[WikiEN-l] Wrongly deleted articles from AfD: List of power ballads

Thu Sep 15 15:30:18 UTC 2005

MacGyverMagic/Mgm writes:

"Is there any article that was wrongly deleted within
the past 3 days as a result of ignorance of the nominator or sheep
voting by others without check the article and possible sources?"

Sorry, that was my fault.  I wasn't following the discussion properly and
thought it was about speedies.  My apologies for dragging us briefly (if
entertainingly, at least for me) up the wrong trouser leg.

Your timescale for this is a little short, but never mind.  Let's take a
look at the deletion log, this time only AfD deletes.

Well it was hard searching, because of the way in which the AfD link gets
screwed when an article is deleted.  So I stopped when I reached the first
deletion that I think is rather dodgy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_power_ballads

Now I hate those bloated, overdramatic monstrosities that are known as
power ballads, but I cannot deny the encyclopedic value of having a list
of them.    The genre is well known, and is well described in the
introduction: "a slow, quiet intro, and a gradual build to a dramatic
climax, often followed by a quiet outro.   String arrangements and even
full orchestration are not uncommon. Lyrical themes tend toward romantic
yearning, loss, pain or introspection."

The article was listed for deletion on the following premise:
"Unmaintainable list. There are obviously thousands of power ballads."

Say what?  The name of the article is "list of power ballads", not list of
every single power ballad ever written."  In fact I estimate that the
article must have contained the name and artist details of about 400-500
songs.  A valuable resource for a musicologist looking for source material
for his thesis.

Reasons for deletion given by delete voters were:

"there is no pinpointed criteria to the nomenclature".  True, but life is
full of fuzzy categories.  Normal editing and dispute resolution processes
can be used to resolve ambiguities and differences of opinion.

"useless and unmaintainable list " Well useless to ''most'' people.  But I
find it useful if only because it gives me a list of artists and albums to
steer clear of.  The claim that it's unmaintainable is contradicted by the
fact that it ''had'' been maintained, lovingly, with almost daily edits,
by several editors, ever since its creation in April.

"Kinda hopelessly POV... What is a power ballad? Is "The Time Has Come
(Pikachu's Goodbye)" a power ballad? Pika-Pika?! CHHHUUUUUU!!!! GMAFB" 
Perhaps it is!  Why didn't he just discuss the question on the talk page? 
A neutral choice can be made by discussion.  This is how Wikipedia works.

"the scope of the list is much, much broader than outlined by the power
ballad article (which is in line with the I Love the 80s definition, for
instance). I'd say cleanup, but if it's gotten this far it may be
unsalvageable/unmaintainable."  If true, this is a good reason for bold
editing, not radical amputation.  However the Power ballad article does
admit of the wider definition, though it claims this is less common. 
Personally I'd be inclined to identify the power ballad as the mutant
offspring of soft rock and torch song, and I'd have no hesitation in
classing the works of Heart (1987, Alone) and Bonnie Tyler (1982, Total
Eclipse of the Heart), and the like as power ballads, and it's easy enough
to find credible references for these.  Items for which no such reference
can be found could be removed.

"A pointless list, with no clear definition or upper limit of entries." 
Seems to be a permutation of arguments already considered.

"Cleanup if possible, otherwise delete. Some songs IMO don't come under
the category of "power ballad". 50 Cent is a rapper/hip-hop artist - since
when did they write ballads? The list was good when it was uncluttered
(see page history)."  This "problem" could obviously be solved by a simple
revert.

And in the keep arguments:

"Cleanup. This page doesn't seem to fall under any of the categories in
Wikipedia's "Problems that May Require Deletion" table. (See
Wikipedia:Deletion policy.) The list in itself is a useful one, (I
discovered it because I was searching for just such a list). The problem
is that incorrect information has been added to the list, 50 Cent's song
being the most blatant. Delete misleading entries and keep the list."

There you are, apparently the one person in the entire discussion who had
read and understood the deletion policy.  Looking at the list of "Problems
that may require deletion", I have to agree: this article seemed to be
very far from falling into any of those categories.