Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lists of solo piano pieces (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 in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. All the content has now been userfied at User:Timneu22/piano cleanup and will be reorganized in some time. Time to delete the articles that have no future and can not be reasonably redirected. Tone 17:57, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lists of solo piano pieces[edit]

Second nomination.

This article was nominated for deletion previously, with some support. On further reflection, I believe this list and all associated lists need to be removed. While stand-alone lists are acceptable, there are many reasons why these lists are not. The reasons for deletion are:

There are millions of piano pieces, and most pieces themselves are not notable for a wikipedia entry.
Lists like these are severely indiscriminate; each of the sub-lists are randomly assembled with no clear direction.
From WP:SAL: all the links in a "list of lists" should be blue, not red. Many red links exist throughout these pages.
The naming convention used on these lists is inconsistent. One example of many:
1. List of solo piano pieces, American
2. List of Polish solo piano pieces
The lists are far too difficult to police to verify that things are reliably sourced and relevant to wikipedia. There is no way to keep these random lists in sync. For example:
1. List of solo piano pieces by composer: F includes Gabriel Faure. Because Faure was a French composer, one would expect to find information about his piano pieces on List of French solo piano pieces, but it is not there.
2. Some of Chopin's pieces are listed on List of solo piano pieces (romantic), while a different list is displayed on List of solo piano pieces by composer: C, while an even different list is on List of Polish solo piano pieces
The style of these lists is inconsistent. Some have subsections, some have bulleted lists, some have a this weird style where only the subsections of a list are bulleted. Some have multiple columns of bulleted lists.
1. Sometimes every piece is listed. Sometimes the list just says "32 sonatas".
2. On one page where Chopin is listed, the list just says "etudes" and "preludes". How is this helpful?
3. Some pages list composer birth/death years. Some pages list the years of the pieces. Some pages list both/neither or one-or-the-other.

Overall, these lists cannot be maintained long-term, they are not encyclopedic, and they cause far too much overhead for people trying to maintain Wikipedia. I believe point 5-2 above is the biggest reason why these lists are wrong. It is one thing for wikipedia to have a List of Polish composers and a List of Romantic-era composers. Chopin shows up both places. However, by the very nature of these piano lists — we are listing composers and their pieces, not just the pieces — the content on different pages is going to be different. Essentially, these solo piano lists aren't "lists of lists", but rather they are "lists of lists of lists"! If only wikipedia had some way to make the same information appear in multiple locations... AHA - CATEGORIES ARE THE ANSWER!

My proposal to clean up these lists is for relevant articles to be created and then categorized appropriately. This accomplishes a few things:

It helps to ensure notability. If a composer's solo piano works are truly notable, they could be on a single article. "List of solo piano pieces by Beethoven" or "List of solo piano pieces by Chopin" are certainly worthy articles.
It makes information centralized, so that there is no possibility of having different lists for the same composer. A single page will be in different categories: Solo piano pieces in the Romantic era, Solo piano pieces by Polish (or German) composers, etc.
It just cleans things up.

Because most pieces by themselves are not notable, categorization on composers is the answer. While it may be wonderful that Michal Oginski wrote a single solo piano piece, I do not believe it is notable. (If it were notable, the piece would have its own article.) These lists of lists of lists allow for such rubbish to exist on wikipedia. I propose that we remove all these lists and categorize appropriately. Timneu22 (talk) 21:02, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Co-nominated lists for deletion:

