Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of common emoticons


 * 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 and move to List of emoticons.

Various considerable aspects both in favour of deletion and keep have been mentioned in this debate.

Regarding the points having been mentioned in favour of deletion, the following ones seem to be noteworthy: Firstly, it has been explained that the article would not meet our standards for verifiability and for notability. Also, quite a few participants have expressed concerns regarding the page title: According to them, the word “common” constitutes POV. The last point to mention is that some users deem the article unsourced and thus want it to be deleted.

On the other hand, numerous arguments in favour of keep have been explained. Those arguments are partly even addressing the points that have been named by the users who said the article should be deleted: There would be more than enough potential reliable sources (quite a few have even been named in this debate as examples); the sourcing problem could be addressed by adding them to the article. Regarding the notability concerns the vast majority of the participants agree that the subject of the article is a notable expression and is notable enough for inclusion. Thus, the subject of this article would constitute a reasonable subject for a list. Finally, the POV problem can be solved quite easily; simply by moving the article to List of emoticons, as explained below by some users.

Taking all these points into account, I think it is safe to say that there's a clear consensus for keeping the article. —  Aitias  // discussion 21:03, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

List of common emoticons

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

This page does not meet our criteria for inclusion. It belongs on Wikisource or some other project, but it is entirely unreferenced and unsuited for an encyclopedia. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:35, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete Although it would be a fun pet project on Wikia, this is not encyclopedic in the least and doesn't belong here. ←  Spidern  →  18:39, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Emoticon, leaving the possiblity to split back off to a list once these "common" emoticons get sourced. It's not an unreasonable thing for which to search. -- Explodicle (T/C) 19:19, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Do nothing because this is an interesting and valuable article. Searching for "emoticon" on Google brings this page as result #2. I have used it several times to decipher what people mean when they use odd and new emoticons.  This article should be left alone inside Wikipedia or improved to conform better with normal standards. Nate88-seriously (talk) 19:49, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter if an article is interesting, useful, or ranks highly on Google (like all Wikipedia pages). All of those emoticons need to be verified with sources. -- Explodicle (T/C) 20:16, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * How it even possible to have sources for emoticons? They are simply something that someone made up and have pervaded our culture.  There is no original source.  Yet this page is still highly useful as it teaches the uninformed about internet culture.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.208.56.180 (talk) 21:05, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Here is an example. It's not like this article can't be sourced, it's just that we should source the main article first and then expand per Summary style. -- Explodicle (T/C) 01:53, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * So explodicle, do you really think people made these up? lol. Or are you just trying to fit in the whole "I'm an awesome and proper sysop" act? 72.221.76.103 (talk) 02:32, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Can't it be both? :-P -- Explodicle (T/C) 15:50, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * RE: "All of those emoticons need to be verified with sources." This is the wrong forum to force editors to improve this page. WP:INTROTODELETE, WP:POTENTIAL "Remember that deletion is a last resort. Deletion nominations rarely improve articles, and deletion should not be used as a way to improve an article, or a reaction to a bad article." Remember, Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions (WP:AADD): "Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints. Heed them or not at your own discretion." Editors can see this article as useful, and ignore WP:AADD. Ikip (talk) 08:56, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You're right to say that essays are in no way binding, WP:AADD just prevents having to repeat yourself. Also, I agree that deletion is a last resort, and that we should not delete this article. However, WP:V and WP:RS are not essays; they describe a strong consensus. -- Explodicle (T/C) 19:37, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep and improve needs ref improvement. It's encyclopedic, useful, and worth including. