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. ✗plicit 00:48, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, the book that makes up the one source of the article is real, so no OR. Doesn't mean the list is notable, mind you. Mach61 (talk) 04:15, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, there's 1,441(!) entries on that list, and only 42 in-line citations to that book, but I see there are also a handful of external links in the table itself. What I meant by WP:OR is that I'll eat my hat if there are 1,441 songs written about Oslo that are demonstrable from lyrics (which have to have been reputably published) alone, and any interpretation needs a secondary source. IgnatiusofLondon (talk) 04:32, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You're right, I noticed all the book citations and didn't notice how comically large the page is Mach61 (talk) 04:40, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. I'm the one starting this list, back in 2017. I am no expert on Wikipedia, but together with others (especially @Bolleoystein) we have worked on this list regularly. The main media and news broadcaster in Norway, NRK, is daily using this list. We have been trying to get someone to cater and care for this data somewhere else, but have not been successful on that. It is true, there are 1441 songs about Oslo (mentioning the city, a street, people, etc.). Similar lists are for many other cities. In Europe only Paris and London have more songs about their city. Zanzibar 1001 (talk) 09:30, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@zanzibar 1001: you can host your own wiki for such things. ltbdl (talk) 10:26, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean: The main media and news broadcaster in Norway, NRK, is daily using this list? Can you link us to sources where NRK discusses songs about Oslo as a group? IgnatiusofLondon (talk) 15:32, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If this list is to be deleted, does that also include all "List of songs about city"? There are many such lists. I believe London has 2900 songs. Paris has 1900 songs. There are countless songs about New York, naturally Zanzibar 1001 (talk) 09:41, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
i probably should send those off as well... ltbdl (talk) 10:25, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Those lists generally contain only songs for which either the artist or song is sufficiently notable to justify a standalone article. Nevertheless, I think they could be viable AfD candidates, save those cities for which sources have discussed songs about that city collectively. IgnatiusofLondon (talk) 15:29, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Beware of the other stuff fallacy and don't drop hints about deleting New York and Paris articles too. I also question how the criterion "about Oslo" has been used for this list. Just by browsing near the top, I found the entry "Aker Brygge (instrumental)" and must honestly ask how an instrumental is about anything, even though this one is named after an Oslo neighborhood. If all the other 1400+ songs in the list happen to mention Oslo in some fashion, then kudos for all the research that has been done by this article's editors. But is that research compelling for the reader? ---DOOMSDAYER520 (TALK|CONTRIBS) 15:11, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why is that irrelevant? List of songs about cities is great list, linking to numerous cities. My point is that linking these lists together is interesting to many people. As for you question on "Aker Brygge" as an instrumental, several songs on the Oslolist are instrumentals, some of them being a tribute to Oslo, to places in Oslo, or people in Oslo. The same applies for many cities, I beleive. As for the New York-list, e.g. "87th Street" is in the list, also an instrumental, by New York Jazz Quartet. I have no doubt that song is about New York. Zanzibar 1001 (talk) 13:14, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Many of your responses throughout this discussion are running afoul of the other stuff fallacy that I already linked. Other articles with lists of songs about cities are not infallible. Some are fine the way they are, some need to be improved, some should be deleted. This article about Oslo is not helped or harmed by the existence of articles about New York or Paris or anywhere else, all of which have their own issues. Instead, this article must stand on its own, and must survive the blue-linked policies that several people have cited. Here's another: saying that an article or its topic is "interesting" is not a valid argument for a deletion discussion per WP:INTERESTING. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (TALK|CONTRIBS) 22:17, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment How about moving this list to the Norwegian wiki instead of deleting it? If indeed NRK is using the list, that may make it within notability, but I'd like to see some proof of this. The other pages linked do also not say clearly whether this list (and others like it) should be outright deleted. In fact the linked WP:NOTINDISCRIMINATE says there is no consensus on what do to with this sort of content. But anyhow, I'm returning to my initial question here.. can this be moved to the Norwegian wiki where its notability may be a good deal higher? Oz\InterAct 14:39, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
does no.wiki want the list? ltbdl (talk) 14:46, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Zanzibar 1001Can you ask on the Norwegian wiki if they want this content? Oz\InterAct 14:56, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Even with the copy to no.wiki I'm actually voting keep here, because voting delete will open a can of worms lots other content to be considered including the very large list here: [1] and a whole host of other pages in this field. If you want to tackle this one, you should tackle the whole thing. Oz\InterAct 12:49, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There likely is a place on Wikipedia for lists of songs about cities, and I'm sure there are sources to support WP:NLIST through local newspaper articles &c. discussing music in each city. But these lists should, in my view, only list songs that are either notable by themselves or for their artist. I have in mind that, when I was visiting a city on a school exchange, my hosting parents put on a song in their car dedicated to the city, which they said was famous. So I imagine readers want to know about the handful of notable songs associated with each city, but I'm not sure who's interested in a comprehensive list of 1,441(!) songs written about Oslo. I appreciate AfD is not clean-up, but I think starting anew from the sources is likely easier than assessing the notability of 1,441 songs (WP:TNT). IgnatiusofLondon (talk) 14:18, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, mainly because of the comprehensive breach of the WP:OR policy. It also fails WP:INDISCRIMINATE. For startes, who knows which sources many of these songs were dug up from. While "songs about Oslo" might not be an inherently non-encyclopedic topic as such, the songs in this list differ wildly in their connection to Oslo and to eachother, ostensibly making the grouping of these songs a made-up one. Look at the edit history. Some songs have been included because they mention a metro, and Oslo is the only Norwegian city with a metro. Some namedrop a location in the city, but does that make them "about" Oslo? What does that term even mean? What this list really is, is a subset of the "... in popular culture" articles that were popular, but were ultimately purged 10-15 years ago. See for instance Tallahassee, Jonestown, Maine, Bexhill and Iceland for AFDs about small towns, large towns and even countries - the only difference now being that "popular culture" has been narrowed down to "songs". Geschichte (talk) 12:26, 7 March 2024 (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.