Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of artists who have recorded "Jingle Bells"


 * 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 (no consensus) I've closed this as a keep. There does not seem to be clear consensus for either keep, merge or delete, but the majority of editors seem to believe that the content should be maintained (either by keeping the article or merging the content). On that basis it seems sensible to close this as a keep for now. TigerShark (talk) 09:41, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

List of artists who have recorded "Jingle Bells"

 * – ( View AfD View log )

An unreferenced and utterly useless list of recording artists. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Orangeroof (talk) 20:29, 6 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep Policy reason: song covers are notable. Pop songs contain section coverage. This same. Non-policy reason: Grinch troll and hates Christmas. Don't feed trolls. Dalit Llama (talk) 20:38, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Calling the nominator a troll is not a very good way of assuming good faith (and isn't likely to get us anywhere productive). Kansan (talk) 20:39, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I not accusing the nominator of having heart full of unwashed socks. Just nomination. Dalit Llama (talk) 22:31, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:NOTDIR. Many Xmas carols and songs have this kind of section too which is a completely unnecessary and indiscriminate list of artists. Christmas comes every year and every year literally hundreds of artists perform the standards of the repertoire, thus these lists are pointless.--137.122.49.102 (talk) 21:13, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep – perfectly valid list about an renowned song. The list criteria needs to be strengthened by some means. I'd suggest the artists be limited to those who have a best selling record, won an award, or signed a major record deal. Regards, RJH (talk) 21:32, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. The more notable ones are already listed in the main article. No need to list every Tom, Dick, and Rudolph. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:02, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. Finite list of notable artists who have recorded the song. It needs sourcing and expanding to include details such as year and the release that each version originally appeared on, but I don't see a good reason to delete. Given that we have an article on the song, this list should exist, either within that article or as a separate list depending on how best to organize the information.--Michig (talk) 22:04, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Music-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 22:28, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 22:28, 6 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep - I created this list primarily to move it out of the main article. I agree that it should be improved with aditional information, but in the meantime it's not doing any harm, and it serves to keep the main article trimmer. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:12, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep - per Beyond My Ken's rationale. Kansan (talk) 01:36, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep - I also agree with Beyond My Ken's rationale. LynwoodF (talk) 07:49, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep - I must say, I thought a very useful list, I also agree with the above who wish to keep this list. And, in fact, have just added a name to it (that of Edyta Górniak) that was missing.--Tris2000 (talk) 16:58, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete Merge  into main article per WP:SONGCOVER which says When a song has renditions (recorded or performed) by more than one artist, discussion of a particular artist's rendition should be included in the song's article (never in a separate article). I also note WP:V applies, too. --Richhoncho (talk) 20:53, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Amended. I have changed my comment from merge to delete for the following reasons. The rationale for creating this page was that it spoiled the main article. By the creation of this list article all that has happened is the problem has been moved. Also checking a number of GA-song articles I note that only prose with references have been used for "other notable versions." The list will never be complete, in any case it would fail WP:NOTDIR. It would be encyclopedic to show the depth and breath of the artists that have recorded the song and that information would be rightfully belong on main page and, irrespective of any adverse comment at this AfD, the WP:SONGCOVER guideline is a logical extension of that concept. Many thanks to the editors who have already made these points below. --Richhoncho (talk) 10:47, 11 December 2011 (UTC)


