Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs about bicycles


 * 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.  Phantom Steve / talk &#124; contribs \ 23:43, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

List of songs about bicycles

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There is nothing relevant about a song being about a bicycle. It is non-defining. There is precedent set by deleted "List of songs about" that include: animals, bad girls, basketball, being on fire, blackbirds, body parts, cheerleading, defecation, depression, disability, disasters, drugs, eating disorders, the environment, famous people, fantasy thoughts, fetal expulsion, fictitious bands, firearms, flatulence, friendship, groupies, hair, holidays, homosexuality, laziness, masturbation, mental illness, money, mothers, nudity, old people, places, politicians, romance, the seasons, sex, sleep, suicide, teenage fun, telephones, tequila, unrequited love, violence, war, and the weather omnibus deletion. Additionally WP:LISTN says "A list topic is considered notable if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources" And just to imagine people creating lists of songs by moon, the stars and whatever next comes up in an editors mind fails WP:MADEUP and WP:WHIM and if left unchecked will lead to a flood of pointless and useless lists that will only please the creators. Or, in the British vernacular, on your bikes with these lists! Richhoncho (talk) 17:06, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete. Mind you, I'm really sorry to be chopping something so obviously, delightfully silly. Maybe we could put it into a WP Essay on joyful silliness, or something. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:44, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Saying that it's silly is an argument to avoid &mdash; WP:RUBBISH/WP:ITSFUNNY/WP:ITBOTHERSME. Warden (talk) 21:40, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep The nomination seems to be a cookie-cutter nomination and none of the points made is valid. The first sentence is just noise &mdash; what is relevant supposed to mean here?   The basis of the article is certainly defining &mdash; what could be plainer?  Note that we already have a list of films about bicycles and cycling created by another editor which demonstrates the concept being used in a similar way.  The precedents listed are non-binding because we have an equally long list of other song classifications which have survived AFD &mdash; see Lists of music by theme, Lists of songs about a city, &c.  As for WP:LISTN, this satisfied by the source supplied: The Voices That Are Gone: Themes in Nineteenth-Century American Popular Song.


 * As for the claims that this is pointless, useless &c., these are not policy-based arguments nor based upon independent evidence, just bilious and vexatious complaints of WP:IDONTLIKEIT, contrary to WP:NPOV and WP:CENSOR. Our editing policy tells us to preserve and improve such content, not to delete it.  There are sources which categorise songs in this way such as .  These demonstrate the validity of such categorisation by professionals in the music business, just as biologists categorise species and chemists categorise chemicals.


 * Finally, note that the nominator has himself worked upon other similar classifications such as Songs about trains, Songs about buses, Songs about trucks, Songs about aircraft. The nominator seems to be suggesting that bicycles are not a proper form of transport or some similar prejudice contrary to core policy.