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:51, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Whether or not this article is useful is completely subjective. If you or someone else can make the ref improvments you suggest, then we can keep it. Otherwise, unverified information should not be on Wikipedia. -- Explodicle (T/C) 20:16, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions (WP:AADD): "Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints. Heed them or not at your own discretion." Editors are welcome to see this article as useful, and ignore the "subjective" WP:AADD. Ikip (talk) 09:09, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not using WP:AADD as if citing policy, I'm using it to elaborate my own point. An encyclopedia article is only as good as its sources. -- Explodicle (T/C) 20:00, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete. Wikipedia is not a repository of the entirety of human knowledge. We have standards for verifiability and for notability. This is an indiscriminate collection of information for which no definitive authoritative sources exist. Emoticon already covers that which is verifiable and notable about this subject. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:18, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Transwiki and redirect - The entries here could all be added to the wiktionary category Category:Emoticons. Then, we could make a soft redirect or add instructions like the List of SMS abbreviations page. This would keep the data useful and also searchable through Wikipedia. Scapler (talk) 22:28, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep it is a useful compendium of information. Gerardw (talk) 02:12, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * "Usefulness" is not a factor in deletion decisions. -- Explodicle (T/C) 16:12, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions (WP:AADD): "Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints. Heed them or not at your own discretion." Editors can see this article as useful, and ignore WP:AADD. Usefulness can be a factor in deletion discussions. Just because another editor quotes an acronym, does not make it iron clad law. Ikip (talk) 09:09, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You're right, it doesn't. However, one could claim that any article up for deletion is "useful". We need to make our decision based on facts, not opinions. -- Explodicle (T/C) 20:02, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep there are sufficient sources to document these, & if one cant be,m then its just a question of editing. DGG (talk) 03:37, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Verifiability is not the threshold for inclusion as an article. Furthermore, it is not "just a question of editing" to attempt to find authoritative sources where none exist. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:50, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Ummm, unfortunatly, the policy verifiability, in the very first sentence, contradicts your statement. WP:V: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability"  The five pillars of wikipedia, the most important rules, state: "All articles must strive for verifiable accuracy: unreferenced material may be removed, so please provide references."  It is a question of editing, editors can find references, and add those references. Have editors who support delete looked for references themselves, if not, how do you know that none exist? Ikip (talk) 09:09, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep it It's a useful listing and part of the current culture.--Halbiz1065 (talk) 07:41, 30 January 2009 (UTC) — Halbiz1065 (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * "Usefulness" is not a factor in deletion decisions. -- Explodicle (T/C) 16:12, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Usefulness is the paramount criteria in assessing what makes the encyclopedia better. This is fundamental and all the other guidelines are built on it. ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:39, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * What is and is not "useful" is completely a matter of opinion - one could also argue to keep the list because it is "super awesome". How about some proof? -- Explodicle (T/C) 21:15, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow, i keep having to clarify this essay, I agree with Child. What is and is not notable is also completely a matter of opinion, yet it is the reason a majority of articles get deleted. Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions (WP:AADD): "Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints. Heed them or not at your own discretion." Editors can see this article as useful, and ignore WP:AADD. Usefulness can be a factor in deletion discussions. Just because another editor quotes an important sounding acronym, does not make it iron clad law, heed at your own discretion. Ikip (talk) 09:09, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * In the context of Wikipedia, what is and is not notable is not a matter of opinion; you can find the definition at Notability, which is a guideline (not an essay) backed by an editorial consensus. -- Explodicle (T/C) 20:08, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. Plenty of sources for this notable expression of Internet culture. See any random "how to use the Internet" style book for a start.  Reasonable subject for a list.  