Delete all There are literally millions of piano pieces, many by red link writers and the list is terribly indiscriminate. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)} 16:11, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all. Lists are preferred when the number of items is too small to make useful categories. These lists do not have that criterion. Categories are preferable because they do not require separate maintenance the way lists do. Bongo matic 16:17, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all per the rationales in the previous nomination, and as redundant to categories. Stifle (talk) 17:10, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment just a reminder that a list being redundant to a category is not a rationale for deletion. Perhaps this should be renamed "Famous solo piano pieces" and be severely cut down. SMSpivey (talk) 20:35, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep After looking through some of this, it seems like an awful lot of legitimate information to just delete. Maybe each and every piano solo is not notable, but I think this list is inherently useful. It isn't an indiscriminate list, as piano solos have to be published in real life by someone. No to speculate too much, but I don't think there are a ton of piano solo fanboys digging up every piano solo ever written to include them. People have to learn about these solos somehow, and I believe it is probably through having played them. Really, how does one even measure the notability of a piano solo? Even when an independent source covers a concert, they don't talk about every piece that is played. If they were composed by a notable person, perhaps that makes them notable (since those pieces are what gives them notability, in reality). Perhaps it should be reorganized and cut down, but those are actions to discuss and perform on the talk page, not here at AfD. SMSpivey (talk) 20:49, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Comment - what about the 5-2 problem listed above? Multiple lists (when categories would perform the task better) cause Beethoven's list of pieces on List A to be different than Beethoven's pieces on List B. This should be completely unacceptable, isn't it? My other problem with all these articles is the method by which they are properly monitored. As Bongomatic stated, "lists are preferable when the number of items is small." Are there really people watching the List of solo piano pieces by composer: H article? To address your concern that "it seems like an awful lot of legitimate information to just delete", well I agree. There would have to be an intermediate process by which relevant articles (List of solo piano pieces by Beethoven) and categories would be created. But as it currently stands, Beethoven has three separate lists of pieces based on his last name beginning with "B", his music being from the Romantic era, or his nationality being German. I just don't see how this makes sense. Timneu22 (talk) 21:07, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete a well-argued nomination. I also feel that alphabetic categories of piano piece composer have no inherent notability nor interest (unlike, say, categories by nationality which can lead to comparative national stylistic analysis). So a double delete on alphabetic categories/lists. Zargulon (talk) 00:05, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete; I agree with nominator's cogent arguments, esp. since the lists and their overlaps are very, very difficult to synchronize and organize. Categories are probably a better answer, and the intermediate stage noted above a welcome solution to the practical objection of loss of information. Drmies (talk) 02:18, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I appreciate the "well-argued" (can't express it better in my own words) nomination as much as anyone else does. To be sure, we can have both lists and categories (otherwise, we'd not have the featured list List of counties in Kentucky plus Category:Kentucky counties), but there has to be something substantial to the lists, which these don't. Agree that this should all be turned into categories, or put into already-existing categories, and the articles deleted as soon as proper categories are ready. Nyttend (talk) 04:24, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I've formatted so the actual articles being deleted are clearly listed, I hope that's ok as I found a subpage for an AFD unhelpful. -- Banjeboi 02:12, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Perhaps I'm reading this nomination wrong but they are actually doing a mass merge instead which doesn't seem like a bad idea while working to also cross-referencing whichever solo pieces do have articles to various categories. None of this requires deletion. Lists can be quite useful and they indeed show where some articles in a series have been created whereas others have not. This allows those who know the subject area to start articles where they need to exist. I'm uneasy about mass deleting what has been built up until a thoughtful and careful process of merging takes place first. Seems like we're in a rush to delete when a process of merging is already being planned. -- Banjeboi 02:12, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The proposal is to move the information into relevant articles or remove the information, then we delete. So deletion is required (as others have mentioned, categories work here and lists don't), but only after the information is put in the right place. I wouldn't even mind if we created a single temporary page for eveything in the interim. Timneu22 (talk) 10:54, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That seems like a reason to simply start merging and delete empty pages after completion. To me, AfD is about removing material that simply can never be encyclopedic on an article level which doesn't seem to be the case here. Surely the process can start with a set of pages and progress from there. Once a page is empty just redirect it or have it deleted if the title phrase is illogical. In this way someone searching for "solo toy piano pieces" is still likely to find what they are looking for. I'm all for better and logical organizing but you seem to have a decent plan for doing this that doesn't require AfD which all but erases the former articles and organization which may not be needed or in the future best interest. -- Banjeboi 00:51, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Merge all and redirect to a more suitable list; deletion is not required when merging and redirecting are reasonable options, and in fact deletion policy and editing policy is that we specifically do not delete if there is a reasonable alternative that can be accomplished through normal editing. Redirects are cheap and none of these would be deleted for any reason listed at WP:RFD#DELETE; thus they should not be deleted here. DHowell (talk) 00:37, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the pages absolutely have no future ("List of solo piano pieces by composer: G") and they will be deleted after this is cleaned up. In fact, my guess is that all the lists will cease to exist in lieu of categories; that is the only reasonable cleanup method for this group of articles. Timneu22 (talk) 10:50, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Getting started. Does List of solo piano compositions by Ludwig van Beethoven (and its new, uncreated categories) seem like the way to go? I also added information to its talk page. Feedback please. Timneu22 (talk) 11:05, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Strongly Keep Rather than delete this, perhaps they should be lumped into a category. And as for the argument that we can't list all of the piano pieces, we can list notable ones. This article is very helpful for their are no other lists of significant solo piano pieces.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Smallman12q (talk • contribs) 02:01, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
The proposal is exactly that -- create relevant categories and delete all these unneeded articles. Timneu22 (talk) 11:08, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Seems there is a rough consensus here to reorganize all the content, such as proposed with Beethoven. I am planning to close the discussion as a delete. But, since all the work with merging and categorizing the useful content will take some time, I would like to know, how people willing to work with this prefer doing that. Shall I rather:

