Wiki143:Articles for deletion/Autobiography promotion and publicity

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This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was MERGE. dbenbenn | talk 02:03, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The votes I count are: 5 keep, 26 merge, 17 delete, and 2 delete or merge.

Note there were a number of "delete and merge" votes. The GFDL doesn't allow a merge followed by a delete, so these were counted as "merge".

Autobiography promotion and publicity

Just not notable. Autobiography (album) really doesn't need this spinoff. - Ta bu shi da yu 11:56, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Keep. It's thoroughly researched information, notable detail that was moved to a subarticle due to the considerable length of Autobiography (album). If it's moved back, Autobiography will swell to near 50KB, with no room left for future expansion. If it's simply deleted, a great deal of perfectly good information will be lost. Everyking 12:12, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • I'm sure that re-merging this content would make the Autobiography article quite long. However, would it be that long because it's jam-packed with encyclopedic information, or because it's bloated far beyond anything reasonable regarding its subject? Even a brief glance reveals quite a lot that could be cut, reworded, or re-organised for more reasonable size. I bet that, given an hour or two, I could make it less than half its current size with virtually no information loss. I will not do so, however (nor would any sane individual) because you would immediately revert it back to what you undoubtedly consider to be your version. I will not doubt that there are certain albums fully deserving of 50K articles. However, there are a dozen or so of them at most since the beginning of recorded sound, and Autobiography just ain't one of them. We're trying to create an encyclopedia here, not the ultimate Ashlee Simpson fansite... which is what you really should consider making instead, or a fan book of some sort. It would probably be great. Starblind 16:50, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
      • You haven't even made 50 edits as of now, and you're lecturing me about building an encyclopedia and telling me I need to take my work elsewhere? Everyking 18:26, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • Agree with Starblind. -Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 22:00, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • Agree with Starblind. -Gtabary 17:43, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • Agree with Starblind. Whatever his posting history, when he's right, he's right. --Calton 07:54, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Fancraft. I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in this stuff, but due to the amount of work that has been put into it, and due to the thoroughness and evidence of serious purpose by multiple editors, this article will be useful and interesting to its target audience, which is substantially nonzero. (I wish we had a) a page hit counter that b) tracked only viewings by IP's who have never edited...) The fact that the article was not broken out until the length of the main article approached 32K shows the article was created for a valid, good-faith reason. Some articles in the Britannica 11th clock out at about one megabyte, showing that "Wikipedia is not paper" is not always a good thing. Paradoxically, Wikipedia has "unlimited" space for the encyclopedia as a whole, yet severely limited space for individual articles! Oh, well, who has the attention span to read anything more than twenty pages long? (Last sentence ironic). Dpbsmith (talk) 12:46, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • No vote. Retracting above vote. Unaware of issues cited by others below. IMHO the real issues here cannot be resolved in VfD. In any case, I'm not qualified to judge them. Dpbsmith (talk) 14:17, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep concur with Everyking Kappa 12:47, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • While I would say that the information itself deserves to be kept, it really should be merged into the Autobiography article. Individual albums themselves having articles are borderline, aspects of individual albums having articles is one step too far. What's next, a seperate article about the cover art? A seperate article with the track times? A seperate article with the BPMs? Starblind 12:53, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment. There was a separate article about the cover art. It was deleted. JRM 13:08, 2005 Jan 7 (UTC)
  • Delete or merge and redirect (no preference; count this as a vote for both). Not encyclopedic. In addition, this article was created purely because Everyking has been unable to resolve a dispute in the main article. When people complain there's too much fancruft whenever he requests peer review, instead of removing it or tolerating attempts to condense it, Everyking calls their efforts, among other things, nonsense (full edit summary: "(→About the songs - fix the most outrageous problem with this paragraph. i may only get three reverts, but i get to make endless little tweaks to your nonsense in the meantime)") and when reverting gives outrageous excuses (i.e. "A paragraph placement got moved and therefore a whole bunch of paragraphs were red, making it difficult for me to determine what was changed. So I erred on the side of caution and restored my version"). While this is not a reason for deletion, it's just the icing on the cake of this comedy of errors. The article