Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Blah (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   no consensus.  MBisanz  talk 05:50, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Blah
AfDs for this article: 
 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Delete. Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and this article is little more than a combination of a dictionary definition, original research, and a list of useage examples. coccyx bloccyx (toccyx)  21:21, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Speedy keep Article is far more than a dictionary definition. It needs to be better referenced. ChildofMidnight (talk) 21:48, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. There is nothing in this article that couldn't be immediately transwikied to Wiktionary.  Etymology is in the domain of dictionaries, not encyclopedias.  Usage examples are in the domain of dictionaries, not encyclopedias.  Unless some sources can be found that expound upon the concept of blah-ness, rather than upon the word itself, this article belongs in a dictionary, not an encyclopedia.  Powers T 22:18, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep but edit Although much of the discussion of blah-ness (thanks Powers :-) needs to be cut down or otherwise cleaned up, this is nowhere near a dictionary definition: a reasonable dictionary definition would have far less information and go into this subject far less. It's like any other phrase: if we can find examples of its usage and significance, it's suitable for an article.  Nyttend (talk) 22:28, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Dictionary articles are defined not by size but by content. Examples of usage are explicitly within the domain of dictionaries; any good-sized dictionary has plenty of usage examples.  A clear demonstration of significance would be sufficient to support an encyclopedia article (as is the case with, say fuck), but I just don't see "blah" reaching that level of notability as a word.  Powers T 00:09, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions.   -- • Gene93k (talk) 05:56, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Speedy delete (to counter the equally ridiculous "Speedy keep" above). This is an over-glorified dictionary definition.  Just because the article is lengthy, due to a long list of "examples", which are not cited by reliable third party publications mind you, does not mean it gets a free pass from our WP:NOT policy.  Dictionary definitions belong in, you guessed it, dictionaries!  JBsupreme (talk) 06:25, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * You're addressing content issues not notability. As I understand them, AfD proceedings determine notability not whether an article is bad enough to delete when it could be fixed. ChildofMidnight (talk) 07:01, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * On the contrary, you're addressing thin air. Saying you hope something can be fixed without demonstrating in a verifiable fashion that it actually can be is meaningless.  Vapor.  JBsupreme (talk) 07:37, 25 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep Fixable. More than a word, a concept with several related meanings. Considerable potential for expansion. and sourcing DGG (talk) 09:44, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep per Nyttend and DGG. Cosmic Latte (talk) 09:49, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. "Blah" is not a subject, nor is the word itself covered by sufficient reliable sources to warrant its own article (unlike, say, supercalifrajilisticexpialidocious). I don't believe the article can ever advance beyond a dictdef even if all the original research and editorialising were fixed. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:06, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. I don't see anything here that goes beyond what should be in a dictionary entry.--Michig (talk) 12:33, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep per clear consensus to keep in previous discussion. Efforts should instead be made to improve article at this time.  --A NobodyMy talk 16:53, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Response The original discussion took place 3+ years ago and our inclusion guidelines and policies have vastly improved since then. Do you have a keep argument founded in policy other?  Suggesting that this should be improved is appreciated but you need to show that it actually can be within the framework of an encyclopedia, not a dictionary.   coccyx bloccyx  (toccyx)  17:02, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The word appear even in titles and is discussed accordingly. See for example, this.  Other sources discuss how the phrase has been supplanted by other phrases.  See for example this.  In other words, it is addressed in multiple published books that are not just dictionaries and in diverse contexts.  These and many other sources should be more than enough for writing an encyclopedic article.  Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 17:15, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Those are spectacularly weak references to base an article on. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:08, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * When added to the ones already in the article and the ones mentioned by others in this discussion, they are collectively more than sufficient. Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 14:12, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Multitudes of trivial sources do not collectively make a subject notable. That should really be made explicit in our guidelines. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:28, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Which is why we are fortunate in this case that we have significant coverage in reliable sources. --A NobodyMy talk 14:31, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Additional reason to keep: Apparently, "blah" has a presence in academic research: ("Two experiments showed that articulating “blah” repeatedly aloud or silently interfered with the speed and accuracy of judging whether pairs of words rhymed");  ("In the suppression condition, subjects were instructed to repeat the word ``blah’’ at an even pace ");  ("Close your eyes and substitute the word blah-blah for alcohol in any one of those sentences");  ("For example, the model might see three different shades of red, all named by the word blah";  (""the collection of all statements that assign a value to the variable 'x' and are contained in procedures whose documentation contains the word 'blah'"). Cosmic Latte (talk) 17:34, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid I don't see how simply using a word in academic research is demonstrative of its notability for inclusion in an encyclopedia. There are millions of words used in academic research; what makes "blah" notable among them?  Powers T 19:02, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The point is that the word serves a function in the research methods, not that it happens to appear in the research reports. Cosmic Latte (talk) 02:33, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah; then we would need a source that identifies that commonality and discusses it, otherwise it's original research. Powers T 15:26, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Without a source, we don't have license to identify it explicitly as a commonality, but the reader is at liberty to infer this (or not to infer this) if we point to individual instances of its use in research. Cosmic Latte (talk) 08:55, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If it isn't explicitly noted by a source, then there's no establishment of notability. This chimes with the general rule of not inferring notability through the inclusion of a plethora of trivial examples. