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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of common emoticons

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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 keep and move to List of emoticons.

Various considerable aspects both in favour of deletion and keep have been mentioned in this debate.

Regarding the points having been mentioned in favour of deletion, the following ones seem to be noteworthy: Firstly, it has been explained that the article would not meet our standards for verifiability and for notability. Also, quite a few participants have expressed concerns regarding the page title: According to them, the word “common” constitutes POV. The last point to mention is that some users deem the article unsourced and thus want it to be deleted.

On the other hand, numerous arguments in favour of keep have been explained. Those arguments are partly even addressing the points that have been named by the users who said the article should be deleted: There would be more than enough potential reliable sources (quite a few have even been named in this debate as examples); the sourcing problem could be addressed by adding them to the article. Regarding the notability concerns the vast majority of the participants agree that the subject of the article is a notable expression and is notable enough for inclusion. Thus, the subject of this article would constitute a reasonable subject for a list. Finally, the POV problem can be solved quite easily; simply by moving the article to List of emoticons, as explained below by some users.

Taking all these points into account, I think it is safe to say that there's a clear consensus for keeping the article. — Aitias // discussion 21:03, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

List of common emoticons

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List of common emoticons (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

This page does not meet our criteria for inclusion. It belongs on Wikisource or some other project, but it is entirely unreferenced and unsuited for an encyclopedia. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:35, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • How it even possible to have sources for emoticons? They are simply something that someone made up and have pervaded our culture. There is no original source. Yet this page is still highly useful as it teaches the uninformed about internet culture. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.208.56.180 (talk) 21:05, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • You're right to say that essays are in no way binding, WP:AADD just prevents having to repeat yourself. Also, I agree that deletion is a last resort, and that we should not delete this article. However, WP:V and WP:RS are not essays; they describe a strong consensus. --Explodicle (T/C) 19:37, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions (WP:AADD): "Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints. Heed them or not at your own discretion." Editors are welcome to see this article as useful, and ignore the "subjective" WP:AADD. Ikip (talk) 09:09, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not using WP:AADD as if citing policy, I'm using it to elaborate my own point. An encyclopedia article is only as good as its sources. --Explodicle (T/C) 20:00, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions (WP:AADD): "Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints. Heed them or not at your own discretion." Editors can see this article as useful, and ignore WP:AADD. Usefulness can be a factor in deletion discussions. Just because another editor quotes an acronym, does not make it iron clad law. Ikip (talk) 09:09, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You're right, it doesn't. However, one could claim that any article up for deletion is "useful". We need to make our decision based on facts, not opinions. --Explodicle (T/C) 20:02, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ummm, unfortunatly, the policy verifiability, in the very first sentence, contradicts your statement. WP:V: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability" The five pillars of wikipedia, the most important rules, state: "All articles must strive for verifiable accuracy: unreferenced material may be removed, so please provide references." It is a question of editing, editors can find references, and add those references. Have editors who support delete looked for references themselves, if not, how do you know that none exist? Ikip (talk) 09:09, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Usefulness is the paramount criteria in assessing what makes the encyclopedia better. This is fundamental and all the other guidelines are built on it. ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:39, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, i keep having to clarify this essay, I agree with Child. What is and is not notable is also completely a matter of opinion, yet it is the reason a majority of articles get deleted. Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions (WP:AADD): "Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints. Heed them or not at your own discretion." Editors can see this article as useful, and ignore WP:AADD. Usefulness can be a factor in deletion discussions. Just because another editor quotes an important sounding acronym, does not make it iron clad law, heed at your own discretion. Ikip (talk) 09:09, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In the context of Wikipedia, what is and is not notable is not a matter of opinion; you can find the definition at Wikipedia:Notability, which is a guideline (not an essay) backed by an editorial consensus. --Explodicle (T/C) 20:08, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Plenty of sources for this notable expression of Internet culture. See any random "how to use the Internet" style book for a start. Reasonable subject for a list. If it is currently unsourced, the solution is to add sources, not to delete it, per WP:DELETION. JulesH (talk) 13:14, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Instead of simply throwing out "there are sources somewhere", why not make your speculation concrete? Please provide the references here, or add them yourself. Still, I think they are definitions which should cross-wiki link to Wiktionary. Scapler (talk) 21:55, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think this AfD, like most AfD's is summed up in a saying by User:MichaelQSchmidt "I'd Rather fix the damn pipe rather than complain about having wet feet." A lot of editors complaining that someone else should fix the article. Ikip (talk) 09:09, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Since the emoticon article passes WP:V, WP:NOTE, etc, a "list of" article does not need to pass all those requirements for each entry. The Emoticon#Examples already has external links to lists of emoticons supported by major IM providers, those seem like reasonable sources to me.