is already borderline unencyclopedic, and the fact that it was created to run away from a dispute is just another reason to avoid keeping this article for now. Lest anyone claim that editing Autobiography (or its related articles) have been a community effort... As of 03:08, 13 Dec 2004, of the 552 edits, 496 (or 89%) have been by Everyking; of the 56 edits not belonging to him, 29 were reverted (25 fully and 4 partially) even though at least one of them received strong backing on Talk:Autobiography (album)/Archive3. Everyking has refused to co-operate with other editors, including two current arbitrators (then mediators). I would have strong reservations about voting to keep this article normally, and would probably abstain, but under these circumstances I find that keeping this would only exacerbate this problem by allowing Everyking to continue his rampage of ignoring community consensus. Johnleemk | Talk 13:56, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Wikipedia:Informative sums up what all these various subpages (except for the singles) are not — actionable or interesting (for definitions see the page; interesting in particular is used with a very different meaning). Johnleemk | Talk 14:18, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • If John would put half the effort into working on the articles that he does into criticizing me...I can't count how many times I've heard the same thing from you, but it has hardly a shred of truth in it. This subarticle was created for two reasons: A) because the main article was massive, at about 45KB long, and I was beginning to feel that further expansion would be impossible without subarticles, B) and because people like you were complaining that there was unimportant info in the article, while I was saying it was important, so I figured moving it into a subarticle would be a reasonable compromise. Obviously I was wrong about the second, but the first alone is more than enough reason to keep this. And please don't try to make the dispute personal; I've apologized for any unreasonable things I've said before, but we should be dealing with the content here and the validity of the subject, not me or you. Everyking 14:22, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • CommentExactly. And this is why encyclopedic articles should not be written by super-fans of the article subject: they themselves are too close to the subject to write objectively and respond normally to fair and reasonable criticism. For example, I note that the article we're currently discussing mentions Ashlee's Orange Bowl performance but NOT the fact that she was resoundly booed by the audience and criticised by the press for being off-key. This was a national news story and covered by nearly every media outlet, and one would expect an even slightly objective article to mention it. This one, of course, does not. We all have a responsibility to prevent fandom on WP from getting out of hand (it would be fine on a fan site, of course) because WP will never be taken seriously as an encyclopedic information source if the public and academic community assumes we're all carbon copies of Comic Book Guy from "The Simpsons". Starblind 14:31, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
      See also the end of La La (song) and its edit history. JRM 14:42, 2005 Jan 7 (UTC)
      • The Orange Bowl thing just happened, man. I have over 5,000 pages on my watchlist, and checking them takes up most of my wiki-time; I don't always get a chance to write content as quickly as I'd like. Since you pointed it out, I've added a bit more about it, and I'll try to add more later. My question is, if you noticed a problem, why didn't you just fix it? Everyking 14:45, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Only to have you revert it, as you revert practically every edit anyone else does? Why would anyone bother? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:01, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • merge If Everyking continues to squat over Autobiography (album), resisting all attempts by others to edit it to a reasonable standard, I predict that it will continue to bud off unnecessary daughter articles like this on quite trivial aspects of an album release by a single artist. Vote merge to persuade Everyking that enough is enough. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:05, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • I'm resisting attempts to remove the content, but not absolutely. I've told you time and time again I'm willing to compromise with you, but it seems to get me nowhere. Everyking 14:22, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • You're not just resisting removal of content, you're resisting any editing that replaces the existing wording with more compact wording. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:49, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • I am not. I sometimes restore my wording if I think it's better, but plenty of things in the article have been changed from what I wrote and I've happily accepted it. Everyking 14:55, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • Did you just happen to ignore your quotes above? You called one effort nonsense, and reverted because of laziness instead of any substantial problem with the edit. I don't think that's acceptance of change. At least not change recently. You don't seem to accept many (if any) changes beyond a few bytes in size. Johnleemk | Talk 15:56, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • The article is too long. Five paragraphs on reviews? Come on! We should be working on substantially reducing the size of this monstrosity. At best, you replace any attempt to contract the sprawling mess with an edit of your own that is just as long and sprawling as the original. It's extremely frustrating. You just don't seem to understand what editing is about. