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. kurykh 00:37, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

List of notable people who wore the bowler hat

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List of notable people who wore the bowler hat (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Article seems to have been created in violation of WP:POINT in response to this Afd.turns out this may have been jumping the gun on a coincidence, redacted MickMacNee (talk) 03:52, 19 November 2008 (UTC) Article is also totally unreferenced and establishes zero notability MickMacNee (talk) 00:37, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This article fails (at the moment) to establish notability. I am wary of making WP:RUBBISH arguments, but the references are not there, and the quality is not such as to indicate that improvements are forthcoming (i.e. there is no point giving the author the benefit of doubt for a couple of weeks to clean it up). I am however open to this article existing if it aims in a similar direction to good articles like List of bow tie wearers, but, on a case-by-case basis, the current article does not do enough to establish itself an an equivalently good footing. Hence, though the title could potentially be made into an encyclopaedic article, but at the moment is there to prove a point, so until this changes, it should go. —Kan8eDie (talk) 01:19, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some work has been done

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I have made an initial collection into three categories. Many of them are interesting, and it's clear that if you read them (something I'll bet few commentators above have done) that they contain self-references in their Wiki-links. Also that the bowler hat is a distinguishing part of the character or work of art. Only the Western cowboy hat comes near it, in that regard. In any case, for the time it's taken some of the people above to comment, they could have been improving the article a lot. SBHarris 20:59, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The absence of sources is still a serious issue with the article. Also, do consider that alphabetical order is often effective for organizing lists of names. --Orlady (talk) 21:11, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment WP:N trumps WP:V. Even if the article is verifiable, it still isn't a notable subject for a list. Themfromspace (talk) 01:57, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That argument about "notability" comes down to a tricky way of saying WP:IDONTLIKEIT. It's not that there aren't a huge number of cultural references and symbology related to the thing: example. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7641493.stm. It just means you're not interested in the subject. SBHarris 02:23, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Don't put words in my mouth. Read over WP:N. "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article." The topic of this article is "List of notable people who wore the bowler hat". Find me some significant coverage of that topic that "address the subject directly in detail". Objective evidence on why a list of notable people who wore the bowler hat belongs in an encyclopedia. Verifiablity only proves the details of an article (X, Y, and Z wore bowler hats for example) but those sources dont prove the notability of the article unless they address the wider subject (the group of people themselves) as the subject of the articles. Themfromspace (talk) 02:40, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, then you'd have to reintigrate the list back into the article to do that. Lists are like redlinks in Wikipedia: they are groups of facts often waiting for connection. If you delete them first, that never happens. Do what you want. I'll leave you with this reference: http://www.amazon.com/Man-Bowler-Hat-History-Iconography/dp/0807820733, from a guy who has made all these connections and more.

Robinson (English/University of San Diego; Comic Moments, 1992, etc.--not reviewed) traces the cultural significance of the bowler hat from 1850 to the present--in a study as lighthearted and charming as its subject. Having asked, "Why did Samuel Beckett specify that the four major characters of Waiting for Godot wear bowler hats?," in a 1986 TriQuarterly article, Robinson was moved to expand his inquiry to book length, studying modern life through the evolving meanings of this item of fashion that combines--symbolically and literally- -both lightness and weight. Following the history of the bowler "as though a wind were blowing it just beyond [my] reach," Robinson tells of the hat's debut, in 1850 London, where its combination of style and function satisfied Victorian England's obsession with the practical and the correct. The bowler soon passed from informal use among the aristocracy into a badge of respectability by the upwardly mobile middle class, eventually inspiring Chaplin to use it in his parody of the earnest "little man." As 20th-century life brought new strains of malaise, the bowler became a symbol of mass-produced anonymity in Magritte's paintings; of grim soullessness in the works of Anton Raderscheidt and Georg Grosz; and, finally, in Germany, of Jewish greed and evil. By 1948, when Beckett began writing Godot, the bowler had come to stand for an immutable social identity. It has since settled into the relative obscurity of costume wear, resurfacing only occasionally--e.g., as Oddjob's weapon in Goldfinger and an erotic toy in Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Yet the bowler continues to "[express] its history precisely as it floats past it," Robinson concludes, until it becomes a pure design object that can adapt to anything--and "the dream of the modern will be realized, in at least one small object, at the end of the modern age." A tip of the hat to this playful yet thought-provoking work. (Fifty-two illustrations)

SBHarris 02:57, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is not a list of indiscriminate information, any more than a list of players on a sports team, a list of teams in a league, or a list of notable people who've lost their heads to beheading, is "indiscriminate." What discriminates these people is their choice of the bowler hat to make a statement. This does not attempt to be an inclusive list of people who wore one for any reason; it's a list of people who wore one because of what they wanted the bowler to say, and were themselves notable without it, but more recognizable with it and because of it. Like Churchill. Take a look at today's Google logo. It's Magritte's 110th birthday today. Magritte often chose the Bowler to say something, and because of that, Google chose it to say something about Magritte. But many other people besides Magritte made this choice, or else Magritte's paintings would have no meaning from the symbol. Ceci n'est pas une Bowler. SBHarris 22:05, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • May I point you to the entire article on WP:IDONTLIKEIT? Make a clear argument which avoids some variation of this, please? Above, you referenced WP:IINFO, but the present list violates none of the bad examples, there, so that's irrelevent.

    The subarticleWP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS appears to me to be nothing more than a combination of IDONTLIKEIT combined with the dubious assertion that Wikipedia actually has no obligation whatsoever to be consistant. But unfortunately, pillars, policies and guidelines are no help whatsoever without examples, so a certain amount of consistancy is needed. Also, since WP:lists and categories on Wikipedia duplicate and compliment each other, per policy, your argument that something should not be a list basically fails unless you can make an argument that it shouldn't even be a category. SBHarris 22:56, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Point all you wish. It is, in my opinion, a list that is an indiscriminate collection of information. I have never argued for "list or category but not both" nor will I. I am arguing for the list per se being not notable (and thus indiscriminate). You will not convince my by rhetoric. You might if the list becomes what I view as notable. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 23:05, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry, but if you look at WP:IINFO the definition of an indiscriminate list of information given, is a list of things which each aren't in-and-of themselves notable. It is NOT what you suggest, which is a list of notable things that somebody like you thinks shouldn't be notable "as a list." As you see, nearly all the items in the list of bowler hat wearers already have their own wikis on wikipedia. They are notable. If each list itself on WP had to be notable "as a list," then it would need independent RS, V confirmation as such. But that would wipe out a lot of WP categories, which (in case you haven't noticed) are technically OR, by virtue of their collection and tagging as belonging together, here, for the first time, on WP. No encyclopedia can avoid some of that. We've collected a unque bunch of articles that start with the letter "A," too-- one you won't find anywhere else. Where's your reference for this collection, since it only exists on Wikipedia? See the problem? SBHarris 23:14, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Sorry, but" is a phrase which I do not find endearing. It has the appearance of politeness but is really a sneer. I suggest the person closing this AfD is in a better position than either of us to judge the arguments brought to bear and thus the consensus formed. I have no intention of going further into this with you. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 23:29, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The endless list vs. category AfD debate

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I recommend anybody who doesn't want to repeat past wikiwars familiarize themselves with WP:CLN and WP:LISTS. For a shocker, also look at List of lists and some of the extensive materials therein. SBHarris 03:52, 22 November 2008 (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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