Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Japanese artists

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 of the debate was keep. bainer (talk) 23:56, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of Japanese artists

Nearly blank list that is devalued in comparison to its category. -Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 00:26, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per nomination. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-01-11 01:37Z
• Weak Delete (added after post AFD edits see comments below) or Redirect to Japanese artists Category -- SusanLarson ^{(User Talk, New talk, Contribs)} 05:05, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep and protest. It is impossible to measure the merits of a redirected page. This action preempts discussion. Durova 07:04, 11 January 2006 (UTC) Lists can communicate information that categories cannot. At the risk of self-promotion I'll make my own most recent list an example: take a look at List of notable brain tumor patients. A researcher of Japanese art may want information on eighteenth century ivory netsuke artists. An expanded list could make them easier to locate. Durova 08:35, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Protest I agree with, but why keep? This is a useless, forgotten, nearly empty list, and we have a bright shiny category! I mean, c'mon! I hardly ever nominate things for deletion(I think this is my third) and constantly infuriate people by voting to keep, but this one should be easy, really... -Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 07:12, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Not everyone is in the camp that lists must always be ended if there is a category. This list is pretty tepid, but maybe someone can find something to make it as expansive as List of Chinese painters. Although on that there is a List of Japanese painters. Possibly this should be merged with that, or the painters list should be merged with this as artists is a broader term. Anyway point being the Japanese are surprisingly poorly covered at Wikipedia compared to how many of them there are. (I checked this) So if someone can make this a long list of important, but poorly covered, Japanese artists that'd be good. In fact I might do that now.--T. Anthony 08:13, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
      • I'm not exactly in that camp either, just against the keeping of unattended lists. If you're willing to tend it, that would be great. -Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 08:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
        • I added a bunch of names from Artcyclopedia. Many of them are red, but that's good because it allows for expansion in this area. I tried to avoid painters as we have a Japanese painters list.--T. Anthony 08:29, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, this list could be much more useful than the category if it gets annotated. Still a bit reddish, but could easily work. Let's see if it can get attention before deleting it. Cleanup or expansion tag first? - Mgm|^(talk) 12:24, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment T.Anthony's actions on the List of Japanese artists page have made me reconsider my redirect suggestion. [1]-> [2] Attempts to influence the course of a AFD by retroactively editing looks bad in my opinion. The redirect, the AFD could have continued without a problem even with the redirect in place. To view the context on a redirected page you simply click at the top where it says "redirected from" then click on page history, nice and simple.

Lists of people are generally duplicative in nature, un-used lists are a misuse of database space. This list was created in october and was dead until the AFD. Which begs the question, Why this sudden interest in editing on this page now. -- SusanLarson ^{(User Talk, New talk, Contribs)} 13:21, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Retroactive editing? Isn't so-called retroactive editing a good thing? It tries to address issues brought up here. - Mgm|^(talk) 14:00, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Isn't that part of the point of AfD? So that when articles come up for deletion, people improve them? Ofcourse it would be a good idea to leave a not on the AfD voting page when it's done. 132.205.45.110 22:02, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

This list was not in a category so I was essentially unaware of it until now. I am interested in expanding coverage of East Asian topics, moreso than African ones as East Asia is my interest, and if lists help that I'm positive for that. Granted I could simply create 20 or so articles based on bios I find, but this would eat up more time then I want at present.--T. Anthony 13:47, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• Keep and it might get improved. As wikipedia grows being less complete can actually be a merit of a list, providing the most important people are included. CalJW 14:14, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Has potential, and the redlinks indicate articles that might need to be written. —--Aude (talk | contribs) 14:58, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I did not nominate this article for deletion. I stumbled across it via the recent changes. That being said I think it should be clear exactly how this matter should be looked at from. Until the article was nominated for deletion there was absolutely no interest in the it for the 4 months since it was created. The edits only occured because it was nominated for deletion. I suspect that the interest will go away rapidly once the AFD is completed.

The purpose of article for deletion is to decide on deletion or not. It is not something to warn people that an article may be deleted so they better rush off and throw some quickie edits on it. I see the actions after the AFD as an attempt to subvert/circumvent the AfD process. In the process this violates the principle that process is important

Before these edits the list contained exactly one name.[3] Subsquent edits should be ignored for the duration of the consideration of this deletion request. -- SusanLarson ^{(User Talk, New talk, Contribs)} 15:42, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Your view and actions were in many ways justified as the list was just one name and no interest before AfD. I think you're worried my changes cloud that and make you look somehow bad. My intent is not to make you look foolish. No one should believe your view was invalid. No one should believe it is invalid now. I'm sorry you think my efforts to improve this list are cheating, but I think this is a valid topic and once aware of it I did what I did. Further last ditch save efforts often fail and there is a chance this one still might.--T. Anthony 23:04, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

