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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Placeholder name

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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 no consensus‎. Salvio giuliano 08:57, 23 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Placeholder name

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Placeholder name (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination):(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Delete per WP:TNT and WP:No original research. The article is built entirely from WP:Original synthesis. None of the sources from what I can tell define the term or directly discuss the concept of placeholder names. There currently isn't a clearly defined concept because the article is not built from materials that define or directly discuss the term. There probably is a possible article on this topic but it would require a complete rewrite. Best to blow this up and start over. 4meter4 (talk) 00:05, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

 Comment: Prior to nominating this AfD, this user removed over 10,000 bytes of information (or 60% of the article) in 21 minutes, only linking to WP:BURDEN for their reasoning. This is how the article looked prior to their edits.
The reverting policy states: (emphasis mine)

When tagging or removing material, please communicate your reasons why. Some editors object to others making frequent and large-scale deletions of unsourced information, especially if unaccompanied by other efforts to improve the material. Also, check to see whether the material is sourced to a citation elsewhere [...] For all these reasons, it is advisable to clearly communicate that you have a considered reason to believe the material in question cannot be verified.

This user has:
  • not communicated their reasons for deleting the content in any of their edit summaries, apart from linking to WP:BURDEN;
  • in my opinion, not made enough effort to improve the material or checked if the content is sourced elsewhere. Some of the removed content was linking to another article about the subject. For this reason, I think it is likely this user didn't "check whether the material is sourced to a citation elsewhere", such as the article it linked to. (Just as an example, Acme Corporation was linked to the article and had more than 20 citations, but its mention was removed altogether per WP:BURDEN).
  • not communicated why the material in question cannot be verified, even after being asked to in the talk page of the page in question.
I thought this context was relevant to this discussion. FaviFake (talk) 00:33, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear. I removed lots of unsourced claims citing WP:BURDEN. FaviFake seems to be of the mistaken opinion that linking to another wikipedia page is a form of verifying, but that is not the case because: A)Wikipedia cannot cite itself B) The articles in question are not necessarily cited properly. C) Even if they are, it isn't at all clear that the examples being used are indeed "placeholder names" because the term is again not defined well, and the sources being used don't discuss the term. To use the Acme Corporation article as an example, it's not at all clear to me that a fictional company in a cartoon is indeed a "placeholder name". I don't think it is.4meter4 (talk) 00:38, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
<giggle-giggle> Do YOU know what is "placeholder name"? Reminds me the history with Stanislaw Lem and Sepulka; see this article in paragraph starting with "In a 2009 interview". --Altenmann >talk 00:46, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You are mistaken; I do not believe that linking to another Wikipedia page is a form of verifying. To answer your objections:
A) I only said that I believe it is likely that enough efforts to improve the material or check if the content is sourced elsewhere (such as another Wikipedia article) haven't been made.
B and C) Many of them are "cited properly". Besides, it is unclear which ones were checked, and the fact that this is the specific reason they were removed wasn't explained. FaviFake (talk) 00:48, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I do, but I don't think the Loony Tunes Acme corporation was being used in the function of a placeholder name. It engages with too much parody and social commentary across a long term series of running gags. There's too much intent there. I also don't see it being discussed in that fashion within the article or its sources.4meter4 (talk) 00:58, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Acme corporation is an example. Besides, it didn'r originate with Looney Tunes; it "began being depicted in film starting in the silent era, such as the 1920 Neighbors with Buster Keaton and the 1922 Grandma's Boy with Harold Lloyd, continuing with TV series, such as in early episodes of I Love Lucy and The Andy Griffith Show"
While I'm sure some of the content was truly unsourced and should have been removed, I don't think 21 minutes is enough to make sure that 60% of the article cannot be backed by any source in the articles linked. And it certainly wasn't enough to explain the removals, it appears. FaviFake (talk) 01:04, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please stop making false accusations. You keep repeating that I didn't explain the removals but I did in every edit summary. The reasoning hasn't changed or altered. You might not like the reasoning, but the reasoning was clearly articulated and is based in wikipedia policy.4meter4 (talk) 01:08, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Every edit summary was a variation of: "removing unsourced section; please do not restore until reliable sources are added per WP:BURDEN".
