Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Virginity (song)


 * 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. But expansion would be really nice — Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:20, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Virginity (song)

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This is not an article. The verified information in the article boils down to two things: it was the band's fifth single, and it sold almost 400,000 copies. Great! But WP:SINGLE doesn't tell us that such a song needs an article, only that it may. In fact, "A separate article is only appropriate when there is enough verifiable material to warrant a reasonably detailed article". Now, that is not the case here: we have 13,000 bytes of alternate B-sides and a truly bizarre exhibition of "member lists". For the sake of redundancy, I'll throw in WP:NOTEVERYTHING, which says that "An encyclopedia article should not be a complete exposition of all possible details." And that seems to be what we have here. Without that detail, there isn't anything left one could call an article. Drmies (talk) 04:27, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Albums and songs-related deletion discussions.  Lady  of  Shalott  04:50, 1 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep - Sources provided below to demonstrate notability. 14:08, 1 March 2013 (UTC) Delete or redirect to NMB48. Fails notability of WP:NSONG and the rest of the content is overly detailed, tangential and duplicates the content in the artist article. It does appear that the single charted (8 out of the top 20), but there's not evidence that the article could every be expanded beyond a stub once the extraneous content is removed. As an aside, the Japanese to English translation of the song title is Vernon Gini Tea, according to Google. - MrX 04:53, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll have a glass of that, iced of course. Drmies (talk) 05:14, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * It looks like you didn't read the article. I don't understand your comment. Maybe it's humorous, but 1) The single ranked no. 1, not 8; 2) The content is necessary and doesn't duplicate the NMB48 article; 3) Google Translate? --Moscow Connection (talk) 09:01, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I read all 10 words. The rest were mere listings of other songs, band members and B sides. - MrX 12:57, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I meant you hadn't compared the member lists in NMB48 and in "Virginity". Cause they aren't the same. The necessary info about members and rankings was there, but you need to have some training in listening to Japanese idol music to notice. The genre has its own specifics, so it's hard to comprehend what is important in such an article and what is not for a person not familiar with it. --Moscow Connection (talk) 14:03, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Japan-related deletion discussions.  Lady  of  Shalott  04:54, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment It may or may not merit an article, but the single passes WP:NSONG easily, IMHO. I'm not sure where you got the 8 out of 20 number you mentioned, but the song was no. 1 on the daily and weekly Oricon charts, no. 2 on the monthly Oricon chart, and no. 1 on the weekly Billboard Japan chart. Cckerberos (talk) 08:31, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The 8 out of 20 came from the only source in the article, but I may have misread it or the translation may have been faulty. - MrX 12:57, 1 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep The single ranked number 1 on Oricon and Billboard Japan Hot 100. Therefore, it passes NSONG. --Moscow Connection (talk) 08:55, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep: Passes WP:NSONG as it has charted on a national chart, it is a number 1 at that.— Ryulong ( 琉竜 ) 09:23, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment: It is the 13th best-selling single of 2012 in Japan: . --Moscow Connection (talk) 10:31, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment - Please bear in mind that WP:NSONG is not just about meeting one of the three minimum criteria. The very first sentence states: "Notability aside, a standalone article is only appropriate when there is enough material to warrant a reasonably detailed article..." In my mind, this does not include listing every band member for every song on the album, listing every other song from every CD and DVD that includes the subject song or listing every B side. I will be happy to change my !vote if someone can produce 2-3 sources that discuss the song with any depth beyond just a listing on a chart. I assume these exist, but I don't read Japanese, so I can't find them on my own. - MrX 12:57, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * "Virginity" was a single and that single had multiple editions each with different B-sides and some that came with DVDs. How else are you going to discuss its existence as a single without mentioning its various B-sides? If it's good enough for Lady Gaga's "Judas" or Metallica's "Enter Sandman", then it's good enough for NMB48's "Virginity". And the nature of the 48 member group means that not every member performs vocals on every song, so it is worth noting who are the personnel (vocalists) for each track. Either way, it topped charts, was one of the best selling singles of the year, etc. It passes WP:GNG and WP:NSONG. The only reason it's being argued for deletion is because the article is not the best which boils down to the authors. I can find six different news stories mentioning this song on the website where I go for Japanese music news.