That's absurd. Editing during an AfD is allowed, and even encouraged, if it addresses some of the concerns brought up in the AfD. Why should we vote for a static snapshot of the page at a point in time? Would you truly vote to delete this article on principle if in its current form it warranted a keep vote from yourself? What would be the purpose of that? Turnstep 20:45, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete this is what categories are for. Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] RfA! 16:10, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep the above is a case for {{expand}}, not VFD. Lists have an important role that categories do not, they serve as reference for missing articles. Articles that don't yet exist (no stub, even) can't be in a category. They contribute references and red links that count towards Wikipedia:Most wanted articles. --ChrisRuvolo (t) 19:31, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep as a useful,verifiable list which cannot be replaced by a category. Categories and lists are complementary, not exclusive. Turnstep 20:45, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: the nominator should have brought this list to the attention of other editors by adding a flag to expand, cleanup, or verify. There are more harmonious and productive ways to proceed than preemptive AfD nomination. Durova 21:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
• Comment You have to weigh the value of what was in the article when it was nominated for AfD, and one name a list does not make. So the Nomination for deletion was ultimately correct see CSD-A1. The issue is he used Article for Deletion instead of speedying it. The people with the sudden interest in the fate of this article have no history of editing oriental art articles, or for the most part art at all. I checked their contributions. They are all however regular contributers to other list articles. I sincerely believe that they are letting their personal opinion of the value of these types of articles, to come between the removal of an article which has limited value, and in this case can be best served with an existing category. The use of Categories is the proper way to go for things of this nature, especially where there is little interest in developing, maintaining, and promoting the list. Several people have mentioned that the lists best indicate articles which need creation. This is true however the process is better served by the request for article process. Non-existent articles links in article content are of a limited benefit to the Wikipedia and indeed can run off newbie visitors. -- SusanLarson ^{(User Talk, New talk, Contribs)} 22:36, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

It's wrong of Durova to say this was invalid. As stood it wasn't a list, but possibly an ad for one guy. That said I'm a bit irritated on the rest. I do have a history on List of Chinese painters. Some of that won't show up because what I did was turn red names blue, but some should. Check the edits from October 1 to November 12 2005[4] at the Chinese painters list. Also check List of Japanese painters[5] for January 1, 2006.

• • • Not invalid, hasty. The usual procedure is to bring such a list to the attention of the community before nominating it. This list in particular was less than three months old. It is very odd that anyone would introduce a reference to patent nonsense in this discussion. With so much actual nonsense at Wikipedia it seems strange to single this out. I have already addressed the matter of lists and categories in a much fuller manner than SusanLarson's rebuttal suggests. Durova 23:38, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

comment CSD-A1 is short articles: Articles #1 "Very short articles providing little or no context (e.g., "He is a funny man that has created Factory and the Hacienda. And, by the way, his wife is great."). Limited content is not in itself a reason to delete if there is enough context to allow expansion. A search engine may help in determining context and allow for the article's expansion." One name lists would qualify under that section. As for no history I was primarily speaking of T. Anthony who initially stepped up proclaiming an active interest handling this article. At the time I posted that I did not know others had shown an interest in or stepped up to edit on that article. At this point I am flexible on keeping the article or not. I would suggest that a list should be more than a list and include actual text on the arts in Japan. New question is why can this not be added to the Japanese Art article? -- SusanLarson ^{(User Talk, New talk, Contribs)} 00:19, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm more flexible on lists then you might think. If this information could be merged to the article on Japanese art without losing any information that could be okay. I'm not for that in some cases as it ends ups distracting from the article, but it's worth thinking about. Likewise merging List of Japanese painters, with the proviso of putting the new names in the format used here, I think should be considered. Have I even voted on this?--T. Anthony 01:12, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

On second thought the Japanese art article is already fairly long. However this could be made a link at the bottom of it acting as a kind of addendum of sorts.(And I'm going to put a merge notice on the painters list)--T. Anthony 01:13, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

• 'keep please it can be expanded japanese artists are notable too Yuckfoo 22:45, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. This list is a stub. Keep and expand stubs. They cannot grow if they're deleted. Wikipedia does not have a policy stating that articles must be in their complete and final form before being posted. Such a policy would be contrary to the nature of a wiki. Wikipedia actively encourages people to post new articles, and actively encourages editors to add new factual content. Fg2 01:21, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep and I would have voted the same even if I'd seen it with just one name. Fg2 explains it perfectly. --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 11:25, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per Fg2, also agree with OpenToppedBus. Dsmdgold 15:29, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Valuabe - lists have a use that categories alone cannot fulfill. Look at those artists waiting to have good, high quality articles written (subject to notability, obviously) Cactus.man ✍ 16:21, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep --Terence Ong ^Talk 13:55, 13 January 2006 (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 a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.