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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 delete. Consensus here indicates that there isn't enough backing to the claim that the mention of rainbows in a song is notable. This was not a head count. Thanks to everyone who participated. m.o.p 05:15, 11 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

List of songs about Rainbows

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List of songs about Rainbows (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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You've got to be kidding. Completely irrelevant, unsourced, redlinky. There is nothing relevant about a song being about a rainbow. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 21:43, 1 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As it looks like there are some who think this kind of list is acceptable, a quick read of WP:LISTCRUFT reveals (my emboldening of text), "In general, a "list of X" should only be created if X itself is a legitimate encyclopedic topic that already has its own article. The list should originate as a section within that article, and should not be broken out into a separate article until it becomes so long as to be disproportionate to the rest of the article. It is very appropriate for the article on Zoology to include a list of important zoologists within it, and for the article on the fictional series character Rick Brant to include a list of the Rick Brant books." Now, if the list was merged into Rainbow as suggested above, then it would quickly be marked as trivia and deleted. IMO. --Richhoncho (talk) 02:11, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to clarify my reasoning, since there are some editors advocating retention. I see two significant problems for this cross-categorization list. First, although lists of songs about rainbows trivially exist, I do not see evidence that this grouping (or many other such groupings, for that matter) are notable. The Green Book, cited below, does indeed include a list of songs about rainbows. It has, however, "almost 1800 logical categories" of songs; for Wikipedia's purposes, those categorizations are therefore unlikely to grant independent notability. Second, from the standpoint of precedent, lists of songs about foo have not historically been well-regarded at AFD (although in fairness, there have been exceptions, especially for songs about places). Deleted topics include: animals, bad girls, basketball, being on fire, blackbirds, body parts, cheerleading, defecation, depression, disability, disasters, drugs, eating disorders, the environment (since recreated, I may send it back here), famous people, fantasy thoughts, fetal expulsion (really?), fictitious bands, firearms, flatulence, friendship, groupies, hair, holidays, homosexuality, laziness, masturbation, mental illness, money, mothers, nudity, old people, places, politicians, romance, the seasons, sex, sleep, suicide, teenage fun, telephones, tequila, unrequited love, violence, war, and the weather omnibus deletion that got a dozen+ similar lists; other successful deletions exist under slightly different title formatting (songs involving..., songs that reference..., etc.). It is my opinion that the surviving lists in this format either have something markedly distinctive about them, or are artifacts that have dodged the weight of precedent. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 01:23, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Some list of this type have been deleted, others kept. Not really related to this AFD. Dream Focus 01:58, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Music-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:40, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:40, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'd also like to clarify my reasoning. When I read WP:LISTN's line "A list topic is considered notable if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources," I base my vote on the word discuss. In order for a list to be notable, the sources need to answer the question (as it were) "Why are there so many songs about rainbows?" The provided sources don't seem to do that. While Green Book, The 10 Greatest Songs About Rainbows, the Statesman article, the Americana song reader, and the Star article all mention that songs about rainbows exist, they don't answer the question of why they exist. PaintedCarpet (talk) 12:18, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Listing songs by subject is a valid way of indexing them, and it's not meaningful to ask whether a list is notable when we're dealing with an article that is a list (and thus primarily a navigational device, no less than a category) rather than an article about a list. But I'm not convinced this is actually a list of songs by subject, notwithstanding the Green Book noted above. How many of these are actually songs about rainbows, and how many are songs that are about something else for which rainbows are used as metaphors? I imagine most, if not all, fall into the latter category, and "list of songs by shared metaphor" seems rather less useful. postdlf (talk) 03:02, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't aware of the connection with International Superstar K. Frog. That answers "Why rainbows?" for me. Delete recommendation stricken. Carrite (talk) 03:25, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep – Per reasoning and examples provided by users Billdanbury and Colonel Warden above, particularly per "The Green Book lists 40 songs about rainbows." Northamerica1000(talk) 09:36, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Does not come anywhere near notability. None of the three "keep" editors has provided any reason that stands up to study in line with Wikipedia's inclusion guidelines. The linking to other list articles by Billdanbury (the author of the article) is irrelevant, both for the reason given at WP:OTHERSTUFF (the other articles may deserve deletion too), and because they may perhaps have features which make them more appropriate than this one: merely pointing to the fact that they exist does not establish that they are on the same level as this article. Colonel Warden suggests that the list satisfies WP:LISTN, but it doesn't. That guideline says "A list topic is considered notable if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources" (my emphasis) not "if you can manage to find a catalogue somewhere that gives another mere listing on the same topic". Northamerica1000 does not give any new reason at all, but just refers back to the two other "keeps". JamesBWatson (talk) 12:28, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, no indication this is a subject discussed as a musical or poeetic theme. this is NOT a list of songs about rainbows. its a list of songs which use the word "rainbow" as a lyrical device or metaphor. Songs about sex, songs about death, songs about high school, etc. could all easily be created, if the list was limited to songs which had some degree of commentary/emotional reflection on those themes. Rainbows are nice symbols, but no one writes songs about them. Trivial list of songs linked by a word.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 08:42, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - No actual indication that the theme of rainbows in songs is a notable topic. Yaksar (let's chat) 09:46, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Isn't the point of categories to help people find related things they are actually interested in? If you find one song that happens to have rainbow in the title, what are the chances you want to find another? To me it seems comparable to a category "Articles with 7 letters in the title" Millermk90 (talk) 20:21, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. To paraphrase your comment, "rainbows are used as symbols," Nobody is disputing that rainbows are used as symbol in many aspects of world culture, including songs - or that there might be a good article in that, whether specifically for songs or culture in general and would most certainly be encyclopedic. What is being contested is that most, if not all, of the songs listed in this article use rainbow as a metaphor, an allegory, a simile or other literary device. Therefore the article name "Songs about rainbows" is so wrong on so many levels and misleading. This is the core point that nobody supporting a keep have managed to address, let alone rebut yet. --Richhoncho (talk) 11:44, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Symbol, shmymbol. You can't take the word "about" so literally. Certainly, our core readership will not do so. Bearian (talk) 17:37, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As a member of the "core readership" I know you are wrong!!! --Richhoncho (talk) 17:45, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth, both The Press and the American-Statesman articles refer to "songs about rainbows" even though some of the songs they list clearly use rainbows as metaphors. Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 18:40, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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