Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Witch house (music genre)


 * 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.  MBisanz  talk 00:14, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Witch house (music genre)

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Short lived neologism disguised as a music genre. About the only thing people can agree is certain bands for a period of time used similar iconography. The person who invented the term used it as a joke, no one can even agree if it's parent genres is a genre of music, no one can agree on even if these are genres what they should be called and what common attributes they share. It seems almost universally agreed that the one big album in the genre is not a part of the genre. The entire thing seems to have blown over and I can find no evidence that any bands of note are active in this "micro-genre". Ridernyc (talk) 22:09, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Note this is this articles second AFD the first one end no consensus Ridernyc (talk) 22:15, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete The article itself and the sources it quotes clearly explain that "witch house" is just an expression that was thrown around, not the name of something definable. Seems like a violation of "not a dictionary." Steve Dufour (talk) 22:54, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * "Not a dictionary" is more to prevent unexpandable stubs in the vein of "xyz is a term which means abc" and nothing more. This article is quite concise and has many sources; it goes beyond being a dicdef. I think the way it's written is pretty bad, though - paragraphs about whether something is a "real genre" are meaningless. If there are reliable sources describing a movement called "witch house" then call it a movement and not a "term invented by one producer to describe his sound". - filelake shoe  &#xF0F6;   23:08, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Weak keep It has been widely used in the media, and although there's not an exact definition there's a clear sense that the bands have something in common. Although the term was initially used as a joke/insult that's not decisive - many genre/stylistic terms started in a similar way (punk, shoegaze, Gothic, etc) - and the term has taken on a life of its own, supplanting the similar genre designation "drag", which currently redirects to witch house. The real question is whether the movement has enough coverage to be notable, and it has received coverage in major music publications and a bit of coverage in mainstream non-music press, though a bit more would be nice. Also there's at least 3 bands on WP described as Witch House (oOoOO, Salem (Michigan band), Pictureplane). I would support a merge if there was a larger genre this could be grouped under, but I don't see one. --Colapeninsula (talk) 00:00, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
 * One of those three artist would be the person invented the term as a joke, and is cited in the article as clearly stating it's not a real genre or movement, read his answer when asked to define the genre here . Ridernyc (talk) 00:32, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't think this is a good rational. Genre/style names can come from everywhere, doesn't really matter if the instigator was joking. People appropriate the term for their own use, and there is a tongue-in-cheek aspect to the the style in the first place --MilkMiruku (talk) 22:49, 28 January 2013 (UTC).


 * Weak keep for the same reasons expressed by Colapeninsula. It really doesn't matter if the term is a joke; if it's used in reliable sources to describe a genre, or a group of bands, it's worth keeping the information. --Arxiloxos (talk) 06:16, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The problem is there are no reliable sources that really use the term as genre I highly recommend people read through the sources on this article.  There is no development, characteristics, history, any of the stuff you need to have a genre. Unless of course what font you use on album cover can be considered a genre. Ridernyc (talk) 15:34, 22 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment WP:Wikipedia is not a dictionary is not about the length or depth of an article, but about its topic. We don't have an article on "beautiful day", although that expression is probably used a million times more often than "witch house."  Steve Dufour (talk) 16:03, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Music-related deletion discussions. &#9733;&#9734;  DUCK IS PEANUTBUTTER &#9734;&#9733; 16:22, 22 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Strong keep It's a term that has a scene attached. It's not like there aren't references already. Just because it seems flash-in-the-pan doesn't mean it's not worth keeping note of. There's many lesser-known styles that influenced later genres, like new beat or grime. Maybe newbreed will get bigger, but still, I don't think it's worth loosing information on something that's influential. Yes, there is ambiguity, but people have different perceptions so such might not always line up objectively, but that's interesting from a sociological point of view. Describe the controversy in a NPOV way and try fit in further references, natch. (and I'm seeing more unicode characters in non-witch house artist/track titles now..) --MilkMiruku (talk) 22:43, 28 January 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.