Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs about masturbation (2nd nomination)

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 on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was NO CONSENSUS. -Splash^talk 17:59, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

List of songs about masturbation (2nd nomination)

Due to some policy constraints set for this article, some circumstances have changed. See the talk page for more details on these circumstances. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs about masturbation (1st nomination) for the previous ballot. The previous ballot was filled out back in the days that AfD (articles for deletion) Was called VfD (votes for deletion). The new policy on this song list has prompted a second nomination for deletion therefore votes on the previous ballot may not apply anymore (well maybe).

Before the policy was implemented, the list was at the point of unmaintainability as people originally thought that it also included songs that people think are about masturbation. If we look for songs that are intended to be about it, the list has become subtrivial listcruft. But if we let people add songs that have phrases that are innuendo to masturbation, then it would probably be unmaintainable.

• Delete, either case would render the article UNSALVAGEABLE. --SuperDude 03:48, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete I hate crap. File:Smilie.gifMolotov File:Caranimationforvmolotov.gif (talk)
  03:57, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete I believe that lists with trivial inclusion criteria do not meet the Wikipedia article inclusion criteria, and I believe this list's criteria for inclusion are, were, and will remain trivial. The Literate Engineer 04:10, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete Useless Liftcruft --JAranda | watz sup 04:13, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. It passed AfD (or VfD at the time) once. Since then every letter of the alphabet has been cleaned up (except T I think) with the lyrics as an HTML comment as a source, and I've provided a criteria for inclusion that eliminates innuendo (see talk). I didn't think it was encyclopedic, but we've come to consensus once so I've cleaned up virtually all of them. I'd hate to waste that effort. Wikibofh 04:46, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep per Wikibofh. Kappa 05:06, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete - this goes beyond drivel. Storm Rider 05:07, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Useless. *drew 05:17, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep per precedent and wikibofh. Youngamerican 05:22, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Pointlessly trivial list. --Calton | Talk 05:33, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Comment Wikibofh, I think the fact that you put so much (wasted) effort into trying to salvage this entry is an excellent example of why we collectively need to be more proactive about not starting such non-articles to begin with and doing a better job of deleting them the first time when they do get made. The Literate Engineer 06:39, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm not going to argue with you on that.  :) I think I came across this on a Random Article click. I was suprised it had survived an AfD. I probably shouldn't have put in the effort, but hey, it was amusing.  :) Wikibofh
• Delete as per The Literate Engineer. -- Kjkolb 07:10, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep interesting, verifiable, survived VfD before.  Grue  07:57, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep so damn bored i'm going blind...  ALKIVAR™ 09:51, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Abstain. This kind of stuff is so far from the spirit of what WP was ever even meant to be. "We make the internet not suck" This kind of stuff is random trivial garbaaaage in my humble opinion.--Gaff ^talk 10:46, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Unencyclopedic. The discussion on the talk page illustrates the problem with lists like these. There are arguments over whether "milkshake" consitutes "ass-shaking", breast-shaking", or something else altogether. Deciding one way or the other requires an arbitrary call; because many implicated lyrical terms will be protologisms of uncertain usage, making that judgement call also by necessity contravenes WP:NOR. Further, it appears that the page is being populated under an entirely arbitrary criterion—a song is allowed if it seems to some editors to be "definitely about masturbation", but other songs that could also perfectly well be "about masturbation", but are not recognized by the editors as such, will not be admitted. Non-NPOV contruct. Next, we have the problem with the title. "About masturbation"? If a love song clearly mentions the word masturbation several times, I have little doubt it will be admitted. Yet, it may be highly inaccurate to list such a song under a title that claims it is about masturbation, when that word might simply be a minor feature of the lyrics. I think we should remember that lists and articles are very different contructs. By placing something in a list you are making a statement about that item, and you cannot qualify or nuance your statement the way you might in an article. Therefore lists should only be used for things where such a binary determination is clear and unambiguous. It either is, or it is not. For example: "List of member countries of the UN." "List of Japanese states." "List of Ford models manufactured and sold between 1970 and 2004." "List of astronauts who have landed on the moon." Not this please. encephalon 10:48, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Comment: If the eventual consensus is to delete this, you might want to think about pruning down Category:Dynamic_lists_of_songs as well. lots of lists of song by subject.  ALKIVAR™ 11:07, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete as per various arguments above. CalJW 11:42, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete Drop a MOAB on this.--MONGO 13:36, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep though I agree it should be kept to just songs which are intended to be about masturbation. "Pink Thing" by XTC is about a father and his newborn baby. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 13:57, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete Save people the time having pointless debates over a pointless list. Marskell 16:49, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete - No idea why everyone voted keep the first time, thought it was funny? How is this any more notable or viable than, List of songs about eating, or List of songs about sleeping. I would however, vote extreme keep on List of songs about schools, as they are inherently notable. - Hahnchen 17:14, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Strong delete. Not encyclopedic to begin with, and with the subjective nature of the list (as Encephalon correctly points out), it has no chance of ever being NPOV. Titoxd^(?!?) 18:55, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. Interesting list, cruft is not a deletion criteria, and it passed a previous AfD. When that AfD passed, songs like Another Brick in the Wall were on it. Now we've cleaned it up so every song there is actually about masturbation, so its a worthwhile list. Redwolf24 (talk—How's my driving?) 19:53, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Weak Keep per Wikibofh, although I could go either way. It seems pretty non-notable, but a lot of people seem to feel differently. better safe than speedy. Instead of a third AfD, could we maybe table the discussion to the Talk page about how to improve, as it seems to be pretty ambiguous in terms of both value, and valuelessness. cruft can be a deletion criteria, specifically as being not notable enough to merit an encyclopedia entry, but this is almost not cruft.Jesse 20:19, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Sort of thing that might be useful to a serious social scientist.  BD2412 ^talk 20:24, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, I'm sure this is of interest to some. - SimonP 21:37, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