— Ryulong ( 琉竜 ) 13:02, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Ryulong, NSONG doesn't mandate a song or single have an article given some criterion or other being met: it says it may. I cited above what led me to nominate this article. You can compare with the track list of "Enter Sandman" all you want, but that article has a ton of decent, encyclopedic, verified text to offset a bit of track information (which still doesn't even compare to what our current article has (which is 30 lines). In fact, it's a GA. Natalie.mu is an entertainment news site, and you'll forgive me, no doubt, if it's not much help to me. But when I do follow your link and look, courtesy of Google translate), at one of the "news stories" you mention (it goes to a DVD article, but it's the principle that counts), well, if you want to call what I just linked a review you're being very generous: it does nothing more than list some details, larded with ads that take up the right 1/3 of the screen, a half dozen amazon.jp links at the bottom for the various versions, and a tracklist out the wazoo. So no, I wouldn't call that a reliable review, if "review" means something that helps us generate text. Ryulong, I don't know if you misunderstand this nomination or what: it's not that "this article should go cause it's got long 'member' lists", which is how some have been portraying my recent edits. It's that this is not, in its current state, an article: it's nothing but a collection of facts that are by themselves of no encyclopedic value. You said something about "discuss its existence as a single": the article in its current state doesn't discuss anything at all. It has barely any prose. It is overwhelmed by what appears, given the absence of prose, purely trivial information. It can hardly be called an article in the first place. Drmies (talk) 17:57, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Drmies, it seems that every complaint you have about sources or external links has to do with the fact that there's some form of advertisement or shopping cart somewhere. Natalie.mu needs revenue like any other website (also the "advertisements" you are complaining about are links to interviews the site conducts with musicians, such as this interview with Denki Groove). I never said it was a review. All I said was that it was a news site that I use for meeting WP:V. And all I have to understand about the nomination is that it's been flawed from the start. You claim the subject isn't notable solely because the article is in a shit state, ignoring the claims that it was a chart topper and best seller. The article's set up horribly but the language barrier and the fact that every single review of this single is probably going to be in a newspaper that has no digital copy, is going to screw everything up.— Ryulong ( 琉竜 ) 08:34, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * No, what I'm saying is that you claim to have uncovered a bunch of things you suggested were notable and were "news stories" (I'm quoting you). I proved, I think pretty clearly, that at least one of the things you pointed at doesn't even come close to what most people would call a news story. (What you gave was an ad, with ads on the side.) As for Natalie etc--the things that I read for "news stories" aren't overwhelmed by advertising. Just saying that you're not really reading quality there. Drmies (talk) 01:38, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
 * As Ryulong said, the long column of "ads" you see on the right are not ads. Those are links to featured inteviews with artists. Only the two bigger ones that are located separately at the very top and the very bottom are advertisements. There are also two banners (they are grouped together) that can be considered "internal ads" cause they are internal links to some promotional campains on the Natalie website itself. There are also links to the release (discussed in the article) on Amazon, but Natalie wants to earn money somehow, so they give readers the possibility to easily buy the DVD if they like it. --Moscow Connection (talk) 09:08, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * There's also a third ad, the long banner at the very top. It mostly advertises something musical, something important. Now it links to the website of a Japanese Pop Culture Festival called "Kawaii Matsuri". The Natalie website as a whole is really nothing to be irritated about. --Moscow Connection (talk) 09:17, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I did a quick search. Here is an article by Techinsight: . Techinsight is a reliable news provider, Excite News is one of the portals that use their articles. The song's music and lyrics are described there. Unfortunately, Japanese magazines don't seem to like putting their articles on the Internet. Hotexpress does, but there's no review for this particular single on their site: . --Moscow Connection (talk) 13:48, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment By the way, on Natalie I've found this article about "Virginity": . As Drmies may see, it is very reminiscent of what "Manatsu no Sounds Good!" and some other articles looked like before yesterday. All the 16 members who sang the title track are listed, all the covers are equally presented, all the tracklists are present, all the videos are linked. Therefore, there's no imbalance there, all the information is necessary. It's not Wikipedia editors' fault that there are so many members and so many tracks. If there are, they should be all listed. --Moscow Connection (talk) 13:48, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Read WP:NOTEVERYTHING, for the love of God. Drmies (talk) 17:58, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * But the part of the page you cited before doesn't say anything definite. The info is not "everything", it is very important. The article is just a stub. There are many unimportant things we can add to it. We can list every time it was performed, for example. What it has now is the absolute minimum. The people who worked on it left only one sentence in it while listing all the members exactly because they felt that the information is essential. --Moscow Connection (talk) 18:59, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * You should watch some Japanese idol videos on YouTube and read comments. Most comments are about someone liking a girl, about how cute the girls are, about "who is the girl at ...". It is the same as liking an American solo singer, but 100 times multiplied. The releases by AKB48, etc., sell well because people care for the girls. They buy singles to support the members they like, because the CDs come with voting tickets, with tickets for "handshake meetings" where they get 3-5 seconds per girl to shake hands with them. If some girl didn't appear on the single, its sales would be different. It is very, very important who sings what. And by the way, the liner notes don't look long in Japanese. They are actually very short. --Moscow Connection (talk) 18:59, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * What you're offering is a visual variation of WP:DIDNTHEARTHAT. If you can't see how such information is excessive, esp. in comparison to a sentence of prose, then I can't help you. Whoever these people were who felt it essential to list, for dozens or hundreds of lines, who sang in which version and what b-sides there were, those people who felt that was more important than writing words that conveyed information, those people don't know what an encyclopedia is and should shift their activities to a fan site. And fo shizzle, "this is the absolute minimum"? That's crazy talk. The absolute minimum is the one