Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Would You Love a Monsterman?


 * 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, although, no I would not love a monsterman. IronGargoyle 19:19, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Would You Love a Monsterman?

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Appears to be a non-notable song by the band Lordi. This was a contested prod, which was removed with the note: "notability most certainly ascertained; only 6 songs ever became music videos for this band, first Finnish and first rock Eurovision winners, and all were chart successes, too". Making a music video does not make a song pass Wikipedia's notability requirements. The band does have a notable song, Hard Rock Hallelujah, which won the Eurovision Song Contest 2006, but this notability does not carry over to their other songs. — coe l acan t a lk  — 01:25, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep - Played 10 times a day on TV in Europe. Probably who nominated it lives outside of the EU.  Lajbi  Holla @ me  01:50, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm sure a lot of songs have been played 10 times a day somewhere. Doesn't mean that the song meets our WP:N requirements, though. — coe l acan t a lk  — 02:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep Another important song by Lordi. Although they're not a popular American band, they have a very strong international audience. If their songs don't deserve Wikipedia entries, then neither do Jennifer Lopez', Hilary Duff's or any other ultra-popular American group. Rockstar915 02:35, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Please demonstrate that the song fulfills wp:notability. I'm not questioning the notability of Lordi. They are notable. I'm questioning the notability of this song, and you're not giving citations to demonstrate this. Please read WP:N and WP:RS for guidance on what I'm asking for here. And you may be right that there are Wikipedia articles for non-notable songs by J-Lo, et al. If you give me a llst of those articles you believe are non-notable, on my talk page, I'd be happy to investigate and probably nominate them for deletion too. If you are certain that you can make a case for their non-notability yourself, you are welcome to nominate them for WP:AFD yourself, but be careful that you do not violate WP:POINT. — coe l acan t a lk  — 04:33, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Given your recent nominations, I would advise you to take such care yourself. I suspect that most song/single articles would disappear from Wikipedia if your somewhat subjective interpretation of the WP:N guidelines was applied consistently. You may wish to consider whether this would be a desirable outcome, quite apart from the workload this would add to AfD. AdorableRuffian 21:19, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much for the WP:SCORCHEDEARTH reminder. It's worth pointing out also that not every non-notable song has to be deleted in a single day. — coe l acan t a lk  — 12:32, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Just as well, really - it would probably take months. AdorableRuffian 18:58, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete are there references specifically about the song? It should be mentioned in the article about the band or the album, does not need own article.-MsHyde 03:04, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep per this reference which tells us that the song was a number 1 hit in Finland, as well as (apparently, although I can't quite figure out if this is what it's saying) being in the charts for a long time. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 05:33, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * That helps, but it doesn't fulfill WP:N yet. Tens of thousands of songs are #1 somewhere. That alone doesn't fulfill our notability requirements. Third party, WP:Reliable Sources are needed that discuss the song as their primary topic. — coe l acan t a lk  — 06:12, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Sources-wise, we've got this, which actually suggests it was the band's first single. Then there's a review of the single, which is auf Deutsch unfortunately, but that's the way of these things. Here's a bio of the band which mentions the fact that this song was on the re-jigged American release of their latest album. And finally (because I have a short attention span), we have this Blog post, roughly 50% of which is dedicated to the song. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 07:11, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Blogs are not reliable sources for the purposes of notability. The tartareandesire link is not about the song, so it doesn't much help. The rockdetector link isn't about the song either. The metalspheres.de link is good, the language doesn't matter. This is one reliable source for notability. The notability requirements call for multiple sources. Are there any more? — coe l acan t a lk  — 09:03, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I disagree where it comes to blogs. As a general rule, yes they probably don't count. In the case of popular culture, however, particularly where 50% of the post deals with the single in question, I would argue that they are frequently the only source we have for a great many things. In the case of the average single in this day and age, the music press tend to concern themselves with the fact that it has been released, saving a review or whatever for the album, so the fact that this single has generated any publicity in and of itself seems to be a point in its favour. Obviously if there's a bit of policy I'm missing here, I'll be happy to be shown it. The tartareandesire link is included