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:04, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge it back into Autobiography (album). Wikipedia:Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. iMeowbot~Mw 14:51, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • What? You think I wrote all that just to illustrate a point? And what point would I be illustrating, anyway? The article will be over 45KB if we merge it back, with no room for future expansion. That's contrary to Wikipedia guidelines. Everyking 14:55, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Yes. These sub-articles are obvious examples of gaming the VfD system in order to gain the upper hand in a long-running edit dispute over Autobiography (album). iMeowbot~Mw 15:09, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • That's absurd. The three singles were split off into subarticles before the dispute even started. Everyking 15:15, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
          • Nice diversion attempt. The relevant articles would be Autobiography album design, Autobiography sales and chart positions Autobiography promotion and publicity. Two of the three song articles are of questionable notability, but that's a separate issue. iMeowbot~Mw 16:02, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
            • The song articles exist for the same reason: to provide for greater detail and free up space. Everyking 16:13, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
              • No, because they are encyclopedic in their own right. This article is not encyclopedic in its own right. World War II and the Battle of Stalingrad are encyclopedic in their own right. This article is not. Johnleemk | Talk 16:26, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
                • Of course you think that, but the question here is my motive, and my motive for creating singles articles was as given above; it had nothing to do with your definition of what is "encyclopedic in its own right". Everyking 16:29, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
                  • There was considerable precedent for creating the singles articles. There are a quite a few single articles on WP, such as many different New Order songs, for example. BUT there is no precedent for such an enormous article about an album as the Autobiography one, nor are there multiple articles about one album. The Beatles' The White Album for example, one of the very few albums in music history that might potentially warrent such treatment, has less than half the page size of the Autobiography article, and that isn't even counting the two Autobiography sub-articles! It's madness! Starblind 17:20, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
  • Condense and merge back into the original article. DCEdwards1966 15:07, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
  • Condense and merge as above. Paul August ☎ 16:22, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete or merge. Jayjg | (Talk) 17:05, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • What everyone but Everyking said. Condense and merge. Please give up ownership of your edits, no matter how much better and more informative they may be than those of non-Ashlee devotees. I'm not good at weeding, but to those who want to try it, I say let them. I am not at all convinced a reasonable effort has been made to reach consensus — and no, I don't much care who is "responsible" for that on this vote. Try to see to it that it does happen. Please let nobody pretend objective standards are applied here; I haven't seen any spelled out yet. Consensus should be reached on the subjective parts. JRM 17:19, 2005 Jan 7 (UTC)
  • Condense and merge. No one person "owns" an article. It's often been said here that if you submit something, be prepared to have your work severely edited. -- Deathphoenix 17:32, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • ...You're voting that way because of false claims about me? Everyking 17:36, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • While you may deny it, Everyking, your obsessive reverting and following the letter instead of spirit of our agreement has done nothing to create an impression of compromise. I find it hard to believe someone who has edit summaries like "(what on earth are you people thinking? i'll revert you till doomsday, i recorded that data week by week as it happened)", "(no, no. make your changes one at a time if you want to do this, and you must do what i said and discuss things on talk before acting. i can't deal with all this at once.)", "(→About the songs - fix the most outrageous problem with this paragraph. i may only get three reverts, but i get to make endless little tweaks to your nonsense in the meantime)", "(rv, john can make his changes one at a time and discuss them)" and "(ok, there was one useful change i found in there, but rv the rest, i don't like it)" can even pretend he is looking for compromise and has always been looking for compromise. Your comments on the talk pages related in particular have made it crystal clear you believe you have some kind of authority over these articles because you know more about Ashlee Simpson than anybody else. Johnleemk | Talk 17:51, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • I'll always be willing to talk with you about content, John, but I see no point in responding to your personal criticisms. Everyking 18:04, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
