Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Index of literary terms


 * 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   keep. Nomination withdrawn, no other delete votes. Jenks24 (talk) 11:30, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Index of literary terms

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Page is an indiscriminate list of words. Violation of WP:NAD; probably belongs on Wiktionary. The word "index" implies that it is an index of Wikipedia articles on the terms in question, but a significant number of the links are red and are likely to remain that way. It also appears to be open to anyone to add obscure neologisms that definitely will never get their own articles. elvenscout742 (talk) 06:26, 26 October 2012 (UTC) I have withdrawn my deletion request as per my Keep !vote below. elvenscout742 (talk) 06:17, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2012 October 26.  Snotbot   t &bull; c &raquo;  06:41, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep List is valuable for navigational purposes and meets WP:L. It's not an indiscriminate list of words: it's a list of notable literary terms. And it should not be deleted just because some entries don't meet that requirement: there are indeed a few redlinks (which might stay if they are notable topics but should otherwise be removed) but most entries in the list point to notable Wikipedia articles. An article should not be deleted just because it's susceptible to abuse: see WP:LIKELYVIOLATION. WP:NAD doesn't apply because entries are legitimate encyclopedic content (not everything that contains words is a dictionary; and NAD only applies to dictionary-style definitions of word meanings). --Colapeninsula (talk) 16:34, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment Well should we start work on removing the red links, then? If the page is supposed to be a directory of Wikipedia articles on literary terms, rather than just an indiscriminate list of words, then having broken links doesn't make any sense. I'll withdraw my delete vote if the page can be cleaned up to conform to Wikipedia policies, but as it stands the page doesn't seem to be any more than an indiscriminate list of words, which is a clear violation. I say we at least remove all the red links: if anyone creates articles for those terms (assuming they are not just terms, for which no reliable information other than a definition and examples can be found), the links to those articles can be added again, and until someone does, the list of links doesn't really deserve its own Wikipedia page. elvenscout742 (talk) 04:14, 28 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Speedy keep Article fulfils all criteria of WP:LIST so there is no basis to this nomination. --gråb whåt you cån (talk) 13:34, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment Please elaborate. AfDs are not votes. The page you link to does not include criteria that this page meets. The page is not a "glossary" that "includes definitions". In fact it violates Stand-alone lists as it currently stands. elvenscout742 (talk) 16:02, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * You are the only one to refer to 'votes' here — twice now. What's to elaborate? Is it really too much to expect another editor to go read a linked article? No-one said the page was a "glossary" that "includes definitions." You have made no case at all that has not been completely demolished by editor Colapeninsula. There's a small proportion of redlinks in the article? Then WP:SOFIXIT. --gråb whåt you cån (talk) 19:53, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Poetry-related deletion discussions. gråb whåt you cån (talk) 15:04, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:55, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:55, 29 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep, or move to projectspace - There are a lot of these lists. They've been around since the early days. Please see some of the core details summarized at Category_talk:Indexes_of_topics, and respond to that RfC once you've got the general background. Thanks. —Quiddity (talk) 02:56, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep w/ work Apparently from Quiddity's link there is this thing called Index for which there is no consensus (the article was originally called List of literary terms and was renamed in 2009 to Index). The nom has good points about red links so recommend all the red links be given "citation needed" to discourage original research and vandalism. It would also be a much better article if each entry had a 1-2 sentence description (with cites). Also needs a lead section telling readers what the article is. Sounds redundant but it will go far to define it ie. "This is a list of well established literary terms accepted by the academic establishment in the fields of literary theory, poetry, etc.." -- Green Cardamom (talk) 03:33, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment As I indicated above, the red links are my principal concern. However, it also concerns me that among the blue links, many of them are redirects, or link to articles that are about more general (non-literary) concepts. Without putting in a HUGE amount of work, and just looking at a few of the items under "A", I found Analects, which may have a more general literary meaning but the Wikipedia article is about a specific work. If this page included definitions for all of the terms, it would make a good glossary, but at present it is an indiscriminate list of words, and many of the pages it does link to appear to be only peripherally related to the words' usage as literary terms. I can also see an attempt to improve the article by removing all the red links/links to unrelated articles as problematic because then we're going to have to argue over whether "analect" - and potentially hundreds of others - merit inclusion as literary terms even if the Wikipedia articles are unrelated. Other pages, such as "Haiku in English", already have their own Wikipedia articles, but are not "literary terms" per se ("haiku" and the redirect "haikai no renga" are right above "haiku in English"). If this were an index of literary topics that have their own articles on English Wikipedia this would be fine, but the title of the page indicates different. elvenscout742 (talk) 05:59, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Ideally (if anyone wants to do the work), nothing useful is eradicated, but simply moved to a more appropriate place, or encouraged to grow in a different direction.
 * Ie. Convert the bulk of the list into a proper Glossary of literary terms (copy definitions from articles and disambig pages, with notes in the edit summary for attribution), and copy redlinks to Requested_articles/Arts_and_entertainment/Literature. There really aren't very many redlinks in the list currently, and especially if given definitions or references, we do want them to retain in the list per WP:REDLINK. Legitimately-wanted-content-Redlinks are good, and encourage some editors to provide the desired content, but anything that shouldn't eventually have a bluelink can be deleted. —Quiddity (talk) 21:26, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The problem with that is that I don't think the red links were necessarily added with an understanding that words do not get their own Wikipedia articles per WP:NDICT. If all they are are "terms", and it seems many of them are, they certainly don't deserve their own standalone articles, so I don't think it would be a good idea to post them in requested articles. elvenscout742 (talk) 06:17, 1 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep In light of new evidence that has been presented to me in the course of this discussion, I no longer think the solution to this page's problems is deletion. I have laid out my new suggestion for this page's improvement on the page's talk page here. I would appreciate input from other users on the issue. Thank you. (Also, is there any way to withdraw my own misplaced AfD request?) elvenscout742 (talk) 04:10, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Your note here is basically enough, (to get across the message of "Withdrawn by nominator") and any admin or non-involved editor can then close this thread (at their leisure) with that result. (I couldn't remember exactly what the procedure is, so went to WP:AFD and searched for "withdraw" :) To be ultra-efficient (or for next time), it might be helpful to amend your initial-nomination, with either a strike-out or a suffixed message, to make it rapidly clear to whoever closes the thread. But not required. —Quiddity (talk) 03:57, 1 November 2012 (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.