If it is currently unsourced, the solution is to add sources, not to delete it, per WP:DELETION. JulesH (talk) 13:14, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Who is going to do that? When? -- Explodicle (T/C) 16:12, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment - Instead of simply throwing out "there are sources somewhere", why not make your speculation concrete? Please provide the references here, or add them yourself. Still, I think they are definitions which should cross-wiki link to Wiktionary. Scapler (talk) 21:55, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think this AfD, like most AfD's is summed up in a saying by User:MichaelQSchmidt "I'd Rather fix the damn pipe rather than complain about having wet feet." A lot of editors complaining that someone else should fix the article. Ikip (talk) 09:09, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete as inherently POV, who can decide whether the emoticon is common or not? Stifle (talk) 20:15, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I do believe that the word "common" is unnecessary (though not necessarily "inherently POV"), but that can be fixed with a rename. DHowell (talk) 22:30, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep and rename to List of emoticons (which is currently a redirect without significant edit history that would have to be deleted in order to move this page there). Lots of reliable sources list emoticons, and so should we. See this in The Register, citing a Cingular patent application found here; this article in The New York Times with this graphic; this article at Appscout (by PC Magazine) listing 6 emoticons and their origins; the books Targeting Media: Radio & Multimedia, The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Internet, The Press of Ideas, and Transl8it! Dxnre & Glosre: Yor Complet Guid 2 Onlin Ch@ & Sms Txt Lngo; I could go on and on, because there are plenty more. DHowell (talk) 22:30, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree whole heartedly. The article should be kept but renamed. Take out the "common".--Companioncube31 (talk) 00:45, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. Dhowell is absolutely right.  Important to remember that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia incorporating elements of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers.  Broad interpretation is what led to the project's success, but philosophy aside, this doesn't even require particularly broad interpretation, as DHowell demonstrates.  Would be anti-encyclopedic to destroy this content. --JayHenry (talk) 05:01, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Informs the reader on differences of emoticons between different cultures, in a limited list format taking in only universally used ones; one hardly can get more encyclopedic than that. Sources are ridiculously easy to find, as shown by DHowell. ¨¨ victor  falk  11:26, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep at least in some form, I could see Transwiki and redirect a la List of SMS abbreviations as mentioned by Scapler above.
 * Since the emoticon article passes WP:V, WP:NOTE, etc, a "list of" article does not need to pass all those requirements for each entry. The Emoticon already has external links to lists of emoticons supported by major IM providers, those seem like reasonable sources to me.
 * When this article was deleted w/o any AfD or discussion, I debated pulling it back just so that an AfD could be done. I decided not to because I didn't think it would be worth my time.  For a couple of years now, I've been trying to babysit the emoticon article against the constant flood of vandalism and people inserting their favorite emoticon or whatever they made up in school today.  One of the ways I've been cutting back the bloat there is to tell people to put stuff into the "list of" article, but my interest in that article didn't even extend to having it on my watch list.  I see that Aaron Brenneman has currently been heavily editing it, convert this "list of" into move of an article than a list.  Unless someone wants to put a lot of time babysiting this article, I predict it will return to a very long list of very marginal emoticons, random comments and content that duplicates the emoticon article. Wrs1864 (talk) 15:16, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep per JayHenry. Five Pillars says at the very beginning that WP properly contains elements of almanacs and gazetteers.  To take the analogy further, next to the gazetteer in my Webster's is a list of punctuation marks and a list of "arbitrary signs and symbols", which covers alchemy, music, etc.  I feel that emoticons fall into the same category. Squidfryerchef (talk) 22:00, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete as unsourced and unsourceable (failing to be verifiable). Classed as an emoticon by whom ? Emoticons common by whose definition ? Common in what context or language ? The list is by necessity going to only express one small part of culture's definition not only of what an emoticon is but how common they are. The subject is packed full of original research and synthesis. - Peripitus (Talk) 07:01, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Emoticon. On the Punctuation page they have a list of common punctuation symbols on the right hand side of the page may be something like that can be put into the emoticons page and just redirect this page to that one. Pete168 (talk) 08:03, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - Wiki is not paper. Article is encyclopedic and sources can be found easily enough.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.58.187 (talk) 20:47, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * If this article is kept, it should be moved to List of emoticons; if this is deleted, they should both be deleted. I'm pretty sure that there was a list of emoticons that was deleted once before (I think it had the content that is on this revision of another page). Does anybody know if I'm right, and if so, what that page's name was? As for the issue at hand, people make up emoticons all the time. So having a "list of emoticons" would be indiscriminate. I think merging truly common emoticons back to the Emoticon page would be the best course of action. seresin ( ¡? )  23:02, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Move to List of emoticons - "common" is largely subjective and difficult to define, source what can be sourced, remove what can't be, merge to Emoticon if that turns out to be the best solution in terms of article size and style. Basically what User:seresin said. Guest9999 (talk) 10:27, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Move to List of emoticons - I agree with the Guest9999 to move the page. Referencing "common" in the title would automatically infer that some statistical analysis is used to derive the values.  