          • Says the one who criticised people's "nonsense" and that he would "revert you till doomsday". You argued the claims that you obsessively guarded your article were false; I provided evidence otherwise, and you went ahead and ignored it. Meh, not my problem. Johnleemk | Talk 18:15, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
            • They are false. I have in the past reacted angrily when I saw edits that I regarded as destructive, of course. I'm only human. However, I do not guard the article from others' contributions; I have always just wanted people to work gradually and focus on discussion instead of making massive, controversial revisions. But since then I have moderated even that stance, and I no longer insist on working gradually and with a focus on point-by-point discussion, although I greatly prefer it. Everyking 18:21, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
            • It was just yesterday, or the day before, that someone introduced a small change, highly localized. In the course of successive edits you completely erased it. When the editor complained about your revert, you openly accused him of lying until I provided evidence that you had reverted. The change in question had been discussed on the talk page, yours had not. I find it amazing that you cannot see that what you are doing is slowing any kind of editing down to a snail's pace and is directly responsible for the growth in size of the article, which would be easily avoidable if normal editing were possible. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 19:15, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
              • See my response to Paul below. Johnleemk | Talk 19:09, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • Well in defense of some of those edit summaries, it is not unreasonable to ask people to make changes "one at a time" and to "discuss them". Paul August ☎ 18:16, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
          • Of course, reverts for other than vandalism would be included in edits that should be discussed first. iMeowbot~Mw 18:20, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
          • Okay, some background here; 95% of all rewrites (and thus close to 90% of all reverts) were caused by the article's listing on FAC and Peer review. People there recommended the article be condensed. When Reene and a few other editors tried to do this, Everyking reverted them, going against consensus. Reene brought it to the talk and a very bitter discussion followed with neither side giving ground. Reene then rewrote the article again and asked for comments. Several people remarked it was good, but unsurprisingly, Everyking reverted it, again going against community consensus. This pattern has continued up till now. When the article was renominated on FAC, surprise, surprise, it was the same complaints all over again. When I tried to fix them, Everyking reverted me. When Tony reverted Everyking, he reverted back. After another bitter discussion, we dropped the issue. Then I tried going for broke with arbitration. Everyking agreed to sign an agreement at User:Everyking/Agreement. It was originally meant to have contained a clause forbidding us from reverting to any old revision more than once (although I'm sure Everyking would have found a lot of ways around that), but he apparently dropped it. Anyway, I signed it in hopes of getting to work on the article. Again my edits were reverted and again Tony complained, this time joined by iMeowbot (if I'm not mistaken; perhaps iMeowbot was involved earlier). After a wikibreak, I decided to give up on the article. Then Worldtraveller came along, made the exact same complaint about the article, and went on to declare he would not be editing it as long as Everyking made comments in his edit summaries as above. Vague Rant then attempted a rewrite and was reverted by Everyking, whose excuse was that he was too lazy to properly compare the diffs. After a long tirade from Vague Rant, Everyking made some concessions. In the meantime,Tony continued berating Everyking, and that's where we stand now. Does anyone else see the same pattern here? Everyking has a history of reverting edits that have consensual agreement from the community. While Everyking has a right to his opinion, the fact is that the community overwhelmingly favours an article with less focus on minor, superficial, details and more focus on other aspects of the album. Everyking continues to revert despite the attempts of many editors to alter the article to suit community consensus. 95% of edits "removing information" were made after, and not before, prolonged discussion. And since when have we needed permission to mercilessly edit anyway? If it alters the presentation of the article's content drastically, maybe, but Everyking seems to think it's the crime of the century to trim some quotes. 19:09, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • I'm not voting based on any claims about you, but based on what I've seen on the articles in question (especially the histories). Once you've submitted an article (or edits to that article) to Wikipedia, it is no longer your article. --Deathphoenix 19:26, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Condense and merge. K1Bond007 17:46, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
