Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/New York City Subway in popular culture

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. Headcount strongly favours keeping, New York City Subway is already 124k, so merger is impossible WilyD 12:00, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

New York City Subway in popular culture

New York City Subway in popular culture (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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The whole article is WP:TRIVIA. Any notable popular culture references could easily be incorporated as a section in New York City Subway 1292simon (talk) 07:04, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

• Keep. Oppose. The article is too long to be incorporated as a section. There are several articles related to the NYC Subway existing as separate articles due to being too long. Vcohen (talk) 08:21, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

AfD !votes usually take the form of keep/delete, rather than support/oppose, for the sake of clarity. DoctorKubla (talk) 09:51, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done Vcohen (talk) 10:00, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

• Keep. This article was split from New York City Subway in January 2007, and has grown since then, so it wouldn't make sense to merge it back in. And this list isn't WP:TRIVIA; that guideline is about "trivia sections" full of unintegrated miscellaneous facts, whereas this is a perfectly legitimate "in popular culture" article. DoctorKubla (talk) 09:51, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Please note, "in popular culture" is an essay. "Essays are not Wikipedia policies or guidelines." 1292simon (talk) 09:57, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but I think a relevant essay trumps a completely irrelevant guideline. DoctorKubla (talk) 10:15, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

• Weak keep While comprehensive, it's not a good article in other ways: it's very badly sourced (of the 3 refs, one is a forum, one is a business website, and only one is a real published reliable source), and it's a list whereas Wikipedia style generally prefers paragraphs of prose. But even the proposer suggests a partial merge rather than outright deletion, and I think leaving it here is better than merging for reasons of length. --Colapeninsula (talk) 11:27, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
• Speedy Keep The nomination misunderstands WP:TRIVIA which does not seem to have been read. The nomination seems to be suggesting merger into another article and that would not require deletion. Warden (talk) 13:11, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
• Strong Keep per DoctorKubla and Warden, although the classifications should be changed from Start to List. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 13:59, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
• Keep This is a fine "in popular culture" article. No reason to delete. If you want to improve it, fine. But there are much more important things to do. Borock (talk) 17:59, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't know the policy, and too lazy to look up right now, but it seems to me that if the "popular culture" work is notable there does not really need to be a secondary source saying that the subway is featured in it. It can be the source itself. Borock (talk) 18:02, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

• Keep The information is not trivial. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 22:50, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
• Keep - I'm not sure if WP:TRIVIA applies considering the organization and clear focus of the article as a 'popular culture' directly and not an indiscriminate list of facts. Mkdw^talk 23:38, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISPEANUTBUTTER☆★ 05:48, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISPEANUTBUTTER☆★ 05:48, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISPEANUTBUTTER☆★ 05:48, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISPEANUTBUTTER☆★ 05:48, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

• Delete: Violates WP:V, in that the article is not based on independent, third-party sources. Basing the article on independent, third-party sources is what helps ensure that we do not stray into WP:INDISCRIMINATE territory. If the article were indeed compliant with WP:V, we would be easily able to demonstrate that reliable sources had found at least the majority of these facts to be relevant and important when considering the portrayal of the New York City Subway in popular culture. Instead, the article is a simple laundry-list of facts. Each individual fact may be verifiable (as WP:V does permit verification of individual facts through primary sources), but the collection of those facts into a representation of "this is what it's important to know about the portrayal of the New York City Subway in popular culture" cannot be verified.—Kww(talk) 19:18, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

An article topic only "violates" WP:V if the entire content is unverifiable, ie "Martian literature makes multiple references to the New York City Subway", not current unverified in the article. Primary sources are allowed in Wikipedia. If the article says "The Bee Gees recorded the song 'Subway' for their 1976 album Children of the World", the Bee Gees song "Subway" suffices as evidence. To demand the New York Times or something also state ""The Bee Gees recorded the song 'Subway' for their 1976 album Children of the World" is just silly game playing. --Oakshade (talk) 20:19, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Please read my argument (and WP:V) again. I agree that individual facts can be verified to primary sources. No problem there. WP:V also states that articles need to be based on independent, third-party sources, though. An article which consists of nothing but facts verified by primary sources is not based on independent, third-party sources. There's a level of primary sourcing that's acceptable and even necessary. Entire articles that consist of a list of disjoint facts sourced to primary sources are way beyond that acceptable level.—Kww(talk) 20:40, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