because it demonstrates that the song was a milestone for the band (first single release). Yes, it does this in a sentence and a half, but the point is that it does it. I'd argue that the first instance of something is probably going to be notable more often than not. Likewise, the rockdetector link (which I'll agree is probably the weakest of the bunch) is important because it explains that the song (despite being relatively old) is deemed sufficiently important to be on the American release of a new album. Yes, there's only one source there which talks about the song and nothing else (although there's another source which spends half its time doing the same thing), but what the other sources do is underline the importance of the song as well - the fact that they do so briefly is neither here nor there, when what they actually say is considered. If all they were were tracklistings, I'd agree with you entirely. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 09:23, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'm happy to give policy. Notability: "A topic is notable if it has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial, reliable published works, whose sources are independent of the subject itself. ... "Reliable", as explained in the reliability guidelines, requires the source to have a certain level of editorial integrity in order to allow for a verifiable evaluation of the topic's notability. ... "Non-triviality" is an evaluation of the depth of content contained in the published work, exclusive of mere directory entry information, and of how directly it addresses the subject." Reliable sources: "blogs are largely not acceptable as sources". Blogs aren't acceptable because they aren't editorially reviewed. Passing mentions aren't acceptable because you can probably find hundreds of such mentions for everyhting that is non-notable. One might reasonably expect that a first single by a notable band to be notable, however, if it is notable then it will have multiple independent sources talking primarily about it. This doesn't, yet, although it's halfway there with that German website. — coe l acan  t a lk  — 10:55, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Again, I think we're only in subtle disagreement. I still maintain that the first single by a notable band is a notable event. The lack of coverage is due to the relative recent vintage of the band. Additionally, I would draw your attention to the word "largely" in all of this. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 20:37, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep Added refs to the article showing it was a number 1 song in Finland and will be on the U.S. release of their album 'Arockalypse' next month. Song appears to meet WP:N and WP:MUSIC. Inkpaduta 18:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Again, the chart listing doesn't mean anything as far as WP:N is concerned, the tracklisting is not notability and the rockdetector link you added does not focus on this song as its primary topic. I see no evidence of WP:N or WP:MUSIC being fulfilled. Please explain specifically how you believe it is fulfilled. — coe l acan t a lk  — 09:03, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Why is a number 1 single not automatically notable? It's not like it can do much more than reaching the top of the charts. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 09:23, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Because you can't write an article from this. The point of gathering reliable sources is so that you can write a verifiable article. You can't write an article from raw data. "'Would You Love a Monsterman?' was a number 1 song in Finland" would be all the article could ever say. A stub that can never be expanded must be merged back into its parent article. If the song is notable enough to pass our notability requirements using multiple third party repliable sources, then that gives us sources to work from to write the article such that it will satisfy WP:V as well. But without the sources for WP:N, there's never even a hope of fulfilling WP:V. That's why "number 1 single" means nothing. It would allow as much content as could be written about any other number 1 single in history... nothing at all, without further sources. — coe l acan t a lk  — 10:43, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * A fair point in the abstract, however it slightly mis-states the situation. What we know about the song is the following: It is by a particular band, it is to be found on a particular album, it was released as a single (the first single the band ever released, as a matter of fact), it achieved a certain place in the Finnish charts and may well have achieved other placings elsewhere (my guess is that it didn't, but I didn't look particularly hard), it has a video which consists of various things occurring, it either will be or is on the American release of the band's latest album (I'm unclear whether the album's out in the States yet), and the lyrics are about certain things. Every single one of those things can be verified, and at least two of them (being the first single the band released and achieving the distinction of topping the charts) are pretty impressive achievements. