:38, 28 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

More appropriate linking[edit]

On list pages such as this, a link to the song, album or single is often more useful than a link to the artist. For example, for the song "Don't Let Me Down", The Beatles is better than The Beatles. (Obviously the two links look identical until you hover the mouse pointer over each of them.) --Kev 14:04, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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