• Keep As per BD2412. Some would say this list was useless because the subject matter seems silly, but a social scientist or historian would find a list like this tremendously useful. Really: I wish I had a list of jazz songs about marijuana, for example, when I was doing my thesis a few years ago. This list would be wonderful for a serious researcher. It just has to be kept orderly. --Tedzsee 21:51, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Why not? Hipocrite - «Talk» 22:41, 15 October 2005

(UTC)

• Strong Delete as unmaintainable and unencyclopedic list. It's not that the "subject matter seems silly", but that its contents are inherently ambiguous and unverifiable. It cannot be "kept orderly", since the criterion for being on the list is that some person thought some lyric was an allusion to masturbation. That is not remotely encyclopedic. MCB 23:30, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
  • It's obviously maintainable, since people have been maintaining it. Factitious 17:09, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
• Comment. No, thats what the list used to be like. Now Wikibofh, me, and others make a consensus on whether each song should be added, and we check lyrics. Redwolf24 (talk—How's my driving?) 23:55, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
  • That's admirable, but it's not practical to have "policy constraints" on the content of Wikipedia articles. No one owns the article, the "keepers" may lose interest, and it's just an open invitation to edit wars.
    • So you think it would be better to not have any, and never remove a song that was placed there? I refer to how such songs as Another Brick in the Wall (Pink Floyd) and High Hopes (Frank Sinatra) and Iron Man (Black Sabbath) and Pinball Wizard (The Who) and Thunderstruck (AC/DC) and TNT (AC/DC) were on the list. Redwolf24 (talk—How's my driving?) 19:23, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
      • No, I would rather just not keep the article at all. It's inherently just a matter of opinion what should be included, the criteria are ultimately arbitrary, and why should one (or two or three) editors' opinions be considered definitive? There's no ability to verify the contents. MCB 04:15, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
        • The consensus opinions of the editors contributing to an article should be considered definitive (at least until other editors choose to chime in and potentially change the consensus) because this is a wiki. It's no more arbitrary than any other article that requires the good judgement of the Wikipedia community. Factitious 17:09, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
• Comment While I respect the "utility" argument, I have concerns about the idea of letting it apply to lists. Articles, sure. But lists? The Literate Engineer 04:48, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure I understand what you mean by the "utility argument." Are you saying that you think useful lists should be deleted? Factitious 17:09, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Kind of. It's more a call for as strict as possible a standard of usefulness for lists. Certainly much stricter than for real articles. The Literate Engineer 17:28, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete as per nom. --Vsion 08:00, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, useful and interesting. Christopher Parham (talk) 09:40, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Why Not?
• Delete. Totally subjective topic, has no chance of ever becoming verifiable. -- Corvus 19:33, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, notable and interesting. --Kurt Shaped Box 22:33, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Wikibofh has done what should be done with lists like this, so it can stay. In the future, lists either need to start with a verifiable basis, or they need to be deleted until get one. Xoloz 11:57, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, as per Wikibofh and BD2412. I still don't understand why amusing lists like this one anger deletionists so much. Factitious 02:40, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
• Delete per nom --Rogerd 03:39, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
• Weak Keep. Oh, what the hell. It's amusing and the songs are (mostly) notable. - Sensor 02:41, 20 October 2005 (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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.