  • Condense and merge. A single new pop album doesn't need more than 50K of coverage in Wikipedia, particularly when its singles also have their own extensive articles. Revisit this question when Autobiography (album) attains equal acclaim to The White Album. --TenOfAllTrades 18:14, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep - I think this is notable and encyclopedic because the Saturday Night Live incident that it documents was significant. It's not every day when something so embarrassing to a pop icon is revealed in such an obvious and public light. Venice 19:27, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Freem. -Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 22:00, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Condense vigorously using Sawzall and merge. 2 separate issues: (1) Artist and album are barely encyclopedic at best. Far too much information of minimal significance; most fansites would edit this down to half the length. Promo of any album is not worth a separate WP article, and this musical work is quite unimportant and unworthy even compared to most of its lame pop competition. (2) Everyking has been reverting most edits and claiming rights equivalent to ownership for this group of articles. I wasted an hour reading talk pages for the relevant articles and their editors, and this user does a disproportionate amount of whining, rejecting WP consensus processes, insisting on his own ideas of process, and threatening to go away. User is clearly overinvested emotionally. Barno 20:01, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge and condense. This isn't The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, The Black Album or a similar famous album. There is nothing wrong with a quite long article about this album but it should be of reasonable lenght and on one page. I don't think that even the most famous alums with a lot of history and intersting trivia would need more than one article. - Jeltz talk 20:30, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge and redirect. Way too long. There's no way we need all this. -Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 22:00, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Merge and condense. Way too long and no need for another entry about the mediocre cd. IMO, Ashley getting booed at the Orange Bowl Halftime show is more noteworthy than a huge article on a mediocre album, let alone its promotion. CiaraBeth 22:46, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Delete this further attempt by Everyking to turn this into his own, nolo me tangere, all-Simpsonsopedia. RickK 22:48, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge and Delete. --fvw* 23:07, 2005 Jan 7 (UTC)
  • Merge and Delete. Drastically condense both articles. The authors have obviously put a lot of work into this, but if i wanted information on the album, i'd drown in this volume of data. --foobaz·✎ 23:40, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Condense, merge and Delete, as dreadful cruft. Wyss 02:58, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Condense, NPOV, merge, redirect. -Sean Curtin 03:09, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)
  • Who cares? I can't be bothered even to read half the comments here. It's cruft, but it's not worth this attention. Stop arguing and write an article. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:31, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)
    • Who wants to write an article if it's just going to be deleted? Everyking 09:10, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Gawd. Let it be kept if Everyking promises not to edit it again after January 15 (a week from today). If he won't, bin it.Dr Zen 06:36, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • James has promised not to edit the article after Jan. 15, so I vote keep. He can suggest changes on talk. Why not let him write about this if he really wants to? So long as he's not guarding it, what's the problem?Dr Zen 00:31, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge. This level of detail for one mildly significant album is appalling and goes against nearly everything an encyclopedia is supposed to be. Encyclopedias synthesize and highlight; they tell the reader the importantance or significance of a subject, the most important background, concepts, or events that shaped that importance, and perhaps a few pieces of trivia or a few strange facts and then sends the reader somewhere else for the in-depth treatment. Even if notability is discarded and every verifiable object, fact, or event in the known universe and every fictional universe ever created is included, that only expands the breadth of coverage and does not change the way such objects should be presented, i.e. with an eye towards synthesizing previous research and sources and highlighting the essential facts contained therein. In a project such as wikipedia, one can cram in more details and examples to further clarify the big picture and can include information on things that just would not fit in a paper encyclopedia, but that does not mean that the articles should become a confusing mishmash bereft of perspective or thesis. If all of this information cannot fit on a single album page, it is because the article has degenerated into a pointless hodge-podge of minutae and needs to be refocused to convey its major points with a brevity, clarity, and thrust that are clearly lacking at the moment. Indrian 04:38, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. It may be the bestest album in the whole damn world, but that doesn't mean it deserves more than one article in a general-knowlege encyclopedia. --Carnildo 05:32, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Concur. Edeans 06:57, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete, trim drastically, merge what's left. Dbenbenn 08:02, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete - I entirely concur with Indrian's summary of the situation. Worldtraveller 13:17, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge Autobiography promotion and publicity and Autobiography sales and chart positions into Autobiography (album) and then condense that bloated article. I'm normally supportive of having well-written articles about pop-culture (what some derisively label fancruft), but this is excessive and far too detailed a treatment. older≠wiser 17:14, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)
