Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of number-one dance airplay hits of 2010 (U.S.)


 * 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. This certainly presents more of a copyright and verifiability concern than the average for our chart articles, but there are definitely valid arguments made on both sides here with no apparent agreement. Further discussion of these articles in general may be warranted. ~ mazca  talk 12:10, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

List of number-one dance airplay hits of 2010 (U.S.)

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

The is article does not meet notability guidelines. It is a copyright violation as it recreates information periodically available at billboarf.biz. crucially this kind of information is only occasionally released by Billboard during its chart updates but it is only regularly released through the subscription service. The article serves very little purpose if the information within cannot be verified. Are lists of charts really encyclopedic information? -- Lil_℧niquℇ №1   (talk2me)  23:19, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Music-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:26, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:27, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete: I don't think Lil-unique1 made his copyright case clearly, but I think there is one. This article (and myriads like it) serve only to echo the copyrighted contents of a proprietary list. Refreshing people on the contents of US law (which governs Wikipedia's server and Billboard), there are 4 things to examine:
 * 1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
 * 2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
 * 3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
 * 4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
 * Reusers of Wikipedia content may easily be commercial so criteria 1 doesn't look favorably on this use. I think a strong argument can be made that the number one position is the most important part of the chart: there's a reason our articles tend to favor it, and why you don't see List of number-thirty dance airplay hits of 2010 (U.S.) . That means that criteria 3 doesn't look favorably upon our use. By making this information freely available, we are competing with Billboard.biz, a for-profit site owned by the copyright holder, so we don't do well under criteria 4. All told, we don't even cross the line into fair-use, so we don't have to make arguments under WP:NFCC.&mdash;Kww(talk) 23:49, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Expansion of point 1:
 * There is another consideration in terms of the nature of our use: per fair use, "the first factor is regarding whether the use in question helps fulfill the intention of copyright law to stimulate creativity for the enrichment of the general public, ... a key consideration is the extent to which the use is interpreted as transformative, as opposed to merely derivative." In this case, we have effected no transformation at all: an item from the copyrighted list is copied to this list, without commentary or criticism.&mdash;Kww(talk) 14:15, 13 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep. This is not an entire weeks worth of a chart and information, it is just the number one song from each week/issue; a page type that we have plenty of. The information may be available online through a subscription, but it is also available in the print version of Billboard as well. I view this as similar to someone sourcing a book that is not available online. In theory, a reference should be given to show the issue number and page that the information can be found on if someone to locate a copy at their public library, etc. This is just one small part of the information released on the chart each week and unless someone buys a subscription just to see the number one song each week, then we are doing nothing to take away from Billboard's customer base. I think the thought that we would be competing with Billboard is overall flawed. We pay for the newspaper and we pay for books. Articles can still be sourced from a newspaper that you have to pay an archive fee for and this is the same situation Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 00:11, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment, however no one is providing a journal or book reference for this information. Its simply been listed out of the blue.  Lil_℧niquℇ №1   (talk2me)  00:22, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Nor are they providing any commentary, or doing anything to add value beyond the listing of the entry itself.&mdash;Kww(talk) 00:38, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * See my expansion of my argument above addressing the transformation issue.&mdash;Kww(talk) 14:15, 13 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I am not a lawyer, but I don't think there is any copyright violation here. As I understand it, copyright law protects the author's method of expressing information, not the information itself.  Others are free to report the information, so long as they don't replicate the copyright holder's means of expression.  Taking one piece of information each from a series of copyrighted lists (even the most important piece of information) and creating a new list from that information is not replicating the method of expression of the copyrighted lists.  If it were, most of Wikipedia's featured lists would be copyright violations.  Nor do I understand the comment in the nomination that "The article serves very little purpose if the information within cannot be verified."  