Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Beatles trivia

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 no consensus whatsoever. I leave you to ponder this: Indiscriminate information is not the same as indiscriminate presentation. Grandmasterka 04:39, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Beatles trivia

Trivia is by definition unencyclopaedic. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Worldtraveller 00:05, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

• Delete, provided that relevant trivia is moved to related articles (such as Liverpool John Lennon Airport's renaming being mentioned in both that article and John Lennon, if it already isn't). However, a large portion of the supposed trivia is hardly notable or particularly-Beatles related (i.e. the Playboy mention). Fabricationary 00:19, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• keep obviously. Fairly important trivia, but too much for main Beatles article. M1ss1ontomars2k4 ^{(T | C | @)} 00:24, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
  • 'Important trivia' is a contradiction in terms. Worldtraveller 09:09, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per Missiontomars2k4. Dionyseus 00:46, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep nominator claim that it is not encyclopaedic. Lots of infomation and is good enough to stand by itself as an article. -ScotchMB 01:22, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, just because its interesting or true doesn't mean it needs a place on Wikipedia. How about we just write about the important stuff? I don't buy the argument that because they are an important rock band they deserve articles forked off the main one full of info that didn't make the cut. Recury 01:27, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Merge what you can into The Beatles. Delete the rest - triviacruft.Mystache 01:46, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete: Wikipedia is also not a trivia game. Cruft. Zos 01:49, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep unless somebody can make a better argument in reference to a specific numbered section of WP:NOT (more specific than "indiscriminate collection of information" as the policy does get more specific about what it means). I can't think of a valid cut-off point for which bands deserve such a list and which don't, but The Beatles certainly make the cut. There was also a similar AfD that didn't generate much discussion (or consensus).--Chaser T 02:02, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
  • The specific part is section two of 'not an indiscriminate collection of information' - WP:NOT 'Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics'. You can also check wikt:trivia and wikt:encyclopaedia and assess whether you think these two concepts are contradictory. In my view they absolutely are. Worldtraveller 09:09, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
    • The articles are all connected with The Beatles. Sorry, but "In my view" is a POV. andreasegde 10:13, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
      • If you meant NPOV, that only applies to articles. We're all entitled to our own POV in discussions, and I think Worldtraveller and I just have different ones about this case.--Chaser T 20:02, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I left a message for the primary editor of this page (figuring he'd see this was AfD'ed relatively quickly anyway) and he then left messages on a bunch of Beatles editors talk pages encouraging them to vote keep or delete here (the full message is in the section below this one. Depending on the knowledge of deletion policy of those who get the message, there may be some people coming here as a result. To anyone who does come, please note that AfD is not a vote. It is a discussion about an article's merits based on arguments grounded in policy and guidelines.--Chaser T 02:14, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete because most of the relevant information is already in other Beatles articles, such as the Apple case. Heavy Metal Cellist^talk_contribs
• Delete The phrase "important trivia" is boggling my mind. Put the facts in the appropriate articles, but by no means should there be a catch-all trivia article. GassyGuy 04:04, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep or (a distant second-best) Merge it into the already-long Beatles article. If the name of the article were changed from trivia it may sould more encyclopedic. The content is. Carlossuarez46 05:04, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
  • I disagree with you there. I think the writers of the article do as well - they give the game away in the second paragraph of the intro. Worldtraveller 09:09, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
    • See comment below about "can be", and "is". andreasegde 09:34, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
      • Without digressing into a "what is trivia" debate, I need only view a few cards from a vintage Trivial Pursuit game to see if WP provides the answers, and voilá, EVERY SINGLE bit of trivia I tested can be found here. Empirically, this ought to stay or we need a severe trimming of our content to be less trivial. So, where does that put us? Not only do we have the "trivia" pages as blatant as can be, we have "Minor characters in" lists that are basically trivia masquerading as lists, we have editors who insist that no matter how little distinguishes one school from another, they are all notable, we have articles on virtually every episode of fan-loved tv series, every pokemon monster, every voice on the Simpsons, etc. This encyclopedia not only embraces "trivia", I would venture to guess that without the trivia our article count would drop below a million. Carlossuarez46 00:26, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per Chaser. SynergeticMaggot, are you claiming that this is OR? Cos that's what you linked to. --David Mestel^(Talk) 06:32, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Strong delete. I love the Beatles' music, but trivia about the band simply doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. It's available everywhere. The keep votes make me moderately angry, because they show a dreadful lack of knowledge of what is trivial and what is encyclopedic and what Wikipedia isn't. Wikipedia isn't a fansite or a repository for trivia...yet. Erik the Rude 06:51, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Merge what's useful into The Beatles and other respective articles (e.g. into Absolutely Fabulous for #Absolutely Fabulous), delete the rest. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 06:57, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. mgekelly 07:24, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

