Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/My way or the highway


 * 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. ✗ plicit  23:53, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

My way or the highway

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

The original rationale (which I support until evidence is provided otherwise) was “just a dictionary definition. It was functionally contested at WP:ARS by User:7&6=Thirteen or whatever their name is, meaning it can’t be prodded as non-controversial. Dronebogus (talk) 20:38, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment Lot of news results to sort through. https://gimenez.house.gov/2021/7/gimenez-votes-against-my-way-or-highway-bill Common expression.  Not sure if it can be made anything more than a redirect to the wiki-dictionary for a definition of it.   D r e a m Focus  21:03, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep or merge somewhere. Venerable, has variations, even parodies ("my way or thy way" in religion, as an example). Hyperbolick (talk) 21:16, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment, It seems fairest to properly tag the person quoted I assume CT55555 (talk) 21:22, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete - I proposed the deletion, and as mentioned, my rationale was that it's just a dictionary definition. Hgual (talk) 22:33, 13 April 2022 (UTC) 22:37, 13 April 2022 Ponyo blocked Hgual with an expiration time of indefinite (account creation blocked) (Long-term abuse: WP:BKFIP)
 * Delete or redirect to Wiktionary (whichever is normal for Wiktionary entries), due to WP:DICDEF. MrsSnoozyTurtle 06:52, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Removed my previous "redirect" !vote. MrsSnoozyTurtle 02:12, 15 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Like this is a slang title which good sources do not use for actual subjects, and of course in 7 years the article has progressed little beyond a list of person A using the phrase in respect of person B, which does nothing to discuss an actual subject and is just cargo-cult writing.  The actual subject that good sources discuss is leadership styles, and in particular the self-same autocratic leadership style that we already have at leadership style.  ISBN 9780761861645 pages 111–112 makes this linkage explicit.  So this seems like an obvious redirect there, with a note to future Redirects for discussion participants that they can always take that (or one of the many other books that explicitly links this to Douglas McGregor's "Theory X" and "Theory Y", such as ISBN 9780198834304 page 52 which is an OUP book, for example) in hand and write the linkage into the article (as well as perhaps mention McGregor, too).  Yes, the leadership style is the primary topic, and this page should not in my view go back to the redirect to My way or the highway (disambiguation) that it was in 2010 or to the Scrubs episode that it was in 2007. Uncle G (talk) 10:08, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * The idiom just means non-negotiable and it can be used to describe many things besides a leader. I linked to 8.500 sources, and most are reliable and many are not about leadership styles, though many are. They often refer to someone's personality generally, who is not in a position of leadership. If this article is deleted, the best way is to make the the article into a primary topic dab page and the first line says: "My way or the highway is an idiom describing a non-negotiable position, person or leadership style usually in a disparaging way. It can also mean:". This makes navigation clear because when someone searches this term we don't know if they are looking for meaning or song or album etc. Green  C  14:09, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * You didn't link to any sources. There, you linked to yet another quotation that isn't discussing this subject, it being a fruit picker quoted on xyr personal experience of unionization in 1973, which is not a source for anything at all, and below you linked to a search result.  Search results are not sources.  Phrase matching is not research.  You are not finding sources, and you are not doing research, which involves reading what the searches turn up, which would have revealed that a fruit picker in Florida interviewed by a magazine for a piece about United Farm Workers in 1973 isn't anything about this subject.   And etymologies are what lexicographers do.  Try to find the concept denoted by the title.  When you do, you'll find that it's a slang phrase and what people are really talking about, including expert sources in management (such as the OUP book which is written by a university assistant professor), is autocratic leadership as I said.  Uncle G (talk) 15:16, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I encourage readers to look through those 8,500 sources linked and decide for yourself what they demonstrate as a whole. Uncle G's assertion they are all or mostly about leadership style doesn't hold up on inspection. Leadership style is one, but not the only. Redirecting this page to leadership style is a bad idea for a couple reasons. As noted the phrase has more meanings, and secondly it can refer to actual disambiguations as listed at the dab page.  --  Green  C  17:05, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I spent a good hour skimming through 8,500 sources at archive.org (not all). The oldest I can find is from 1973. It's a hoard of sources. Disappointing could find no sources that discuss it directly. Given it's popularity, such sources likely exist in journals, such as Comments on Etymology, which has been a good source for Wikipedia etymology in the past. But its archives are offline.  Green  C  13:58, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. 7&amp;6=thirteen (☎) 11:42, 14 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Delete This is for Wiktionary at best. This is not a notable, encyclopedia-worthy topic. All we have here is a list of different people using the phrase. Banks Irk (talk) 18:18, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Dronebogus (talk) 22:49, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete Not notable/not encyclopedic. Llwyld (talk) 08:44, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment Perhaps this could be merged to the list at English-language idioms? 192.76.8.70 (talk) 00:34, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete The Googlengrams is OR, and the rest is just examples of times various celebrities have used the phrase. Doesn't seem to be much SIGCOV of the phrase itself. -Indy beetle (talk) 23:14, 17 April 2022 (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.