The nomination itself states the sources with which the information can be verified.  Nor do I understand the unsupported statement in the nomination that "The article does not meet notability guidelines".  It is not clear to me why such chart information would not meet notability guidelines.  The article obviously needs to be referenced better, but at this point, since the article does not seem to be a copyright violation, sources with which to cite the article apparently exist (according to the nom), and since it seems to meet notability guidelines, my inclination is to keep. Rlendog (talk) 16:14, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * comment the information cannot be verified by every individual because you must have a subscription to Billboard magazine and/or billboard.biz. Since no one is providing a source to either I believe it a target for abuse and any person can claim any such thing. -- Lil_℧niquℇ №1   (talk2me)  00:55, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. Anyone can locate a copy of Billboard at most local libraries. It's the same process for when using sources that are not available online. We list the publications information just as we would here. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 03:01, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: That's true, but it's still completely in accordance with WP:V, more specifically WP:PAYWALL. The copyright argument may be a valid deletion argument, but "inconvenient to verify" isn't.&mdash;Kww(talk) 03:02, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * comment ok i accept that perhaps verifiability is not the strongest argument for deletion but recreating information which could only be obtained via subscription does in my opinion conflict with wikipedia's stance against copyrights. Such information is already used in article Navigation Templates and billboard.biz / billboard publishes a number-ones hits list of each chart annually. (or so they used to) -- Lil_℧niquℇ №1   (talk2me)  03:47, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. So we should delete the article because Billboard may or may not publish a compiled list similar to a list we compile here months in advance? Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 03:57, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Note. There has been previous discussion regarding possible copyright violations and Billboard charts at Wikipedia talk:Copyrights/Archive 13. Thanks. --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars (talk) 02:16, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * That discussion resolved itself on the assertion that no human judgement was involved in compiling the list in question. That clearly isn't true with this chart. Some human selected a group of stations to monitor (this isn't an "all airplay" chart, it's an "airplay on stations deemed by Billboard to constitute "dance music" stations") and a set of qualifications for what makes a song a "dance song" in the first place. It may be mechanical once those decisions have been made, but those are clearly human decisions.&mdash;Kww(talk) 02:43, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: Well stations are contracted to play certain formats so I would assume that whatever this "human" picked were actually dance assigned stations. As with any chart though there are people making their own decisions; DJs pick the songs and control how often songs play. On a side note unrelated to this deletion debate, as a dance music fan, I personally prefer the Hot Dance Airplay chart because it usually involves actual dance songs, not just any random song getting lots of airplay at clubs like the Dance Club Play Chart. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 03:54, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: The statement above regarding "human judgment" is incorrect. This is in fact an "all airplay" chart, and there is no more human judgment involved in compiling this chart than there is in compiling any other airplay chart, several of which also feature archived number-one song lists here.  Just as Billboard's Mainstream Top 40 chart and Mediabase's Top 40 chart are rankings based entirely on total airplay on all monitored CHR/Top 40 stations, Billboard's Hot Dance Airplay chart is a ranking based entirely on total airplay on all monitored Dance stations.  The only distinction is that while there are over 100 monitored Mainstream Top 40 stations, there are only five monitored Dance stations.  This difference is purely due to a gap in popularity between the two formats. DanG82 (talk) 16:45, 19 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep: I don't see a copyright violation in just listing the number-one Dance Airplay single.Robert Moore (talk) 05:56, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep: Because this chart is purely based on all airplay within a specific format on U.S. radio, human judgment is not directly involved in its compilation. Thus, there is no greater argument for deleting this page than there is for deleting any list of number-one hits on any other airplay chart, several of which also preside on Wikipedia.  That the Dance station panel is much smaller than other airplay chart station panels is irrelevant to the deletion discussion.  While this particular chart does now require a subscription to view online, the number-one song in any given week can easily be identified online via any of numerous free articles from reputable news/entertainment sources and can easily be verified via printed Billboard archives available at a wide range of public libraries. DanG82 (talk) 16:55, 19 August 2010 (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.