Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Phoenix in popular culture (2nd nomination)


 * 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. There is absolutely no consensus to delete this article below. Most likely it could use some massive copyediting, as many of the keep and delete !voters have opined, but needing work is not a valid reason to delete an article; rather, it is a good reason to work on it. The other large delete argument is that "IPC articles are inherently unencyclopedic", which doesn't address much about this article in specific, and isn't a very persuasive argument either. lifebaka++ 14:24, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Phoenix in popular culture
AfDs for this article: 
 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

This is a loose and indiscriminate collection of trivia and original research.There is absolutely no need to list every single time the topic is used in a piece of media. By doing that, this is just combining a large number of unrelated topics and claiming that they are part of a larger topic (WP:OR). The actual use for this article would be to discuss the overall use of the topic in different pieces of media, while giving different examples to provide context. I don't really think this can be reformatted to do so, but a few paragraphs in the main article may be suitable. TTN (talk) 20:57, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: In the year since it survived the last nomination, this article has grown from 25.5 bytes to 35.5, and the additions have mostly been the trivial references that give i.p.c. articles a bad name. It survived in August '07 because the phoenix is the mythological symbol of our ability to recover from disaster, but pop culture articles frequently degenerate into "Guess where I saw a _____".  I think that if it can't be pared down, it should be deleted.  Mandsford (talk) 23:43, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep: The article does require a good clean up, but not a deletion. My kid (9 years old, living in Japan, where the Phoenix is not massively known) just used this article to find information of the Phoenix for a homework at his class.  I was actually surprised by the so many ways the Phoenix shows in our daily life and we do not know about it.  That is why this article is in my watch list.  If Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia for 30+ years old adults, then fine, delete it; otherwise this article must stay. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Miguel.mateo (talk • contribs) 00:34, September 21, 2008


 * Keep as for most similar articles, if they have content, unless they are really small and better merged until they grow. The uses of notable things in notable media are not trivial. They aren't individually notable, of course, but the content together is worth an article. Overall, the extent of good content seems overwhelming--I was quite surprised when I looked. There are a few ones which can not be included without a specific reference, for the relevance isn't obvious, and a few where it doesn't seem the other work is notable (in the usual sense here of having a Wikipedia article). To what extent metaphor-like uses are appropriate can be discussed on the talk page also. It's not indiscriminate--an indiscriminate articles would include all references from all works, whether or not notable. "Indiscriminate" is still sometimes used as an accusation against list type articles, and always fails if the article is limited to notables.    As for referencing, unless ambiguous, the nature of all of these characters can be explicitly sourced from particular pages/scenes in the best source, the work itself. If ambiguous, a ref. discussing the work is necessary--just like our general practices for the use of such sources, both in plot and in other contexts. The suggestion in the nomination of  what the article shoud be limited to is not Wikipedia policy.  (I notified the closer of the first AfD, which should be automatic--I suggest other participants be notified also, which should additionally be automatic.--FWIW, last time around, some of the delete arguments were urging that all such articles be deleted.)   DGG (talk) 01:23, 21 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment effectively the article as it is isn't about the "phoenix in popular culture" it's a somewhat indiscriminate list of when representations of the phoenix (or sometimes just mentions of the word "phoenix") have appeared pretty much anywhere (I'm really not sure that being the symbol of the third reich or the unofficial mascot of a small college is in the scope "popular culture"). The article/list as it is clearly needs to be significantly cleaned up and I would think that trying to find some reliable sources that discuss the concept of the phoenix and it's use in popular culture (currently absent) might be a good starting point for either a stand alone piece or a section in the main Phoenix article. Guest9999 (talk) 01:28, 21 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Neutral For now. I'm almost 100% certain that if I go digging I will find multiple sources covering the importance of the Phoenix in literature and myth.  I am just as certain that I will find no source that covers anything close to resembling this piece of original research through synthesis.  In my opinion, this article needs to be renamed (to something like "images of Phoenix in art" or something), drastically cut and rewritten.  Al'ar is a phoenix.  So is dumbledore's bird.   What connects the two, aside from editor selection on this list?  Why is Al'ar a significant part of WoW?  