Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ZZ Top equipment (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. Barkeep49 (talk) 01:37, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

ZZ Top equipment
AfDs for this article: 
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An article about the musical equipment used by the band ZZ Top. No indication of why this equipment is notable enough for an article and the article mostly comprises original research. Popcornfud (talk) 19:19, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Bands and musicians-related deletion discussions. Popcornfud (talk) 19:19, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Entertainment-related deletion discussions. Lightburst (talk) 23:01, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Music-related deletion discussions. Lightburst (talk) 23:01, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletion discussions. Lightburst (talk) 23:01, 29 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete Probably written in mistaken good faith but there is no encyclopaedic topic here, just fancruft. Generally, even very major rock bands do not have "equipment" articles of this type. I did a quick search and this was the only one I found on the first few pages of the search. This strongly suggests that a specific claim for this particular band's equipment choices being especially notable is required. There is none at all. Also, some of the "references" go to pages belonging to companies that do not seem to mention the band, or its members, at all and just try to sell you stuff instead. --DanielRigal (talk) 19:33, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete - In agreement with the nominator and previous voters. Some of the info is reliably sourced, so selected tidbits from this article could be merged to the individual articles for each of the three band members, though that would still approach fancruft territory. ---  DOOMSDAYER 520 (Talk&#124;Contribs) 03:19, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep This is a repeat nomination and it's no better than the previous one, which resulted in a Keep. On that previous occasion, I was so impressed by the potential of the topic that I started a list of guitars and that worked out fine.  Anyway, let's break it down.  The nomination asserts, without any evidence, that there's "no indication of why this equipment is notable enough for an article".  The article actually has plenty of sources and, per WP:N, that's how we determine notability.  And there's plenty more out there.  For example, one distinctive schtick is their spinning guitars.  Here's an article in Guitar World which focusses on this: The Story Behind ZZ Top's Spinning Fur Guitars.  That's notability.
 * Other nay-sayers above claim that we don't have similar articles for other bands such as the Beatles. Those claims are false too – here's a selection:
 * List of the Beatles' instruments
 * The Who's musical equipment
 * Rush equipment
 * Deacy Amp
 * You can see from this that our coverage is not uniform, being structured in different ways, but that's not a reason to delete. What's generally true is that such supergroups tend to have many articles covering numerous aspects – discographies, details of albums, tours, hits, membership &c.  ZZ Top is no exception and they have a substantial navigation template to keep track of their many articles and I'll append this.  Given such extensive coverage and notability, the issue here is improvement/merger/splitting not deletion per WP:ATD and WP:PRESERVE.
 * Andrew🐉(talk) 15:47, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The concern is specifically that there's not enough notable coverage for an article. Any notable non-WP:FANCRUFT information about equipment would definitely be good content for the main ZZ Top article, as in, for example, the Jimi Hendrix article. Popcornfud (talk) 15:57, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * WP:FANCRUFT is not a policy; it's just an opionated and insulting essay contrary to actual policies such as WP:CIVIL and WP:NPOV. It is therefore worthless as a reason to delete. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:11, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Fancruft is an essay expanding on WP:IINFO which IS policy. Ajf773 (talk) 22:15, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * WP:FANCRUFT says explicitly that "This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines...". And who are the fans supposed to be in this case?  The people who like ZZ Top's music will be most interested in our articles about their music -- their albums, for example.  So we delete those too?  The fans who like to see them live will be interested in their tours so we delete those articles too?  Just where does this fan-purging stop?  Why would you keep anything about ZZ Top?  Do we only keep topics for people who have no interest in them?  What's the point of that?  And if Wikipedia is just for boring technical stuff then this article qualifies.  Only technical musicians will be interested in the amps, filters and instruments used by ZZ Top.  If you're not interested in the technology then maybe it's because you're the fanboy, not the serious student?  How do we tell?  Andrew🐉(talk) 23:32, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * See WP:INTERESTING. Any subject or topic may be of interest to someone, somewhere [...] However, personal interest or apathy is not a valid reason to keep or delete an article.
 * Wikipedia is not for lists of data of interest only to niche audiences (see WP:IINFO), but nor is it "for boring technical stuff" - see WP:TECHNICAL. It's for a general readership.
 * As a matter of fact I am extremely interested in music technology and that's why I spend so much time on Wikipedia writing about it. But I also know what's good encyclopaedic content and what isn't - and this ain't. Popcornfud (talk) 23:47, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Lets look at that list of articles that might serve as valid precedents, or which might just be examples of WP:OTHERCRAP, to see if they help us to decide:
 * List of the Beatles' instruments - This is a legitimate topic. The Beatles used unusual instruments in a way that was very highly innovative and which changed the sound and the scope of popular music in a way that almost all other bands, e.g. ZZ Top, simply didn't. This has been covered extensively by reliable sources. It is a notable topic. The article doesn't cover that topic very well because it gets distracted by the minutiae of guitar and amp models. It could do with a rewrite but the subject is legit.
 * The Who's musical equipment - This looks fairly legit to me. It covers innovations and developments in rock instruments led by The Who. It is not just a list of kit.
 * Rush equipment - This is completely worthless. Just a list with no encylopaedic value. It is similar to this article and is, if anything, actually worse because it doesn't even try to cobble its list together into prose. If I had found this one when I did my initial search I would have added it to the scope of this AfD. Sadly it is too late now.
 * Deacy Amp - This is an article about a specific amplifier. It is in no way comparable to the other articles we are discussing here.