 * There is too much material in the list to merge it into the main article. Regarding WP:SONGCOVER, the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Songs/Archive_8 had only the consensus of two people, you being one of them. This current discussion has greater participation than that, overridding the obscure localised discussion you cite. WP:SONGCOVER should be revised, since "Never" is too strong a word. Dalit Llama (talk) 21:06, 7 December 2011 (UTC) (Edited for English at the editor's request on my talk page Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:21, 8 December 2011 (UTC))
 * You might like to check WP:SIZE before claiming size matters! I did. The suggested changes were discussed at WP:SONGS several times, the lack of dissenting voices should be interpreted as consent. Also, please note this is the ONLY list of covers-type list that exists at present. All the others have gone, so I claim precedence too. FWIW, If you are not happy with my suggestion of merge, then I am happy to change my comment to delete on the grounds we have an article that doesn't signify any importance (It's the song which is important, not the miscellany of performers) and it is unreferenced, bar one. --Richhoncho (talk) 21:54, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't quite understand that stance: "Merge, but if it can't be merged, delete." If the material is significant, notable or useful enough to be used inside an article, then it can hardly be so insignficant, unnotable or unuseful that it can't be used in a list article. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:26, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Separated the list is not significant, notable or useful. In the main article there are very reasonable arguments to include notable versions which are referenced. I can also almost certainly assure you that if the article survives this AfD, another editor will be bold and merge in the future. It's just a shame it wasn't merged rather than AfD in the first place. --Richhoncho (talk) 09:05, 8 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete. As the only article/list of its kind, this strikes me as a bit odd. Supposedly "Yesterday" is the most covered song in history. Likewise, I'd hazard that "White Christmas" beats out "Jingle Bells" for number of covers. Neither exists in list form. And yes, yes, I know. Just because we don't have something doesn't mean we should delete this. However, sometimes it is useful to point these things out. It's a bit arbitrary to have one list of covers that basically only encourages listrot. I for one find the WP:SONGCOVER suggestion useful. I just read it for the first time and count me in as a supporter. I don't see any compelling arguments to keep this. In fact, most seem to rest squarely on WP:ILIKEIT and WP:NOHARM, which is a problem, since neither of these arguments rely on actual policy or guidelines. The problem with lists like this existing within an article is that it is unwieldy and usually discouraged, since we should be writing mainly in prose. But to break it off into a stand-alone list makes little sense. We have categories and I assume we have one detailing covers of this song. Otherwise, we have the main article to discuss the key versions of the song, with sources (hopefully). How can we possibly have a useful list that is neither sourced (you'd find few sources for individual covers of this song aside from the main notable versions) nor with their own articles. So we'd be relying on the notability of the artists to justify the inclusion in this list, which would be a problem as most of these versions of the song are decidedly not notable in and of themselves. That would leave the notable versions which can be sourced well, which would leave a short list that can be merged back into the main article.  freshacconci  talk talk  22:34, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Trim and Merge - I note that Yesterday (song) mentions that there are over 1,600 covers. It then provides a sampling of arists, to suggest the variety of musicians who have covered it. I wouldn't be surprised if there are at least 1,600 covers of "Jingle Bells". I would think the list could be trimmed a bit and re-inserted into the main article. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:47, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete, essentially per WP:NOTDIR and per freshacconci above. With songs like 'Jingle Bells' that have been recorded by a large number of artists, we simply don't need to list every single one; this list is utterly trivial information. Even if it could somehow be proved that the list is complete, I don't think it would add much value to Wikipedia. What should be done in cases like this one is mentioning a limited sample of the artists who have covered the song in the article itself. We really don't want to encourage the creation of more trivial lists like this one. Robofish (talk) 17:34, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I take your comments to be equivalent to my "Trim and Merge". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:02, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Trim and merge or convert to Category:Musicians and Musical groups who have recorded Jinglebells. Stuartyeates (talk) 18:58, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The latter is certainly not appropriate. WP:OVERCATEGORIZATION rules out categorising artists by performance. - – Fayenatic (talk) 21:41, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
 * No. You could never cover them all, or even most of them. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:59, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. By all means first check that the main article includes any performances for which there is evidence of notability. Yes, this means "trim and merge", but merge and delete rather than redirect, as I doubt that anything deserves merging. If anyone wants to look up this info, "what links here" from the main article should show links to any notable albums that include the song. – Fayenatic (talk) 21:41, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
 * To put it another way, "trim, merge and then delete the separate article". The dilemma with this song is that it's sung by nearly everyone, and it's not really associated with any one artist. Contrast with songs like "White Christmas" or "Holly Jolly Christmas" or "Feliz Navidad", which are strongly associated with Bing Crosby, Burl Ives and Jose Feliciano respectively. Countless artists have included "Jingle Bells" on their "Christmas Album", but I'm hard pressed to come up with anyone who actually made a "hit" out of it... except for the various novelty versions such as "Yingle Bells" or "Rusty Chevrolet". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:58, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment: There are a few Christmas songs that are so commonplace that they appear on 80-90% of all Christmas albums. This is one of them.  I'm not saying that's an argument for or against deletion.  The same could be said for several other Christmas songs  Purpleback  pack  89  ≈≈≈≈  20:29, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
 * That's exactly the problem. If it were "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer", you would automatically think of Gene Autry, and perhaps a short list of others. But whose recording of "Jingle Bells", if any, qualifies as a "definitive" version? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:08, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Gene Autry, yes...though a bazillion others have recorded it (listening to a Bing Crosby version, and Burl Ives comes to mind)  Purpleback pack  89  ≈≈≈≈  03:43, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Which is why a short list within the "Rudolph" article would include Autry (the originator) and Ives (from the annual TV special) and maybe a few others. Like when I hear someone besides Brenda Lee doing "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree", my first thought is, "That's not the 'real' one." As I noted earlier, the only ones that come to mind when I hear "Jingle Bells" are the various satirical versions. Endless Christmas songs begin with "Jingle Bells" even when the actual song is different. "Santa Claus Is Watching You" and "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer", for example. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 07:23, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete I hate to say it, but this article does seem very subjective, and I can think of no way for it to become anything substantial beyond a meager list of names and years. My question is, how notable does a person become before they are listed here? If I record a version and upload it onto youtube now, do I deserve to be on this list? Also what counts as a cover? How different does a cover have to be before it counts as a different song altogether? I'm sorry. This article just seems uterly superfluous and I think would work much better as a subsection in the parent article as "Selected list of...".--Coin945 (talk) 02:22, 16 December 2011 (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.