Who says?  Does that make it part of popular culture?  Why?  These questions will come up in every AfD for these IPC lists.  I'm going to dig through some sources tomorrow/tomorrow night.  If I find something, I'll try to fix this article.  If not, I'll probably change my view to weak delete. Protonk (talk) 05:58, 21 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep I browsed for sources and soon found mention of The Phoenix in the Western world from Herodotus to Shakespeare. The nomination indicates that this material should be developed further and so deletion is obviously inappropriate. AFD is not cleanup. Colonel Warden (talk) 08:13, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep and IF Renamed. While "...in popular culture" articles and article sections tend to reek of triviasynthcruft, this article is about a significant icon of western civilization. Strongly recommend taking "popular" out of the title to avoid inviting the accumulation of trivial mentions and to encourage editors to draw on sources having significant coverage. This could rise from the ashes as a featured article. ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:07, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete, like all ...in popular culture articles, this is inherently unencyclopedic. Stifle (talk) 15:28, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete as all IPC topics. This is especially crammed with junk trivia. Eusebeus (talk) 17:23, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep per Colonel Warden. The existence of the "Phoenix in the Western World" book shows that the article subject can be made into an encyclopedic article.  Listphobia is not a reason to delete the article. Squidfryerchef (talk) 17:40, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletion discussions.   --  Fabrictramp  |  talk to me  18:46, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment -- So Shakespeare used the symbol? So what?  Everyone had told me, all my life, that Shakespeare was a great and original writer.  Well I tried browsing through a book of his plays once.  Do you know what I found?  There wasn't a page of his work I looked at where he hadn't used some old, shopworn, over-used cliche!  The guy is a hack because his work is full of cliches!  Cheers!  Geo Swan (talk) 21:38, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep -- Seriously, the article needs some work, but this is a highly notable topic. Geo Swan (talk) 21:38, 21 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep "In Popular Culture" articles are evil, but the cultural figure of the phoenix ought to be notable enough to make an article on it, it's used lots and lots of times to signify resurrection/rebirth. I mean, dude, it's not as famous as the swastika or the dove of peace, but it's not just any random cultural symbol, surely it can get reworked into an acceptable article called Phoenixs as symbols, similar to Doves as symbols. Notice that one of the entries on the article is a tapestry on the UN chamber where it represent the rebirth of friggin' World Peace from the ashes of WWII. Symbols don't make their way into that sort of places unless they are understood and accepted by a huge segment of world population. This needs cleanup+rename and not deletion. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:57, 22 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete. Sure, there should be an article on a subject as important as this, but this is not an article, it's a list that looks awful. Sure, Enric Naval, there are some valuable notes here, but how can one possibly separate the wheat from the chaff? 'Cleanup+rename' is just not possible here. Delete and write, that's a solution--and by 'write' I mean someone should compose an article with a beginning, a middle, and an end. PS Geo Swan, you should try actually reading and not just browsing Shakespeare, whatever 'browsing' means in this context. Drmies (talk) 21:53, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * No offense, but isn't this opinion in direct contradiction with the deletion policies? Last time I looked they were crystal clear on this point -- the deletion of an article should be based on the merits of covering the topic -- not on the quality of the current instance of the article.  Cheers!  Geo Swan (talk) 22:48, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * None taken--but where you emphasize the topic (literally, haha), I would stress that the merits of covering said topic is what it's about. Again, I think there is considerable rationale for including this topic, but it needs actual covering. Drmies (talk) 22:55, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Regarding Shakespeare -- The reason there is a widely used phrase on practically every page of Shakespeare's plays is not, of course, because he cribbed existing cliches from popular culture. Rather he coined phrases so powerful and evocative that writers copied them, continue to copy them, to this day, so that they entered the unconsciously recognized shorthand of popular culture.  It was not my attempt to catch someone whose humor-engine was on the fritz today.
 * But I think this comment illustrates the importance of addressing popular culture topics -- and not dismissing them as "trivial". Like Shakespeare's "cliches" references from popular culture merely seem trivial, seem obvious -- because we are continually immersed in them, and are largely unconscious of them, just like the person who thinks Shakespeare was a writer who made massive use of over-used cliches, because they were unaware that he coined all those phrases in the first place.