There is literally no reason given. None. The only policy you link to states that you are strongly advised to communicate the reasoning behind your actions, attempt to find a citation somewhere else before removing it, and explain why you think the content cannot be verified, and you have done none of these. You can keep gaslighting yourself all you want. FaviFake (talk) 01:15, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
See above on you not liking/accepting the reason given. In short: the reason to remove was it was unsourced/not verifiable. That's valid per WP:BURDEN/WP:Verifiability. If you want to keep the content add a source.4meter4 (talk) 01:21, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • TNT. (withddrawn) With fascination I was lookin thru the article history observing enthusiastic Wikipedians day by day doing unadulterated original research. It was understandable in them good old days of wikipedia when all wikipedia was original research. People honestly thought that they are onto something, but obviously there was not a single linguist to enlighten them. Russian wikipedians, invented their own $20 word: Экземплификант "exemplificant" for thiangamajigs, but they were not so enthusiastic. I made a quick searc for sourcces, but founnd nothhing usable. We REALLY must consult linguists (language log?) who can tell moron from oxymoron. --Altenmann >talk 00:42, 9 August 2025 (UTC) Clarification: just as "oxymoron" is not "ox"+"moron", "placeholder name" may or may not be placeholder+name. --Altenmann >talk 00:48, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Leaning keep or merge into Placeholder and improve. This is a fascinating discussion, as "placeholder name" seems intuitively correct, but I can find literally no decently published literature on this. However, it is absolutely undeniable that terms like "John Doe" and "Tommy Atkins" and "Blackacre" and "Joe's Diner" exist, and serve a common conceptual purpose. Perhaps what we are actually missing is a formal linguistic designation for such terms, by which I mean, perhaps there is something that they are properly called, but we need an expert to tell us what that term is. BD2412 T 00:56, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@BD2412 I can't even find a source that defines the term. It's not in a dictionary. Fundamentally we can't keep an article we can't verifiably define. As a concept it makes sense, but as a term we may have arrived at a WP:Neologism.4meter4 (talk) 01:18, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The earliest instance I can find is this 1996 news article noting that political parties put placeholder names (albeit names of actual people) on the ballot while waiting for a candidate to be selected. BD2412 T 01:34, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nope; they were using "placeholder" names, not placeholder names. And we do not even know what was that, besidees "...they hoped to switch out later" Anyway, it is fun doing original reserch, ist'n it? :-) --Altenmann >talk 01:46, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Altenmann: "Placeholder name" would be WP:NATURALDIS to Placeholder; obviously these are placeholders, but since that is a disambiguation page, they need to be placeholder somethings, and the somethings in this case are names. BD2412 T 01:49, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Haha, are you saying that we do not even have a decent articlle [[[placeholder]]? Good thing I wrote the article "Line stander" at least :-) --Altenmann >talk 01:55, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We do not have an article on Placeholder at all. This might be a WP:DABCONCEPT case. BD2412 T 01:56, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In fact Duckmather tagged this as WP:DABCONCEPT case well over a year ago, good call. BD2412 T 02:03, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Good point. It might be appropriate to merge this to placeholder because defining "placeholder" would be possible. There are many dictionaries with the term.4meter4 (talk) 02:18, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@4meter4: I think this is exactly the right direction. Here is a fun article from the journal Open Linguistics proposing that expletives are functionally placeholder terms. BD2412 T 03:12, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@BD2412 I formally changed my vote to merge per our discussion below. You might consider modifying your vote as well for WP:CONSENSUS purposes. Best.4meter4 (talk) 03:19, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am finding numerous examples of "placeholder name" from the 1990s that relate to computer programming. Maybe someone with an old-school programming background can provide more info (its before my time), but it appears that "Placeholder name" was used in coding. Placeholder names were and continue to be important to testing software and databases. Very quickly, the terms shows up in medical and scientific scholarly journals where "placeholder names" were used for unnamed bacteria and viruses. They also were used for patients mentioned in the articles. Next, I am finding it in other types of scholarly research, often relating to the analysis of literature and writing. The other, independent, place I find the term is in the publishing and printing business where a "placeholder name" was inserted in the pre-typeset article so that the newspaper to go to press as soon as a "winner" or whatever name was determined. Note this is in reference to typesetting with newspapers, so the term does go back a ways. Not saying that makes it article worthy; just noting an interesting history. Rublamb (talk) 22:16, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is much more on point, but is from 2022, which raises the specter that the author learned about it from Wikipedia in the first place. Also, the headline fails to use the Oxford comma, so how literate can they possibly be? BD2412 T 01:34, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also