    • If this VfD succeeds, will it set some kind of precedent? I can't think of a precedent. It's not an excessively detailed treatment. Excessive would be documenting what she wore at each performance and appearance, what questions she was asked in interviews and how she responded, whether she concluded a performance with a sweet comment like "Thank you, Top of the Pops Saturday!", etc., etc. That would be fan site stuff, and I wouldn't include such things under ordinary circumstances. But this here is just an overview of a subject that has, one way or another, affected millions of people. I don't believe in getting to the level of absolute triviality, but it seems I disagree with some people about what it means for something to be trivial. I suppose I set the bar for inclusion a bit lower. If you'd told me a year ago Wikipedia treated hard work on notable subjects this way, I'd have laughed and wondered what kind of person would devote his volunteer efforts to such a project, if all one got back from it was deletion and scorn. Come on, people, I've been trying to create a featured article here. I've been trying to construct it according to summary style, with information broken out at reasonable dividing points when the main article grows too long, just as Wikipedia guidelines suggest. But I can't do anything if the stuff I write just gets deleted. Everyking 19:25, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Re: But this here is just an overview and I don't believe in getting to the level of absolute triviality -- obviously there is considerable difference of opinion as to what constitutes an "overview" and what level is "absolute triviality". older≠wiser 20:59, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)
      • James, you probably know by now that I am a deletionist by nature and believe in notability as being fundamental to the encyclopedic nature of an article, but I want to put that aside for a second. Let's assume for now that I am an inclusionist that believes in documenting everything that is verifiable on this earth. Under these circumstances, I would still vote to have this information removed. I, and most everyone else, have not questioned whether the album deserves an article, that is not why we are here today. We are here because the article is out of control in the opinion of many users, users I might add who span both sides of the deletion/inclusion debate. I have read up on the history of this article here and elsewhere and realize that you are not trolling or trying to run your own agenda on this site, and I have no desire to see such a diligent user chased away form the project, but the crusade for this album is bordering on obsession. To be well-written (as in FAC-worthy), an article must demonstrate its relevance to the topic. This is not a question of notability, but rather one of good style. An endless recitation of quotes and appearances does very little to enhance a reader's understanding of the album or its worth, instead it obfuscates the main point of the article by leaving a reader confused about what is truly important. It may be possible to save most, if not all, of the information that you have currently placed in the article, but to do so will take a COMMUNITY effort to organize the information in a way that conveys why the album and the events surrounding it are interesting. An encyclopedia, no matter how expansive, is a scholarly work of articles. An article has a thesis and points supporting that thesis. This "article" is a summary of appearances that does not enhance the reader's understanding of the artist or her work. That is why many of us feel it needs to be put to rest. Indrian 23:11, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: There is now a RfC pending regarding this and related articles. This thing has some legs, apparently. Edeans 18:41, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • A clarification: Since a lot of people here seem to have done background research into this dispute, it would not hurt if they endorsed one or more of the viewpoints presented in the RfC. Although those involved deeply can certify the RfC, there's nothing stopping outsiders from endorsing it. Johnleemk | Talk 14:16, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. Why should we have tons of child articles about various aspects of one Album of one pop star? PaulHammond 20:12, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Trim and merge. The subject is not notable, nor interesting, on its own. - Vague | Rant 03:56, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete this and all articles on the album other than the main one. Condense the main article on the album to a few paragraphs. --BM 13:18, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • You remember the days when stubs were a bad thing? Everyking 17:16, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. Fancruft. Mackensen (talk) 04:15, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. And somebody do something with the big mamma article, too. It's