Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Collar workers


 * 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. No consensus for a specific action has emerged in this discussion. Matters regarding the article can continue to be discussed on its talk page. North America1000 02:13, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Collar workers

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Original research, collection of trivia. I'm not convinced that it's possible to write an article about this topic (which would more properly be called Classification of work by collar color) without committing the sin of WP:SYN. Q VVERTYVS (hm?) 09:47, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete as above. White collar and blue collar I'll buy, but all the (uncited) others smell like journalistic inventions that are essentially non-notable (ie unsuccesful) neologisms. I see there is no entry for studded collar workers (punk musicians or S&M sex workers) or dog-collar workers (the clergy: these are subdivided by vest color).TheLongTone (talk) 12:46, 10 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep White and Blue are obvious. That doesn't make a list though.  The question is, are: Pink-collar worker, Grey-collar, Green-collar worker & Gold-collar worker WP:Notable and deserving of their articles? If so, I think we justify this as an overall and list article.
 * Those three were new to me. Initially I thought "delete the lot" and was about to add them to this AfD. However they do seem to be sourced, so I'd keep them all instead (which did surprise me).
 * If anyone does want to AfD the others, then I would support that and would see the result for this article very much depending on their outcomes. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:00, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:07, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:07, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:08, 11 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep article and at least those terms that are linked, which are cited in their articles if not here. Some of the others seem dubious - "orange collar" has at least 3 different meanings (prison, Australian mining, anyone in a hi-viz vest), I can't find sources for "red collar" as agricultural. But this is editing, not grounds for AfD. --Colapeninsula (talk) 15:06, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
 * so what's your suggestion? Turn this into a list? Q VVERTYVS (hm?) 17:38, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I think it's a common mistake on WP to see articles as either articles or lists, as if these were entirely disjoint things. We can do both, a readable article of narrative prose that also manages to list a series of sub topics.
 * The structure of the article should, it seems likely, depend significantly on how these recent neologisms came about. What are the introduction dates for these terms? Blue and white are thought of as "old". Did the rest come in very recently? (and so their longevity is still unproven) or have they been here for several decades too - as claimed for pink, grey & gold. Have they all blossomed as a recent fashion in newsrooms?  I suspect "Orange collar worker" (Pandeli 2014) was coined to fill a sudden need and was templated into an existing perceived framework of "collar workers", implying that the broad term has even more currency than its individual members. Andy Dingley (talk) 18:17, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 00:07, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep I think there is potential for a good article here. I'd rather see all the collar stubs merged into a comprehensive article then delete the chance of a comprehensive article. Bryce Carmony (talk) 02:24, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete. A more obvious case of WP:SYNTH I rarely saw. I am unable to find a single reference for the term collar workers, which implies that it's invented by the author. Alternatively, redirect to Collar_(clothing) which already deals with coloured collars. Andyjsmith (talk) 16:14, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I suggest you do a little more searching, 30 seconds on google brought up multiple reliable secondaries that said "Collar Workers" ( note they sometimes use an adjective in front of it like white, blue, etc) but the concept is notable. I agree the name of the article sounds a bit awkward but the term shows up. Bryce Carmony (talk) 17:05, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Unless they're employing Smurfs, I would suggest that "blue collar workers" should be parsed as {blue collar} + {workers}, rather than {blue} + {collar workers}. It's thus no more of a source for the term than any other use of the words separately would be. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:49, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I've never really understood smurfs. Hey, maybe we could have an article titled "wing politics" (you know: left, right) Andyjsmith (talk) 22:40, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * My first inclination was to delete this, because (I suspect like you) "collar workers" struck me as a bizarre neologism. Yet looking into it, the concept (if not that term) has a several decade history of use. I don't know what this should be called, I still don't like the name, but I'm convinced that this concept of "Categorisation of work roles as collar colours"" is long-term established and notable. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:01, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * My problem is that while the lead is unobjectionable - basically it's a dictionary definition - the rest of the article is based around the unsupported, unreferenced notion that there is an overarching concept that unites all uses of "[colour] collar worker" and it provides a taxonomy of this non-existent concept. That was my facetious point earlier: just because we have left-wing politics and right-wing politics doesn't mean we have a concept of "wing politics" that provides a classification system. These are shorthand phrases used in describing political orientation, nothing more. So too with collars (why am I wasting my time with such trivia?). If you want a taxonomy we already have various occupational and socio-economic classification schemes which are more soundly based than shirt colour (e.g. Standard Occupational Classification System and National Statistics Socio-economic Classification). A categorisation as per your suggested alternative title would have to be OR because these are not, in any proper sense, taxonomic categories but are shorthand for the real categories. WP's articles on different coloured collar workers make it clear that these are simply shorthand terms. Moreover, colours other than white and blue are recent constructs, often for polemical purposes, and in some cases are neologisms. Basically, the classification job has already been done far better and is given in other WP articles. Andyjsmith (talk) 09:56, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * "recent constructs" - not (surprisingly) by my idea of "recent". Pink, gold and green seem to be 20, 30 and 40 years old. I didn't expect that, it's why I favouur keeping this. It isn't merely some recentist idea of the last couple of years. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:31, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, sloppy on my part. However, it's still not a thing. What the thing is, is occupational classification. Andyjsmith (talk) 13:15, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Then rename the article, you don't need to delete it to rename it. Bryce Carmony (talk) 16:59, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
 * Delete or Merge to social class or job - Insufficient sources talk about the term "collar worker" to merit a Wikipedia article. It does seem to fall somewhere between dicdef and synthesis. Blue-collar, white-collar, etc. are notable concepts, which is why we have articles about them. This article is about the naming convention. What this article is not is the bigger, notable topic we can call worker class, job type, occupational classification, or social class. Certainly no prejudice against merging usable content to one of those pages (noting that only social class and job currently exist). But the scope of this article is not appropriate to simply rename it as one of the above. &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 14:15, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, &#8213; Padenton &#124;&#9993;  01:30, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Management-related deletion discussions. Andyjsmith (talk) 06:31, 1 May 2015 (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.