Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of "banished" words and phrases


 * 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 delete. T. Canens (talk) 18:33, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

List of "banished" words and phrases

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 * Couple things. First, this article gives the appearance of an indiscriminate list of information - or listcruft to be more precise. The article lede mentions that it contains lists of words sought by Lake Superior State University, BBC, and the NYT which people (who?) wish to see "banished", but the references and sources give an undue weight to Lake Superior State University; the sole mention of the NYT in the article is a list of buzzwords in 2009, and even then the referenced article does not indicate or imply a wish to see the words expunged from usage. The article's purpose seems to draw attention to this university's lists - and only giving a random selection from the lists at that. I see very little encyclopedic value to be found from this.
 * I should also note I came upon this article when browsing MOS:WTW listed under "See also". It may give the false impression that these words are not to be used on Wikipedia at any point. WaltCip (talk) 18:33, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Couple things. First, this article gives the appearance of an indiscriminate list of information - or listcruft to be more precise. The article lede mentions that it contains lists of words sought by Lake Superior State University, BBC, and the NYT which people (who?) wish to see "banished", but the references and sources give an undue weight to Lake Superior State University; the sole mention of the NYT in the article is a list of buzzwords in 2009, and even then the referenced article does not indicate or imply a wish to see the words expunged from usage. The article's purpose seems to draw attention to this university's lists - and only giving a random selection from the lists at that. I see very little encyclopedic value to be found from this.
 * I should also note I came upon this article when browsing MOS:WTW listed under "See also". It may give the false impression that these words are not to be used on Wikipedia at any point. WaltCip (talk) 18:33, 12 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete. The statement in the lead that "Listed below are some of their selections" makes it clear that this is an editor's personal selection, and hence is original research. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 19:00, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep but rename, This indeed has some problems, starting from the weird use of the word banish, which is not explained anywhere on, but seems to be their 'cute/eyecatching' synonym for overused. So if the list survives, it should certainly be moved to the List of overused words and phrases. Now, the second problem is whether the list is notable. It is based on few newspaper articles about words which some journalists don't like, but also on a list by LSSU, a university. It is all somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but the LSSU list has received some coverage in secondary, reliable sources: timeshighereducation, insidehighered and a bunch of regional media. It was talked about briefly on NPR. It gets some cites in Google Books, is a subject of few pages of diary/interview at ... I think the LSSU list is notable by itself, and the other sources used are closely related, so I don't think we are dealing with synthesis or OR. It would be good to clearly indicate which words were declared as overused by LSSU and which by the general press, but that is an issue with the list quality, not notability. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 19:16, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
 * If the concept of the list is notable by itself, it needs to be separated out into its own article, and the article needs to explain and detail - as you have above - why the list is notable. The article should not be an "editor's choice" of overused words from various publications of the list.--WaltCip (talk) 19:23, 12 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete Seems mostly WP:OR. Nothing to tie this together into an article, it's just a collection of some words listed by various sources as 'overused', 'banished', or 'banned'. PeterTheFourth (talk) 19:18, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep, consider rename and focusing edits. As Piotrus notes above, the Lake Superior State lists are notable, receiving coverage in national and foreign media : see the GNews and HighBeam "findsources" links above for the search string <"banished words" "Lake Superior">.  The article should be more clearly focused on those lists. In response to the nominator's additional comment above, I agree that any implication that this article states a Wikipedia editing guideline should be avoided.--Arxiloxos (talk) 20:35, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Completely changing the title of the article at the same time as 'focusing' on some specific lists (which would mean both adding and deleting large numbers of entries) sounds to me very much like creating an entirely new article. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 20:55, 12 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete For the variety of reasons brought up by the nominator. A lot of this article is synthesis, where the article creator is taking a multitude of sources about overused words, and combining them to make his own list of "banished" words.  For example, the 2009 NYT article is a tongue-in-cheek article complaining about buzzwords, which the article creator combines with the LSSU yearly list of "banished" words to make up his own list.  Another, the 2011 Forbes article, is an article about the most used words on LinkedIn, which the article again combines with the "banished" concept from LSSU.  All of this is pure synthesis.
 * And, for the argument that the LSSU list is, by itself, notable, like MichaelMaggs said above, if we get to the point that the article needs to be renamed, rewritten,and resourced, that is essentially a completely new article. There is no reason for this one to be kept for that one to be created.  64.183.45.226 (talk) 22:12, 12 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Absolutely throw this intellectually bankrupt list under the bus. It's only a list cobbled together (OR) of words/phrases people want voted out of existence. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:16, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep, but trim all the content with the possible exception of the Lake Superior State lists, as already noted above. -- Katan gais (talk) 04:12, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Ajf773 (talk) 10:04, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
 * As previously mentioned, the LSSU lists currently existing on the article are an arbitrary selection of the actual lists. If you are proposing we post the full lists on there, I feel like the article becomes even more of an indiscriminate collection of info. If the idea is to indicate that the lists are notable, then that needs to be fully outlined in the article, otherwise we are just acting as a free webspace for LSSU.--WaltCip (talk) 14:34, 13 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete as per WP:NOR. Ajf773 (talk) 10:05, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 13:47, 13 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete The list fails WP:GNG by not having significant coverage. -KAP03(Talk &bull;&#32;Contributions/Your Page) 14:21, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete per Clarityfiend and others. —Мандичка YO 😜 07:51, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete - Fails WP:GNG and is mostly WP:OR. --  Dane talk  02:43, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete as original research. K.e.coffman (talk) 05:53, 18 January 2017 (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.