 * So what does this tell us? That articles about musical innovations, including innovations in instrumentation, are potentially legitimate topics provided significant innovations exist and have been covered as such by RS sources. What it doesn't tell us is that every major band's choices of standard instruments are notable topics. ZZ Top were not the first band to use standard guitars and amps. They were probably not even the first band to get their beards tangled up in their guitar strings. --DanielRigal (talk) 19:51, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Deacy Amp - This is an article about a specific amplifier. It is in no way comparable to the other articles we are discussing here.
 * So what does this tell us? That articles about musical innovations, including innovations in instrumentation, are potentially legitimate topics provided significant innovations exist and have been covered as such by RS sources. What it doesn't tell us is that every major band's choices of standard instruments are notable topics. ZZ Top were not the first band to use standard guitars and amps. They were probably not even the first band to get their beards tangled up in their guitar strings. --DanielRigal (talk) 19:51, 30 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep - We do have articles about equipment of bands and I was wrong. It does have reliable sources too. Koridas  ( Speak? ) 15:53, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * What does "I was wrong" mean? You don't appear to have ever edited either the article or talk page, or this AFD besides the above. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 00:11, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * , I originally voted delete until I saw Andrew's argument and then I changed my mind. Koridas  ( Speak? ) 01:26, 31 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep it serves our readers to have a well written article about the equipment used by a popular band. The article has reliable sources. And to merge it with ZZ Top would make the article cumbersome. Lightburst (talk) 16:25, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete. Arguably this is fancruft, and there are very few articles relating to other musical artists' equipment. Many of the sources in the article make no reference to the band, and are simply related to the product itself, thus making this article very much a haven of original research. Ajf773 (talk) 20:01, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Ajf773 (talk) 20:01, 29 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Redirect/merge or delete At present the ZZ Top article is roughly half the size of my incomplete article Medieval Japanese literature in terms of bytes and roughly one third its size in terms of word count once we exclude the titles of its multiple separate sources. Are the present fork article's defenders saying that the medieval Japanese literature article is in fact not too short but rather much too long, and that rather than expanding it I should split it off? Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 04:48, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * KEEP Reading through https://www.guitarworld.com/gear/story-behind-zz-tops-spinning-fur-guitars I see that musical instruments do get significant coverage. So having an article for them makes sense.   D r e a m Focus  03:01, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * That article talks solely about Billy Gibbons' guitars. None of the equipment of the other members gets a mention. Ajf773 (talk) 07:42, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * There are sources in the article for other equipment.  D r e a m Focus  12:00, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Try actually looking at the sources in a bit more detail. All the sources on Frank Beard's equipment is just catalogue information and makes no reference to the drummer. Ajf773 (talk) 21:25, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep FANCRUFT is no more than a subjective IDONTLIKEIT and as another Andrew D said, "an opionated and insulting essay contrary to actual policies". I don't care about this stuff to this detail, but I know that my muso friends do. ZZ Top (who I'm also no great fan of) are a substantial and long-existing band. There's enough sourcing to write this, there's enough interest in the topic to justify it, there's enough secondary attention paid to justify WP:N. Andy Dingley (talk) 18:59, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, PhantomSteve/ talk ¦ contribs \ 10:37, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep: The Guitar World article, "The Story Behind ZZ Top's Spinning Fur Guitars" makes it clear that the band's equipment is notable. I agree with others that "fancruft" is an IDONTLIKEIT opinion. What matters are the sources, which address the topic directly and in detail. I added the GW article as a reference on the article. — Toughpigs (talk) 17:08, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
 * You mean this article? . It doesn't mention the entire bands equipment, it only covers Billy Gibbons'. Perhaps it can be linked to his BLP instead. Ajf773 (talk) 20:02, 5 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep: As I added the further quote, those spinning guitars are still of interest 30 years after they used them in the Legs video.  Let me emphasize "they" as the memorable effect involves both Gibbons and Hill with matching equipment.  That alone makes this band's equipment notable.  Additionally, virtually every major band (50 million records, this is a major band) has discussions of their equipment.  For larger, more complex articles, it is broken off into a separate article like this.  When merges occur, large swaths of content are lost in trying to make it fit into a large article, whether in the initial move or later over time by various editors.  If this is merged back it will turn into a constant watch to make sure content isn't lost.  Of course, that's what deletion advocates always want, to thoughtlessly excise content that has been carefully contributed to wikipedia.  I've been fighting them for now 13 years.  I'm old and cynical by this point.  As I say on my user page; find a better use of your time. Trackinfo (talk) 09:56, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
 * There is no conspiracy here. If there is something notable about their instruments then it can be said in the main article and there is absolutely no reason to expect that it will be removed if validly referenced. The vast majority of what is in this article is not that at all. If the spinning guitar thing really is notable, and I'm assuming that it is, then it certainly has a valid place in the main article.
 * You claim that "virtually every major band (50 million records, this is a major band) has discussions of their equipment." This is not true to anything like the extent that we see it covered here. Do we see list articles about all the equipment used by Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Queen? No, this is covered in the articles about the bands, to the extent that it is notable.
 * I understand that some fans like to collate much more detailed information about every detail of what a band does. Some might want to catalogue every brand and model of musical instrument they ever used, others might want to detail every outfit they wore in public. There are places on the internet for that sort of detailed fan coverage but I don't believe that an encyclopaedia is one of those places. --DanielRigal (talk) 17:09, 6 April 2020 (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.