sentence I proposed, which can now become twice as long since a chart position was indicated. That's the minimum. Drmies (talk) 00:25, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete Pending WP:HEY. Ryan Vesey 18:40, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep. While having reached the Number 1 position in the charts may be just sufficient to satisfy the minimum notability criteria at WP:NSONG, as per WP:HEY noted above, I would really like to see someone actually add some in-depth third-party coverage and commentary, rather than just padding it out with fancruft, to truly comply with the spirit of WP:NSONG. --DAJF (talk) 01:14, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment - The article title says "song" while the article seems to be about the entire "single". If the article is kept, either the focus or the title should be adjusted to make them match. Lady  of  Shalott  04:00, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Another long standing argument: making this article right would also make it inconsistent with most other music articles.&mdash;Kww(talk) 04:29, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Let me make sure I have this straight, as this isn't an area I work in a whole lot: renaming this article Virginity (single) to reflect its contents would be inconsistent with most of how these articles are named? Lady  of  Shalott  04:41, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, because of this: Naming conventions (music). Someone decided that for consistency all articles about songs and singles should be disambiguated using "(song)". --Moscow Connection (talk) 05:31, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Ugh. That would make sense if "single" consistently meant one song. Since that's not the case, that is a bad rule. Lady  of  Shalott  06:50, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Singles and songs have different infoboxes, though: Template:Infobox single and Template:Infobox song. So when you open an article, you can tell what it is about by the color of the template. --Moscow Connection (talk) 07:04, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * There is another problem. At present, songs sometimes aren't released physically. They are released on iTunes, Rekochoku (for Japan), etc. and are called "digital singles". If such a single contains only one track, it is the same as a song. The Korean music industry calls digitally released songs "singles" and physical CD singles "single albums". There's a lot of confusion. I'm not sure if anything can be done about it. (By the way, stricly speaking, I think a CD single with more than two tracks on it is called a "maxi single".) --Moscow Connection (talk) 07:27, 2 March 2013 (UTC)


 * A plea for consistency I fully agree that this song doesn't warrant an article, but at the same time, 99% of the articles we have on singles shouldn't exist. I've long fought for having a nugget of actual information covered under parent albums and groups as opposed to these bloated infobox+table things that masquerade as articles. I've lost. That means I can't swoop down on an article about a genre that isn't well represented on English Wikipedia and demand that they be deleted when they are essentially the same as articles about every other single we have. If we want to do the right thing and get rid of this, we need to get rid of a lot more.&mdash;Kww(talk) 04:29, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * So you're basically wanting this to be deleted so it sets a precedent that will eliminate every article on songs unless they've been critically reviewed?— Ryulong ( 琉竜 ) 08:36, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * If I thought it could set such a precedent, I'd be in favor of deletion. Since it can't set such a precedent, we probably shouldn't.&mdash;Kww(talk) 14:54, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Isn't the existence of secondary, independent sources the fundamental notion of WP:N? Lady  of  Shalott  23:09, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, it's the core of WP:V. Try to get an article deleted because it is based on primary sources, though. Won't work if there's any secondary sources mentioned.&mdash;Kww(talk) 23:53, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * N calls for independent sources. V is a need for verifiability. Track lists are verifiable, but (of course) primary. It's the lack of independent sources that makes notability questionable. (You'll notice that I'm neither arguing for keeping or deletion for this article.) Lady  of  Shalott  03:02, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
 * WP:V calls for articles to be based on independent, third-party sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. An article that is based on primary sources fails WP:V as well as WP:N. WP:V certainly permits the use of primary sources within an article, but doesn't permit entire articles to be based on them.&mdash;Kww(talk) 03:12, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
 * We like to pretend that N and V are entirely separate things, but really they are interdependent, and I think that's part of what we're running into here. Lady  of  Shalott  03:26, 3 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Weak Keep. I can sympathize with those who complain that Wikipedia is being turned into a music database, where seemingly every single/album by any notable artist has to have an article (the same can be said about films, TV shows, seiyu, etc.). Part of the problem is WP:NSONG, which is a bit vague on what "reasonably detailed" means. That said, I still think this passes WP:NSONG, especially if some more of the articles already found are added to the article. There's been a lot of debate about track listings and B-sides and all, but the fact is that in the case of AKB/NMB/SKE/HKT, the issuing of multiple versions of the same single, with shifting groups of singers, is the core of their now notorious marketing strategy. Listing this information is in this case not fancruft, but a record of what is very much a notable (and controversial) business plan (there are even books written about this). Michitaro (talk) 12:14, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the explanation. Your point about NSONG is well taken and the information on these commercial strategies is very enlightening. As an editor, let me add one note, though: even if one doesn't call this fancruft, but "a record of what is etc.", that still doesn't mean we have to include every detail of such a strategy. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 20:31, 7 March 2013 (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.