 * Pop culture references seem unworthy of explanation or discussion, on the surface, when one doesn't recognize that they are opaque to those readers who, for one reason or another, have never encountered them before. The idioms of popular culture can seem opaque to those for whom English is a second language.  They can seem opaque to those who were strictly home-schooled.  Older pop culture references can seem opaque to the young, when they fall into dis-use.  Newer pop culture references can seem opaque to older people who don't watch music videos or play video games.  It took me years before someone explained the source of the annoying phrase, "all your base are belong to us".  Over on slashdot contributor used to over-use, perhaps still over-use, the phrase, "imagine a beowulf cluster of cliches".  Similarly, "I, for one, welcome our cliche overlords", or "in Soviet Russia cliches over-use you".  The real meaning of these cliches is opaque to those to whom they are unfamiliar, and seems trivially obvious to those who have absorbed them.  It is important to try to examine the seemingly trivially obvious, as if we have never encountered them before, because some of our readers will not have encountered them before.
 * It is important to try to examine the seemingly trivially obvious, as if we have never encountered them before, because, in my experience, it is very, very common for people who use cliches, instead of real discussion, to use the same cliches, and think they agree with one another -- when they actually don't. I wrote a little story about how nothing is "obvious".
 * Quick, how old were you when you figured out what the "World's oldest profession" was? I encountered this phrase as a youngster, and was reading past my grade-level, and it took me at least a decade to figure out what it was.  I had initially tried to figure it out from first principles, and got it wrong.  Consequently, there was at least a decade when I didn't fully understand what writers who used this cliche were talking about.
 * What about the "World's second oldest profession". It is another cliche I tried to figure out from first principles.  I think part of my confusion is that some writers who use these two phrases also tried to figure them out from first principles, and also got them wrong, as I did.
 * Pop culture is not trivial. Pop culture cliches are not trivial.  Cheers!  Geo Swan (talk) 23:36, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * comment Pop culture doesn't need to be "trivial". the issue here shouldn't be with our opinion of how important or unimportant each reference is.  The issue should be that if the entire article rests on how editors of wikipedia feel about a subject, that is a BIG warning sign that we shouldn't have an article on the subject.  Like I said above, there is room for an article that proceeds from secondary sources and notes the intersection of certain imagery with culture.  This isn't that article.  It isn't on the path to be that article.  This is an opportunity for people to pop in with "eye-spy" references and make the connection themselves.  I grant that articles like this are part of wikipedia's charm.  but we shouldn't conflate importance of culture (which is significant) with the importance of what editor X feels about Al'ar (which is close to zero).  This article will, at best, see a no-consensus close, so I don't expect it to be deleted.  And it will sit, with cleanup tags at the top, from now on. Protonk (talk) 17:53, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: I share this perspective. It is the article, not the topic, that is trivial. My own feeling is that when a subject is notable but an article fails to draw on the resources that provide notability, then the article ought to be stubified until a contributor undertakes to draft something that actually reflects the notability of the subject. However, consensus is to treat these as "editorial" issues even when nothing noteworthy about the subject has been submitted for edit. As a consequence, many articles that are NOT Wikipedic persist on the spurious grounds that one could write a Wikipedic article on the subject, even if it would have to be a completely different article. ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:30, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment -- I pointed out the deletion policies state that the decision to delete should be based on the merits of the topic -- not on the quality of the current state of the article. The policy states that if the topic merits coverage, but the current state of the article is poor, concerned wikipedians should step in, and improve the article, or mention their concerns on the talk page, or leave one of those tags, that is a short-hand for their concern.  Deletion should be a last resort.  No one tried initiating that discussion on the talk page.  No one tried using those editorial tags.  So, I suggest, it is not appropriate for anyone who has acknowledged that the topic merits inclusion to argue for  deletion.  If one doesn't have time to do any of that, leaving it on your watchlist, and waiting a week or a month, or six months, to see if someone who does have more time fixes it, is also an option.  Geo Swan (talk) 04:18, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. I think the rationale provided by said it best. Cirt (talk) 03:51, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  treelo  radda  13:54, 25 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep. iconic and obviously notable. There is inependent discussion out there. I too would favour a rename to "cultural depictions of..." Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:58, 25 September 2008 (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.