*Keep - if there is a major rewrite What a hodge-podge of trivia & other information, some which which deserve or have their own articles, my vote is keep because it does help to underline the social and musical importance of the Beatles, I'd be hard-pressed to vote keep for any other music group with an article like this. --Richhoncho 07:48, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Note : I have changed my post back to as "I" posted it originally. I did not use caps for most of the text.--Richhoncho 15:09, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

• Merge back to The Beatles, with extensive chopping. This is just encouraging people to add pointless ephemera. Conciseness and determining what is actually important is a virtue. -- GWO
  • It is my experience that any little detail not mentioned in The Beatles article is at some stage added by a well meaning editor, not aware of the breadth of related pieces. As much as is possible is moved to a more relevant article, and the cruft deleted. One place for good information not otherwise having an article is "Trivia". Returning a collection of unrelated facts to the main article is going to encourage more contributions whose relevance is questionable, thus further dtracting from the clarity of the article.LessHeard vanU 22:11, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Comment The word trivia seems to upset a lot of people. There is a Wikipedia article called trivia which deals with the subject, and has links to plenty of other pages that have trivia pages. Should the main Wikipedia trivia page also be deleted, as well as all its links? It even has a "List of trivia lists" link. andreasegde 08:42, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
  • I interpret Andreasegde's suggestion about deleting trivia as rhetorical rather than substantive, but he makes a good point about all our other trivia lists. Is there some reason this list is less encyclopedic than, say, List of human anatomical parts named after people? It'd be helpful if we could articulate our standards here.--Chaser T 08:46, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
    • The problem is that trivia is the very antithesis of what an encyclopaedia is supposed to contain. It's trifling details, when an encyclopaedia is supposed to give the most relevant and significant information. If you read the second paragraph of the article, you can see that whoever wrote it clearly agrees that it's an indiscriminate collection of information - WP:NOT specifically proscribes this very thing. Worldtraveller 09:09, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
      • Whoever wrote it said, "can be", which is not a statement of fact – it’s only a possibility. andreasegde 09:21, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
        • What would you rename it? List of facts about the Beatles? One should never need a random List of facts about... relevent info should already be in the article's topic, in this case, The Beatles. I'm all for adding the facts to appropriate articles in which they can cleanly integrate, but a page specifically for uncorrelated facts about a topic should not exist in an encyclopaedia. It deters people from finding the appropriate way to integrate the information, so that it can be used to improve an existing article on the same topic, or determining that, in the end, the information does not add value to the topic. I know that the article about The Beatles is already long, but spinoffs like these just don't sit well with me. GassyGuy 09:15, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Delete this is less a trivia page and more a "things that referenced the Beatles at one time or another" which of course will never be complete. Danny Lilithborne 09:14, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: Word History: The word encyclopedia, which to us usually means a large set of books, descends from a phrase that involved coming to grips with the contents of such books. The Greek phrase is enkuklios paideia, made up of enkuklios, “cyclical, periodic, ordinary,” and paideia, “education,” and meaning “general education.” andreasegde 09:52, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete This breaks the usual rules of Wiki not being an indiscriminate collection of trivia. This trivia could be added to the main Beatles article if it needs to be here at all. At best, listcruft, at worst a complete waste of bottom-less pit irrelevances. doktorb _words^deeds 10:22, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Feedyourfeet 11:36, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Rename to The Beatles miscellany, remove all the more trivial items, and edit down/rewrite everything drastically. A lot of these items appear to be lazy copy and pastes of paragraphs from other articles which could easily be turned into one or two liners. The Absolutely Fabulous section is totally ridiculous for instance, not to mention poorly written. If no rewrite or renaming occurs, then Merge the few most significant items into The Beatles and then Delete. Bwithh 13:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Merge anything worth keeping into The Beatles; delete the rest. Listcruft. Srose (talk) 15:42, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Some good info here. No policy violation - trivia has common thread. Too long to merge. DaturaS 16:00, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment It's long because, as I said, it's not really a trivia page, it's a "Beatles reference" page which should be called The Beatles references. And I said, just about everything references the Beatles at one time or another. Danny Lilithborne 21:58, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Strong delete. Nothing really worth keeping, because practically everything on the page belongs (and already is) somewhere else. Just because it's about the Beatles doesn't make it okay to retain cruft. --FuriousFreddy 16:19, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per Fabricationary Dpv 16:34, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, are yews lot loosin' yer ollies or wha? Vera, Chuck & Dave 17:29, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Yes, it is true that snippets were taken from other (lengthy) articles. This was meant to be just a start, so as to get it rolling. This article is approx. one month old (not forgetting the one piece that was there before.) A question: If you wanted to look up The Beatles influence, where would you look? This article was only intended to be a summary and a link to lots of other Wikipedia articles, that people would probably not delve into. Jeffrey Archer being a case in point. andreasegde 18:21, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
  • If you want to know about the Beatles' influence, surely you'd go to The Beatles, where relevant detail is concisely summarised. Worldtraveller 23:26, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Good info on page. Treebark (talk) 19:28, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information; trivia is exactly that, by definition. Zetawoof^(ζ) 19:59, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Both the main article, and others related to it, are indicated as being larger than is normally expected for a Wikipedia entry. Many of the mentions now in "Trivia" were culled from the main article for reasons of reducing the article size, but were considered relevant/important enough to warrent keeping elsewhere. Some items have no other obvious place in The Beatles canon, but are never the less a potential search result. Suggest renaming article to "Miscellenea" to avoid connotations with the term trivia.LessHeard vanU 21:52, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. The Beatles are important and still interest many people. --JJay 23:12, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Of course that's true. This deletion discussion does not question that at all. Worldtraveller 23:26, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Then we should keep all valid info that relates to the Beatles. "Trivia" is hard to define, but much of the information in this article does not seem like trivia to me. --JJay 23:35, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
• Merge all contents to approate articles. The issue is not of importance, uniqueness, or verifiability. The issue is if it all really belongs in one rather large list about the Beatles. Most, if not all, of this trivia could be merged into the articles about the subjects since: A) It really has much more to do with them and B) Not many people are going to find this page if they are interested in the subjects in question. The trivia is interesting, but wrapping it up all in one big pile of information under one generalized subject is ludacris. This information should stay with the subjects, and this list cut down to slimmest terms. Yanksox 23:18, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep good stuff, beyond cruft. If you question something, put {{fact}} on it, but the whole thing shouldn't be deleted for it. - CrazyRussian talk/email 23:35, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep If it is kept I will personally roll up my sleeves and get the scissors out. I suggest cutting it down and merging/moving it to The Beatles´influence on popular culture, which is unloved anyway. andreasegde 08:51, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. In accordance with WP:BOLD I have boldly deleted some parts and added them in a "see also" listing, Free as a Bird Video has been moved to the main Free as a Bird article as a subheading "The Video" Deleted Yellow Submarine which is a major Beatle project and contained no new information. And other bits and pieces. I kept the Peter Sellars part in because if I had moved it to the Peter Sellars article it would have unbalanced that article. Still much more work to be done. Perhaps there should be a separate article for "significant" Beatle covers? --Richhoncho 10:27, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment (after edit conflict). Richhoncho has exactly the right idea, here, and good on him for starting to work on it. I don't think we need an article called "Beatles trivia", but there is some good stuff here which should be moved or merged elswhere. There's also some bad stuff that I'd be happy to see disappear. I'd oppose a delete after only five days, though, so in that limited sense I suppose my vote is keep. I'd also approve of a covers article as a suitable merge target. AndyJones 12:40, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Changing my vote to delete in support of the editors who've tried to fix this article and have found that most of its useful content is in Wikipedia somewhere already. AndyJones 20:24, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