puffier than a 1911 dump. Madame Sosostris 04:27, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC) Merge, then take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. Madame Sosostris 17:54, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge and condense Everyking seems a wee bit overprotective on this subject The Steve 08:49, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge and delete. --G Rutter 10:05, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: If this was a subject of similar notability—millions of people affected—in, say, the fields of math or science, do you think this would be deleted, or even nominated? I don't think so. Wikipedia has a typical bias against cultural subjects in favor of the aforementioned fields because of the kinds of people who tend to be drawn to an Internet project such as this. However, I ask people to be objective in voting and consider the real notability of this subject. This is about the promotion of a number one album that has sold millions of copies across many countries, includes material on a popular reality TV show and discusses TV performances and interviews also seen by millions. I don't ask people to like the subject matter, but we need to be objective in considering that this stuff is obviously quite famous—considerably moreso than many uncontroversial topics in Wikipedia. Everyking 10:18, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • And there is no reason why an article on the album, and indeed its singles, cannot be lengthy. My central problem is that the ratio of informative content to meaningless padding is very poor. The article is a huge, indiscriminate collection of facts, quotes, sales figures and so forth. — Ashley Pomeroy, from the RfC. Johnleemk | Talk 10:45, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • I agree that the nomination for deletion was inappropriate. The article does not meet any deletion policy criteria, as far as I can see, and no consensus had been reached in any way on what information should go where, and how. I do hope you recognize that you have no small role to play in that — more than one contributor has used the word "obsessive" to describe your attitudes to the articles. Your revert-happy behaviour, whether right or wrong in content, left people in a great enough state of despair to take it so far as a VfD nomination on an "innocent" article. Don't make this nomination out for more than what it is — a vote of no-confidence from other contributors that you are capable of not acting like you own the articles. As such, quoting "objectivity" doesn't seem appropriate to me. Even if you are objective as to the content, you do not strike me as particularly objective when it comes to judging the worth of other contributor's edits. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is built on collaboration. Collaboration does not mean you can edifice out your own cathedrals and have others add a few gargoyles here and there to make it look nicer. You must in principle allow for them to tear down your gothic cathedral and build a simple brick house in its stead, and if you do not agree, getting agreement first is what has the priority, not getting the article "right" — by whatever standard that may be. JRM 10:50, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)
      • Well, that raises a philosophical question: should the person replacing the cathedral with a brick house justify himself before doing so, or should the person rebuilding the cathedral justify himself before doing so? I believe in erring on the side of the cathedral, personally. Anyway, you misinterpret my actions, as much as I like your analogy about the gargoyles. I don't care if people knock down my cathedral to replace it with a better cathedral (I'd like that, actually), and maybe I wouldn't even care if they knocked it down to replace it with a different but equally good cathedral. It fundamentally has nothing to do with the fact that I wrote the article, and little to do with the subject matter; it has to do with aggressively rewriting an article in such a way that half the information—verifiable and notable—is removed. A person ought to object to that being done to any article. Perhaps I object more vociferously because I wrote it to begin with, but in that case the sin would not that I objected, but rather a sin of omission in failing to do so with the same passion elsewhere. (Presuming there is an elsewhere—can you think of a precedent?) Everyking 11:23, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        Verifiable is not easy, but it's a much easier concept than notability (despite what some deletionists may think :-). If information you consider notable is deleted, are you then simply justified in reinstating it? Is a cathedral by definition better than a brick house to live in, because it's "bigger" and "more extensive" and you can hold masses in it to boot? No, not necessarily.
        Establish why the information is notable first. Don't expect others to obviously agree, as I don't think notability is something we can all agree on on obvious, objective criteria. You will have your opinion, others will have theirs, but ultimately they must converge. No one person is allowed to claim that their notion of what matters (be it nothing at all, as with those who wish to see this article deleted altogether, or everything you think warrants inclusion) is what should determine the article content. You once said you would stop at mentioning the color of the dress she wore — why, if it can be verified? Why is that not notable while any "you know, like" quote from miss Simpson on the album seems to be?