• Merge to New York City Subway. I agree with some editors above that this content is notable. However, it seems that in practice we add this sort of information as an "In Popular Culture" section to the main article. Now, Kww brings up some important concerns. There's very few references to most of the information in the existing article; I think that, should this information be kept in one form or another, it certainly needs to be worked on and improved. --Lord Roem (talk) 19:59, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
• Merge to New York City Subway. Even though many of the entries here are true, they are unverifiable and pure WP:FANCRUFT. We can easily create a new section on the main article called "In Popular Culture" where we list only well-known featuring of the subway (i.e. the entire film, show, or song is centered around the system). This includes The Taking of Pelham 123, The French Connection, and Take the A Train. All the other entries referring to music videos, TV shows, and others that only show quick passing subway scenes should be removed (e.g. Macy Gray's I Try video, World Trade Center (film), Saving Face, and Futurama's The Luck of Fryrish) because the system is not the primary focus and thus, no one cares about them. Almost every movie, show, and video shot in NYC will feature the subway. Does that make them notable to mention here? No! The Legendary Ranger (talk) 01:08, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment - The existing article for the New York City Subway is far too large as it is. Only a separate "In popular culture list would suffice. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 05:31, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
    • Comment I think any article could withstand the impact of the sourced items. That a section became an overwhelmingly bloated list of trivial material sourced only to the material itself isn't an argument for splitting it out, it's an argument to start removing material.—Kww(talk) 16:59, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
• Comment – Due to the premature closer & resulting reopening, this deletion discussion was archived by AnomieBOT, I've reverted those 8 edits restoring this deletion discussion to the relevant delsort pages & removed from archives. ★☆ DUCKISPEANUTBUTTER☆★ 03:51, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
• Keep Converted to prose this would make for a fairly comprehensive article, certainly containing too much information to live as a mere section on the main subway page. --Grahamdubya (talk) 04:39, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Though comment, I've noticed some "in popular culture" sections on individual service pages (e.g., the 6 train); perhaps standardizing those and extending the same to station pages makes more sense? --Grahamdubya (talk) 04:39, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

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Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, MBisanz ^talk 23:10, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

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• The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls... now, which subway d'ya think??? Carlossuarez46 (talk) 19:12, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
• Keep The topic is too substantial for a useful merge, and will be easier to develop separately. I think almost everyone here except possibly the nom is convinced that the material is appropriate. and kww's argument can be met by better sourcing.The content of an article does not have to meet the requirements fro mblp or WP:GNG; verifiability is sufficient. DGG ( talk ) 02:57, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

• My concern can not be met by "better sourcing". It's been built on an improper foundation, in that the article is not based on material found in independent sources, it has been based on material found in primary sources. Even if someone managed to find a review of "American Dragon" that mentioned that "Jake" sometimes "rides in the subway to get around", that wouldn't be a source that indicated that Jake riding the subway is in any way relevant to the concept of the NYC subway's impact on popular culture. There's nothing here that is worth saving, much less "substantial". "Substantial" and "bloated" are distinct concepts, and this thing is just bloated.—Kww(talk) 04:22, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
• DGG, I disagree that you have discounted GNG. For an article to exist, it needs to be notable, not just verifiable. Otherwise we would have articles like Wooden telegraph poles in popular culture, which would list every show ever made because they all feature telegraph poles at some stage. The Legendary Ranger's suggestion above seems like a sensible solution IMHO. 1292simon (talk) 08:21, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

• Keep, legitimate as a breakout article. Frankly, I feel that "in popular culture" sections are the devil, and if a breakout is what it takes to keep such fluff out of the main article, that's good enough for me. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 04:53, 29 December 2012 (UTC).
• Keep. A legitimate split per WP:SUMMARY. oknazevad (talk) 02:08, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
• Delete, unless better sources are added. Miniapolis (talk) 00:09, 31 December 2012 (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.