When this article was deleted w/o any AfD or discussion, I debated pulling it back just so that an AfD could be done. I decided not to because I didn't think it would be worth my time. For a couple of years now, I've been trying to babysit the emoticon article against the constant flood of vandalism and people inserting their favorite emoticon or whatever they made up in school today. One of the ways I've been cutting back the bloat there is to tell people to put stuff into the "list of" article, but my interest in that article didn't even extend to having it on my watch list. I see that Aaron Brenneman has currently been heavily editing it, convert this "list of" into move of an article than a list. Unless someone wants to put a lot of time babysiting this article, I predict it will return to a very long list of very marginal emoticons, random comments and content that duplicates the emoticon article. Wrs1864 (talk) 15:16, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per JayHenry. Five Pillars says at the very beginning that WP properly contains elements of almanacs and gazetteers. To take the analogy further, next to the gazetteer in my Webster's is a list of punctuation marks and a list of "arbitrary signs and symbols", which covers alchemy, music, etc. I feel that emoticons fall into the same category. Squidfryerchef (talk) 22:00, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as unsourced and unsourceable (failing to be verifiable). Classed as an emoticon by whom ? Emoticons common by whose definition ? Common in what context or language ? The list is by necessity going to only express one small part of culture's definition not only of what an emoticon is but how common they are. The subject is packed full of original research and synthesis. - Peripitus (Talk) 07:01, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect to Emoticon. On the Punctuation page they have a list of common punctuation symbols on the right hand side of the page may be something like that can be put into the emoticons page and just redirect this page to that one. Pete168 (talk) 08:03, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Wiki is not paper. Article is encyclopedic and sources can be found easily enough. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.58.187 (talk) 20:47, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • If this article is kept, it should be moved to List of emoticons; if this is deleted, they should both be deleted. I'm pretty sure that there was a list of emoticons that was deleted once before (I think it had the content that is on this revision of another page). Does anybody know if I'm right, and if so, what that page's name was? As for the issue at hand, people make up emoticons all the time. So having a "list of emoticons" would be indiscriminate. I think merging truly common emoticons back to the Emoticon page would be the best course of action. seresin ( ¡? )  23:02, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to List of emoticons - "common" is largely subjective and difficult to define, source what can be sourced, remove what can't be, merge to Emoticon if that turns out to be the best solution in terms of article size and style. Basically what User:seresin said. Guest9999 (talk) 10:27, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to List of emoticons - I agree with the Guest9999 to move the page. Referencing "common" in the title would automatically infer that some statistical analysis is used to derive the values. I also think the lists should be greatly expanded upon. Although many different emoticons exist (have you used Y! messenger or Trillian lately?), I do not believe all of them need to be referenced. The "clown" and "cowboy" 'emoticons' come to mind. I, do, believe that this current version of the list is substantially lacking and that more pure emotionally-centric versions of the emoticons should be added. --Brent.austin (talk) 17:05, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per JayHenry, Dhowell, et al.; or, if needed, move, per the above discussion. Lots of this can be sourced easily. Just try a little harder. Bearian (talk) 19:46, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and Rename without "common" and only include emoticons that are cited in a reliable source (that way the content will not fall into things that are made up in one day category). A few of the references DHowell put in look like they could be incorporated now.--kelapstick (talk) 22:05, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Self-promoted leaf-pile guards...appeared, saying that your leaves were too crumpled or too slimy or too common, throwing them to the side
In the almost two years this article has existed, and the time of this debate, we have ended up with an article with zero references. Where (all those saying references can be found) is there a single reliable reference saying there is such a thing as a recognized common emoticon to have a list of ? Peripitus (Talk) 09:12, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I was willing to do what none of the delete editors have been, this article is now referenced. "Where is the single reference backing up the existance (sic) of the topic" Take one second and scroll up to DHowell's response. I would like to answer your question too, check the page's references, it is now referenced. I would like to introduce the template {{findsources3}}, in the hope that those editors so eager to delete other editors contributions can now contribute to this and other pages. Ikip (talk) 09:33, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note to closing administrator This page has been updated with references since the Article for deletion tag was added. Ikip (talk) 09:33, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Delete Umm, people... you don't need to look at it being useful or not. Look at the nature of the page. Of what it will eventually become. Also take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NOT I'm gonna be lazy and not tag each part but here are some of the reasons : "Wikipedia is not a dictionary" (look at #3 in that part. I donno about you but I can easily see these emotes as having a similar nature to slangs or idioms.), "Wikipedia is not a directory" (this makes reference to things like a phone book, but the subject in question is not the nature of having such personal info posted but that its just a massive list of objects), "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" (The whole thing of siting some dinky lil page will only get you so far. Given the arguments of how this kinda thing is very cultural and ever changing you'll never find appropriate sources for every single possible emote.), etc. Honestly if you people want a list that badly heres what ya do: get ur own site, make a huge list of every possible emote you can think of, come back to wikipedia and put a link to your list. The idea is nice, but its really not something that belongs in Wikipedia. -posted anonymously (by someone who's never posted on Wikipedia before, sry for all the things i did wrong) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.241.170.48 (talk) 20:06, 3 February 2009 (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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