        Furthermore, even if we have agreed on notability, there's still the matter of presentation. Do we need a storytelling article, or are tables more suitable? There are still leagues to go here. You state your opinions frankly, which is admirable, but have them reflect in behaviour which is not so admirable, regardless of whether you only have the encyclopedia's best interests in mind. You seem to insist that, unless someone proves first that the brick house is more appropriate (and do so by not touching the cathedral) your cathedral should be given preference because it's bigger. Well, quantity and quality are different things. But the discussion definitely isn't over, and perhaps this VfD nomination is not the best place to hold it. JRM 11:44, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)
    JRM, I did not nominate this article for VfD, but I think you misread the primary reason why such articles are frequently nominated for deletion--that the VfD mechanism is the only way to obtain wide consensus for a merge. Few people commenting on this article are saying that the information in this article should not be covered in Wikipedia (although some undoubtedly are saying this). Many are saying that this should be covered at more appropriate length within the album article. Everyking openly proposed this extra article, calling it a "compromise", after he repeatedly stonewalled all attempts to condense this and other sections of the article to a briefer and, in my view, more readable form. VfD cannot in my opinion be considered an inappropriate place for this kind of nomination; it is the only forum empowered to mandate a merge. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:02, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    Well, in any case, I doubt Everyking would have let us go quietly if we had merged and redirected the article by ourselves. Johnleemk | Talk 11:13, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    Fair enough. Guessing what is behind a nomination is not productive anyway, and I should not take it upon myself to ascribe motives to people they haven't explicitly stated themselves. Hereby stricken from the record. My other comments stand anyway, even though they may not apply to the nomination itself. I do think we should have more explicit policy on VfD being a merge forum, besides simply document "Merge" as a possible vote. It's obviously de facto so, let's write it down explicitly. JRM 11:19, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)
  • Delete. Fancruft explosion. Gamaliel 07:05, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment I have never heard Ashlee Simpson and had not heard of her until recently. I have to ask: is she taken seriously as a popular artist? Is she in the same category as, say, Britney Spears (whom I have never heard, either?) What are the publications that cover popular artists in a serious, non-promotional way and what do they say? I was startled by an article in today's Boston Globe, here for two days by one Renée Graham, which seems to take for granted that she is a sort of joke, referring to the "alarmingly untalented Ashlee Simpson" and saying "the pop star wannabe has been a perpetual punch line, and the disparaging words grew even more ferocious after her screechy, off-key performance at the recent Orange Bowl halftime show. By the end of her song, 'La La,' a spectacular chorus of boos rained from what sounded like a good portion of the 70,000 people in attendance." She presents Simpson as the creation of a out-of-control stage father, whose comments about Ashlee's sister Jessica Simpson seem unbelievably exploitative ("Jessica never tries to be sexy. She just is sexy. If you put her in a T-shirt or you put her in a bustier, she's sexy in both. She's got double D's! You can't cover those suckers up!"). But "at least Jessica, when she isn't delivering songs with all the nuance and subtlety of a fog horn, can carry a tune. Ashlee jumps and screams, and couldn't find a key with a global positioning system." If Ashlee Simpson is in the same league as Britney Spears, then more than 32K of material might be reasonable. Even allowing for dismissive bias on the part of the Globe's writer, I wonder whether her present coverage in WIkipedia is excessive, and unduly laudatory. What do publications such as Billboard say about Simpson?Dpbsmith (talk) 13:42, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Well, if there's been negative publicity, isn't that what this article is for? Good or bad, famous is famous and notable is notable. Everyking 13:52, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Whilst clearly not encyclopedic in a conventional sense, Wikipedia is not a conventional encyclopedia, and I think it fits fine into Wikipedia - albeit on the fringes of sanity, never mind usefulness. It may never make Featured or a Best of Wikipedia CD, but there's nothing wrong with it per se, IMO. Rd232 16:45, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. Er... maybe that's only one immature fan user doing one too detailed, non legitime, article ? All that talk for that ? Looks to me rather overdone. Let author read the hint about what WP is not. (IMO speedy in terms a value) Gtabary 17:21, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge and delete. — Dan | Talk 17:45, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge and delete. Postdlf 00:59, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete and merge. --Conti|✉ 00:54, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete and merge. ElBenevolente 01:53, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge and redirect to Autobiography (album). There is not enough notable information to support two articles; once the non-notable information can be released from the two articles by anybody without Everyking unilaterally stuffing it back in they would shrink like balloons anyway. silsor 02:22, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)
  • Condense, Merge, and Delete. Indrian summarizes quite neatly what an encyclopedia is -- and why this isn't encyclopedic. --Calton 07:54, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Another goddamn breakout from Autobiography? This is well beyond the point of ridiculousness and firmly within the bounds of straight neurosis. Just because something is a fact does not in and of itself mean it goes in an encyclopedia. We have articles here, not multi-volume tomes, which is exactly what we would have if we went into this level of detail on subjects of actual importance. Delete this, post haste. I won't even dignify it with a merge. -R. fiend 08:03, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • All right already. You're the one who said the fall of the Roman Empire deserves nothing more than a section in a general article on the Roman Empire, right? Everyking 06:11, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Condense, Merge, and Delete. We do not need an article on the promotion and publicity of every major album. —Lowellian (talk) 21:13, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion or on the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.

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