an on-point usage of the term, but this would constitute a passing mention. BD2412 T 01:48, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, a "syndicated humor columnist" is hardly a source of linguistic wisdom. --Altenmann >talk 01:55, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Something is better than nothing, and this is start. However, I still don't see this limited sourcing surpassing WP:NEO. We need some sort of academic engagement with the term, and not something limited to a single newspaper columnist who isn't a linguist.4meter4 (talk) 02:06, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No we cannot use this "limiterd sourcing", the text is clearly snatched from Wikipedia. A humor columnist talking about "metasytntactic variables" is hilarious. --Altenmann >talk 02:11, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I note that this this source discussing use of this class of names in the military refers to them as "generic names", although "generic" opens up a different kettle of worms. BD2412 T 17:34, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Piotrus did you mean redirect to placeholder?4meter4 (talk) 10:52, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think so, since it's all so generic. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:04, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. There doesn't appear to be an issue with that list. It would be a stable list for a merge target.4meter4 (talk) 13:44, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd suggest separate AfDs for these. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:04, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - placeholder name is WP:NATURALDAB for a type of placeholder and I don't think anyone is credibly arguing for Placeholder to be deleted. Similarly, I don't think anyone is credibly arguing for deletion John Doe or Acme Corporation and I don't see the foul in covering the general placeholder (name) concept that ties them. As for the state of the article, I don't see how starting over will put us on better footing than we have now. A bunch of recent work has been put into cleanup. There are more suggestions in this discussion. I don't see why we can't take that further. ~Kvng (talk) 16:06, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: via WP:HEY. I quickly found several sources that discuss placeholder names, thus removing any concerns that this is an artificial construct from original research. Given the likely hood of more source existing in textbooks and reference books, this article can continued to be expanded and improved. Rublamb (talk) 16:47, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
These are all pretty clearly based on our article. One of the sources you cited was already dismissed as such. This was discussed above. The one scholarly source added is about “placeholder” for names. Not placeholder names. There is a difference. These do not support keeping because the sourcing you added is likely WP:CIRCULAR.4meter4 (talk) 16:53, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have come to think that this is not really a deletion discussion, but a titling discussion. BD2412 T 18:27, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would be fine with that. Rublamb (talk) 20:52, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The scholarly source from Cambridge University Press does use the phrase "placeholder names", as on p. 364, documenting that this phrasing is not unique to Wikipedia or pop culture articles. I stopped there but I pretty sure there are more such sources to be found. Furthermore, none of the added sources have been proved to be circular. I checked before adding them and found zero evidence of copied phrases or terms. For example, key words in their definitions are not found in either Wikipedia article on this topic. It was suggested that the Mental Floss source was circular "because their articles often are:". Agreed; however, in this case, none of the examples provided in that article are included in List of placeholder names. If anything, the Mental Floss piece can be used to augment the list article. Rublamb (talk) 20:51, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I have added to the article: Use of "placeholder" names has caused problems in circumstances where the placeholder is not thereafter substituted for a real name when it becomes available. For example, in 2009, the United States Army was forced to issue an apology when letters addressed to "John Doe" were sent to thousands of families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. (ref: Jelinek, Pauline (January 8, 2009). "'John Doe' letter stirs apology from Army". Oakland Tribune. p. 8 – via newspapers.com.). A 2015 report noted that hospitals using a standard "Babyboy" or "Babygirl" placeholder for the first names of unidentified newborns has led to mixups in identification and medication of the infants. (ref: Cha, Eunjung (July 20, 2015). "Temporary baby names are blamed for many hospital mixups". Press of Atlantic City. pp. C2 – via newspapers.com.). BD2412 T 21:11, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Note that I have changed my !vote back to a keep vote per Wikipedia:Article titles#Descriptive title, which states: "Where there is no acceptable set name for a topic, such that a title of our own conception is necessary, more latitude is allowed to form descriptive and unique titles". BD2412 T 21:36, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting. We have no editors advocating Deletion but there is still not a consensus on the proper outcome for this article (Keep or Merge). Let's give this a few more days to see if agreement can be found.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 04:41, 16 August 2025 (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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