delete all now and provide the content when asked or
userfy all the content to some place so that it is accessible for later use and delete only when all the work is done?

Up to you, I'll come around some time tomorrow. --Tone 23:52, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Appreciate the comment but at the very least I suggest a keep some, merge the rest since there are 40+ articles here and a thoughtful process to clean these up doesn't require deleting these. Also no one has suggested that any of this information is harmful or false, just organized in less than a stellar way. -- Banjeboi 23:59, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all. Per my comments above and further looking at the organizing issues here. Categorizing only covers the existing articles for solo pieces that have them, at this time. Just because a solo piece doesn't yet have an article doesn't mean it isn't notable, just that an article hasn't been yet created. If a concerted effort to merge all useful content into appropriate list articles, which doesn't require AfD, I doubt there would be much opposition. Simply deleting all the content feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, there is some useful content there even if it needs to be re-organized. We are always improving articles and it looks like some of these lists expanded prematurely. That doesn't mean they should be imploded as much as remerged and re-organized. The rationales listed, in most cases, are clean-up. If something needs to be standardized, then do so. For the Chopin example - three different lists on three list articles - this would be a good reason to clarify and centralize that content. And indeed the place to do that is List of compositions by Frédéric Chopin and split out from there as needed. In that way all of Chopin's work is presented as one list, even if it is in several parts, but has an overall structure. In the overall A-Z solo list, perhaps a preventative measure would be to recombine a, b and c, for example, so psychologically other editors may feel it's big enough already and may not look to adding more. In any case I feel clean-up is more in keeping here. -- Banjeboi 23:54, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Because it will take some time to reorganize the content, but it will be helpful to eliminate these pages right away, my suggestion is to:

Put all the information somewhere (WP:Userfy?) — can this be on one enormous page somewhere? Where will you put it? Ideally, the information will be in a location so that the Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical music people will have some visibility on it.
Delete the existing list pages immediately.

THANK YOU. Timneu22 (talk) 00:18, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have been doing some cleanup, and I can honestly say it is worse than the nomination described! Beethoven was listed under Classical and Romantic, again with different lists, and others had complete messes too. I'm getting it into a reasonable state where all the pages will be almost empty by the time they are userfied/deleted. Timneu22 (talk) 01:13, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is why deletion is unneeded here. You're already cleaning it up, no comments as to what content is being lost in all this, so deleting simply isn't needed here. -- Banjeboi 01:21, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This doesn't make sense. Certain pages in the list already have zero content. The pages will be deleted. Timneu22 (talk) 01:33, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you have removed all the information from an article, presumably merging it appropriately elsewhere, then AfD is not the way to go; AfD is not clean-up. If you empty out a page and a redirect is not appropriate then use WP:CSD instead. -- Banjeboi 02:45, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see. Either way, the "D" of AFD or CSD applies. This is really the goal here. Timneu22 (talk) 13:42, 24 January 2009 (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.