Wikipedia talk:Centralized discussion/Lists of songs

message: :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)

message: *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)
thread_title: Comments moved from project page

message: * 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)
thread_title: Topical lists

message: *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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Verifiability

message: *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)
thread_title: Linking lists to related articles

message: * In strong disagreement with MGM, my absolutely favorite lists of songs are List of songs containing overt reference to real musicians and List of songs containing covert reference to real musicians. Tons of different contributors, been around for years without controversy, often indicative of songwriters' interests and influences: why should we now delete these? Are there useless topic-based lists? Sure. (I gather that Carnildo also wants to delete these.) But there can be equally useless title-based lists: who needs a List of songs with one-word titles or List of English-language songs with foreign-language titles? (The second being less absurd than the first).I rarely threaten, but if List of songs containing overt reference to real musicians and List of songs containing covert reference to real musicians are deleted in service to some abstract principle, I most likely will decide that Wikipedia has changed its nature in a very undesirable way, and that I no longer belong in this community. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:03, September 9, 2005 (UTC)
**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)
thread_title: Individual lists which need to be kept

message: For reference. This covers the month of September 2005, in reverse chronological order. The first five are still pending as of this writing.
*500 greatest songs of the 20th century
*List of fictional musical works
*List of songs with take-turn vocal work
*List of songs about romance (including breakups)
*Rock songs plaigarized from other rock songs
*List of songs that are six words long (speedied)
*List of songs whose title is more than 10 characters long (deleted)
*List of parody songs credited as ones done by Bill Clinton (deleted)
*List of jazz songs (deleted)
*List of songs whose titles are comprised solely of numbers (no consensus)
*List of power ballads (deleted)
I'm working up a draft policy for this; I'll keep you posted. —Wahoofive (talk) 05:28, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Songlists recently on AFD 

message: 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)
thread_title:  About verifyability 

message: "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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title:  Single-artist 

message: Is this ready for prime time?
===Support votes===
#Yup. Nice work. android79 15:59, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Straw poll

message: #Yup. Nice work. android79 15:59, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Support votes

message: * 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)
thread_title: Oppose votes

message: # 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)
thread_title: Further comments

message: 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)
thread_title:  Closing vote 

message: 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)
thread_title:  More appropriate linking