I also think the lists should be greatly expanded upon.  Although many different emoticons exist (have you used Y! messenger or Trillian lately?), I do not believe all of them need to be referenced.  The "clown" and "cowboy" 'emoticons' come to mind.  I, do, believe that this current version of the list is substantially lacking and that more pure emotionally-centric versions of the emoticons should be added. --Brent.austin (talk) 17:05, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep per JayHenry, Dhowell, et al.; or, if needed, move, per the above discussion. Lots of this can be sourced easily.  Just try a little harder. Bearian (talk) 19:46, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep and Rename without "common" and only include emoticons that are cited in a reliable source (that way the content will not fall into things that are made up in one day category). A few of the references DHowell put in look like they could be incorporated now.--kelapstick (talk) 22:05, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong keep per JayHenry, Dhowell, Kelapstick, Bearian, Squidfryerchef, etc. Article can easily be sourced, WP:INTROTODELETE, WP:POTENTIAL "deletion should not be used as a way to improve an article, or a reaction to a bad article." Ikip (talk) 08:56, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * In the almost two years this article has existed, and the time of this debate, we have ended up with an article with zero references. Where (all those saying references can be found) is there a single reliable reference saying there is such a thing as a recognized common emoticon to have a list of ? Peripitus (Talk) 09:12, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I was willing to do what none of the delete editors have been, this article is now referenced. "Where is the single reference backing up the existance (sic) of the topic" Take one second and scroll up to DHowell's response. I would like to answer your question too, check the page's references, it is now referenced. I would like to introduce the template findsources3, in the hope that those editors so eager to delete other editors contributions can now contribute to this and other pages. Ikip (talk) 09:33, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Note to closing administrator This page has been updated with references since the Article for deletion tag was added. Ikip (talk) 09:33, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong Delete Umm, people... you don't need to look at it being useful or not. Look at the nature of the page.  Of what it will eventually become.  Also take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NOT I'm gonna be lazy and not tag each part but here are some of the reasons : "Wikipedia is not a dictionary" (look at #3 in that part.  I donno about you but I can easily see these emotes as having a similar nature to slangs or idioms.), "Wikipedia is not a directory" (this makes reference to things like a phone book, but the subject in question is not the nature of having such personal info posted but that its just a massive list of objects), "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" (The whole thing of siting some dinky lil page will only get you so far.  Given the arguments of how this kinda thing is very cultural and ever changing you'll never find appropriate sources for every single possible emote.), etc.  Honestly if you people want a list that badly heres what ya do: get ur own site, make a huge list of every possible emote you can think of, come back to wikipedia and put a link to your list.  The idea is nice, but its really not something that belongs in Wikipedia. -posted anonymously (by someone who's never posted on Wikipedia before, sry for all the things i did wrong) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.241.170.48 (talk) 20:06, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't really consider this article 100% dictionary definition - it explains the context behind the emoticons in depth. -- Explodicle (T/C) 20:22, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete define "common" with reference to reliabel independent sources. And then get consensus to change WP:NOT to include a slang or idiom guide. Guy (Help!) 22:14, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Move to List of emoticons and limit the entries to those that have been reported in reliable sources, like Time and Newsweek (both of which had articles on emoticons a decade ago). The new name would eliminate the question of the subjective "common"; requiring a stringent standard of citation for inclusion of the appropriate emoticons would reduce (if not eliminate) WP:OR and WP:NOT considerations. B.Wind (talk) 04:44, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep per ikip, Halbiz1065, Squidfryerchef, etc. Renaming (remove "common") also supported--Buster7 (talk) 06:34, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. Here's 800+ searchable online books that should help. The lede needs beefing up bu every issue raised seems to be clean-up ones not deletion ones. -- Banj e  b oi   13:38, 4 February 2009 (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.