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:08, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not talking about notability; I'm talking about verifiability. This is where the fine line between policy (WP:V) and guideline (WP:N) can make a difference. We can't establish from these sources that there is a notable general property of "blah," but we can point to individual instances in which the word is used in publication. I'm not claiming that this is one of Wikipedia's strongest articles, but I do think it's verifiable enough to keep and to work with. Cosmic Latte (talk) 15:14, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Evidence should be used in order to back up facts; if not, it's just a data dump. You're suggesting that we include evidence that the word is used in some specific, notable sense in science, while omitting any explicit assertion of such, apparently in order to induce such reasoning in the mind of the reader; and that further, this is sufficient grounds to keep the article. I'd suggest that if the route to notability is as circuitous as this that it may be that a userspace rewrite would pay dividends if and when direct sources show up. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:35, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep, needs more references and a clean-up (as the headers indicate), but these are not reasons for deletion. Also, it seems to fit into a wiki category system. Snowman (talk) 19:48, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Has potential as an article beyond a dic-def, notable element of speech, blah blah blah. MickMacNee (talk) 05:00, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * What is notable about it? Simply asserting notability doesn't move the discussion along.  Powers T 12:32, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep, not a dicdef. —Angr 06:28, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * "Yes it is." But neither terse statement is very useful here without explanation.  Powers T 12:32, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Transwiki to Wiktionary - The "Examples of use" section is distinctly dictionarial. The Etymology section is also dictish. In the absence of a "The word blah's impact on ... something," then the cited history of the word should be migrated to the other project, and a soft redirect set up on the page lingering here. --EEMIV (talk) 15:16, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * We don't do soft redirects in articlespace. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:25, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Move to Wiktionary and delete here. I don't see anything beyond a dicdef. -- Alexf(talk) 15:22, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep The article needs enhancing, not erasing. The arguments for its deletion are...well, for lack of a better word, blah. :) Ecoleetage (talk) 03:03, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. And not because the article is poor, which it is--and a vast array of additional sources wouldn't make it inherently better. The problem is that it's a dictionary definition, at best. Sorry Ecoleetage, but you'll have to do more than just blah us naysayers ;) Because definition and usage is all I see in the article; nothing in the article suggests that the word is more than just a word. Now, some of the Keepers have proposed such meanings. Child actually gives no reasons, really. Nyttend says it has too much depth for a dictionary--I respectfully disagree, since the article actually has little depth, though it has mass, and even if it did have more depth than a dictionary definition, well, filling a whole page on 'blah' is still a lot of blah. DGG, in their usual terse fashion, offers suggestion and claims concept-status but gives no proof. Cosmic Latte says keep, and then expands--but, for instance, there would need to be an inherent quality to the word 'blah' that makes it useful for these experiments (like the relationship between leprosy and the armadillo), and I don't see that there is (and of course there ought to be a double-blind study, with placebo blahs, etc.). Finally, Nobody proposes an example, but unfortunately that example of proof of the notability of 'yadda yadda,' and hardly makes 'blah' notable. Alright. It's a NO for me, since there is nothing that I can see about the word 'blah' that means anything beyond the meaning of the word, that makes it a real-live thing, so to speak. Drmies (talk) 04:33, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Well maybe we should make it a "list of notable blah uses". :) I notice there is already a blah disambiguation page, and yet you would propose deleting the entry on the term itself instead of fixing it? Interesting, but illogical. ChildofMidnight (talk) 05:13, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
 * No, nothing illogical about it. The Iggy Pop album, for instance, is notable (and good, by the way), not because it has the word 'blah' in it, but for plenty other reasons. The word 'blah' is not notable, in an encyclopedia, because it isn't that special of a word. Not like 'yadda yadda,' which carries the weight of Seinfeld and a whole generation, or the word 'is,' which has the weight of President Clinton, not to mention the entire mass of existence. Blah is simply a word. Just like 'simply.' I can come up with 680 example of people using the word 'simply' in a sentence, and you'd think me crazy--why is 'blah' any different? Drmies (talk) 04:49, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Simply doesn't even have its own page, let alone a Disambig page. Blah however, is big time. It's got a disambig page, an article, and hopefully a "list of", coming soon! Simply Red, but it's still just an adverb (is that right?). But I can have a case of the blahs, I can talk a lot and blah blah blah, or I can use describe things as non-descript, as in your arguments are rather blah. But blah is a big time cultural phenomenon and more than just a word. That's why it's such an integral part of life, as in the case of that album you like. And who's going to be reminded about the Sesame Street Count using blah without this crucial article? Did you even realize it was the name of the newspaper in Archie Comics?ChildofMidnight (talk) 05:42, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * "Cosmic Latte says keep, and then expands--but, for instance, there would need to be an inherent quality to the word 'blah' that makes it useful for these experiments." That would certainly help, but people are strange critters who don't always prefer things due to their "inherent qualities." But, maybe "blah" does have the inherent quality of..well...blahness--that is, blandness and neutrality, which make it a handy, practical research tool. I'm not sure if that can be verified, and I admit that it seems slightly absurd to be seeking the inherent qualities of "blah," but it seems reasonable at least to point out that various researchers have found various functions for the word. Cosmic Latte (talk) 10:22, 27 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete Blatantly fails WP:NOT as the article is about nothing but word usage. Colonel Warden (talk) 20:24, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Not entirely: "'Blah' is also used within a compound noun, suggesting a psychological state or expressing an opinion; for example, February blahs describes a generally depressed condition during winter" passes the denotation component of WP:NAD. See also and . Cosmic Latte (talk) 08:52, 28 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:NOT and Drmies' detailed rebuttal. Themfromspace (talk) 20:48, 28 November 2008 (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.