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 10:49, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * That it's by Lordi and was on a particular album is already communicated by the article Get Heavy, that it was the single off that album can be communicated at that article and that it was the first single can be communicated at Lordi, all very trivially. No reason yet for a wp:content fork. That it reached a certain place on the charts seems better suited to the Lordi article, since this is notability directly for the band, the video can be on the album page and it is already on the band page, still no reason to content fork. That the lyrics are about "certain things" is actually a violation of wp:no original research unless a third party source is cited saying the lyrics are actually about those things... such a source is likely to be a source that demonstrates notability, but without it, the article can't include this information. So you see, WP:N really is necessary for WP:V. — coe l acan t a lk  — 11:03, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * That the lyrics are about "certain things" is actually a violation of wp:no original research unless a third party source is cited saying the lyrics are actually about those things: Nonsense. All one needs is a copy of the lyrics to establish what the song's about. If the songwriter's been interviewed and has gone on record as saying there's a deeper meaning as well, then all the better, but not all songs have deeper meanings and neither do all songwriters say as much. I also think you're putting the cart before the horse on this one. Something must be verifiable in order to be notable, not the other way around. There's verifiability (whether you believe that the information is better positioned in the band's article or not, personally I think a number 1 single gets its own article), and from that verifiability comes notability. To use the old hackneyed analogy, I verifiably exist, but from that verifiability comes no notability (yet). A head of state, on the other hand, verifiably exists and from that verifiability comes his or her notability. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 22:17, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * If a songwriter has been interviewed and explained what the song was about, then that quote can be included. But art is way too subjective for us to be deciding that here. Wikipedia is not for artistic criticism, and deciding the meaning of lyrics is always original research. We would absolutely have to have reliable sources for that. Regarding your example of a head of state, why are they verifiable? Because much has been written about them. Why was so much written? Because they are notable. If something is notable, it will become verifiable, usually quite quickly. But anyway, it's not me who demands notability for verifiability. This is Wikipedia's stance: Notability says "In order to have a verifiable article, a topic must be notable enough that the information about it will have been researched, checked, and evaluated through publication in independent reliable sources." I don't think that's putting the cart before the horse at all, I think it's quite sensible. But you may disagree, so I'm just making clear that it's not a requirement that I made up. — coe l acan t a lk  — 12:28, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * ...art is way too subjective for us to be deciding that here. Wikipedia is not for artistic criticism, and deciding the meaning of lyrics is always original research: No. Not always. There are two levels to any song or text that can be talked about. The first level is the simple question of "what do the lyrics say?" For that, all we need is a copy of them. The second level is the question of "what else might it all mean?" For that, we need interviews with the songwriter, academic analysis and whathaveyou. If we were talking about Bob Dylan or someone like that, I'd grant that we'd have problems in figuring out anything about it. As it is, we don't. It won't be as strong an analysis as it could be, but it'll be something. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 20:37, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * We can't just repeat the lyrics without breaking copyright law. The only way to bring the lyrics into this is to go under Fair use, but to do that we need to subject the lyrics to critical analysis. Any critical analysis strong enough to support fair use would inevitably be a violation of wp:original research without reliable sources such as the band talking about the meaning of the song. — coe l acan t a lk  — 22:57, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I didn't say we would just repeat the lyrics, did I? What we do is we link to them as an external link or a reference (depending on how picky people want to be with "fact" templates). Having done that, one can then write sentences such as "The lyrics deal with XYZ" with something approaching impunity. Without having the lyrics in front of me, I can't say what they're about, but it could potentially be that the lyrics are clearly full of references to "Beauty and the Beast" (they may not be, I'm just blue-skying here), in which case we can say as much. If Mr Lordi later goes on record as saying that the lyrics were inspired by his experiences being bullied at school, that's well and good, but the simplest and most basic level of "what the song is about" can be answered just by looking at the lyrics. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 23:24, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep Number 1 hit singles by notable bands are unquestionably notable, even if the available sources warrant only a stub article. See my comments on this user's other Lordi nominations - deleting articles about no. 1 singles by major bands is very clearly not what AfD should be about, even if the notability guidelines can somehow be interpreted to say otherwise (so change the guidelines!) Fortunately, I do not need to mention WP:POINT here as the nominator has already done so, neatly side-stepping any WP:AGF concerns. AdorableRuffian 21:19, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually one of the requirements of stubs is that they need to be able to grow. If there's not enough reliable sources out there to grow an article beyond a stub, then the stub cannot be kept and it must be merged elsewhere. Your accusation that I am making a point is a violation of WP:CIVIL unless you can demonstrate it to be true. You can't. What "point" would I be making? What exactly do you think I'm up to, here? I just found some flimsy articles that were unsourced and non-notable, so I nominated them for deletion. My only "point" is that non-notable articles should be deleted. — coe l acan t a lk  — 12:28, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I was simply replying to your invocation of WP:POINT earlier, which I felt was bordering on uncivil in itself. I accept that these were good faith nominations, however I do not know why you insist on pushing strict and subjective interpretations of guidelines (as if they were immutable and set in stone) and then replying back and disparaging the views of every single editor who disagrees with your opinion. AfD should not be a one-man show - we all have our views as to whether articles like this should be on the wiki, and all such opinions are equally valid (the more the merrier). Even if stubs need to be able to grow (something I don't necessarily agree with - many stub articles are valid and useful as they are) they do not need to grow right now - more sources may be found at a later date by someone who has read the article and wishes to expand it. One of the many good things about Wikipedia is that articles can start off as stubs and grow at their own pace. (A deleted article, of course, cannot grow at all.) AdorableRuffian 18:58, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I offered to assist in deletions of other songs and gave that user a genuine warning: someone who recently said "If their songs don't deserve Wikipedia entries, then neither do Jennifer Lopez', Hilary Duff's or any other ultra-popular American group" and then began nominating those performers' songs for deletion very likely would be accused of making a point. I thought that user should be apprised of this ahead of time. How is that incivil? Your point about stubs is a good one. They do need to be able to grow, but if there's a reasonable expectation that they will grow later, that would be a good argument for keeping them. I haven't seen indication that this is likely to grow, though. If we're already past its peak of popularity, there probably isn't going to be much else written about it in the future. — coe l acan t a lk  — 22:57, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per my comments in the Blood Red Sandman AfD debate. WMMartin 21:55, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm cutting and pasting those comments here for ease of other editors: "Not notable enough to stand as an aricle in its own right. The only Lordi track that can be regarded as notable enough to get a separate article is Hard Rock Hallelujah, for its historical significance. The other articles about Lordi tracks should also go. WMMartin" — coe l acan t a lk  — 13:09, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, per my comments in Articles for deletion/Who's Your Daddy? (song). --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 14:09, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I understand that the song helps Lordi fulfill their criteria but I ask, without further reliable sources, what article can be written about the song? What is the point of having a stub that never grows? — coe l acan t a lk  — 22:57, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Given that the song was released in Finland in 2002 and may only have been released more widely in the last few months (and given that the band only achieved worldwide fame less than a year ago), is it possible that calling this "a stub that never grows" is slightly premature? There've been a lot of songs in history which flopped initially and later went on to bigger and better things. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 23:27, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment I don't see the point of starting an AfD DISCUSSION if you're not going to keep an open mind about the subject. It's an open discussion, and each and every viewpoint opposite of yours does not need to be responded to. Just my 2 cents. Rockstar915 18:43, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't see the point of complaining like I've been eating babies here. It's an open discussion, which is why I'd prefer to give every replier the respect of taking their argument seriously enough to engage with. If I disagree, should I ignore them? Why? It's a discussion. It's worthwhile to ask for more input when someone hasn't answered the questions I've already put forward. What's not worthwhile, however, is to simply complain that I'm asking too many questions. As for an open mind, I think this song is halfway to being notable. It just needs one more source. — coe l acan t a lk  — 22:57, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep released, charting singles, especially #1 singles. --badlydrawnjeff talk 01:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep I worried some time about adding my opinion to these AfDs, as not only did I create the articles, but share a username with one. However, not only are charting singles notable, more importantly, here and here, we've already decided not to merge these articles into Lordi. Blood Red Sandman Open Up Your Heart  -  Receive My EviLove  07:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep #1 single, thus notable for inclusion. Also, pretty much every Pink Floyd song has an article, whether or not it was released as a single. I suppose we might as well delete those. --D-Day 18:25, 14 February 2007 (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.