• • • In accordance with civility I have reverted the deletions, pending a decision following this discussion. If it is decided to delete then I nominate Richhoncho to do the work, since s/he knows where things should go. If it is decided to keep, I nominate the same User to go through the various articles and remove parts belonging to this piece. Whilst editing is allowed during a AfD, wholesale deletions kind of defeats the object of the discussion.LessHeard vanU 12:37, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
• Further comment Thanks AndyJones for your support, I can't understand how anybody would want to list Yellow Submarine or Free as a Bird under Beatle trivia, But anybody is allowed to contribute and edit. But to avoid a conflict war I am not going to revert LessHeard vanU's changes. However, I do still emphatically beleive my edits took the article in the right direction. --Richhoncho 13:00, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

*Big comment I completely agree with LessHeard vanU. The discussion is not even over yet, and you guys are sharpening your knives, and have already started using them. I find that highly reprehensible and insulting to the process of Wikipedia discussion. Yes, it does need cutting, but can you PLEASE wait until the jury comes back in to deliver their verdict BEFORE you start erecting the scaffold for the hanging? Innocent until proven guilty, I believe. andreasegde 13:26, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment May I point out the part of the wording on the Afd tag is "Feel free to edit the article, but the article must not be blanked, and this notice must not be removed, until the discussion is closed. For more information, particularly on merging or moving the article during the discussion,.." My edits were in line with these and instructions and designed to save this article, and I point out again, quite clearly for those who haven't bothered to see read or understand my changes, I did not delete one piece of information from WP. Those sub-heading I deleted were the same as in the principal article, or augmented in a "see also" sub-heading. The article is too long, too unconnected, and no context between the bits of "trivia." Maybe it should be deleted. --Richhoncho 13:43, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate your efforts, Richhoncho, but if you start cutting, then it could become a free-for-all, don´t you think? (You know how messy it can get, no?) Do what you think is right, but let everybody have their say first. This is not meant to be nasty in any way at all. Have fun. andreasegde 13:50, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

But I didn't cut anything!!! Furthermore your comment about not editing would have more validity if you hadn't edited MY comment further up on this AdF page. Anyway isn't WP a "free-for-all? --Richhoncho 13:54, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I think we need a cup of tea. How many sugars do you take? (I saw this futher up: "I have boldly deleted some parts and added them in a "see also") I refuse to fall out with you, so... what about that tea? (Mine´s two sugars, by the way.) Plus: I´m amazed how many people have left comments. Is this usual Richhoncho? Go on, smile, you know you want to...andreasegde 14:03, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Make my with half a spoonful of sugar! As you know you have copied some other WP articles and pasted them into this article, which really isn't necessary! Does say, Portmeiron require all the information repeated here just because the Beatles were interviewed there once? Ditto Mary Hopkin, the Tom Hanks film, The Rutles and other sub-sections I moved to "see also" On the other hand you have added more info about Norman Pilcher which really belongs in the Pilcher article with a link from here. Some of the parts deserve to stay in here. The one real deletion I did make was removing "and allowed its release" (re-With a Little Help), and as anybody who knows anything about the music business knows once a song has been released the author only retains moral rights and not the right to stop the playing of, or release of cover versions. So those words are a complete fabrication. As I keep pointing out the article is too long, so a little bit of judicious editing will go a long way to saving an article which could be important. I also note you have missed some relatively important items like the Dora Bryan song, or perhaps the Ballad of Hollis Brown/Working Class Hero "coincidence." ditto Norwegian Wood. Some of these items rightfully belong in the Beatles Influence articles too, which you have also worked on. Your decision, I'd rather see this article be deleted than get into an edit war. This is why I am replying rather heavily here - I am actually trying to save this article (although it will probably need to be renamed), although you wouldn't think so from the comments I am getting!!!--Richhoncho 14:43, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I know that I am an incorrogible thief, but I only started it a month ago. (My... what a short life it had - laugh...)

