Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1915 in jazz

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The result was Withdrawn but don't expect the house to build itself. Do some work on them. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Otters want attention)} 23:41, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

1915 in jazz (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log) • Afd statistics

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Cosprings tried to nominate the 1957 article with a reason of "Unsourced, poorly maintained group of article. This article all all article contained with the same category Category:Years in jazz." but made a malformatted AFD here.

I would've suggested a speedy keep since there are countless "[year] in [genre of music]" articles already, but these ones are super-short stubs that violate WP:PUTEFFORT. No context, no intro, no sources, no criterion for what would be included on the list. Years-in-jazz articles could easily be done but these are so bad that it's better to invoke WP:TNT and start over. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Otters want attention)} 04:42, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And what about 1920s in jazz, 1930s in jazz, 1940s in jazz, 1950s in jazz, 1960s in jazz, 1970s in jazz, 1980s in jazz, 1990s in jazz, 2000s in jazz, does that violate WP:PUTEFFORT too? Sorry, but we have hundreds of lists like 1617 in Ireland which are much worse. Those are true "super short stubs". A merger of articles into decades shows that the information already listed in seperate articles amounted at least to something but just needed improving like most articles on wikipedia... Given time I am certain they will all be expanded like 1926 in jazz and 1979 in jazz...As it stands the decades mergers are in a good position to branch out from with further details and repopulate these rather meager stubs with something worthwhile.. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:21, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: 1924 and 1930 have only one event on them and were previously prodded for that very reason. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Otters want attention)} 04:57, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. -- Jclemens-public (talk) 05:21, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Music-related deletion discussions. -- Jclemens-public (talk) 05:21, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: WP:JAZZ notified. AllyD (talk) 10:02, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. I'm generally dubious that a calendar year provides suitable context for significant development. But even if they did, the years 1944-46 were about the most momentous in jazz history with the Bebop revolution, and what have we of that here? Absolutely nothing. So as argued by Ten Pound Hammer, it feels better to discard rather than salvage, and then perhaps look at what would be suitable representation for the evolutionary trends by period. AllyD (talk) 10:19, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. For reasons described above. Cosprings (talk) 13:03, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep all and expand or at least merge into e.g 1940s in jazz, 1950s in jazz etc until they can be improved and built up. This was supposed to be a working progression. Why is it any different to say 1944 in country music or 2002 in Armenian football? All of the lists certainly contain more info than 1617 in Ireland for example. Hell we even have year pages for minor sports clubs. These pages could all be written into decent articles documenting the history of jazz in detail and plenty of sources reveal that they are notable.... 1959 in jazz etc could easily be expanded.. Plenty of reliable sources could be compiled like this etc to turn all of these into decent articles. 1955 in jazz has a whole article here which could be used as a source. As for bebop being the be all and end all of jazz, really... Yes the golden era was pre 1960 but jazz is big enough of a genre to mean documenting musical history in this way as valid. There are tons of reliable sources and information in books like this and this to document jazz history.♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:53, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I hadn't previously noticed List of pre-1920 jazz standards and those decade lists. Ideally we'd have pages for each year equally well written and sourced. hadn't realised we had those lists, but all the same I think there is plenty of room for growth here as evidenced by the year guide on All About Jazz ...,♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:16, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep or Merge into decade articles - sure the pages are flawed but the better way forward is to fix the problems which is the way that we develop the project. Deletion would lose a great deal of potentially useful information. As a first step, merging into decade pages would produce articles of reasonable length and allow sensible intros to be written. Bridgeplayer (talk) 16:32, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - Some of the articles are stubby, but they have not been around that long. Sooner or later jazz aficionados will come along and expand them. Lists like this are useful navigation tools. Removing, for example, 1979 in jazz wipes out valuable content, too long to be included in a decade article. Aymatth2 (talk) 16:45, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep in some form, possibly merged into by-decade articles. While some of these are indeed "super short stubs", a lot aren't, and together there's quite a bit of content in them which would be lost and would have to be re-researched if we threw it all away and started again. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:54, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've begun compiling the 1970s in 1970s in jazz. Once information is gathered I actually think it would be too big and would need splitting by year. But for now I will begin sorting them out. The idea actually was that these list articles are developed like this 1970s in jazz article is developing now but clearly nobody has had time yet to develop them much.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:00, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Don't do it. I started expanding 1979 in jazz, adding events and links to artists and albums, plus links from events and albums to this article. There is plenty of material, and 1979 was long after the peak of the Jazz period. These articles just need work is all. Aymatth2 (talk) 17:51, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My idea was that in the main jazz article we have a main|1970s in jazz etc and have those pages and then in turn we have the year lists. I started merging because I feared that these would be completely nuked and I'd lose the notable albums which I'd added to the year pages and notable/births deaths. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:58, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You could have a decade article, I suppose, but don't want to introduce forking by duplicating material from the individual years. I was sort of thinking of starting 1979 Montreux Jazz Festival, which would be a child of 1979 in jazz and of Montreux Jazz Festival. The 1979 show was huge. I would say give this discussion a day or two to see where it is going, and maybe save yourself time on merging into decade articles. Aymatth2 (talk) 18:12, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK, can you source the 1979 article? I just want to actually see how many sources could actually be compiled for a year which is beyond the golden jazz era. I wouldn't have started the lists if I hadn't of thought there would be a lot of content which could be added. There is a ton of stuff that can be found in google books. I agree they shouldn't have been neglected. I just think the encyclopedia would be better off having these with content. Even the Concord Jazz Festival is missing, let alone 1979 Concord Jazz Festival. The Concord jazz festival is even mentioned in my Clint Eastwood biography!! A vastly undeveloped part of wikipedia. No surprise there then...♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:21, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I sourced the redlinks. All the list entries could be sourced easily enough: the bluelinks should have sources for the content summarized here. Nothing dubious or controversial about the content that I can see. There are maybe 40 or 50 sources altogether for the current material and would be a lot more for a complete article on 1979. Same as any year in jazz. Aymatth2 (talk) 19:38, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just updated my original comment (see struck part), based on subsequent discussion. I think each of these articles should be kept separately, as there is clearly a lot of material that could be added to them which is of great reference value -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:25, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Don't delete. Merge if necessary - I'd be fine if the articles stayed [year] in jazz, but since that raises so much upset, how about merging into [decade] in jazz? I mean if we have things like 1919 in architecture or 1704 in architecture (not meaning to pick on architecture), then why not [year] or [decade] in jazz? --- cymru lass ^{(hit me up)}⁄_{(background check)} 20:26, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See below fellow Welsh person..♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:45, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep and expand or Merge for the present into articles per decade, per Blofeld. We are not on deadline, so there is not a good reason to delete a promising article with lots of reliable sourcing, and to decide that the subject does not belong in this encyclopedia, just because no one has taken the time to expand the stub. The Pubic Television series on Jazz and its accompanying book provide lots on information on each year of the 1920's thirties, forties, fifties and sixties, covering the emergence of jazz and its evolution, important groups and trends emerging and influential records released in particular years. I once traced articles on jazz in every year from its first appearance in Readers' Guide to Periodical literature, and there several critical articles, reviews, etc every year from about 1919 on. Numerous historical reviews have been written covering the historical emergence of jazz year by year. Notability is easily satisfied with numerous reliable sources discussing jazz in any year from 1919 on, and its pre-history in earlier years (such as birth of future jazz greats). Edison (talk) 20:28, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've currently done 1920s in jazz, 1930s in jazz, 1940s in jazz, 1950s in jazz, 1960s in jazz, 1970s in jazz, 1980s in jazz, 1990s in jazz, 2000s in jazz all based on existing wiki material which do look a massive improvement compared to the crappy year lists I created. These will be expanded further in due course with more sources and info. But Edison and Aymatth 2 are 100% correct that we could easily write detailed articles by year for jazz and they are perfectly encyclopedic and acceptable. See [a google book search for 1944 in jazz for example.. They can easily be merged and then branched out again once event details are added or they can be done now, but I haven't the time to expand every year right now...♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:44, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• I have no problem with the "Decade x in jazz" series as narratives describing changes in public attitudes, music itself, major performers etc. Conceptual articles. But I dislike the idea of merging the "Year x in jazz" articles into the decade articles, because they work better as list-type articles, and the lists for each year have the potential to get very large. The example 1979 in jazz is clearly large enough to stand alone already, and potentially will grow to three or four times the size. All of the year articles have the same potential. Once the lists get into the decade articles, it will be hard to split them out and avoid forking, unless all the years are split out at the same time leaving no lists in the decade article. Easier to keep them separate than to merge now and then split later. Aymatth2 (talk) 21:13, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, look at 1926 in jazz too now thanks to Edison and myself. But one of the biggest problems on wikipedia is the mismatch between potential and actuality... Most articles have the potential to be fully developed but that doesn't stop over 85% of the site being stubs and in desperate need of writing... I think a few people should actively work together on this perhaps and ensure we have decent articles for each year, but it won't happen overnight, obviously.... Maybe redirecting into the decades is not constructive but I think it is sensible at least until somebody is willing to write about the events of that year rather than it just being a list of releases and births/deaths... When events and sourced are added they can be resplit like you did with 1979 from 1970s in jazz. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 22:12, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep 1946 in jazz. It is not on the list yet, but that was a year when players like the Bird, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie and many others were doing great shows and recordings. Charles Mingus, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young. This is a pre-emptive keep vote. Duke Ellington. No merging on this one, please. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:11, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep all and expand until the end of time and space. Jazz is a unique American art form whose reach exceeds its grasp and has stretched itself out into every conceivable facet of the arts to propel its arrow of sound beyond music beyond words beyond consciousness itself only to stoke the fires of the Sun and then come back down to Earth just in time for tea. These lists are a valuable resource for the historian and the student of music and can be used as data repositories for reconstructing the past and studying the thread that binds it to the present. All entries are notable, significant and important. Viriditas (talk) 02:46, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  You like jazz then, do you? ;-) -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:23, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cosprings greatly surprises me with his outlook on this one...♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:33, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge into decade articles. This is an excellent solution that preserves all the important information and helps the reader see the relationships of the information in a slightly wider context. -- Ssilvers (talk) 18:34, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There could be a size problem with merging. Some years, notably 1946 in jazz, have (or will have as User:AllyD says) so much content they clearly deserve stand-along articles. Others could perhaps be merged. It might help to have a rule of thumb, like 10,000 visible characters = stand-alone with {{main}} in the decade article, less = merge. Should there be a guideline? AfD is not the place to decide on merging, which should be done on the article talk pages. As Viriditas tentatively suggests, jazz is a broad, deep and immensely important topic. Can we pick a decade, any decade, and use that talk page for further discussion on merging? Aymatth2 (talk) 01:37, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Trying to size the problem, I did a Wikipedia search on 1979 jazz, and got 7,568 results. Based on a cursory scan, I would say about 3,000 could potentially qualify for an entry in 1979 in jazz: mostly albums released that year, some performances, some births and deaths. At about 30 visible characters per entry, that would give a huge list with around 90,000 visible characters, 3,000 sources, pushing the article size limit. 1979 does not seem a particularly notable year in jazz, it is not clear what value this massive list would have, and maintenance seems impossible. But it is hard to justify a random selection of 50-odd entries out of the potential 3,000-odd, whether in a "year in jazz" or a "decade in jazz" article. I really think there would be value in a separate discussion on how best to organize the material, independent of the AfD deadline. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:22, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, I think the best thing really would e to keep these and gradually fill out like 1926 in jazz and 1930 in jazz etc. At least by adding the jazz standards of each year with sources improves them. I agree, the most constructive thing for the encyclopedia would be to have full length well sourced articles on these eventually, the problem is that the majority are very lacking in the meantime.. If we deleted them all now we'd lose all the info in articles like 1916 in jazz, 1926 in jazz, 1930 in jazz. It is just too much to add to be redirected... All I can say is that I think they should be kept on condition that I and others improve them..♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:23, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't see much controversy over keeping the material. The debate is between keep and merge, which is best handled on article talk pages. If the "year in jazz" articles show signs of growing to significant size, merge is not going to be very practical. My concern is that potentially they could become huge, and so lose all value. Just massive, unstructured lists. One way of making lists usable is to make them sortable tables, with e.g. band/artist, album name, genre, label as columns. The somewhat subjective idea of "jazz standard" could help to keep the size down, but that is already covered by articles like "List of 1940s jazz standards". I am drifting towards the idea that there should be some sort of centralized discussion on how to organize articles on jazz. Aymatth2 (talk) 16:30, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• KEEP - no objections to merging less significant years.--Scott Mac 21:40, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

1915-1967 now at least have the standards listed for that year which are sourced and not really deletable. The actual writing of events and musical criticism will take time but I think this is now a definate keep. I think it'll be cool actually writing about some of the years.♦ Dr. Blofeld 22:50, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I don't think duplicating existing content is the way to go when creating new pages. For example, most of 1924 in jazz is now a duplicate from the list of 1920s jazz standards, without even an indication in the page history where the content was copied from. A link to the list article would work much better than simply copying everything over. Jafeluv (talk) 23:21, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Did you not read what was said above? The majority of the articles when properly written will mostly be about events, not standards...Adding the standards is just the first step to developing them.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:04, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The standard sections are completely redundant, so I can't see how copying them from elsewhere makes the articles "sourced and not deletable" as is claimed above. I considered removing the sections and replacing them with links to the appropriate list article, but I think I'll wait for the result of this AfD. At the very least you're supposed to attribute the original author of the text when you copy-paste content from other pages. Jafeluv (talk) 12:24, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your concerns seem to be purely about ownership rather than actual use. PLease read WP:OWN. 1924 in jazz now is a perfectly accpetable article and the jazz standards are an important part of it. Yes, I should have attributed your fantastic work in the lists, sorry for that i have now done so here and if you work with me rather than against me in deleting the sections I will attribute you for the other articles in due course and the articles can all be built up like the 1924 article. But years in jazz are perfectly valid and it is essential to list the standards for a given year within the article I think. If you could help get these articles up to a similar status our coverage of jazz would improve massively.. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:39, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It was not my intention to imply ownership, sorry if you got that impression. I'm sure that the year articles can have legitimate content that warrants a separate page, as your reworking of 1924 in jazz shows. However, the duplication of content is a concern. It means that any changes need to be made in two places, and the two versions can easily become contradictory when a correction is made in one but not in the other. (That's why transclusion was invented, but that wouldn't work here.) One solution would be getting rid of the list articles altogether and moving everything into the yearly articles... Or to make the list article a short summary of the yearly articles, which would then contain the detailed information... Anyway, this AfD is probably not the best place to discuss that issue. Jafeluv (talk) 14:04, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, message sent to your talk page and suggest discussion resumes at Talk:Jazz/Years in Jazz...♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:49, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - Not sure about merging less significant years, but the series is both intersting and practical. Hoverfish Talk 12:47, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Talk page. I started Talk:Jazz/Years in Jazz, with some suggested topics for discussion. I suggest that those interested add their view there rather than here. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:41, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep (no view on specific low-content years). Notable topics, can be improved by normal editing. ^Bongo_matic 17:24, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. While many of these are/were in terrible shape, with a little time they can be expanded to be useful. Just give it a little time. Jafeluv (talk) 19:32, 2 December 2010 (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.