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. Cleanup is needed; if none is forthcoming in the next few months this could be renommed. Yunshui 雲‍水 13:37, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Midas List (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • Stats)

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Useless list, full of unsolvable links to disambiguation pages. The fact that a well known magazine publishes the list, does not make the list itself noteworthy. The Banner _talk 12:10, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment The list might just be notable[1][2][3][4][5][6] The first ref includes a good critique, some of which I've added to the article. However even if it's notable we don't need to list every single person on every list: the Billboard Hot 100 is notable but we don't list every song that's on it. Depending on the length after pruning we could merge to Forbes's article. --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:18, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 20:28, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 20:28, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• The list may be notable as a topic, in which case it's appropriate to have an article about the list (methodology in putting it together, reactions to it), but I'm concerned reproducing the entire list is a copyright infringement. As inclusion and ordering is largely based on opinion, it is not uncopyrightable fact but instead copyrightable creative expression. So those should be pruned outside of perhaps the top few entries in each year's list or other entries for which there was specific commentary in secondary sources. postdlf (talk) 21:21, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, but get rid of the list sections. The links available are enough to meet notability in my view, and this article in particular provides good secondary analysis to justify a stand-alone article, even if it ends up being a tad short. The issue of notable lists being reproduced in articles has been brought up at AfD several times before, and my understanding is that the contents of the list can be easily be considered creative expression because they are compiled arbitrarily, and that even listing only the top entries is also problematic since that would the most relevant and interesting section for Forbes' readers — Frankie (talk) 17:57, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • An excerpt of, say, five names, would arguably be too short to be infringement even if it didn't qualify as fair use. And there is certainly no issue with simply stating who is number 1 for each year. postdlf (talk) 18:20, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Agreed on Top 1, and I see what you mean regarding the excerpt, but I'm not sure where we could draw that line. As you said, it's arguable. I missed part of your comment above regarding individual entries that have been selected by secondary sources, and that seems workable. For example, this source focuses solely on the women appearing in the list. Perhaps we could collapse all years into a single table, with a column for the top entry, and a Notes column to highlight whatever secondary sources have deemed noteworthy for that particular edition — Frankie (talk) 18:46, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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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, The Bushranger _{One ping only} 17:09, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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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, Dori ☾Talk ☯ Contribs☽ 22:57, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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• Keep and prune (retaining the top few from each year) per the above comments.--Arxiloxos (talk) 00:16, 14 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep and fix issues pertaining to the disambiguation pages. --Riverrunner123 (talk) 02:41, 14 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep and clean up. There is discussion of the Midas List (and its controversies) in other media. E.g., VentureBeat last month [7] — Preceding unsigned comment added by BennyHillbilly (talk • contribs) 06:52, 17 September 2012 (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.