 * Warden (talk) 22:03, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. No, what is vexatious is the creation of this list after it becomes almost certain that a similiar list will be deleted at List of songs about rainbows and the creator being fully aware of the numerous precedents that these lists are generally deleted. You are also being disengenious, I did not work on those other songs by transport lists, I merely added a project tag, that does not preclude them being nominated for deletion by me or another editor. --Richhoncho (talk) 00:19, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Here's another recent example of the nominator working upon List of train songs. This seems to be a case of WP:POINT or WP:HARASS contrary to WP:HONEST. Warden (talk) 00:56, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, hands up, my error, I forgot I hotcatted List of Train songs and a few other list articles into the correct category scheme, hardly "working on" or contrary to WP:HONEST and certainly not to be confused with support, anymore than the fact I project tagged this article AND nominated it for deletion. --Richhoncho (talk) 04:48, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Music-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 00:08, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 00:08, 5 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep Some list articles like this were deleted, others were kept, and many others haven't been challenged. Doesn't matter at all since its a case by case issue.  This list article contains a lot of songs notable enough to have their own article.  The list offers far more information than .  And it has references too.   D r e a m Focus  02:01, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. The nom insists that "There is nothing relevant about a song being about a bicycle. It is non-defining."  So...what a song is about is not relevant, nor is it defining of that song?  That's not a very convincing claim, particularly when you look at this list (which no doubt should be, and could be, developed further) and see that many of the songs were about the novelty or trendiness of bicycles at the turn of the previous century and so represent an interesting snapshot in time.  It shouldn't take much to see that such cultural representations are a significant part of history, but many Wikipedia editors seem to have a blind spot when it comes to the value of this kind of information, if not an outright antipathy to "low culture".  The nom seems quite frightened that unless we delete all lists of songs by subject, that others will create and work on lists that he does not like.  I can't say that's a compelling concern either.  Not all such lists are worthwhile; certainly we shouldn't try to index songs based on something they merely mention (a "list of songs that mention bicycles" would get no support from me), or overly broad subjects that end up being completely uninformative.  But if the options are tolerating some silly ones or wiping out all indexes of songs by subject indiscriminately, I'll go with the former.  Note also that we have Category:Songs about bicycles as part of a Category:Songs by theme structure.  Lists complement that and can flesh that structure out with annotations, organizations alternative to alphabetical, and entries that though verifiable do not merit their own articles.  postdlf (talk) 05:53, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep Interesting list that may be useful for those wanting to promote enviromentally friendly forms of transport. Also per Postdlf, though wouldnt say its just low culture, even Royals such as good Kate and William like to use Boris Bikes. FeydHuxtable (talk) 15:30, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * No, I was using that label in reference to songs, not biking. postdlf (talk) 16:08, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. With very few exceptions, I find lists in this category problematic.  One problem, significant here, is the original research inherent in them.  Postdlf, above, agrees that a "list of songs that mention bicycles" would be problematic; how does this differ from such a hypothetical list?  "Handlebars" and "Nine Million Bicycles" certainly do little more than that.  The bicycles are incidental or metaphorical mentions and by no means the subject of the song; more importantly, we have no sources that identify bicycles as the subject of those songs.  Even for this list, where we have a source that talks rather unexpectedly at length about the appearance of bicycles in late 19th century song (and does at one point call them "bicycle songs"), the referenced material hardly makes the case that these songs are about bicycles.  Rather, they are "songs about courting" and changes to the courting scene enabled by an "escape [from] the family parlor."  I have no question that material adapted from that source belongs in article-space, discussing the historical culture impact of bicycles (EDIT: Indeed, this would make for an excellent expansion to Bicycle).  But I don't think that conveys evidence that this list contemplates a cross-categorization with its own notability ... or that there is any objective means of determining inclusion. And as I've mentioned elsewhere, I particularly discount The Green Book, which has "almost 1800 logical categories" of songs, without substantive commentary about the groupings. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 19:02, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I don't put any stock in the Green Book either. If you are correct in your analysis (the only substantive !delete comments so far in this AFD, btw), then yes I'd agree that if there are no songs actually about bicycles/cycling then the list is not useful, in the same way that "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" is not really a song "about" bridges.  No doubt there may be some entries that shouldn't be included.  But a reference calling a group of songs "bicycle songs," even if the songs are "really" about courting (in the same way that M*A*S*H is really about Vietnam?) goes a long way towards establishing the theme or subject as defining of those songs.  It sounds like you're questioning why the song talks about bicycles, and if the bicycles aren't an end in themselves then you think they don't qualify, which is squeezing too hard in my view.  At any rate, I'd like to see some more work developing sources and comments on these songs before it is given up on, particularly given the complete lack of talk page activity for this list at present which makes me think this AFD is premature at best.  postdlf (talk) 20:53, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * There's not a trace of OR here because every one of these songs was obtained from another source, rather than my own thinking, and there is generally a lot of commonality in the sources. It's Squeamish Ossifrage's thesis which seems to be OR - an attempt to construct an alternate theme for these songs which is unsupported by the sources.  As for the Green book, this is a professional work and so trumps anything which we amateurs might opine.  This is the essence of the issue with OR - that we don't present our own ideas but present those of independent professionals.  You don't get to pick and choose. Warden (talk) 23:47, 5 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. As a long distance cyclist, I find this list inspiring, and useful. It's nice to ride to bicycle songs. Sure, some of the songs' subject are not exclusively about cycling. Maybe there is a discussions to have about what songs are on the list. But the list itself merits inclusion. It reveals, joyfully, an important perspective on bicycle culture. Anothersixpence (talk) 21:14, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep Passes WP:LISTN, each item has an article, referenced.   Th e S te ve   12:26, 6 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete as having insufficient coverage in independent third-party sources. If such sources are integrated into the article, feel free to ping my talk page. Alternatively, convert to a category. Stuartyeates (talk) 07:29, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
 * We already have a category &mdash; songs about bicycles &mdash; and this article is already in it. This indicates that you have not examined either the  article nor the categories with care.  See WP:CLN which explains that we do not delete lists in order to create categories. Warden (talk) 14:46, 9 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.