My original idea was to have it as an index, so people would not have to trawl through whole pages of stuff to find one small reference about The Beatles. As that idea has (it seems so) well and truly had its genitalia skewered, I will sit back and think of something else to do. I still believe there should be a Beatles index - if only to connect the multitude of pages together. andreasegde 15:52, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Which is all I was trying to do, trim it back into a useful index, please see my last edit [[1]] before it was all reverted. Not saying I finished, or that other editors couldn't do better. You will note I added a small amount of detail to the "see also" so the reader could decide if they wanted to look further in that direction. --Richhoncho 16:04, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

• Keep as miscellaneous information about notable subjects is notable. Too much for main article, which is why it was created in the first place, I imagine. --Aguerriero (talk) 15:08, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
• Move to the appropriate articles. Why talk about Yellow Submarine (film) or Yesterday (song) anywhere else but they own existant articles? -- Zanimum 16:19, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as per nom. Notable information can be Merged into appropriate articles, but WP is not an archive of pages about trivia. Scorpiondollprincess 18:17, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
• Change of opinion. Delete according to WP:LC and WP:NOT. Furthermore, most of the information is already contained in the primary articles, or is a direct copy therefrom. My opinion is also because of WP:SIZE given that the article's supporters won't countenance slimming down (see near-edit war I was nearly involved in) and there is too much scope for further expansion. --Richhoncho 01:22, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment: I recently found this - Category:The Beatles - and it is a complete index of The Beatles pages. I have also added it to as many pages as I had time to. Now WHY was this link not already on the pages? Did I miss something here? andreasegde 09:57, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

• Keep per Aguerriero. Wikipedia tends to collect stuff like this anyway. You can zap stuff like this, but it'll just grow back. I'd rather see it on its own page than have it clutter up the Beatles page. At least now it's organized and easy to read. Alcuin 12:52, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, and notable trivia is an oxymoron. Stifle (talk) 14:37, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment Could we not have an acronym for "indiscriminate collection of information", such as ICI? It would make comments easier to read, and it wouldn´t sound so much like "Parrot-speak". andreasegde 17:09, 19 July 2006 (UTC) Extra comment Indiscriminate, it is not. I beg you to look up the meaning of the word. Every piece mentions The Beatles, and has something to do with them. It has a thread... andreasegde 12:52, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Well the policy is "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" not that Wikipedia articles shouldn't be ICIs. Some people interpret this as saying that Wikipedia shouldn't contain trivia or articles on non-notable subjects. But of course this is one of those rules that everyone interprets differently and I doubt everyone will come to an agreement on it here. Recury 13:24, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

• Delete - most of the information of the page is really information about another person, object or place. The information, if notable, belongs in those articles. If the information isn't notable enough for either the main Beatles article or the (for example) Absolutely Fabulous article, then it needn't be in the encyclopedia. Stephenb (Talk) 13:33, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment I have not tried it myself (as I have a life, I think, outside Wikipedia) but how long would it take to trawl through every page that mentions The Beatles? The object was to combine links to other articles. It should have been called "Beatles Links". Yes, I know that it copies minor portions of the original articles, but it was meant to be an index, and not an original piece of work. Imagine a new user who is interested in The Beatles, and wants to know more about them, and their influence... Go on, try it.... andreasegde 14:00, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

• Shouldn't they just go to The Beatles? Worldtraveller 14:23, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Strong Keep - see talk page. Just because we can't work information into an article doesn't mean it's not noteworthy, it means it doesn't fit neatly with the flow of the article. Unfortunate title - perhaps move to miscellany--Crestville 15:35, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

• Delete wp:not per nom. Ste4k 03:32, 21 July 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.